Objectives
In Terminator 2, the T-100’s super-objective isn’t hard to spot. It has been programmed to protect the young John Connor. Its desire is to obey its programming. This isn’t to say that it’s a flat character. It has also been programmed to adapt to human life. This is how we get the expressions ‘Hasta la vista, baby’ and ‘no problemo.’ (And an often-missed beauty at the end of the film, when it says, ‘I need a vacation.’)
But Swartzenegger’s machine has been programmed by a human, so perhaps we can read a little more into the T-100’s desires. John Connor’s initial objective is to have fun with his friends. When the conflict is introduced, this switches to a desire to protect his mother, Sarah Connor. Sarah Connor’s desire, right from the off, is to protect her son. All of this leads to a tense mother/child stand-off as the T-100 drives them all away from Sarah’s prison. ‘I had to come and get you.’ ‘I didn’t need your help. I can take care of myself.’
We know that the Terminator was programmed in the future by John Connor’s wife. We also know that she programmed it to protect John. By the fact that it was John’s lover who programmed the machine, wouldn’t it be logical to suggest that the T-100 also has a desire to love John Connor? This would explain all of the hand-slapping scenes, which do a good job of portraying Arnie as several girders short of an industrial welder.
So, to summarise, the T-100’s desire is to love John Connor, John Connor’s desire is to love Sarah Connor, and Sarah Connor’s desire is also to love John Connor. (Nobody loves Swartzenegger at first, although his relationship with the T-1000 is slightly homo-erotic). For ‘love’, we can also read ‘protect’.
And what brings all this on? The destruction of the planet. Each character also desires the earth and its population to be saved. However, despite this acting as the McGuffin (propelling the plot), the central objective and also theme of the film is to love and be loved.
Cat’s Cradle follows a similar line. Our narrator’s initial objective is to write a book. It is to be about the end of the world, which was supposedly initiated when the U.S. dropped their atomic bomb at Hiroshima. Quickly, his book focuses in on Felix Hoenikker, the ‘father of the atom bomb.’ The narrator’s objective is now to find out as much about Hoenikker as possible. He discovers first that the man had three children, and he was something of an absent father to each. So, his objective is now to make contact with the Hoenikker kids. He finds one easily enough, and has knowledge of the second. The third, Franklin, disappeared for a while before surfacing as a high-ranking military officer on a remote island. The narrator travels to the island, where he finds Franklin Hoenikker. He also finds Bokonism.
Bokonism becomes his objective. The search for Bokonon, the religion’s founder, is his strongest desire yet. And we begin to unravel his super-objective. We know from the text that the narrator has issues with his father. Perhaps these issues led to him becoming a journalist (to spite him? To prove him wrong?). His search for Hoenikker only serves to show that he, himself, was a terrible dad, so he switches to the next available father-figure. (Available but perhaps unobtainable. Maybe he doesn’t feel that he deserves a father?) Bokonon fits the bill. He is elusive and yet ever-present in his teachings, and the stories told about him. The search for Bokonon becomes the narrator’s most pressing objective.
Wrapped within this is a similar type of jeopardy as in Terminator 2. The end of the world. Each of the Hoenikker children carries a chunk of Ice-9, created by their father at the end of his life. Ice-9 could destroy the earth within minutes. The narrator’s sub-objective is to learn about Ice-9, and perhaps to obtain it. We could easily determine that the narrator’s knowledge of the end of the world leads him to wish to determine his origins. His desire is to see his father.
Incidentally, Vonnegut slips in a McGuffin of his own. Bokonism. The story moves forwards through a series of bizarre coincidences, which the narrator attributes to Bokonon. Without these the plot would go nowhere, because the narrator simply doesn’t care enough about the destruction of the planet. He cares about fathers.
I am going to spend some time this week thinking about my own super-objective. Of course, it’s much easier to find in a novel than in real-flesh-and-blood life, but it isn’t impossible. I also need to ensure that my central character’s super-objective drives his actions, and that it ties in with the book’s main theme. Then the subsidiary characters all need desires too, and their desires need to either run in conjuction with or in opposition to my central character’s desires. Then I need to finish plotting, and the plot needs to hang nicely on each character’s super-objective.
In between this and work, I think that it would be a good idea to watch some films. I should also dust off my copy of The Seven Basic Plots and take a look through that.
