I think one of the angles of this is that characters who are agreed to be unlikeable in general tend to also be uncomplicated.... the second the character gets any reasoning at all behind those traits, if it doesn't come with a Rape the Dog moment, you end up Draco In Leather Pants (quite literally), because fandom sympathizes enough with the character to handwave the rest.
I think there's a lot of truth to that. Grey_bard pointed out on the last post that readers/viewers respond to complex, three dimensional characters the way they do to real human being, and that just as IRL there are usually people out there who are totally indifferent too or BFF with people you hate, well written fictional characters get the same variety of reactions.
That was my middle school English teacher's theory on Shylock actually - that Shakepeare started out with the standard "evil greedy anti-semitic stereotype" villain figure, but was simply too good a writer not to make him three-dimensional. And three dimensional Shylock with valid grievances and understandable motivations is too complex to simply be a villain (on the other hand, Don John and Iago are pretty much 100% pure Bad Seed malice with no adequate reason for it, which implies that Shylock being an ambiguous character is intentional, and that an Elizabethan audience was supposed to be pleased when he gets his "happy ending" of forced conversion and presumed soul saving instead of execution. A modern audience, of course, watches and thinks, "Jesus, Antonio is a dick. And so is the Venetian legal system, my God. This is supposed to be a happy ending?" I can still remember my 8th grade English class's blind horror over the conversion aspect).
But he did it because he really didn't have any good choices, and that was the lesser evil in his view... A lot of other readers... didn't buy it, because they couldn't get beyond "betrayed his friends".
And thus you have the main interpersonal conflict of RR&R4, because "betrayal of those close to you" is one of Thor's uncrossable lines, given the whole "I trusted Loki as a friend and adopted sibling figure and then he arranged my little brother's murder," thing. (so you get talking-past-each-other conversations like, Hank: "I'm really sorry we cloned you so badly, and that the clone you killed people." Thor: "I do not care that your creepy unauthorized clone of me turned into Ultron, take 2! I'm angry that you cloned me at all! I would be angry even if the clone!me had spit rainbows and saved a thousand puppies!" Hank: "But the evil government guys made us do it!" Thor: "You could have said no!" Hank: "... they would have locked us up? In jail? And I really didn't think the clone would hurt anyone." Thor: You could still have said no! Your life wasn't even at stake!" Tony, of course, doesn't even bother explaining himself because he totally deserves Thor's condemnation, blah, blah, guilt complex).
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Date: 2010-03-02 06:56 pm (UTC)I think there's a lot of truth to that. Grey_bard pointed out on the last post that readers/viewers respond to complex, three dimensional characters the way they do to real human being, and that just as IRL there are usually people out there who are totally indifferent too or BFF with people you hate, well written fictional characters get the same variety of reactions.
That was my middle school English teacher's theory on Shylock actually - that Shakepeare started out with the standard "evil greedy anti-semitic stereotype" villain figure, but was simply too good a writer not to make him three-dimensional. And three dimensional Shylock with valid grievances and understandable motivations is too complex to simply be a villain (on the other hand, Don John and Iago are pretty much 100% pure Bad Seed malice with no adequate reason for it, which implies that Shylock being an ambiguous character is intentional, and that an Elizabethan audience was supposed to be pleased when he gets his "happy ending" of forced conversion and presumed soul saving instead of execution. A modern audience, of course, watches and thinks, "Jesus, Antonio is a dick. And so is the Venetian legal system, my God. This is supposed to be a happy ending?" I can still remember my 8th grade English class's blind horror over the conversion aspect).
But he did it because he really didn't have any good choices, and that was the lesser evil in his view... A lot of other readers... didn't buy it, because they couldn't get beyond "betrayed his friends".
And thus you have the main interpersonal conflict of RR&R4, because "betrayal of those close to you" is one of Thor's uncrossable lines, given the whole "I trusted Loki as a friend and adopted sibling figure and then he arranged my little brother's murder," thing. (so you get talking-past-each-other conversations like, Hank: "I'm really sorry we cloned you so badly, and that the clone you killed people." Thor: "I do not care that your creepy unauthorized clone of me turned into Ultron, take 2! I'm angry that you cloned me at all! I would be angry even if the clone!me had spit rainbows and saved a thousand puppies!" Hank: "But the evil government guys made us do it!" Thor: "You could have said no!" Hank: "... they would have locked us up? In jail? And I really didn't think the clone would hurt anyone." Thor: You could still have said no! Your life wasn't even at stake!" Tony, of course, doesn't even bother explaining himself because he totally deserves Thor's condemnation, blah, blah, guilt complex).