Posted:
The Evolution of TV's Demon Hunters
link:
http://www.denofgeek.us/tv/demon-hunters/232398/the-evolution-of-tvs-demon-hunters
content:
Demon hunters have changed: no
longer crazy old men like Van
Helsing, the current breed of screen
heroes are young and, well, cool...
Since the days of Dracula and Van
Helsing, demon hunters have always
existed in popular culture. While this
idea has evolved to include witches,
slayers, vigilantes and modern-day
descendents of classic characters,
they have essentially remained the
same over the years. There are many
reasons for a character to be or
become a hunter, but they always
have just one goal - rid the earth of
evil and save humanity. Our
television screens have hosted a
myriad of interesting figures over the
years and now, with shows like
Grimm flying the flag and subverting
a lot of our ingrained ideas, the TV
demon hunter is experiencing a kind
of second golden age.
The first, of course, came with shows
like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel
and Charmed in the nineties - a
decade that married the fantasy genre
with modern popular culture on the
small screen more than ever before.
We were done with the period pieces
and elaborate gothic settings and
were finally given an alternative - the
demon hunter as a young adult. This
led to WB shows like Buffy and
Charmed, which both told the story of
young women in modern society.
High school is hell and so,
apparently, is life after high school,
they told us. With kick-ass heroines
all the rage on television during the
decade, it made sense that the glut
of fantasy would coincide and form
its own, even more niche genre.
After this came Buffy spin-off Angel ,
which opted instead for the hunter
as detective' urban fantasy motif that
has continued and evolved to this
day. While demon hunting duties
actively interfered with the lives of
Buffy and the Halliwell sisters, here it
was just part of the day job and
much less (at least at first) about
saving the world. Angel and the rest
of his crew weren't destined to do
anything good or worthy, and were
only united by their extensive
knowledge of the demon world. For
Angel it was about redemption
through hunting his own kind,
whereas previous TV vampire hunters
had either been on revenge missions
or adorned with unwanted duty and
destiny. This was one of the first
times it had really been a conscious
choice.
But these days, the word hunter will
lead minds to just two shows -
Grimm and Supernatural. The latter
came first, the year following
Charmed's demise on the same
network, and marked a definite shift
in the tone and subject matter of the
genre. The show featured two
brothers raised as hunters by their
father after their mother was killed by
a demon (I'm going with the original
idea of the story here, so bear with
me) while they were children, and it
pitched the adventures of the
Winchester brothers as a road movie
as much as it was a detective series.
Originally, they weren't destined or
even obligated - it was just a way of
life.
Through nine seasons on the air, the
characters have been every kind of
hunter there is - destined to free
Lucifer and act as angel vessels,
seeking revenge for their tragic past,
solving crimes and helping the
helpless all at once. Via some clever
developments, Sam and Dean have
now become Men of Letters in
addition to their self-made hunter
status, and looking back through the
various incarnations of what
Supernatural says a hunter can be is
a bit like looking through the
changing trends of the entire genre.
And, while demon hunters have
turned up periodically elsewhere over
the years (series like The Dresden
Files are worth a look), we would
have to wait for Grimm before a
hunter would take centre stage again
All of these contemporary series had
one way or another scattered their
demons throughout society assuming
that, if our hunters were functioning
human beings with jobs and
relationships, then so too would be
modern-day demons. Whether they
were high-powered businessmen,
bitchy mean girls or the Mayor of
Sunnydale, evil beings in these
fantasy shows were the modern day
equivalent of wolves in sheep's
clothing. They allowed these series
to tell their allegories and deliver
their messages in entirely different
ways since, by updating the themes
and stories of old fairytales, folklore
and fables, it was all too easy to
relate the issues to our own lives.
But nothing did this more than
Grimm , which has taken that subtext
and lifted it to a whole new level. The
main character, Nick, is actually a
descendant of the Brothers Grimm,
for a start (think ITV's Demons , but
better), and we learn throughout the
first season that the beasties in
those original tales were actually
demons that Grimms could see
through their human facades. After
his Aunt dies in the pilot episode,
Nick is tasked with finding and
stopping these Wesen whenever he
happens upon a particularly nasty
one, and he later discovers that his
duties come with some of their own
special gifts and physical
enhancements.
Like in Charmed, Nick's powers came
to him late in life and he's not sure
how to deal with them at first. This
leads him to the door of friendly
neighbourhood Wesen, Monroe, who
becomes his sidekick and confidant,
causing the expected subversion of
Nick's destiny to destroy all demons
he comes across. Interestingly,
whereas previous shows had made
this rebellion into the Romeo and
Juliet-style love story with Buffy and
Angel or Phoebe and Cole, in Grimm
it's the best-friendship that acts as
the forbidden love. Nick's girlfriend,
Juliette, is as normal as they come
and very late to the party in terms of
knowing the big secret.
This, of course, feeds into the angst
of wanting to be normal and raging
against destined greatness, and it's
just one of the ways in which Grimm
can be perceived as rather old-
fashioned. It's a post-modern demon
hunter show, if you will, and often
finds itself commenting on the genre
at the same time as revelling in its
well-known formula. Nick defies
convention by befriending the
creatures he is supposed to be
hunting, and Grimm never shies away
from muddying the waters even more
when it comes to the morality of its
central characters. The body count
might not be larger than in its
predecessors, but these creatures
don't turn to dust or explode at the
sight of a newly brewed potion.
And this is where Nick and his
emerging team of demon fighters
differs most from the Scooby Gang,
Angel Investigations or the Halliwell
family - he has a ready-made cover
as a detective before he even gets
started. Previous demon fighters or
occult investigators in general have
needed a friend on the force' in
order to get information and track
down leads, but Grimm has worked
out the perfect solution to this issue.
Nick is his own friend on the force,
which occasionally leads to him
investigating his own kills, and is
instead in more desperate need of a
friend on the other side of things.
Monroe is more than a sidekick - he
is an entirely different kind of hunter
operating on the same show. Its
Angel if Wesley had been the main
character, with Monroe the one with
first-hand experience of the world
Nick has been thrown into so
unexpectedly. He's the mentor, the
muscle and the confidant for Nick,
and that's what makes the central
partnership of Grimm so fresh and
different. Television about demon
hunters has always had a certain
element of the police procedural to it,
but Grimm has combined and shifted
several well-worn elements of the
genre to create something new.
This has resulted in more and more
mutant amalgamations of what we
expect a demon hunter to be coupled
with new ideas and fresh takes on
old ones. Sleepy Hollow is a perfect
example of this, with the genre's old
paranormal investigator actually
time-travelling to modern-day Sleepy
Hollow and teaming the fantasy genre
with an otherwise contemporary
detective show.
While the nineties
brought us hunters plagued by their
own destinies and constantly
complaining about it, and the
noughties gave us Sam and Dean
Winchester, now it seems we have
the complete assimilation of urban
fantasy and crime shows with Grimm
and Sleepy Hollow . It's not about
revenge or redemption anymore, and
demon hunters no longer have to
operate on the fringe.
link:
http://www.denofgeek.us/tv/demon-hunters/232398/the-evolution-of-tvs-demon-hunters
content:
Demon hunters have changed: no
longer crazy old men like Van
Helsing, the current breed of screen
heroes are young and, well, cool...
Since the days of Dracula and Van
Helsing, demon hunters have always
existed in popular culture. While this
idea has evolved to include witches,
slayers, vigilantes and modern-day
descendents of classic characters,
they have essentially remained the
same over the years. There are many
reasons for a character to be or
become a hunter, but they always
have just one goal - rid the earth of
evil and save humanity. Our
television screens have hosted a
myriad of interesting figures over the
years and now, with shows like
Grimm flying the flag and subverting
a lot of our ingrained ideas, the TV
demon hunter is experiencing a kind
of second golden age.
The first, of course, came with shows
like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel
and Charmed in the nineties - a
decade that married the fantasy genre
with modern popular culture on the
small screen more than ever before.
We were done with the period pieces
and elaborate gothic settings and
were finally given an alternative - the
demon hunter as a young adult. This
led to WB shows like Buffy and
Charmed, which both told the story of
young women in modern society.
High school is hell and so,
apparently, is life after high school,
they told us. With kick-ass heroines
all the rage on television during the
decade, it made sense that the glut
of fantasy would coincide and form
its own, even more niche genre.
After this came Buffy spin-off Angel ,
which opted instead for the hunter
as detective' urban fantasy motif that
has continued and evolved to this
day. While demon hunting duties
actively interfered with the lives of
Buffy and the Halliwell sisters, here it
was just part of the day job and
much less (at least at first) about
saving the world. Angel and the rest
of his crew weren't destined to do
anything good or worthy, and were
only united by their extensive
knowledge of the demon world. For
Angel it was about redemption
through hunting his own kind,
whereas previous TV vampire hunters
had either been on revenge missions
or adorned with unwanted duty and
destiny. This was one of the first
times it had really been a conscious
choice.
But these days, the word hunter will
lead minds to just two shows -
Grimm and Supernatural. The latter
came first, the year following
Charmed's demise on the same
network, and marked a definite shift
in the tone and subject matter of the
genre. The show featured two
brothers raised as hunters by their
father after their mother was killed by
a demon (I'm going with the original
idea of the story here, so bear with
me) while they were children, and it
pitched the adventures of the
Winchester brothers as a road movie
as much as it was a detective series.
Originally, they weren't destined or
even obligated - it was just a way of
life.
Through nine seasons on the air, the
characters have been every kind of
hunter there is - destined to free
Lucifer and act as angel vessels,
seeking revenge for their tragic past,
solving crimes and helping the
helpless all at once. Via some clever
developments, Sam and Dean have
now become Men of Letters in
addition to their self-made hunter
status, and looking back through the
various incarnations of what
Supernatural says a hunter can be is
a bit like looking through the
changing trends of the entire genre.
And, while demon hunters have
turned up periodically elsewhere over
the years (series like The Dresden
Files are worth a look), we would
have to wait for Grimm before a
hunter would take centre stage again
All of these contemporary series had
one way or another scattered their
demons throughout society assuming
that, if our hunters were functioning
human beings with jobs and
relationships, then so too would be
modern-day demons. Whether they
were high-powered businessmen,
bitchy mean girls or the Mayor of
Sunnydale, evil beings in these
fantasy shows were the modern day
equivalent of wolves in sheep's
clothing. They allowed these series
to tell their allegories and deliver
their messages in entirely different
ways since, by updating the themes
and stories of old fairytales, folklore
and fables, it was all too easy to
relate the issues to our own lives.
But nothing did this more than
Grimm , which has taken that subtext
and lifted it to a whole new level. The
main character, Nick, is actually a
descendant of the Brothers Grimm,
for a start (think ITV's Demons , but
better), and we learn throughout the
first season that the beasties in
those original tales were actually
demons that Grimms could see
through their human facades. After
his Aunt dies in the pilot episode,
Nick is tasked with finding and
stopping these Wesen whenever he
happens upon a particularly nasty
one, and he later discovers that his
duties come with some of their own
special gifts and physical
enhancements.
Like in Charmed, Nick's powers came
to him late in life and he's not sure
how to deal with them at first. This
leads him to the door of friendly
neighbourhood Wesen, Monroe, who
becomes his sidekick and confidant,
causing the expected subversion of
Nick's destiny to destroy all demons
he comes across. Interestingly,
whereas previous shows had made
this rebellion into the Romeo and
Juliet-style love story with Buffy and
Angel or Phoebe and Cole, in Grimm
it's the best-friendship that acts as
the forbidden love. Nick's girlfriend,
Juliette, is as normal as they come
and very late to the party in terms of
knowing the big secret.
This, of course, feeds into the angst
of wanting to be normal and raging
against destined greatness, and it's
just one of the ways in which Grimm
can be perceived as rather old-
fashioned. It's a post-modern demon
hunter show, if you will, and often
finds itself commenting on the genre
at the same time as revelling in its
well-known formula. Nick defies
convention by befriending the
creatures he is supposed to be
hunting, and Grimm never shies away
from muddying the waters even more
when it comes to the morality of its
central characters. The body count
might not be larger than in its
predecessors, but these creatures
don't turn to dust or explode at the
sight of a newly brewed potion.
And this is where Nick and his
emerging team of demon fighters
differs most from the Scooby Gang,
Angel Investigations or the Halliwell
family - he has a ready-made cover
as a detective before he even gets
started. Previous demon fighters or
occult investigators in general have
needed a friend on the force' in
order to get information and track
down leads, but Grimm has worked
out the perfect solution to this issue.
Nick is his own friend on the force,
which occasionally leads to him
investigating his own kills, and is
instead in more desperate need of a
friend on the other side of things.
Monroe is more than a sidekick - he
is an entirely different kind of hunter
operating on the same show. Its
Angel if Wesley had been the main
character, with Monroe the one with
first-hand experience of the world
Nick has been thrown into so
unexpectedly. He's the mentor, the
muscle and the confidant for Nick,
and that's what makes the central
partnership of Grimm so fresh and
different. Television about demon
hunters has always had a certain
element of the police procedural to it,
but Grimm has combined and shifted
several well-worn elements of the
genre to create something new.
This has resulted in more and more
mutant amalgamations of what we
expect a demon hunter to be coupled
with new ideas and fresh takes on
old ones. Sleepy Hollow is a perfect
example of this, with the genre's old
paranormal investigator actually
time-travelling to modern-day Sleepy
Hollow and teaming the fantasy genre
with an otherwise contemporary
detective show.
While the nineties
brought us hunters plagued by their
own destinies and constantly
complaining about it, and the
noughties gave us Sam and Dean
Winchester, now it seems we have
the complete assimilation of urban
fantasy and crime shows with Grimm
and Sleepy Hollow . It's not about
revenge or redemption anymore, and
demon hunters no longer have to
operate on the fringe.
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