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salineaI've come to several discussions lately, about the interactions between "loving a character", moral judgment of a character, and finding a character sexy. Mostly there were discussions were the people were seeing this as melding categories.
In her post 10 unpopular fandom opinions about Draco![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
regan_v formulates several lack of morals traits as reasons not to like Draco; and expresses libido or visuals appeal as reasons why Draco is popular to many.
nostalgia_lj similarly expressed that some flaws are deal breakers about whether to like or not to like a character.
I tend to see them as separate things altogether.
I don't believe you can construct an argument to convince people to like or dislike a character. It's not a rational decision. It's not a question of fitting some objective standards. It's a question of taste and you cannot ever say you MUST or you MUST NOT like this character.
Reasons for disliking or liking strongly a characters can be many. Moral judgement may have a place, it certainly does for some of the characters I love, but it's never, at least for me, sufficient, nor is it always necessary. Sometimes it's just a question of hitting of with a specific kind of personality. Sometimes it's a question of identifying with a character, at least on some aspects. Sometimes it's a question of being attracted to the characters. Sometimes it's a question of liking the character as they fit with their role in the story. etc. I can't claim to list them all.
Nevertheless in fandom we very often have discussions about moral rightness of characters, defending some characters, or blaming others.
I personally don't like either whitewashing or bashing a character's flaws, however, to remain in the HP fandom, I've taken parts in such discussions about the Marauders and Snape, about Percy, about the Ministry as a whole, about Dumbledore etc.
And still IMHO, most characters in HP have both moral flaws and qualities in large quantities. I don't think JKR writes a series where good characters are always good, and where bad characters are always bad. One may claim that, say Voldemort is always bad, or that Lily, Neville, Luna are characters we never see do wrong. But that's about it, isn't it? I don't think acknowledging a character's flaws should thus put us off from liking them, nor that liking them should prevent us from ever seeing their flaws.
Now, of course, none of the posters I mentioned claimed so. What they were saying was that some specific moral flaws was sufficient to put them off a character. That they were functioning as a squick, where other moral flaws could excused, overlooked or accepted (at least that's what I understood from what they said). That, I think, is a fair point and an interesting idea because it's always fascinating to see which specific flaws may put us off a character. I think they're often more likely to be pettiness, shallow vices than truly horrible ones. Or some, that, for a reason or another, seem more realistic or closer to our personal experience. There's the good old "Mean girls I knew at school" syndrome, of course. And there's also often things that relate to the treatment of women, of racism etc.
Murder itself, in most fictional setting, while arguably worse than other crimes, is often overlooked.
Another amusing case is when people in internalise the moral standards of the setting and judge by them rather than by their own ethics. I've seen this often happening in the ASOIAF fandom, to blame very strongly "oathbreaker" characters, or to excuse atrocities committed by characters who were doing so "loyal" to their liege. I know I personally think less of SPOILERS FOR A STORM OF SWORDSTyrion for killing his own father thus breaking the very strong taboo against kinslaying than I would otherwise. I think a lot of it is witness to GRRM's skill at writing, and the way moral dilemmas feature strongly in his work.
I know a few cases when I feel slightly bad or shameful for liking a character despite their flaws (that's the case with Saionji, for example). However I don't think I should feel likewise. Liking a character doesn't equal to condoning their actions (nor does liking a person, actually). Fictional evil doing has nothing to do with real evil doing, there is no responsibility to bear.
Then there's the attraction to a character...
Is it very weird of me that, despite the fact Snape is the character I read most porn about he's not a character I'm attracted in the least? I don't why liking him as character should mean that I find him sexy, or the reverse.
There are characters I find sexy which I don't particularly like either. (Say, Akio for example)
And honestly, I always found that saying to someone that they like a character only because that character is visually attractive is quite rude and presumptive (unless they say so themselves).
One of the most interesting points I've seen in these discussions by various comments is the idea that the characters, with their flaws and qualities, made the story better (or not).
I find this idea very interesting. I like many a good villain who have genuine motivation for what they do - as despicable they may be - because a good, strong and deep villain makes the story better for everyone.
Likewise I think many protagonists are disliked by some people because they are perceived as being good by the authorial voice while doing things that are judged as bad by the readers. The dissonance between their role in the story and their action is jarring and will provide a stronger dislike than for the actions by the "bad guys" because they are expected to do bad things
This is a point I find in particularly interesting about Draco, because his role as shifting in the series and might yet go either way.
Between PS-OOTP Draco was mostly an antagonist, but on a scale much smaller than Voldemort and the DE. His role as a rival was mostly to annoy and generally make an ass of himself - usually on a very superficial and unsuccessful way. During this time I must say I didn't like Draco because I found him too flat and also because he never constituted an actual menace to Harry (so I couldn't cheer for Harry when he overcame him and the end result was boredom for me)
In HBP all bets are off. Draco is both given personal reasons and motivations to oppose Harry which one may sympathize with; and with an actual competence at the task. Starting with when Draco broke Harry's nose in the train I knew I had underestimated JKR and she actually managed to make me like this character.
However at the end of HBP it's very unclear to which category of character Draco now belongs. Draco's offered a possibility of redemption or mere neutrality, but though we see him tempted, he doesn't take it. It's not presently enough to counterbalance previous wrong doings - you cannot actually judge Draco to be redeemed - but it's enough to put Draco against sterner moral standards at the same time as he did bad enough actions during this year to be judged as worse than the mere schoolyard bully we were presented with before.
I think the ambiguity of this situation, and how any reader may see it and expect from it, may explain a lot of disagreements in judging Draco.
Overall I think it's always useful to say exactly what we mean when we're talking of character, to elaborate about how we see them; and equally useful to never assume about what other people think.
In her post 10 unpopular fandom opinions about Draco
regan_v formulates several lack of morals traits as reasons not to like Draco; and expresses libido or visuals appeal as reasons why Draco is popular to many.nostalgia_lj similarly expressed that some flaws are deal breakers about whether to like or not to like a character.I tend to see them as separate things altogether.
I don't believe you can construct an argument to convince people to like or dislike a character. It's not a rational decision. It's not a question of fitting some objective standards. It's a question of taste and you cannot ever say you MUST or you MUST NOT like this character.
Reasons for disliking or liking strongly a characters can be many. Moral judgement may have a place, it certainly does for some of the characters I love, but it's never, at least for me, sufficient, nor is it always necessary. Sometimes it's just a question of hitting of with a specific kind of personality. Sometimes it's a question of identifying with a character, at least on some aspects. Sometimes it's a question of being attracted to the characters. Sometimes it's a question of liking the character as they fit with their role in the story. etc. I can't claim to list them all.
Nevertheless in fandom we very often have discussions about moral rightness of characters, defending some characters, or blaming others.
I personally don't like either whitewashing or bashing a character's flaws, however, to remain in the HP fandom, I've taken parts in such discussions about the Marauders and Snape, about Percy, about the Ministry as a whole, about Dumbledore etc.
And still IMHO, most characters in HP have both moral flaws and qualities in large quantities. I don't think JKR writes a series where good characters are always good, and where bad characters are always bad. One may claim that, say Voldemort is always bad, or that Lily, Neville, Luna are characters we never see do wrong. But that's about it, isn't it? I don't think acknowledging a character's flaws should thus put us off from liking them, nor that liking them should prevent us from ever seeing their flaws.
Now, of course, none of the posters I mentioned claimed so. What they were saying was that some specific moral flaws was sufficient to put them off a character. That they were functioning as a squick, where other moral flaws could excused, overlooked or accepted (at least that's what I understood from what they said). That, I think, is a fair point and an interesting idea because it's always fascinating to see which specific flaws may put us off a character. I think they're often more likely to be pettiness, shallow vices than truly horrible ones. Or some, that, for a reason or another, seem more realistic or closer to our personal experience. There's the good old "Mean girls I knew at school" syndrome, of course. And there's also often things that relate to the treatment of women, of racism etc.
Murder itself, in most fictional setting, while arguably worse than other crimes, is often overlooked.
Another amusing case is when people in internalise the moral standards of the setting and judge by them rather than by their own ethics. I've seen this often happening in the ASOIAF fandom, to blame very strongly "oathbreaker" characters, or to excuse atrocities committed by characters who were doing so "loyal" to their liege. I know I personally think less of SPOILERS FOR A STORM OF SWORDSTyrion for killing his own father thus breaking the very strong taboo against kinslaying than I would otherwise. I think a lot of it is witness to GRRM's skill at writing, and the way moral dilemmas feature strongly in his work.
I know a few cases when I feel slightly bad or shameful for liking a character despite their flaws (that's the case with Saionji, for example). However I don't think I should feel likewise. Liking a character doesn't equal to condoning their actions (nor does liking a person, actually). Fictional evil doing has nothing to do with real evil doing, there is no responsibility to bear.
Then there's the attraction to a character...
Is it very weird of me that, despite the fact Snape is the character I read most porn about he's not a character I'm attracted in the least? I don't why liking him as character should mean that I find him sexy, or the reverse.
There are characters I find sexy which I don't particularly like either. (Say, Akio for example)
And honestly, I always found that saying to someone that they like a character only because that character is visually attractive is quite rude and presumptive (unless they say so themselves).
One of the most interesting points I've seen in these discussions by various comments is the idea that the characters, with their flaws and qualities, made the story better (or not).
I find this idea very interesting. I like many a good villain who have genuine motivation for what they do - as despicable they may be - because a good, strong and deep villain makes the story better for everyone.
Likewise I think many protagonists are disliked by some people because they are perceived as being good by the authorial voice while doing things that are judged as bad by the readers. The dissonance between their role in the story and their action is jarring and will provide a stronger dislike than for the actions by the "bad guys" because they are expected to do bad things
This is a point I find in particularly interesting about Draco, because his role as shifting in the series and might yet go either way.
Between PS-OOTP Draco was mostly an antagonist, but on a scale much smaller than Voldemort and the DE. His role as a rival was mostly to annoy and generally make an ass of himself - usually on a very superficial and unsuccessful way. During this time I must say I didn't like Draco because I found him too flat and also because he never constituted an actual menace to Harry (so I couldn't cheer for Harry when he overcame him and the end result was boredom for me)
In HBP all bets are off. Draco is both given personal reasons and motivations to oppose Harry which one may sympathize with; and with an actual competence at the task. Starting with when Draco broke Harry's nose in the train I knew I had underestimated JKR and she actually managed to make me like this character.
However at the end of HBP it's very unclear to which category of character Draco now belongs. Draco's offered a possibility of redemption or mere neutrality, but though we see him tempted, he doesn't take it. It's not presently enough to counterbalance previous wrong doings - you cannot actually judge Draco to be redeemed - but it's enough to put Draco against sterner moral standards at the same time as he did bad enough actions during this year to be judged as worse than the mere schoolyard bully we were presented with before.
I think the ambiguity of this situation, and how any reader may see it and expect from it, may explain a lot of disagreements in judging Draco.
Overall I think it's always useful to say exactly what we mean when we're talking of character, to elaborate about how we see them; and equally useful to never assume about what other people think.
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Date: 10 September 2006 11:30 pm (UTC)You know, you've made Draco sound like a much more interesting character based on how he is in HBP. When I finally get around to reading the series properly, I'll look forward to him being/becoming less of a cardboard cut-out than expected.