tl;dr meta part 1, SG1- centric
I kind of adore character meta that comes from different ways of organizing/categorizing characters, by whatever psychological classification you use. I could eat that type of meta up with a spoon.
For instance, the Harry Potter houses, which categorize values and motivations and might be summed up as Gryffindor: Bravery, heroism, and morality; Hufflepuff: Nurturing, caring, and loyalty; Ravenclaw: learning, intelligence, and curiosity; Slytherin: pride, stubbornness, and ruthlessness. Most well-developed characters have a main house that they can be plainly identified with, and a secondary one that they have some kind of interesting relationship with. And because they're value differences, that really drives conflict both between and within characters. (So, Harry is G/S, Ron is G/H, Hermione is G/R).
Rowling seems to think that hero=Gryffindor, but I find myself most attached to Hufflepuff heroes. So you have Dean Winchester, who is a H who wants to be a G; Malcolm Reynolds, who is a H who used to be a G; John Sheppard, who is an H whose fucked-upedness comes from trying to conceptualize himself as a G; Jack O'Neill, who has refined and trained his H instincts to the point where he could be mistaken for a G (but never makes that mistake about himself). Or, on the flip side, John Winchester, who is a G who really should have been more of an H.
And I love Ravenclaws for self-identification purposes, and Slytherins for character complexity. And so Martha Jones, the R who became a G; (Tosh Sato falls here too); Sam Carter, who conceived of herself as a R despite all evidence of H-ness; Rodney McKay, the dedicated R who is starting to learn it's okay or even necessary to be a little H. Or Sam Winchester, the S who thinks he's an R, or Daniel Jackson, the R who is terrified of how easily he becomes an S (and doesn't THAT just explain the fascination of that crossover pairing).
Elizabeth Weir was a S but would never admit it to herself. Gwen Cooper is also an S in fierce denial. Ianto Jones is trying to find something to be other than H. The Doctor is so terrifying largely because, once you look a little harder, you see he's a pretty pure S. Of course, Teal'c is a G through and through. Interestingly, I can construct a version of the character that makes Woolsey the most solid G in all of Atlantis.
Anyway, I digress.
Actually, I was going to hit Myers-Briggs next, because it might be the single MOST interesting way of thinking about a new character to get your head around them- but that will be another two thousand words before I get to my actual point. Nevermind.
But I was just pointed to another categorization system that I find interesting- namely, the idea of a Markova stack, from NLP theory. I hesitate to bring it up, as NLP is often thought to be junk science quakery, and my other link comes from specifically self-help garbage, but I'll talk about anything that provides an interesting way to think about characters.
A basic assumption of NLP is that all of our mental processes are made up of sensory representations (visual, auditory, or kinesthetic). We can't think without sensory processing, basically, and most people have a preferred sensory modality that they mainly use to communicate. The stacking idea goes farther, to claim that people use different sensory modalities for different levels of mental processing. The Markova stack link is interesting reading, provided you keep your salt shakers handy.
The sum-up: a person's conscious modality (V, A, or K) is where they do their conscious concentrating and thinking, where they think most rigorously and linearly, and can focus most intently and screen out unwanted stimulus. Their subconscious modality (again, V, A, or K) is where they can process the most data, multi-task best, and make intuitive leaps. Their unconscious modality is the one they have the least ability to focus consciously on and think rationally about- skills associated with this modality will likely be frustrating and awkward (or spiritual and prone to genius, but whatever). People have to engage conscious and subconscious modalities to keep their minds alert, which explains doodlers and figeters and people who click pens while they read, and they retain information that's presented in their conscious modality best (and if this sounds like learning styles stuff, it is). I'm leaving out most of what I think is bullshit, and I don't think it works consistently for all (most) people in all (most situations), but again- an interesting descriptive, if not predictive, framework.
I should point out that Hogwarts houses sort by a persons motivations and values which are often right there explicitly in the text- so that's a system to sort characters. Myers-Briggs categorizes how people respond to stimulus, which is much less explicit in the test, can only be done with characters we have more information about, and usually amounts to making a meta argument rather than just a classification of characters. Markova stack is about how characters process, which is very much not present in the text in any explicit way at all, and can only be guessed for the characters we have the very most information about. I'd say it amounts to something even less text-based than a meta argument; I'd say this amounts more to constructing the character.
So, let's construct Jack and Daniel using this framework.
Daniel is easy: VAK (visual for his conscious mind, auditory for subconscious, kinesthetic for unconscious). I find him easy because, he's, you know, me (okay, I don't know if I'm VAK or AVK, because I think the theory is bullshit, but hey, go with it).
When Daniel is devoting his conscious mind to something- concentrating on it- he's very visually oriented. Diagrams, sketches, notes, visual inspection of artifacts, and above all, TEXT. Linguists tend to privilege speech over writing, but Daniel finds it easier to work in text. The first thing he notices when he comes through a wormhole is what he sees, and when he tries to remember something, he can keep talking but he tends to stare off into space.
His subconscious mind tends to work off speech; he can easily keep up a steady stream of patter into his recorder. He mostly multi-tasks in the A realm- he can participate in small-talk with his attention nowhere in the room, he can rehearse his own arguments while listening to someone else, and he was one of those infuriating students who could repeat a teacher word-for-word even though they weren't paying any attention. (Interestingly, this is also Rodney McKay to a T- multi-tasks with his mouth, can't seem to think properly unless he's making noise)
The V conscious and A subconscious (or the other way around) combine for academic comfort and success. They also leave K subconscious, which fits in very well with the physical awkwardness we see in the first movie and early seasons. Learning physical skills was always more frustrating than it was worth, before the military made him, and he is still frustrated by his inability to focus on and intellectually master this stuff. There are some problems with this- the framework wouldn't predict Daniel's ability to completely tune out physical needs and discomfort while he hyperfocuses, for example).
The K unconscious and A subconscious have another interesting implication; he has a hard time accessing or consciously dealing with his feelings without talking about them. The subconscious modality is the way of trying to access, to get to that unconscious processing- Daniel doesn't even know WHAT he feels until he talks it through, and he's the same way trying to understand other people's feelings, which is exactly the way I've always written him.
So, Jack: KVA. I find this much harder because he's so different from me, but hear me out.
We know he's an incredibly tactile person. And for all that he's always telling Daniel not to touch, it's always seemed like he's the guy who can't understand anything until he picks it up and fiddles with it. He has one hell of a physical skillset, and I'd say fairly easy competency with practically anything that falls under "working with your hands." He has a great ability to plan, rehearse in his head, and then execute physical action, which serves him well in combat. The first thing he notices when he steps through a wormhole is how it feels- gravity, atmospheric pressure, temperature, UV level, wind, all in a split second (Daniel never notices any of these things). As a pilot, crazy inertia and G-forces never disoriented or distracted him, which is really important, and he was good at being able to focus on the tactile feedback there.
Jack's subconscious processes visually, which implies good visual multi-tasking. He can picture maps, diagrams, and blueprints in his head while focusing on something else, and correlate those things easily to what he sees in front of him. He fucking LOVES heads-up displays- they're exactly tailored to the way he works. No matter how hard he's concentrating, he will always be aware of unexpected movement in his visual field. People are often good at intuitively problem-solving in their subconscious modality, and tactics are basically just visual-spacial problem solving plus kinesthetic execution, so... yeah. And those horizon-line correction questions the military puts on their aptitude tests to spot potential pilots? Those are visual processing plus spatial orientation, and Jack kicked their ASSES.
This leaves auditory unconscious, which I actually think is strongly supported by canon. For all that I love highly articulate Jack (especially as written by paian), I don't actually believe him except as an alternate version of the character. I know it's a meta argument about Jack being smarter than he's written, but he doesn't have to be articulate for me to believe that. (Digression: Jack O'Neill and Dean Winchester, who A-unconscious men who are smarter than they're written but play dumb for two very different reasons, Jack from a position of strength and Dean from one of weakness. Discuss.)
Anyway, Jack is uncomfortable listening to long verbal explanations of anything, even things he's perfectly capable of understanding in written form. They make him impatient and distracted. He's uncomfortable talking at length about anything, especially how he feels, and reverts to smart-assery to cover that up. He reads people better from their body language than their words or tone of voice. He hated lecture classes in college. He has to doodle and fidget in briefings in order to keep his mind engaged; when a CO prevents him from doodling and fidgeting, he doesn't absorb a damn thing.
Why I find this interesting:
What a character notices is a huge part of constructing POV. The things that a character consciously notices and thinks about, and what they subconsciously notice, can do a huge amount for really astonishingly immersive POV. (As an aside, I am gobsmacked by authors who are good at writing what a character notices subconsciously but not consciously. I am in awe.) This applies to content, of course: Jack, Sam, and Daniel walk into an alien village. Jack can instantly tell you where the exits and the cover are, Sam can tell you their technological level, and Daniel can tell you what language they're speaking and every indication of written text or significant symbols.
But what kinds of stimulus a character notices and processes, as well as just their content, can help with POV as well. Daniel is obsessed with words, and all of his mental processes work in words. Jack is much more physical, and inclined to take note of a thousand physical details and sensations that wouldn't register for Daniel, which is hard for me to write, as I am so firmly K-unconscious. So take the Daniel POV in Problem Solving, which starts by consciously thinking about a visual memory, then goes through a shitload of auditory babbling before ending up with an almost completely unconscious physical response to Jack's touch. Contrast that with the Jack POV in Fighting Instinct, which starts with very physical sensation, and is a lot more focused on Daniel's body language and his touch than on his words or tone (even as Daniel has to keep yammering in order to figure anything out).
Jesus, I will SHUT UP now.
For instance, the Harry Potter houses, which categorize values and motivations and might be summed up as Gryffindor: Bravery, heroism, and morality; Hufflepuff: Nurturing, caring, and loyalty; Ravenclaw: learning, intelligence, and curiosity; Slytherin: pride, stubbornness, and ruthlessness. Most well-developed characters have a main house that they can be plainly identified with, and a secondary one that they have some kind of interesting relationship with. And because they're value differences, that really drives conflict both between and within characters. (So, Harry is G/S, Ron is G/H, Hermione is G/R).
Rowling seems to think that hero=Gryffindor, but I find myself most attached to Hufflepuff heroes. So you have Dean Winchester, who is a H who wants to be a G; Malcolm Reynolds, who is a H who used to be a G; John Sheppard, who is an H whose fucked-upedness comes from trying to conceptualize himself as a G; Jack O'Neill, who has refined and trained his H instincts to the point where he could be mistaken for a G (but never makes that mistake about himself). Or, on the flip side, John Winchester, who is a G who really should have been more of an H.
And I love Ravenclaws for self-identification purposes, and Slytherins for character complexity. And so Martha Jones, the R who became a G; (Tosh Sato falls here too); Sam Carter, who conceived of herself as a R despite all evidence of H-ness; Rodney McKay, the dedicated R who is starting to learn it's okay or even necessary to be a little H. Or Sam Winchester, the S who thinks he's an R, or Daniel Jackson, the R who is terrified of how easily he becomes an S (and doesn't THAT just explain the fascination of that crossover pairing).
Elizabeth Weir was a S but would never admit it to herself. Gwen Cooper is also an S in fierce denial. Ianto Jones is trying to find something to be other than H. The Doctor is so terrifying largely because, once you look a little harder, you see he's a pretty pure S. Of course, Teal'c is a G through and through. Interestingly, I can construct a version of the character that makes Woolsey the most solid G in all of Atlantis.
Anyway, I digress.
Actually, I was going to hit Myers-Briggs next, because it might be the single MOST interesting way of thinking about a new character to get your head around them- but that will be another two thousand words before I get to my actual point. Nevermind.
But I was just pointed to another categorization system that I find interesting- namely, the idea of a Markova stack, from NLP theory. I hesitate to bring it up, as NLP is often thought to be junk science quakery, and my other link comes from specifically self-help garbage, but I'll talk about anything that provides an interesting way to think about characters.
A basic assumption of NLP is that all of our mental processes are made up of sensory representations (visual, auditory, or kinesthetic). We can't think without sensory processing, basically, and most people have a preferred sensory modality that they mainly use to communicate. The stacking idea goes farther, to claim that people use different sensory modalities for different levels of mental processing. The Markova stack link is interesting reading, provided you keep your salt shakers handy.
The sum-up: a person's conscious modality (V, A, or K) is where they do their conscious concentrating and thinking, where they think most rigorously and linearly, and can focus most intently and screen out unwanted stimulus. Their subconscious modality (again, V, A, or K) is where they can process the most data, multi-task best, and make intuitive leaps. Their unconscious modality is the one they have the least ability to focus consciously on and think rationally about- skills associated with this modality will likely be frustrating and awkward (or spiritual and prone to genius, but whatever). People have to engage conscious and subconscious modalities to keep their minds alert, which explains doodlers and figeters and people who click pens while they read, and they retain information that's presented in their conscious modality best (and if this sounds like learning styles stuff, it is). I'm leaving out most of what I think is bullshit, and I don't think it works consistently for all (most) people in all (most situations), but again- an interesting descriptive, if not predictive, framework.
I should point out that Hogwarts houses sort by a persons motivations and values which are often right there explicitly in the text- so that's a system to sort characters. Myers-Briggs categorizes how people respond to stimulus, which is much less explicit in the test, can only be done with characters we have more information about, and usually amounts to making a meta argument rather than just a classification of characters. Markova stack is about how characters process, which is very much not present in the text in any explicit way at all, and can only be guessed for the characters we have the very most information about. I'd say it amounts to something even less text-based than a meta argument; I'd say this amounts more to constructing the character.
So, let's construct Jack and Daniel using this framework.
Daniel is easy: VAK (visual for his conscious mind, auditory for subconscious, kinesthetic for unconscious). I find him easy because, he's, you know, me (okay, I don't know if I'm VAK or AVK, because I think the theory is bullshit, but hey, go with it).
When Daniel is devoting his conscious mind to something- concentrating on it- he's very visually oriented. Diagrams, sketches, notes, visual inspection of artifacts, and above all, TEXT. Linguists tend to privilege speech over writing, but Daniel finds it easier to work in text. The first thing he notices when he comes through a wormhole is what he sees, and when he tries to remember something, he can keep talking but he tends to stare off into space.
His subconscious mind tends to work off speech; he can easily keep up a steady stream of patter into his recorder. He mostly multi-tasks in the A realm- he can participate in small-talk with his attention nowhere in the room, he can rehearse his own arguments while listening to someone else, and he was one of those infuriating students who could repeat a teacher word-for-word even though they weren't paying any attention. (Interestingly, this is also Rodney McKay to a T- multi-tasks with his mouth, can't seem to think properly unless he's making noise)
The V conscious and A subconscious (or the other way around) combine for academic comfort and success. They also leave K subconscious, which fits in very well with the physical awkwardness we see in the first movie and early seasons. Learning physical skills was always more frustrating than it was worth, before the military made him, and he is still frustrated by his inability to focus on and intellectually master this stuff. There are some problems with this- the framework wouldn't predict Daniel's ability to completely tune out physical needs and discomfort while he hyperfocuses, for example).
The K unconscious and A subconscious have another interesting implication; he has a hard time accessing or consciously dealing with his feelings without talking about them. The subconscious modality is the way of trying to access, to get to that unconscious processing- Daniel doesn't even know WHAT he feels until he talks it through, and he's the same way trying to understand other people's feelings, which is exactly the way I've always written him.
So, Jack: KVA. I find this much harder because he's so different from me, but hear me out.
We know he's an incredibly tactile person. And for all that he's always telling Daniel not to touch, it's always seemed like he's the guy who can't understand anything until he picks it up and fiddles with it. He has one hell of a physical skillset, and I'd say fairly easy competency with practically anything that falls under "working with your hands." He has a great ability to plan, rehearse in his head, and then execute physical action, which serves him well in combat. The first thing he notices when he steps through a wormhole is how it feels- gravity, atmospheric pressure, temperature, UV level, wind, all in a split second (Daniel never notices any of these things). As a pilot, crazy inertia and G-forces never disoriented or distracted him, which is really important, and he was good at being able to focus on the tactile feedback there.
Jack's subconscious processes visually, which implies good visual multi-tasking. He can picture maps, diagrams, and blueprints in his head while focusing on something else, and correlate those things easily to what he sees in front of him. He fucking LOVES heads-up displays- they're exactly tailored to the way he works. No matter how hard he's concentrating, he will always be aware of unexpected movement in his visual field. People are often good at intuitively problem-solving in their subconscious modality, and tactics are basically just visual-spacial problem solving plus kinesthetic execution, so... yeah. And those horizon-line correction questions the military puts on their aptitude tests to spot potential pilots? Those are visual processing plus spatial orientation, and Jack kicked their ASSES.
This leaves auditory unconscious, which I actually think is strongly supported by canon. For all that I love highly articulate Jack (especially as written by paian), I don't actually believe him except as an alternate version of the character. I know it's a meta argument about Jack being smarter than he's written, but he doesn't have to be articulate for me to believe that. (Digression: Jack O'Neill and Dean Winchester, who A-unconscious men who are smarter than they're written but play dumb for two very different reasons, Jack from a position of strength and Dean from one of weakness. Discuss.)
Anyway, Jack is uncomfortable listening to long verbal explanations of anything, even things he's perfectly capable of understanding in written form. They make him impatient and distracted. He's uncomfortable talking at length about anything, especially how he feels, and reverts to smart-assery to cover that up. He reads people better from their body language than their words or tone of voice. He hated lecture classes in college. He has to doodle and fidget in briefings in order to keep his mind engaged; when a CO prevents him from doodling and fidgeting, he doesn't absorb a damn thing.
Why I find this interesting:
What a character notices is a huge part of constructing POV. The things that a character consciously notices and thinks about, and what they subconsciously notice, can do a huge amount for really astonishingly immersive POV. (As an aside, I am gobsmacked by authors who are good at writing what a character notices subconsciously but not consciously. I am in awe.) This applies to content, of course: Jack, Sam, and Daniel walk into an alien village. Jack can instantly tell you where the exits and the cover are, Sam can tell you their technological level, and Daniel can tell you what language they're speaking and every indication of written text or significant symbols.
But what kinds of stimulus a character notices and processes, as well as just their content, can help with POV as well. Daniel is obsessed with words, and all of his mental processes work in words. Jack is much more physical, and inclined to take note of a thousand physical details and sensations that wouldn't register for Daniel, which is hard for me to write, as I am so firmly K-unconscious. So take the Daniel POV in Problem Solving, which starts by consciously thinking about a visual memory, then goes through a shitload of auditory babbling before ending up with an almost completely unconscious physical response to Jack's touch. Contrast that with the Jack POV in Fighting Instinct, which starts with very physical sensation, and is a lot more focused on Daniel's body language and his touch than on his words or tone (even as Daniel has to keep yammering in order to figure anything out).
Jesus, I will SHUT UP now.