fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2059 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2059 ⌋

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

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Notes:

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Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That's true, and I understand why people are hesitant about it. But...well, personally I'm a writer, and I enjoy both consuming and writing stories with a lot of angst and drama. It would be very unnatural of me to write in a gay character into a story and then NOT have them go through angst and drama, or even a death, if it fit the story I was telling. If there hits a point where I'm so afraid of what people think that I wouldn't let anything seriously bad happen to the character, I'd feel like I'm not even writing a character anymore, I'm...constructing a symbol. And that's all well and good for some people--some people like writing symbols, or allegories, or creating a story with a specific goal of "a only-happy story about group X" but that's not exactly what I'm interested in writing. If I got to the point where I had to choose between writing a character that I couldn't do much with because they were gay and if anything bad happened to them it would offend people, and just not writing the gay character, honestly I'd be more likely to not write the gay character at all. Which would be bad, and I shouldn't do that, but...again, the way I write, a character that didn't go through at least SOME angst would be really out of place. It'd just come off as unnatural and weird for me to single out a character as not having any.

With the way I write, in the hypothetical situation I presented above, I might end up killing off the gay character if they were the one that made sense to volunteer to help the others, but they probably wouldn't be the only character I'd end up killing off in the story. There'd probably be at least a couple of straight characters who would end up dying before the end, too. I probably wouldn't write that situation going "Okay, I want to kill off Bob, here's how I do it," I'd probably go "Okay, this is the situation that I think would be the most dramatic/most likely to happen, which character does it make sense to sacrifice here?" and then pick the situation that made the most sense, regardless of which character I was killing off.

I haven't seen Battlestar Galactica, so it's hard for me to judge that example. If it was unusual for the straight characters to turn even and die, then that's definitely bad and the writers should've probably been more aware of WHY they were making those choices in the first place. But if the straight characters were turning evil and dying left and right too, then I honestly wouldn't have a problem with it.

Well, yes, that's why there's a balance, and it's important for people to think about these things when they do them, either way. I don't think anyone is saying "bad things can't happen ever." It's just that a writer needs to make sure of what they're doing and why. Does it really have to happen in XYZ way? Is ABC event the culmination of some other gross homophobic/racist/sexist shit happening? Thinking is key. Context is key.

In the BSG example, there were straight characters who also turned evil and died permanently (although notably, the most prominent one was also a woman of color), but it happened comparatively more with the queer characters. There was also a lot of attendant other grossness with those characters (for example, a bisexual male character whose one night stand with a woman was shown more graphically and given more weight than his serious long-term relationship with a man), so it became worthy of commentary.

In those cases then yeah, I think people have a right to complain. I agree that context matters a lot.

It's not wrong to give hardships to any kind of character. But gay characters in history have been known to participate in stories only for the time where they can make a minimal difference in the lives of the heterosexual characters before they're killed off - when that happens as many times as it has, you gotta stop and wonder why do writers decide to always kill off the gay one? It's one of those things that happens all the time because people don't bother to write these characters beyond their "gay role" in the story, so when they're the least developed character they are also the easiest one to get rid off.

Killing gay characters if the story calls for it is not wrong. But you might want to think about it and formulate why the story has to go that way, or if it's bad form, given the treatment gay characters have received throughout history, just like you'd do with female and black characters.

I'm inclined to try and look at it from the writers POV and not have a problem with it if it works with the story, but honestly most stories out there are about heterosexual characters, if I get into a gay character, as rare as they are, and then they get killed off so the heterosexual ones get their stories furthened, I can't help but feel ripped off.

Well, I definitely wouldn't want to just kill off everyone that's [insert minority here] to further the story of people that fit into the majority. I think if I was actually going to kill off a character, I'd be doing it because they were more important to the story and I liked them more. ...I'm weird like that.

I guess it all really depends on the death's context within the story. Like, if you're going out of your way to kill gay characters that's pretty...weird.

[ SECRET POST #2059 ]

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