Secret Identities
10.17.24
SECRET IDENTITIES
When did people start dreaming of secret identities?
Does it predate Odysseus, who shows up in Ithaka under an alias so that he can take back his legacy?
Does it take hold more strongly before the Elizabethan Era, when characters like Viola and Rosalind needed other guises in order to manifest power that was denied in that age to all women other than the Queen?
Does it flourish before the dawn of the 20th century, when renegade heroes like the Scarlet Pimpernel and Zorro demonstrated that a mask and a mission could create a legend?
Clearly it explodes today, when social media allows anyone to create a new persona online. A key element of my script for HARD CANDY is that you don’t know anything about Hayley and everything you do know is a façade. She’s the 21st century version of the Man With No Name, but she’s given herself a new name and identity to draw in her quarry.
When I was writing my first stories, they were about me and my friends as a team of adventurers replete with code-names. X-1, X-2, and so on. Yeah, it wasn’t that complex, I was still in first grade. But even then I had an intuition from superheroes and spies that the big important work might have to be done undercover.
This matters today because we’re launching the first episode of SEASON THREE! And in Ep 301, we learn more about our hero and who he really is, more than we have ever learned before.
When I named this show AGENT STOKER, I had an intuition stretching all the way back to those first grade stories, that we would never know his true full name. All our characters in the Night Brigade would have codenames, and they would benefit from keeping their true identities secret. To go back to the lessons of Elizabethan literature like THE FAERIE QUEEN, if someone doesn’t know your true name, they don’t have power over you.
Yet as we have grown to know our wounded hero better, it’s been a challenge to keep his identity secret. He’s whispered his name to Laila Zomorodi. We heard part of his last name in Episode 212 and we’ll hear it again in Episode 301 before having it cut off.
And we’ll meet one of his family members and learn her actual first name. In two episodes we’ll meet another agent of the Night Brigade who is more daring about revealing her own name, and it turns out that will matter in saving her life.
But for now, let’s dive into Season Three and discover more about Agent Stoker’s past as well as his future! I’ll be back here every week with a few more thoughts about each week’s adventures – enjoy!
Bestest – B