Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2014-06-25 06:55 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2014-06-25 06:55 pm
[ SECRET POST #2731 ]
⌈ Secret Post #2731 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 033 secrets from Secret Submission Post #390.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
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(Anonymous) 2014-06-26 04:56 am (UTC)(link)It's when the driving force behind the character is his pain, informs all his decisions, and makes him a dark sexy broody loner. As a result he can never deal with his pain because then he wouldn't have any characterization left. So he broods and glowers and works alone and tells women to stay away for their own good for all eternity.
Fridging isn't a necessary symptom of manpain, but it is a convenient and frequent source of it. As well as bad writing in its own right, obviously.
So when a guy cries after losing his son (I only have OP's word to go on), that can't be manpain because manpain isn't about one reaction, but about his further developement. He can still go the mainpainy way from his loss, but you can't tell the moment it happens, unless your writer is extremely boring and predictable.
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(Anonymous) 2014-06-26 09:52 am (UTC)(link)Spoilery
(Anonymous) 2014-06-26 03:21 pm (UTC)(link)Ah. Rumple's possibly an odd case, then. In that, as the secret says, none of his moments of vulnerability are really manpain, as it's him genuinely and visibly feeling things in reaction to hurt and not giving a damn who sees. But, ah. The bulk of his characterisation outside of those moments? Does come across a bit manpain-ish. In that after losing his son, he became an evil, childish, flamboyant brooding loner who spent three hundred years setting up to curse an entire world to get back to said son, and threw the woman who loved him out in a fit of blind rage because no-one could ever love him, an action that appeared to result in her death. It takes two seasons of the show for him to start to really develop beyond that point, and even then he usually gets tossed right back into it whenever the writers need him to do something stupid and thus re-kill either said son or said woman all over again for angst purposes.
Seriously, Belle's currently on one apparent death, one case of getting shot, one case of losing her memory of him, one case of having him go off on a suicide mission, and one case of him actually committing suicide to save people. His son is on one case of getting lost in another world, one case of apparent death, two cases of abandoning Rumple in apparent hatred, one case of Rumple committing said suicide in front of him, and then another case of apparent death to save Rumple. Every time the writers need Rumple to curse someone or kill someone or propel the plot forward, reliable as clockwork, they do something to one of those two characters. Works every single fucking time. He had one moment where he had both of them safe and healthy and happy with him, with hope and a future ahead of them. One moment in 3x10. The entire rest of this show is him in the process of losing one, other or both of them, or them losing him, and everyone else around them paying the price. (Though he pulls together a bit at the end of S3, too. Somewhat. Hopefully).
So, um. While he is a vulnerable, readily emotional man whose emotion feels real as it's happening, I think he's also a manpain-ridden main character whose angst is perpetually used to fuel the plot?
Re: Spoilery
(Anonymous) 2014-06-26 07:13 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Spoilery
(Anonymous) 2014-06-26 07:45 pm (UTC)(link)I'm not really any more fond of the show milking Regina's repeated angst to cause tragedy either, no. I don't think 'womanpain' is a phrase, though it probably ought to be. I think female characters aren't usually in that much of a driving position in the story, though, so the term hasn't caught on the same way. However, yes, if any character has womanpain, Regina is that character.
There is an argument that Regina's character development is happening at a much faster and more concerted pace than Rumple's, given that she's not actually making the same old mistakes the same way he is. Not saying that she's better as a person, just that the writers are being more consistent with her development instead of the rinse-and-repeat angst they're giving Rumple. With the perpetual caveat of so far, of course.
There's also an argument that Regina's womanpain doesn't quite drive the plot the same way Rumple's does, for the simple reason that most of her plot-driving, world-ending lashing out was done per his plans and therefore is sort of folded into his driving angst as much as her own. Literally every single bad thing that has happened on this show has happened either as a source of or a result of Rumpelstiltskin's pain. All of them. Every other villain. Even Zelena was wrapped up in Rumple and Cora's mistakes more than Regina's, despite the fact that theoretically she shouldn't even have been related to him and it was a golden opportunity to have a non-Rumple-related villain for once. Regina's angst causes a lot of problems, but Rumple's literally drives the show. I tend to think that gives him more manpain points, if such a thing can be considered a competition.
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(Anonymous) 2014-06-26 07:12 pm (UTC)(link)