[ SECRET POST #3592 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3592 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 17 secrets from Secret Submission Post #513.
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.

Comments

[fscom]

05. http://i.imgur.com/qrOQ9Tg.jpg

[(Anonymous)]

I don't like that kind of reaction either, but it's not really hard to understand why it exists: it's because power fantasy is a significant part of the appeal of a lot of nerd things, and actual reactions to trauma conflict with that.

[(Anonymous)]

Unless part of the power fantasy is that they have All These Feelings (generally with a refrigerated spouse) that excuse normal civilised behaviour.

But manpain characters are introduced that way, so the audience know what they're getting.

[feotakahari]

Inb4 someone brings up Shinji Ikari.

[(Anonymous)]

what? are you saying you wouldn't jerk off to your colleague being in the hospital because her boob fell out and also you're finally superior because she's unconscious? It's a human reaction! totally normal! everyone would do it! :P

[(Anonymous)]

http://www.wikihow.com/Act-Like-Shinji-Ikari

[sarillia]

I think some people want their fictional heroes to be better than them. To react the way they would in their fantasies rather than the way they would react in reality.

I agree with you though. It bothers me too.

[illiadandoddity]

Yeah, it drives me crazy when people do that, too. God forbid that a character react to a traumatic situation by being, y'know, traumatized. Especially when the character in question is young. Harry was fifteen in book five, and seriously, how do they think a fifteen year old is going to react after seeing someone murdered right in front of him?

[(Anonymous)]

AND having the government be out for him and paint him as crazy/just wanting attention for saying the wizarding equivalent of Hitler is back.

[(Anonymous)]

On some level I understand reacting that way because just because something is realistic doesn't mean it's fun for the audience to read about or watch. I do mostly agree with you though, and I've read people so mercilessly bash both Buffy and Harry in such OTT ways that it makes me genuinely wonder if they just flat out lack critical thinking skills and/or empathy.

[(Anonymous)]

people so mercilessly bash both Buffy and Harry in such OTT ways that it makes me genuinely wonder if they just flat out lack critical thinking skills and/or empathy

Ya, I'm with you, especially re: Buffy. No one is saying that she's a perfect paragon of virtue (especially not back in the day *leans on cane* when this whole FLAWLESS! hero/ine thing wasn't going on). But man, that's some bad shit happening to what's essentially a kid still -- Harry may have been even younger than Buffy, but at least Harry didn't have a child sister to suddenly take care of after losing your mother you've relied on all your life!

For the record, while I'm not super-interested in Harry as a protagonist, I like him and want to give him, too, a blanket and some hot chocolate.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi, Buffy!anon! (You're right, btw.)

OP

[(Anonymous)]

Is there a Buffy!anon? I'm a named user who made a few Buffy secrets this week.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't get it because heroes having emotional breakdowns is like catnip to me -- can't get enough of that shit.

[(Anonymous)]

Same tbh. I tend to actually like heros more if they lose it and have a least one meltdown.

[(Anonymous)]

i almost feel like that is a response to my secret calling buffy's dawn drama "man-pain".

sometimes there might be more to the complaints than you're seeing, some people have different standards of what's realistic and some people just like their power fantasies

[(Anonymous)]

Meanwhile, fandom also keeps falling all over itself to ascribe raging PTSD to any character who ever has even one remotely bad day, and to turn all their favs into crying, shaking woobies.

You just can't ever win.

[(Anonymous)]

Preach on, OP. Preach on.

[(Anonymous)]

For the most part I agree with you on this, OP. Right off the bat I'm inclined to agree with you because I've always really liked both Harry and Buffy as characters. Neither of them are favorite characters of mine anymore (though both were at various times in the past), but I still admire their strengths a lot, and I generally find their flaws and their lesser moments very understandable.

That said, sometimes a character responds to something in a way that the viewer finds distinctly OOC, and that can be really annoying. Like when Laura Roslyn kind of gives up on the effort to save humanity towards the end of BSG. A lot of people who LOVED Roslyn felt really betrayed by the writer's choice to do that with her character, because she'd always been so brave and strong and basically indomitable. For her to finally just give up in the home stretch didn't seem like what she'd do. Meanwhile, other fans were really defensive of her/the writer's decision to do that with her character. Their argument was, She's fucking DYNING, okay?! AGAIN. And she's fought tooth and nail for humanity for several long years, and she just doesn't feel like spending her last days fighting that same hopeless battle.

In that sort of a case, I feel like both sides have valid opinions, and it's really a YMMV situation.

But then I guess there's a distinction between "I dislike this heroic character for having human weaknesses," and "I dislike the way the writers are writing this character because I feel it isn't in keeping with how the character has previously been written."