"You fight like a dairy farmer."
"How appropriate. You fight like a cow." -- Orson Scott Card*
"How appropriate. You fight like a cow." -- Orson Scott Card*
And yet, today, I'm going to forego turning over a new leaf by writing about a man I used to have a huge crush on. I've outgrown it by now, but he still means a lot to me. He was prideful and slightly mean and a bit of an asshole, but he was smart, selfless, and deliciously sarcastic... not to mention sexy in an awkward, gangly sort of way. If you want to be melodramatic about it, I guess you could call him my first love.
It's been years, but lately... we've sort of reconnected. I've had the opportunity to spend some quality one-on-one time with him over the last few days, and though I'm older and wiser than I was when he first captured my heart, he's still a pretty amazing guy.
His name is Guybrush Threepwood and he's a pirate.
Hopefully a few of you will recognize his name from your own pasts. For those of you who do not, Guybrush Threepwood is the hero of the Monkey Island series of video games, where players can swashbuckle their way through various quests in a choose-your-own-adventure format. The first game in the series, The Secret of Monkey Island, was released by LucasArts on floppy disc in 1990. I met Guybrush in 1994, when I got my first computer.
Yes, 1994. Which implies 1994 gameplay and graphics. Which means that my first crush looked like this:
Suffice it to say, I didn't fall for Guybrush for his looks. I fell for him because he was a cool, confident smooth-talker who knew he was destined for greatness despite all evidence to the contrary. He could trade insults with masters and seamlessly toss pop culture references into normal conversations. He was clever and resourceful and could solve complicated puzzles with ease. He was still human, though -- bumbling and awkward and prone to making mistakes. And as if all of that wasn't enough reason to love the guy, he was noble enough to risk his life to rescue Governor Elaine Marley from zombie pirates. He was also secure enough in his own masculinity to fall in love with Elaine, even though she was smart, powerful, and never really needed rescuing in the first place.
After I sprayed the zombie pirate captain with root beer to win the game, I was rewarded with a glorious, pixelated, 256-color closeup of Guybrush Threepwood's face:
Yes, he's a hottie, but I was smitten long before I knew what he looked like. (And whether I subconsciously modeled my current hairdo on Elaine's is a blog entry for another day.)
I found an archaic CD-ROM version of The Secret of Monkey Island yesterday afternoon and played it yesterday night. It only took me a few hours to get through it, as opposed to the weeks I spent solving the puzzles when I was a child. It was just as funny, irreverent, and intellectually fulfilling as I remembered it, though, and the jokes and puns still sparkled with clarity and relevance twenty years after they were written.
Right after I vanquished the zombie pirate captain to unlock the portrait of Guybrush that used to make my nine year-old heart melt, I realized something astounding.
My sense of humor -- my wry, snarky, intellectual sense of humor that I adore and often use as a compatibility test -- is identical to Guybrush Threepwood's sense of humor. Both of us quip. Both of us make random remarks about inanimate objects. Both of us can switch from poetry to intellectual banter in a heartbeat. Both of us have a natural gift for rhyme. Both of us can insult someone so smoothly that they don't even realize they've been mocked. And, most notably, both of us enjoy peppering our conversations with quotes and images from old computer games, George Lucas films, and The Graduate.
My sense of humor is definitely on the quirky side of normal, but it's one of my favorite things about me. And since it came into being around the time I first met Guybrush Threepwood, I'm pretty sure he inspired it. Guess I just found another reason to love him.
* Yes, Orson Scott Card wrote all of the exchanges used in the famous "insult swordfighting" sequence of The Secret of Monkey Island.
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