flyingskull | Disneyan Shallowness or the Trivialisation of the Bastard Hero

Current Mood: thoughtful

Disneyan Shallowness or the Trivialisation of the Bastard Hero

There's a thing that's been annoying me for a long time... Well, alright, there's lot of things that annoy me, I'm easily irritated, but now I want to talk about one particular attitude towards a particular type of character (in all media) that annoys me to the point of rage.

Unnecessarily Reforming the 'Decent' Bastard

If Henry Fielding were a contemporary author and he'd written Jonathan Wild last year, tons of readers would love and adore Jonathan and proclaim him a Good Hero, because the novel proclaims it every other page, you see, and if the author tells you persistently a character is a Hero Noble and Brave, then he must surely be. (There's another can of worms with female characters which I'll explore in another post, this is way too long as it is) A few, more critically inclined readers would get that he's a criminal with no redeeming features whatsoever, but they would be screamed at by legions of fen who'd consistently quote Wild's noble words about virtue as gospel and testament to his pure heart.

Yet, as we all know, Jonathan Wild is a political satire about 'Great Men' who gain power by cheating, stealing, murdering and conniving. The 'Great Man' is a hypocrite and all his words are lies. "Judge people by what they do," Fielding says, "not by what they say."

In other words, many contemporary readers, probably beaten down by the Politically Correctedness of our times, need authorial statements to know whom to admire and whom to despise in a story and when the above are lacking the only parameter they follow is the 'virtuousness' of their lines of dialogue. A Hero must say Noble and Kind words to everyone and, if sometimes he gets righteously angry as well he may, he'll express his contempt for his enemy or rival with scathing words of Noble Outrage (like 'you loser' or 'you coward').

Literature forbid we have a hero who's also a rude bastard, how can readers (yes, yes, a lot of them NOT all of them) resolve the confusion about the character?

Well, it's easy. Thanks to the Disney School of Good Feelings and Feeling Good, readers (NOT all of them, and this is the last time I specify it. Take it as said every time) either decide the Bastard is not a Hero, after all, or they decide that he isn't really saying all those rude and insulting snarky things. Jane Austen had a wonderful career based on readers' blindness to conflicting information, after all. Shallowness as an analysis tool prescribes that there is NO subtext, nothing is ever implied and actions are not important at all. What does it matter if character A saves the world, if he's rude about it? What does it matter if character B has deep and strong feelings for character C, if he never says it?

I'm not very clear, am I? Alright, on with the examples.

Diana Wynne Jones' Christopher Chant, the Chrestomanci, is an arrogant, selfish, vain, sarcastic bastard. He's also a sort of permanent saviour of worlds who has a deep respect for justice and all societal Good Things and a deep respect, affection and love for his wife, children and friends. Does he express his feelings with loving words? Not on your life, because he's also a deeply private person - a consequence of his isolated childhood and subsequent betrayal by his mentor - one who'd die before exposing his 'weaker' feelings to rejection and ridicule; one who hides behind sarcasm and rudeness because he really thinks most people are fools who won't understand anything but assurance and brusqueness.

That is a fully realised three dimensional character, obviously, but do some readers see him as worthy of being the Hero of a Series? They are shocked by his rudeness, to them it doesn't compute. Here's an example:

... Cat's secret dread was that one day he would be there, making polite conversation, and actually see one of Gabriel's lives as it went away. If he did, he knew he would scream.

The dread of this happening so haunted Cat that he could scarcely speak to Gabriel for watching and waiting for a life to leave. Gabriel de Witt told Chrestomanci that Cat was a strange, reserved boy. To which Chrestomanci answered "Really?" in his most sarcastic way.

"How can Christopher be so mean to Cat?" some say. "How can Christopher be so mean to Gabriel?" some other, more astute readers say. "It makes Christopher not so enjoyable as a protagonist and hero," both the factions say and run off to write fanfics in which he's the personified Milk of Human Kindness and Never But Never Says an Unkind Thing to Anyone (he also says 'I love you' a hell of a lot). We can't have kindness through deeds and unsaid respect for others now, can we?

Pterry's Vimes. Yes, I'm the Queen of Obvious and am a descendant of Monsieur de Lapalisse. Deal with it. Vimes is another Bastard. He's not the arrogant, vain bastard, but the raging, violent, sarcastic (all Bastards are sarcastic, after all, it's a mark of Intelligence), selfish - yes, selfish. He really is. Selflessness isn't a healthy thing. - Bastard with a capital B. You won't catch Vimes saying "I love you, fluffybunny" to Sybil because A) Pterry's too good a writer to mire himself in sentimental nonsense and B) even if Vimes says mushy things in private, which I can't believe, he'd never express his feelings in public. Because, say it with me, Bastards are intensely private persons, If they weren't, they wouldn't be Bastard Heroes, their Bastardiness - UGH, sorry, filthy neologism there - is in their words and attitude, NOT in their actions and feelings. And Vimes is SO near to being a villain, in a sense. He always has to reign himself in, to deny himself expression of his rage. It's not by chance that his greatest victory - in Night Watch, of course - is not killing Carcer. Vimes' societal values are solid and good, his societal mores (politeness, conformity) non-existent.

And yes, I've read fanfics in which Vimes was an abusive husband or lover and others in which he was soooooooo politically correct in Disneyan lovey-dovey that I don't know which nauseated me more.

And Murakami's Yuki Eiri (see icon). Because, if fen of good writers can be shockingly blind and/or stupid, they can't hold a candle to the sheer blindness and/or stupidity of a multitude of manga and anime fen. Give them a hell of a fascinating character who happens to be a Bastard of the broody, cold, violent, insulting and sarcastic persuasion whose past trauma (I'll post all about Murakami's Gravitation ASAP) assures that he'll never be able to express his feelings because - boring innit? - he's a VERY private person. Yet his societal values are solid... I'm repeating myself amn't I? And URGH! how he's treated by fen! Abusive, sadistic lover or mushy idiot because he has to be redeemed and reformed into a Disneyan image of goody-goodiness, if he is to be good.

Let's not even dwell on poor Draco Malfoy, what's been done to him makes me weep for humanity.

In conclusion, I suspect lots of fen are repulsed by intelligence, because if there's one thing that distinguishes the Bastard Hero from the Bastard Villain is exactly intelligence as in the OED definition:

The action or fact of mentally apprehending something; understanding, knowledge, cognizance, comprehension (of something)

Intelligence makes people appreciate and espouse the basic societal values of justice, respect of others' life and rights, it doesn't necessarily make people appreciate and espouse the societal mores of politeness and conformity. Intelligence is threatening because it tends to put in discussion established mores. Intelligence allied to passion is lethal for conformity, the desire to be what I call the 'invisible burgeois'. Intelligence plus passion plus impatience does a marvellous Bastard Hero make, my favourite kind of hero, by the way, but I suppose I've shouted that from the rooftops already. A certain kind of fan - they come not single soldiers but in BATTALIONS! - is shocked and put out by the Bastard Hero and they all frantically re-write him into a one-dimensional bland nothingness that negates the richness of the character and, incidentally, all the work the author put into creating him. But who cares about complexity when we can have Disneyan shallowness and everything in black-and-white simple stupidity?

Long live all Bastard Heroes and long may they continue insulting friend and enemy alike! They have my support, at least.

PS: I wanted to add Dunnett's Lymond, but I fear

mistful sarcasm, so I've refrained. :-D

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Well, I gotta go the other way, and look up fanfic rants! But I'm glad to see you post, and especially loved this one -- didn't know half the writers, but obviously Jones and Draco. (do you think he's a bastard hero? Although he can be in fanon, and is most fun like that, I think JKR wrote him as simple bastard.)

btw, Jayne is from Firefly -- canceled sf tv show. (and film) Jones has been my absolute favorite fantasy writer since I was a child, and gets better and better, imo. I totally agree that Christopher is a perfect example of someone whose actions are at variance with his public appearance, and are what he should be judged on. (btw, what did you quote that segment from? I don't recall Cat meeting Gabriel, though I thought I'd read everything. Must reread or go find.)

Hmm... Firefly... was that by Joss Whedon?

The Cat/Gabriel/Christopher scene is from Stealer of Souls in the Mixed Magics collection of short Chrestomanci stories. I quoted that because someone posted it (a longer version, but that was the part that grated) in the comm

dianawynnejones and was all confused about Christopher's apparent cruelty to Cat. It was actually that post that sparked this rant o' mine.

Well, Draco... the problem with Draco is that he's massacred by the author of canon. I mean, JKR - who can't write - presents him as a certain kind of person: the little spoiled rich boy and that would be alright, a bit cliché, but why not?

Then she gives him all sorts of fascinating hobbies (he draws, he makes badges, he composes songs, he writes lyrics) and makes him one of the best students, particularly good at potions. WTF? This is an intelligent and interesting person! This is the Artist as a Young Man! But no, wait! He's totally and masochistically stupid in antagonising the Hero - who's an underdog only not really - he can't win and still he tries. Ah-HA! Who's the plucky underdog now, JKR? He snarks like nobody business at Hagrid and well he may, Hagrid is TEH PITS as a teacher.

All the above wouldn't make him a Hero, no, but Draco is the one who's trying to shift a body that's double his own mass in the midst of a raging inferno - even though said body turned out NOT to be such a good friend, after all - thus saving Greg's life by risking his own. And not only that, to save his not-so-good friend's life he humiliates himself to his rival. And that promotes him to Bastard Hero to me. He's got the Good Solid societal values and no societal mores. Voila! If JKR wanted me - and about a billion other readers - to hate and despise Draco, she'd better learn how to write characters. She's the Disneyan reader, in a sense, she thinks that only what she, as the Author and Creator, says and what the characters say counts.

DO read Terry Pratchett's books. Diana Wynne Jones admires them and he admires hers. Totally different authors in style, totally in agreement about worldview and social ethos.

(*picks up megaphone*)

WATCH FIREFLY!

(*hides megaphone behind back*) (*looks innocent*)

Don't mind me, I was just on my way to respond to your main post. =]

*picks up megaphone*

WAS IT BY JOSS WHEDON? BECAUSE i AIN'T WATCHING ANYTHING BY JOSS WHEDON AFTER WHAT HE DID TO X-MEN!

*puts down megaphone and glowers*

Uhm. Yes, actually, it was.

...

... what did he do to X-Men? Uhm. Or don't I want to know? ^_^;;

Anyway, he's better with his own original characters! I promise!

He massacred them and dragged Marvel - not a difficult thing to do, they seem to have become brain-dead towards the end of the 90s - into a stinking mire of a mixture between a soap opera and random explosions. HMPH.

Alright, if you say it's good I'll watch bloody Firefly *she said darkly* but I'll be biased. :P:P:P Not that I can overcome my biases, as Gravitation has proved. :-D

CAN'T CAN'T CAN'T!

What is with me and posting too soon today? *tears hair out*

Oh dear. ^_^;

Whedon, I think, suffers from a lack of Second Thoughts. He has very good First Thoughts, and he can plot and characterise marvelously, but he never seems to stop and say to himself, "wait - was that really a good idea I had? Will it have any unintended consequences? Maybe I should do it differently."

For example, in Buffy he used witchcraft as a metaphor for female empowerment. But the witch character just kept getting more and more powerful, until she completely outstaged Buffy herself and could basically solve everyone's problem with a snap of her fingers. So in season six, when Whedon was otherwise occupied, some other writer got the idea to turn magic into a metaphor for drug addiction - the witch started trying to literally solve all her problems with a snap of her fingers, and her life sort of fell apart because of it. I felt that was a pretty neat way of solving it and restoring the character to what she used to be, before she turned into a walking plot device.

Then in season seven Whedon started taking an interest again, went "NO NO NO - IT'S FEMALE EMPOWERMENT!" and restored the witch character to plot device levels. (*sighs*)

Still, Firefly only has 14 episodes - he doesn't have time to get derailed. =] And like I said, he does do great characters, very complex and imperfect and human.

Whedon was possibly otherwise occupied destroying X-Men for the film. I don't dispute that he's a great creator of characters, but he certainly can't write even a decent fanfic about established characters. He also appeared to have the odd idea - quite against Nature and Reality, not to mention Taxonomy, Zoology and Biology - that a wolverine is a canid instead of a mustelid, so Wolverine was suddenly tall and wolfish. BLEAGH!

And let's not dwell on his idea of female empowerment in Storm, who just happened to be a Weather Goddess and was dumbed down to hot, rather ineffectual chick in a leather Attack Suit.

BUT I'll see the sodding thing. I promise. And you WILL read AND re-read all thirteen books of Gravitation. And no whingeing, 'books' in this case are rather short things and Firefly is longer by one episode. :P

Hmm, I see your complaints very clearly, I must admit... ^_^; I liked the third movie because the central premise was interesting and had a lot of shades of grey to it, but it didn't have any particular good character moments in it, I must admit...

And you WILL read AND re-read all thirteen books of Gravitation.

Yes, ma'am. :)

Oh the Phoenix/Dark Phoenix arc in the comics was stunning. And not dumbed down at all. Even the cartoon managed to respect the stuningness that was the Dark Phoenix arc. Joss "I don't give a shit" Whedon managed to make that all about something else. HMPH!

Y'know, I haven't thought or talked about Jean Grey in a long time, but she was really a wonderful character. Faced with having more-than-goddess-like powers, she managed to recuperate her own humanity and her own sense of justice. It was a hell of a good tragedy. AND THEN Marvel had to go and make a mess of it. *sigh*

It's all the same. Dunnett called it - VERY shrewdly - "the infantile terror of 'never again' ". Er, this is a periphrasis, I'd have to hunt for the direct quote. But I remember the meaning of it, because it struck me as being quite real for contemporary readers.

I've already ordered and paid for Firefly. Am a bitch of my word. Also, I've decided to put my bias on hold for the duration of the watching. ^_^

I must admit that I could never stand Jean Grey in the cartoon. In fact, I seem to recall asking one of my friends, "if she's the most powerful force in the universe... why is she so weepy and useless?" ^_^;

I did like the cartoon's Dark Phoenix Saga, though, even if I felt that they wussed out by bringing her back to life in the end (and of course they had to do it by everyone giving up a piece of their life for her because they looooove her so incredibly much. *groans*).

In the comic... well, I must admit that I never read it, but it sounded mighty good from the summary I read. :) And comics are usually more serious and complex than cartoons based on them, for some reason... Which is my way of saying that I have every faith Jean Grey was a much better character in the comic. =]

It wasn't the whole Phoenix thing I liked in the movie, though, it was the "cure" thing. It's such an interesting question - what if you could "cure" people who weren't considered normal? What would happen? Well, some of them would jump at the chance. Some of them would be insulted by the very idea that there was anything wrong with them. And some of them would (perhaps with some justification) consider it an attack on them, and suspect that before long, the "cure" would be mandatory. I felt that that part was handled very well in the movie. But like I said, it was all very detached - the characters felt a lot like they were just representatives for different reactions, rather than having different reactions because they were different people.

Dunnett called it - VERY shrewdly - "the infantile terror of 'never again' ".

That's an evocative phrase, but what does it mean? :)

Also, I've decided to put my bias on hold for the duration of the watching. ^_^

Good woman! :D You'll like Mal, I think. Inara you might want to strangle, mind you... =]

Jean Grey in the X-Men comics was AWESOME, dude. She rocked hardcore. She was the very first female in the history of USA comicdom to be the Leader of a Superhero Group. And Lead she did with aplomb and verve. I could even forgive the Marvel airheads for bringing her back from the dead, so very well written she was. Then the 90s came to their autumn and Marvel's collective brain got mushed down and died. FAUGH!

The 'cure' thing - and yes, I'm waiting for Firefly and all - was a rather spiffy idea of the early 90s. A 'cure' for the worst mutation that was a trap, what it did was become a sort of supervirus that would target all genetically non-norm persons. Started good, ended in pure crap. *sigh* I should make an icon of that. Something like:

Marvel (change frame) started GOOD (change frame) ended in pure crap.

Sad, innit?

Ah. evocative phrase yes. Means we, like children, can't let things die and disappear. We clutch. Children - and I remember this well from when Fleur got seriously ill - can't accept that people, or things, for that matter, can abandon them. the child in us all finds it hard going as well. Clearer? Am not very lucid as it's 2:30 am here now.

Ah well, if I like Mal, I guess I'll endure wanting to obliterate that Inara whatever. :-D

Hehe, I believe you. :) The cartoon dumbed things down quite considerably, as far as I can understand. Same thing with the Justice League cartoon, to be honest (though that one's even worse, because the Justice League was dumber than the X-Men to begin with... =]). I shall never forgive whatever idiot script writer butchered Alan Moore's For The Man Who Has Everything.

And don't get me started on the difference between the cartoon Lex Luthor with his inefficient tantrums and comic Lex Luthor, who is a megalomaniac bastard capable of not only plotting his way back from utter defeat but forcing one of his worst enemies to be the one to clear him off all charges (and turning said enemy into a freak and turning his daughter against him, just for good measure)...

Anyway, I'm starting to feel somewhat glad that I only read Marvel in the 80s... ^_^;

And yeah, it's always horrible when good things turn to crap. Hence my many bitter Buffy rants, really... =]

Means we, like children, can't let things die and disappear.

Ahhhh, that's clearer, yes, thank you. :) I've felt like that at times, worrying that all my friends would abandon me (the fact that I was twenty before I ever had any real friends contributed to that, I'm sure). I don't stress over it anymore, though - I've accepted that they probably won't and that even if they for some reason did, I'd make do.

That's kind of my philosophy. Wanting things makes life more interesting, because it gives you something to strive for. Needing things just cause you grief. =]

Cartoon dumb things down no end. ALL cartoons. NO exceptions.

Which is why I rather like cartoons, but as I like the 'rather decent' fanfics. They are actually fanfiction on the comics, books, whatever they are derived from. There's no space and no time in a cartoon to explore characters... or even plots. Also, for some to me incomprehensible reason cartoons tend to pick on secondary details of the core story and enlarge them to the detriment of the primary - or core - story. Fanfiction. Nice, when you're in the mood; vomity, when you are not.

Marvel in the 80s was GOOD. You were quite right to stop there. It seemed to get better for a few precious years and then it PLUMMETED into shite. *sigh*

You have NO idea how happy I am to have avoided Buffy all my life. I feel so lucky. Also clever enough to smell a rat a parsec away. :P:P:P

That's kind of my philosophy. Wanting things makes life more interesting, because it gives you something to strive for. Needing things just cause you grief. =]

I Hyper Agree with that and annotate: Needing things cause grief to everyone. You, me, and the poor victim of your (or my) needing. Needing should be outlawed. Needing KILLS. I truly hate needing, unless it's: 'I need a new pen, this one leaks' 'I need to buy food, I'm hungry' 'people NEED to learn respect'.

Have you ever seen Gargoyles? Now there was a good cartoon, though the angst factor was through the roof sometimes. =]

Marvel in the 80s was GOOD. You were quite right to stop there. It seemed to get better for a few precious years and then it PLUMMETED into shite. *sigh*

I'm sort of enjoying DC, though writers Brad Meltzer and Bill Willingham both needs to be shot... =] I'm rapidly getting tired of JLA, but JSA has a lot of wonderfully quirky characters and a sense of humanity to it. Checkmate actually deals with superhuman politics in a believable fashion (and I love the fact that Checkmate is working on a UN charter and has to make sure not to annoy the security council too much - that's what bugs me about most superheroes, they're not freaking accountable to anyone). And of course I adore the Atom... =]

You have NO idea how happy I am to have avoided Buffy all my life. I feel so lucky. Also clever enough to smell a rat a parsec away. :P:P:P

Aw, Buffy was really great for the first three and a half seasons. It's just that it ran for seven seasons... ^_^;;

The main idea with the series was always that there was the ordinary world, which had the kind of problems and opportunities that you'd expect, and then there was the supernatural world, which was a sort of larger-than-life reflection of it. The series started falling apart when the writers started forgetting about introducing mundane plotlines and concerns for the characters - after that, it was just about fighting one pointless monster after another, with no resonance to anything the audience could relate to. Still, it was very good before that. :)

I Hyper Agree with that and annotate: Needing things cause grief to everyone.

Hmm, I guess you're right. I've never been as horrible to people as I've been when I thought I needed something from them. ^_^;

There might be something to Buddhism and so forth, saying that want is the root of all suffering. I think it sounds kind of dull to want nothing, but maybe there's some kind of loophole in Buddhism too, saying that it's okay to want stuff as long as you don't mind if you don't get it. I should look into it.

I kind of like the idea that life is just a big game - and the best part is that you can choose your own objectives and criteria for winning. And it's fun if you win, but even if you lose, it's not like it's going to matter once the game is over. =]

Gargoyles is indeed an excellent cartoon.

See, my probbo with Buffy is that I saw the film and found it entertaining. I liked the idea of the Blonde cliché Airhead zooming around staking vampires. And yes, I know it was Whedon's idea thankyouverymuch.

Then I forgot all about it and suddenly I was bombarded by friends about this FABULOUS TV show of the same title. And it was everywhere. Huge fandom. The works. AND I'm allergic to hype. *sigh*

Yeh, yeh, I know. I got dragged into the Mother of all Hypes, HP, by Maya. I had honestly never even thought of reading a page of that drivel. But, y'know? Maya, Mirabella, other more than decent authors... I had to read the source because I'm a research junkie and can't help being moe curious than a cat. And.. well you know what I think about it.

Huge derailing of train of thoughts here, Whooo! Where was I? *goes to re-read*

Oh, alright. So the hype kept me off Buffy and by then the good things had ended, according to you - utterly trust you in this - so... nothing lost there.

Firefly has arrived. I've discovered Whedon totally ripped it off Paul Anderson, whom I love, but I'm prepared to find it good. Or at least, not execrable. :-D

'Want', whatever Buddhism may say (I can't abide religions, especially religions masquerading as a philosophy), is not a bad thing. Want is a positive feeling. It's when 'I want this', which implies you can easily survive without, changes to 'I need this' which implies you'd die, or at least suffer horribly without it, that things go pear-shaped and we're suddenly at home for mister cock-up.

Well, if life is a big game, you win by staying alive and you lose by dying. So no great space for manoeuvring in there. I mean, no matter what you do, you win. When you stop breathing etcetera then you've lost.

Alright, enough with the teasing. Point is, IMO, you can want, for example, to be a good violin player. You apply, you practice, you invest time and energy into it. Then you find out you have no talent, so you can play the sodding thing, but you'll never be really good at it. Have you wasted time and energy? The 'want' faction'll say 'No siree. You've learned something and nobody will stop you playing for fun.' But the 'need' faction will tear hair out, wangst like nobody business, ruin own life and those of all around one and, in extreme cases, suicide. Clearer?

Gargoyles is indeed an excellent cartoon.

Isn't it? :D I love Xanathos. Now there's a character who wants pretty much everything he can possibly get his hands on but who doesn't sulk if he can't have it (and who excels at winning one thing by failing to acquire another). In fact, I sometimes get the impression that his main motivation is an academic interest in just how much he can get away with. =]

And Demona is the complete opposite, poor thing - she has very specific ideas about what the world has to look like for her to find it acceptible, and every time she tries to force it into her mold things turn out even worse for her.

So the hype kept me off Buffy and by then the good things had ended, according to you - utterly trust you in this - so... nothing lost there.

I am happy to be trusted. :D I think I'm trustworthy in this matter, too - I've heard the same thing from a great many other people.

There is some loss, though, because the first three seasons were great. But I guess you can see how well you like Firefly before you decide if further Whedon is worth investing in. ;)

I can't abide religions, especially religions masquerading as a philosophy

I'm feeling somewhat sceptical even to philosophy at the moment. I've been reading up on some eighteenth-century ones, and they all seem to have been rather more sure of themselves than I consider prudent. To hear them describe it, either something is undisputably true, or else it's undisputably false. I feel that probability should enter into it somewhere. For instance, can't we be reasonably certain that what our senses tell us is real while still admitting that there's a faint chance it might not be? That strikes me as the most useful approach. =]

Want is a positive feeling. It's when 'I want this', which implies you can easily survive without, changes to 'I need this' which implies you'd die, or at least suffer horribly without it, that things go pear-shaped and we're suddenly at home for mister cock-up.

We appear to be of an accord in this matters. Wanting = good and helpful for living interesting life, needing = bad for you and everyone in your general area. =]

We are generally in accord about things, I've found out. It just takes us some time to fine-tune our definitions and vocabulary. *huge evil grin*

Philosophy is shite. Well, no, alright, when it still means 'love of science' it's alright. When it's a huge wankfest, it's shite. Most of modern philosophy - I mean from the Middle Ages on - is shite. Some sane persons have written interesting thoughts on science, but they are so few two hands are more than enough. UGH. PhiloMentalWankers. UGH UGH UGH.

(no subject)

baeraad.livejournal.com - 2007-08-24 10:37 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

flyingskull.livejournal.com - 2007-08-24 15:51 (UTC) - Expand

Firefly was a Joss Whedon production, yes; and a really fun one. A friend loaned me the cd of the year's worth of episodes which is all it lasted. Definitely worth watching,m if you like sf, not just fantasy.

I don't entirely agree that JKR is a bad writer, but I certainly agree characters are not her forte. I put a paper together talking about different genre values, and it's primarily in the literary genre that it's most important. (Hence, imp't to me!) I would rather argue that JKR is good at developing characters, but not good at noticing what they're becoming. I've had characters who took on their own life, and they just won't do what they're told -- but if you adapt to that, they can be the most interesting and fun. I think she was so invested in a plot planned from the beginning that she couldn't see outside her own box.

I do find Draco an interesting character to work with, because he's smart and talented and has such a strange father. But then, I also find Harry interesting, partly because he's a whole person, including the bad parts. I love Harry and hate it when people badmouth him, because he really is a hero, and a child struggling to do something no child should have to, as well.

I also am completely committed to the idea that school bullies are unhappy, or they wouldn't be bullies -- and unhappy children often turn into the most interesting adults, and not always the nasty kind of interesting. Your arguments on Draco's heroism are really persuasive to me. However Bastard hero he is -- after all, he broke Harry's nose when Harry was completely defenseless, though Rowling may not realize that an attack to the nose can kill. (My defense class taught us how, emphasizing its last ditch nature.)

Oh well. I'm sorry, I write long. I've read one of Pratchett's books, and have him on my list for the big annual book sale I go to every year. I loved his humor, and also the book he and Gaiman wrote together. And I do appreciate this conversation.

And I do appreciate this conversation.

Not half as much as me! *she chortled in glee*

But see, who's the bully? Harry who zaps random people in the hall or Draco who only insults the Trio? What's more dangerous for life and limb, a broken nose or a curse that makes the victim collapse in a stupendous blood pressure failure due to massive loss of blood? In JKR's world the Designated Hero can literally do no wrong, not because he does good things, but because every thing he does is Good and Noble by definition. Thus Crucio is a horrible unforgivable, except not because it's alright to Crucio someone who's spit at your teacher if your last name is Potter.

As for the broken nose, I don't know if JKR knows how dangerous it is in real life, but I'd guess she wouldn't care anyway as in her world people are horribly injured at the drop of a hat. Moreover Harry had absolutely no right to go on spying with his illegal and secret invisible clock of awesomess which nobody can see through except at least three people, but who's counting. If it had been Draco who'd gone spying on the Designated Heroes the resulting righteous indignation would have been worse than the actual injuries he'd get.

It's never in the actions in JKR's world, it's all in the surname. :-D

I mean, JKR could have made Draco the school bully quite easily, could have made him unlikeable quite easily and because of DH, I can safely say that she thought she had because she firmly believes that what goes on in her head is the only possible way of looking at things. That's why she's not a good writer IMO.

Sorry, I tend to rant because I'm really passionate about literature, I don't mean to offend no-one and no-one's ideas.

School bullies in RL can be a lot of things. Some have an unhappy homelife, some do it not to be the victim, some are pressurised by peer into it and some are just big cretins who resent people with brains. In my school days I got a mixture of the above and I can assure you that the huge cretins who resent people with brains exist and that their home life is quite decent and normal. *sigh* Still, it makes for a varied humanity and I'm all for that.

I see that, though I've been avoiding ranting about DH because really it's a touchy thing, to not praise the millions that is Rowling, the more I think about some things the more I realised she wrote the entire sodding book against the part of fandom she didn't like while stealing lot of fandom's ideas and solutions.

Good Omens, the book Pterry wrote with Gaiman is pure love and win. If you happen to see Night Watch by Pratchett at a reasonable price, grab it and never let it go. In my - admittedly biased and opinionated - opinion it's his masterpiece up to now. :-D

Oh, and I love people who write long, at least they tend to be more merciful towards my insane verbosity.

I love Harry and hate it when people badmouth him, because he really is a hero, and a child struggling to do something no child should have to, as well.

I see what you mean, and I love

mistful's Harry for that reason - because he's an ass and he's a hero, and you can see why he is both those things. My problem with him is really that I don't think JKR sees the ass part - she seems to think that his worst problem is that he's got a "saving people thing," and while I love to bits an imperfect hero, I need the narrative to acknowledge that the hero is imperfect. =]

And I agree with you about JKR not letting her characters live up to their potential. She is a rigid woman with very firm ideas about how everything should be - her best writing are the parts where it seems like she temporarily forgot herself and let her characters act like themselves, not like she thought they should act.

Hello, Baeraad, and I really enjoyed your take on Joss Whedon -- this series of comments and arguments is making me think I need to read more pyramided comments (if that's the phrase.)

Does JKR not see the ass? I've always assumed she HAD too -- after OTP, my friend S and I decided that unless the next one had less anger, we loathed Harry and didn't want to read anymore. Fortunately, it turned out he was just being 15...

But then, (to take your side of the discussion) JKR almost certainly doesn't what quite what an arse Dumbledore is to Harry. Quite aside from the blithe realization that Harry has to die in the last battle, with only an unspoken hope that maybe D's theory is correct and Harry won't die, there's the willingness to leave him with child abusers for his entire childhood, on the grounds he won't be killed that way. Sorry, as an abused child myself, I relate to Harry and loathe D's betrayal -- how could the head of a school fool himself that starving a child, overworking him, emotionally attacking him, invalidating his parentage, locking him in a storage cupboard, and actually imprisoning him, with bars on his windows, is better than letting him have a happy life where there's a chance someone might kill him? (Omg, what a Faulknerian sentence -- except without the splendid diction.)

And to respond to flying skull in the same space (hope that's reasonable)because you're also talking about JKR's rigidity; that she can only see her own way of looking at things. I'm not ready to write her off like that -- but she'll need another series so I can see if the characters are different than this set. As to hoping you're not offending anyone -- if you meant me, by no means! I too am passionate, and therefore opinionated, about writing, and I can't imagine a better friend than one you can sit down with and tear apart a book. I miss that so much -- it's nice to drop in to your space and get a little of that,from you and your friends.

I spent a lot of time trying to teach people that you need to judge people by their actions, not by what they say. It's discouraging when writers don't understand that, because their writing is less nuanced as a result. I like nuances....

Oh gad, back to struggling with posting my first LJ story. HTML was invented by the Dark One, speaking of Bastards...

Does JKR not see the ass?

Nope. She's suffering from a rare condition known as "ass blindness." It's very tragic. =]

Seriously, ah... I think she does and she doesn't. It's something that I can't quite put into words yet, but it's got to do with JKR's very Christian worldview. It's like... we're all sinners, but once we choose to be good (turning to God, in Christianity; choosing to stand with Gryffindor and Dumbledore, in HP) our sins are forgiven.

So while everyone in the Potterverse have very glaring personal defects, the impression I'm getting is that JKR thinks they don't count in a person who has chosen the right side to stand on. In such a person, they are just "understandable human frailty" (because all humans are weak and stupid and sinful - you can't expect anything more of them). If you've chosen to be good (which is to say, to place your loyalty in Dumbledore), then all that is forgiven.

Conversedly, when someone has not chosen to be good, all his sins still count and he can be condemned for them. And if he does good things on occasion? Doesn't matter - his sins are just too many for his good deeds to count in comparison (because all humans are weak and stupid and sinful; it is impossible for anyone to be virtious on his own merit). Whereas a "forgiven" person's good deeds are significant because they are not overshadowed by his sins, which are after all made unimportant by his commitment to good.

I'm not sure if that made any sense. ^_^;;

I too am passionate, and therefore opinionated, about writing, and I can't imagine a better friend than one you can sit down with and tear apart a book.

You're going to fit in just fine around here. :D

You're going to fit in just fine around here. :D

YES! You are. Be passionate and opinionated all you wish, PLEASE.

I'm not silent on the Harry/JKR front out of a misplaced sense of fear of offending, but out of a very real sense that the level of anger this argument inspires in me can be offputting for all thinking persons, as it tends to reduce me to foaming at the mouth and not a little incoherency.

I'll be posting about that. I wanted to for a long time and DH has done nothing but reinforce the need. All about the author NEEDING to respect her/his characters for fucksake. But I need to calm down and make a coherent and civilised argument about it, or it'll be only gnashing of teeth and growling interspected with occasional random ROARING and SCREECHING. Which ain't civilised. Which I'd like to be. Y'know, civilised. :-D

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only