Upcoming Events
I’m running a free, generative poetry workshop this Thursday, Oct. 7th at 8-9pm EST! Register here.
**Major spoilers ahead!!!
It’s the end of another Marvel movie, and the bad guys have been vanquished by our reliable team of superheroes outfitted in their usual spandex and family-friendly quips. In the heart of their now ruined city, they go for shawarma at a shop that is still somehow running. The owner, who apparently did not evacuate during the battle, looks unfazed at their exhausted selves, as if this happens every other week.
Collateral damage is presumed when heroes use their powers to stop villains intent on colonization, bank robbery, and other chaotic, unlawful pursuits. Buildings and property are expected to be destroyed, of course, and civilians will lose their jobs, homes, and livelihoods for the greater good. But wouldn’t you be equally selfless if you lived in a crime-ridden place like Gotham, Metropolis, or New York City?
In the world of Natalie Zina Walschots’ novel Hench, plenty of civilians share this belief as they work regular jobs in regular offices that are regularly brutalized by the activities of people with elevated abilities. However, others, especially those with minor, harmless abilities, see benefits in living in such hazardous areas — since there are super-powered people, there is naturally a super-economy. Employment opportunities, labour rights issues, and performative workplaces are no longer limited to your average exploitative corporations—now they are offered by profitable, organized superheroes and villains as well.
Enter Anna Tromedlov, a data analyst who takes any job the temp agency can get for her. The temp agency is just one of the many that partner with villains’ companies, so naturally Anna’s options are of the villainous sort. Her work is often tedious, building superhero information databases, but she occasionally finds pleasure in the problem-solving aspect of some assignments. Technically a henchwoman, she also finds comfort in the distance of her work from her boss’ activities, who, if they’re lucky enough, might be consequential enough to make the news as minor villains.
This all changes when she’s invited to try “fieldwork” in the form of attending a press conference, after it’s suggested to her by her boss, Mr. Eel (aka E). After all, she’s heard that he’s impressed by her work, and he is so supportive of her professional development. Having no information beforehand, Anna is shocked to find herself holding a hypnosis machine to the mayor’s son’s head on live television as her boss orders him to sever one of his finger digits. And never in her dreams did she expect to get caught in an intervention by the most famous and powerful superhero in the country, Supercollider, who arrives with his team to rescue the boy. While avoiding her coworkers’ laser-guns, Anna falls in Supercollider’s path, who pushes her aside to chase E. While her boss is pleased by Supercollider’s rare and in-demand attention, Anna is thrown against the wall by Supercollider’s casual strength. Her leg is shattered beyond use, and as she finds out later by mail, beyond employment.
During the pandemic, it’s evident how our everyday choices cause collateral damage that we may never see. Choosing not to wear a mask or social distance may not affect you, but could easily—and frequently does—affect acquaintances and strangers.
So, what exactly makes an anti-vaxxer, or even a person who is careless about public safety, different from a villain? Anti-vaxxers make clear their villainous, self-centred attitudes with their bare faces and their random assaults on civilians who are upholding public safety measures. But careless and inconsiderate actions too have an effect on others, like Supercollider’s violent approach to taking down Anna’s colleagues, especially those who were uninvolved, instead of subduing them. Playing “judge and executioner”, he pushed her out of his way, and easily and thoughtlessly destroyed her body. Misusing his mask, Supercollider failed in his duty to protect and serve the public.
But let’s say that Supercollider, for a moment, simply needs to be regulated and follow official guidelines when taking down villains. He would likely promote mask-wearing and public safety measures on the news every night, and Anna would shut the TV off to do something else.
Can we say that Anna, our beloved and victimized office worker, would wear a mask to protect the public? She might not be an anti-vaxxer because she believes in science and basic government-enforced protection, but if she was immune to the virus, just as she should be immune to the harm caused by her villainous employer, would she care about the public?
You’re not directly doing anything wrong, and the effects of your work on the public sphere as a simple hench are probably minor and therefore not really your problem, right?
As a hench that contributes to their endangerment, she technically does not. Anna usually does data analysis work that, on its own, is more or less harmless. Justifying her involvement from behind a screen of spreadsheets and numbers, she equates it to working for an oil conglomerate or insurance company. Companies that contribute to climate change or are known to take advantage of consumers aren’t moral employers either, but few people would turn their heads if Anna worked for either. If Anna was injured by her company’s activities—resulting in their lay-off—would you blame them for working for a company that objectively harms the public?
Anna also demonstrates that it’s difficult not to sacrifice your morals under a cut-throat capitalist system—it’s even necessary at times. In fact, she can barely afford coffee before her interview, having been unemployed for so long. Perhaps if her unemployment income was higher, or the city created the jobs they often promise to, Anna would not find herself doing what she calls “terrible things for terrible people”. But this is the reality in most places in the world—the survivalist mentality prevails because people have little choice but to give in to a little evil. The market is competitive, and everyday villains offer not only survival, but benefits and perks galore.
Like so many people, Anna could be seen as the victim of her circumstances and to the system. In this one instance of fieldwork, she was just standing behind her boss at a press conference, and then following orders. Although she was holding the machine, she wasn’t the one manipulating the boy to harm himself. Anna would easily be a victim who took on work that she did not consent to, outside of her moral boundaries.
However, Anna has always had objectively in-demand skills. Although it’s implied that Anna has little choice in the matter of employment, data analytics has been a thriving field for a while in her and our world. If she worked for a regular civilian-run company, she could go even further with networking, especially since that seems to not be the norm among hench with few opportunities to mingle in a competitive field. their limited mingling and competitive field.
Just like Anna, people who do have the luxury of options will select the easy way out, and as time goes on, a little evil becomes routine and even mundane. Close your eyes, file paperwork, do not bill your overtime, present the numbers. Dine with a client. Hold this machine to some poor kid’s head for ransom. Lead meetings, get promoted, spend your bonus, repeat. Well done! You’ve shown your dedication to the company and follow your villainous boss on Instagram. You’re not directly doing anything wrong, and the effects of your work on the public sphere as a simple hench are probably minor and therefore not really your problem, right?
This is how Anna has decided she owes chosen to owe exactly nothing to the public. So sure, she would wear a mask if the virus could harm her, but only to protect herself. And if Anna was asymptomatic, any collateral damage wouldn’t have anything to do with her, would it?
Once they’ve grieved and recovered, I expect those who had been and continue to be deemed collateral over the course of the pandemic to organize and lobby for policies and laws that would have protected themselves and their loved ones, and would protect future casualties. Their lives have been ruined by people who didn’t carefully utilize their powers for good, just like Supercollider and supervillain Leviathan. After all, heroes create their own enemies, as Walschots writes. Just like Anna believed immediately after her assault, these victims have the right to assume better of the public, especially those around them with the power to influence their health and wellness.
But, aside from elected politicians or any other representatives of the population, how can we expect powerful people to be good? Especially to the public? This is why Anna feels so much more betrayed by Supercollider than E. Supercollider’s entire function is to ensure that human life is valued and to uphold the law. As terrible as villains’ intentions may be, at least they're transparent, and are punished with jail time.
(Well, transparent to the public, as Anna comes to realize—not so much to their employees. And for the employees, this transparent malintent comes at the cost of their loved ones, as revealed by one Meat, aka a traditional, combative henchman. Regardless of actual intentions, no normal person wants to be associated with a capital-v villain.)
The truth begets how the public chooses to assign blame, so should superheroes of all people be transparent about their motivations and actions? About their casual villainy?
Transparency, as Anna sees it, is how the world functions. Or at least, how it must function. When you aren’t seeing the truth, you have to go digging for it, through the law or through private justice. This is what Anna does, through her blog The Injury Report, when she details the public is being lied to through media/official omission of heroes’ collateral damage, and through more direct methods later in the novel. The truth begets how the public chooses to assign blame, so should superheroes of all people be transparent about their motivations and actions? About their casual villainy?
After all, by choosing to no longer date civilians at the beginning of the novel, Anna chooses to be transparent about her own life. But, ever the victim, she doesn’t think to report on villains’ collateral damage in The Injury Report for a side-by-side comparison of collateral damage. How many lives would have been damaged by hazardous products, toxins or weapons created and used by villains? Villains expect heroes to try to stop them in their clearly evil plans to take over the earth, conduct illegal activities on the black market, obtain wealth through immoral means.
Anna doesn’t consider what she already knows—villains often want collateral damage through civilian casualties, and expect Meat to take the fall at some point or another. In a world where people are born with abilities, they have chosen to unlawfully use their powers at the expense of everyone else in their proximity. Yet she entirely blames the collateral damage incurred on superheroes when they arrive to solve villain-created problems, instead of estimating the harm intentionally caused by the villain in question.
And over the course of the novel, Anna is clear about her intentions as she graduates from hench to a Leviathan’s right hand woman, a bona-fide villain. You’ll see Anna kick ass throughout the novel—safely, from behind a screen—and never think too much about her skills and powers as data analyst. Despite having been tested by Superheroic Affairs, the branch of government that deals with heroes, she has some tremendous unconscious power that is never utilized or even revealed to her or the readers. So while the people around her exhibit superspeed, superstrength, and project forcefields, her power remains in her data analysis skills, and of course, her will. With the help of the internet, a supportive team, and a boss that green-lights all of her plans, her power is demonstrated again and again to have the ability to ruin lives. Similar to how some supers draw on existing elements in the world around them, Anna draws on the masses of data on everyone that has accumulated in the city.
Although she tries to not incur any direct collateral damage, it’s almost impossible that there were no jobs lost and accidental civilian injuries caused by her actions to humiliate and degrade superheroes. So what of her accountability? She's always had a choice with the power of data analysis in her hands and has always known it deep-down to be consequential.
So what, exactly, does Anna owe the public? The public, of which she has always been a member. What does she owe her neighbours, her favourite restaurant delivery people, the movers she may call in, the people who make her coffee she could barely afford at the beginning of the novel?
Where is the transparency that she asks of others? Why should her sins not be broadcasted across social media, as she does to others who pretend to be moral? Where is her obligation to do good?
Since our perfectly morally-grey anti-hero has decided she owes nothing to the public, she is therefore perfectly relatable.
The Annas of this world wake up every day, are employed by morally-grey companies, spend time with morally grey people, buy from morally grey businesses, eat morally-grey sourced meals, and support the work of morally-grey celebrities. The Annas would never be as direct as to call their actions or lifestyle terrible, because everyone is acting similarly, aren’t they? People pretend to live honestly, make an honest living, whether they are gentrifiers, loan sharks, or work for Superheroic Affairs. Annas belong to a union too, for their profession. Annas relegate all of their decisions to a single phrase, “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism” and then go to brunch.
Annas have the autonomy to choose a safe desk job in a workplace that values their powers to may or may not ruin the lives of others. When Annas come home from the office or the field, from their screens they just like to just “run the numbers” by inputting their credit card digits or phone number to state their support for a politician or organization. And the white glow of their screens projects onto their skin, especially if in the dark.
The Annas in all of us believe that although they are owed safety from others, they don’t have to reciprocate that duty.
The Annas in all of us believe that although they are owed safety from others, they don’t have to reciprocate that duty. From behind a screen, we can give another assignment to a child unlawfully working for our favourite sports brands, or a movie starring a war criminal. We could even choose to work for a terrible corporation, and no one has to know, and if they find out, our decisions can always be justified, frequently by societal pressures. Societal norms have always been a burden, but how often will they support you doing the right thing? You can girlboss all you want, but falling into the same capitalistic trap as others shouldn’t exactly be a point of pride.
The distance between your decision and the people it harms makes people think their actions don’t have significant consequences. Reciprocation takes trust, and once you’ve lost faith in the people around you, there’s not much hope. But when your responsibility to the public is to mask up and take safety precautions, you would think it would be an easy decision for everyone.
From a distance, any action with negative consequences is justifiable, so Walschots breaks down that distance for Anna into a visible link. She clicks into an Excel sheet, and the villain can target a hero. She clicks send, and a hero is dead.
We, too, have superheroes, supervillains, and super-civilians running around. Some of us just have better leadership skills, more influence, more money, better connections. Some of them with good intentions, and little regard for the public, light the city on fire and announce that they’ve saved the city, while strangers around them are dead or injured, or fleeing their obliterated lives, just like that Spongebob meme. All of us, however, can make decisions that minimize collateral damage.
For example, our beloved morally-grey celebrities will talk and act however they want, but that doesn’t mean their actions are inherently good, especially for the public. They’ll advertise unethical products, manifestos, and lifestyles to support their brand. The more rational they appear, and the more aligned they are with other celebrities—just like the superhero associations—the easier it is for Annas to believe them to be good. Turn this around, and these same fans will be blamed for not thinking critically when idols act out in public.
And how else to enforce transparency other than to expose our heroes other than social media, as utilized in the book and real life? How many of our favourite celebrities have been “cancelled” by the public, through receipts, private messages and videos, and even public displays? You can get people fired, if they’ve been uniquely terrible, but frequently, exposure of famous people goes nowhere. Your problematic faves continue to work and live their lives in relative comfort because they’re still forgivable as a fav and their particular receipts don’t matter as long as their partners can still profit off of them. Anna is able to start a Twitter hashtag of people who have been collateral damage, and as enlightening as it is, it doesn’t do much to sway public opinion that superheroes are still a benefit to society. Negative PR is normal for all celebrities, and can be settled down with a nice little public apology. After all, all publicity is good publicity, especially if you are publicly determined to be a better person in public moving forward.
Anna, in an attempt to hold superheroes accountable, utilizes immoral methods with people who value the public even less than she does. And by the end of the novel, she is no longer considering the collateral damage to the public, given her more ambitious goal to take down all superheroes under Leviathan. After Supercollider falls, Anna is now making the choice to prioritize her own career and comfort instead of building a world where we don’t have to destroy the lives of others to hold them accountable. She turns a blind eye to her own power to cause collateral damage, and now controls the evil device in her hands to point it at Walschot’s reliable team of heroes and anyone else who gets in her way.
Of course, I’m no saint, but every small choice we make throughout the day impacts somebody, somewhere. Our will, talent, data, attention, and money have always been our powers. The people we lend our powers to will frequently if not always use them for their own means. We’ve convinced ourselves that we have less autonomy than we have. We always have a choice to minimize our collateral damage, even if it’s as simple as masking up.
We’ve always had a choice.
Thank you for reading! If you’ve read Hench, or even if you haven’t, I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below and/or privately. (If you wrote Hench, this is my version of fanmail.)
If you liked this edition, share and subscribe for more!
really well done