• About
  • Cats Dig Hemingway
  • Guest Bookings
  • John King’s Publications
  • Literary Memes
  • Podcast Episode Guide
  • Store!
  • The Rogue’s Guide to Shakespeare on Film
  • Videos
  • Writing Craft Discussions

The Drunken Odyssey

~ A Podcast About the Writing Life

The Drunken Odyssey

Tag Archives: Severus Snape

21st Century Brontë #8: Notes on Aesthetic Afterlives

04 Thursday Feb 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in 21st Century Bronte

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Aladdin: King of Thieves, Alan Rickman, Brontë Bettencourt, Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling, Robin Williams, Severus Snape

21st Century Brontë #8 by Brontë Bettencourt

Notes on Aesthetic Afterlives

It has been a couple weeks since we lost Alan Rickman. My Facebook feed was a steady stream of pictures consisting of flowers being left outside of Professor Snape’s classroom in Hogwarts castle, silhouettes of wizards pointing their wands skyward. His stoic visage coupled with quotes from the books incited emoticon tears from my peers.

Rickman Snape tribute

I found the posts to be annoying after a while. I don’t mean to be a grouch.

What does it mean to live on in one’s work? Clearly we aren’t imagining horcruxes here.

Do you think about how your work may endure? It’s possible that schools that may add your work to their canon. Biographies might be penned about your psychological state and the influence it might’ve had on your work. Or maybe your work will be used to dissect the zeitgeist of your time: Brontë Bettencourt: A Study of Vampire Demons, Equestrian Magicks, and Millennial Debt.

The celebrity I still miss, although it’s been well over a year, is Robin Williams. I grew up on Aladdin: King of Thieves and Flubber, and loved him in Jumanji when I finally saw it in college. His voice was unmistakable, cracking spontaneous jokes, somehow familial with its warmth.

King of Thieves

It felt unreal on that day to learn not only of his passing, but how it happened—so different from any of his characters I could have imagined.

On a grimmer note, it might not matter one way or another once we pass on. Your consciousness may very well cease to exist, your art only affecting you in the now.

I was six when my own mortality hit me. I had just finished making a fort out of a foldable beach chair and worn blanket when it suddenly occurred that one day, I wouldn’t be here anymore. The TV faded to a low murmur and the living room clock felt much more ominous with its ticking hand. I’m not sure what triggered those thoughts, but since then I’ve been contentious of my time and what it’s spent on.

I think what bothered me about all the Facebook posts, was seeing Alan Rickman’s life be boiled down to a figure who didn’t actually exist, like taking a fully fleshed out character and flattening them into one dimension. Considering all the recollections from various cast and crew members, he was nothing like the bitter, stoic individual clad in billowing black fabric.

Harry Potter Half Blood Prince

For me, the difference between the losses of these actors rested in personal connection. In the books, Professor Snape had a goatee, but more importantly, I had source material that reminded me that the movies were an interpretation. Alan Rickman was separate from the character on the big screen. I might’ve been too young to differentiate Robin Williams from his roles, and even as I learned the difference, he always played the endearing character with an ability to make me laugh.

Yet the way that these actors passed away are polarized from the way I’ve come to know them. Alan Rickman was surrounded by friends and family, with a grim forewarning, but a warning nonetheless, of his mortality.

Robin Williams, for all the years of making others laugh, was overcome by his own inner darkness. The spark that prevails in all of his roles is all the more moving with knowledge of that hovering darkness.

I became aware of death at six, and I’d like to believe that with success, I will be read pleasurably by others. Maybe I take comfort in knowing that my craft may endure time much better than I can. I’d like to believe in a god and an afterlife. But the feeling of potential nothingness has haunted me for years. I can say with some certainty that my work will endure, evidence that I was here. On this spinning, suspended rock revolving around a gaseous, fiery ball in a cluster of stars within our expanding universe, my voice mattered.

And to the author of Brontë Bettencourt: A Study of Vampire Demons, Equestrian Magicks, and Millennial Debt, please don’t inflict too much psychoanalysis on my characters.

_______

21st Cen Bronté

Brontë Bettencourt (Episode 34) graduated from the University of Central Florida with a Bachelors in English Creative Writing. When she’s not writing or working, she is a full time Dungeon Master and Youtube connoisseur.

 

Online, shop here:

If you must, shop Amazon and help the show.

Audible.com

Blogs

Not forgotten

Categories

  • 21st Century Bronte
  • A Word from the King
  • Aesthetic Drift
  • animation
  • Anime
  • Art
  • Autobiography
  • AWP
  • Biography
  • Blog Post
  • Bloomsday
  • Buddhism
  • Buzzed Books
  • Cheryl Strayed
  • Children's Literature
  • Christmas
  • Christmas literature
  • Comedy
  • Comic Books
  • Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart
  • Craft of Fiction Writing
  • Creative Nonfiction
  • David Foster Wallace
  • David James Poissant
  • David Lynch
  • David Sedaris
  • Disney
  • Dispatches from the Funkstown Clarion
  • Doctor Who
  • Drinking
  • Dungeons and Dragons
  • Editing
  • Education
  • Episode
  • Erotic Literature
  • Essay
  • Fan Fiction
  • Fantasy
  • Film
  • Flash Fiction
  • Florida Literature
  • Francesca Lia Block
  • Functionally Literate
  • Ghost writing
  • Graphic Novels
  • Gutter Space
  • Help me!
  • Heroes Never Rust
  • History
  • Horror
  • Hunter S. Thompson
  • In Boozo Veritas
  • Irish Literature
  • Jack Kerouac
  • James Bond
  • James Joyce
  • Jazz
  • Journalism
  • Kerouac House
  • Kung Fu
  • Like a Geek God
  • Literary Magazines
  • Literary Prizes
  • Literary rizes
  • Literature of Florida
  • Litlando
  • Live Show
  • Loading the Canon
  • Loose Lips Reading Series
  • Lost Chords & Serenades Divine
  • Magic Realism
  • Mailbag
  • manga
  • McMillan's Codex
  • Memoir
  • Miami Book Fair
  • Michael Caine
  • Military Literature
  • Mixtape
  • Music
  • New York City
  • O, Miami
  • Old Poem Revue
  • On Top of It
  • Pensive Prowler
  • Philosophy
  • Photography
  • Poetry
  • politics
  • Postmodernism
  • Publishing
  • Recommendation
  • Repeal Day
  • Science Fiction
  • Screenwriting
  • Sexuality
  • Shakespeare
  • Shakespearing
  • Sozzled Scribbler
  • Sports
  • Star Wars
  • Television
  • The Bible
  • The Curator of Schlock
  • The Global Barfly's Companion
  • The Lists
  • The Perfect Life
  • The Pink Fire Revue
  • The Rogue's Guide to Shakespeare on Film
  • Theater
  • There Will Be Words
  • translation
  • Travel Writing
  • Vanessa Blakeslee
  • Versify
  • Video Games
  • Violence
  • Virginia Woolf
  • War
  • Word From the King
  • Young Adult
  • Your Next Beach Read
  • Zombies

Recent Posts

  • Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #106: Crafting a Witch’s Story
  • The Diaries of a Sozzled Scribbler #23
  • The Perfect Life #1
  • Episode 455: Elif Shafak!
  • Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #105: Peeking Into the Future

Archives

  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel