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flyingskullThere'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![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mistful sarcasm, so I've refrained. :-D
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
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no subject
Date: 2007-08-21 05:07 pm (UTC)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?
no subject
Date: 2007-08-22 06:27 pm (UTC)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. =]
no subject
Date: 2007-08-22 11:44 pm (UTC)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
Date: 2007-08-24 10:37 am (UTC)I guess my view on philosophy has always been that it should be an artform, but most philosophers seem to be trying to make it into a science, complete with a Theory of Everything that reduces all of human existance into one simple metaphor. (actually, I might be unfair in calling it a science - science has always been comfortable with admitting that there are things it doesn't know, or doesn't know for sure, yet) The idea that something can be true in one situation and not true in another never seems to occur to them. I mean, it can go something like this:
KANT: "Morality can not be founded on reason alone."
ME: "Very true."
KANT: "Therefore there must be founded on our inner feeling of right and wrong."
ME: "Can't argue with that."
KANT: "And because our inner feeling of right and wrong exists, it must mean that there's an afterlife."
ME: "Wait, what? How did you get from 'conscience' to 'afterlife'? And while we're at it, why are you using logic (even logic of a very questionable sort) on an issue that you just proclaimed is inherently illogical?"
KANT: "And because there is an afterlife, it must mean that God exists."
ME: "... you burned your entire year's alotment of sanity and common sense on those first two sentences, didn't you, Kant?"
But yeah, there is such a thing as reasonable philosophers who admit the limits of their own reasoning. They're just outnumbered by the egomaniacs who think that they can deduce the true nature of life, the universe and everything from first principle... =]
no subject
Date: 2007-08-24 03:51 pm (UTC)And they don't even have the decency to come up with Forty-Two. HMPH!