Table of Contents (Vol. 2, Issue 5: Sunday, Mar. 6, 2022)
Summary + Housecleaning
Feature: “Travels With Murray, Part 2” (~21 minute read)
Food for Talk: Discussion Prompts
Further Reading
Game & Word-of-Mouth
Footnotes
Summary: Today, we’ll continue our two- …erm… sorry, three-part analysis of Monkey Island’s place within pirate fiction’s narrative canon. This week, we’ll examine the deeper meanings under The Curse of Monkey Island’s cast of swashbuckling cliches (and I don’t mean that as a criticism). We’ll also connect these characters to broader character roles, types, and archetypes found throughout stories anywhere, any time.
ERRATA: I’d meant to cut questions 7-10 under last week’s “Food for Talk” section, as they were far more appropriate and relevant to the analysis in this current issue (Issue 5). I’ve removed the questions/prompts from last week’s post and moved them to this week’s. Game & Word sincerely regrets any headaches caused by the errant discussion prompts.
Announcements: This past week marked the Nintendo Switch’s 5 Year Anniversary! Since launching on March 3, 2017 (the very day before my birthday!),1 the hybrid home/portable console has fueled Nintendo’s much-needed comeback, allowed busy adults to reconnect with their childhoods, and introduced millions of people to the hobby. I, for one, can’t wait to see what’s in store for the next five years. Happy birthday, Nintendo Switch!
Previous Issues:
Feature: Travels With Murray, Part 2
🚨🚨🚨SPOILER ALERT!!! 🚨🚨🚨
This post contains spoilers for the Monkey Island series, particularly The Curse of Monkey Island. You've been warned!
Ahoy, me hearties!
Last week, we dove into the basics of genre theory, as well as the pirate genre’s lifespan so far. Now, we’re going to conduct a character analysis of The Curse of Monkey Island’s wacky, beloved, and unforgettable cast of rogues.
Why am I focusing on Curse, you ask? Because it's the only one I still own and can still run on any of my devices. However, the thematic continuity between each Monkey Island game is so strong, you can safely assume that everything I explore in Curse applies throughout the series (unless I specifically mention otherwise).
A Monkey Barrel Full of Characters
Monkey Island features a veritable barrel of monkeys’ worth of zany characters. These characters are excellently written, imbued with symbolic significance, and serve to anchor the series' deconstructive and reconstructive elements. This selection of Curse's cast will demonstrate how.
Guybrush Threepwood
The series' hero, protagonist, and player character—and a masterclass in writing great protagonists. Guybrush is the ultimate underdog: timid, good-natured, self-conscious, easily frightened, and more than a bit gullible. He also desperately wants to become a pirate—no small task, given he has all of the exact opposite traits of successful pirates. As such, he's seldom taken seriously when he introduces himself via his famous catchphrase:
"I'm Guybrush Threepwood, mighty pirate!"
By the time Curse rolls around, Guybrush is “officially” a pirate. And still, nobody takes him seriously.
Yet, despite such long odds, Guybrush is so sincere about achieving his dream and displays almost unreal persistence and determination in pursuing it that you can't help but root for the guy. The guy knows what he wants. And despite everybody and their parrots (literally) scoffing at him, he not only goes for it but never gives up. You gotta respect that.
Guybrush is every single one of us. He's your perfectly average Joe or Jane who aspires to something greater. He's also entranced and enthralled with pirates as we all are.2
But just like us, he's more enamored with the idea of being a pirate, blissfully oblivious to the bloody reality of being a pirate.3
This makes him the perfect guide for the player exploring Monkey Island's wacky world of pirate tropes turned on their heads. Through his eyes, as if through a naive child’s, we can more clearly see the fundamental ridiculousness underpinning all these tropes. And, like a child, we can unhesitatingly delight in enjoying them anyway.
His constant tussles with his nemesis, LeChuck, can also represent our own daily skirmishes with our own personal LeChucks. But I think LeChuck stands in for something else: the pirating world's dark reality, constantly threatening to engulf Guybrush's childlike wonder of his pirate dream.
More on LeChuck in a bit.
Elaine Marley-Threepwood
Elaine, to put her simply, is Guybrush's love interest. But leaving it at that would be deeply unfair to her. Although she did start Guybrush's love interest before eventually becoming Guybrush's love, she's also a fierce, independent, and cunning swashbuckler in her own right. She's not technically a pirate—she's actually the governor of three islands—but she's so much more of a pirate than Guybrush will ever be.
In Secret, we see what kind of character Elaine is after series villain LeChuck kidnaps her. Guybrush decides he's going to rescue Elaine, because he's a strong and mighty hero, and that's what strong and mighty heroes do. He’ll also get brownie points with Elaine, which will convince her to like him—because that’s how things work in stories like these. It's also what the player's expected to do in these old-school video games (in 1990s-era gaming, the now-discredited "damsel in distress" device was in full swing).4
Unfortunately for Guybrush, not only was Elaine more than capable of looking after and freeing herself without help from a man, but his "rescue" ended up causing more problems than it solved.5 After much hilarity and hijinx, he had finally set out to free Elaine… only to discover that not only had she broken free of LeChuck on her own, but Guybrush’s little stunt ruined her (much better) plan for besting the dastardly villain.
Really, he might as well not have bothered.
This moment not only brilliantly established Elaine as a character, it also perfectly illustrated Monkey Island's parodic modus operandi. It showed us how the series deconstructs and prods fun at not just pirate cliches, but also video game cliches.
Regrettably, Elaine would lose a lot of her badassery in future installments. She's still bold, outspoken, and confident—and she clearly "wears the pants" in her marriage to Guybrush—but in Curse,6 she's turned into a gold statue because of a curse (hence, the name). She remains a statue for most of the game.
Granted, the circumstances behind the curse are amusing, as are the chains of events it kicks off.
But this narrative decision reduced Elaine to yet another video game damsel in distress for the player to rescue,7 while also sidelining her for most of the game. And I can’t help but wonder why. What’s the point of writing such an awesome character if the audience barely gets to see her in action?
Gilbert has gone on record disagreeing with the direction LucasArts took Monkey Island after his departure, and he occasionally offers to repurchase the series' rights from Disney (so far, unsuccessfully). I suspect Elaine’s character demotion is a big reason why.
LeChuck
Fearsome ghost pirate LeChuck serves as the series’ main antagonist, and as yet another foil to Guybrush.
Like Elaine, LeChuck embodies pirate traits that Guybrush lacks. But while Elaine possesses the strength, courage, and decisiveness that Guybrush does not, LeChuck stands as the polar opposite of Guybrush's morality and idealism.
Granted, throughout his adventures, Guybrush does some pretty mean and jerky things to people he's just (or never) met, just to get what he wants. His antics create a lot of annoyance and even harm. For instance: getting a vain pirate's meticulously groomed hair lopped off, as well as scaring the wits off of an elderly gravedigger, and all because they happened to be in between Guybrush and a puzzle’s solution.
But Guybrush, despite his clumsy selfishness, is nevertheless good at heart and comes from a good place. This, more than anything else, is why he constantly fails at being a pirate. And yet, he never stops being nice and at least semi-conscientious of others.
LeChuck, meanwhile, is not only an accomplished and feared pirate—he also embodies the meaner side of piracy that fiction always glosses over. He's deeply unpleasant, nasty, short-tempered, and downright vicious. He doesn't hesitate to kill scores of pirates and raise them from the dead to join his skeleton army.
He's also madly in love with Elaine as desperately wants to make her his “pirate queen,” which sets him up for his initial conflict with Guybrush. Then, after the wannabe pirate gets the best of him too many times, LeChuck becomes increasingly motivated by revenge. Now, he mostly wants to get back at Guybrush by torturing, tormenting,8 and killing him (and not necessarily in that order).
The worst part? Being a ghost pirate, LeChuck can never be truly defeated. Each “defeat” at the hands of Guybrush amounts to a temporary reprieve for our plucky pirate protagonist. LeChuck will always come back to pester Guybrush, just in time for the next sequel—and in fact, Guybrush uses this once to try and convince LeChuck to spare his life. After all, no protagonist means no sequel, which means no more work for LeChuck!9
As I briefly mentioned earlier, LeChuck represents the brutal reality of piracy, constantly threatening to infringe on our sanitized and romantic images of pirates. But Guybrush has been going about this all wrong—his best bet isn't to defeat LeChuck (we've already established that's impossible), but rather learn to coexist with him.
Continuing the metaphor, this is also the best way to deal with and reconcile Golden Age piracy’s gruesome truth with the fun piratey imagery we're so attached to. Don't try to push out or suppress reality, because that never works. Instead, hold both image and truth as two halves of a whole picture in your head.
Even LeChuck and Guybrush seem to realize this, deep down inside. Although LeChuck will never admit it, it's clear that by the time Curse takes place, both Guybrush and he have comfortably settled into their roles as "hero" and "villain." And it’s to such a large degree that Guybrush without LeChuck would feel as weird as Mario without Bowser.10
So, let's do the same with all the LeChucks we face in our lives. Fantasy and reality are but two sides of the same coin—one needs the other, and vice-versa. Let's learn to live with both at the same time.
Murray the Talking Skull
Curse's breakout character, and it's not even close. Though this hilarious talking skull had his debut so late into the series, Murray's such a great character that his absence from the early Monkey Island games becomes conspicuously noticeable on replay.
That said, I feel he came in at precisely the right time: Curse was the first Monkey Island game with voice acting. And Murray works so well because of Danny Delk's flawless, deliciously hammy performance. You can tell he had the time of his life playing this role!
Anyway, Murray is a relatively minor character in the grand scheme of Monkey Island. As I mentioned, he doesn't even appear until the third game of the series. He's not a main (or even supporting) character. He’s barely a sidekick. He appears in four out of Curse's six chapters, but only briefly each time.11 Besides being key to solving a couple of puzzles, he's inconsequential to the plot, and (save for the puzzles I just mentioned) interacting with him is totally optional. He's only there to add "flavor" to the game.
But oh, what flavor he brings to the table!
Guybrush may be the protagonist, but Murray is Monkey Island's heart and soul. Everything about him embodies the series' ethos: lobbing sharp and incisive, yet affectionate and lighthearted, riffs at the pirate genre.
For starters, he's a talking skull, which by itself takes a shot at two big pirate tropes: undead pirates, and mysterious voodoo magic.12
And the spoofing continues once Murray opens his mouth. He loves to talk about how EVIL he is and how he will conquer the world and subjugate it to the forces of darkness. Of course, being a disembodied skull with no arms or legs, there's no way he could actually do that.13 Nevertheless, he dreams on.
I always found it odd that he and Guybrush struck up a friendship of sorts. But after having thought about it further, I realized their friendship wasn’t odd—it was inevitable.
Like Guybrush, Murray's desire for his goal is inversely proportional to his ability to achieve it. But also just like Guybrush, he continues persisting, no matter how many odd situations his attempts land him in. And so much humor from Murray's and Guybrush's escapades comes from this juxtaposition between how different (and even opposed) their goals are, and how similarly they wish to attain them.
EVIL is to Murray what pirates are to Guybrush. And just like villains such as LeChuck, Ozzie Mandrill, and Morgan LeFley can never keep Guybrush down, so too will Murray never be deterred. No matter how many kids plop him on top of spikes, no matter how many times he becomes a fairground game prize, no matter how many menial bouncing14 gigs he gets, Murray will rule the world, damnit!
Mwahahahahahaha!!!
*Ahem* Excuse me! Anyway, you can see how attached Murray’s grown to Guybrush in one of Curse’s final chapters, when Guybrush wins a carnival game, of which Murray is one of the prizes. Guybrush chooses a toy anchor instead, as he needs it to solve a particularly fiendish puzzle. Murray is clearly hurt by the slight:
Guybrush: Murray...
Murray: I'm not speaking to you! How could you pick that anchor over your best friend?
D’aww, look at them! They’re besties!
So, what else is there to say? Murray is the perfect travel companion in the world of Monkey Island. Although he doesn't technically travel “with” Guybrush, Murray is nevertheless with Guybrush for every step of the quest. He appears in almost every chapter of Curse, starting from the very first playable sequence. And he serves as a sidekick, foil, comic relief, and deconstructive lens all at once.
There's no better character to travel the islands of Monkey Island's Caribbean facsimile with. In case you got the Steinbeck reference in the article's headline: this is what it's referring to. Murray is Guybrush’s Charley—which also makes him, by extension, my Charley.
Can't get enough Murray? Don’t fear! Here are some compilations of his appearances in Curse, Escape, and Tales:
Long live Murray!
The Voodoo Lady
Another series veteran, the Voodoo Lady (she never reveals her name), has helped Guybrush get a leg up on LeChuck since the first installment and has appeared at least once per game since.
Mysterious, wise, and a tad ominous, we know so little about the Voodoo Lady, and she knows so much about us. We know she can see the future, is knowledgeable on curses, and has grandkids who visit her and make paper voodoo dolls. Not much else.
The Voodoo Lady serves as a mentor of sorts to Guybrush. Usually, when he encounters her, she reads his future. This serves a neat dual purpose. The first is to provide exposition on the story, the people involved, and the places Guybrush will visit over the course of game. The second is to give the player hints for solving upcoming puzzles. The games' brilliant writing flawlessly fuses these two functions together.
The ending of Tales does drop a saucy hint as to the Voodoo Lady’s deeper motivations, implying she masterminded the entire series' events, and might even be EVIL. But unless Gilbert can snag the rights from Disney and make another official sequel, the world may never know the answer, nor any of the Voodoo Lady's many untold secrets.
And that's just the way she'd like it.15
Stan
Another recurring character since the series' olden days, Stan is every sleazy salesperson you've ever met. He's always dreaming up new schemes to make money. These are nominally above board, but provide just enough cover for shadiness, deception, and trickery under a legitimate facade.
Whether selling coffins, life insurance, or timeshares (that he hasn't even built, and probably never intends to), Stan only goes into business if he can make as much money as possible while providing the least possible value to his "loyal customers." Precisely who these customers are, besides Guybrush, is anyone's guess.16
Thanks to Guybrush, these schemes don't end well for Stan. But despite his shadiness, he does at least come off as a helper to Guybrush, even if it’s likely an act. And—like any good salesperson—Stan’s affability, enthusiasm, and entrepreneurial spirit have made him a fan favorite.
Kenny Falmouth
Stan isn’t the only serial entrepreneur in the game. Guybrush meets Kenny Falmouth, a "budding young entrepreneur" who runs a lemonade stand on Plunder Island. Guybrush initially admires the boy’s entrepreneurial gumption. This admiration, however, promptly dissipates after Kenny swindles Guybrush out of a nickel in the most dastardly amusing way possible.
Kenny delivers a lengthy sales pitch, in which he mentions his lemonade stand's "bottomless mug policy." Guybrush doesn't know that Kenny means this literally—as in, he uses an actual bottomless mug: the mug Kenny pours the lemonade into doesn't have a bottom, so the liquid flows right through it.17 Guybrush takes a sip, and when he sees the cup is empty, realizes he’s been conned.
Naturally, he protests. But then Kenny explains that since Guybrush agreed to the bottomless mug policy, he's not eligible for a refund. He peppers the entire conversation with the weaselly corporate doublespeak that anyone who’s ever called customer service is all too familiar with.
It's really quite hilarious. Here's how the exchange goes:
Guybrush: I want my money back!
Kenny: Why? Was the lemonade bad?
Guybrush: I don't know, I didn't drink any. There's no bottom to this mug. Give me my money back!
Kenny: Well, I did tell you about our bottomless mug policy. If you're not dissatisfied with our product, I can't justify giving you a refund. I'm sorry, but it's company policy!
Guybrush: Why, you little...
Kenny: ThankYouHaveaNiceDayGoodbye!
Just as Guybrush and LeChuck are two sides of the same doubloon, so too do Stan and Kenny represent the twin hydras of the corporate world.
Stan represents the shady, cheaty, and deceptive sales force that ropes you into buying a product. Meanwhile, Kenny's a stand-in for the shoddy customer service department that stonewalls you, buries you in red tape, and does everything possible to avoid accountability when the product turns out to be a dud.
However, once Guybrush gives him a taste of his own medicine, Kenny undergoes some character development. The next time Guybrush happens across Kenny and his stand, the young businessman reflects on the hard lessons he’s learned about cheating. Here’s the golden exchange:
Guybrush: Well, well, well. You know, winners never cheat, and cheaters never win.
Kenny: Boy, is that true. You sure taught me a lesson. Golly, I'll never cheat anyone ever again! Honest! I've got a new business now and gosh, it's swell!
Guybrush: What is it?
Kenny: I'm running GUNS!!!
Well, I suppose it's technically an honest living.
The Barbery Coast Pirates
The Barbery Coast Pirates are a trio of pirates-turned-barbers (hence the "Barbery" instead of "Barbary" ...get it?) who agree to serve as Guybrush's crew during his quest to lift the curse off of Elaine. They aren’t very helpful, but they do provide a few laughs.
Besides the pun in their quartet name, each of the three barbers (the fourth member had apparently died, and they never got around to replacing him) delivers his own brand of stealth puns and references:
Edward Van Helgen
Edward Van Helgen [left] is an obvious pun of Eddie Van Halen. He’s also quite vain, and impossibly good at every activity he’s challenged to. Hmmmm…
Cutthroat Bill
Guybrush’s first encounter with "Cutthroat" Bill [middle] sets us up for a "Bond, James Bond"-esque name reveal that completely catches Guybrush off guard. Bill’s the shortest of the trio, but also the gruffest, surliest, and curtest (his deep, raspy voice reinforces this further).
Haggis McMutton
Last but not least, we have Haggis McMutton18 (of the clan McMutton) [right]. The de facto “leader” of the “quartet”, and serves up practically every Scottish stereotype you can toss a caber at. Naturally, he wears a kilt, is built like a tank, and speaks with a delightfully pronounced Gaelic brogue.
Captain Rottingham
Like Haggis with Scotland, Captain Rene Rottingham [seated] is a walking French stereotype. Arrogant, snooty, vain, rude, vindictive, and underhanded, if Rottingham’s mockingly thick accent doesn’t give away his national origin, his dandy-ish getup will. He wears a lavishly ornate noble vest and jacket, and his meticulously-groomed hair looks like a powdered wig straight out of King Louis’ court.
Lemonhead
The leader of a "cannibal" tribe from Secret makes another appearance. This time, he and his tribesmen have renounced cannibalism and adopted a strict vegetarian diet. This extends to their sacrifices to the volcano: instead of throwing in a live person, they throw in a dummy made out of assorted fruits and vegetables.
As part of a puzzle, Guybrush throws a piece of cheese into the volcano. Since the volcano god is lactose intolerant, this leads to a colossal eruption that brings Guybrush a bit closer to the solution.
Lemonhead also complains about how he left his prior island because, essentially, hipsters made it “trendy” and priced his tribe out of the island.19 On one hand, I’m oddly comforted by the fact that gentrification was on people’s mind’s, even back in the 90s. On the other hand, I now want to curl up in a ball with a stiff drink and give up all hope.
The Show Must Go On… Next Week
Oh, look at the clock, we’re almost out of time! But don’t worry, I’ll be back next week to continue surveying Curse, this time examining the hidden structures and devices that prop the plot up and keep it moving. See you then!
Cheers,
~Jay
Food for Talk: Discussion Prompts
While you wait for the next issue, I invite you to mull over the following discussion prompts. Please reply to this email with your answers, or post them in the comments—I'd love to hear your thoughts!
Describe some of the personal LeChucks you deal with in your life.
What advice would you give Guybrush to help him become an actual mighty pirate?
What advice would you give to Murray?
Do you have a Murray of your own? Figuratively speaking, obviously.
Create a Characterization Sheet for yourself, fill it out, and post it as a comment. (If you need help looking up or naming roles, archetypes, etc., go to TVTropes.org and search for “Archetypal Characters.” You might want to finish your homework/office work first, however. That site is very addictive.)
What other characterization models would you apply to these characters? The Zodiac, Enniagram, MBTI, or something else?
Whichever model/schema you chose for Question #6, apply it to a fictional character and post the results as a comment. It can be any fictional character, not just the ones from the article, as long as you know enough about them to accurately complete the evaluation.
Further Reading
If you want to immerse yourself in the world of pirate fiction and genre theory, there’s a veritable ocean of material to dive into.
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson — The grandaddy of pirate fiction. Close your eyes and think of a pirate. 99 times out of 100, your mental image traces directly back to this novel. Essential reading, not just for pirate fans, but for everyone on the planet.
Peter Pan by James M. Barrie — You’ve seen the movies, now read the book that gave us Captain Hook and cemented many of the pirate tropes that Stevenson introduced almost a century earlier.
On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers — The primary inspiration for both Monkey Island and the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. In providing said inspiration, this book added a whole new dimension (the supernatural) to a centuries-old genre.
General History of the Pyrates by Captain Charles Johnson — Part history, part legend. The most thorough chronicle of the lives and deaths of the most infamous pirates, written fresh off the heels of the Golden Age itself. [NOTE: Despite what the link says, Daniel Defoe did NOT write this book. This notion has been thoroughly debunked]
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe — Defoe, on the other hand, did write this one. Created and popularized the “castaway” genre. One of the best-selling books of all time, second only to the Bible. Based on a true story.
Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge — Pretty much the ur-piece of modern nautical adventure tales. Popularized the “cursed seaman” and “albatross hanging around your neck” tropes. One of the most beautiful and accessible poems every written. If you’ve ever wanted to get into poetry, this is a great entry point.
Deconstruction, Genre Deconstruction, and Reconstruction on TVtropes.org — WARNING: this site is a bottomless rabbit hole. The gravity created by its content will suck you in and never let you go, like a black hole. If you want to be even remotely productive this week, proceed with utmost caution.
Games Featured:
Monkey Island — Funny adventure series about pirates.
The Secret of Monkey Island, published by LucasArts — Steam | GOG
Monkey Island II: LeChuck’s Revenge, published by LucasArts — Steam | GOG
The Curse of Monkey Island, published by LucasArts — Steam | GOG
Escape from Monkey Island, published by LucasArts — Steam | GOG
Tales of Monkey Island, published by Telltale Games — Steam | GOG | iOS
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Footnotes
Best birthday gift to myself, ever.
Collectively, if not individually.
Not that actually seeing said reality dissuades him much, as in-universe, the violent bits have been highly sanitized in the interest of making a "family-friendly" game. But this is getting too "meta" as it is.
I blame Mario.
That’s not saying much, given that he solved exactly zero problems, but whatever.
The first Monkey Island game without Gilbert’s involvement.
And trusting Guybrush of all people to save you is, at best, a flip of the coin.
Marrying Elaine would certainly qualify as this.
LeChuck wasn't convinced.
Guybrush seems to be more aware of this and brings it up more directly than LeChuck ever does, but even the dreaded ghost pirate knows it to be true. Otherwise, why doesn't he just kill Guybrush right off the bat instead of throwing curses and puzzles at him all the time?
His appearances in Curse's sequels are even briefer—a cameo appearance in Escape, and a slightly longer cameo in Tales.
There's something to be said about the genre's cavalier treatment of a belief system that, strange as it may seem to mainstream sensibilities, is nevertheless dearly held and practiced to this day—mostly by People of Color. But that's a whole other discussion that merits an entire article of its own.
Why he never asks LeChuck or the Voodoo Lady for a new skeletal body is beyond me.
“Bouncing” not as in “bouncing around,” but rather “being a bouncer.” Yes, really.
Hmmm… could this be why Disney won’t make a sequel, or even sell the rights back to Gilbert?
So is the matter of timeshares existing in the 18th Century West Indies, but anachronisms like these are half the fun of these games. Please don't make me explain the joke.
And, presumably, into another pitcher.
“Haggis” is only a nickname; his given name is Heart Liver and Kidneys Boiled in the Stomach of the Animal McMutton. Apparently, his parents were expecting a girl.
Not his exact words, mind you. Hipsters weren’t a thing back then.
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