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anghraineI think we can all agree that it's incredibly annoying when fen bash characters for things that only exist in their special fennish copies of the books/movies/TV shows/comics/whatever -- flaws that don't exist/are exaggerated to the point of ridicule, things we're never told they did, random stuff the fen read in some fanfics somewhere, and generally symptoms of You Fail Reading Comprehension Forever.
It's like Snapefen going on about how it's Harry's fault that the Dursleys kept him in a cupboard or that Snape hates him for being born, because he's insolent. Or, for a more involved example, Bingleyfen complaining that Darcy forced Bingley to give up Jane just to get away from Elizabeth, when (1) Bingley is a big boy who is fully capable of making his own decisions and does it all the time, (2) Bingley made his own choice, influenced by Darcy's advice, which (3) just happen to reinforced the doubts he already felt for reasons completely unrelated to Darcy; also, (4) while it's a popular fan and acafen theory, there is no suggestion at any point in the entire book that Darcy's issues about Elizabeth had anything whatsoever to do with la affaire Bingley, (5) Darcy really truly thinks Bingley shouldn't marry Jane for Bingley's own sake, and (6) Darcy genuinely believes that Jane is indifferent to Bingley, as Charlotte hadforeseen foreshadowed in blinking neon letters.
(Palpatine!Charlotte FTW! Ahahaha, if I ever get back to P&P with superpowers, Charlotte's is totally going to be foresight.)
So yes, character assassination of that kind is really aggravating. But I think I've found a subtler version that is, if anything, even more aggravating.
We've got a character with a fairly involved arc. At the beginning of the arc, this character genuinely possesses the flaw that the fen keep harping on and on and on about. The entire point of the character's arc is showing him or her overcoming that flaw to become a better (and usually more complex) person. Because this character is usually the protagonist, quite often the entire work is about him/her overcoming that flaw.
I'm not talking about characters who manage it on their deathbed/in an epilogue/maybe sort of debatably, either -- for a significant portion of the piece, the character has obviously overcome the flaw. And nevertheless, these fen act as if this flaw is not only still present, but that it's the only quality the character even possesses.
This isn't to say that one action can't make you dislike a character so much that nothing they do afterwards can make up for it. That's subjective and that's fine. This is insisting that nothing they do afterwards even happened -- that, in-story, they're always that person even when they've obviously grown. I can totally understand hating Snape because he joined the Death Eaters; I do not understand reducing his entire character to that even once he's risking -- and giving -- his life to overthrow them, as if nothing else (like the whole series) ever happened. ("I still hate him" = fine. "He's still a villain" = reading comprehension, GET SOME.)
Of course this happens all the time with P&P fandom -- "Elizabeth is always jumping to conclusions" or "Darcy is always such a jerk." ... Um, no, unless "always" means "in the first half, before they experienced the character growth that is the focus of the entire rest of the book." In this case, of course, it becomes ridiculously meta, since Elizabeth's mistake is judging people based on the flaws/virtues seen in one incident, even if later evidence suggests something else. So dismissing her entire character and refusing to acknowledge her growth because she dismisses people's entire characters and refuses to see their growth -- until her own growth -- is ... I don't even know.
You get another version with Darcy. As everyone knows, he's a total asshole in his first scene. He's considerably less unpleasant in all the following ones, but his personality remains abrasive enough to strip paint until halfway through. For the rest of the book, he actively tries to be more considerate (his success depends mostly on who he's dealing with), and we discover that he was never as much of an asshole aswe Elizabeth thought he was, anyway. So reducing him to "jerk" -- just like Elizabeth does -- is also completely missing the point.
To jump to my other main fandom of the moment, you get it even more incessantly with Luke Skywalker. Yes, he whines all the time -- at first. Nobody could possibly question that. The problem is that the fandom acts like he's always complaining and refusing the call, when in fact he spends the rest of the trilogy risking his life when anyone needs him. The Alliance needs pilots to try and shoot a tiny target while getting blown up? He's there. His mentor's ghost tells him to go AWOL and fly to Dagobah? He goes to Dagobah. His friends are in danger? Off he goes. He might be able to bring out some sliver of goodness in Darth Vader? He's turning himself over to stormtroopers. The Big Bad gives him a choice between murder and gaining cosmic power, or dying himself? He throws away his weapon. Going by the fandom, though, you'd think Father, save me! was no different from But Uncle Owen!
The Luke who allows himself to be tortured to death rather than fall to evil is no longer the kid who whined about power converters. The Elizabeth who calmly refutes Lady Catherine's arguments isn't the same girl who blindly accepted Wickham's transparent story because it flattered her. The Darcy who tries to convince Lydia that she's better off single and "impure" than locked in miserable respectability isn't the same person who sneered his way through the Meryton assembly.
Character growth: IT HAPPENS.
It's like Snapefen going on about how it's Harry's fault that the Dursleys kept him in a cupboard or that Snape hates him for being born, because he's insolent. Or, for a more involved example, Bingleyfen complaining that Darcy forced Bingley to give up Jane just to get away from Elizabeth, when (1) Bingley is a big boy who is fully capable of making his own decisions and does it all the time, (2) Bingley made his own choice, influenced by Darcy's advice, which (3) just happen to reinforced the doubts he already felt for reasons completely unrelated to Darcy; also, (4) while it's a popular fan and acafen theory, there is no suggestion at any point in the entire book that Darcy's issues about Elizabeth had anything whatsoever to do with la affaire Bingley, (5) Darcy really truly thinks Bingley shouldn't marry Jane for Bingley's own sake, and (6) Darcy genuinely believes that Jane is indifferent to Bingley, as Charlotte had
(Palpatine!Charlotte FTW! Ahahaha, if I ever get back to P&P with superpowers, Charlotte's is totally going to be foresight.)
So yes, character assassination of that kind is really aggravating. But I think I've found a subtler version that is, if anything, even more aggravating.
We've got a character with a fairly involved arc. At the beginning of the arc, this character genuinely possesses the flaw that the fen keep harping on and on and on about. The entire point of the character's arc is showing him or her overcoming that flaw to become a better (and usually more complex) person. Because this character is usually the protagonist, quite often the entire work is about him/her overcoming that flaw.
I'm not talking about characters who manage it on their deathbed/in an epilogue/maybe sort of debatably, either -- for a significant portion of the piece, the character has obviously overcome the flaw. And nevertheless, these fen act as if this flaw is not only still present, but that it's the only quality the character even possesses.
This isn't to say that one action can't make you dislike a character so much that nothing they do afterwards can make up for it. That's subjective and that's fine. This is insisting that nothing they do afterwards even happened -- that, in-story, they're always that person even when they've obviously grown. I can totally understand hating Snape because he joined the Death Eaters; I do not understand reducing his entire character to that even once he's risking -- and giving -- his life to overthrow them, as if nothing else (like the whole series) ever happened. ("I still hate him" = fine. "He's still a villain" = reading comprehension, GET SOME.)
Of course this happens all the time with P&P fandom -- "Elizabeth is always jumping to conclusions" or "Darcy is always such a jerk." ... Um, no, unless "always" means "in the first half, before they experienced the character growth that is the focus of the entire rest of the book." In this case, of course, it becomes ridiculously meta, since Elizabeth's mistake is judging people based on the flaws/virtues seen in one incident, even if later evidence suggests something else. So dismissing her entire character and refusing to acknowledge her growth because she dismisses people's entire characters and refuses to see their growth -- until her own growth -- is ... I don't even know.
You get another version with Darcy. As everyone knows, he's a total asshole in his first scene. He's considerably less unpleasant in all the following ones, but his personality remains abrasive enough to strip paint until halfway through. For the rest of the book, he actively tries to be more considerate (his success depends mostly on who he's dealing with), and we discover that he was never as much of an asshole as
To jump to my other main fandom of the moment, you get it even more incessantly with Luke Skywalker. Yes, he whines all the time -- at first. Nobody could possibly question that. The problem is that the fandom acts like he's always complaining and refusing the call, when in fact he spends the rest of the trilogy risking his life when anyone needs him. The Alliance needs pilots to try and shoot a tiny target while getting blown up? He's there. His mentor's ghost tells him to go AWOL and fly to Dagobah? He goes to Dagobah. His friends are in danger? Off he goes. He might be able to bring out some sliver of goodness in Darth Vader? He's turning himself over to stormtroopers. The Big Bad gives him a choice between murder and gaining cosmic power, or dying himself? He throws away his weapon. Going by the fandom, though, you'd think Father, save me! was no different from But Uncle Owen!
The Luke who allows himself to be tortured to death rather than fall to evil is no longer the kid who whined about power converters. The Elizabeth who calmly refutes Lady Catherine's arguments isn't the same girl who blindly accepted Wickham's transparent story because it flattered her. The Darcy who tries to convince Lydia that she's better off single and "impure" than locked in miserable respectability isn't the same person who sneered his way through the Meryton assembly.
Character growth: IT HAPPENS.
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on 2011-02-06 12:03 am (UTC)no subject
on 2011-02-06 12:45 am (UTC)Actually, though, seeress!Charlotte would be pretty kickass. Hm.
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on 2011-02-06 12:51 am (UTC)and yes it would!
and also i agree with you about the other stuff, of course. you are more eloquent than i am. my response is more like, "GRAR! WHAT? NO! STOP THAT!"
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on 2011-02-06 07:22 am (UTC)can i just copy and paste this (plus the rest, but especially this)into the comment reply box? i think most people miss the fact that character development is a legitimate consequence (sometimes cause) of plot. in other words, your story is not a collection of things happening to a character. it's about the things that happen and how the character responds.
also: superhero charlotte!!!!
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on 2011-02-06 07:17 pm (UTC)And yes, talking about characters as if the first appearance is the only one that matters and they just march across the story with plot bullets bouncing off them -- NOT HOW IT WORKS, PEOPLE.
A very long time ago, there was a 'superpowers' drabble challenge at HG. Most of them were excuses for bad innuendo, but a few were fun, and I did -- four or five? Elizabeth was a plant controller, Jane and (inexplicably) Darcy were empaths, Bingley was a nonmagical ex-Barbarian, and Georgiana was a necromancer. Never did Charlotte, but of course she'd be clairvoyant!
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on 2011-02-06 10:02 pm (UTC)There are Bingley fen other than me?I feel your pain. In one of my other fandoms, there's a character who's first appearance paints her as a thief and a con artist, but over the course of two seasons she has some of the most complex and amazing character development ever seen on television (um, I may be biased by the fact that she is my favorite character ever full stop). So, what do the fen writers do? Have her stealing and conning and acting the same way she did in season 8 at the end of season 10 without accounting for everything she's gone through and how much she's changed. *headdesk*
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on 2011-02-07 08:16 am (UTC)Ah, thank you! Yeah, you get it plenty in fanfic. People are forever as they first appeared. How many P&P sequels are basically Darcy and Elizabeth learning the same lessons as P&P ... over and over again? It's really in meta that it started pissing me off, though -- it's pretty much impossible to discuss them at ALL without having to go through the same "but he's so WHIIIIINY!" or "but he refuses to DANCE!" every. single. time.
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on 2011-02-08 01:08 am (UTC)To be honest, I tend to avoid meta discussions except with people I know. It's less frustrating that way.