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| IMAGE CREDIT: WWE.com |
It can't just happen over the course of two weeks and the hero comes back on the third. Not if it's to really mean anything to anybody. The suffering of the hero has to be prolonged and arduous. He has to keep getting knocked down and trying to come back and get knocked down and wash, rinse, repeat. But in WWE where a lot of things are microwaved for instant gratification, heroes don't really suffer too long before they're back on top. The audience doesn't suffer in helpless empathy with their favourite long enough for watching that hero kick his rivals ass to really provide emotion.
They seem to be getting better at it, though. The current Daniel Bryan vs. The Machine story is a testament to that. Daniel Bryan is the hero of the day. He's the centre of the WWE Universe, the underdog EVERYBODY is rooting for. Triple H is his tyrannical boss who is trying to shut him down out of blatant ignorance to what is just and who always claims to oppress you for your own good. Randy Orton is the unjust face of WWE; the good you're being told you'll eat because someone else has decided it's better for you, not because it's what you wanted. And there's The Shield, who are nothing more than corporate heavies and will do as their told and destroy anyone who crosses Triple H.
Daniel Bryan has been suffering at the hands of The Machine, in one way or another, for a good couple of months. Whether it was having his moment of joy ripped away from him at SummerSlam or the continual, prolonged beatings and humiliations he's suffered on a weekly basis at the hands of Randy Orton and The Shield. He's had his small victories along the way, like last night on Raw where he got to knee Orton in the face and leave him laying. But for the most part, Bryan has just suffered at the hands of unfair odds and corporate weight throwing for weeks on end. And the suffering just doesn't seem to be anywhere close to over. Daniel Bryan's moment of catharsis is – or, at least, should be – a long way off.
Within Bryan's story is a sub story, a branch involving The Big Show.1 Big Show's suffering hasn't been physical, it's been psychological. Show is in a position where he wants to help Bryan. Not just wants to and perhaps is the only person in the company who could physically do anything when faced with Shield and Orton in a gang attack. But Show needs his job. He can't afford to be fired and so he has to do as he's told by Triple H and Stephanie McMahon. He has to sit and watch people suffer, or worse, he has to be the reason people are suffering. Show is constantly simmering, clearly on the brink of decking Triple H and everyone around him, and the audience wants him to, but he can't.
Outside of the main story and it's offshoots there's CM Punk, who has been suffering at the hands of Paul Heyman for months. Whether it's being smacked in the face with a ladder at Money in the Bank, overpowered and rag-dolled by Brock Lesnar over the summer, or handcuffed and beaten with a kendo stick by Heyman and Curtis Axel. Punk hasn't really stopped suffering at the hands of Heyman or one of his guys. Like Bryan, he's had small moments of victory. He's almost beaten Lesnar, he's got a small measure of revenge on Heyman, he's beaten Axel in a match. But Punk hasn't had his cathartic moment of revenge, either. Like Bryan and Big Show, we've just had to watch him suffer. And suffer. And suffer some more.
This change of tact is fantastic. It's the kind of thing nerds have been asking out of WWE for too long. WWE storytelling has lacked suffering heroes for a long time. The company has struggled with letting their heroes get knocked down repeatedly and not quite get back up, which is probably out of misplaced concern about the heroes "image". In the company's mind, if a hero gets knocked down too much, maybe the audience might see them as weak, when, in fact, as they are discovering now, the opposite is true. The crowd gets behind them more passionately, and that moment of revenge becomes so much more charged and satisfying.
As a fan of good storytelling, I appreciate watching the heroes suffer because I know the basic principles of storytelling. I know how much better that makes fiction. But in clamoring for that, I forgot how much it sucks watching people I care about suffer. But what I didn't expect was to want to literally put off watching Raw. Not because the show's bad. Far from it. The product is in a good place. It still – as it always does – teeters on the edge of “they could fuck this up fantastically at any moment", but they've avoided that. The reason I've wanted to put off watching is because it hurts seeing my heroes suffer like this. It really hurts. I didn't expect it to hurt this much.
The last couple of weeks have been bleak and oppressive for the people I root for. They've suffered. They've been left laying in the middle of the ring, been helped to the back in absolute agony after being lashed with a cane, and balled their eyes out out of helpless frustration. I'm used to WWE heroes popping back up and getting their own back the next week. I'm used to everything resetting quickly and people going back to winning again. But it hasn't happened. They've popped back up and perhaps found small victories, but then they get knocked down again. I'm not used to that. That hurts. It hurts and I know it's going to keep happening so I just want to avoid having to see it. This level of emotional connection feels alien to me and wrestling these days.
Last Monday's Raw was a marginally nicer experience. Big Show didn't cry so much. CM Punk got to pound somebody, even if it wasn't who we want him to pound. And the show ended with Daniel Bryan standing over a downed Randy Orton, YESSING with the WWE Championship. It was better, at least. With Night of Champions around the corner, maybe one of them will get to have a moment of catharsis. One getting that is a push. The other two, but perhaps all three, will still be suffering at and after the event. Which means I will still be suffering.
Honestly, I didn't expect to go through it with them this much. I suppose I didn't realise just how much these people mean to me, and how much I don't want to see them suffer on one level, even though I do on another. Watching them struggle to badly has affected me in ways I never imagined; like wanting to put off watching just by a little bit because I couldn't handle it. But I like that I'm suffering like this. It means that I still care about wrestling. Sometimes I wonder how much of me watching every week is just habit and how much is genuine love for the characters. WWE getting the hang of the idea of "let the heroes suffer" has shown me that I do still care on a level deeper than I realised. I care so much that I really do suffer with my heroes. I don't want them to suffer, even though I know it needs to happen. And I can't handle it, even though I know it's Best For Business.
It's a lovely feeling. Odd, and alien, but still lovely. The kind of thing only wrestling has ever done to me.
1. For the purposes of this, we're going to overlook the iron clad contract plot hole.
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