Nandor the Relentless(ly Goofy)

            I have a new crush. I'm gonna talk about him and I'm gonna cuss. Okay?

Okay. Well, I have friends who aren’t gonna be excited about this, because

A)     One of them has been hoping that I’d get into a committed relationship with a respectful, kind person

B)     This new guy’s self-involved.

C)     “He’s very set in his ways,” Taika Waititi once said, “He feels like the one that needs to have his hand held the most.”

Also, he’s got quite the storied past, which keeps him interesting, he likes goats and respects owls, he’s goofy as fuck, and a total night person, more so than myself.

            Who is he?

            

         

          I came across him thanks to “What We Do in the Shadows”, a documentary series on FX that accompanies the 2014 movie of the same name. Behind it are the prolific and talented Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi, allowing for an inside look at the lives of people who are old and not hip, but also not old-fashioned in every way. I mean, no matter what era or country or neighborhood you look at, there are going to be an array of personalities, including different kinds of self-obsession and ignorance, different cultural blind spots. This show follows not only Nandor but his three housemates, Nadja, Laszlo and Colin Robinson, and they are each learning about modern times over the decades in their own ways, which is terribly entertaining (for example, I'm currently in a phase where I giggle every time I watch Nandor trying to get a laptop out of sleep mode by gesturing dramatically at the darkened screen and saying, "Arise"), so we get to watch three centuries-old vampires enjoy but not really acclimate to the roaring 20's, the '70's, the 2000's, etc., marked by photos, while also seeing sexuality portrayed for the natural and varied thing that it is, what with Laszlo, Nadja and Nandor all making references to their pansexuality.

       By the way, I didn't mention Colin Robinson in the previous descriptions because he is something, uh...something else. I absolutely fucking love that one of the vamps in this house is an energy vampire, and if you're not familiar with that label, you probably still have dealt with multiple people over the years who deserve it. Regardless of what you may believe in spiritually/religiously, I am telling you, man, they are real. He, like his roommates, is not human anymore and doesn't need human food. His meals are your good vibes, your emotions and productivity. Unlike the others, he tried, at one point, to mack on a haunted doll and felt stung by the rejection.

On the right: Colin Robinson.

   

                      

  

It blows my mind that humans have been allowed in that house for so long, presumably without being eaten. Does the arrogance/vanity of these vamps really outweigh hunger for blood or energy enough for them to exclude the camera crew from their meal options? I assume that these troublemakers want their stories to be well documented and widely seen, be they arguing, attempting to fly and vacuum at the same time, arguing some more, accidentally killing a human descendant, getting caught by animal control while in bat form, or the memorable episode where they prepped their home for a vampire orgy. 

        Watching the show is just one of the productive things I’ve done during this lockdown, taking advantage of the opportunity to admire this man who, as a human, was known as Nandor the Relentless, a warrior king during the Ottoman Empire. Never did I imagine I'd become attracted to a remorseless, pillaging muthah fuckah, but here we is. He has spent about six hundred years as a vampire, laying waste to virgins and drug-happy ravers in Staten Island. Nandor isn’t the warrior he once was, having traded that for being more of a team player who cares about décor in the home and decent hygiene among the humans kept in “the cell” as food, and we’ll see if maybe that fastidiousness will present itself when season 3 eventually airs, and how else we'll glimpse his battles with a conscience regarding how he uses his familiar, Guillermo.

        Side note: I tell myself that a “familiar” is a servant to a witch or vamp, although maybe there are stories in which varieties of mythical creatures have familiars as well, for all I know. I’ll have to find out.

       According to a piece by Sonny Bunch in The Washington Times in 2008, titled, “MOVIES: A twist on the vampire flick":

The most ignored character in the vampire world is the “familiar” of the bloodsucker: the human servant who protects his undead master during the daylight hours.

A consistent part of vampiric legends, the familiar is often forgotten altogether (“Interview With the Vampire”). When he isn’t, he’s often a one-note bad guy (“Fright Night”) or someone forced to do a vampire’s bidding by violence or the threat thereof (“30 Days of Night”).

              So far, I'm of the belief that Guillermo deserves better than Nandor and his friends, and if he was committed to his position as familiar solely because of a desire to become a vampire, that undoubtedly changed ages ago, a belief I'm basing on behavior and Guillermo's eleven years of service to this grown un-dead guy who depends too much on someone else to help with everyday tasks, like simply holding his hand while he steps out of the coffin in which he sleeps.

Over the course of two seasons, we've already seen Guillermo grow and I'm curious about what is to come. Humans don't stay the exact same person over a lifetime; there is at least some degree of change from time to time, and I get to joyfully observe this very, very patient, passionate person bottle up too much of his frustration, enduring much mistreatment, learning more about his family genealogy, awakening natural ability within himself, honing the related skills, an exploration that escalates both his own self-awareness and stress. He's on a dark road littered with spiderwebs, whittled wood (say that ten times fast) and blood that will reach a fork one day soon (I say soon because, dude, a night at the theatre gone wrong!!!!).

       Obviously, my crush is entirely superficial and entirely silly. Nandor has such a handsome face!

But he sucks. He literally and figuratively sucks. Therefor, he will only ever serve as a character in my entertainment.