I am a big fan of reading and also a big fan of the Buccaneers, which should be obvious at this point. Me being the self proclaimed “genius” that I am, tried to figure out ways to combine the two. And in doing do, I came up with this ongoing series of articles called “Devin’s Book Corner”.
Lost Boy can refer to that song from the early 2000s that I’m pretty sure played on every radio station, but in this case it is a book by Christina Henry. When the copyright protection for Peter Pan ended in 2008, there was a tidal wave of reinterpretations of the myth, but this book does break new ground in terms of how it sees the characters.
Peter Pan the first time he truly appeared in JM Barrie’s work, Peter Pan, was definitely selfish and self-centered, but wasn’t evil. In this adaptation, Peter is the villain. This isn’t some type of spoiler or anything. Lost Boy is advertised as showing the perspective of the Lost Boys as opposed to Peter. And usually that sort of advertising makes me roll my eyes a little bit as I never liked the whole fairy tale but make it darker. It’s usually shit, but in this case, it is pretty well-written.
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The book follows Jamie, who becomes Captain Hook, as the first boy that Peter kidnaps from “The Other Place” which is our reality. Jamie at first loves Peter, but soon realizes just how selfish and cruel he is. You see, in this adaption, Peter is a full on narcissistic cult leader who constantly needs to be the center of attention, expects everyone to follow his whims, and doesn’t give a fuck about the lives of these boys. He sees them as nothing but toys that he can easily replace by going to our world and finding another kid. I will refrain from too many spoilers here as I don’t wish to ruin the twists, although there is one thing I have to reveal; there is an argument to be made though it isn’t actually a spoiler.
But while the book does rush the third act slightly and could’ve been maybe another fifty pages longer, it is a good read. It has some fun references to things like Tinkerbell, mermaids, how Captain Hook lost his hand, and things like that, which are neat. Not much to say other than it is very solid.
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But how does this relate to the Buccaneers? That’s the question ain’t it. I suppose there is the obvious pirate connection. Both Tampa and Peter Pan have pirates that cannot be denied. There’s also something to be said about Lavonte David and the fact that he is arguably Peter Pan for the Bucs. But that’s too easy. Let’s look instead at false villains. At the end, Peter Pan forces Jamie to forever be Captain Hook and fight him for his amusement. So, Peter ends up looking like the valiant hero that we know and love when in reality, he is just a selfish brat who couldn’t give two licks about anyone except himself.
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When you look at the Buccaneers, I think you can argue there were a lot of people and players that were made out that way. I’ve talked enough about how poor Antoine Winfield has been completely mistreated by fans, so I won’t dwell too much on that. But if you look at individual games, you can see guys like Baker take a lot of blame for games that weren’t fully his fault.
Hell, there was a contingent of fans who argued that the offense was the reason we lost in the playoffs. Of course there were then those that blamed the defense completely, just ignoring the turnovers/mistakes on offense (Both sides were right and wrong to play both sides). Todd Bowles of course got that treatment (He does deserve blame for some games, but there were times he got blamed for shit the players screwed up outside his control). You can throw the refs in there even for receiving blame for why the Buccaneers would lose games, although that can be said about 31 other NFL teams. And please don’t think I am excluding myself from this behavior. I know I have a tendency to do the same thing.
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But what I will say is that I think there is a desire to find easy subjects to blame because it becomes a lot easier to find a solution. Todd Bowles is the problem? Well fire him. Jame Dean can’t stay on the field? Then cut him. Refs made the wrong call? Walk them off the plank. Boom, all of a sudden there’s a quick fix for what’s ailing you. Of course, things can never be that simple.
But wait, hold on, who’s Peter Pan in this scenario? It would have to be someone who seems like the hero, only for us to slowly realize they were actually the bad guy and a problem. Yeah it’s probably K.J. Britt. We were told he could be at minimum serviceable and we were lied to. We got taken to Neverland and betrayed. Only we didn’t even get to fly. Only the footballs from the QBs of our opponents did that.
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