My name is Hannah and in this essay I will be utilizing the skills I learned in AP lit for the first time ever to explain how the AMC TV show NOS4A2 did Charles Talent Manx dirty. Now, I have only seen season 1 (because I’m poor and can’t afford cable) so just keep that in mind.
~FIRST AND FOREMOST, this has nothing to do with acting. Zachary Quinto is a great actor and was absolutely perfect for this role.~
To begin with, in the novel of the same name by Joe Hill, Charlie was borderline a morally grey character. (For the sake of the argument, let’s ignore the fact that he kidnapped children and turned them into small vampires for the time being). He was mild mannered unless provoked, and even then only acted in defense. In the show, one of the first things Charlie does on screen is kill Haley’s cat, Mittens, without reason. (In the novel, Mittens wandered off and was hit by a car, which is how Vic found it using her shorter way.) The show vilified him and made it hard to root for him as a character, because no one wants to root for an antagonist who’s cruel to animals.
Another key difference in character is TV Charlie’s lack of humor. In the novel, Charlie is witty and snarky, even after Bing shoots him in the ear. In the show, his humor is much more dry, and used only to get a cheap laugh. He’s portrayed as a more serious character, and one could argue that in the novel, Charlie’s charm and good nature is part of what makes him such a likable antagonist. Most of those redeeming qualities were stripped away.
My third and final point is, perhaps, the most controversial: his relationship with the protagonist, Vic McQueen. When Charlie first meets Vic in the novel, he chases her into Sleigh House and tries to burn her alive. In the show, the second Charlie sees Vic, he starts simping over her. Like, third line out of his mouth is “my kids need a mother... you’d be very welcome in Christmasland.” He then proceeds to simp over her for the next few episodes. WHAT?! Where did that come from? (Let’s keep in mind that Vic is 18 and Charlie is, like, a hundred.) He only stops simping when he realizes that Vic slept with her boyfriend, and then we finally(!) get to the whole “light her up!” bits. I don’t even know where to begin to unpack this. In the novel, Charlie is (happily) a bachelor, after being married twice to two horrible women. He also hates women in general, after having a neglectful mother and being married to two awful women. Towards the end of the novel, he implies that he and Vic might have had chemistry in another life, but that’s the extent of their “romance”. He prefers his women to not be heavily tattooed and swearing like sailors, apparently.
In conclusion, for these reasons (and so many others, let’s be real here), the TV series portrayed Charlie Manx in a way that made him almost unlikable. The show was entertaining, don’t get me wrong, but NOS4A2 is one of my all time favorite books, and I just think the show could have kept certain elements in.