The Truth

3

The characters of Pin and Tulip are somewhat frustrating for Terry in the sense that many, many people feel that they are ‘obviously’ based on Mr Croup and Mr Vandemar in Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere (who refer to themselves as the Old Firm, and call each other ‘Mr’). Or ‘obviously’ based on the thugs Jules Winfield and Vincent Vega from the 1994 movie Pulp Fiction (and there are a good number of Pulp Fiction references in The Truth). Or obviously based on Mr Wint and Mr Kidd from the James Bond movie Diamonds are Forever. Or obviously based on the two Rons (who called themselves ‘The Management’) from the BBC Hale and Pace series. Or…

Terry himself had this to say:

“1. The term ‘The Old Firm’ certainly wasn’t invented by Neil. I think it first turned up amongst bookies, but I’ve even seen the Kray Brothers referred to that way. Since the sixties at least the ‘the firm’ has tended to mean ‘criminal gang.’ And, indeed, the term turned up in DW long before Neverwhere.

2. Fiction and movies are full of pairs of bad guys that pretty much equate to Pin and Tulip. They go back a long way. That’s why I used ’em, and probably why Neil did too. You can have a trio of bad guys (who fill roles that can be abbreviated to ‘the big thick one, the little scrawny one and The Boss’) but the dynamic is different. With two guys, one can always explain the plot to the other…”

“A point worth mentioning, ref other threads I’ve seen: Hale and Pace’s ‘Ron and Ron’ worked precisely because people already knew the archetype.”