Polidori

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

This is why clowns are good.

BILL MOYERS: 

Clowns?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Clown religions, 

because they show that 

The Image is not a fact, 

but it’s a reflex of some kind.

BILL MOYERS: 

So does this help explain the trickster gods that show up at times?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

They’re very much that, yes. 

[Drawing room]

(Ryan is trying to play Chopsticks, one finger each hand, and making a mess of it.) 

MARY SHELLEY: 

Such a jaunty air. 

Is it popular in the colonies? 

RYAN: 

Er, yeah. 

Me Nan taught me, but 

I always get the keys wrong. 

But she always said, there's 

no reason not to try. 

MARY SHELLEY : 

I should practise more. 

But I confess, I prefer to write. 

RYAN: 

Hmm. 

MARY SHELLEY : 

Even though my efforts are weak. 

I could never hope to match the achievements of My Parents. 

RYAN: 

Me Nan would say stick with it. 

MARY: 

Hmm. 

RYAN: 

What's his problem? 

MARY SHELLEY : 

Oh, pay Doctor Polidori no heed. 

He's bad-tempered 

because he does not sleep. 

He walks at night. 

A terrible affliction. 

Imagine, never being able to Truly Rest.

[Drawing room]

(Polidori wakes and stands.)

GRAHAM: 

You're going nowhere, pal. 

You're staying right there. 

I'm on guard.

(Polidori walks away as if in a trance.)

GRAHAM: 

Oh. Hey. Poli? Poli? 

Hello? Poli? Poli? 

Can you hear me, son? 

Can you hear me?

(Polidori walks through a wall.)

[Byron's chamber]

(The Doctor runs in.)

DOCTOR: 

Argh!

(And out and in.)

CLAIRE: 

The same chamber, over and over. 

How is it possible?

DOCTOR: 

It's not. It's...

BYRON: 

Like a dream.

[Staircase]

MARY: 

Elise? Can you hear me? 

Do you have William?

YASMIN: 

He'll be okay. 

He probably just cried himself out and fell asleep.

GRAHAM [OC]: Doc! Poli! Doc!

[Drawing room]

(Runs out and in again.)

GRAHAM: Doc!

(The woman and girl are there.)

GRAHAM: There's something seriously wrong with this gaff.

[Byron's chamber]

DOCTOR: 

Is anyone else trapped?

GRAHAM [OC]: 

Yeah.

[Drawing room]

GRAHAM: 

And I think I'm seeing 

Dead People.

(The wind blows through, extinguishing fires and candles.) GRAHAM: 

Perfect.

RYAN [OC] 

We're the same!

[Staircase]

RYAN: 

I totally saw a ghost.

YASMIN: 

We're stuck on the stairs.

MARY: 

Please! How do we move upwards? 

I need to check My Son is well.

[Byron's chamber]

DOCTOR: 

Working on it! Head's a bit fuzzy. 

Normal service will resume shortly. 

And ghosts don't exist.

[Drawing room]

GRAHAM: 

Of course not. You two just need 

a spray tan and a kip, eh?

DOCTOR [OC]: 

Graham, what sort of 

Dead People, exactly?

GRAHAM: 

Oh. How can I hear your voice, Doc?

DOCTOR [OC]: I'm using the fireplace chimney.

GRAHAM: Doc?

DOCTOR [OC]: Graham? Graham?

GRAHAM: They've gone now. And... so's Polidori.

[Byron's chamber]

GRAHAM [OC]: I've lost him.

DOCTOR: 

You had one job!

[Drawing room]

GRAHAM: 

Yeah, made more challenging by his ability to walk through walls.

[Byron's chamber]

DOCTOR: 

Through?

GRAHAM [OC]: 

Well, he just turned 

sort of zombie and 

went into one.

BYRON: 

What do you speak of? 

What is a zombie?

CLAIRE: 

Mrs Doctor?

DOCTOR: 

Kind of a Dead Person walking, 

but it won't be that.

CLAIRE: 

Mrs Doctor?

BYRON: 

How do you know?

DOCTOR: 

Because Polidori isn't dead, 

for a kick-off.

(Polidori walks in through the wall.)

CLAIRE: 

Mrs Doctor!

DOCTOR: 

Really, just ‘Doctor’ is fine.

BYRON: 

Polidori!

(Byron hides behind Claire.)

CLAIRE: 

He emerged from the wall 

like a phantom.

BYRON:

Begone, demon!

DOCTOR: 

Pulse? Check. 

Breathing. Check.

BYRON: 

May I just say, you are 

quite lovely in a crisis.

DOCTOR: 

No, you may not. 

The lights are on, 

but he's gone 

on a mini-break.

BYRON: 

Possessed?

CLAIRE: 

Or asleep?

 He walks in his sleep.

BYRON:

One does not sleepwalk 

through walls.

DOCTOR: 

Not just through. Up. 

He was downstairs a second ago. What you said before...

BYRON: 

About being lovely?

DOCTOR: 

Back a bit.

BYRON: 

Er... Demon?

DOCTOR: 

It's like dreaming... 

only we aren't, and he is. 

So he can't see 

The Illusion.

(She puts her hand through the wall.)

DOCTOR: 

But it's more than that. 

We're surrounded. Immersed. 

It's sort of like a... 

A perception filter! 

Close your eyes. Clear your mind. 

We're only experiencing 

what it wants us to.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

This is why clowns are good.

BILL MOYERS: 

Clowns?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Clown religions, because they show that the image is not a fact, but it’s a reflex of some kind.

BILL MOYERS: 

So does this help explain the trickster gods that show up at times?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

They’re very much that, yes. 

THE ACCUSED

Dean Keaton :

Keaton always said, 

‘I Don’t Believe In God, 

But I’m Afraid of Him —’

Well, I Do Believe in God;

and The Only Thing That Scares Me —

is Keyser Soze....

Our Lady of Mercy :

Now, what happened after the line-up?

The Desk Sergeant told me he couldn't release you. 

Can you believe that?

You weren't even charged!

New York police.

I want pictures taken of your face.

I'll take 'em to the DA first thing.

The Accused :

Forget about it.

Our Lady of Mercy :

No! I'll have this in front of a Grand Jury!

The Accused :

Look, I don't wanna talk about it, Edie. OK?

So what did Fortier and Renault say?

Our Lady of Mercy :

They need more time to think about it.

The Accused :

Dammit! More time for what, Edie?

No matter how you cover my tracks, 

they'll still find out about me.

Our Lady of Mercy :

Give me some credit. I got you this far.

Let's go to the Grand Jury. 

The Accused :

It won't stop!

Look, it's never gonna stop, period!

By next week every investor in the city's gonna be walkin' away from us.

It's finished.

I'm finished.

Our Lady of Mercy :

Don't give up on me now, Dean.

The Accused :

It's never gonna stop.

Our Lady of Mercy :

I love you.

The Accused :

They ruined me in there tonight.

I love you.

Do you hear me?

The Accused :

What?

Our Lady of Mercy :

All right.

Let's just go to my place.

We'll worry about this tomorrow.

Let's go.

The Accuser :

Fenster and McManus had a cagey proposition.

A fast jump, high risk, long money.

We all knew it could be done.

The way I figured, to do it wrong meant killing.

To do it right took five men.

Five men meant Keaton.

Keaton took convincing.

New York's Finest Taxi Service.

The Accused :

Bullshit.

Bullshit.

They don't operate any more.

The Accused :

McManus has a friend in the 14th Precinct.

They're coming out for one job.

They're picking up a guy smuggling emeralds. McManus already has a fence.

The Accused :

A fence? Who?

Some guy in California named Redfoot.

The Accused :

I never heard of him.

You have to come.

The Accused :

What's it to you whether I do it or not?

The Accuser :

They don't know me. 

You do.

They won't take me unless you go.

The Accuser :

Look at me. I need this.

Oh, you're telling me you don't need this?

Is this your place?

I'm not knocking you. 

You got a good scam going with this lawyer...

Sorry.

The Accuser :

It's OK. It's OK.

The Accuser :

You say it's the real thing, that's cool.

The Accused :

You OK?

The Accuser :

I was outta line.

But they're never gonna stop with us. 

You know that.

As clean as you could get, they'll never let you go.

This way we hit the cops where it hurts and we get well in the meantime.

You sure you're OK?

I'll be all right.

Look, I... I sometimes get...

The Accuser :

Forget it.

I'll probably shit blood tonight.

The Accused :

So... how do they wanna do it?

The Accuser :

McManus wants to go in shooting.

I say no.

The Accused :

Fenster? Hockney?

The Accuser :

They're pretty pissed off.

They'll do anything.

I got a way to do it without killing anyone, 

but they won't let me in without you.

The Accused :

Three million?

The Accuser :

Maybe more.

The Accused :

No killing?

The Accuser :

Not if we do it my way.

New York's Finest Taxi Service was not your normal taxi service.

It was a ring of corrupt cops in the NYPD that ran a high-profit racket driving smugglers and drug dealers round the city.

For a few hundred dollars a mile you got your own blue and white and a police escort.

They even had business cards.

After a while somebody started asking questions and the service shut down.

Since then Internal Affairs have been waiting to catch them in the act.

That's where we came in.

The Betrayer,

A Treacherous Blue Meanie Guard :

So, how was the flight?

A Thief :

Fucking great.

Will this get me to Staten Island?

The Betrayer,

A Treacherous Blue Meanie Guard :

You kidding me?

This'll get you to Cape Cod.

The Accuser :

McManus brought us the job. 

Fenster got the vans, 

Hockney supplied the hardware.

I came up with how to do it so no one got killed.

But Keaton? 

Keaton put on the finishing touch.

A little "fuck you" from the five of us to the NYPD.

The Karmic Trickster

A Trickster

who specializes in

Unstuffing stuffed shirts, 

deflating puffed-up egos,

trivialising the self-important, 

and 

confusing know-it-alls. 

The Karmic Trickster 

is normally harmless, even friendly, if left ALONE. 

Once his dignity is dented or his person threatened,

however, it's 

no holds barred — 

The target is in for humiliation, embarrassment and bewilderment. 

ANY tactic is fair game as long as it does not cause actual physical harm to the target. 

Only when the target has surrendered does the Karmic Trickster conclude his vengeance.

Being completely self-centered, the Karmic Trickster normally acts only on his own behalf, but can be convinced to help others — he has a soft spot for babies, innocents, and those who are truly good, and when his sympathy is evoked will go to the 
ENDS OF THE EARTH FOR THEM.

Sometimes he sows chaos for the sake of chaos, but only when he gets carried away in the midst of one of his campaigns. 

Most of the time he simply wants to be left ALONE, and Heaven help whoever messes with him! 

Given all of their righteous retribution, sometimes these characters can exist somewhere between this, 

Screwy Squirrel 
and borderline  




Neutral Evil 

if their self-righteous attitudes end up attacking characters for little more than existing nearby them and can often just seem like 



Comedic Sociopathy 
if our Trickster operates as a  

Designated Hero,

 regardless of where they sit on the
Trickster Archetype scale 
and the only Karmic anything involved about them is being a  

Karma Houdini.

Between them, Karmic Trickster and Screwy Squirrel comprise two-thirds of the classic Trickster Archetype. 

His actions are as much to teach as to gain revenge, where Screwy Squirrel is the embodiment of mischief for mischief's sake.

See also: Karmic Protection.

May masquerade as The Fool,
 or 

vice versa;
whether silly or wise, 

he will always display 
Hidden Depths 
(if only a knack for comedy and Simpleminded Wisdom) 
whom the audience may laugh at. 

This is not always true of other Tricksters in general, who are sometimes cast as 

cloud cuckoolanders, 
 
irrepressible agents of chaos, 

lesser chaos-bringers 
 who are constantly being taught a lesson themselves, 
or 
cosmic butt monkeys. 

Such traits rarely apply here. 

Indeed, the Karmic Trickster 
 is the least vulnerable to  
Hoist by His Own Petard  
or to 

Counter Zany 

 (which he can often turn to Zany Scheme Chicken).

Hares : Not distinguished from rabbits, either in symbolism or in popular superstition. 

In many ancient civilizations the hare is a "lunar animal," because the dark patches (mana, "seas") on the surface of the full MOON suggest leaping hares. 

Thus in ancient Mex- ico, where the hare (wehtli) is also the eighth of 20 day-symbols in the Aztec calendar and a sign of good luck, the animal is represented in the Codices by a U-shaped lunar hiero- glyph; and in ancient China the lunar hare crushes cinnamon sticks in a mortar and is considered a symbol of longevity. In Bud- dhist, Celtic, Hottentot, and ancient Egyp- tian cultures as well, the hare was associated with the moon. Its further symbolic con- notations have to do with its real or legend- ary characteristics, such as vigilance: the animal is said to sleep with its eyes open, and medieval physicians believed that eating its meat led to insomnia. (In classical anti- quity, on the other hand, eating such a meal was believed to make a person beautiful for NINE days.) The hare is widely spoken of as easily frightened (in medieval symbol- ogy an armed man fleeing from a hare is the personification of ignavia, or cowardice; compare the Grimms' tale of "The Seven Swabians"); its excessive fertility rate and and readiness to mate make it a symbol of lust, whereas a WHITE hare, portrayed at the feet of the VIRGIN Mary, is taken as a symbol of the triumph over "the flesh." The Easter hare, along with the EGG of fertility, plays an important role in Central European tra- ditions for the welcoming of spring. The early Christian Physiologus mentions a fur- ther peculiarity of the hare: with its shorter front legs, it can run fastest uphill, eluding its pursuers. "Seek you likewise the rock, when the evil cur, the demon, pursues you. . . . If he sees you running downhill with your heart set on the earthly things of this world, he comes in ready pursuit, aided by the confusion of your thoughts. But let him see that you run along with the will of God, seeking the true ROCK of our Lord Jesus Christ, climbing to the summit of virtue, then the dog will turn back, as David writes in Psalm 34: Those who would do evil unto me must turn back and come to ruin." This Hare undaunted by an uphill run. J. Boschius, 1702 Hare: Holy Trinity symbolized by three hares. Win- dow, Paderborn Cathedral passage may explain the frequency with which the hare appears in Christian iconography. Its defenselessness makes it a natural symbol for .humanity, which must put its trust in God. Hares nibbling grapes (see WINE) ap- parently symbolize souls in HEAVEN, who can safely enjoy the fruits of eternal life. We occasionally see depictions of three hares in a CIRCLE, their EARS forming a TRIAN- GLE-apparently a reminder of the Holy TRINITY, or of the fleeting (circular) course of time. The ancients attributed predominantly positive characteristics to the hare (which was also the symbol of Iberia). Its speed and vigilance, according to Plutarch (A. D. 46- 120), have a "divine" quality. According to Pliny the Elder (A. D. 23-79) this favorite animal of the goddess Aphrodite is highly beneficial to women: its meat makes sterile women fertile, and eating its testicles favors the conception of male offspring. The ma- gician Apollonius of Tyana (first century after Christ) recommended that a hare be carried three times around the bed of a woman in labor to make her delivery easier. The hare is the fourth sign of the ancient Chinese zodiac (see STARS). A picture of SIX boys surrounding a human with the head of a hare symbolizes the wish, expressed at the time of the lunar festival, that the children in the family might rise smoothly in the civil service. Because of its lunar associa- tions, the hare is a YIN animal. The animal plays a special role in Buddhist legend: a hare, sympathizing with the starving Buddha, sprang into the fire to provide food for him, and thus became a symbol of self- headdress and headgear 165 sacrifice and faith in salvation. In the myths of Native Americans the hare represents a hero of the individual nation, such as GlusKabe or Manabozho, the creator of the world in its present state. 

A trickster figure, the hare outwits larger and stronger animals like BEARS and buffaloes. For psychologically oriented symbologists, neither the speed nor the "timidity" of the hare is critical, but rather the rate at which it multiplies: this makes the animal a symbol of fertility and passionate sexuality.

The Trickster Always Precedes The Savior

You were a Schemer -

You had Plans....

You just tempted The Fates, is all...

See Ya Around, Kid...