Puzzling

[rahirah]

I was thinking about the whole characterization question, and it seems to me that one reason people disagree is that there are different ways to approach characterization. My way is this: I form an initial impression of a character from the first few books/episodes/comics/whatever they're in. As the series goes on, and the character does more stuff, I try to incorporate that new stuff into my concept of the character. As someone writing fic or meta, I see my task as making sense of all the puzzle pieces I'm given. Sometimes I feel that a new piece is the wrong color or the wrong shape to go in the place I'm told it's supposed to, and sometimes I may suspect that it came from a different puzzle altogether. I can and do complain about that. But ultimately, I feel that I need to make that piece fit, somehow. If I just throw it away, I've failed. If making it fit means changing my idea of what the puzzle looks like, well, that's what I'll do. I had to do a lot of that in S6, with Buffy. I didn't like the new picture nearly as much. But I can't throw those pieces out.

There are other approaches. Some people disallow new pieces after a certain point, feeling that their puzzle is finished. Others think that it's perfectly OK to throw out a lemon yellow piece when the predominant color of the puzzle is purple. Obviously that piece is a mistake, and to force it into the existing puzzle would ruin it. Honestly, I wish I could make myself do this sometimes. I think I would be happier about some things if i could. But that approach has its problems, too - just ask anyone who was deeply invested in Angel being Spike's sire, and felt angry and betrayed by Fool For Love.


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