i. his own image to a man with that queer thing genius —
Royce Bracket is, in a sense, everything that I cannot be. An
image possessed of
own-ness and
man-ness with that queer thing genius, a civil servant (
an engineer; remember all our characters are city planners) and civil (
just listen to the way he says "welcome welcome, well... come in!") villain (
villain meaning "the one who does what others do not, to drive the plot"). It's an interesting oxymoron to be
civil, lit. of the town, and
villain, lit. of the country, but that's Royce Bracket's story. A humble mathematician possessed of the time and desire to think about the biggest questions he could find. Work was in the city, for the city, it his canvas and obligator; but to really think, you need to go out in the country. To consider what exists outside of trends and whim, fashion and seasons, expand your consciousness... do mathematicians call on negative capability the way writers do? What about natural philosophers?
But Royce is a singular horse leading us to water, and I drink as deeply as I can. There is something inimitable, something beckoning about a fictional genius, someone perfectly unfit for the problems facing them and the solution they find, someone whose discovery eclipses themselves entirely. It's compelling, in a way real life hagiographies hardly ever hold up to be, as absent the real world's compromises and concerns, our own imaginations can complete the picture.
ii. the standard of all experience, material and moral
But there is something simultaneously sinister about loving a genius, no matter how queer. Maybe it's the case of real-life trauma, of all the bad things that happened to me over the course of trying to love men with that aspect of ingenuity, with that streak of success, and awaiting audience. I am a charming little thing whose best skill is in keeping up conversation with my betters, so I've had no bad luck in garnering their attention... but it's never once gone well, for me! and it never seems to for others, either.
If there were such a thing as genius, and if it were attached with a concomitant tragedy, there's some consequences that would follow. (There isn't, in reality, and the myth only invites excuses, but the myth looks a great deal like reality if you're standing in its shoes.) The consequences are material: the benefit to the world, to the civil society, from the effects of the genius compounded by the machinery of man. Anything to make this gain! There is not higher than the public good! But then also moral: Cui malo? Again we speak of If; but if so, the consequence of such tragedy must fall or follow to some kind thing, some thing in kind: and why wouldn't it fall on whoever has fallen for him? Delightful, but not delighted, are those whose greatest vice is love — better to err on the side that if anyone is hurt it is you; there is no lower than the private ill. Joyce says that of such a man, that "he will see in them grotesque attempts of nature to foretell or to repeat himself." But you see how this equation only balances in the realm of fiction, where states have higher stakes than you, the reader, the one baring their throat to the venom that teaches.
iii. the vice of voices — that every line is a lullaby
I invite you, then, to listen to the voice, which may very well surprise you. Sunkrish Bala's delivery of the character of Royce Bracket is of the kind that verges on genius, the sort of acting where someone has instilled both a character, a point of view, and an
understanding of the text being presented. Some of the best voice acting work among indie games, tucked away in the files and interiority of a little-loved final villain. I am very prone to falling in love with a good-enough voice and a best-in-class understanding of the text, as every idiosyncrasy resonates with a way of saying that's desperate to repopulate in your inner monologue.
I could unpack lines for days — how long could we spend on just "what you have there, maybe it's a star, or a tomb?" — but in true to myself fashion I'll end with the one on atonement. When royce bracket says "expecting what. your sympathy? ...your mercy?" i simply start crying. how quiet his voice gets, asking whether mercy exists in this world. hoping it exists for men unlike him, knowing it cannot exist for men like him. if there could be men like him
