the onion effect, static characters, and bad heroes
Tori posted something about static characters in fiction that got me thinking about them myself, so I'm going to spill my muddled thoughts on their place in fiction. 'Static' characters are characters that don't change or develop over the course of a story. Her post was basically a rant about people who denounce a character due to lack of development or inability to change, when static characters are a valid and necessary part of any story. And I agree on that note, but I think that a static character should (with a few exceptions) only play a certain role in the story.
In my opinion, a static character does not make for a good hero/heroine. Not 'main character', but 'hero/heroine.' If I'm following the quest of a character from a low point in their life to the pinnacle, I expect there to be challenges on the way, and I expect them to be partially defined by the way the face those challenges and whether they succeed or fail. This is especially central to the hero story, in which we typically see one character overcoming many obstacles in order to achieve a great victory. If the character remains the same throughout the trials, never learning, never changing, and never sacrificing, they fail to become an interesting and dynamic character. I think that the quest story lends itself to great character growth, and if we don't see any at all, the character fails to match to the story.
Now, secondary characters and villains are especially good for static characters. Villains or antagonists don't require the character growth a hero does because we aren't meant to connect with them in the same way, we aren't meant to feel invested in their struggles. Not to say that a villain should be a posing, mustache-twirling caricature of evil (which is fun sometimes), but they're perfectly fine to leave as the same character throughout the story without any great level of change. A secondary character is also good as a static character because they are meant to offer support for the leads, and too much growth and change in the story can make it chaotic and overly-detailed.
My favorite kind of static character is developed through revelation- no change in the character itself, but more discoveries made about their nature as the story goes by. I call that 'peeling the onion'! And I especially like it if we never really get to the center.
I do think that complaining about a character not changing or learning anything is a valid complaint, within a storyline that makes it important that he or she does change. It's irritating to me if I read a book series and they set up cues and trials for a character, but they don't learn anything from those trials, keep making the same mistakes, and never suffer consequences from them. If the narrative seems aware of this is a character flaw, I like it. If the narrative seems to promote this, I dislike it.
Example: I thought Lestat from Anne Rice's books was hilarious because he really never changed, constantly made the same mistakes, and was always drama-flailing around without realizing anything. But that seemed to be the point of the vampire characters in particular- they never grew or changed from what they were when they were turned.
I didn't like that Aang, from ATLA had absolutely no character development, because everyone else around him changes so much and so wonderfully, and because he was set as the foil to Zuko, whose entire journey was one of change and growth. The show is set up to be a hero journey from the goofy kid to the world savior, and those require at least a little character development, right? But even at the end, we have our hero running away rather that make a hard choice. That doesn't make sense to any kind of internal logic- every time this kid runs away from a problem, it gets worse. He had it hammered in through two whole seasons that he needs to face the music, but he still falls victim to his major character flaw- when faced with stress, he flees from it. And that's just bad writing.
In my opinion, a static character does not make for a good hero/heroine. Not 'main character', but 'hero/heroine.' If I'm following the quest of a character from a low point in their life to the pinnacle, I expect there to be challenges on the way, and I expect them to be partially defined by the way the face those challenges and whether they succeed or fail. This is especially central to the hero story, in which we typically see one character overcoming many obstacles in order to achieve a great victory. If the character remains the same throughout the trials, never learning, never changing, and never sacrificing, they fail to become an interesting and dynamic character. I think that the quest story lends itself to great character growth, and if we don't see any at all, the character fails to match to the story.
Now, secondary characters and villains are especially good for static characters. Villains or antagonists don't require the character growth a hero does because we aren't meant to connect with them in the same way, we aren't meant to feel invested in their struggles. Not to say that a villain should be a posing, mustache-twirling caricature of evil (which is fun sometimes), but they're perfectly fine to leave as the same character throughout the story without any great level of change. A secondary character is also good as a static character because they are meant to offer support for the leads, and too much growth and change in the story can make it chaotic and overly-detailed.
My favorite kind of static character is developed through revelation- no change in the character itself, but more discoveries made about their nature as the story goes by. I call that 'peeling the onion'! And I especially like it if we never really get to the center.
I do think that complaining about a character not changing or learning anything is a valid complaint, within a storyline that makes it important that he or she does change. It's irritating to me if I read a book series and they set up cues and trials for a character, but they don't learn anything from those trials, keep making the same mistakes, and never suffer consequences from them. If the narrative seems aware of this is a character flaw, I like it. If the narrative seems to promote this, I dislike it.
Example: I thought Lestat from Anne Rice's books was hilarious because he really never changed, constantly made the same mistakes, and was always drama-flailing around without realizing anything. But that seemed to be the point of the vampire characters in particular- they never grew or changed from what they were when they were turned.
I didn't like that Aang, from ATLA had absolutely no character development, because everyone else around him changes so much and so wonderfully, and because he was set as the foil to Zuko, whose entire journey was one of change and growth. The show is set up to be a hero journey from the goofy kid to the world savior, and those require at least a little character development, right? But even at the end, we have our hero running away rather that make a hard choice. That doesn't make sense to any kind of internal logic- every time this kid runs away from a problem, it gets worse. He had it hammered in through two whole seasons that he needs to face the music, but he still falls victim to his major character flaw- when faced with stress, he flees from it. And that's just bad writing.