Questions of Character

[pellucid]

Character has been coming up a lot lately in the various fannish playgrounds I've been hanging out in. Discussions of female characters at gabolange's (flocked, or I'd link) and surrealis's ( here), discussions of characters of color at sugargroupie's (most relevant bits flocked), a chat with some RL friends about J. K. Rowling's efforts to control the interpretation of her

Comments

[fatechica1123]

I think a lot of what you say is true (which means just about all of it). I'm much the same as you: I'm very character driven. It doesn't matter if the plot is awesome and the writing is top notch; if the characters in the roles aren't human enough (for lack of a better word), I just can't get drawn in. The characters are what drives the plot. Whatever media it be in, a story is told through the eyes of the character. The characters, for me, need to be compelling. I have to *care* about what happens to them throughout the course of their journey

[pellucid]

There are many instances where I prefer a fan's portrayal of a character to what the creators of said character actually portray on the show.

I agree with this--as I've already indicated by my comment about mylittleredgirl's John Sheppard--yet at the same time I often find myself saying things that seem to contradict it. One of the points of fanfic is that we already know and love these characters. The fic writer's job--at least by most people's standard--is to write the characters faithfully, and I think we all consider it a good complement (given or received) when a fanfic portrayal is described as "in character

[kernezelda]

I remember talking about this in Atlanta, interesting stuff.

The short answer for me is that - the characters become real. They take on their own existence apart from the writers/directors/actors. Any actions or emotions they exhibit are externally or internally motivated by the fictional world they live in, whether that's an elastic past as in Xena, or a living spaceship on the run as in Farscape.

It doesn't matter to me why Claudia Black was not in four episodes of FS, early S4, or whether DK directed her toward some intentional portrayal. I have to think about why Aeryn made an aboutface in her attitude toward Scorpius, why she spent weekens waiting for John, etc.

The writers wanted reconciliation before breaking J/A apart again in S4; that has no meaning for me when wondering why John kissed and made up when he'd been given no reason to think anything had changed.

I can discuss meta, behind the scenes causes, but it has no place for me in figuring out character motivations and actions.

[pellucid]

I remember thinking your approach seemed so interesting--yet also so foreign--to me. My brain can't ever completely let go of the constructed nature of character and story. Characters can, do, should become more than that, but they're never not (for me) the product of a bunch of people's decisions, some of which might have been bad ones. I don't know if this inability to separate that part is a result of all these many years of training in literature, or of my belief that everything is the product of its context (historical, social, etc.), or if it's a view common to lots of fans who have different kinds of academic training.

And I don't think I'd want to let go of that part of the analysis, either; I really enjoy thinking about how a character (and the world she or he inhabits) is constructed and find it in no way a real contradiction to also thinking of the character as somewhat "real."

[gabolange]

We love characters, we grieve for and with them, we hate them fiercely, we want to knock some sense into their heads when they make bad decisions: does this mean we think of them as "real"?

Yes and no. I know full well that Sam Carter, Laura Roslin, Leia Organa, and Aeryn Sun (and oh, the list goes on) are creations of others' imaginations and talents. Not real. But, then again, the ways they inspire me to think, to create, to imagine, to consider are important. Does it matter that they're "not real"? I'm not precisely sure that it does.

And yet… I suspect that we would all agree that thinking about characters only in terms of what is actually on the screen is reductive.Perhaps it's a feature of my somewhat vivid imagination, but I have never felt that what we see on screen is the whole story. Some shows are more blatant than others about suggesting that their characters have lives outside of what we see, and in those suggestions we are given license to imagine those other moments. If we take that first step, it's something

[pellucid]

Responding sort of in reverse order:

Right now, fanfic and fandom is impacting my understanding of the SG-1 characters more than the show is--which is not something I mind

This is one of the things I love about SG-1--or rather, the SG-1 fandom. I can't think of the show separate from the fandom; my enjoyment of the former is so strongly influenced by the latter. But this is also where I think that each show and each fandom are individual; we tend to have different relationships with all of them, depending on myriad variables. And the individualities of different shows and fandoms and characters was really sinking in as I was writing this. Yes, I have patterns in the way I like and think about characters; but I've also got a lot of exceptions, and my relationships with no two characters are alike. This, of course, is what makes it all so much fun.

Perhaps it's a feature of my somewhat vivid imagination, but I have never felt that what we see on screen is the whole story.I wonder whether it's a product of your "vivid imagination" (

[gabolange]

I wonder whether it's a product of your "vivid imagination" (and mine, and everyone else who reads and writes fanfic) to read between the lines, to see what's suggested beyond what we have, or if that's simply the nature of story.You put in a caveat there, when you said "everyone else who reads and writes fanfic." The thing is that not everyone sees stories in the way we do; not everyone sees the possibility in an ongoing narrative. There are many out there who simply don't understand the drive behind fan writing and creation; for some people the question isn't of copyright violation or the sanctity of canon, but simply "Why would you bother

[pellucid]

but it isn't a universal drive

True, and I did put the caveat there on purpose. Lots of people don't see what the impulse would be behind fanfic. And there are plenty of people who just don't get the impulse behind fiction, which makes me so sad. (One of my cousins was mocked in my family of readers for years because he stopped reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when the beavers started talking, arguing that beavers don't talk. I'm not sure why the magical wardrobe didn't give him pause. Worse yet, the boyfriend of a former roommate was in the room once when I was watching an episode of X-Files, and he was completely baffled by the fact that I was so upset by something that happened to Scully. "But," he stammered, "she's not real.")

I'm not sure, though, that it isn't still the nature of story--the nature of language, even--to be suggestive of more, whether all readers/viewers are responsive to it or not.

[meg_tdj]

Wow... I'm way too tired to think deeply about this, but some of the things you've said (and I'll be watching the comments, too) have given me a clearer idea of how to create a good character. Good timing, considering that's what I'm trying to do right now. ;)

In an attempt to answer some of your questions, though... for me, I like to think the characters I enjoy are real because they live in controlled circumstances. It's not real life - nobody really dies in science fiction! It's like you're free to get attached to someone, because unlike a person who could be here one second and gone the next, characters live on in books you can read a billion times or DVDs you can watch and rewatch until your eyes bleed. You can shape their future in your own head, too, rather than waiting to see what fate (or their writers) has in store for them. I like having that kind of control over someone, because God knows I don't have any control over my own existence

[pellucid]

You know, you and I have talked about character preferences at various times before, but I don't know that I've ever seen you put all the pieces of your preferences together like this before--and I suddenly have this far more enlightened understanding! (It's possible I wasn't paying enough attention before--eep! Sorry.) But yeah, that all makes loads of sense.

I like "meaty" characters, ones that make you laugh and cry and scream angrily at the screen when they do something stupid

I would argue that every one of the female characters on my "favorites" list would fit this description--though many of them are from shows you don't watch. But I agree, and I, too, get frustrated when women get written only into stereotypical roles. (I admit to a certain weakness for the "women who can do amazing things without breaking a nail", but I'd rather see them doing amazing things while breaking nails and expectations and stereotypes.) There are really strongly-written, well-developed female characters on television, though, and I will argue that

[meg_tdj]

You know, you and I have talked about character preferences at various times before, but I don't know that I've ever seen you put all the pieces of your preferences together like this before--and I suddenly have this far more enlightened understanding!

Really? Wow... maybe I should always have this kind of conversation when I'm dead tired then. ;)

I would argue that every one of the female characters on my "favorites" list would fit this description--though many of them are from shows you don't watch.

Yeah, I think that's it exactly... I clearly don't watch the right shows! But it really did look bleak for women on TV for a while there, yet over the past few years more and more great female characters have been popping up out of nowhere. Even in the shows I watch. ;)

Re: part 2 -- holy cow.

[pellucid]

On Laura: Her character actually appeals to my brains more than to my emotions--which is in no way a slight. She appeals to me the way that, say, my favorite sorts of poets appeal: I like difficult, intellectual poets--John Donne, George Herbert, T. S. Eliot more recently--where the act of analysis, the unraveling of these beautiful words until they coalesce into some kind of meaning that you can just grasp, is the whole fun of it. Laura Roslin is something like a metaphysical poet, and I suspect that some of the problem with writing her is connected to the reasons my students rarely seem to hit Donne right on the mark. You have to think about her. And I think that the reason you and I (and others) are so committed to canon in her case is the fact that canon is so rich and so cool--to diverge would be to reduce her character to something less than it is, I think, almost inevitably