I stared at the blank page for about an hour when I sat down to write the first words of episode 2. It felt like stepping through a doorway I’d searched for since I was a teenager and first read Swordspoint.
I don’t usually have trouble with blank pages. Once a project is ready, I know where I need to begin, and how.
But this was Riverside. This was Vincent.
There are only a few reading experiences so wonderful I remember the exactly when and where they occured. (I have many more bad experiences burned into my memory). I know where I was when I read the first chilling chapter of Jurassic Park; I remember the moment I saw the original cover for Robin McKinley’s Beauty for the first time at age 8; there is a line from The Vampire Lestat that has haunted me since I was thirteen.
And then there’s that vivid drop of blood against silence snow, and Vincent Applethorpe laughing as he dies.
Though Vincent’s final scene in Swordspoint is intense with emotion and swift storytelling, what obsessed me was the specifity of delight between Vincent and St. Vier. Their desire—no, need—to meet death in a challenge like that. I didn’t understand it, but was intrigued, so I mulled it over, looked at it from several different ways, and eventually put it down.
Until one day in 2005 I was reading excerpts from the Krakumal, a Viking poem, and I came across this Viking named Ragnar Lothbrok (yes the one from the TV show) who supposedly died when he was thrown into a pit of vipers by his enemy, and as he was poisoned slowly by dozens of snake bites, he cried up (in loose translation): “Death comes without lamenting… I am eager to depart. The disir summon me home, sent by Odin from the Halls of Death. Gladly shall I drink ale in the high seat with the gods. The days of my life are ended. I die with a laugh.”
I wrote a whole series of books based on that sentiment. I created characters of my own who grappled with the very heart of “I die with a laugh” and thought I’d processed my feelings on the subject pretty thoroughly, especially with regards to American war culture and politics (everything is about politics, didn’t you know?).
Turns out I was wrong.
Ellen was gracious enough to offer us a lot of space this season to push at Vincent and his past, to find the pieces of self and history that make him who he is, and I, for one, grabbed that space with both hands and basically refused to let go.
War cultures tend to convince their warriors to die for glory and honor, to be pieces of something greater than themselves. That’s how you get a warrior to be glad to die, but it isn’t how Riverside (or the Land itself) works. They don’t have standing armies or a particularly developed nationalism required for this type of glory-seeking war culture.
The Riverside swordmen fight for a lot of reasons: money, fame, because they can, passion. The one thing that Vincent and Richard St. Vier truly have in common, that differentiates them from the likes of de Maris or Hugo, is the passion. They do it because they discovered the sword and now they have to pursue it. It’s who and what they are. And it’s who and what they are because of Riverside, because of the specific culture of that filthy, intricate, intense little island.
As I was working out what I thought was Vincent’s emotional trajectory, which had to be different from St. Vier’s, Vincent, the sword, and Riverside itself all became tangled in my head. I knew my entry point was figuring out what ties those three things together. What do they see in each other, why do they belong to each other? I think the answer is because instead of being victimized or traumatized by violence, violence makes them blossom.
I write best when I’m in love with a character’s emotional journey, and when I’m trying to understand something about myself. I’ve loved Swordspoint for twenty years, and obviously swordsmen and violence are at the core of it. Why have I been drawn to this place that is dangerous, slippery, and breeds disfunction? Why have I never been able to rid myself of the fascination with the violence and passion of Riverside?
That’s what writing episode two helped me begin to unravel: not only what drew and has continued to draw me to Riverside and its swordsmen, but my thoughts and feelings about living with violence not by necessity, but with delight. Who are these people for whom violence makes them blossom?
While episode one brought us deep into the Hill, everything in episode two is intimately about Riverside. You meet Shade and Florian, dangerous Riverside criminals whose passion is each other, and the Salamander who might just be the Riverside equivalent of our Duchess Tremontaine. Even my Diane scenes reflect the miasma of violence and passion that is Riverside, for Diane is that unique element who understands—or will come to understand—exactly what she and Riverside have in common, depite not being a resident or victim. As I worked on season 2, I think I figured out what that is for her (and for me), and I hope that as this season progresses you, dear readers, will come to understand it with us.
