Averting Good Is Impotent

When you're talking about saving the world? You're back at wish fulfillment fantasy again. That said, there are emotional reactions other than depression and reactions to depression other than retreating for crying jags.

When I talk about thinking in tropes, this is what I mean. You seem to think that the only two possible responses to being called on to kill people are NGE-Shinji-style manic depression or stoicism so stony it is indistinguishable from indifference. One is a caricature, the other is boring. All I can suggest is to read fewer trope articles and read more of anything else, from All Quiet on the Western Front to the friggin' Punisher, and talk to real people to find out how they did (or didn't!) deal with the same situations. If you want to learn how to write characters who aren't White Hats and Black Hats, that's how.

Night writes:

Okay. You seem to be more saying that getting along with other people and not defying social convention too much is pragmatic. There's some overlap between that and being morally good, but they're not identical at all. If you're a 15th century Aztec, getting along with your neighbors means condoning human sacrifice, if you're a mid-19th century free South Carolinian, getting along with your neighbors means owning slaves, etc. There are times when doing the right thing does not make you popular. Of course, there's such a thing as being a destructive, evil asshole and alienating everyone, which is not practical (indeed, my whole point was that villains are not, for the most part, purely rational, ruthless pragmatists), but that was never in question.

edited 15th Dec '11 10:42:27 AM by Maklodes

No, I'm talking about Epic Fantasy. A genre which I have on multiple occasions complained about for various reason, the overuse of melodramatic wangst over having to kill people who completely deserved it being an overused story element that I'm tired of reading. I'm pretty sure it's most of it Stolen from The Wheel Of Time's Rand and to a lesser extent, Perrin, who are the freaking Kings of this to the point where it became incredibly annoying for me to read. I also dislike it because saving the world seems to be the primary task in every novel and I'm tired of it, I don't find it believable anymore and it's the same tired old conventions without any true emotional depth.

All fantasy is to some extent Wish-Fulfillment, but I am not primarily interested in characters who are all flash and no substance. In fact, such characters are my least favorite. My favorite characters are the kind with an interesting or unusual psychology, a psychology we have to interpret, instead of having it shoved in our faces by excessive whininess.

Obviously. Like I said, the former wangsty variety is the only one I have a problem with. Once again, you obviously aren't listening to me. I think you may be a troll.

No, I don't. I have never said that. I have said I hate the first in the specific situation where the character is killing someone who is evil and requires killing, and prefer the later, when that situation comes up. I have said nothing whatsoever about anything in between. It would obviously depend on the particular situation.

edited 15th Dec '11 5:53:15 PM by NoirGrimoir

I personally, as many—if not most—of my characters are people who are desensitized to death, tend to reserve significant reactions to certain deaths as a means of showing different kinds of character development.

For example, the suicidal man who is finally—if only briefly—snapped out of his daze when he realizes he's just accidentally killed a child for no reason.

That sound like a terrible situation...

Wow, this thread got really off topic, didn't it?

edited 15th Dec '11 6:24:41 PM by NoirGrimoir

It is, very much so. If there's any particular chapter in my story that firmly and unquestionably tears down the mystique of "glory in war," that's it.

And this is why I don't read war books. Too depressing.

I love generally depressing or hopeless works, but war stories always put me off, in no small part because they tend to fall under that vast blanket of "disorganised horror" that makes up so much of real life.

I don't mind depressing stories as long as it ends with slightest bits of hope for the main characters.

Heh. That's the goal.

I think I'll start a new thread for this "character reactions to death" idea.

Well, I agree with you there. Most actual historical war stories are like doubly depressing though because to a certain extent they actually happened (minus fictional characters). At least in a fantasy or scifi war you know it's all made up even if it is representative of the types of experiences that happen in real war.

"Again, I have a problem with reading Wangst about killing someone who obviously required killing, not anything else."

I think the problem you're having is that you're reading works in which people "obviously require" to be killed, as opposed to having an emotive reaction to the act of murder, however justified.

And here we are again, back in pure wish fulfillment land. People who completely deserve death to the point that killing them causes no emotional reaction in the killer are a complete fantasy. It is entirely removed from human experience. If you cannot find a way for a character to be affected other than "whining", then you're going to need to go back to reading and research and understand how people are affected by death.

Have you read All Quiet on the Western Front? You really should.

edited 15th Dec '11 8:37:25 PM by AManInBlack

They are called sociopaths, maybe you are the one who doesn't understand human emotion. Empathy isn't a constant. Not all people are at a ten on the emotional scale, some people are less empathic than others and death doesn't bother them as much. Besides, for the last goddamn time: I DON'T HAVE A PROBLEM WITH PEOPLE FEELING BAD ABOUT KILLING, I HAVE A PROBLEM WITH PEOPLE BEING MELODRAMATIC WANGSTERS SOLELY AS A CHEAP MEANS TO INSERT FAUX DRAMA INTO A STORY AND GIVE AN EXCUSE FOR THEM TO CARRY THE IDIOT BALL.

I don't need to read any of your books, you need to wake up to the fact that not everyone in the world is so pure as you seem to thing they are. They're called serial killers, they exist and therefore it makes perfect sense for them to exist in literature. Get over it.

edited 15th Dec '11 9:16:27 PM by NoirGrimoir

Alright, there was a holler and frankly I think y'all are getting way too fired up. This isn't a thread about the immortal battle between good and evil and the moral repercussions of "killing people who deserve to be killed" in real life. This is a discussion of those things in fiction. Let me repeat that last word again fiction.

We aren't talking about real people, we are talking about constructs. If you can't keep track of that very simple fact, find another thing to do in your spare time.

Noir: I don't see how continuing this discussion between us further would bear productive results. I do still recommend All Quiet on the Western Front, as an example of a stoic (rather than depressive) degeneration.

-edit- split a reply to Blackcat into its own post

edited 17th Dec '11 4:57:35 PM by AManInBlack

I don't believe he ever said anything about 'no emotional reaction in the killer'. He's reacting specifically against Wangsty cry-fests with lots of self-loathing, even in cases where it's transparently obvious that the killing was the best available course of action. Which are annoying. I tend to like stoic characters better, but there's any number of different, realistic emotional reactions you can use that don't simply grate.

You haven't discussed anything, you've only accused me of things I never said.

edited 15th Dec '11 9:52:38 PM by NoirGrimoir

I sorta agree with Night's views on pragmatism. I think being pragmatic and being good are correlated, at least when it comes to actually getting stuff done. I've met too many ineffective kind people in this life to really think that the fuzzies are all you need to do good.

On angsting over death: I like angst, and probably enjoy characters wallowing more than most people, but I understand where Grim is coming from. Way too many authors don't seem to realize they're dragging it out when writing angst, and there's often a lot of telling, even for an introspective scene. It's like they forget that they have the option of implying a character's pain, or even of simply summarizing it.

This is an interesting distinction. From the point of view of the characters, what's the difference? Assuming that the characters are not emotionless automatons, their concerns and emotions are as real to them as ours are to us, and studying our own can make writing theirs more powerful and effective. The difference between a person and a character is that of Shylock and Salanio.

Yes. A lot more implied suffering would be exactly what the doctor ordered. I could get behind that.

edited 15th Dec '11 9:55:56 PM by NoirGrimoir

The point would be more that letting real-life moral issues turn an argument about fictional characters as vitriolic as this has now become is rather silly. We don't need to get as worked up about this as we would if it was a real-life discussion.

edited 15th Dec '11 9:56:16 PM by nrjxll

I really couldn't care less if someone happens to have an opinion that is different than mine, I'm just pissed about the fact that I'm being insulted, accused of things I never said or implied, and talked to as if I'm someone who doesn't understand human psychology, by someone who doesn't know anything about me.

It's not so much about real-life morality as it is about real-life emotional impact. It's fine, I suppose, to have characters who are irredeemably evil. That's not a justification to handwave any sort of emotional impact, though, because even if you can make the case that it might be realistic, it's not very interesting. Even people in real life who put down rabid animals can be affected by it, and there's hardly anyone who would make the case that there's any moral ambiguity about that whatsoever.

On the contrary, I find the opposite uninteresting, most especially since I've read it a billion times and I'm tired of it. This is obviously about a difference in reading preferences. So please stop talking down to me as if I don't understand the human psyche and there is something fundamentally wrong with my preferences. It's presumptive, offensive and untrue. I respect that you like reading that stuff, respect that I don't.