The Hook Paradox

Okay so after talking about North and South I was thinking about talking about a miniseries I really really like. Alice.


This is not that post. Give me a sec. See Alice is the second and what I consider the best of a trilogy of miniseries that reimagine classic kids stories in more adult science fiction environments. Well thinking about Alice got me thinking about the third miniseries, Neverland.


One of the problems I had with Neverland and Once Upon a time, is that they really don't get what is interesting about Hook. Yes that Hook.
 See Peter Pan isn't really about Peter Pan. It's about Wendy. Wendy is starting to come to an age where she has to decide how seriously she's going to take herself and the world around her, or put more bluntly she's growing up.

I like to think of both Pan and Hook as the anthropomhisms of youth and age, representing the choices. Both are increadbiy flawed and (note I haven't read the book but more the retellings.) The story seems to side neither. She should pick and choose.

Like I said both Pan and Hook are flawed but they're flawed in more or less the same way. They are arrogant as all hell. Hook representing the way an old man is arrogant constantly obsessed about, "good form" and maintaining his personal standard, and well That tick tock. Well it is the tick tock all old men fear. THE clock. That blasted clock that comes for us all.

Pan is arrogant in the way a young man is, being incredibly reckless, thinking that he's invincible. And as a result almost every version of the story somewhere has one of the lost boys biting it, and having Pan lack the emotional maturity to actually learn from it, and cool down a bit. Because he can't. That would mean growing, which is aging, which is something Pan is literally incapable of doing.

One of my favorite theories is that these two are actually the same guy in different times of his life. And it would explain the skill with a blade and why they hate each other so much. Imagine the 12 year old version of yourself flying around calling you a codfish and feeding your good hand to a croc. You'd want to murder the little bastard too.

But all of that is kind of heavy so in updates they always just make Hook your standard pirate and if you're going that rout just call in Long John.  He's a good tenor.