Protagonist Privilege
I followed a link to a fascinating piece of meta by londonkds about protagonist privilege. What I love about the piece is simply that it calls attention to protagonist privilege, the tendency to not hold the hero accountable the way other characters are held accountable and above all to sacrifice other characters or even the intrinsic logic of the 'verse to the psychological needs of the protagonist. (That doesn't do justice to the essay which you ought to read for yourself; but it's the point I want to jump off from). There are lots of reasons to be worried about the phenomenon. The one that most concerns me is that insofar as we're supposed to identify with the protagonist, protagonist privilege just encourages us in our tendency to narcissism and to narratively construct our lives in a way that blinds us from the truth about ourselves and the world we live in.
Whedon is called out as succumbing to this problem, most notably in the character of Buffy. What is ironic is that my particular fascination with Joss's work is that I read him as challenging protagonist privilege. Not directly (with an exception to be discussed below), but rather by exagerating it to the point where we should be made uncomfortable by it. Granted, I've not been sure that's what Joss is up to. My uncertainty on this point is no doubt why I've been so fascinated by this story. But deep down in my heart of hearts I hope that subverting protagonist privilege is the point, or at least one of Joss's points.
I see this most notably in the case of Angel, who Joss has said he never quite knew what to do with -- him being a conventional hero and all. What Joss has done with his conventional hero is portray him such that the reality never actually fits with that of a conventional hero. He's the heroic vampire with a soul, who when we first meet him does very little that is actually heroic and begins the show with a confession of cowardice. We later learn that there's also a remarkable lack of self-direction, since the guy doesn't even try to be a hero until he's called on by the Powers that Be and shown the inspiring vision of a girl sucking on a lollipop. Even when he does get into the game, he's outheroed at almost every turn (at least at the start) by the geeky Xander, who is never once dressed up as the hero. Angel goes into more classic hero mode in season 3 when he's being set up for his own show, and he starts out there as a pretty standard hero. But then he falls and tries to lose his soul. And then falls again and tries to kill his friend. And then falls again and mindwipes his friends and sells out to corporate evil. And then falls again by orchestrating a suicidal mission that at best gives him a chance to make a 'heroic' last stand at the expense of sacrificing the colleagues he leads into battle, the innocent true champion Drogyn, and the deeply grey, mostly villaionous but still potentially redeemable doppelganger he's been contrasted with the whole series long (not to mention the millions of innocents who get damned by the inevitable backlash). We keep the heroic trappings all the way through. His friends treat him as a champion, even as he deeply betrays them and endangers them. The end of the piece is epic tragedy with this deeply flawed character making his 'heroic' suicidal empty gesture and not one of the humans in his entourage having survived (at least if one assumes that Gunn was mortally wounded at the end).
The protagonist privilege is taken to such an extreme that I've always assumed/hoped it was intentional -- a subversion of the trope. I'd add that I think Spike's function was to call it out. Spike isn't the protagonist, and is always viewed as suspicious (with how many episodes in AtS season 5 devoted to the question of whether this is the moment Spike reveals that he's still pretty darned evil), and yet is the one who actually fought for his soul; actually died to save the world; and doesn't fall (post soul) the way Angel repeatedly does. But the surface never suggests this is what goes on. Angel finishes with heroic music and an inspiring last few lines. The writers always refer to him as a hero. Most people assume he either actually is a hero or that Joss thinks he's a hero and is very much guilty of writing an extreme version of protagonist privilege. I love that tension, whether it's what Joss intended or not.
Dollhouse is what makes me think he intended it. Dollhouse really didn't work for people because for a good long long stretch there was no protagonist. Not the folks working at the dollhouse. Not the dolls. Not Paul the valiant savior. That changed in the last half of the second season, but I'm not sure if that's not because there was a rush to the end and it was just easier to abandon the ambiguity that had gotten the show into such ratings distress in the first place. At last at the start, this was a show free of protagonist privilege. That's what made it great and also an impossible story to sell.
Firefly does not strike me as being an exercise of any kind of critique of or engagement with protagonist privilege. I've never fallen in love with the show and consequently haven't thought much about it. But nothing jumps out at me that says this was an issue either explicitly or at least in the background. Dr. Horrible is about the problem. When you make a genuine villain the protagonist, you're raising the issue. Indeed, insofar as we're made to feel very sympathetic for a guy who really does set out to commit murder, does cause mayhem and a situation that leads to the death of someone, and who then goes on to realize his ambition of joining the evil league of evil, you've made protagonist privilege a problem. Especially when the bits that humanize the protagonist include lots of evidence that he's not just a misguided person forced into villainy but in fact has as many self-serving motivations as the cartoonish antagonist.
So that leaves us with Buffy. Season 6 darkened all three of the Scoobies, but season 7 seemed to pull back on holding any of them fully accountable. (Willow's transgressions were treated most seriously, but it's not clear it was commensurate with torture, murder, and an attempt at destroying all human life). Buffy only indirectly takes responsibility for her share of the darkness of season 6 Spuffy. She and the scoobies walk off the heroes, smiling even though the two demon members of their circle just got sacrificed to the cause. One could argue that there's some protagonist privilege going on here and not in any way that's meant to challenge the paradigm. There's a reason for that, I think. Buffy is also the feminist icon protagonist -- and it would be very difficult to both challenge protagonist privilege and celebrate having a female superhero as a protagonist.
Season 8 opens the possibility that protagonist privilege really is going to be challenged. Buffy is now robbing banks. We're given plenty of reason to think that the text stands in judgment of her on that. She's indifferent to the fate of human victims in ToYL. She lapses into language about being more than humans in the sense of being superior to them. And now, of course, we have her ascended to godlike powers with lots of signs that this is an ominous turn indeed. Allie has told us we should be worried about whether Buffy will still be a 'hero' at the end of they day. And I think at least some of the objection to season 8 is exactly that people who want to identify with Buffy as the feminist icon protagonist really really don't want protagonist privilege questioned in her case. Some of the defenses of Buffy's behavior seem to be very much of the variety that she must be doing good because she just is the hero -- a stance the text itself calls into question when Willow asks just what it is that distinguishes the good guys from the bad guys and all Buffy can do is invoke protagonist privilege.
By the time we get to the whole world literally falling apart because the two protagonists are getting it on I'd say there's a good chance that the structure of the story is exactly to say there's a problem with bending the other characters and the entire world around the psychological development of the protagonist. We'll see. But the tension is part of what makes this so interesting. And as with Dollhouse, the inability of large swathes of the fandom to go with it suggests just how hard it is to really challenge protagonist privilege and actually keep an audience. That says something interesting about us, too, I think.
ETA: green_maia has some interesting reactions to the same essay here.
Whedon is called out as succumbing to this problem, most notably in the character of Buffy. What is ironic is that my particular fascination with Joss's work is that I read him as challenging protagonist privilege. Not directly (with an exception to be discussed below), but rather by exagerating it to the point where we should be made uncomfortable by it. Granted, I've not been sure that's what Joss is up to. My uncertainty on this point is no doubt why I've been so fascinated by this story. But deep down in my heart of hearts I hope that subverting protagonist privilege is the point, or at least one of Joss's points.
I see this most notably in the case of Angel, who Joss has said he never quite knew what to do with -- him being a conventional hero and all. What Joss has done with his conventional hero is portray him such that the reality never actually fits with that of a conventional hero. He's the heroic vampire with a soul, who when we first meet him does very little that is actually heroic and begins the show with a confession of cowardice. We later learn that there's also a remarkable lack of self-direction, since the guy doesn't even try to be a hero until he's called on by the Powers that Be and shown the inspiring vision of a girl sucking on a lollipop. Even when he does get into the game, he's outheroed at almost every turn (at least at the start) by the geeky Xander, who is never once dressed up as the hero. Angel goes into more classic hero mode in season 3 when he's being set up for his own show, and he starts out there as a pretty standard hero. But then he falls and tries to lose his soul. And then falls again and tries to kill his friend. And then falls again and mindwipes his friends and sells out to corporate evil. And then falls again by orchestrating a suicidal mission that at best gives him a chance to make a 'heroic' last stand at the expense of sacrificing the colleagues he leads into battle, the innocent true champion Drogyn, and the deeply grey, mostly villaionous but still potentially redeemable doppelganger he's been contrasted with the whole series long (not to mention the millions of innocents who get damned by the inevitable backlash). We keep the heroic trappings all the way through. His friends treat him as a champion, even as he deeply betrays them and endangers them. The end of the piece is epic tragedy with this deeply flawed character making his 'heroic' suicidal empty gesture and not one of the humans in his entourage having survived (at least if one assumes that Gunn was mortally wounded at the end).
The protagonist privilege is taken to such an extreme that I've always assumed/hoped it was intentional -- a subversion of the trope. I'd add that I think Spike's function was to call it out. Spike isn't the protagonist, and is always viewed as suspicious (with how many episodes in AtS season 5 devoted to the question of whether this is the moment Spike reveals that he's still pretty darned evil), and yet is the one who actually fought for his soul; actually died to save the world; and doesn't fall (post soul) the way Angel repeatedly does. But the surface never suggests this is what goes on. Angel finishes with heroic music and an inspiring last few lines. The writers always refer to him as a hero. Most people assume he either actually is a hero or that Joss thinks he's a hero and is very much guilty of writing an extreme version of protagonist privilege. I love that tension, whether it's what Joss intended or not.
Dollhouse is what makes me think he intended it. Dollhouse really didn't work for people because for a good long long stretch there was no protagonist. Not the folks working at the dollhouse. Not the dolls. Not Paul the valiant savior. That changed in the last half of the second season, but I'm not sure if that's not because there was a rush to the end and it was just easier to abandon the ambiguity that had gotten the show into such ratings distress in the first place. At last at the start, this was a show free of protagonist privilege. That's what made it great and also an impossible story to sell.
Firefly does not strike me as being an exercise of any kind of critique of or engagement with protagonist privilege. I've never fallen in love with the show and consequently haven't thought much about it. But nothing jumps out at me that says this was an issue either explicitly or at least in the background. Dr. Horrible is about the problem. When you make a genuine villain the protagonist, you're raising the issue. Indeed, insofar as we're made to feel very sympathetic for a guy who really does set out to commit murder, does cause mayhem and a situation that leads to the death of someone, and who then goes on to realize his ambition of joining the evil league of evil, you've made protagonist privilege a problem. Especially when the bits that humanize the protagonist include lots of evidence that he's not just a misguided person forced into villainy but in fact has as many self-serving motivations as the cartoonish antagonist.
So that leaves us with Buffy. Season 6 darkened all three of the Scoobies, but season 7 seemed to pull back on holding any of them fully accountable. (Willow's transgressions were treated most seriously, but it's not clear it was commensurate with torture, murder, and an attempt at destroying all human life). Buffy only indirectly takes responsibility for her share of the darkness of season 6 Spuffy. She and the scoobies walk off the heroes, smiling even though the two demon members of their circle just got sacrificed to the cause. One could argue that there's some protagonist privilege going on here and not in any way that's meant to challenge the paradigm. There's a reason for that, I think. Buffy is also the feminist icon protagonist -- and it would be very difficult to both challenge protagonist privilege and celebrate having a female superhero as a protagonist.
Season 8 opens the possibility that protagonist privilege really is going to be challenged. Buffy is now robbing banks. We're given plenty of reason to think that the text stands in judgment of her on that. She's indifferent to the fate of human victims in ToYL. She lapses into language about being more than humans in the sense of being superior to them. And now, of course, we have her ascended to godlike powers with lots of signs that this is an ominous turn indeed. Allie has told us we should be worried about whether Buffy will still be a 'hero' at the end of they day. And I think at least some of the objection to season 8 is exactly that people who want to identify with Buffy as the feminist icon protagonist really really don't want protagonist privilege questioned in her case. Some of the defenses of Buffy's behavior seem to be very much of the variety that she must be doing good because she just is the hero -- a stance the text itself calls into question when Willow asks just what it is that distinguishes the good guys from the bad guys and all Buffy can do is invoke protagonist privilege.
By the time we get to the whole world literally falling apart because the two protagonists are getting it on I'd say there's a good chance that the structure of the story is exactly to say there's a problem with bending the other characters and the entire world around the psychological development of the protagonist. We'll see. But the tension is part of what makes this so interesting. And as with Dollhouse, the inability of large swathes of the fandom to go with it suggests just how hard it is to really challenge protagonist privilege and actually keep an audience. That says something interesting about us, too, I think.
ETA: green_maia has some interesting reactions to the same essay here.