So what are *your* darkest fantasies?
[Warning: this piece ranges far afield from the sort of thing I usually write. It’s a response to this comment. Don’t worry. I am not arguing for the suspension of conscience, just trying to describe one effect the video has on me that I can’t intellectualize. I’ll be back to normal tomorrow.]
***
Just for today: nothing is real.
Throw the backstory you know out the window and write your own. Untie the images of the video from the series and from your own moral or political or aesthetic reservations. Concentrate the power of your imagination instead on the man tied up, his legs splayed, his gaze averted, before your eyes.
Who are you, when you watch this video? Who might you be, if you found yourself with a bound prisoner in a dark room? If no one else had to know?
Are you the person watching the CCTV camera, detached as you see the figure straining against his bonds, testing the limits of his captivity?
How do you respond when his upper chest heaves, when his Adam’s apple bobs?
How do you feel when you’re the implied other in Mr. Armitage’s one-man show?
Are you the captor?
Do you provoke him till he spins like a tornado? Till the only thing you can see clearly are his flashing teeth?
What will you do when you can’t control him anymore?
Are you the torturer? Do you breathe a little faster when you watch his agony, knowing you’re the only one who can possibly relieve it?
Do you like to goad him, knowing he can’t run away?
Are you the would-be liberator?
Be honest: if you are the person who untied those wrists — are you also the person who tied them together in the first place?
If you rushed in to liberate the bound man, would you untie him right away? Or would you take a moment to move your hand along his jaw, to stroke his brow, to lift his chin and raise his glance to yours?
To wipe the sand and sweat and tears from his face?
Or did he really just find another way to make you his prisoner, all along?
Me + Richard Armitage 
Oh, my, Servetus, this is a toughie. I confess I have considered writing a story based on this video from John and his unseen captor’s POVs . . . just haven’t had the time to formulate my story.
I have long pondered exactly why seeing Guy of Gisborne bound always struck me as such a guilty pleasure . . . I theorized it was due to the fact the character was ordinarily so strong and domineering, so completely Alpha Male, that seeing him in a submissive role, at someone else’s mercy for a change, woke something in me that I hadn’t previously acknowledged.
I have to give this a lot of thought. A most provocative post. Oh, bother work, anyway!!
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Oh please, do write that scenario!! PLease!!!
*fans self at the mere thought of it*
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Oh, Nietzche,
*grin*
Don’t get overheated, it’s far too easy to do in the summer heat (at least around here). It will probably be this weekend before I can really give that scenario the serious thought it deserves and requires. I worked last weekend so didn’t make as much progress with “Truce,” although it is shaping up nicely according to Millyme. She’s been a tremendous help with navigating around London!
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Your pictures and captions kept me bound till the end – and the final conclusion is just brilliant !!! You opend my eyes with your post.
I really think he turned the table on the viewer and captive becomes captor.
Thank you for this post!
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Aren´t captor and captive in the same situation, in the same surroundings? Your questions made me think of ´The Hill´ (1966) with Sean Connery or that prison-experiment with students in the seventies(?).
Who is ´sadistic´? The viewer who ´wants´ to see it or the actor ´undergoing´ it? Read this: http://theframeworkblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/waiting-for-his-homecoming.html
Personally I like to brainwave about the brainstorm session that happened to get this vid made. I think it stems from all the ladies that wrote and said: “I have to tie my man up if I wan´t to let him watch everything with RA in it”. Well this is your MIRROR, so DO tie him up and see how sexy YOUR man is!
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Can’t type…I’ve passed out on the floor, cheeks are flushed, must go douse cold water on my face.
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@rob,
LOL! I must admit I did a long whistle when I saw this post. Phew.
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Okay, fantasies. I find this hard to comment on, even though logically I know I am anonymous. What struck me, is that in this senario the person with the fantasy is the agressor. In my, tame sad little fanatasies which in regards to Mr. Armitage, he is the agressor, the dominator, and I am the damsel being swepted away. I wonder what that says about us? One chaste fantasy involves the Argentine Tango and the other not so chaste fantasy involves a hotel room, always a hotel room.
@servetus I am sure you didn’t want to provide a Richard Armitage fantasy forum, because Lord knows where the conversation will head, but that’s where this post took me. It feels a bit liberating, creepy, yet liberating.
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@rob,
Creepy yet liberating is a good way to describe it. I feel a definite frisson of pleasure and tingling of excitement at the images and the questions posed by servetus, and also a definite pricking of conscience. Bad Angie!
I confess to being his masseuse in one of my happy little flights of fancy involving the Luscious One. And I imagine simply sitting and talking with him and engaging in a lot of teasing, flirtatious banter – nothing untoward happening, just – a very pleasurable experience, looking into those eyes and listening to his voice, perhaps lightly grazing the back of one of those big, beautiful hands of his.
And sniffing him . . . why do I think he would smell very tempting? Even when he’s all sweaty and dirty and bloody as John Porter was at time . . . male pheromones calling to me?
Think I am going to have to break down and write that above-mentioned scenario.
Oh, Servetus, you naughty girl, you . . .
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Mmmm, yes, all those pheromones, I am sure he’d smell wonderful even if he came home straight from combat. As for in-betweeen combat assignments I am all for patchouli – a sharp, crisp scent that is worn by two of the handful of military men I know. It is clean like citrus, but more masculine.
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That’s it, I think, those amazing pheromones. Don’t be surprised if JP in “Truce” ends up wearing a bit of patchouli, much to Layla’s pleasure.
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When I think of that aroma, I think of smoking dope. LOL!
At least that’s what patchouli was associated with in the States. There might be some reading this who are too young to remember that or they were too naive to ever know. 😉
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*grin* I think of the smell of burning rope at concerts at my college when I think of marijuana.
I was a very good girl and never indulged in such things, I have to confess (I’ve gotten a lot naughtier over the years . . .) well, OK, I do remember a disastrous combination of Wild Turkey, beer, and some sort of mixed drinks. Ah, the stupidity of youth . . .
Do you think our John might have partaken of the herb during his sowing his wild oats phase??
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The issue of who is the captive and who the captor is interesting. Perhaps because this actor, in particular, makes captives of the us all in his roles.
What would I do if it appeared that I had lost control of the “captive”? Why, flutter my eyelashes, of course. Sometimes, it simply seems the strategic thing to do….
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I think that’s it. His hand and legs could be bounded but I think he has the power to reverse the roles.
I think that’s why this ‘caption’ got to me “Or would you take a moment to move your hand along his jaw, to stroke his brow, to lift his chin and raise his glance to yours?”
Maybe once he’d look back at me, he’d win.
OML (Trying to breathe slowly)
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When I look at Porter I think of a magnificent caged beast raging acgainst captivity and another poem springs to mind. Richard is a Leo so this is quite apt.
To A Caged Lion
By Oliver Wendell Holmes
Poor conquered monarch! though that haughty glance
Still speaks thy courage unsubdued by time,
And in the grandeur of thy sullen tread
Lives the proud spirit of thy burning clime; —
Fettered by things that shudder at thy roar,
Torn from thy pathless wilds to pace this narrow floor!
Thou wast the victor, and all nature shrunk
Before the thunders of thine awful wrath;
The steel-armed hunter viewed thee from afar,
Fearless and trackless in thy lonely path!
The famished tiger closed his flaming eye,
And crouched and panted as thy step went by!
Thou art the vanquished, and insulting man
Bars thy broad bosom as a sparrow’s wing;
His nerveless arms thine iron sinews bind,
And lead in chains the desert’s fallen king;
Are these the beings that have dared to twine
Their feeble threads around those limbs of thine?
So must it be; the weaker, wiser race,
That wields the tempest and that rides the sea,
Even in the stillness of thy solitude
Must teach the lesson of its power To thee;
And thou, the terror of the trembling wild,
Must bow thy savage strength, the mockery of a child!
I would never be party to the capturing of such a magnificent creature and I feel the triumph that the caged beast must feel when he breaks free from his bonds and escapes the miserable beings that thought they could hold him!
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Richard first really made me think of a caged beast as Guy (who was literally caged in one episode). He was a much more convincing lion than that poor semi-toothless bedraggled creature that they pulled out of retirement in RH3. There is a kind of magnificence and wild, untamed quality in him at times; I’ve really seen it in Guy, Lucas and in John Porter (to a lesser extent in John T).
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Thanks to Angie for pointing me to this blog. What a fantastic discussion Servetus.
Milly we have the same thought . He’s definitely a caged wild animal here. When he’s roaring and finally breaks free I swear I swoon.
There’s a hint of fear because there’s murder in his eyes; but excitement too from all that raw, primitive power unleashed.
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Wow, I am not sure how to respond….Need time to think on this one.
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Interesting post. Even in an unreal fantasy world, bondage was zero appeal to me. You ladies might be interested in the Australia film ‘The Book of Revelation’ featuring Tom Long, which is about a man who is held captive by three women. Here’s a review.
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Oh, my. It’s been about 12 hours since I first viewed this post and I still don’t know what to say. Instead of concentrating on the project I have due tomorrow, I spent a good portion of the day sitting in front of my air conditioner vent and returning to this site to reread the entry and to see if it resonated with others as strongly as it did with me. I was (literally) shaken to the core – in part because it is so vastly different from your usual posts and, consequently, was quite an unexpected curve ball, but also (as Angie stated above) because of the warring emotions-excitement and pity-I experienced when viewing.
I’m the sort that always dreamed of opening the cages at the zoo when I was younger…I can’t stand seeing any creature, especially the magnificent John Porter, denied the freedom he desires. So, in this fantasy, I would never have been the one to capture him. Instead, I pictured myself as a fellow captive, with him assuming the Orla Brady role to my JP-the-rescuer persona. But, I was dismayed to find myself continuing the fantasy past the moment of rescue, to the stage where his gratitude for the rescue binds him to me into the future. Trading one form of “bondage” for another because, let’s face it, I wasn’t fantasizing about a lengthy “let’s get to know each other” phase. Ugh…I don’t know what this says about me. Probably the typical female-in-a-male-dominated-field fantasy.
Incidentally, I’ve been contemplating this issue for the last week or so, as I was similarly affected by the recent Brandon Flowers video, “Crossfire,” in which the male/female roles are reversed. Charlize Theron repeatedly beats down male opposition (ninjas-ha!) to rescue BF. Very thought-provoking to me…as well as fantasy-inducing. I guess I was primed for a strong reaction to this post.
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I promise to answer the question I raise in this post sometime tonight. Got to do some other work today. But these answers are all fascinating, and they are partly the reason I raised the topic — because i thought the answers would be intriguing.
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can’t wait to hear your answer…you got us all in tizzy. 🙂
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By accident I rejected your comment on my blog, sorry I did not mean to. I was still asleep and tried to hit the publish button…….but oops. That is why I need a cup of coffee before I try to blog!
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OK, this is going to be difficult as I am sitting in a busy hotel lobby where the screen is in plain view of everyone who passes and everyone who is interested can have a discreet look over my shoulder.
So…I might well be the capturer, absolutely, but not the actual torturer. Maybe the fact that John Porter is such a big alpha male makes the idea of having him in my power so appealing. Crossing his wrists and cinching the ropes – absolutely. Actually hurting him – no. I wouldn’t want to watch him actually being tortured. And yes, I would keep him bound for a few more moments, most probably to wipe the sweat droplets away, and I would treat his rope burn. My emotions are very conflicted, as you can see.
Watching him strain against the ropes increases my breathing rate significantly. I love his long neck at the most innocent of times, but seeing him flex those magnificent tendons and muscles is almost too much for me. Yet never, never would I want to be the reason why he is in agony. Fascinating though how he uses this physical asset to maximum effect. I wonder whether it’s deliberate or instinctive.
Even the mere fact that he is so exhausted tears at my heart. Or the slight shaking of the head. He gives the impression that if he wasn’t tied he’d probably fall to the ground.
BTW, I found out why I am so freaked out by the hook. It reminds me of the executions of the conspirators of July 20th, 1944, you know, the strangling by piano wire on a butcher’s hook. I can’t get rid of that image.
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While I also admit I love the idea of having him in my power, I don’t want to hurt John Porter (or any other RA character), either. The mere thought of causing him physical pain and agony makes me hurt. He appears on the brink of absolute exhaustion, at the point of breaking. I long to give him relief, peace, refuge . . . and yes, I am physically excited by it, too.
I want to caress that sandy, stubbled jaw, to press kisses to his brow. And more.
I, too, love Richard’s long, gazelle-like neck and an amazed at how he utilises it as he does his other physical attributes to maximum potential in scenes like these.
Oh, dear, those executions. Yes, an indelible image.
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(OK, as MillyMe pointed out, this is not my usual writing style, but it reflects some of what has been going through my head since watching the SB viral. While I am battling insomnia again, I decided to share . . .
“Captive”
“I’m sorry, sir. I can’t answer that question.” His throat was parched, his deep voice frayed around the edges. He was so very tired.
When would they stop. When would they ever fucking stop?
The same questions, over and over. And his same answer.
They’d berated him, cajoled him, taunted him; struck him in ways that caused pain but did not leave bruises.
They were very clever.
And very determined.
They’d swung the hook, that heavy iron hook with its ominously creaking chain, right in front of the soldier’s weary eyes.
~the better to string you up, my dear~
He felt a sudden insane desire to laugh. Perhaps he was going mad.
“I’m sorry, sir. I can’t answer that question.”
*~*~*~*
He’d awoken face-down in that place – hours or days ago, he was no longer sure – with his wrists bound behind his back and his ankles trussed.
In spite of a blindfold and gag, sand had somehow still managed to invade the soldier’s mouth and eyes, coating his tongue and burning his eyelids.
The fatigues and t-shirt he wore felt as if they had attached themselves to his skin. He could no longer tell where his clothing stopped and his body started.
He was so fucking sick of sand. And heat. And that feotid smell.
What was it?
Rubbing against the floor where he lay, a floor covered with yet more sand, he was finally able to shift the blindfold down just enough to allow vision in one eye.
Not that there was much to see, he thought as he finally managed to push himself to his knees, wincing from the effort.
A sliver of light, coming through a tiny opening high in the wall of his makeshift prison, faintly illuminated the room.
He saw something moving overhead and blinked his eyes, straining to focus.
A chain. With a hook.
Beneath the gag, his mouth had gone even more dry, although he’d thought that impossible.
The soldier didn’t want to think about what they’d use that for.
If he was lucky, just to intimidate him.
Good luck did not appear to be on his side lately.
Too many people on both sides wanting him dead.
Or wanting what he could not give them.
“I’m sorry, sir. I can’t answer that question.”
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Wonderful! Just the right story for my perverted mind!
I’m working on a dark fantasy of my own at the moment, as I had an inspiration in the morning, between sleeping and waking. Hopefully I can post it here at the beginning of next week.
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Someone at DF asked why I didn’t incorporate the above into “Truce,” but to tell the truth, I just hate inflicting pain on John Porter. Not saying he isn’t going to face some danger and serious angst in “Truce” before it winds up – and I suspect I will be influenced by the SB viral – but I’ve got to get them through Claridge’s first. ( ;
Will look forward to your “dark fantasy,” Nietzsche.
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on another note, was it just me or was there some def homo-errotic undertones to RH? esp in season three, with prince john, friar tuck, the sherif. just a thought.
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If fan fiction is an indicator, no, it wasn’t just you. LOL! Heck, even if fan fiction wasn’t around, it would be evident. Undertones were only part of it. I would say it possibly had overtones at times. It’s hard to watch Episode 6 and not think that since it basically hits in the face. LOL!
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Oh, it was there all over the place, which is hilarious considering it was marketed as such a “family-friendly” show. Plenty of Hoyay going on around Sherwood Forest and Nottingham. Much was like a much put-upon wife, bless him, so jealous of anyone taking Robin’s interest.
Re ep 6, would you be referring, RAFrenzy, to a certain midnight meeting between Guy and Prince John, when it sure looked like PJ was going to lock lips with our long-maned hottie?
And Vasey, of course, was always looking for some excuse to put his hands on Guy. You can’t tell me he didn’t harbor a few fantasies about The Brooding Hot Henchman in Leather.
Mind you, I think Guy in his Guyliner was pretty enough that everyone should have harbored a few fantasies about him!!
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When Tuck was stroking Guy of G head while he was laying on a bench that moment really sticks out. Or are the Brits just more metrosexual than us Yanks?
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Also when Tuck was trying to revive Robin after Guy hurled him into the Ravine We Never Knew Existed Outside of Locksley, the way Preachy (sorry, not one of my favorite characters) was bent over a prostrate Robin, rubbing our hero so vigorously and telling him he couldn’t die now struck me as slightly hoyay and funny at the same time.
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There were certainly references “offside” in the commentaries that not everything was completely STRAIGHTforward. And nudges of “PG, Gordon, PG”…
Goodness knows Keith Allen and Toby Stephens were camping (vamping?) it up happily. Allen pure Panto-Dame. Maggie’s boy too good an actor to make a total clown of himself…of the two, I really found Stephens the funnier.
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I loved the campiness of both characters. But I especially loved Toby’s take on the totally self-absorbed, delusional prince who just wanted everyone to love him. Even if he’d just tried to burn them alive. So charming and handsome – and then, so petulant and vindictive in turn. And Maggie’s son is a very good actor indeed. Oh, you adorable boy !
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@rob, I think there has been a bit of a tendency for Americans to sometimes view British men as a little – effete. (Sean Bean? Sean Connery? Football/soccer players? effete?) 🙂 Just cultural interpretations perhaps.
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You’re right, @ fitzg. There is definitely that preconception by a lot of Americans that British men aren’t always the most macho of characters (in spite of the excellent examples you pointed out above) . . . is it in part because there is a lot of cross-dressing in British humor? The whole panto-thing? Eddie Izzard? Points to ponder. Even spouse has taken an occasional dig at the TDHBEW, suggesting S3 Guy looked “gay.” My personal reaction to S3 Guy was clearly in a totally different direction.
But then men and women don’t always think alike, do they?
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What is up with comparing Mr. Armitage to Sean Bean? In all the articles on SB they kept saying is Richard Armitage the new Sean Bean?
I don’t mind a bit of “effete,” I find it sexy. Collin Firth was pretty dam hot in A Single Man. I remeber watching the RH creaters talking about Guy of G ans saying Marian “was stirred by Guy of G.” I was thinking yep, along with a host of other characters male and female. 🙂
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Well, I suppose because Bean looks good in period dress, has been in action roles,is adept at playing both hero and villain, and has that hawkish profile going for him is the reason some compare the two. Not to knock Mr. Bean (oops, images of Rowan Atkinson just popped into my head), he’s a good actor and an attractive fellow, but to me, he’s no Richard Armitage (BTW Bean also played Lovelace in a TV production of “Clarissa”).
I would personally love to see Richard play the lead role in another remake of The Scarlet Pimpernel – apparently an absolute foppish aristo who is fascinated with the perfect cravat, who is, of course, a brave hero rescuing Frenchies from the Terror. We all know he rocks a cravat well. So a little effeteness doesn’t bother me, either. ( ;
Somebody made a Guy vid a few years back with the editing making it look like everybody is lusting after him, including Robin and Marian’s daddy! And really, do we blame them?
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Okay, Guy and Marian’s dad IS new, but Guy/Sheriff and Guy/Allan are almost canon! With a hint of Guy/Robin as well. The very grown up innuendo was a big part of the fun of series 1 and 2.
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It’s sort of like those wonderful old Looney Toons cartoons which I loved as a child, but continued to love as an adult. There were so many things really geared to an adult mind in the first place. So I am sure TPTB knew what they were doing with all those suggestive bits.
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Oh I just loved the campiness and grown up innuendo. It kept the mood light and never too serious.
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Good point, angie, about British humour and cross-dressing. Panto and “We’re Ladies” from Little Britain! Is it some some sort of tradition passed down from Elizabethan theatre, before women were allowed to appear on stage?! Scarlet Pimpernel – terrific idea!
Not sure about the Sean Bean comparisons either, Rob. Maybe they were based on the Thornton and Gisborne roles at that time, which were considered sort of rugged. Looking for a successor to Bean, who is a bit older? But certainly RA is more versatile and far more nuanced. Colin Firth is simply first-rate (and hot) in anything he does!
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It might well hearken back to the male-only rule in Elizabethan theatre . . .
Re Bean, he is beginning to look a bit haggard, from what I’ve seen of him recently. Perhaps they are looking to groom a younger, fitter-looking fellow for those types of roles. And yes, our RA is the much more nuanced, versatile and subtle actor. I can’t see Bean pulling off sunny, sweet Harry Kennedy, for example, or capturing the heart-breaking shyness and essential goodness of John Standring. RA can be both very elegant and gentlemanly and the working-class bloke, while Bean is mostly the latter.
Colin’s lovely. And he does comedy and drama both very well.
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This last round of comparisons to Sean Bean has a lot to do with Bean having been in a vehicle similar to Strike Back. He was in Bravo Two Zero. Not only is it similar to SB, but the author of the book, Andy McNab, was on the same disastrous Gulf War mission with Chris Ryan. Bravo Two Zero is McNab’s account of it, and The One That Got Away is Ryan’s account of it.
I read quite a few comparisons to Bean before Strike Back, and mostly it was referring to the similarity in their demeanor and their voices.
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Good point, RAF. I haven’t seen Bravo Two Zero, but come to think of it, it has come up as recommended at my Amazon home page – surely due to the Strike Back connection. I do like the northern musicality to Bean’s voice; I can see that similarity. I am a total sucker for the “u” sound, I confess.
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Sean Bean’s career has quite exciting. He comes from Sheffield in south Yorkshire and played a lot of working class hero types earlier, but now he’s getting roles as aristocratics. He seems to get busier with each year, so there’s certainly hope for Richard.
I think it’s media shorthand, always comparing actors to each other. It saves them having to found out exactly what is unique about each actor.
Technically, Richard is not a northerner as Leicester is the East Midlands and the only trace of a Leicester accent is in his u’s. His father is from Leeds which is the north and I think that’s why he can do the accent well or even perhaps has a slight trace of it on occasion.
I would really love Richard to star in a remake of Lady Chatterley’s Lover which is another Sean Bean film. He’s be the perfect gamekeeper, Mellor. Of course, you’d have to have the perfect Lady Chatterley. I think Cate Blanchett would be a good choice and richard has expressed a wish to act with her.
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Dare I mention I’m not a fan of slash, or should I just keep quiet. 😉
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RAF,
I really wasn’t a slash fan either, and I still don’t care for a lot of slash (the hate sex, the rape scenarios, heavy BDSM) . . . and then my beta challenged me to take on a Guy/Allan fic in an alternate S3.
I have to say it turned out surprisingly well. Really, more of a fairy tale with a feisty old housekeeper as a fairy godmother and true love and fast friendship winning out in the end. My spin on slash, I suppose . . .
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Sort of a bromance?
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Yeah, RAF, a bromance, albeit one in which (consensual) sex does take place (which I had to do research for, LOL)
But there’s also a lot of good-natured ribbing and a real affection and mutual respect and concern for each other that develops. I guess I always thought our pragmatic Allan was the best candidate for a real friendship with Guy, and lord knows, Guy needed a friend and ally, especially after the horrid debacle with Marian. A couple of people have said it was very much a conventionally sweet yet sexy romance in some ways, except you had two blokes falling for each other. *wink*
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When I say I had to do slash research, of course I mean the internet and books, as it would be difficult for a respectable married lady of 25 years to do it any other way. *assumes demure expression*
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[…] by joining the perspectives of spectator and captor. Here are my comments shortly thereafter on possible viewer perspectives and the way in which the actor, by forcing us to watch, reverses some p…, as long as we don’t think about our ethics too closely. Here, again, are your comments about […]
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Porter confessions « Me + Richard Armitage said this on April 24, 2011 at 4:42 am |
[…] All along, I’ve been feeling like these images of Porter took me captive, and that that’s a function of my ambivalence about fangirling — the images took me […]
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I’ve been seen through « Me + Richard Armitage said this on April 28, 2011 at 10:13 am |