“I wanted to do something that would get us out of the caricature of the conspirator with an aluminum foil hat,” explains Raphaël Codebecq, the author of the new Radio-Canada web series. The Knights of Light. To do this, he created the duo of best friends Phil and Oli, late twenties, who, during an evening of excess, and with the aim of helping their friend in distress Audrey, share on the social networks a video that caught the attention of a conspiratorial group.
“It took me two good Jacks mired in a friendship that becomes toxic in the long run, because they prevent each other from evolving,” he says, referring to a coming-of-age classic shape, spiced up with a love triangle.
It was therefore necessary for Raphaël Codebecq to rejuvenate the stereotypical image of the plotter and to show that the new generations of adults are not spared. “We often think, wrongly, of boomers who don’t really know how the Internet works and who get bamboozled into all sorts of deals because they think they’ve discovered a gold mine on a somewhat crooked site”, he indicates.
On the other hand, the screenwriter insists: “The goal of the web series was never to make fun of these people for free, since the collateral victims are indeed real. It’s about humanizing them and understanding them, rather. “I really wanted to talk about the sadness that lives in those who come to succumb to conspiracy theories and take a more sensitive look at them,” he says. According to him, if these people, like his protagonists, get carried away so easily, it is because of an ambient gloom. “People who are bored seek an explanation for the adversity and injustice of life,” adds the one who is particularly moved by human misery.
Get out of the clichés, but not too much!
If he considers that he has avoided the pitfall of platitudes relating to conspirators, Raphaël Codebecq nevertheless hopes that viewers will enjoy a few caricatures skilfully depicted in The Knights of the light. This is particularly the case of the character played by Guy Jodoin, Alain “Rocky” Caron, an “alpha male cheap in the prime of life, but with the mentality of a 14-year-old teenager who dresses like a Hells Angel and who got a tattoo on his face. “It’s about a thug who has sniffed out the potential for conspiracy theories and is riding the wave just to make money. cash, says the screenwriter. At another time he would have plunged into the cigarette trade, and next month it will surely be something else. As for the group that Rocky leads, Les Loups solidaires, it was inspired by controversial groups like La Meute and the Farfadaas, in the hope of raising questions. “Laughing at Rocky doesn’t bother me, because he allows me to show the absurdity of the thing with a good dose of cynicism and to make you think,” he continues.
Even more, Raphaël Codebecq wanted to highlight the marketing aspect of such organizations, ready to do many things to attract new members. “Rocky is very interested in Phil and Oli. He thinks strategically and is convinced that it risks attracting a younger, wider audience. »
And the pandemic in all this?
The Knights of Light also takes place in the health sector: a fertile ground for conspiracy theorists and which offers a context that everyone is dealing with. “The web series gave me the opportunity to criticize our health system, which we have often talked about for three years”, underlines the screenwriter. According to him, the pandemic has “woken up the sleeping bear. Everyone took the opportunity to stick labels. In addition, the exploitation of the sub-theme of health – among other things through the question of the end of life – in the web series is interesting in terms of writing, since it often gives rise to human tragedies, indicates Raphael Codebecq. “Phil and Oli work in a hospital, which I think is a place where you find a lot of the misery of the small world,” he says.
The “joke” that will set fire to the powder for Phil and Oli indeed originates from medical assistance in dying. “I needed a believable starting point, not just guys who make up a crazy story just to make a joke », says Raphaël Codebecq. For him, it is necessary that the punch is far-fetched enough to be funny and sow doubt in the minds of the public. “That’s how a dozen people are going to get involved in this case and Rocky is going to find out about their video… to fish out the two friends in his squad. »
Like a somewhat shaky conspiracy theory, as there are heaps of them, Raphaël Codebecq played with the complexity of the links between the characters of the knights of light to create confusion. “Finally, no one is happy and everyone tries to get by as best they can in the web series. We laugh, but the situation is not funny, ”concludes the screenwriter.