Director's Notes: 195 - Silas the Thief, Part 1 (Patreon)

(NOTE: MASSIVE spoilers below. If you haven't listened to the episode, don't read this post or its comments yet)

Joseph and I have talked before - here and elsewhere - about not having all the answers to Night Vale. Why is Night Vale the way it is? I don't know. It just is, I think. There's no final episode planned, no unifying Theory of Everything that will neatly tie up Night Vale's strangeness. To us, Night Vale is a fun place to play in, not a mystery to be solved. It's a sand box, not a puzzle box.

That said...

It's still fun to answer some unanswered bits and pieces of the town. And sometimes the most satisfying questions to answer are the ones no one has even asked. Like: what's the deal with Khoshekh? Where did he come from?

Well, we know he's not originally a cat. "Why are you just now - 9 years and 4 months into your show - telling us this??" you may ask. And I will tell you because I only learned this fact myself 9 years and 3 months into this show. Well, "learned this fact" isn't the right phrasing. More like "made up this fact."

I'm really interested in complex characters, people who are good but do bad things. Or vice versa. Good and evil aren't really a strict binary, though I believe some deeds are unforgiveable. What you're willing to forgive depends largely on who the person in question is. Did a stranger call you a mean name? Or was it your best friend? Is there hope of redemption, of contrition? Did the bad deed come from emotion or did it come from the very core of their being? 

Silas, here, is not a good guy. He is, in the shortest of shorthand, a bad guy. That doesn't mean he's evil or unforgiveable, though, I think if he were a real person, I might have a hard time forgiving him for his misogyny, thievery, and unchecked narcissism. But it's all inside the package of an adorable floating cat. Cecil can't hear anything except "meow" or "purr" or "hiss." To the human observers in the radio station bathroom, he's a simple creature with a simple life and simple thoughts. 

And this is what Sandrine wanted for him, to be taken care of by Cecil, but never taken seriously. Never given agency or freedom, like she was with Silas.

That's what I'm interested in this two-episode storyline. 

Well, that, and getting to work with the lovely actor Jonathan Atkinson. 

PS If you want more of Jonny. He and his friend Aileen Clark, host a podcast that discusses Latinx horror films. It's called ¡Uy Que Horror! and I love it. They have great chemistry. I haven't seen most of the films they talk about, but I'm learning so much and having a fun time doing it.