Character Hatred : Why ?
21 Aug 2004 08:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
salineaSo I was wondering about character bashing, why I hated it and why it was so popular in most fandom and thought would ask you guys what you think about it.
I think I've always hated characters bashing. Mostly, it's the reductionnism of it. The easy simplification of things. And also the fact that if a character in cannon is really as simple and as hate-worthy as that, then why would I waste such strong feeling of such a scum - especially a fictionnal scum ?
But it's got probably more to it. I mean, I can think of a few characters I've really hated in fictions, not many, but some. Stannis Baratheon is the one the most worthy to be mentionned. Now I know why I hate him : he's a self-righteous hypocrite. There's many more characters who did worse deeds in this serie (As song of ice and fire by GRR Martin in case you wonder) than Stannis. However, Stannis is one of the worse characters who actually claim moral backing for his action. Worse, he claims that what he did was done out of a desire for justice and were pretty selfless. At least guys like Tywin Lannister, Roose Bolton or Petyr Baelish "Littlefinger" don't pretend they're doing the right thing. And other characters who are just scums like Gregor Clegane, Ramsay Bolton or Vargo Hoat don't deserve hatred because they just don't matter that much (they hurt plenty of characters I adore deeply - that's not the point - their personnality in the book do not matter enough for me to hate them.)
Anyway, if I go back to Stannis Baratheon, and even if sometimes I want to rant about him (not recently, but when I was still very involved in that peculiar fandom), I have to admit he's a /good/ character. That is; no matter how much I hate him, I don't want his presence to be erased from the book. The fact I hate him so much is proof he's a good villain. He's still a believable character as well, with his own story and his own point of view on the story - I just can't be sympathetic to his (and I can usually be sympathetic to most point of view in a story !)
So this is a case of character hatred that actually reflects favourable over the author and the whole story.
However, when bashing a character, most fans will do so by implying it's a badly constructed character, one they would want out of the story (and will write out in fanfictions), one that is too much of a Mary Sue or other cases like that. Most of the time the worst I can manage about a character that I don't like is mildly disinterrested going on bored. So, this character isn't interrested, and just doesn't do it for me... so what ? *shrugs* *proceeds to ignore said character* ... is that why some character are bashed and hated with such a passion ? I guess it can happen when said character is the main one of the story. Heros can be such so damned hard to love. They're not as loveable as the villains or the second characters, not as special, not as sympatheticaly flawed, not as ambiguous. When they /are/ ambiguous they get bashed for any breach of behaviour because they're the hero and they have no right to whine, or be slutty, or whatever. I've certainly seen characters like Buffy, or even Kamui in my lattest fandom be bashed for these reasons. Now, I'm partially guilty of that in that, I seldom get entranced by the main character too. I often held a minor dislike for Buffy, Kamui just puzzles me too much for me identify with him, I never really liked Mal in Firefly, or Angel in AtS, and the most similar character I could think from ASOIAF is Jon Snow, though finding a main character in that serie is a wasted case (I think lots of people feel like that about Daenarys too, but I've always loved that girl ^_^) and I certainly don't appreciate him too much either. But thought I've found them bland and was sometimes irritated at them, I don't like seeing them bashed, so I don't think I could say I /hate/ those characters. Buffy, for one, was a character I started to love more when she was being the most mean to one of my favourite character (*cough*Spike*cough*) because I like non-perfect!Buffy - at least a specific kind of non perfect which I could, I guess, for once identify with.
Of course the fact we're going to lash out, as whole, much more against the heros and main characters in a tale can be disturbing sometimes. I mean, for one, if they're the characters we're supposed to identify with that means we're bashing against /ourselves/ (and here I think about the way some fangirls will thoroughly bash any female character they feel like gets in the way of the True Love of two male characters they want to slash... and all the potential misogyny undertone i get from it). Or maybe that's why we don't like 'em. Maybe it's because the main characters uphold virtues that are so annoyingly mainstream and in accordance with the Establishment etc. that we are made supposed to uphold but are really not that... deep, or well thought out, or very very prejudiced to all the minorities that we geeks often belong to or identify with... then wouldn't it be natural that we'd come to hate, and bash, the main character ?
I have, however, a hard time seeing Kamui, or Jon Snow, a representant of the System sets of values . For obvious reasons (for one, they're both bastards in societies that look sideways at those). As for Buffy, as EVERY characters in the Scooby Gang, she was always meant to stand for the Other, or at least one kind of flavour thereof. So even if that explanation work for some fandom (say Smallville, and maybe I shouldn't say that because I never watched enough Smallville to know it well), it can't explain it for all.
The versus question of this of course is, why do we often love the villain so much ? Because, hell, we DO ! A good villain often makes the tale in lots of Genre stories, not only because it all adds to the tale (as the fact Stannis Baratheon being a believable villain adds to ASOIAF for me), but also in the fact that he will have a strong following and will often be cheered at and admired. Okay, sometimes, it's not really a villain-villain, sometimes it's an anti-hero. But Spike's following didn't start with S4's greying, they started back in Season 2. Neither Seishirou nor Fuuma have this excuse (as ambiguous as is X)... and even thought I love Littlefinger to boots (can't hate such a clever, clever man, his smarts got me on my knees, it's visceral), he really has no excuses for what he did (or the scale ! God, the scale of what he did...)
So what ? Do we love those characters because they do things that, really, we wish we had the guts or the freedom to do ? (damn those pesky super-ego) Because they stand for, again, the minorities (of whatever sort, really), that we identify with ?
Hum, I'm getting sidetracked from my original question
Then, there are the villains that we are definitly not meant to admire, not even from her brains and evil-plotting-capacities. The snivelling, cowardly bastards. The ones who do the most shameful acts for petty reasons (and isn't it strange that we will condemn more strongly the character who commits rape than the one who commits murder ?) Are those the characters who gather the most bashing then ? Frankly, I always had the impression those characters passed under the radar of most people. It's so obvious we're supposed to hate those characters, that... why bother stating it ? Hum, actually, there's some instance when it's those kind of characters I really hate. I'm thinking of Regal from Robin Hobb's Farseer serie, for exemple. A character who really had nothing for him. Not only is he petty, cruel, greedy and vindicative, but he isn't even worthy of any admiration for his capacities. Basically he's a crybaby that was only able to harm so much all of the main characters because he was in position of power and others helped him for their own reason. I hate Regal, not as a character, but as a construct of the author. This is a serie of book I mostly like, but the fact the main villain is such a sham of a character is a big flaw for me. I want a villain that is more than that, that has at least /some/ redemptive qualities. I can't hate for real a character who is so plagued with defaults it makes me feel like the authors is ordering me to hate him now damnit !
Sometimes, it's the most snivelling, pathetic, flaw ridden character in a book I want to like, because I've got a big spirit of contradiction ;)
Now, there are other characters who are not villains, but who are similarly plagued with lots of demeaning flaws and you can't help but think they are so depicted so as to make that other character, next to them, look better. That's why I point blank refused to hate Sansa when we met her in book 1 of ASOIAF. I'd love Arya anyway, but I didn't need to see Sansa in such a bad light to do so. And I was glad to see how much her character was used better in the following book (I know lots of people still hate her anyway... poor Sansa ^_^) However, that might not be the best case of exemple, mostly because GRRMartin is, on the whole, a better writer than that, and those kind of characters are mostly seen in the hand of not-so-good authors.
Anyway, i've been rambling on for too long. What do you think of the question ? Have you ever really hated a character in one of your fandom, and why ? Do you hate the character but still admit they add up to the story because of it, or, on contrary, is your hatred of the character detracting from your appreciation ? Is it another kind of case ? Is there a specific kind of character you usually hate / bash ?
I think I've always hated characters bashing. Mostly, it's the reductionnism of it. The easy simplification of things. And also the fact that if a character in cannon is really as simple and as hate-worthy as that, then why would I waste such strong feeling of such a scum - especially a fictionnal scum ?
But it's got probably more to it. I mean, I can think of a few characters I've really hated in fictions, not many, but some. Stannis Baratheon is the one the most worthy to be mentionned. Now I know why I hate him : he's a self-righteous hypocrite. There's many more characters who did worse deeds in this serie (As song of ice and fire by GRR Martin in case you wonder) than Stannis. However, Stannis is one of the worse characters who actually claim moral backing for his action. Worse, he claims that what he did was done out of a desire for justice and were pretty selfless. At least guys like Tywin Lannister, Roose Bolton or Petyr Baelish "Littlefinger" don't pretend they're doing the right thing. And other characters who are just scums like Gregor Clegane, Ramsay Bolton or Vargo Hoat don't deserve hatred because they just don't matter that much (they hurt plenty of characters I adore deeply - that's not the point - their personnality in the book do not matter enough for me to hate them.)
Anyway, if I go back to Stannis Baratheon, and even if sometimes I want to rant about him (not recently, but when I was still very involved in that peculiar fandom), I have to admit he's a /good/ character. That is; no matter how much I hate him, I don't want his presence to be erased from the book. The fact I hate him so much is proof he's a good villain. He's still a believable character as well, with his own story and his own point of view on the story - I just can't be sympathetic to his (and I can usually be sympathetic to most point of view in a story !)
So this is a case of character hatred that actually reflects favourable over the author and the whole story.
However, when bashing a character, most fans will do so by implying it's a badly constructed character, one they would want out of the story (and will write out in fanfictions), one that is too much of a Mary Sue or other cases like that. Most of the time the worst I can manage about a character that I don't like is mildly disinterrested going on bored. So, this character isn't interrested, and just doesn't do it for me... so what ? *shrugs* *proceeds to ignore said character* ... is that why some character are bashed and hated with such a passion ? I guess it can happen when said character is the main one of the story. Heros can be such so damned hard to love. They're not as loveable as the villains or the second characters, not as special, not as sympatheticaly flawed, not as ambiguous. When they /are/ ambiguous they get bashed for any breach of behaviour because they're the hero and they have no right to whine, or be slutty, or whatever. I've certainly seen characters like Buffy, or even Kamui in my lattest fandom be bashed for these reasons. Now, I'm partially guilty of that in that, I seldom get entranced by the main character too. I often held a minor dislike for Buffy, Kamui just puzzles me too much for me identify with him, I never really liked Mal in Firefly, or Angel in AtS, and the most similar character I could think from ASOIAF is Jon Snow, though finding a main character in that serie is a wasted case (I think lots of people feel like that about Daenarys too, but I've always loved that girl ^_^) and I certainly don't appreciate him too much either. But thought I've found them bland and was sometimes irritated at them, I don't like seeing them bashed, so I don't think I could say I /hate/ those characters. Buffy, for one, was a character I started to love more when she was being the most mean to one of my favourite character (*cough*Spike*cough*) because I like non-perfect!Buffy - at least a specific kind of non perfect which I could, I guess, for once identify with.
Of course the fact we're going to lash out, as whole, much more against the heros and main characters in a tale can be disturbing sometimes. I mean, for one, if they're the characters we're supposed to identify with that means we're bashing against /ourselves/ (and here I think about the way some fangirls will thoroughly bash any female character they feel like gets in the way of the True Love of two male characters they want to slash... and all the potential misogyny undertone i get from it). Or maybe that's why we don't like 'em. Maybe it's because the main characters uphold virtues that are so annoyingly mainstream and in accordance with the Establishment etc. that we are made supposed to uphold but are really not that... deep, or well thought out, or very very prejudiced to all the minorities that we geeks often belong to or identify with... then wouldn't it be natural that we'd come to hate, and bash, the main character ?
I have, however, a hard time seeing Kamui, or Jon Snow, a representant of the System sets of values . For obvious reasons (for one, they're both bastards in societies that look sideways at those). As for Buffy, as EVERY characters in the Scooby Gang, she was always meant to stand for the Other, or at least one kind of flavour thereof. So even if that explanation work for some fandom (say Smallville, and maybe I shouldn't say that because I never watched enough Smallville to know it well), it can't explain it for all.
The versus question of this of course is, why do we often love the villain so much ? Because, hell, we DO ! A good villain often makes the tale in lots of Genre stories, not only because it all adds to the tale (as the fact Stannis Baratheon being a believable villain adds to ASOIAF for me), but also in the fact that he will have a strong following and will often be cheered at and admired. Okay, sometimes, it's not really a villain-villain, sometimes it's an anti-hero. But Spike's following didn't start with S4's greying, they started back in Season 2. Neither Seishirou nor Fuuma have this excuse (as ambiguous as is X)... and even thought I love Littlefinger to boots (can't hate such a clever, clever man, his smarts got me on my knees, it's visceral), he really has no excuses for what he did (or the scale ! God, the scale of what he did...)
So what ? Do we love those characters because they do things that, really, we wish we had the guts or the freedom to do ? (damn those pesky super-ego) Because they stand for, again, the minorities (of whatever sort, really), that we identify with ?
Hum, I'm getting sidetracked from my original question
Then, there are the villains that we are definitly not meant to admire, not even from her brains and evil-plotting-capacities. The snivelling, cowardly bastards. The ones who do the most shameful acts for petty reasons (and isn't it strange that we will condemn more strongly the character who commits rape than the one who commits murder ?) Are those the characters who gather the most bashing then ? Frankly, I always had the impression those characters passed under the radar of most people. It's so obvious we're supposed to hate those characters, that... why bother stating it ? Hum, actually, there's some instance when it's those kind of characters I really hate. I'm thinking of Regal from Robin Hobb's Farseer serie, for exemple. A character who really had nothing for him. Not only is he petty, cruel, greedy and vindicative, but he isn't even worthy of any admiration for his capacities. Basically he's a crybaby that was only able to harm so much all of the main characters because he was in position of power and others helped him for their own reason. I hate Regal, not as a character, but as a construct of the author. This is a serie of book I mostly like, but the fact the main villain is such a sham of a character is a big flaw for me. I want a villain that is more than that, that has at least /some/ redemptive qualities. I can't hate for real a character who is so plagued with defaults it makes me feel like the authors is ordering me to hate him now damnit !
Sometimes, it's the most snivelling, pathetic, flaw ridden character in a book I want to like, because I've got a big spirit of contradiction ;)
Now, there are other characters who are not villains, but who are similarly plagued with lots of demeaning flaws and you can't help but think they are so depicted so as to make that other character, next to them, look better. That's why I point blank refused to hate Sansa when we met her in book 1 of ASOIAF. I'd love Arya anyway, but I didn't need to see Sansa in such a bad light to do so. And I was glad to see how much her character was used better in the following book (I know lots of people still hate her anyway... poor Sansa ^_^) However, that might not be the best case of exemple, mostly because GRRMartin is, on the whole, a better writer than that, and those kind of characters are mostly seen in the hand of not-so-good authors.
Anyway, i've been rambling on for too long. What do you think of the question ? Have you ever really hated a character in one of your fandom, and why ? Do you hate the character but still admit they add up to the story because of it, or, on contrary, is your hatred of the character detracting from your appreciation ? Is it another kind of case ? Is there a specific kind of character you usually hate / bash ?