[ SECRET POST #2786 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2786 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.


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02.
[Legend of Korra]


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03.
[Digger]


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04.
[Transformers: Animated]


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05.
[World of Warcraft, Warlords of Draenor]


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06.
[Marvel]


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07.
[Benedict Cumberbatch]


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08.
[Orange is the New Black]


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09.
[Hemlock Grove]


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10.
[Hardy Boys]


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11.
[The Remains of the Day]










Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 033 secrets from Secret Submission Post #398.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - 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.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I don't really think I agree. Digger's job wasn't really to be the audience stand-in, although as a complete stranger to the situation she was cast into, she also functions pretty well as that, personality or no. And, really, I don't know why an audience stand-in can't have personality? They don't have to actually be the audience, they just have to give an audience a viewpoint onto the situation that those more familiar to it wouldn't be able to give. Digger does that well enough, giving us a stable viewpoint from which to view a more-than-little crazy world.

But Digger's role in the comic was a little more complicated than that. She was the protagonist because she catalysed the resolution of the plot. She stumbled into a calcified situation with several characters who had been ostracised and made helpless by it, and just by her sheer presence and her choice of actions started changing that around them. She singlehandedly caused massive changes to several characters, including Shadowchild, Ed and Murai, all three of which are rather important to the plot and who would probably have been very different had Digger not been there. She doesn't change much herself, remaining stable, practical and pragmatic, because in a cast of questionably sane and broken people who need to change either very rapidly or very majorly, that's what makes her stand out and lets her take charge. She's the catalyst who sets off the changes around her, and then tries to steer them to preserve the people she's come to care about. That's plenty of dynamism for one character, even if she didn't develope any herself.

But I think she does that, too. She's forced to confront and interact with cultures and viewpoints that are very different from her own, and she does actually adapt to deal with them over the course of the comic. In particular her interactions with the hyenas over time, when she no longer has the option of just trying to avoid them, and also her relationship with Shadowchild, which forced her to logically break down and attempt to explain concepts that had been so fundamental to her that she never really examined them before. Just the act of adapting to alien cultures to the point of being able to work within them is a change, although her personality does stay largely the same. But then, a lot of people's do. Growth and development don't necessarily come with drastic personality shifts, just a little more open-mindedness and maybe an increased ability to deal with new things.

I don't know. Maybe she's not really a protagonist as in the classic 'hero who learns important lessons and makes things better in the end', though she does do those things too, but I think she is the protagonist as in 'catalysing force that changes the plot around her and tries to act to make things come out right'. It worked for me. I enjoyed the story and her presence in it.

[(Anonymous)]

+1 to all this, and very well stated. OP of the secret seems to have a very narrow view of what a maincharacter can/should be.

OP

[(Anonymous)]

This is a good example of why I'm posting this as a secret rather than attaching my name to it. There are a few things I disagree with, but most of what you're saying is stuff I can't really argue with--which makes it sound like I must be wrong for finding Digger to be a boring and uninteresting character. At the same time, I can't honestly say I find her less tiresome after reading your post.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

DA

It's perfectly fine if you dislike her. You don't have to change that. Not every character works for everyone.

But you said in your secret that the plot wouldn't change if she weren't in the comic, which is... well, completely wrong, given that as the anon above pointed out she's the catalyst for most of what happens. That doesn't mean you have to like her.

Just say that you find her uninteresting. Nothing wrong with that.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

Said above anon.

I didn't see your response before I posted mine. Apparently we're in more or less note-for-note agreement, which has never happened to me before. Huh.

You're a great deal more succinct than I am, though. I really ought to get the hang of that some day :)

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

It's not wrong to say you find her a boring or uninteresting character. That's pretty much always a fair enough thing to say. I think it's probably more questionable to say that she shouldn't be the protagonist, though that's still a matter of opinion, but she does fit several of the technical definitions for a protagonist as well.

However, that bit in your secret where you say that the plot wouldn't change much if you removed Digger outright ... factually speaking, that's kind of wrong? Shadowchild can't be a protagonist without Digger or at the very least a Digger analogue, because Digger changed Shadowchild's entire worldview and made them capable of understanding heroic actions in the first place. Murai is a different question, and it's actually implied that in the future she will be the hero of a different story, but she's also strongly changed by her interactions with Digger and her quest. You ... can't really cut Digger out of the story and expect that it would be even remotely the same or that the other characters would have made close to the same choices (definitely not in Shadowchild's case). The plot would definitely change without her, since she's the primary force that brought a lot of the characters together or into a position to take the actions they did, and she's also the force that changed several of them enough that they became capable of taking the actions they did.

What I mean is, I wouldn't argue at all with just a statement that you find her boring. Everyone likes or dislikes their own selection of characters, and everyone is entitled to like or dislike whoever they want. Roles in the story or effects of changes on the plot are a bit more factual, though?

OP

[(Anonymous)]

This is where it gets into the writerly side of things, since I've written a protagonist who had a similar nature and personality to Shadowchild, but fulfilled a similar narrative role to Digger. I couldn't personally rewrite Digger with Shadowchild as the protagonist, because I couldn't have written Digger in the first place--my writing style isn't remotely like Ursula Vernon's. I think most of what I did with my character could probably have been done with Shadowchild, and I can see places in the narrative where either Shadowchild or a slightly more stable version of Murai could fulfill Digger's role, but that might be outside Ursula Vernon's style.

(And in any event, I never posted my story anywhere, so it's possible it was a total failure and I just didn't realize it. Reader-wise and criticism-wise, Digger was definitely a success, which puts me in an awkward position to criticize it.)

I guess the one thing I would definitely argue with is the statement that Shadowchild couldn't be a protagonist--it has a lot in common with some versions of Pinocchio, and not all interpretations even give Pinocchio a Jiminy Cricket to learn from. Anything more than that is pretty murky.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

I couldn't personally rewrite Digger with Shadowchild as the protagonist, because I couldn't have written Digger in the first place--my writing style isn't remotely like Ursula Vernon's.

I don't think that's a question of style, the actual story itself would have to be functionally different. The entire way the story is structured would have to be changed if you want Shadowchild to drive the plot, for the simple reason that Shadowchild does not do the same things as Digger does or for the same reasons, and it was Digger's actions and reasons that drove the plot. Shadowchild, at the point where it enters the story, can't do what Digger does. It can't interact with the hyenas the way she does, it can't interact with the Statue of Ganesha the way she does, it wouldn't have understood what had happened to Ed the way she did, in all likelihood with the way it was when it entered the story, it probably wouldn't have understood why the plot needed something done about it at all. I mean, you can do a POV switch to Shadowchild's POV, but that won't change the fact that the story as-is needs Digger to actually move it. There might be points in the narrative where other characters could have taken over (and points in the narrative where they did, including Shadowchild and, spectacularly and tragically, Ed), but the narrative as a whole hangs on Digger's decisions.

Changing the story so that a character like Shadowchild is a) in a position to move the plot, and b) knows enough to understand it has too, literally makes it a different story. It's not that Shadowchild can't be a protagonist, it's that making Shadowchild the protagonist of this story would involve changing the whole plot.

Your story, on the other hand, is already designed around your Shadowchild-like protagonist. It won't have that problem, the plot is already geared to be defined by actions from that quarter. But that's not about styles, that's simply that you've written a different story to the one Ursula wrote, though you may share a character type in common. That's ... I mean, that's fine? Writing your own story is the point. It doesn't change the one Ursula wrote, and it won't automatically be better or worse for being structured differently and starring a different type of character. Most stories do?

There's not just one type of protagonist, the same way as there's not just one type of story. The thing that matters is making the story you're writing hang together around the protagonist it's got, and I think Digger did that, and hopefully your story will too.