I should be reading for school. Or trying to sleep for school. But I can't. I'm listening to some Lord of the Rings music to put me in the mood to finally finish that damn trilogy of books once and for all (I kind of just stopped in the second half of two towers. I guess I was annoyed that the book went from pages of battles and a ton of characters to just Sam, Frodo, and Gollum. I think my brain screamed "Think of the amount you just read, now imagine it with only the hobbits!" and I fled in terror only to finally return today). But that's not what this post is about. This post is about my newest idea. I will tell the basic idea below and then follow it with a disclaimer, because I know that one or two people might say "WHAT A MINUTE YOU DICK YOU STOLE THIS IDEA FROM--" And believe me, I know that this can be said because I realized it after I started working on it.
Even though Lord of the Rings is one of those series I just can not read through for some reason, I love the ideas and the movies (and music, and so on). One of my favorite things from the movies is the opening, which shows the battle of Sauron and him getting defeated, whereas the book tells the story as a story from Gandalf to Frodo. I feel the movie did this very well, showing that the Dark Lord Sauron was this overwhelmingly powerful, evil force. The worst thing to ever happen to anything. He's like Medieval Hitler. The first book (which I'm barely into) kind of glosses over this fact, devoting its prologue (which I thankfully skipped) to Hobbit lore, explaining the rich and deep history of the Shire (where the book spends about 2% of its time), and summarizing the event from The Hobbit that most directly affects the story. In my edition, this prologue takes 17 pages. For reference, the entire journey through the Mines, including the bridge part, is barely twice that length. Not to mention, they actually explain how Bilbo finds the ring TWICE within the first 3 chapters. I'm just saying that those 17 pages could have been spent on the fall of Sauron, a thing that the movie does more effectively. If you actually prefer the book's prologue over the movie's, I wish I could understand you. But I'm afraid to (seriously, there's a part of the prologue about how they like to smoke! Why?!).
I feel I got off on a tangent. Anyway. Sauron. I was always interested in him. I have no idea what Mordor looked like before he got there, but I imagine that it didn't look like it was smacked with a hurricane made of pure fire (I'm going to use that in something). I understand that it was scorched, stripped, mined, and devastated as Sauron started to expand his borders. And I wondered, what would it be like to write about that?
Essentially, that's what Deadman is about (though I probably have to change that because some Marvel character has that name) is essentially that. A village is the first to be conquered by an invading army, trying to spread its influence across the continent. The army uses a combination of science and black magic, utilizing weapons and armor that can cause its wearer to become almost super-human. Alongside these weapons and armor, they have also started using something called a Deadman. It is essentially that: A dead man brought back to life to fight.
However, one of the Deadmen has a problem. His mind still functions, but he can not control his body. He blacks in and out of consciousness, thankfully for him, but he can only witness the acts his body performs against his will. He has ties to the highest commander in the army, a giant of a woman who wields one of the first sets of magic armor and sword ever made. He attempts to learn his past and regain control of his body.
Alongside this, the first village conquered by the invading army has been completely absorbed into that culture. No longer a small mining village, it has grown to be the army's new capital city many years later. A young man and woman attempt to just live with what their life has become, trying to forget the stories of their fathers and desperately seeking a way out of the control of the city's ruler.
That's all I've got so far. I spent too long on the battle at the beginning of the book without considering what would happen next. Oops.
Now the explanation on what I realized when writing this idea.
I previously wrote about weapons that created suits of armor that vanished if you dropped the weapon. I think I'm still going with something like that. Sadly, I realize I only had this idea because I was reading The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson and that story has swords and armor that are basically magic, causing the wearer to become absurdly powerful and capable of doing amazing things. The swords actually vanish when you drop them. I think I'm leaning towards the swords being a power-source for the armor, which is why you can't drop them. I'm still mulling it around and I might just drop the whole thing for something else equally mystical and stuff. I want to stress right now that I will do my best to make sure I'm not trying to copy Mr. Sanderson's ideas. I just love the idea of an army of stupidly powerful people fighting and destroying everything around them in an orgy of violence. He is a favorite author of mine and I would hate to even attempt to rip him off, though I find myself finding two similar things from two of his books in my latest brainstorm. The other is very similar to the Lifeless from Warbreaker. And also Robocop. And also Universal Soldier. The idea of a reanimated soldier regaining their memories is not a new idea. I'll admit that I love the movies and novel I mentioned. I'll even admit that I wondered if someone could write Universal Soldier in a fantasy setting and if anyone would notice. Well, it might seem obvious now where my idea ultimately came from. But I would like to stress again that I am NOT trying to be Sanderson. I was just inspired by him, and am going into this project with full knowledge of my inspiration and source material. Hopefully, this will allow me to work harder on it, paying attention to details that I would have missed if my idea was 100% original, allowing me to tweak it to be very good and avoid any similarities between my work and his (which will probably be way better than mine anyway). So here's hoping I do this right.
But if I somehow write Dolph Lundgren throwing a grenade at my deadguy's girlfriend after taking his family hostage, I'm deleting the whole project and writing Teenage Supernatural Romance novels instead (yes, this is an actual genre now).
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