Context From The Author Before Reading
Hey guys, before we get into this character rewrite, I just wanted to give a bit of context to this whole thing as I feel it's important for the more critical readers. First off, I'm not a professional writer by any stretch of the imagination so please do bare with me on some of the rough concepts delivered here as I simply just wanted to get a general idea across. Also, keep in mind that I came up with this in roughly 10 minutes or so as I wanted to challenge myself with an insanely limited time window. The whole idea behind this little project is that I wanted to see how I'd fare against a professional team of show writers who had weeks to craft out something amazing versus me, a complete amateur, who had hardly any time at all to make some major tweaks to things. I also wanted to step into the high pressured shoes of a writer so as a fan and critic, I can be much more appreciative and understanding of the challenges that comes with creating these shows.
So, with that out of the way, let's talk about why I chose the 3rd season villain of the CW's Flash series particularly to do a rewrite on. Well, Season 3 of The Flash series was for me, the moment the show started to decline much more notably in its quality of storytelling and drama. Sure, Season 2 had some tough occasionally frustrating character drama surrounding Wally West's introduction to the Team Flash family and yes the Hunter Zolomon/Zoom arc did feel like a more convoluted carbon copy of the Reverse Flash arc in several ways. However, at the very least, there was just enough compelling plot elements being introduced in more than satisfying ways such as the multiverse opening up to the show as well as the character of Zoom himself coming across as the show's most legitimately threatening feeling and amazingly designed villain yet.
When Savitar was first fully introduced in Season 3, I remembered being completely over the moon in excitement about who this character was and where he came from. Yes, it was yet another mystery speedster villain, but the presentation elements of the character was so outlandish (in a good way) as was the whole "God complex" mythos that I was completely onboard with the story moving forward. And then, in typical post-Season 2 Flash fashion, what started off as intriguing and exciting for a new season villain arc, veered into disappointing and awful overall. My biggest problem regarding Savitar was that the potential for greatness was clearly there the general concept but the execution completely butchered it to pieces. Savitar revealing to be a time remnant of Barry was absolutely genius giving the popular "a hero's worst enemy is himself" concept a whole new layer to unpack.
I absolutely loved the idea that Barry's questionable time traveling decisions in the past was coming back to haunt him in the most profound and dramatically brutal fashion possible by literally making him the actual season villain. Unfortunately, like I said, all of this sounded great on the surface until the actual explanation of Barry's turn to villainy is revealed to be...well lacking. So because of this, and driven by my distaste for what the writers did, I decided to write out my own alternate background for the character based off of old ideas that I had at the time during the season. It may not be perfectly developed and may be filled with enough plot holes to shove a few alternate timelines through (only 5 mins. of development remember?), but I still think that they would've been much more interesting than what we got if given more time to flesh out.
Savitar's Character Rewrite
When Barry created a time remnant to defeat Zoom in Season 2, that remnant didn't disintegrate to his death as speculated, but was instead absorbed into the speed force. After being absorbed into the speed force, he was immediately thrown into a cosmic prison of sorts (a timeless hell for Barry) as punishment for being a product of a destructive and risky use of time travel. Remember that the speed force sends out time wraiths to chase after speedsters exploiting their time travel powers in ways that go against its laws of governing. Hence why Zoom was eventually taken at the end of Season 2 and why Thane was chased around for his life during Season 2 of Legends by Black Flash. I think it was good to follow up Zoom's capture with the idea that a version of Barry also got taken in as our hero shouldn't be spared punishment for essentially making the same moves as the villain did. This would increase the sense of imposing judgement and power of the speed force looming in the background whenever the mere mention of time travel is brought up on the show.
This time remnant of Barry was to take the hit, so to speak, as there still needed to be a Barry living in our present time. We actually get to see a flashback of when Barry ran back to meet with the remnant and made the deal to help fight Zoom despite any repercussions because they placed his threat to the multiverse as the higher stake to face versus the Speed Force's judgement on their actions. So, with this already, I feel you'd have a sense of weight being given to both Barrys' desperation to copy his enemy's questionable methods just to save the world but also the sense of potential disaster to be forthcoming as a result. So, as the time remnant of Barry was stuck in said prison for an unforetold length of time (since time and space is a bit tricky in the speed force), he began to slowly loose his mind over the course of his sentence.
He wasn't able to process the idea that his heroic actions to helping a future version of himself (our present day Barry) to save the multiverse against a psychopath would lead to what seems like eternal punishment despite being acknowledged as an abomination of time altering by the cosmic forces at be. This is us witnessing Barry's disagreement with the Speed Force to do what needs to be done which begins to show a similar parallel between himself and someone like Thawne or Zoom who has exploited their powers for their own selfish means. I thought this would be a nice natural tip toe into seeing how our Barry could be opposed to the Speed Force's rules and doing "his own thing" thereby making him in essence a rebel and a criminal by definition even if his actions were initially heroic.
The time remnant, through his growing emotional and psychological decline into hatred and questionable sanity, begins to show regret towards ever helping Barry. After seeing himself as the true hero in the situation undeserving of punishment, he begins to slowly develop a God complex out of his madness eventually finding a way to exploit his connection to the speed force. He makes a deal with the cosmic entity to become a time wraith for them under the condition that he still wanted his identity intact as he wanted to feel like he could still be a hero serving his sentence (unlike Zolomon forcefully being morphed into the Black Flash). The Speed Force accepted these terms sending him after speedster time anomalies while he secretly used his limited reach in power and freedom to subtly influence and create acolytes spreading his now created legend. Here is where the "legend of Savitar" was born" and characters like Jay Garrick learn of his mythos.
Editor's Note: Barry is out there slowly influencing people to become acolytes in subtle but effective ways while secretly planning out his escape from the speed force's chains around him. A truly dedicated Barry Allen who has nothing to distract him as well as no moral compass limits is a dangerous individual who shouldn't be underestimated. To answer the question that may be on some of you guys' minds, yes, this Barry Allen is able to exploit the Speed Force right under their noses and even if they are aware of what he's doing eventually, he's able to cleverly navigate things in a way that can still fall under their rules somehow. I wanted to show just how intelligent Barry really is despite how the show frequently treats him.
As for his special armor, I had the idea that Savitar had it created by influencing Cisco in the future to make it as a new battle suit to help him fight metas more effectively only to then steal it at some point altering it to fit his need. Or, alternately, maybe the Savitar suit is actually what the Speed Force gave him as their time wraith much like how Zoom was altered a bit to become Black Flash (though this is a very drastic visual alteration so I kinda like the Cisco idea better). The facial scar could be an effect from him being absorbed into the speed force to which the cosmic forces at be decided to keep on Barry's face as a harsh visual reminder of his actions. I like the idea that Savitar is basically branded as a criminal. A bit dark? Sure, but this is a dark story and Season 3 was definitely trying to go a darker route. I say go all the way as long as it works for the story.
The time remnant's mentality during all of this is that our Barry deserves punishment to equal his (the death of Iris as emotional torture just as he felt hollow and dead inside being imprisoned) and that he would complete his revenge and resurrect as a new God-like hero more effective than Barry ever was eventually conquering over everyone. His plan is essentially a two-parter: get even with Barry by torturing and killing his will to continue on as a superhero while simultaneously becoming a new hero in his own right unburdened with limitations or laws by the powers at be. The story of Savitar in my alternate take is a story of a hero who got casted out for doing what he thought was completely justifiable to stop a cataclysmic threat and decided to fight the system out of his hatred by becoming as powerful as the authorities who shackled him to begin with. It's also a powerful lesson of how even the best of intentions can lead to negative outcomes shading in a bit of grey in the whole "Good Vs. Evil" conflict.
I feel like this would've been a much more dramatically multilayered approach to crafting one of the show's most compelling villains by presenting him as an empathetic fallen version of our protagonist. This also would've shined a light on the speed force itself as questionable force of nature with its sensibilities. So no, there is no Savitar leaving a remnant to become him in the future or any convoluted time loops alongside the terribly sidelined "I was shunned by you guys so now I wanna be a God" motivation that the show did. You can still have Barry running to the future to learn that Savitar killed Iris, you can still have the idea that Savitar crippled Wally (though my version of that event is much more brutal and action centric than the show's anticlimactic portrayal), and you can also keep Killer Frost teaming up with him. Although, I'd change Frost just simply freezing Black Flash from killing Savitar to instead Savitar instead using his Speed Force knowledge to be able to navigate out of his reach somehow.
Editor's Final Note: So, there you have it guys. My rushed together rewrite of the Savitar character that I hope you enjoyed reading through despite whatever grammatical errors may have made its presence known. Now yes, I may not have fixed all of my issues with Season 3 as a whole including Savitar himself, and I'm sure that I've opened up a can of issues or plot holes in the process (did the Speed Force just left Barry in a cage or what?). But I do feel that I was at least able to give Season 3 a much more compelling central antagonist for the fans to digest. On a side note, if you'd like to see what I thought of the Flash series and other shows episode by episode, check out my Facebook Page here as that's where my central hub of discussions can be found outside of the occasional reviews on the Penny For Your TV Thoughts blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment