On Semiotics in Worm:
Doing the Wrong Things for the Right Reasons and Vice Versa
Things are often not what they seem. This is especially fitting in deconstructive works as they commonly use semiotics to mislead or breakdown character archetypes in order to better unspool the conventions of what they are deconstructing. Perhaps it is fitting then that John McCrae's (also known by the online alias Wilblow) seminal web-novel
Worm has the use of semiotics and people's interpretations of these symbols as a major aspect of the setting that ties into the core narrative of the work.
Worm is a deconstructionist story that takes many elements of the superhero setting and genre and uses them to mask the fact that the story is indeed about a dystopian society doing whatever it can to stave off its destruction and the disturbing consequences of what people will do when their backs are against the wall. Over the course of the novel the use of semiotics is deliberately invoked by nearly every character in some form or another in order to achieve their goals. The novel often paints the world in shades of black and gray and its central conceit on the semiotics of superheroes and villains is a nuanced warning on the dangers of these semiotics being relied on too much since there is more to other people than their symbols, others deliberately misuse symbols to obfuscate sinister intentions and there is more to the individual than the role they have chosen while ultimately conceding that a total abandonment of this paradigm is ultimately unfeasible and inhuman and that there is worth in the semiotics of the genre.
Worm was written over the course of two years by the author John McCrae and is about 1,680,000 words long. The story centers around a bullied teenager named Taylor Hebert who lives in a fictional alternate universe called Earth Bet which has a point of diversion from our own history with the arrival of superpowered people or "parahumans" in 1982. However, the arrival of parahumans has not made the world a better place. The first superhero and obvious Superman analogue Scion is an alien who doesn't comprehend human morality and as such treats getting cats out of trees and preventing the sinking of places like Kyushu and Newfoundland as equally important, giant monsters regularly wreck and destroy entire populations (this gets so bad that there is a two year waiting period for another city to get destroyed in the aftermath of a battle and that is considered relatively low damages) and superheroes are unable to properly recreate infrastructure to support people, the government is relatively impotent due to their inability to deal with a society where superpowers exist and the heroes are fighting a losing battle since they are outnumbered by the villains (this is a play on how in comics major heroes have an entire gallery of rogues dedicated to just fighting them). The setting of
Worm takes traditional symbolic aspects of comic book narratives (Trauma induced superpowers, aliens with powers helping earthlings, crossover events, rogues galleries etc.) and uses them to mask the dystopic state this world is in. While the novel often disparages these elements it never abandons them and ultimately the same elements that were initially used to emphasize the darkness of the setting end up bringing about hope for the future. Likewise, the novels initial dismal portrayal of the semiotics of superheroes later gives way to hopeful optimism that in spite of all the bad that comes about because of them some good can come from these images and ideals.
Taylor Hebert the main character of the novel gains superpowers after a traumatic incident and sets out to become a superhero. However due to her lack of understanding of semiotics she quickly ends up unintentionally becomes a supervillain. Early in her career as the villain Skitter Taylor learns of the power of semiotics in conditioning how others respond to you. Later she begins to realize that despite its usefulness in communication the superhero symbolism the setting is drenched in is often used by others to fool people into thinking things that aren't true by both villains (her boss Coil for example) and heroes (the teenage vigilante Shadow Stalker) who properly understand the use of semiotics. Her view on semiotics is then further soured by realizing and interacting with individuals who have become utterly consumed by their need to match the symbolic role they were dealt. While she initially attempts to reject the use of semiotics and stick to merely using whatever works best this position is also heavily criticized. Towards the end of the series she encounters other individuals who entirely abandon the use of symbols as anything but a tool to get things done. However, whether their goals are noble or not the individuals who entirely abandon heroic or villainous symbolism are some of the coldest most inhuman and monstrous individuals in the entire setting. Those who choose to remove themselves entirely from the symbols used to identify them seem to reject a fundamental part of their humanity in the setting of
Worm. Taylor ends her journey by casting of the idea of becoming a hero or a villain and ends up becoming just as monstrous and inhuman as those she fought against. However, at the end of the story she ends up regretting making those choices and reaffirms that despite all odds there is such a thing as heroes.
At the start of the story Taylor Hebert doesn't truly understand the symbolic interactions of superheroes. While Taylor is determined to become a superhero the costume she ends up wearing is distinctly villainous in appearance "The mask design featured dull yellow lenses, the only color on the black and gray costume as well as sections of armor designed to imitate a bug's mandibles" (McCrae, Gestation 1.3). This villainous appearance causes others to preemptively judge her. It causes a group of villains she encounters, the Undersiders, to assume that she is a villain like them which in turn makes the manner in which they interact with her far more open and personable as they feel that they can relate to her. When they meet again after Taylor's first night as a superhero they politely offer her money, ask her if she wants to join and when she initially is hesitant they don't push her to do something she doesn't want to. On the other hand the superhero she encounters at about the same time treats her with hostility and suspicion as he automatically distrusts her in part due to her costume design. This dislike is only further compounded when Armsmaster gets blamed for the complications that arose in the capture of a supervillain that occurred due to Skitter not promptly understanding the rules of engagement in the city. Because of his initial view of her is already villainous Armsmaster is prone to believing that Skitter is a manipulative villain with a scheme rather than a new naïve hero due to the symbolism she unintentionally wrapped herself in. This antagonistic relationship with official heroes accepted by the populace combined with her amicable relationship with the Undersiders leads Taylor to like the Undersiders far more than Armsmaster. Initially Taylor agrees to join the Undersiders by justifying it as working undercover. However, the more she gets involved in actions that are viewed as villainous (guilt tripping, not fighting fair, lying etc.) the more she is treated terribly by the heroes. It gets so bad that official heroes feel completely justified in treating her as a full-blown villain with them threatening things like ""What if I fucked up your taste buds, you little terrorist? You threaten the lives of innocents, I can go that far. I can do anything with your biology. Make everything you eat taste like bile. Or maybe I'll just make you fat. Morbidly, disgustingly fat." And ""Or I'd maybe give you a heart attack. Or cancer." (McCrae Agitation 3.11) due to her involvement with the Undersiders. The Undersiders instead treat Taylor to food, explain the unwritten rules of parahumans, and even buy her new clothes. In general they treat her politely and she becomes friends with them. This cycle of increased hostility from heroes and more kindness from the villains causes Taylor to switch sides. She abandons attempting to be a hero and instead chooses to commit whole heartedly to becoming a villain. And all of this stems from Taylors lack of understanding of the semiotics of her own costume. This is then compounded by one of the Undersiders, Tattletale (aka Lisa), who uses Taylors lack of knowledge to manipulate her into viewing things a set way. Tattletale equates the entire parahuman conflict to a high stakes game of cops and robbers where most of the participants aren't inherently evil even if they break the law. Taylor's lack of understanding what is real and what is merely symbolic allows Tattletale to present a convincing argument for this despite it not being true at all.
At the beginning of
Worm Taylor's lack of understanding of semiotics is constantly causing her problems and setting her into conflict with others. Not only does not understanding the superhero symbolism cause miscommunication but it also allows others to effectively manipulate and warp your perceptions until the you no longer recognize things for what they are. This is especially potent for an isolated and ostracized individual like Taylor. The consistent bullying and lack of positive social interaction made her unable to properly understand the symbols others used to communicate and thus made her prone to making mistakes. Furthermore, others inability to see beyond the symbolism of her status only drive her further and further into becoming what they categorized her as. This extends to the world at large as how we perceive others often is incorrect and may end up influencing others to our own detriment.
This theme of symbols harming and misleading others is then further developed as Taylor commits to becoming a villain and becomes a major player in her home city of Brockton Bay. In this next chapter of her career Taylor learns that people often use the symbols of heroes and villains to mislead. Kaiser, the leader of a neo-Nazi gang, pretends to be an important member of the community who supplies jobs in his secret identity and holds a standard of honor despite being a gang leader when in reality he is actually an emotionally manipulative narcissist who cares little for the creed of white supremacy beyond it being a good way to gather easily manipulated followers. The Undersiders respond to this manipulation of symbols by outing Kaiser and all of his followers and destroying their secret identities. While this does cause Kaiser's gang to collapse it also throws the entire city into chaos and puts relative innocents like Kaiser's stepson in danger. Taylor shows no remorse at participating in this escalation until it is implied that a baby girl was kidnapped in order to threaten members of Kaiser's organization. This suggests that when symbolism is used to cover part of someone's true identity it hides a disturbing and violent part of their personality and the fallout of such revelations will harm everyone who is close to that false identity.
The next challenge in this vein is Shadow Stalker. Shadow Stalker is a hero who has a lot of the same sort of image as the classic "Cowl" superheroes like Batman. She is a broody violent loner who enjoys beating up criminals wears a dark costume and relies on stealth and ambushes in order to win fights. She is also very effective at capturing criminals which causes other heroes to tolerate her less than pleasant personality. This also causes other heroes as well as the government to build up Shadow Stalker's reputation as a hero. However, like with Kaiser all of this is a mask. In reality, Shadow Stalker is a sadistic bully who merely enjoys taking out her anger on what society deems as acceptable targets. She is unhinged and is directly responsible for the traumatic incident (getting stuffed in a locker filled with used tampons) that caused Taylor to gain powers. When Taylor finds out about this, she turns cynical towards the very idea of heroes. Upon discovering that Skitter and thus the Undersiders have learned about who she really is, Shadow Stalker attempts to preemptively murder them since they were already proven willing to out others. The Undersiders respond to this threat by destroying Shadow Stalker's life and career and hijack her body to steal documents from the Protectorate (the Justice League analogue for the series). This seems to indicate that in order to removal a false narrative built up through the use of semiotics one has to be willing to do extremely unpleasant and vile things. Reversing a false narrative that has already been built up requires an attack on those who have built up that narrative. Pain and torment must be inflicted in the open to prevent it from occurring behind closed doors.
The issue of the use of semiotics to lie and mislead others culminates with none other than the Undersiders secret boss Coil. Virtually everything about Coil is designed to mislead. His supervillain persona and costume are entirely disconnected from his actual powers and goals while his civilian persona hides all of his malicious intent behind the guise of a helpful authority figure. Coils whole power is that he can run to parallel timelines at once and pick whichever one he prefers. In other words, Coil often presents an image to people that they want to see while indulging in torture and murder in his other timeline. He pretends to be a reasonable authority figure who wants to improve the city but in reality, is a vicious control freak who relies on murder and coercion to achieve his goals. Coil also serves as a conclusion to Taylor's journey through this part of her career. He continuously throws out various attempts to appeal to others and then attempts to remove them when his façade is cracked. On top of that he is the first of these manipulators who Taylor is guilty of aiding and abetting. Some of Coil's worst acts, such as kidnapping and drugging a prepubescent precognitive are only possible due to Taylor's help. Furthermore he regularly interacts with and lies to the various authority figures of Brockton Bay. As such Coil demonstrates that enough manipulation of the narrative through the use of semiotics can make even the most well-intentioned of people complicit in a variety of horrific acts. However his ultimate end also demonstrates why attempting to constantly lie and present a false face doesn't work. Coil's downfall ultimately came about when everyone knew he was a liar. As such nobody could trust him and thus nobody would work with him. Similarly when a symbol is subverted or misused over and over again it loses its original meaning and becomes meaningless. Coil demonstrates that at the end of the day complete and constant subversion of symbols is virtually identical to being unable to understand the symbol, you can't properly communicate with anyone else and will end up isolated from greater understanding.
Towards the tail end of this part of her career Taylor encounters another archetypal problem with superheroes and semiotics. This time instead of not properly understanding how to see beyond the symbolism or deliberate misuse of the symbolism in order to fool others the issue is instead the envelopment of an individual by the symbolism they use to self-identify. This runs in direct parallel to Taylor as at this point in her career as a supervillain she often used the power of Skitter's reputation to act as a force onto itself.
The first character to examine is Panacea. Panacea starts off as a miracle healer who can more or less cure anything. She maintains a very black and white mindset and is determined to always do the right thing. However, her unbreakable unshakeable rules end up only ended up contributing to her self-loathing. Panacea ended up feeling heartless since "She couldn't bring herself to care anymore when she went to the hospitals to heal the injured and sick. It was a chore, something she made herself do because people wouldn't understand if she stopped. There were only so many people she could heal before she became desensitized to it." (McCrae Interlude 11h) and since her moral code told her that a good person needs to care about others she felt as though not caring inherently made her a bad person. This led to stress mounting higher and higher until the moment when she did break her moral code led to her doing something horrible which led to her life spiraling out of her control. Panacea's insistence on being a good healer and only a good healer led to her eventually snapping from the strain of being unable to live up to the symbolic representation of who she should be. This ultimately led to her burning out and choosing to imprison herself until she learned to better cope with who she is.
The flip side of this destructive inability to match an imposed symbolic image is Echidna. Echidna frankly looks like a horrific monster through no real fault of her own. Despite this Echidna (who was originally named Noelle) desperately just wants to be a normal girl. However, time and time again she fails to find any real solution for her problems. Eventually she gives up on attempting to maintain any sort of standards and chooses to just give into her monstrous urges. Unlike Panacea whose unhealthy fixation on what she symbolically should be was what led to her downfall, Echidna suffers from attempting to reject what she should be in order to better match what she symbolically is. Even before she gained powers Noelle often suffered from eating disorders and was constantly fixated on not looking good or normal enough. Gaining powers only magnified these issues. Noelle became Echidna when she chose to reject her humanity as she felt she no longer matched the symbolic qualifications to be one. Her constant perception of herself as bad led to her constantly magnifying these issues until they were blown utterly and entirely out of proportion. Echidna's rejection of her humanity leads to her demise as she is torn apart when she enters a trap that any rational thinking human would have been able to avoid due to her blind animalistic rage.
While both Panacea and Echidna are extremes when it comes to this behavior what we believe we are or should be due to preexisting symbols in our society often can have negative effects on us. Indeed, Taylor often suffers from both of these problems. As she transitions from working for Coil to being the new leader of the Undersiders Taylor often struggles with guilt due to the actions she is forced to commit (what she believes she is) and her desire to be more intimidating and dangerous in order to make sure her area is safe and runs smoothly (what she believes she should be). Ultimately at this point in the narrative
Worm indicates that the implicit messages in what we should be as well as our tendency to castigate ourselves if we fail to meet them are unhealthy and will ultimately lead to a spiral of self-destruction.
This negative view of how the imagery and symbolism causes self-destruction to the various parahumans in the setting causes Taylor to abandon the concept of semiotics as nothing more than a tool. First she abandons her identity as Taylor Hebert when the heroes confront her at school then later she abandons her identity as Skitter in order to become the superhero Weaver in order to do more good. Then in the face of the impending apocalypse she once again abandons her identity in order to become Khepri and prevent the annihilation of humans. With each transition Taylor becomes less and less human and slowly loses bits of herself. This seeming inhumanity of those who completely reject all aspects of the semiotics of the genre beyond their use as just another tool to achieve their goals is highlighted in the final three opponents Taylor faces.
The first of these opponents is Cauldron. Cauldron is an interdimensional organization dedicated to preserving humanity from extinction. For the vast majority of the story the leadership of Cauldron is faceless and amorphous. They employ both some of the greatest heroes of the setting (Eidolon and Alexandria) and some of the most heinous villains (Siberian and Harbinger). They promptly use and discard any imagery or symbolism in order to better achieve their aims. The leadership of Cauldron when it finally is revealed they outright reject the traditional paradigm of hero/villain conflicts. Instead Contessa, the leader and founder of Cauldron, takes a rather Nietzschean view on the whole idea and views power as all that matters with morality being at best a side note. Cauldron deliberately sets up most of the conventions of the settings and enforces the rules only insofar as it promotes a greater amount of power for humanity. However, despite Cauldron's far reach they ultimately do not succeed in their endeavors. Much like Coil the discarding of the symbols of the superhero setting in favor of a Nietzschean mentality leaves every other hero and villain unable to trust them and work with them. By the end of the story virtually every member of Cauldron sans Contessa is dead and the people who did stop the apocalypse are all people who did not work with Cauldron. Cauldron is used to illustrate that despite all the pitfalls of the symbolism of heroism and villainy abandonment despite the many issues presented with them earlier in the story.
The next opponent who changes
Worm's meta-narrative on the use of superhero semiotics is Jack Slash. Jack Slash is a warning against the abandonment of the superhero/supervillain imagery's diminishing returns on getting results. Jack Slash is a Joker analogue who relies on his understanding of how others think and perceive their roles versus others to achieve his goals. He repeatedly torments and tortures virtually every member of the cast by picking at the issues in the roles they have designated for themselves in order to mock the whole paradigm. Even his power outright tells him how best to fight other superheroes and villains. Jack Slash ultimately ends up bringing about the end of the world and is an utterly monstrous individual due to his knowledge of the roles and their symbolism in this paradigm being used and discarded in order to maximize how well he can bully others. In the end though he dies an ignominious, unimportant and rather pathetic death at the hands of a random officer of the law who isn't even named in the story. For all of his attempts to manipulate the paradigm entirely and rapidly shift identities in order to best get what he wants the one time he fails to achieve this he almost instantly fails in the worst way possible (from his perspective). Jack Slash's downfall is symbolic of how entirely rejecting the superhero paradigm and symbolism is kind of untenable. Laughing and jeering at how stupid everything in the genre is while tearing it down leads to no improvements and ultimately only binds the criticizer to the genre more tightly. When the problems in the genre and its symbolism is eventually overcome the critic becomes nothing more than an ultimately unimportant footnote in the history of some greater work.
The final opponent who affects the meta-narrative of
Worm about the semiotics of the superhero genre is the first hero Scion. Scion is an inhuman alien who fails to truly understand humanity. He quite literally fulfills his role since he kept "waiting and hoping for the reward, the realization. When none had occurred, it had simply kept doing what it had been doing. Seeking out alternatives wasn't even in the realm of imagination, because imagination was something it lacked." (McCrae Interlude 26). Then after Jack Slash prompts Scion to realize how pointless it his he reacts in childish spite and tires to utterly wipe out everything bringing about the apocalypse known in the story as the Golden Morning. Scion is representative the overly literal and realistic. He follows conventions for the sake of following conventions and completely lacks imagination. When flaws in why the paradigm is the we it is he rejects it utterly as worthless. On a meta-level Scion's condemnation of the superhero paradigm is representative of critics castigating the worth of superhero semiotics for not conforming to reality.
In the end despite her initial rejection of the semiotics of the genre Taylor ultimately believes that they have worth despite not adhering to reality and challenges Scion. Taylor's response to Scion is on a meta-level a rebuttal that superhero semiotics despite all of the numerous problems outlined in the above paragraphs have no worth. Taylor becomes Khepri a being who no longer really qualifies as human who mind controls all parahumans into coordinating an assault on Scion. Using a bevy of parahuman powers Taylor shows Scion the image of the person he loved most which caused Scion to commit suicide upon realizing how utterly alone he is. After this Taylor loses her powers and returns to becoming a normal average person unknown to the parahuman community at large. On a meta-level Taylor's rebuttal to Scion's rejection of the semiotics of the genre shows that while individually the parts of superhero semiotics has problems, as a collective it is greater than what any one individual can conceive. It can inspire us, excite us, entertain us and cause us to feel love in ways which rote adherence to reality cannot. At the end of the day the semiotics of the genre while not particularly directly applicable to reality still hold merit in allowing us to overcome the limitations of our everyday life. Taylor ultimately ends her journey of
Worm's meta-exploration of semiotics on this hopeful note. She states "I've dealt with worse. If it comes down to it, if this is all I have to worry about, I can maybe deal. I could maybe learn to be okay" (McCrae Interlude End).
Worm is a deeply cynical examination of the semiotics of superheroes and villains. Taylors journey throughout the web-novel parallels the meta-narrative of the exploration of these semiotics. At the beginning of the story Taylor begins completely naïve about the world of heroes and villains. However, as time goes on, she encounters many of the problems with the conventions of the genre. Heroes are quick to judge others as pure evil for committing evil actions, evil seems to benefit others far more than good and the focus on spectacle does little to help the people on the ground deal with their problems. All of this seems to stem from people's inability to see beyond the immediate aspects of the genre. As she continues further she encounters even more problems with these semiotics since people like Kaiser, Shadow Stalker and Coil use them to trick and mislead others into becoming complicit in things that aren't what they actually want. Uncovering these schemes is incredibly difficult and can often have unintended harmful side effects to everyone involved as it is difficult to overturn the conventions that are preestablished in everyone's mind. The semiotics of the genre also is problematic in that it governs people to act in ways which are unhealthy. Both Panacea and Echidna are harmed by the immense mental strain the role they are expected to fill (by others or themselves) causes them. They implode and their problems end up being directly correlated to the semiotics of superheroes. This would seem to suggest That these semiotics are ultimately harmful to society at large. As such, Taylor ends up rejecting these conventions as nothing more than a tool to be used to gain what you want. However the inhumanity of her final few opponents causes her to ultimately change her mind and believe that there is some value in these ideas. Cauldron demonstrates the inhumanity and inability to communicate abandoning this paradigm entirely can cause while Jack Slash demonstrates that critique and tearing things down constantly without building them back up is ultimately pointless fruitless and anathema to actual progress. Finally Scion serves as a culmination of everything that came before. He is representative of a complete and utter rejection of the semiotics of superheroes due to their perceived lack of worth because they don't match reality and individually can be quite dangerous or unhealthy. Taylor responds by showing Scion that as a whole the elements of the superhero genre can cause us to feel things that we wouldn't in our normal everyday life. The value of the semiotics of the superhero genre is not in its adherence to reality but rather in its ability to inspire us to overcome reality. As such the web novel ultimately concludes that while there is many flaws to the semiotics of superheroes they ultimately are worth keeping and do have merit.
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