Re: Reply - Sam, Everyone - Fallen

[danspector@xxxxxxxxx]

Dana Hunter wrote:

>...the more I like a character, the more I put them through hell. Go
figure--

Not strange at all, Dana. A suffering character is inherently
empathetic, and if we're not emotionally invested in them, it feels
hollow.  

Buffy beats up Spike? He's an unrepentant murderer, I don't care about
his pain (I bet the people he killed would love to be having Buffy beat
them up), and so I have no interest in exploring the ethics of Buffy's
behavior. Spike destroys Buffy emotionally? I've suffered with her for
five years, I am deeply invested in her pain, so it's an entirely
different story.

When I was younger, I went to a comic book convention where the guy who
was writing the book that contained my second-favorite character was a
guest. The character had been a second banana on the team for years,
and the writer was destroying him to advance another character's arc.
And I mean destroying him; he was being written as an idiot,
incompetent, and immoral; doing things only so that the others could
react to him. And they reacted by giving him scornful lectures (the
voice of the writer at work) and conveniently forgetting any details
that would have contradicted the abuse the writer was heaping on the
guy.

I mean, it was as stupid as if "Buffy" had had Tara break up with Willow
because Willow put a spell on her, and had both characters forget that
Tara spent the first year of the relationship lying to Willow and
everyone else, and when push came to shove, Tara cast a spell on
everyone, very nearly got them all killed--and yet Willow forgave her,
got Buffy to stand up for her and told Tara that the whole incident made
Willow love her all the more. Gee, how idiotic would that have been? ;)

So, anyway, I got to talk to the writer in question and I pointed out
that the arc was unfair to the character and inconsistent in regard to
him, and his response was, "well, I never liked [him], anyway."

That attitude seemed like awful storytelling then, and it does now. If
a writer doesn't care about the characters he's putting through the
grinder, then they're just props and fodder, moved around for no real
reason, and thus they and the story they are in, lack total credibility.

So I totally understand about torturing characters you like. I'm too
much of a softy to do it myself, but I do believe that if you're going
to hurt someone, you'd better care enough about the character to
remember that they are a character, and not a punching bag.

JMO,

Dan

total authority on fiction ( :rolleyes: ; I really ought to get some
sleep)