Not Tropeworthy: Dynamic Character And Static Character

• major/main character
• non-Law of Conservation of Detail-related reasons for staticness
• lampshading
• in a group of dynamic characters

is what comes to mind.

Looking at Playing with a Trope, point 2 would fall under Justified Trope. So that and point 3 would be covered by No Straight Examples. So a more limited No Straight Examples (e.g. also no aversions, inversions, or subversions) might work.

Oh wait, I forgot the Lord of the Rings example. The reasoning for that isn't in-universe, so it wouldn't fall under Justified Trope. Hm...

The example:

• J. R. R. Tolkien claimed that in heroic sagas like those of the Vikings or the Ancient Greeks, characters do not develop; instead, different aspects of their fixed, essential nature are revealed by new circumstances.
  • He put this theory into practice in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings: the modern, anti-heroic characters (the hobbits) are dynamic and get Character Development, while the archaic, heroic characters like Thorin and Aragorn are static.
  • For example, at the end of The Lord of the Rings we know a lot more about Aragorn (and he knows more about himself) than when we met him in Bree, but who he is hasn't changed. Ditto for Legolas, Gimli, and Gandalf. Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin, on the other hand, have changed a lot. Note that Peter Jackson changed this in his films, making Aragorn a dynamic character, and even Legolas and Gimli have a few shades of further development now.
    • Gandalf is actually a mixed case. He did undergo development of a sort, one that Merry and Pippin observed, but that change came with his death and rebirth, so it may have been development reached on his own, or development from an outside force.
    • It also isn't clear if he really changed at all, or just became/revealed more who and what he is.
    • This is potentially one reason why The Scouring of the Shire was excluded from the film, beyond the obvious potential for Ending Fatigue. In the books, the Hobbits are more obviously the explicit protagonists, and the other members of the Fellowship larger than life heroes who help them on their way. The Scouring of the Shire is thus the closure of the story where the four main characters get to demonstrate the full extent of their character development. In the film, the other members of the Fellowship are given less aloof and static personalities, and thus are full protagonists as well, which would muddle the point of the book's penultimate chapter.

Edited by Twiddler on May 16th 2022 at 12:23:24 PM

I switched to downvoting making Static Character definition-only after reading previous discussion. If it dips below consensus range, I'm willing to run another crowner for whether to put it on No Straight Examples, Please! instead if anyone would prefer that, or we could stop at indexing it as omnipresent and move on to dewicking Dynamic Character.

Edited by GastonRabbit on May 16th 2022 at 2:46:48 PM

Upvoted that option, as I believe averting Character Development is normal and it'd clog up Character Development to list all those aversions.

I mean, we don't have to keep the aversions, but allowing them to exist under Static Character is definitely a better option to moving them elsewhere.

I think that was a reference to the proposal of relisting examples of Static Character as aversions of Character Development if we made the former definition-only (since they wouldn't be able to be listed under the former anymore).

Of course, I could have misunderstood because I just got out of bed and I'm not completely awake.

Edited by GastonRabbit on May 17th 2022 at 2:28:09 PM

No, I got that, I was just pointing out that we could just axe the "aversions" entirely if we wanted to, and I was just using "aversions" to mean the Static Character examples we'd otherwise move.

Oh, I see.

Speaking of Static Character, since making it definition-only has dipped below consensus range and forbidding straight examples ended up being divisive, we may not be doing anything with it other than indexing it as omnipresent, so we may just end up cleaning up wicks for Dynamic Character while leaving Static Character's wicks alone.

Again, if the issue with making Static Character def-only is that some of the more well written examples that show how the concept can be played with would be cut, could a solution not be for those who wish to preserve them to add them in a comprehensively written analysis page?

ETA: grammar, yikes I was tired when I wrote this

Edited by amathieu13 on May 17th 2022 at 11:27:54 AM

I'm personally fine with that for now. We can maybe keep discussing Static Character and Flat Character in a Trope Talk thread, but Dynamic Character is totally redundant to me.

Since making Static Character definition-only went back above consensus range while the option for forbidding straight examples has only gained one more vote, I think I'm going to bump the ATT bulletin again tomorrow and see what happens.

To be honest, depending on what things look like tomorrow, I may end up extending the crowner's runtime by two more days and call it on Saturday instead of Thursday (as I previously mentioned), because these shifts have been unpredictable.

Edit: Alternatively, I could let it run longer without seeing what happens tomorrow if anyone thinks that would be a good idea.

Edited by GastonRabbit on May 17th 2022 at 9:49:58 AM

It seemed pretty unstable today, so I wouldn't mind waiting until it stops moving.

As far as wicks are concerned: we got 701 for Static, and only 217 for Dynamic.

Got everything up to Characters/ for Dynamic Character. Haven't touched Static Character.

Edit: Made Dynamic And Static Wick Cleaning since we're keeping some wicks.

Edited by GastonRabbit on May 21st 2022 at 9:41:58 AM

We'll save Flat Character and Rounded Character for their own threads then? And just focus on dewicking these and closing?

Edited by mightymewtron on May 21st 2022 at 7:26:31 AM

We're not doing anything with Flat Character or Rounded Character in this thread, so yes, they would need their own threads if they also have problems. The only thing left to do here is dewick the two pages this thread is for.

Dynamic Character's dewicking is done. I decided to tackle it before Static Character because Static Character has significantly more wicks.

Main/ is done for Static Character.

Edit: I moved Static Character's progress list to the top and Dynamic Character's list to the bottom since the latter is done.

Edited by GastonRabbit on May 23rd 2022 at 7:53:06 AM

I've been hacking at this one and brought the wicks down to 446 390. I'm about halfway through Characters/ now.

Edited by Hello83433 on May 24th 2022 at 6:52:47 AM

Cleared through Characters/ namespace and up through K/ on other namespaces. 247 wicks remaining.

Edited by Hello83433 on May 25th 2022 at 3:06:22 PM

Alright Static Character is done, although if anyone wants to briefly go through the remaining examples in case I missed anything that's fine. If not, I think this thread can be closed.

Nice! Locking.