tall, dark and miserable
cathexys and I had a great conversation the other day wherein she came up with some neat ideas connecting her liking for fics that include body-switching, time travel, gender-switching, and AU's, among others. I'll let her post it, as it is hers, but I thought it was quite cool. isiscolo, you might be interested when she does, as you share some of these
( Read more... )
I do know. :)
marinarusalka and I were discussing a similiar issue at one point, and she said some really insightful things about Sirius and Snape's way of being miserable as compared to the way Remus is miserable.
IMO, Type 2 characters must walk a careful line between stoicism and "drama queen overload." If they are too dramatic and too complainy, they can indeed get annoying. But what Marina pointed out was that they can't err on the side of being too quiet and stoic either, because then we can't experience their misery. You can't be dark and brooding if no one ever sees you brood!
Of course, the exact degree of broodiness that is "interesting" and the degree that is "annoying" is an individual reader's call. *g*
At any rate, Marina said that this is how Remus differs from Sirius and Snape. Remus is too stoic and composed to qualify as "miserable". His background is certainly more than sufficient for a Type 2's, filled with pain and difficulty. But his temperament lets him out of the running, because 99% of the time, his pain is not outwardly visible.
I'd call him a Type 3 character instead, a broad umbrella for characters who are neither innocents like the 1's, nor dramatic and shadowed like the 2's. Type 3's are both adult and more or less well adjusted. They may be in straits as bad as the 2's, but they handle it better. Blake, in Blakes 7, is another Type 3. Hurt him, and he will bellow, but when it is over it is over. He puts it behind him and goes on to his next agenda. Hurt Avon, though, and he will never, ever forget that it happened. And it will mostly likely figure into what he does next.
Remus doesn't forget the pain. But he has the ability to place it somewhere it will not affect every part of his life. Sirius is not capable of that, I think, nor is Snape.
Aragorn, IMO, begins as a 2, but makes a transition to being a 3 at the end of his story.
I'm the same way you are in terms of the dichotomy between RL and literary preferences. I love to watch the 2's and write about them, but oh lord, what hell they'd be if they were really in your world. No, it's the 3's, I think, that you want to spend your life with.
Reply
Leave a comment