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The Odd Man Affair musings
Nov. 3rd, 2015 10:35 pmSome of this has been touched on in other entries, but I think I've gone more in-depth here. When I get started, I can really get on a roll. I love to talk about things I've determined about episodic oneshot characters, whether anyone is interested in listening or not....
Well, the U.N.C.L.E. plunnies won't shut up lately, which may or may not be a good thing since they seem to always involve characters from The Odd Man Affair episode. Of course, I never post on U.N.C.L.E. comms or on FF.net with the stuff I write that features only them and not the main characters too, except once last week, and that was only because I was answering a challenge to write about a character from another episode and I decided to have him encounter those two. It worked in context, since the main characters had not met him before the episode and therefore couldn't be in it since it was a prequel fic. (Well, actually, I guess they could have been in it and just not actually crossed paths with the guy, but anyway.) And I only felt bold enough to do it after a very active poster wrote a ficlet solely about the challenge character and random THRUSHies, with no main characters in sight.
But regardless, even with the main characters around, I imagine some people aren't particularly crazy about stories popping up with those episodic characters around. Some episodic characters are popular, but not them. They intrigue me for the previous reasons specified (Ecks is played by one of the darlings and Wye showed definite indications that Ecks meant the world to him) and I can't seem to stop writing about them, same as with Ginger and Lou or Snakes. I'm rather used to writing about characters that people don't generally like or pay attention to, but I imagine it makes me look like I have a few screws loose here and there when I can't seem to stop including them. Or at the very least, that I'm obsessive/have a one-track mind. But that's probably true enough; when I find characters that intrigue me, I can't let go and the plunnies all tend to include them.
Another thing that fascinates me is that on some level, I see Ecks and Wye as sort of the dark counterparts to Napoleon and Illya. I'm not sure any episode gave us characters deliberately intended to be counterparts to them, nor am I sure that any others turned up who could be accidental counterparts. I believe Ecks and Wye were the closest we ever came to that.
Illya and Ecks, amusingly, do have physical similarities of hair and eye colors and general body structure. I know that's not easy to tell under that coat, but take it from someone who is such a complete Christopher Cary nut that she tries to see everything available he's been in. Ecks is very slender, lithe, and nimble, like Illya. Illya and Ecks are also the quiet, deadly ones, the ones that stalk their prey with weaponry and then strike in the shadows.
At first glance, Napoleon and Wye don't have much in common on any level, although in my verse I do have Ginger telling Lou on one occasion that Wye was rather a ladies' man during secondary school. (Ginger and Wye grew up in the same neighborhood and were acquaintances.) One canon similarity would be that Wye is presumably the senior agent. Perhaps biggest of all, they're both the smooth-talkers.
The main way the characters are counterparts, however, would be in their interaction and how they perform together. Ecks and Wye, though only seen briefly throughout the episode, are clearly partners and seem to be completely at ease with each other. They enjoy working together and have everything coordinated. They complement each other perfectly in their entrance scene with Zed. Later, Ecks stands by in the park while Wye is giving his coded speech, ready and waiting to handle any trouble that crops up. Although he appears to be reading something, he is highly alert and spots Albert Sully immediately.
Napoleon and Illya's friendship is pretty much legendary in the fandom and celebrated by the fans everywhere. It is explored in canon ventures such as The Summit Five Affair (the episode that made me fully believe in their friendship) and The Concrete Overcoat Affair and also, of course, in the many hilarious bantering exchanges throughout all four seasons. We don't know what would happen if one of them was dead or appeared to be so (although the fans certainly like to explore that). I imagine the other would try diligently to carry on with their work. If the downed agent was downed because of a deliberate attack, however, there might be some level of desire for revenge. Certainly there would be the desire to bring the attacker to justice.
With Ecks and Wye, we do know what would happen if one of them is downed. Specifically, if it's Ecks. Wye will flip out. He seemed stable (albeit sadistic) during all previous scenes. But once he finds Ecks stabbed in the park, logic crumbles. He chases Napoleon, Illya, and their companions all the way to a bus, where he actually draws his gun and is going to either threaten or fire on them right there in full view of all passengers. That is ... really not a good idea. They'll all be witnesses. Since I doubt he planned to kill the whole busload, it seems clear that he just isn't thinking. Something made him tip off the deep end. Hmm, I wonder what that could have been.
Later, he shows his instability even further, when he encounters Bryn Watson on the stairs. He backs her down the stairs, taunting her, vowing to get back at her for knocking him off the bus and for ruining his show in the park. Now, it's possible he's just a complete nut who loves the spotlight so much that when he said that, he literally meant that having his day in the spotlight cut short was what upset him so much. On the other hand, what "ruined" his show was the disturbance Napoleon and Illya created with Ecks after Illya stabbed him. Bryn had nothing to do with it. And when Wye comes up to Ecks, at first he thinks Ecks is alright. He asks who those people were. When Ecks doesn't reply, Wye is immediately concerned. He asks if Ecks is feeling poorly and reaches to lay a hand on Ecks' shoulder, perhaps to gently push him back so Wye can see him better or perhaps even as a comforting gesture. There is no mention of his show being cut short and no anger towards Ecks about that at all. Wye appears to be puzzled at first, then honestly concerned when he realizes something is wrong. When Ecks falls off the bench and lays on the ground, Wye just stares at him for a long moment (looking rather sad, I think). Then he flips and goes after the escaping party.
So, back to Bryn on the stairs. It would seem, taking all things into consideration, that Wye is so upset about Ecks that he's going to go after anyone he can if they were even the slightest bit connected with things. In Bryn's case, she was with Napoleon and Illya (and of course, she committed the unpardonable sin of knocking Wye off the bus). Wye knows Napoleon and Illya are the ones responsible for what happened. (Or rather, Illya is.) He knows Bryn didn't stab Ecks. But she's there and Napoleon and Illya aren't. And he's just so far deranged by this point that he'll gladly go after her just to get at someone who was involved even in a minor way with what happened to his partner. He doesn't specifically say anything to her about Ecks, perhaps because he doesn't want to reveal to the enemy what his real reason is for the assault and that he cares about someone so deeply that their injury/death sent him off the trolley like this. But it seems fairly obvious to me that it did.
Considering how at ease they are around each other and how they genuinely seem to like being together, I believe we can infer that Ecks cares deeply about Wye in return. It isn't just a one-sided thing. And so we have another parallel with Napoleon and Illya, of Ecks and Wye being friends as well as partners. (Although of course one hopes that neither Napoleon nor Illya would flip out in a disturbing manner such as Wye did if the other was seriously injured/killed.)
In my verse, I have them opting to live together after they run for their lives from the remnants of their organization. When they encounter Napoleon and Illya during The Peaceful Meadows Affair, they express great amusement at how Napoleon and Illya could not seem to share a house in The Suburban Affair. Completely opposite to them on that matter, Ecks and Wye seem to be much more coordinated and at ease with living together. Of course, this can't be taken as canon, but it's just an amusing contrast I decided to throw in there when I was fleshing out their personalities.
They have a complex relationship with elements of mentor/student, working partners, best friends, perhaps even brothers. Wye is very protective of Ecks, sometimes behaving like an older brother or even a father (although the age gap between them doesn't exceed 15 years). He is very fond of Ecks and thinks of him as a kid, even though at the same time he knows Ecks is a highly capable adult. Ecks in return likes Wye's protectiveness, since it isn't a stifling protectiveness and allows him room to be himself. Sometimes, if injured, Ecks will rely heavily on Wye and lean or slump against him without either of them finding it odd or awkward. While I prefer to keep things platonic and find that the most intriguing to explore, I imagine that slash fans could potentially have a heyday. My writings have often looked slashy to people because of the close bonds between the characters, sort of a platonic soulmate type thing.
In one of my recent stories, I include a short scene of Ecks waking up in the hospital after an unwanted astral projection. I had a distinct image of him raising a hand to his head while one of those pulse oximeters is clasped on one finger. However, I ended up not posting the part of the sentence describing the device, since that would be a dead giveaway that it's the present-day and I figured people wouldn't like that. Generally I only reveal it's the present-day in the stories I do that only feature Ecks and Wye, since I figure no one will be reading those (or if they do, they won't mind).
Actually, I don't know, maybe it wouldn't be a big deal (it shouldn't be) since the series itself rarely dates itself and the adventures could pretty much easily happen in any modern era. I still say that if they had really meant for it take place in the 1960s (instead of being a show that could take place in any modern era), they would have put a lot of Cold War stuff in and had people suspicious of a Russian working for U.N.C.L.E. It's treated instead as quite normal for him to be there. No one gives him a second glance regarding his country of origin. I feel it's only the 1960s because that was the present-day when they made it, and that therefore, it is perfectly acceptable to play with the time period. But since the fans largely seem to prefer it to really be the 1960s and have complex backstories that support that idea, I kind of don't like to upset the apple cart by not aligning with that, especially since I'm already rather a wild card. So I just try to never specify a time period at all, as the series usually didn't, and just know that in my mind, it is the present-day.
Although two or three years ago, I wrote a couple of pieces and specified them as present-day and that worked out alright, so perhaps I should just do it now, same as I do for Perry Mason and other series. I generally only reference time period in any story if it's actually needed for a plot point.
(Ironically, the episode with Ecks and Wye is one of the few times the show did date itself. But since I read lots of Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books, which updated the times to whatever was the current era without aging the characters or discounting adventures from other eras as not having happened, I'm pretty adaptable to working around that problem.)
In my expanded verse, Wye is rather afraid of any animal that could attack him. Ecks, on the other hand, has a rapport with dogs and likes cats too. Wye sometimes thinks of Ecks as being very catlike, mysterious and aloof with the ability to attack without warning and the tendency to lie around the house in almost catlike positions.
Ecks is a technology expert and is capable of hacking into U.N.C.L.E.'s computer mainframe, which he did during the time he was stalking Illya. Both he and Wye have Smartphones; Ecks' ringtone is a rock song, perhaps Queen.
In the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
31_days set I did with Ecks and Wye, I have one creepy piece where they're haunted by a ghost that bothers those who died and came back to life. They have to accept what happened to them in order to not be overcome by her. I may decide to retcon that particular adventure out of my main timeline, simply so that I can have Ecks continuing to deal with his upset and shaken feelings over repeatedly astral-projecting while ill. Perhaps it will be a subplot in The Fifty Millionth Frenchman Affair.
Harry2 gave an intriguing suggestion of other conversations between Illya and astral-Ecks. I thought about it and decided maybe that would work if each thinks they're dreaming. As long as they never fully accept that it's real, maybe I could figure out at least a couple more conversations for them to have during that time without it disrupting my timeline.
Well, the U.N.C.L.E. plunnies won't shut up lately, which may or may not be a good thing since they seem to always involve characters from The Odd Man Affair episode. Of course, I never post on U.N.C.L.E. comms or on FF.net with the stuff I write that features only them and not the main characters too, except once last week, and that was only because I was answering a challenge to write about a character from another episode and I decided to have him encounter those two. It worked in context, since the main characters had not met him before the episode and therefore couldn't be in it since it was a prequel fic. (Well, actually, I guess they could have been in it and just not actually crossed paths with the guy, but anyway.) And I only felt bold enough to do it after a very active poster wrote a ficlet solely about the challenge character and random THRUSHies, with no main characters in sight.
But regardless, even with the main characters around, I imagine some people aren't particularly crazy about stories popping up with those episodic characters around. Some episodic characters are popular, but not them. They intrigue me for the previous reasons specified (Ecks is played by one of the darlings and Wye showed definite indications that Ecks meant the world to him) and I can't seem to stop writing about them, same as with Ginger and Lou or Snakes. I'm rather used to writing about characters that people don't generally like or pay attention to, but I imagine it makes me look like I have a few screws loose here and there when I can't seem to stop including them. Or at the very least, that I'm obsessive/have a one-track mind. But that's probably true enough; when I find characters that intrigue me, I can't let go and the plunnies all tend to include them.
Another thing that fascinates me is that on some level, I see Ecks and Wye as sort of the dark counterparts to Napoleon and Illya. I'm not sure any episode gave us characters deliberately intended to be counterparts to them, nor am I sure that any others turned up who could be accidental counterparts. I believe Ecks and Wye were the closest we ever came to that.
Illya and Ecks, amusingly, do have physical similarities of hair and eye colors and general body structure. I know that's not easy to tell under that coat, but take it from someone who is such a complete Christopher Cary nut that she tries to see everything available he's been in. Ecks is very slender, lithe, and nimble, like Illya. Illya and Ecks are also the quiet, deadly ones, the ones that stalk their prey with weaponry and then strike in the shadows.
At first glance, Napoleon and Wye don't have much in common on any level, although in my verse I do have Ginger telling Lou on one occasion that Wye was rather a ladies' man during secondary school. (Ginger and Wye grew up in the same neighborhood and were acquaintances.) One canon similarity would be that Wye is presumably the senior agent. Perhaps biggest of all, they're both the smooth-talkers.
The main way the characters are counterparts, however, would be in their interaction and how they perform together. Ecks and Wye, though only seen briefly throughout the episode, are clearly partners and seem to be completely at ease with each other. They enjoy working together and have everything coordinated. They complement each other perfectly in their entrance scene with Zed. Later, Ecks stands by in the park while Wye is giving his coded speech, ready and waiting to handle any trouble that crops up. Although he appears to be reading something, he is highly alert and spots Albert Sully immediately.
Napoleon and Illya's friendship is pretty much legendary in the fandom and celebrated by the fans everywhere. It is explored in canon ventures such as The Summit Five Affair (the episode that made me fully believe in their friendship) and The Concrete Overcoat Affair and also, of course, in the many hilarious bantering exchanges throughout all four seasons. We don't know what would happen if one of them was dead or appeared to be so (although the fans certainly like to explore that). I imagine the other would try diligently to carry on with their work. If the downed agent was downed because of a deliberate attack, however, there might be some level of desire for revenge. Certainly there would be the desire to bring the attacker to justice.
With Ecks and Wye, we do know what would happen if one of them is downed. Specifically, if it's Ecks. Wye will flip out. He seemed stable (albeit sadistic) during all previous scenes. But once he finds Ecks stabbed in the park, logic crumbles. He chases Napoleon, Illya, and their companions all the way to a bus, where he actually draws his gun and is going to either threaten or fire on them right there in full view of all passengers. That is ... really not a good idea. They'll all be witnesses. Since I doubt he planned to kill the whole busload, it seems clear that he just isn't thinking. Something made him tip off the deep end. Hmm, I wonder what that could have been.
Later, he shows his instability even further, when he encounters Bryn Watson on the stairs. He backs her down the stairs, taunting her, vowing to get back at her for knocking him off the bus and for ruining his show in the park. Now, it's possible he's just a complete nut who loves the spotlight so much that when he said that, he literally meant that having his day in the spotlight cut short was what upset him so much. On the other hand, what "ruined" his show was the disturbance Napoleon and Illya created with Ecks after Illya stabbed him. Bryn had nothing to do with it. And when Wye comes up to Ecks, at first he thinks Ecks is alright. He asks who those people were. When Ecks doesn't reply, Wye is immediately concerned. He asks if Ecks is feeling poorly and reaches to lay a hand on Ecks' shoulder, perhaps to gently push him back so Wye can see him better or perhaps even as a comforting gesture. There is no mention of his show being cut short and no anger towards Ecks about that at all. Wye appears to be puzzled at first, then honestly concerned when he realizes something is wrong. When Ecks falls off the bench and lays on the ground, Wye just stares at him for a long moment (looking rather sad, I think). Then he flips and goes after the escaping party.
So, back to Bryn on the stairs. It would seem, taking all things into consideration, that Wye is so upset about Ecks that he's going to go after anyone he can if they were even the slightest bit connected with things. In Bryn's case, she was with Napoleon and Illya (and of course, she committed the unpardonable sin of knocking Wye off the bus). Wye knows Napoleon and Illya are the ones responsible for what happened. (Or rather, Illya is.) He knows Bryn didn't stab Ecks. But she's there and Napoleon and Illya aren't. And he's just so far deranged by this point that he'll gladly go after her just to get at someone who was involved even in a minor way with what happened to his partner. He doesn't specifically say anything to her about Ecks, perhaps because he doesn't want to reveal to the enemy what his real reason is for the assault and that he cares about someone so deeply that their injury/death sent him off the trolley like this. But it seems fairly obvious to me that it did.
Considering how at ease they are around each other and how they genuinely seem to like being together, I believe we can infer that Ecks cares deeply about Wye in return. It isn't just a one-sided thing. And so we have another parallel with Napoleon and Illya, of Ecks and Wye being friends as well as partners. (Although of course one hopes that neither Napoleon nor Illya would flip out in a disturbing manner such as Wye did if the other was seriously injured/killed.)
In my verse, I have them opting to live together after they run for their lives from the remnants of their organization. When they encounter Napoleon and Illya during The Peaceful Meadows Affair, they express great amusement at how Napoleon and Illya could not seem to share a house in The Suburban Affair. Completely opposite to them on that matter, Ecks and Wye seem to be much more coordinated and at ease with living together. Of course, this can't be taken as canon, but it's just an amusing contrast I decided to throw in there when I was fleshing out their personalities.
They have a complex relationship with elements of mentor/student, working partners, best friends, perhaps even brothers. Wye is very protective of Ecks, sometimes behaving like an older brother or even a father (although the age gap between them doesn't exceed 15 years). He is very fond of Ecks and thinks of him as a kid, even though at the same time he knows Ecks is a highly capable adult. Ecks in return likes Wye's protectiveness, since it isn't a stifling protectiveness and allows him room to be himself. Sometimes, if injured, Ecks will rely heavily on Wye and lean or slump against him without either of them finding it odd or awkward. While I prefer to keep things platonic and find that the most intriguing to explore, I imagine that slash fans could potentially have a heyday. My writings have often looked slashy to people because of the close bonds between the characters, sort of a platonic soulmate type thing.
In one of my recent stories, I include a short scene of Ecks waking up in the hospital after an unwanted astral projection. I had a distinct image of him raising a hand to his head while one of those pulse oximeters is clasped on one finger. However, I ended up not posting the part of the sentence describing the device, since that would be a dead giveaway that it's the present-day and I figured people wouldn't like that. Generally I only reveal it's the present-day in the stories I do that only feature Ecks and Wye, since I figure no one will be reading those (or if they do, they won't mind).
Actually, I don't know, maybe it wouldn't be a big deal (it shouldn't be) since the series itself rarely dates itself and the adventures could pretty much easily happen in any modern era. I still say that if they had really meant for it take place in the 1960s (instead of being a show that could take place in any modern era), they would have put a lot of Cold War stuff in and had people suspicious of a Russian working for U.N.C.L.E. It's treated instead as quite normal for him to be there. No one gives him a second glance regarding his country of origin. I feel it's only the 1960s because that was the present-day when they made it, and that therefore, it is perfectly acceptable to play with the time period. But since the fans largely seem to prefer it to really be the 1960s and have complex backstories that support that idea, I kind of don't like to upset the apple cart by not aligning with that, especially since I'm already rather a wild card. So I just try to never specify a time period at all, as the series usually didn't, and just know that in my mind, it is the present-day.
Although two or three years ago, I wrote a couple of pieces and specified them as present-day and that worked out alright, so perhaps I should just do it now, same as I do for Perry Mason and other series. I generally only reference time period in any story if it's actually needed for a plot point.
(Ironically, the episode with Ecks and Wye is one of the few times the show did date itself. But since I read lots of Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books, which updated the times to whatever was the current era without aging the characters or discounting adventures from other eras as not having happened, I'm pretty adaptable to working around that problem.)
In my expanded verse, Wye is rather afraid of any animal that could attack him. Ecks, on the other hand, has a rapport with dogs and likes cats too. Wye sometimes thinks of Ecks as being very catlike, mysterious and aloof with the ability to attack without warning and the tendency to lie around the house in almost catlike positions.
Ecks is a technology expert and is capable of hacking into U.N.C.L.E.'s computer mainframe, which he did during the time he was stalking Illya. Both he and Wye have Smartphones; Ecks' ringtone is a rock song, perhaps Queen.
In the
31_days set I did with Ecks and Wye, I have one creepy piece where they're haunted by a ghost that bothers those who died and came back to life. They have to accept what happened to them in order to not be overcome by her. I may decide to retcon that particular adventure out of my main timeline, simply so that I can have Ecks continuing to deal with his upset and shaken feelings over repeatedly astral-projecting while ill. Perhaps it will be a subplot in The Fifty Millionth Frenchman Affair.Harry2 gave an intriguing suggestion of other conversations between Illya and astral-Ecks. I thought about it and decided maybe that would work if each thinks they're dreaming. As long as they never fully accept that it's real, maybe I could figure out at least a couple more conversations for them to have during that time without it disrupting my timeline.
