Mundane marvels

Stories often depict extraordinary characters and events. Duh. That’s why we tune in. We want to hear about the extremes, the unusual.

But beware! Extraordinary things feel extraordinary only when they are surrounded by ordinary things. In the first Marvel movie, Tony Stark stands in (forgive me) stark contrast with the world around him—a billionaire superhero in an ordinary world—and the result is thrilling.

But in later movies, he teams up with a bunch of superheroes and then more superheroes and then more, and soon everyone in the universe seems to be a superhero, and I’m bored. The story becomes oversaturated with the extraordinary. To quote The Incredibles, when everyone is super, no one is.

Unfortunately, this malady reaches beyond superhero movies. It could afflict any story dealing with extraordinary characters or events—which is to say, most stories.

Take the BBC series Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes is the most extraordinary person in John Watson’s life, and the contrast between them—someone extraordinary beside someone ordinary—is the joy of the show… until the writers reveal that John’s wife is secretly an assassin and John’s therapist is secretly an evil genius. It turns out everyone in John Watson’s life is extraordinary except for John Watson. Yawn.

But hang on. The first two seasons of that show were great. The writers were brilliant. How on earth could they make such a blunder?

They were too afraid of boring the audience. After two seasons, the writers feared that Sherlock Holmes and his powers were old news. They feared the audience wanted something fresh and exciting.

Arthur Conan Doyle was wiser. His stories grew in small, ordinary ways. Watson got married (not to an assassin). Holmes’s reputation grew. The two men grew closer. Holmes retired to tend bees.*

These mundane details thrill me. Not only because I care about the characters but also because the ordinary stuff preserves the flavor of the extraordinary stuff. Dessert is delicious, but too much of it makes me sick. And it’s only special when it stands in contrast to dinner.

*OK, and Holmes faked his death. That incident was not ordinary, I grant you.