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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Re: Here via MF.
Date: 2010-02-21 07:26 pm (UTC)Having said that, I agree with pretty much everything else you've said. (And I do feel that the way the movie failed to really mention that the New Frontiersman was a nutjob fringe publication took away some of the sadness of the ending, too.)
I suspect that this has a lot to do with the fact that Rorschach has had a very rough life, whereas Veidt is extremely privileged.
This makes a lot of sense, too. Ozy's paternalistic attitude to the world in general really only makes sense coming from somebody with huge class privilege, and I guess even though he's the Designated Villain or whatever, sympathizing with his actions seems like siding with The Man. Or something.
Re: Here via MF.
Date: 2010-02-21 08:57 pm (UTC)You're right. I completely forgot about that.
This makes a lot of sense, too. Ozy's paternalistic attitude to the world in general really only makes sense coming from somebody with huge class privilege, and I guess even though he's the Designated Villain or whatever, sympathizing with his actions seems like siding with The Man. Or something.
Yeah. And he's so competent and perfect, I think it's kind of alienating. Lots of people root for the underdog; Veidt is very much the overdog.
Plus, many people interpret him as being a bit of sociopath, and I guess that sociopaths are pretty difficult to sympathize with*. Returning to the subject of Rorschach's background vs. Veidt's background, we have an insight as to why Rorschach is the way he is, while Veidt is portrayed as duplicitous and unknowable. Unknowable things are scary. (This is anecdata, but I've noticed that people tend to be slightly more tolerant of psychopathology if it can be explained by a background of abuse. If the psychopathology is the result of crappy brain chemistry, then people tend to be less forgiving.)
*Although I actually feel more sympathetic towards Veidt when I think of him as an empty Stepford Smiler. I dunno.
Re: Here via MF.
Date: 2010-02-21 11:01 pm (UTC)That's interesting, though not really surprising. Maybe it has something to do with the perception that something caused by environmental factors has the potential to be fixed by them, too, whereas something innate can't really be understood or cured? (Not that that's necessarily true, but it would make sense that people might see it that way. Um, been reading Lombroso for uni. o.O)
It seems to fit with the way a lot of fic that's sympathetic to Adrian tends to use the Nazi backstory, too. It's a fairly simple way to humanize him (and can, of course, be done really well.)
Although I actually feel more sympathetic towards Veidt when I think of him as an empty Stepford Smiler. I dunno.
Heh. I guess because he never really fucks up or drops the facade, what's underneath is pretty much open to interpretation. Maybe he does seem less evil if he actually can't understand the objections to what he does, than if he gets it and then goes ahead anyway.
[Also, damn that icon is fantastic.]
Re: Here via MF.
Date: 2010-02-22 01:25 pm (UTC)(Full disclosure: I know very little about psychology or psychiatry, I just have a lot of firsthand experience with mental disorder and how people generally react to it.)
I really have no idea, but I think that might explain some of it. I've always looked at it this way: if you have mental disorders because you were abused, people tend to see you as a victim. (Although I think that the only see you as a victim if they think that the abuse is 'bad enough', but that's a rant for another time.) If you have mental disorders because you have crappy brain chemistry, then people tend to see you as a monster. It's like there are two neat little boxes, 'victim' and 'monster'. (Both boxes are equally restrictive and crappy, but in different ways.)
A lot of people seem to have the expectation that everyone is meant to behave in a certain way, and if some folks don't behave in a certain way, then they'd better have a damn good explanation for it. A background of abuse is sometimes considered a good explanation, but not always. Brain chemistry alone is rarely considered a good explanation, because a lot of people don't really understand how mental disorder works.
Also, I think that, if you are behaving in an abnormal way, people want it to have an obvious cause. People like clear connections between cause and effect. So if the cause is inside your head, where people can't perceive it, then it baffles them, and they often think that the behavior is the product of choice or moral weakness.
And it doesn't help that, sometimes, it can be extremely difficult to tell where the mental disorder ends, and where an individual's free will and personality begin. It's a total minefield.
Maybe he does seem less evil if he actually can't understand the objections to what he does, than if he gets it and then goes ahead anyway.
Heh, yeah. And I think that I probably just find him easier to relate to if I think of him as Not Quite Normal, rather than if I just think of him as a privileged douchebag. (Although in my headcanon, privilege is still a massive factor that influences his behavior.)
(He accidentally the whole city! And he's damn proud of it!)
Re: Here via MF.
Date: 2010-02-22 07:28 pm (UTC)Well, I know absolutely nothing about the field, but what you've said above is really interesting and makes a lot of sense. Thanks!
It's like there are two neat little boxes, 'victim' and 'monster'. (Both boxes are equally restrictive and crappy, but in different ways.)
Yeah, the impulse to categorize is always a strong one. Especially when it comes to things that seem pretty unknowable; ready-made categories are a fairly comforting thing, in a lot of ways.
(On a tangential note, I've been reading Victorian-era 'criminal anthropology' -- a lot of which, of course, is just hideous racism dressed up as science -- recently, and it actually advocated harsher sentencing for 'born' or 'insane' criminals than for 'occasional' criminals convicted of the same crime. Not that I'm equating mental disorder with crime, but a lot of these people clearly did, and it's interesting that perhaps that perspective hasn't changed as much as one would expect. Um, apologies for the mental doodling there.)
And I think that I probably just find him easier to relate to if I think of him as Not Quite Normal, rather than if I just think of him as a privileged douchebag. (Although in my headcanon, privilege is still a massive factor that influences his behavior.)
Yeah, absolutely. I imagine it would be difficult for somebody without that privileged background to envisage ever being in a position to 'save the world,' but it definitely isn't the only explanation for what he does.
(He accidentally the whole city! And he's damn proud of it!)
There is nothing accidental about that smirk. ;)
Re: Here via MF.
Date: 2010-02-23 12:20 am (UTC)Eddie, Rorschach, Veidt and Jon are all, in their own ways, invested in the notion of themselves as Better Than You and able to see the big picture in ways you can't. Eddie thinks he's the only one who gets the joke, Rorschach thinks he's the only one uncorrupted by a decadent society, Veidt thinks he's the only one who can make the big decisons and save the world, and Jon is actually right.
They're also all, in their own ways, getting increasingly detached from their own humanity. With Jon it's just kind of happening, but the other three have all made conscious decisions to feed parts of themselves that don't fit with their ideology into the flames. In some ways, what makes Rorschach easier to identify with is that he hasn't completely managed that - there's still some anger and pain, and something almost like friendship with Dan. Even Eddie hasn't done it to the degree that Veidt has.
There is not much left of Veidt. He's been eaten away by his own ideals. In their own way, they aren't bad ideals - they're things like the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and personal isn't the same as important. It's just that there is absolutely no concern for individual human beings left in there. You might call him lacking in empathy. He'd call himself impartial and unsentimental. Veidt is all about self-improvement, and he thinks he really has improved himself by making himself into this terrifying moral calculating machine.
Wouldn't want to know him. Wouldn't want to be on the same planet as him. Can write essays about him till the cows come home.
Re: Here via MF.
Date: 2010-02-23 06:08 am (UTC)And this bit...
There is not much left of Veidt. He's been eaten away by his own ideals. In their own way, they aren't bad ideals - they're things like the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and personal isn't the same as important. It's just that there is absolutely no concern for individual human beings left in there. You might call him lacking in empathy. He'd call himself impartial and unsentimental. Veidt is all about self-improvement, and he thinks he really has improved himself by making himself into this terrifying moral calculating machine.
...puts me forcibly in mind of the parting shot of Veidt in the movie as he stands in the ruins of his lair with the snow falling in, or the similar visual in the graphic novel of the Antarctic cold rushing into the greenhouse. I think you've nailed the reason those scenes affected me the way they did -- they're basically visual metaphors for what Veidt has become.
Re: Here via MF.
Date: 2010-02-23 03:18 pm (UTC)See, I'd disagree there. 'Conscious decision' implies that they had a choice, and I don't think that a healthy person would choose to be that dysfunctional. I always saw their ideologies as coping mechanisms (harmful coping mechanisms, granted); coping mechanisms aren't choices.
I think that they're a bunch of people in a crazy world (Veidt describes the Comedian and himself as 'Intelligent men facing lunatic times') who have gone crazy in response, in various different ways.
Re: Here via MF.
Date: 2010-02-23 10:47 pm (UTC)I think you're right there. The thing is, in Watchmen normal human beings are mostly ineffectual: consider Dan and Laurie as examples. To have a chance at dealing with the big problems takes someone larger-than-life, someone who's driven by an ideology that makes them believe they can. Dan and Laurie were both in a position to turn away from the big problems, but the others weren't, for very different reasons in each case. Ideology, in their cases, was the only way of imposing a sense of control on the big problems, and the alternative was going under. Which, like you said, is hardly an unconstrained or uncoerced decision.
On a metafictional level, Alan Moore is kind of making a point about superhero comics, that goes something like this; the kind of people who could save the world single-handed are people who are missing quite a lot of what most of us would consider humanity. I don't know if you're familiar with Unknown Armies, but Watchmen really reminds me of it in those respects.
Re: Here via MF.
Date: 2010-02-23 11:29 pm (UTC)Y'know, I'm suddenly reminded of the 'Insane Equals Violent' trope. (I'm not going to link to tvtropes.org, because I'm trying to be good.) The perception that crazy = dangerous is definitely still a huge part of the stigma that surrounds mental illness.
Re: Here via MF.
Date: 2010-02-24 06:51 pm (UTC)Sometimes the mere mention is enough. D:
Never come across that trope by name before, but it's certainly familiar. It's pretty easy, I guess, to see why the idea that violence is an attribute people have rather than a thing they do is seductive ('I'm not a crazy person, so I could never do something like that') but taken as a whole it looks... unpleasant, to say the least.