no, you should not analyze characters based on what they say about themselves.
This was going to be my Grand Unified Theory of Character Motivations, but I think it bleeds a bit into an even bigger picture of how I generally analyze and evaluate fictional characters, which ended up making clear to me why I spend so much time groaning in frustration when something or other gets panned as being "OOC
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YES. Unlearning your socialization is HARD, IMO, and people who pioneer one critique or another generally have a stinging motivation to do so. Sometimes that motivation, whatever it is, has warped someone a lot, and I think fiction is a great way to explore that interface of individual psychology/broad social ideals, since it's so incredibly loaded and hard to unpack a person-movement in the real world.
re: Zarek: From what I can tell, BSG fandom, outside of the small handful who considered Zarek a favorite and therefore read him very closely, didn't so much claim "bad writing!!" about Zarek, but did seem to have a tendency to take a reductive reading of the character in one direction or another, considering him either a deluded idealist who genuinely meant for the best* or an outright villain who didn't mean a word he said. But...yeah, it's a lot more complicated than that. Zarek does mean his principles, I think, it's just that he's conveniently adopted a belief system that only requires him to take risks when he has nothing left to lose, and on which he is the preeminent authority and therefore can't be called out or challenged on his righteousness. (A lot like I was talking about with Stannis Baratheon a while back, which is a comparison I never would have expected to make!)
*The Hatch apparently embraced this read of the character wholeheartedly, funnily enough, though it goes to show that artists don't need to be on board with the more cynical analysis to create a character that is incredibly realistic and complicated.
I'm glad my Elena reading works for you, since you get her so much better than I do! In fairness to fandom (STRANGE WORDS TO SAY) I don't know how much Elena herself realizes that she's a Secret Puppet Master of the Universe, lol.
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A loose association: one of my favorite poets, who's a master of rhythm and sound patterns, completely butchers his own work when he reads it out loud XD.
It's actually very hard for me to read characters like Zarek or Gale, because I'm never sure what a Western viewer is expected to see in them. On my side of the Iron Curtain, you're taught that when such a character appears, you're to wait for the other shoe to drop. I never expect them to be successful: either they end up doing something that "costs them their soul", or they learn that their idealism isn't compatible with reality. I'm always surprised when I realize that people brought up in the Western culture don't necessarily make those assumptions.
Aww, thank you! Yeah, I don't think Elena wants to know how much of a Puppet Master she is. Then she'd have to give up the pleasure of yelling at Damon for being a Puppet Master of the Universe.
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aw. And yeah, it definitely illustrates that there's simply a lot of different skill sets that go into an artistic work, and people don't always or usually get it right.
On my side of the Iron Curtain, you're taught that when such a character appears, you're to wait for the other shoe to drop. I never expect them to be successful: either they end up doing something that "costs them their soul", or they learn that their idealism isn't compatible with reality. I'm always surprised when I realize that people brought up in the Western culture don't necessarily make those assumptions.
I...do not feel like I have the right knowledge set to ask the questions I want to ask about this, but it makes a ton of sense and I would be fascinated to hear more (wrt Zarek or Gale or just generally).
I don't think Elena wants to know how much of a Puppet Master she is. Then she'd have to give up the pleasure of yelling at Damon for being a Puppet Master of the Universe.
lol! Which is especially fun because Damon isn't really cut out to be a puppet master of the universe. (If anything, he's cut out to be a FUCK YOU YOU DON'T OWN ME iconoclast a la Zarek, doomed never to actually control anything because he's so focused on making sure he doesn't feel constrained by anything himself.)
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Okay, so for us (and full disclosure here: I'm speaking from my own cultural experience, and I lived in the same town my whole life. So what's true for my immediate circle might be different in Hungary, or Russia, or even in a different region of Poland) communism/socialism first and foremost are systems that don't work. They don't work because they can't -- by definition, they're too flawed to function properly. From that follows that communist/socialist (you'd be surprised how many people here don't know the difference or don't care to know) activists can be either cynical, power-hungry monsters, or idealists who mean well, but have no idea how the world functions, or at least aren't fully aware of the consequences. So when I see a character like Zarek make speeches about freedom (the way he does when he's first introduced), my automatic assumption is: THIS WON'T WORK. Zarek has a point, his list of grievances is valid, but he can't succeed, because what he proposes is flawed as well. Mind you, I automatically associated Zarek with communism, even though nothing like that is explicitely stated in canon. He's a radical democrat who likes to bomb things, that's enough for me ;).
Anyway, I don't see anything illogical in the discrepancy between Zarek's or Gale's ideas and the acts of terror they allow or stage. In my cultural experience, this is simply an inherent flaw of this type of ideology. One of the most popular tropes in movies about The Cold War is "Young, Just, Naive Boy Joins The Party and Gets His Ass Kicked". You get a guy who joins the movement out of good intentions, then sees the inherent flaws (propaganda lies, or brutality of war, or examples of injustice -- depends on when the movie/book is set), and becomes disillusioned. Zarek doesn't fit any of the stereotypes (neither young and naive nor 100% cynical), but we find out right away that he spent most of his adult life in jail. So my first thought was: this guy knows his theory. He's disconnected from the physical world. He isn't youthful and naive, and he isn't discouraged by violence, but he's removed from reality. He won't act in a fully practical way. He'll make huge mistakes. There will be contradictions in his decisions. He's an intelligent man basing on a flawed system. This can't end well. There is no possible universe in which this ends well.
Ugh, this is very chaotic. Feel free to make me explain myself if you want.
Re: Damon. LOL, you're so right! He wants to tell everyone to fuck off, except he believes that he's so much more intelligent than other people, and that's what dooms him XD.
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Yeah, this is so interesting to me because I feel like the prevailing idea of an "idealist" in Western media is necessarily a "pacifist." Which, yes, most/all pacifists are idealists, but not all idealists are pacifists. (We take more of a "gotcha!" attitude toward idealism, where if you are not personally solving every injustice without hurting anyone's feelings you are CAUGHT, HA! and can therefore be safely discredited and ignored - and of course if you do assume that's a good faith criticism and try to do that, you end up discrediting yourself out of exhausting if nothing else. But you know this, because you're on tumblr.)
"Young, Just, Naive Boy Joins The Party and Gets His Ass Kicked". You get a guy who joins the movement out of good intentions, then sees the inherent flaws (propaganda lies, or brutality of war, or examples of injustice -- depends on when the movie/book is set), and becomes disillusioned.
Is there something like a corresponding heroic narrative, which is a cultural idea of a happy ending in this context? Are there activists who are portrayed more positively or successfully?
and/or: is there a narrative of the deviant or the renegade? What is the cultural reception of the Cowboy Cop archetype we love so much in the US, or the James Bond type of good soldier?
Zarek doesn't fit any of the stereotypes (neither young and naive nor 100% cynical), but we find out right away that he spent most of his adult life in jail.
It sounds like Zarek is kind of like a deconstruction of that, in a way? Because he's an adult with his political/philosophical development arrested at that young naive age, and then he gets dropped back into a which is at its own rock bottom.
I automatically associated Zarek with communism, even though nothing like that is explicitely stated in canon. He's a radical democrat who likes to bomb things, that's enough for me
I associated him with communism too, though I can't remember what line it was that set me in that direction.
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(Especially with this particular east/west schism, because whenever I see "east" I always think Asia, if only because cultural background. LOL)
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LOLOL, and then they would stop arguing and my ship would be DEAD AND BORING.
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