Confusion with Character Development?: Characterization Marches On

Looking at the main page for Characterization Marches On their seems to be some confusion. The trope itself seem to describe when early installments/chapters/episodes show the character doing something or acting in a way they never would knowing what we know about them later on, but some of the examples seem to just describe character development. Do we still consider it Characterization Marches On when its simply a natural progression of the character (ex someone becoming less of a jerkass) and not a complete contradiction that comes from the author not having completely worked out their character yet?

Those are just bad examples. At least a few of the editors don't seem to understand what Character Development is. A natural progression from the original characterisation shouldn't be here.

I've noticed this, too. The examples that don't fit should be purged.

Bump. Clocking as requested.

The main issue I see is mistaking the trope for Flanderization. The crux of the trope is that quirks are given to a character that were not present in their earliest appearances, while Flanderization is taking the original quirk and making it their entire characterization.

As for an example, Rom in Star Trek Deep Space Nine was not the same methodical mechanical genius as he was later portrayed as, instead was basically a typical conniving Ferengi. The show managed to work in a justification for his change in character, but the massive contrast is still there.

Character Development is one of those "observational" tropes, where it requires the editor to examine different points in a character's history to see where they changed. It's a real and solid trope but because of that nature it means any example of Characterization Marches On can be examined and justified as Character Development.

Isn't Characterization Marches On a sub..."trope" of Character Development? (I don't think either are really tropes in the way we think, though COM is more than CD.)

Yeah, I'd say Characterization Marches On is just a form of Character Development where the development happens without any explanation or justification. As it is written now, Character Development makes no distinction between justified, organic change and non-justified change in a character.

The main issue I see is that this heavily overlaps with Early-Installment Weirdness, which theoretically is different because it's about the whole work, but there's a very fuzzy boundary (if the main character is different, is that an important enough part of the work to say that the whole work is different?) and it's often ignored.

I've often thought of Characterization Marches On as a Sub-Trope of Early-Installment Weirdness.

How much Development is "justified" may depend on the viewer.

I think the best way to distinguish between the two is that Character Development would be more likely to have a Watsonian context, which Flanderization and Characterization Marches On would seem to lack: Flanderization is, again, about exaggerating a trait that a character did exhibit during early installments; CMO would be about adding characterization either whole cloth or from a Broad Strokes start; or dismissing an early character trait, whether with Broad Strokes treatment or a full fledged trait reversal.

edited 29th Sep '11 11:54:38 AM by DonaldthePotholer

Character Development is explicitedly the natural progression/changing of a character's behavior/personality over the events of a story. Characterization Marches On has a bit more of a production background idea to it, that the writers weren't sure what to do with the character and decided to retool them into someone significantly different (Batman and Superman originally killed criminals). Early-Installment Weirdness is the same thing but applied to a series as a whole. Like I said, you can Fan Wank how the two characterizations can be reconciled (like the Rom example) but the contrast is still there.

I'm not familiar with all the examples, but some sound like simple Flanderization or even Character Development, such as the Admiral Thrawn example ("Slightly less cruel" into "Affably Evil").

Bump. This is 2 months old. Anything to do here, or is this done?

Locking as unresolved.

edited 30th Nov '11 9:45:02 PM by blackcat