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Popular Culture Review
tough guy, good looking, with just enough personal problems to make him seem
interesting. But not in Moore’s hands. Look at how Moore describes O’Heam:
“Dark with dark eyes and lean, Travis had sharp features that would have
seemed evil if not for the constant look of confusion he wore, as if there were
one answer that would make everything in life clear to him if he could only
remember the question” (Demonkeeping 24). In that one sentence, Travis is set
up differently than an Alpha Male. An Alpha would never be confused. They
would know the right thing to do at all times. Here, though, O’Heam is
described as not bad looking, but perennially confused. He has the answer to
nothing and yet Moore is going to ask his readers to spend the rest of the book
trying to figure out why they should trust him to save the villagers and destroy
the demon.
In addition to physical descriptions, Moore tells us more about the type of
man O’Heam is by looking at the car he drives: a Chevy Impala. No, there is
nothing wrong with a Chevy Impala, but it is not what any self respecting Alpha
would ever be seen driving. It is nondescript. Boring. In short, it is the perfect
car for a Beta. To further emphasize the similarities, the first time the car is
called upon to act, Moore writes: “Travis pushed the accelerator to the floor and
the Impala’s engine hesitated, then roared as the automatic transmission dropped
into passing gear” (Demonkeeping 25). The car behaves precisely the way a
Beta Male would behave in the same situation: hesitate. . . and then go full
force as if the head cheerleader had asked him to put ketchup on her hot dog. It’s
these little signposts that Moore uses to keep his readers in the know.
Now here’s where Moore pulls the reader in completely. In this book, none
of the major characters are Alpha. Moore populates his work with Beta males of
differing degrees, but all recognizable enough so anyone reading will realize
they could know any one of these men.
Moore will rarely use an Alpha in a prominent role for a couple of reasons.
The first, as stated, is identification. It’s much easier to identify with the guy
who always looks confused than it is with the guy who always has the answer to
everything. No one has all the answers, except maybe Ken Jennings (the guy
who won 74 games on Jeopardy), and actually, if he were to be recreated as a
fictional character, he’d be Beta all the way. Along the same lines, women
recognize the Beta and want to care for them immediately. They don’t want to
date them; instead, they want to mother them, make sure they’re okay. In one
fell swoop, Moore has given his readers of both sexes someone they can feel
comfortable with. A man does not normally feel comfortable with an Alpha
since, at some point in his life, an Alpha has stolen his girlfriend. Second, and
more importantly for Moore as a writer, is that Betas are just plain more fun to
write.
Take Augustus Brine for example. Brine (and one must love a character
whose name is synonymous for brackish sea water), who owns the general store
in Pine Cove, where the bulk of the action in Practical Demonkeeping takes
place, is described as “old, but—still strong and vital and a dangerous man in a