of banana pancakes and salad: character exposition, little human details, and stuff
Tonight, for some reason, something made me think back to my disenchantment with Star Trek: Enterprise. I didn't hate the show--I watched most of the episodes, and there were things I enjoyed. (Most of them were probably Commander Shran, to be honest.) But I was trying to pinpoint what exactly it was about it that made it pale in comparison to the other series.
And a big part of it was the feeling that I never really knew any of the characters. Even on Voyager, about which my feelings are very mixed to say the least, there were characters that felt alive. Which I think was partly the acting and directing and partly the writing, as it usually is. Even when things were cliched and silly, they were memorable. Which makes it more fun. I remember Torres eating banana pancakes, the Doctor trying to create a holographic family (god that episode was sad), Tom Paris's ridiculous shirts, Harry Kim's clarinet. About the characters in Enterprise? I...erm...Malcolm Reed was allergic to pineapple? The ways they reacted in situations told us about them, but it was hard for me at least to relate to them on a really visceral level. Not that this is the only measure of how good a show is, but I've always found it difficult to connect with characters who don't have a plethora of silly little human details. Hobbies, memories, pet peeves, etc. I'm sure they did have some of them, but I just...keep completely drawing a blank.
I realize the absurdity of an Inception fan (and fanfic writer) saying this. As I've pointed out before, it's interesting that in a movie so concerned with creation and aesthetics, we know so little about what the characters actually like in those areas. We know Arthur and Saito both like Francis Bacon and a certain style of interior decor. And we know that Cobb and Mal like, um, skyscrapers. That's it. But it's like the characters are the ad executives or designers who achieve the perfect erasure of their own desires to fulfill someone else's. And from what I've read about those fields, that isn't even actually what happens--often there's room for the artist's own initiative. And presumably in designing the levels Ariadne as the architect had some room to personalize. But we don't know what her personal touches were, because we don't know her outside of those scenes. And we see some details around the characters, but we don't know what their relationship to them is. Does Yusuf actually like cats? Does Arthur actually like salad?
There is a point to all this.
My question is, if there are so few details about these characters, why do so many people (including me) find them so compelling? Does it just have to do with the relationships they're possibly in? That's assuming that we can separate who a person is from who they are in relation to others (we can't) but--did you like the characters on their own before you shipped them, and do you think you'd be so fascinated with Eames if Arthur weren't in the cast (or vice versa?*) Or is the field of dreamshare so otherworldly and interesting in itself that we just can't help but speculate about the kind of person who would go into it? I think part of it is the productive frustration the film sets up. We are literally GOING INTO THESE PEOPLES' MINDS, and yet...we can't actually find out anything about them. They really are so good (for the most part, ahem, Cobb) that they can cloak their desires to the viewer as well as the subject. They're actors to us as well as to Fischer, consummate professionals doing their jobs and not showing their hands. And so we want more. We wonder, what if that defense crumbled, what would we find? And a thousand fanfics were born.
This, then, I think, is what makes Inception so much more interesting than something like Enterprise--the intimation that there is something there. On Enterprise, the lack of memorable detail doesn't seem to have a narrative purpose (character as archetype or the above-mentioned mimesis of effect-on-subject and effect-on-viewer.) It just seems boring.
I promised I wouldn't try to offer the dreaded ADVICE in any of these posts, but I'm thinking about times when it might be a good choice to create a character without offering much in the way of likes and dislikes, fond memories, quirks, etc. (Taking for granted that YMMV as far as what "memorable" means.)
Here are some situations I can think of where not telling much about a character's desires and preferences can work well:
-A character who intentionally appears a bit mythical.
-Similarly, a character who is supposed to be allegorical.
-A character who is intentionally repressing a part of themselves--i.e. someone who doesn't want to like anything because they don't want to be tied to a particular place or become attached to something they could lose (HEY JOS MUSEY HEY)
-A character with a distinctly "different" psychology--someone with some sort of neurological/psychological difference** or who has undergone a personality-affecting change, perhaps, or an alien?
-A character whose job it is to appear opaque or mysterious.
-A character for whom you don't want to engender any sympathy.
(Of course, there's also fun and profit in subverting some of these tropes. Showing an otherwise unsympathetic or mythical character wearing pajamas and relishing a Snickers bar in a way that is neither rarefied nor grotesque can cause a great moment of cognitive dissonance.)
-If it seems awkward to insert them. I acknowledge that film and fiction are quite different as far as POV, and it would have been a little weird for Arthur to say "Man, this salad is AWESOME" or "This sure beats the other 1,453,452 salads I've eaten in my life! I've reviewed every salad I've eaten in my Moleskine notebooks, ever since I left the Marines and embarked on a turbulent affair with the slippery Mr. Eames!" It might have been interesting to hear a discussion between Ariadne and Cobb about the tension between personal aesthetics and the needs of the dream, though.
-to set a mood. This might be another reason for the lack of expository quirks in Inception. It makes the movie seem much more, well, dreamlike. And a bit grave, despite the humor.
Then, of course, the second part of the question is how to make those details memorable and serve a purpose. Again, YMMV. I remember reading some writing advice saying that characters should sometimes perform ambient actions that have nothing to do with the plot--just for the sake of verisimilitude. And I think that perhaps it is not always so much the detail that must be memorable as the character's relationship to it. How does the character express hir appreciation of a song? It's possible, of course, to get too bogged down in using things like favorite songs as substitutes for other aspects of characterization as well. (Not if you do it well, I guess!) But I have no real suggestions other than that. And, erm, banana pancakes rather than regular pancakes?
But I like using those details as jumping off points for plots. How do you turn "Arthur likes Star Trek" into a story or part of a story? Sometimes it's fine just to mention those details in passing, but I think it's also fun to try to weave it organically in so that the detail becomes the plot. Arthur appears as a Klingon in a dream, or runs into Eames in the street while in costume for a convention, or breaks up with Eames because he broke his collectible bat'leth and refused to pay for a new one. Or maybe, based on your reading, that particular character's everyday likes and dislikes just don't intrude that much into their lives, don't move their plots along. And there are other ways we can relate to characters--we too have guiding values and duties and passions and grand ideals.
Though I can't speak for everyone. Maybe, for some people, the greatest good in life is eating cranberry jelly straight out of the can.
*Apologies for assuming that everyone is an A/E shipper. Substitute your preferred names if you will.
**As a person with a neurological difference myself, I am loath to imply that people with neurological differences don't have likes or dislikes or memories! Not at all! But there could hypothetically be some sort of neurological reason for something like this, is all I'm saying. Or a side effect of Somnacin. Or SOMETHING.
And a big part of it was the feeling that I never really knew any of the characters. Even on Voyager, about which my feelings are very mixed to say the least, there were characters that felt alive. Which I think was partly the acting and directing and partly the writing, as it usually is. Even when things were cliched and silly, they were memorable. Which makes it more fun. I remember Torres eating banana pancakes, the Doctor trying to create a holographic family (god that episode was sad), Tom Paris's ridiculous shirts, Harry Kim's clarinet. About the characters in Enterprise? I...erm...Malcolm Reed was allergic to pineapple? The ways they reacted in situations told us about them, but it was hard for me at least to relate to them on a really visceral level. Not that this is the only measure of how good a show is, but I've always found it difficult to connect with characters who don't have a plethora of silly little human details. Hobbies, memories, pet peeves, etc. I'm sure they did have some of them, but I just...keep completely drawing a blank.
I realize the absurdity of an Inception fan (and fanfic writer) saying this. As I've pointed out before, it's interesting that in a movie so concerned with creation and aesthetics, we know so little about what the characters actually like in those areas. We know Arthur and Saito both like Francis Bacon and a certain style of interior decor. And we know that Cobb and Mal like, um, skyscrapers. That's it. But it's like the characters are the ad executives or designers who achieve the perfect erasure of their own desires to fulfill someone else's. And from what I've read about those fields, that isn't even actually what happens--often there's room for the artist's own initiative. And presumably in designing the levels Ariadne as the architect had some room to personalize. But we don't know what her personal touches were, because we don't know her outside of those scenes. And we see some details around the characters, but we don't know what their relationship to them is. Does Yusuf actually like cats? Does Arthur actually like salad?
There is a point to all this.
My question is, if there are so few details about these characters, why do so many people (including me) find them so compelling? Does it just have to do with the relationships they're possibly in? That's assuming that we can separate who a person is from who they are in relation to others (we can't) but--did you like the characters on their own before you shipped them, and do you think you'd be so fascinated with Eames if Arthur weren't in the cast (or vice versa?*) Or is the field of dreamshare so otherworldly and interesting in itself that we just can't help but speculate about the kind of person who would go into it? I think part of it is the productive frustration the film sets up. We are literally GOING INTO THESE PEOPLES' MINDS, and yet...we can't actually find out anything about them. They really are so good (for the most part, ahem, Cobb) that they can cloak their desires to the viewer as well as the subject. They're actors to us as well as to Fischer, consummate professionals doing their jobs and not showing their hands. And so we want more. We wonder, what if that defense crumbled, what would we find? And a thousand fanfics were born.
This, then, I think, is what makes Inception so much more interesting than something like Enterprise--the intimation that there is something there. On Enterprise, the lack of memorable detail doesn't seem to have a narrative purpose (character as archetype or the above-mentioned mimesis of effect-on-subject and effect-on-viewer.) It just seems boring.
I promised I wouldn't try to offer the dreaded ADVICE in any of these posts, but I'm thinking about times when it might be a good choice to create a character without offering much in the way of likes and dislikes, fond memories, quirks, etc. (Taking for granted that YMMV as far as what "memorable" means.)
Here are some situations I can think of where not telling much about a character's desires and preferences can work well:
-A character who intentionally appears a bit mythical.
-Similarly, a character who is supposed to be allegorical.
-A character who is intentionally repressing a part of themselves--i.e. someone who doesn't want to like anything because they don't want to be tied to a particular place or become attached to something they could lose (HEY JOS MUSEY HEY)
-A character with a distinctly "different" psychology--someone with some sort of neurological/psychological difference** or who has undergone a personality-affecting change, perhaps, or an alien?
-A character whose job it is to appear opaque or mysterious.
-A character for whom you don't want to engender any sympathy.
(Of course, there's also fun and profit in subverting some of these tropes. Showing an otherwise unsympathetic or mythical character wearing pajamas and relishing a Snickers bar in a way that is neither rarefied nor grotesque can cause a great moment of cognitive dissonance.)
-If it seems awkward to insert them. I acknowledge that film and fiction are quite different as far as POV, and it would have been a little weird for Arthur to say "Man, this salad is AWESOME" or "This sure beats the other 1,453,452 salads I've eaten in my life! I've reviewed every salad I've eaten in my Moleskine notebooks, ever since I left the Marines and embarked on a turbulent affair with the slippery Mr. Eames!" It might have been interesting to hear a discussion between Ariadne and Cobb about the tension between personal aesthetics and the needs of the dream, though.
-to set a mood. This might be another reason for the lack of expository quirks in Inception. It makes the movie seem much more, well, dreamlike. And a bit grave, despite the humor.
Then, of course, the second part of the question is how to make those details memorable and serve a purpose. Again, YMMV. I remember reading some writing advice saying that characters should sometimes perform ambient actions that have nothing to do with the plot--just for the sake of verisimilitude. And I think that perhaps it is not always so much the detail that must be memorable as the character's relationship to it. How does the character express hir appreciation of a song? It's possible, of course, to get too bogged down in using things like favorite songs as substitutes for other aspects of characterization as well. (Not if you do it well, I guess!) But I have no real suggestions other than that. And, erm, banana pancakes rather than regular pancakes?
But I like using those details as jumping off points for plots. How do you turn "Arthur likes Star Trek" into a story or part of a story? Sometimes it's fine just to mention those details in passing, but I think it's also fun to try to weave it organically in so that the detail becomes the plot. Arthur appears as a Klingon in a dream, or runs into Eames in the street while in costume for a convention, or breaks up with Eames because he broke his collectible bat'leth and refused to pay for a new one. Or maybe, based on your reading, that particular character's everyday likes and dislikes just don't intrude that much into their lives, don't move their plots along. And there are other ways we can relate to characters--we too have guiding values and duties and passions and grand ideals.
Though I can't speak for everyone. Maybe, for some people, the greatest good in life is eating cranberry jelly straight out of the can.
*Apologies for assuming that everyone is an A/E shipper. Substitute your preferred names if you will.
**As a person with a neurological difference myself, I am loath to imply that people with neurological differences don't have likes or dislikes or memories! Not at all! But there could hypothetically be some sort of neurological reason for something like this, is all I'm saying. Or a side effect of Somnacin. Or SOMETHING.