XD I'm so out of touch with the fandom these days... I find myself wondering a lot of things now.

So what do you guys think of Macavity? Is he misunderstood, the generic big-bad type of character, or someone seriously evil?

I know he typically gets little development in stories where he's not the main character. Do you guys think that's a good thing or not?

Well, I think, in writing the musical, ALW probably wanted Macavity to be the generic, "Look at me I'm so evil" villain. However, I like to see him sort of differently from that: I think, in the past, something probably happened to make Macavity hate the Jellicles: whether it was intentional or not, one or some of the Jellicles might have done something to bother him a lot, or maybe he was blamed for something he didn't do... not sure exactly, but I like to think that there's a reason he hates the Jellicles, and I don't think it's just because he likes Demeter.

I think it all depends. Sometimes writing him as all bad without any morals is necessary for the plot. I rather prefer it if some dimension is added to him, but don't think it's a big deal if he's written as simply evil as long as the rest of the story depends on that fact so that he can do some terrible deed or whatnot and get the story rolling. One could write some explanation for his apparent evilness by saying that he's had bad experiences, or feels particular malice towards the Jellicles for some misdeed of their own against him in the past, or just has some problems in the head. Maybe he's a sociopath... then again, if he actually cares about Demeter, I suppose he'd have to be a psychopath at most. Psychos have some feelings for some people, whereas sociopaths... feel pretty much nothing. They're kinda scary like that.

I think he's seriously evil - I have an interesting take on Macavity - both personality and historically. Sadly, I don't have time for details at the moment, but I will explain more when I have the time.

I think he should get development if he features at all in a story. I'm fond of the fics where he's not the token villain, although of course still a bad guy. This ain't a Western, there can be more than one bad guy out there (kinda like reminding vet students that animals can suffer more than one disease/condition at the same time.)

I like this idea, although again I will explain more when I'm awake.

You also might like to note that I'm working on a whole series of fanfics where Macavity is not the villain of the piece, perhaps even considered as the good guy, but without changing his base character. We shall see how it works out.

What do I think of Macavity? I do not often think of Macavity. I write what's convenient.

When I do think of Macavity, it is usually to rage at some travesty of a fanfic. Macavity is not a master mage! He's like a ninja at best, sheesh.

Heh. I like that. Ninja.

I agree. In most of my fics and when I play him in an rp, he usually does have magic but he rarely uses it. If he did have any of these types of abilities, I'd expect they'd do little more than assist his escapes from the authorities and concealment and such.

Hence the ninja thing ;)

It's kind of like how he also prefers to do his own dirty work rather than delegate, and is entirely self-sufficient. In my head.

I agree with this. In the song/poem, we hear nothing about him being a leader of a huge bunch of cats or rats or whatever. It's only in the musical that we see them, and only four of them.

He might have hench-men type characters, but I doubt he relies on them as much as people tend to have him do in fanfic. After all, he goes around scaring the Jellicles on his own, and only brings out his "helpers" to help him take away Deuteronomy.

Mind if I jump in? I just have to say this:
Has anyone else noticed that people tend to portray Macavity as evil, insane, and not too smart? That bothers me. I mean, sure, his little plot during the play was...interesting...but he couldn't have become this major crime lord without some intelligence, right? So that bothers me a bit.

And I think people take the "Macavity's not there" thing a bit too literally sometimes; after all, if he has his henchcats do all his work, he really won't be there, at all.

In my fanfics, I portray Macavity as very intelligent - sort of like Scar from The Lion King, in that I make him very smart, but a bit too egocentric (which is usually his fatal flaw in my stories).

Oh yes, that drives me nuts. If Macavity is clever enough to avoid all sorts of human detectives and such in his exploits, he should be more than a match for most cats as well. And yet he always seems to be making obvious/stupid mistakes in fanfic, so that Mistoffelees or [insert character of choice] can beat him and save the day.

It gets kind of, I guess, lame after a while. XD

Besides, you can be really smart and still be insane or just plain messed up.

Oh yea, definitely. Think Hannibal Lector. Genius, but one screwed up dude...

One thing that's been a bit of a blur to me is the whole agent thing. The song basically says that Griddlebone and Mungojerrie are his agents. So, does this mean he has a whole string of criminals working for him? Does this make them henchcats, or is it more of a free-lancing... thing... as it were...?

It does seem, though, that if he's going to have anybody working for him, he's got to have some sort of a system set up. I mean, he has to have an organization of some kind, don't you think? Wow, I'm not explaining this well... I guess I'm thinking of him and his followers in terms of gansters...

That's right. He's the mobster of depravity. :rolleyes:

Hi! I thought I'd join in...

I totally understand what you're saying. For a while now I've been trying to explore Macavity's character and give him a convincing backstory, and the network of followers is a huge part of it.

I also really like the concept of a father/son dynamic between Macavity and Mistoffelees, so that leads me to believe that Macavity has some sort of power, whether it be magic, strategy, logic, etc. He's a tough cat to place anywhere, because he has such a small part. He just shows up, laughs, fights, then leaves. I wish TS Eliot had written a novel instead of some poems!

As for Mungojerrie and Griddlebone, I consider Mungojerrie to be the kind of weak-minded petty thief that gets in over his head. Maybe he was a spy for Macavity for a while. (or still is... who knows?) I don't really pay any mind to the mention of Griddlebone, because I consider her a fictional character... in the CATS universe, that is. Because if I considered the rest of them real... I'd have issues.

I like to think of Macavity as a cat who started off normal...for the most part, but was deprived of love, or did something and was declared as dangerous, or was going to be the jellicle leader, but was declared unfit. Through all of his heartache, he kinda lost it and went nuts, then started doing horrible things, was kicked out of the tribe, and vowed revenge. Did that make any sense? With fics, I tend to feel for him instead of against him. Even when he does terrible stuff, I find I can understand him, and like to feel sorry for him. People are always like Macavity's so bad and horrible and should be disposed of. But I think he had reasons to turn bad. It's hard to explain, but...yeah. Empathy, not sympathy. Well, maybe some sympathy. Okay, quite a bit of sympathy. But anywho, I think what he does is justified, if not morally correct.

I think that kind of take on Macavity lends itself to writing the most. We get to see a progression of sorts.

But it's still a lot of fun to read each person's different view. :D