Moments When the Protagonist Awes Other Characters, Curing the Addiction To

[limyaael]

As threatened promised hinted at.

Comments

[essyllus]

And that slides into a consideration of power that’s usually applied to villains, but treated as distinctly secondary when it comes to protagonists: the other people the power affects. Okay, so the protagonist decides to practice with her magic, and calls a storm. Does she think about the crops ruined, the rivers flooded, the homes swept away? Nope. She needed to practice, and, because her heart is pure, her faceless victims do not matter, even when the villain’s are the main tool used to get the “good side” in motion.

Yes, yes. SO much yes. This should be included in espionage or superhero fiction as well, because countless of people are slaughtered in order to save the hero's lover, family, or friend. It annoys me so much because it's like, no, you're not special enough to be saved. /rant

Also, you write on how NOT to make a Mary-Sue, which I find very useful. Great rant.

[limyaael]

The weird thing is that, on the surface, so many protagonists do follow a belief system that's about balance in the magical world, or consequences for one's actions. That just never seems to actually get applied to them. It happens to the villains, and enemy mages can screw the world up by taking whatever they need for their magic with no thought to the problems, but the hero/ine takes whatever she needs, and it never causes a problem.

Writing non-Mary Sues can be a dangerous task with high-powered protagonists, I think. Glad if it helps!

Watch out for that Axiomatic Longsword, Targon

[dove_cg]

I think the key problem is that most people don't have a proper grasp on the lawful/neutral/chaotic axis of their character. Yes, it's a D&D sort of term/design but it's quite appropriate really. Most people believe their characters are lawful and then make them act neutral or chaotic instead because they don't understand how that sort of thing works and, hence, they just don't have a proper handle on their character's moral ethics. If any of that made an ounce of sense. XD

[saltnester]

The D&D alighnments can get too restrictive, and also requires you to think that there are good and bad forms of neutral concepts rather than simple balance or imbalance, which is the base of the philosophy: if one has too much Law in their character, they may seek strength in unity with people like them, set about forcing the world into their set of rules, and invade Poland - a separate "bad" does't come into it. "Chaotic good/evil" is also an oxymoron - Chaos, by its nature, doesn't give a damn. (You might well know all of the above, I'm just ranting for clarity's sake)

You can be well aware of your characters' biases towards one side or other, I always have been, but no-one is entirely one way or other save gods and raving lunatics. Use the guidelines loosely and don't paste good/evil in from elsewhere... (")

[dove_cg]

I wasn't referring to the whole good/neutral/evil thing because I know it's very narrow and not particularly useful, especially not in an actual story. It helps with game mechanics but outside of that, it's just silly. Even the Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic thing is fairly narrow too, I will agree. My intention was not to seriously suggest that people run their worlds by the rules of D&D. I was trying to be a bit tongue-in-cheek with my reply and I'm sorry that I failed at expressing that

[saltnester]

Let us form a lynch mob to bring Harry Potter to justice.

[dove_cg]

I used to think similarly about Harry and then I found out about Eragon. Harry may actually get some things he doesn't deserve but when he makes a mistake, particularly in later stories, he does make a mistake (though some of those get glossed over too.) He's really not quite a Sue... so much as he's the head jock on campus and he keeps throwing himself/getting thrown into bad situations thanks to the villain. ;P I'd recommend lynching Eragon first, because there IS no saving grace for him. At all. XD

[saltnester]

Eragon has the excuse of his author being fourteen at time of writing.

Voldemort, sniper rifle, sniper rifle, Voldemort. [pats needlessly elaborate "evil genius" on the shoulder of whoeveer he's possessing at the time] Sometimes simple is best.

[dove_cg]

No, fourteen is not the excuse that Eragon has. Eragon has the excuse that it was originally vanity-press published before being picked up by Knopf. And now the author is about 20 and he still writes horribly. How does that excuse apply to his second (and also most-likely the third) book in his boring little trilogy? ;)