just re-reading spook country in last few days. and i think one of the interesting things is his timing, his ability to thwart the hero by just turning up.

"hi this is bigend"
"ok"
"i'm in the lobby of your hotel, lets talk"
"eek!"

as an antagonist, his main "villainous" traits are his ability to impose himself anywhere and his sheer force of Nietzschean will directed nowhere in particular.

His personality is just dominant, though with a certain boyish innocence as if he doesn't realize that he constantly gets his way. Nor thinks any other result possible.

He's great character. I think he'll become iconic down the road, possibly. Probably he'll become Gibson's most famous.

He is so perfectly representative of a certain mindset in the world, one both visionary and banal. Ultimately dangerous only for it's lack of imagination in the broader scope of things.

Whenever Bigend is around, I find myself flipping ahead to see how much more of his boringness I have to read. He is certainly my least favorite thing about both PR and SC. God I hope he's gone in the next one, though I doubt he will be.

WG said at the Berlin reading that he is surprised that people see Bigend as a villain.

He also that said that he uses him as a mouthpiece from time to time to give his views on things, for instance on marketing.

Yes, he's c;early a mouthpiece character and no villain, but a lot of people see him as a villain.

I really love the character, personally.

So, what do you think Gibson will do with Berlin in book 3?

I am nearly certain he's going to set a large segment there. He's alluded to it twice. Once by the city specifically and then once to Germany helping to fill up that pot of his creative mind.

And he's obviously interested in the end of the Cold War and loves Stasi references.

Let's lay odds.

2:1 book three is largely set in Berlin, at least one third.

His marketing dialogue in SC was one of my favorite parts of substrate.

I view him somewhat surreally. He is the deep pockets powerful mysterious guy that hires the protagonist to give them an expense account. I think Gibson's fantasy is to have an expense account.

Suffice to say, Bigend is Armitage, is Josef, is Rei (in ATP, though less explicitly), is Datamerica (or whatever the company that employs col in Idoru is), and so on.

I see Bigend as being much more complex than a mouth piece or an expense account, though he does play those roles often enough. In my opinion his ideas are similar to WG's and sometimes he does speak WG's thoughts, but more often he has a creepier amoral ad-world bent to the things he says. I think he and WG could have a long and interesting conversation about things, but that afterward, WG would be wanting a shower.

quote:

Originally posted by remotepush:
just re-reading spook country in last few days. and i think one of the interesting things is his timing, his ability to thwart the hero by just turning up.

"hi this is bigend"
"ok"
"i'm in the lobby of your hotel, lets talk"
"eek!"

I like this idea.

I think it has to do with ability to disarm people. You keep being ready for him to be the villain, but he's too reasonable, he has too much to offer you that you want, he just doesn't fit the role. He thwarts the hero's by being too reasonable to resist, and he shows up just when you are trying to resolve yourself to tell him no.

quote:

Originally posted by Display Name:
I view him somewhat surreally. He is the deep pockets powerful mysterious guy that hires the protagonist to give them an expense account. I think Gibson's fantasy is to have an expense account.

Suffice to say, Bigend is Armitage, is Josef, is Rei (in ATP, though less explicitly), is Datamerica (or whatever the company that employs col in Idoru is), and so on.

You don't seem to like Gibson a whole lot, or am I misinterpreting?

Not that it matter if you don't, I'm just curious.

You're wrong about Bigend though insofar as he's not limited as a character in the way that Virek was, or DatAmerica (can't have a drink with a bank)and Rei wasn't the motivator she was the motive. Rei is more like the Footage, in terms of narrative purposes, then she is like Bigned.

If we're mapping one book to another then Bigend does match up more to Virek than the others you mention, but Bigend is more well developed as a character.

Of course he also maps to Oedipa Maas' patron, Pierce Inavaraity.

I don't think anyone who really doesn't like Gibson would have bothered to read all those books and find the parallels. I think he's just saying that all of Gibson's books have strong parallels in the characters, and sometimes in the plots, and I think that is arguably true. Whether they are too strong or not is a matter of opinion. He might also be saying that sometimes WG's characters come a little too close to being obvious authorial tools rather than people. Again, I think an argument could be made for that view, although I've never found it to be a problem myself.

Bigend learns to wear a hat

quote:

Originally posted by colin:
I don't think anyone who really doesn't like Gibson would have bothered to read all those books and find the parallels. I think he's just saying that all of Gibson's books have strong parallels in the characters, and sometimes in the plots, and I think that is arguably true. Whether they are too strong or not is a matter of opinion. He might also be saying that sometimes WG's characters come a little too close to being obvious authorial tools rather than people. Again, I think an argument could be made for that view, although I've never found it to be a problem myself.

I was wondering because he didn't seem to like Neuromancer so much. But he likes the prose. I'm in it for the prose first myself, then the ideas, and so on...

Just wondering.

I used to know a lot of sci-fans who didn't like Gibson.

They were... dealt with.

why bigend is seen as a villain:

quote:

Bigend and his James Bond villain's car, his half-built headquarters
to match, his too much money, his big sharp curiosity and his bland
willingness to go poking it wherever he wanted. That was potentially
dangerous. Had to be

as i already quoted in the trope slope thread. hollis sees him that way. and as discussed there, there is a general distaste for what he did to "old movies".

Did you mention this to Bill? I'd be curious if he might not say, "Oh, yeah... I forgot about that part."

Because it's fairly clear how some readers might get the impression he's a villain form text like that.

I never saw him as a bad guy as such, but I can see where people would.

Someone reading my book commented on a character being a "monster" I think he said, I didn't see it that way but I can see now why he said it.

to be honest, the reason i quote that now is because i only re-read that section this afternoon, shortly before responding to the other thread.

Bigend is the internet.

The internet becomes self-aware first, of course, and then it would become aware that these other things are using it's body\mind\universe to send data, store things, watch porn, and then the internet needs to learn about us. The aliens from outside it's world of self.

Bigend is an avatar of the internet, learning whatever he can for no reason but to know it.

Spitzer does whore, we see pix of whore later same day.

Girl, 18, dies getting breast implants, we see pix of pre-surgery bust same day.

Stuffwhitepeoplelike, posts a link about a guy in Seattle, he has a wikipedia page later the same day, plus links to his own blog.

Becca Manns? Same thing.

If he's "amoral" then the internet is "amoral". But it's more likely he's beyond good and evil isn't it?

In the age of looking at pictures of people in their underwear, because of a link to a link to a link, is there any kind of static morality left? Particularly in Gibson world? Seem unlikely in the extreme.

Bigend is a viral-meme-bloodhound avatar of the self-aware internet.

Like the best things in the world today he doesn't need to realize this for it to be true either.

"Vell, Bigend's just zis guy, you know?"