[ SECRET POST #3308 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3308 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 065 secrets from Secret Submission Post #473.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Let's see if we can put this in little, small words you'll understand.

It often happens that what the author SHOWS the reader about a character is at odds with the author TELLS the reader about a character.

Other characters go on and on about what a beautiful noble person Character X is! So wise! So brave! Such a role model! But when you look at Character X's actions, you see nothing but selfish mistreatment of the people around her.

Her flaws aren't treated as flaws--everyone ignores them, including the author. The only people who see them at all are presented in the narrative as bad and wrong.

It's easy to tell that the author expects the reader to agree and would be shocked if anyone presented an alternative reading.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, that wasn't a particularly polite way to put it, but you're correct. A lot of readers don't (or can't) get that analytical about what they read. They can't detect poor quality writing, so they have trouble understanding what other people are objecting to.

[(Anonymous)]

"Sorry you can't empathize with flawed characters" is not a particularly polite comment, and "I'm damned if I can see another way of interpreting it" is just obtuse.

OTOH, it's probably true that you can get so caught up in what you're told about a character that you discount your own observations of their actual described behavior.

[(Anonymous)]

Fair point, it was an obtuse (and rather snide) remark for them to make. But like I said, not everyone is capable of (or wants to do) that level of critical thinking.

[(Anonymous)]

If OP was complaining about poor writing, why do they say that it feels like authors are purposefully undermining what should be good heroines? Are we to suppose that the quality of the writing is intentionally poor?

[(Anonymous)]

Because knowing and feeling are two different things? When my friend doesn't reply to my e-mail for two weeks, I know it's probably because she's busy or something unexpected came. But at the same time, it might feel like she's avoiding me. Feelings aren't always rational or logical.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree that there are times when a character is supposed to come across as strong and feisty, and instead comes across as selfish, and that's bad.

What I am trying to say is that, one, there are also times when a character is supposed to come across as childish, because that's a genuine character flaw that people have. Giving a female character a flaw like that does not mean that you have erred in trying to compliment them. Sometimes it means they're just a flawed character. The OP says that they "just have a hard time believing that it's anything but badly done characterization" when a female character has those flaws. They say that when a character comes across as bratty they feel the "author is purposefully undermining what should be a good heroine". Which is complete and total bullshit.

And two, the fact that a character is flawed is in no way a bar from identifying with or sympathizing with them. They say that a character comes across as flawed but "we're still supposed to sympathize and identify with them" but that OP "just can't". And that's the other reason that the quote about "should be a good heroine" is bullshit: because not only can a character with those flaws be sympathetic, they can also be a perfectly good heroine.

I put some stuff in quotes here, so hopefully we can talk about what OP actually said. Thank you for the small words though, it's very considerate.

[(Anonymous)]

They say that a character comes across as flawed but "we're still supposed to sympathize and identify with them" but that OP "just can't."

It strikes me that you're twisting OP's words here. OP was not making a blanket criticism of characters who "come across as flawed" but a specific criticism of characters who are "supposed to be 'feisty' and 'strong'" but instead come off as selfish and bratty (by which I'm assuming OP means entitled, demanding, and petulant).

In other words, the author expects the reader, not to identify or sympathize with a flawed character despite their flaws, but to view the character's flaws as virtues, or at any rate, to ignore the fact that the flaws are flaws at all.

Can a flawed character be sympathetic, and a good protagonist? Obviously. I'm thinking right now of Mary Lennox in Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden, who starts out as a godawful spoiled brat, and an unmerciful bully to the poor Ayah who is stuck with the unenviable task of caring for her. But what makes Mary sympathetic is the way she gradually learns to care for things and people other than herself. Imagine if we were expected to admire her from the get-go for being "feisty and assertive"!

Anyway, when a character's flaws are staring us, the readers, in the face, it's hard to imagine how the author can have failed to take note of them. I suppose the rule "Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity" comes into play here.

[(Anonymous)]

But my problem - and the reason that it's hard for me to read the OP the way that you do - is that OP does seem to assign it to malice! At least that's how they read the phenomenon that they're talking about. And that's partly why it's difficult for me to read it as a question of the informed attribute problem - because there (and elsewhere) OP seems to conceptualize it as an intentional choice on the part of the writer, NOT as a simple error in writing.

I mean, look at the first couple sentences there - OP is saying that when authors write a young female character who is a childish brat, it's badly done characterization. They're not saying that they dislike it when characters are written badly that way. They said - and I honestly think this is the only way to parse those sentences - writing a character on those lines is in and of itself bad characterization. That's what bothers me.

[(Anonymous)]

The key word you're missing here is "feels". OP said it FEELS like purposefully undermining what ought to be a good heroine. OP isn't saying this is exactly what's happening or making accusations, OP is merely describing what it feels like to them.

[(Anonymous)]

Even if we accept that - which I think is a more generous reading than is necessarily justifiable - again, how do you read the beginning sentences? "I just have a hard time believing it's anything but badly done characterization [when authors write a young female character who is a childish brat]". How is that anything other than objecting to certain kinds of flaws as such, not just when they're poorly written?

[(Anonymous)]

Because you're missing the context of the very next sentence, where OP clarifies that they're specifically referring to characters who are supposed to be strong characters, but who are instead written like brats. The strong implication here is that the author is going for "feisty heroine", but falling short and their character comes off as a brat instead.

[(Anonymous)]

At this point, all I can say is that you're sacrificing the meaning of literally every other sentence in the secret on the altar of the one sentence that talks about characters who are supposed to come off one way but don't. I don't think that makes sense.

[(Anonymous)]

Looking at the first sentences apart from the remainder of the secret is the problem, I think.

I read it this way: OP hates to see young female characters written as childish brats, because in her experience, the author expects the reader to sympathize with these characters and see them as "feisty" and "strong," rather than the selfish, rude and petulant children they actually behave like. In other words, OP sees it as bad writing because in her experience, it's never done well.

And OP is attributing it to malice on the part of male authors, perhaps, because she suspects that these authors don't care for assertive, self-confident women, so they write such women as overbearing and selfish.

[(Anonymous)]

I am looking at the whole secret. You're looking at one sentence in isolation from the rest of the secret. And then you want to come and talk to me about how I'm not good at analysis and just can't understand how someone might be objecting to bad writing and need to be talked to in short sentences.

You know who should learn to fucking write better? OP, that's fucking who.

[(Anonymous)]

What I'm doing is looking at that sentence in connection with the rest of the secret, and as the key to the rest of the secret.

You were snippy and patronizing in your initial post--"sorry you can't empathize with flawed characters"--and then you claimed that there could not possibly be any other way to interpret the secret. One snippy post deserves another!