But I wanted to emerge from the shadows for a moment to say word. I, uh, I think sometimes people confuse "dealing with serious topics" with "angst!" and there -is- a major difference, which is really in a - metafictional sense, I suppose.
I'll try and put down some kind of coherent response! The thing with the Noble Tragic done badly, or even just sort of indifferently/averagely, is usually not that the self-contained character themselves is GUILTY and QUIETLY SUFFERING but that the world and people around them just sort of...bend to accommodate this! Especially in some fanfiction, I think, the sense that none of the usual laughter or - inappropriateness, really, of life, the way that all kinds of things intrude and intersect on whatever your emotional state is. Or at least on you, as a person, even if you remain miserable; mixing 'bitter' subtly into 'sweet', or wistfulness/nostalgia into a comedy, is pretty par for the course, but I think there's a sense that unhappiness CANCELS ALL.
So it's writing on one note that I object too, and sort of tiptoeing around the 'broken' character. The idea that their trauma sort of radiates off them and adds a constant dignity, and that people either automatically notice and respect them or that their uncaringness just points up how alone. And tragic. And sad the protagonist is. U-unlike you, I don't automatically want to smack them and tell them to cheer up, but I usually want someone around them to do it. XD. Because, you know, others can be inappropriate! Sometimes it stops raining! All of that. And, again, tragedy doesn't automatically render a character intelligent, or wise. It just renders them...someone who's gone through something awful, and has problems! That doesn't result in One Type, or it shouldn't, anyway, but I think the thing gets rendered down to that anyway.
So it's not "suffering", per se, as used in fiction I have a problem with, but the perceived worth of ANY SORT OF TRAUMA, especially piled on the way it can be in comics these days (THIS LEADS TO WOMEN IN REFRIGERATORS AND MAKES ME A SAD FAN) as an instant story-improver. Uh. No. It doesn't work like that. Someone...wrote a really interesting article on PTSD drawing from their own experiences, which I can dig up, by a fan for fans among other things, which contained a section on 'don't fall in love with your beautiful suffering'. The idea that, uh, this makes a character special, this should be clung on to.
I'll also add that I find it really, really strange that it's considered to be a literary achievement to write something to bring all the characters down to rock-bottom, and yet it would be considered pretty weird were someone to write a novel with the express purpose of making everyone as happy as possible at the end, ahaha. I think it's because authors are...meant to want the best for their characters? So if a weird/deus ex machina kind of plot device turns up and completely screws everyone over, it's not considered half as implausible as when something turns up to help them, because one is seen as the author stepping in to SAVE THEIR BELOVEDS and the other as reflecting the sudden horror of real life. Et cetera.
And I have nothing at all against sad stories, and actually most of my absolute favourite books are -incredibly- depressing, but I think both are valid, and that it is a really odd cultural paradigm. In conclusion, word! Tl;dr word, but nevertheless.
....also, walking past a Baptist church today and brooding over these complex thoughts, I saw a sign on the door saying "JELLYBEANS CANCELLED". Which I suppose sums it up.
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Date: 2008-02-01 10:25 pm (UTC)But I wanted to emerge from the shadows for a moment to say word. I, uh, I think sometimes people confuse "dealing with serious topics" with "angst!" and there -is- a major difference, which is really in a - metafictional sense, I suppose.
I'll try and put down some kind of coherent response! The thing with the Noble Tragic done badly, or even just sort of indifferently/averagely, is usually not that the self-contained character themselves is GUILTY and QUIETLY SUFFERING but that the world and people around them just sort of...bend to accommodate this! Especially in some fanfiction, I think, the sense that none of the usual laughter or - inappropriateness, really, of life, the way that all kinds of things intrude and intersect on whatever your emotional state is. Or at least on you, as a person, even if you remain miserable; mixing 'bitter' subtly into 'sweet', or wistfulness/nostalgia into a comedy, is pretty par for the course, but I think there's a sense that unhappiness CANCELS ALL.
So it's writing on one note that I object too, and sort of tiptoeing around the 'broken' character. The idea that their trauma sort of radiates off them and adds a constant dignity, and that people either automatically notice and respect them or that their uncaringness just points up how alone. And tragic. And sad the protagonist is. U-unlike you, I don't automatically want to smack them and tell them to cheer up, but I usually want someone around them to do it. XD. Because, you know, others can be inappropriate! Sometimes it stops raining! All of that. And, again, tragedy doesn't automatically render a character intelligent, or wise. It just renders them...someone who's gone through something awful, and has problems! That doesn't result in One Type, or it shouldn't, anyway, but I think the thing gets rendered down to that anyway.
So it's not "suffering", per se, as used in fiction I have a problem with, but the perceived worth of ANY SORT OF TRAUMA, especially piled on the way it can be in comics these days (THIS LEADS TO WOMEN IN REFRIGERATORS AND MAKES ME A SAD FAN) as an instant story-improver. Uh. No. It doesn't work like that. Someone...wrote a really interesting article on PTSD drawing from their own experiences, which I can dig up, by a fan for fans among other things, which contained a section on 'don't fall in love with your beautiful suffering'. The idea that, uh, this makes a character special, this should be clung on to.
I'll also add that I find it really, really strange that it's considered to be a literary achievement to write something to bring all the characters down to rock-bottom, and yet it would be considered pretty weird were someone to write a novel with the express purpose of making everyone as happy as possible at the end, ahaha. I think it's because authors are...meant to want the best for their characters? So if a weird/deus ex machina kind of plot device turns up and completely screws everyone over, it's not considered half as implausible as when something turns up to help them, because one is seen as the author stepping in to SAVE THEIR BELOVEDS and the other as reflecting the sudden horror of real life. Et cetera.
And I have nothing at all against sad stories, and actually most of my absolute favourite books are -incredibly- depressing, but I think both are valid, and that it is a really odd cultural paradigm. In conclusion, word! Tl;dr word, but nevertheless.
....also, walking past a Baptist church today and brooding over these complex thoughts, I saw a sign on the door saying "JELLYBEANS CANCELLED". Which I suppose sums it up.