fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2312 ]

[ SECRET POST #2312 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2312 ⌋

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

01.

__________________________________________________

02.

__________________________________________________

03.

__________________________________________________

04.

__________________________________________________

05.

__________________________________________________

06.

__________________________________________________

07.

__________________________________________________

08.

__________________________________________________

09.

__________________________________________________

10.

__________________________________________________

11.

__________________________________________________

12.

__________________________________________________

13.

__________________________________________________

14.

__________________________________________________

15.

__________________________________________________

16.

__________________________________________________

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 018 secrets from Secret Submission Post #330.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That people are always defending fictional characters for doing horrible things by saying things like "just because they did [x horrible thing] doesn't make them a horrible person!" (Possibly true.) Or "well this character is just very complex..."

But the moment that a REAL PERSON IN REAL LIFE says or does something negative or offensive, even if they apologize later, even if it's just one thing and not a pattern of behavior, they are automatically a bad person, forever. (I'm speaking of public figures, celebrities, whatever)

Just something I've noticed, people are more likely to stick up for/make excuses for fictional people

I dunno, I usually see more people defending celebrities to the death over everything short of murder and blaming people even talking about it on "SJW!!1!!!"

Fictional characters are fun to pick apart.

Because people are idiots.

It is much easier for us to access the complexity of a fictional character than it is to access the complexity, or really any significant part of the personality, of a real person. It's just much easier to see what's going on & hence justify it.

And then the other thing is that it's different for different classes of offense, and fictional characters mostly do piddling stuff like mass murder, not the really serious stuff like making insensitive comments.

What I want to know is how fandoms can collectively turn on a dime, from OMG!!!!ELEVENTYONE-MAI-SOOPER-SPESHUL-BBs to "Ew. Gross." on a dime, when they don't even know the people involved. Like, at all. Except what's said in interviews, despite being heavily-edited to flat-out untrue. Which is usually what these mopes suddenly find themselves getting crucified over.

(Why yes I am looking at you, BBC!Sherlock fandom.)

The short answer is: People are dumb.

For the same reason that you get mobs of people rushing to the defense of those same celebrities- even in cases where it IS legitimately horrific and/or a pattern of behavior.

People have double standards regarding individuals (real or fictional) who they like, and are way more permissive of their BS than they would be for individuals who they don't particularly care about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error

"Character kicked the dog because of this tragic past and because someone else started it and they've always had issues with this and something else right before had them feeling in a horrible mood and we know already they aren't always like this, and - "

"Larry kicked my dog because he's an asshole, fuck Larry"

Edited 2013-05-02 23:27 (UTC)

are u a fan of hpmor?

Huh, no, why?

just wondering since u liek logic

Because with fictional characters, you usually "know" them. You know their whole story, you know their thoughts and feelings, you know all the good stuff about them, you've seen them when they were honest, you know truths about them, because you've been able to see/read about them through the author's omniscience.

Kinda like how you're more likely to forgive a person you know well personally if they do one bad thing than you are to forgive a person you don't know from Adam and whose entire personality that they've shown to you is a Schrodinger's Cat of possible fakery.

I think it's a double standards, but my own explanation it is that's because of the nature of fiction. In books, and to a lesser extent visual media, we have more insight in what actually goes on in people's heads. We hear every relevant conversation, we see private moments where they're tormented over decisions.

We do not get that in real life. In real life, we have to take the other person's word for it.

I don't really know, but maybe it's harder to forgive someone who actually did bad things than it is to forgive someone fictional who only did fictional bad things?

Basically this.

Fictional characters doing bad things don't actually hurt anyone, so.

because of two things

- with fictional characters we are often shown far more than we would normally see in a real life situation. We are often put inside that character's head, explore stuff in their past etc all in a way that doesn't happen in reality.

- okay. and here is the big one. hold onto your seat. fictional characters are fictional. Meaning they cannot harm anyone. They are a fiction. They only exist within that show. They can murder and be rotten far beyond what any real person could ever be but at the end of the day when you close the book or whatever it doesn't matter because nobody in real life gets hurt.

Real people hurt real people. So of course people are going to react harsher.

because real people being assholes and doing terrible things effects OTHER REAL PEOPLE

characters doing it just (hopefully, in a well-written story) makes the plot work

1. Emotional investment (especially identification with a character or crushing on the character).

2. People tend to have a stronger sense of the thoughts, feelings, motivations, and internal world of fictional characters than of other real-life people.

3. The crimes of fictional characters tend to also be fictional, which makes it easier to distance oneself from their consequences emotionally (since they only have fictional consequences), than the lesser, but real-life, transgressions of real-life people.

With fictional characters you get a lot more context, usually. And they did bad things in fiction, that's usually easier to excuse than in real life.

I find this to be more of a trend in the microverse of fandom. Celebrities tend to be forgive-and-forget, if anyone even cared at all, short of outright murder and pedophilia.

But when it comes to fandom, people will rip each other apart and completely misuse "intent is magic" and other SJ-dressed terms to do it if they have to, but someone is badmouthing a fictional character who "grew as a person" and "learned their lesson"?

Oh my, yes. That's a hill they will die on.

I guess, fictional characters are non-threatening. Even if we see them do bad things, we have them separated into our "fantasy world" bubble. And when we analyze them, we feel confident that we "know" them, even when we analyze them as we might do another real human being.

Of course real people doing bad things does affect real people, and therefore it's harder to forgive, but to be honest, I think in a lot of cases average people could do with being a little bit more forgiving. Obviously it depends on the circumstances, but for minor things, I think not-forgiving can be the more douchey thing.

Gonna don my psych hat for a sec, and give you a real thought out answer.

Because those people are weirdoes is why.

Seriously though, I'm going with the above folk on how these people feel they know a character. Redemption arcs are pretty popular anyways, no?
Or maybe they're going out of their way to justify liking villains or characters who do awful things. So long as they're easy to avoid/ignore, I'm good.

I tend to chalk up this to fictional characters' bad behavior being fictional, consisting of fictional misdemeanors, while real person's real offensiveness is... real. I'm not sure it's a conscious thing, but I think it's somewhat natural to be more lenient with fictional traitors than a real one.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #2312 ]

why is it

Re: why is it

Re: why is it

Re: why is it

Re: why is it

Re: why is it

Re: why is it

Re: why is it

Re: why is it

Re: why is it

Re: why is it

Re: why is it

Re: why is it

Re: why is it

Re: why is it

Re: why is it

Re: why is it

Re: why is it

Re: why is it

Re: why is it

Re: why is it

Re: why is it

Re: why is it