John Wick is a (Lapsed) Reformed Rake
pierced through the heart, but never killed
Exciting news! I have been off newsletter and more offline a lot these past few weeks, mainly for one big reason. Chels (of The Loose Cravat), Beth and I have started a historical romance novel podcast, Reformed Rakes! Our first episode is out today and it is about the Blackshear series by Cecilia Grant. We have lots of exciting things planned—it feels like I manage to talk about 19th century case law and semiotics in most episodes, it’s so more of the same from me that you get here at Restorative Romance.
On the theme of Reformed Rakes, here’s my defense of one of my goofiest personal theses.
I’ve advocated for looser, more vibe-y definitions of romance novels before. I understand the need for restrictive marketing terms—I want the things shelved with genre romance at a store to be actually genre romance just as much as anybody!
But my brain, even as a librarian, is never going to be that siloed. At an individual level, genre definition is a joint, organic project between author and reader. How could it not be? If I am seeking a certain feeling from a genre work, that feeling should be a part of the confirmation of its labelling in my brain. A hot dog is not a sandwich because it doesn’t feel like a sandwich!
Something I’ve said repeatedly is “John Wick is a Regency romance.” My emotional response to these films, which is close to being drunk with affection, feels like a synthetic, high octane, neon version of my favorite books. Overwhelming and rushing and literally tumbling down stairs toward an ending that I know is inevitable. I also think there is something to how the story is told, even within the action genre.
Like so many romances, the series begins and ends with our rake.
our rake, his wife
Samuel Richardson warned against adopting this aphorism, Violet Bridgerton endorsed it: “reformed rakes make the best husbands” is the foundation on which so much of historical romance stands.
And John Wick is THE husband.
The whole premise of the series is that Wick has retired from his assassin lifestyle. Retirement and divestment from the world of the High Table was hard fought. Motivated by love, he’s hung up his assassin identity to lead a life of domesticity with his wife, Helen (played from beyond the grave by Bridget Moynahan). But Helen is taken away from Wick, not by violence, but by illness. Wick is devoted to her memory and Helen arranges for Wick to have a beagle puppy after her death.
Russian gangsters led by Iosef, played by Alfie Allen (which is great because when you watch it, you get to say “Alfie Allen??”) see Wick putting gas into his very cool car and offer to buy it from him. He politely refuses. The gangsters then break into his home to steal the car and kill Wick’s puppy.
Wick swears revenge and starts his reentry into the world of assassins that he previously left behind. And once he starts, he cannot stop.
Haunting all four of the movies now is the question: what exactly is John’s plan? There seems to be no answer as a way out for John. Why can’t he just stop running or killing, even if meant he would die? The existence he occupies for all four films seems truly exhausting and many of the side characters gracefully meet death as an inevitably of their line of work.
The most painful acts against him are those that separate his earthly body from reminders of Helen, echoing this first pain of losing the dog she gifted him. Losing his house, losing his wedding ring. But as he reveals in the third movie, if he dies, he stop getting to remember Helen. Heartbreaking!
A dead, perfect wife is not a novel backstory for a hero, but Helen’s specter never really recedes far from the surface of Wick. He has no current romantic partner at any point in the film. Even as the audience may be distracted by an assault of choreography and fight Foley, Wick will soon say something devastating to remind us of why he is so violently purposeless. The version of this in the fourth film, which I won’t spoil, was so telegraphed, but the combination of Keanu’s delivery and the character’s general laconism had me weeping.
our rake, his reputation
“How much of your reputation is deserved?” she dared to ask him.
“Only about half…which makes me utterly reprehensible.”
Lillian Bowman and Sebastian, Lord St. Vincent in It Happened One Autumn by Lisa Kleypas
After Iosef kills the puppy and steals the car, in the grand tradition of characters played by Alfie Allen not quite realizing the consequences of their actions, Iosef’s father Viggo tells him exactly who he has violated. This is not just your run of the mill, incredibly handsome man with a cool car. This is John Wick.
People are always reporting John Wick’s reputation, telling stories that seem fantastical in his ability to kill and survive. Half the fun is hearing reports of John Wick’s exploits, especially knowing that we about to be delivered the next chapter of the myth.
Abram Tarasov: John Wick is a man of focus... Commitment... And sheer fuckin' will! He once killed three men in a bar...
His Assistant: With a pencil. I know. I've heard the story.
Tarasov: With a fucking pencil! Who the fuck can do that? I can assure you that the stories you hear about this man, if nothing else, has been watered down.
This is very rakish, especially in context of a romance novel. There’s the ambiguity of terror in the horror convention of “don’t show the monster” at play somewhat; the worse thing a hero does on page, the higher the pressure to redeem them on page is. So quite often, we’re told over and over again just how wicked these heroes are. They sneak into widows’ windows! They stay out at White’s until all hours of the night! They DUEL.
But just like how we have eventually see John Wick do something with a pencil (and a book, and a motorcycle, and nunchuks, and his bare heads), in the interpersonal relationship of a rake and heroine—we have to see the rake do some rakish things. But the reputation looming large colors all of the on page winks and flirts with a foregone conclusion: he’s deliciously wicked.
“Ah you are familiar with my reputation, are you, Miss Trent?” Dain enquired.
“Oh yes, you are the wickedest man who ever lived. And you eat small children, their nannies tell them, if they are naughty.”
“But you are not the least alarmed?”
“It’s not breakfast time, and I’m hardly a small child.”
Jessica and Sebastian, Lord Dain in Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase
our rake, his world
Takes abound: The world building in John Wick is good and fun. The world building in John Wick is exhausting. The world building in John Wick is simultaneously under developed and overly complicated.
The world building in John Wick is literally just the ton. The Continental Hotel is Almack’s, with special visiting rules and cost of entry (and cost of expulsion). John Wick has multiple visits to the modiste, only he has to buy both an outfit and to outfit himself with weapons. There are systems of ranking that John Wick disrupts, but has to honor and manipulate to survive. The High Table is the governing body of the world of the assassins, all-powerful, but bound a complex system of rules that must be honored. The High Table are the lady patronesses. Enforcers of the High Table’s rules are Adjudicators and Harbingers, which have a medieval play costume sheen to them in their whimsy that has to be taken at face value in-universe.
So many of the scenes of confrontation take place in nightclubs, where nonplussed Europeans dance while not being all that bothered by John Wick and his enemies’ violence. They are the faceless members of the ton who are surely all wrapped up in their own assignations in libraries and whispers during the country dance.
The ton and the High Table are stressed by transition and tradition—what makes the Regency interesting as a period is it malleability of meaning. It comes at the end of the Age of Reason and the beginning of Romanticism. Rationality and rules that still led to revolutions become suffocating and a response grows to feed a more organic ideal. It is a world where things have always been done one way, until they are done a new way.
In the John Wick universe, the long history of the High Table is invoked, without much direct exposition, over and over again. But the ways of the Table are strained, put under even more pressure by a rake without nothing to lose, refusing to play by the old rules.
The experience of the viewer of John Wick and the reader of a Regency romance in connection to these worldbuilding features is the same. Just enough is explained to know that what John Wick is doing is not exactly deemed above-board by the system in power. And then these iconic side characters come in to interact with John and, with very little dialogue, establish his singular power in this universe made up of cartoonishly powerful humans.
Beyond that, basically every character that is introduced seems to be Wick’s ex. Having a bunch of exes who are mad at you for leaving, but quietly respect you for being so good at your job? Very rakish.
our rake, his coup de grâce
Spoilers for John Wick 4
About an hour into John Wick 4, which I saw on Sunday, it becomes clear what is going to be the final fight of the film and maybe John Wick’s last fight ever. In order to best the High Table and finally be free and clear of both the price on his head and any outstanding obligations to the High Table, he has to duel formally the primary villain of the film: the Marquis de Gramont. The Marquis (played as French as Bill Skarsgård can manage) has been hired by the High Table to kill John Wick.
Lots of have to happen in order for the duel to even take place: John has to regain his standing with his family, give the challenge, and avoid being killed before the actual duel. This brutal attempt at survival and return to the fold make up the bulk of the second and third acts of the film.
The duel does happen, as ever, against all odds. They soundtracked the scene with a Morricone reference, more directly invoking Spaghetti westerns than a Code Duello. But all the mechanics of the Wick duel point to romance for me. Archaic rules and formal challenges and wagers, with seconds and dueling pistols, taking place at Sacre-Coeur at sunrise, against a man known as the Marquis, with the winner of the duel coming down to a prisoner’s dilemma, game theory solution?? I’m sorry, he’s a rake and this is a romance. That’s all there is to it.
loved this btw even though I am much cooler on the film than you. it's a great read of Wick as archetype!!!
I wholeheartedly agree with the thesis of this if only because my ex (affectionate) loved the John Wick movies and we watched them on several of our early dates. He had a framed picture of Keanu Reeves in his apartment (green flag), and when I asked him why, he said “he’s just a really good guy.” Anyway those movies are Romance, that’s facts.