On Writing Horrible Human Beings
Feb. 19th, 2010 01:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
arachnekallistiA question I've been considering for some time: how do you write flawed heroes, anti-heroes and villain protagonists without sounding as if you endorse them? In particular, how do you write characters who hold opinions and values that are utterly appalling by contemporary standards?*
It's fine line. You don't want to present their opinions too uncritically, and you don't want to make excuses for them, but at the same time you don't want to patronise your audience by making all the characters you don't agree with into puppy-kicking caricatures.
I guess part of the question I'm asking here would be: is there anything you can do to prevent/minimise the Misaimed Fandom problem?
Consider Rorschach. Alan Moore clearly meant him to be a deconstruction of a certain kind of quasi-objectivist superhero; he's highly principled, but quite willing to follow those principles off a cliff. He's intelligent and perceptive, but also a paranoid conspiracy theorist who's wrong as often as he's right. He's unfettered by society's restrictions, but to the point of being a horrible twitchy bigot who alienates everyone who tries to help him. He's what Bruce Wayne would be like without his money and his narrative protection. The point is clearly meant to be that there's a certain kind of superhero who you wouldn't actually want to know, but there's a disturbing number of people who think he's dead cool.
The movie version of Watchmen toned Rorschach's homophobia and misogyny down a bit, and I'm not sure if that made the Misaimed Fandom problem better or worse. On the one hand, letting Rorschach be even more of a horrible bigoted person might have made it abundantly clear that he was not meant to be a role model. On the other hand, you might have ended up with the fandom cheering on/making excuses for homophobia and misogyny as well.
Also, consider Gene Hunt. Now here, I think Life on Mars did end up playing into the Misaimed Fandom. In Series 1, Gene was quite clearly there as Mr Let's Not Sanitise The 70s - he's a bigoted thug who'll take backhanders and rough up prisoners. Now, he's a complex enough character that this isn't all there is to him, and there's also quite a lot of loyalty to his team and genuine desire for justice in him. There's also the fact that Philip Glenister was playing him with quite considerable charisma. This all ended up with a slide into minimising Gene Hunt's actual flaws, and kind of suggesting that his bigotry was on a par with the smoking, the drinking and the regrettable sideboards. Gene gets to be right a lot more in Series 2, and Sam calls him out a lot less often. That's part of the danger of trying to write flawed-but-sympathetic characters, that risk of ending up seeing them through their own eyes. They do not need the author on board with them.
Finally, consider the Dollhouse. All its employees are going through remarkable ethical contortions in order to sleep at night after working in a business that when you get right down to it, deals in slaves. They've all got their justifications, and they're all trying to pretty up the essentially horrible line of work they're in. The decor of the place says it all - it's done up like a rather nice spa, except there are no windows. I'm getting the distinct vibe that part of the idea of Dollhouse is to seduce you into almost-sympathising with various members of the Dollhouse staff, and then remind you just how horrible what they're doing really is. And that means, as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
prochytes put it, that some Dollhouse episodes make you feel a bit dirty, and others make you feel like you'll never be clean again.
I don't think I have an answer here. There's an awful lot of tightropes to walk here, and an awful lot of ways of screwing this up. Rorschach acquired a Misaimed Fandom despite Alan Moore's best efforts, although Gene Hunt might not have kept his if the writers hadn't started playing up to it. In Dollhouse, Misaimed Fandom is being used as a deliberate narrative bait and switch, and I'm not sure I like it. It feels kind of exploitative. Actually, I'm absolutely sure I don't like it, and I think that's the point.
*sparked off partially by wanting to write WH40K fic, and partly by this discussion here on "ironic" racism - I didn't want to hijack that discussion, so I've taken these issues over here.
It's fine line. You don't want to present their opinions too uncritically, and you don't want to make excuses for them, but at the same time you don't want to patronise your audience by making all the characters you don't agree with into puppy-kicking caricatures.
I guess part of the question I'm asking here would be: is there anything you can do to prevent/minimise the Misaimed Fandom problem?
Consider Rorschach. Alan Moore clearly meant him to be a deconstruction of a certain kind of quasi-objectivist superhero; he's highly principled, but quite willing to follow those principles off a cliff. He's intelligent and perceptive, but also a paranoid conspiracy theorist who's wrong as often as he's right. He's unfettered by society's restrictions, but to the point of being a horrible twitchy bigot who alienates everyone who tries to help him. He's what Bruce Wayne would be like without his money and his narrative protection. The point is clearly meant to be that there's a certain kind of superhero who you wouldn't actually want to know, but there's a disturbing number of people who think he's dead cool.
The movie version of Watchmen toned Rorschach's homophobia and misogyny down a bit, and I'm not sure if that made the Misaimed Fandom problem better or worse. On the one hand, letting Rorschach be even more of a horrible bigoted person might have made it abundantly clear that he was not meant to be a role model. On the other hand, you might have ended up with the fandom cheering on/making excuses for homophobia and misogyny as well.
Also, consider Gene Hunt. Now here, I think Life on Mars did end up playing into the Misaimed Fandom. In Series 1, Gene was quite clearly there as Mr Let's Not Sanitise The 70s - he's a bigoted thug who'll take backhanders and rough up prisoners. Now, he's a complex enough character that this isn't all there is to him, and there's also quite a lot of loyalty to his team and genuine desire for justice in him. There's also the fact that Philip Glenister was playing him with quite considerable charisma. This all ended up with a slide into minimising Gene Hunt's actual flaws, and kind of suggesting that his bigotry was on a par with the smoking, the drinking and the regrettable sideboards. Gene gets to be right a lot more in Series 2, and Sam calls him out a lot less often. That's part of the danger of trying to write flawed-but-sympathetic characters, that risk of ending up seeing them through their own eyes. They do not need the author on board with them.
Finally, consider the Dollhouse. All its employees are going through remarkable ethical contortions in order to sleep at night after working in a business that when you get right down to it, deals in slaves. They've all got their justifications, and they're all trying to pretty up the essentially horrible line of work they're in. The decor of the place says it all - it's done up like a rather nice spa, except there are no windows. I'm getting the distinct vibe that part of the idea of Dollhouse is to seduce you into almost-sympathising with various members of the Dollhouse staff, and then remind you just how horrible what they're doing really is. And that means, as
prochytes put it, that some Dollhouse episodes make you feel a bit dirty, and others make you feel like you'll never be clean again. I don't think I have an answer here. There's an awful lot of tightropes to walk here, and an awful lot of ways of screwing this up. Rorschach acquired a Misaimed Fandom despite Alan Moore's best efforts, although Gene Hunt might not have kept his if the writers hadn't started playing up to it. In Dollhouse, Misaimed Fandom is being used as a deliberate narrative bait and switch, and I'm not sure I like it. It feels kind of exploitative. Actually, I'm absolutely sure I don't like it, and I think that's the point.
*sparked off partially by wanting to write WH40K fic, and partly by this discussion here on "ironic" racism - I didn't want to hijack that discussion, so I've taken these issues over here.
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no subject
Date: 2010-02-21 07:04 pm (UTC)I reckon the best way to write someone seeing the error of their ways is probably to make the process slow, and painful, and riddled with occasional backsliding. Probably also best to make that a subplot rather than the main plot.
I thought at first that Sam chose to stay with the 70s not because he'd stopped noticing what was wrong, but precisely because of what was wrong. In the meeting back in 2006, you could tell that everyone else knew about proper procedure and community policing and suchlike, but Gene Hunt didn't. Sam went back to a time when he could feel like a hero rather than just another minimally decent copper.
On the other hand, the way he ended up calling Gene out less and noticing the flaws of the era less in Series 2 really does back up your take on it. You're absolutely right that letting the prejudices of the era become normalised for him puts him in a position where he can never go back, and effectively destroys his previous self. Interesting. I'm going to have to re-watch it now.