Not Seeing Forest for the Trees - When Characters Become More Important to Fans than Story

[shadowkat]

From a brief discussion in an unrelated comments thread on a previous post...I got to thinking about two things that bewilder me about fandom and part of my issue with fandom:

It regards:
a) Turning Fictional Characters into Icons for a Social Cause and what happens when the story and/or writer either has the characters betray that cause or die

b) Character Deaths, or more specifically controversial character deaths which the fandom took personally or as a personal affront.

a. The tendency to turn fictional characters into icons for social justice causes. Example: Buffy Summers as a feminist icon, or Ianto (and/or Tara) as an icon for the LGBT movement or the Tara/Willow and Ianto/Jack relationships.

I get part of this tendency...the innovative coupling or use of the character by a writer. For example - Whedon went against tradition and made the vampire slayer, a girl, crazier still a valley girl named Buffy, who was a former cheerleader, popular (well at one point) and tiny. Normally vampire slayers are lone wolf types, male, and/or geeky like Corey Feldman in Lost Boys or the guy in Fright Night. They aren't pretty girls who want to go to prom. Going against the stereotype, and empowering the girl - who is usually the first to be slaughtered in these stories - sort of meant she'd become a feminist icon for a lot of tweens and women who loved the genre but never found anyone to identify with in it. But it's also dangerous - because Buffy at the end of the day is JUST a fictional character created by a self-proclaimed third generation television hack, who grew up reading Marvel comic books and watching General Hospital, and lots of 1970s Westerns. She's a character in a story. Making her an icon is bound to disappoint you eventually, because sooner or later the story will let you down. If the character is written at all well - she'll have human flaws and fall off the iconic pedestal, and even if she's not, she is bound too...because the writer isn't writing an icon, he's a writing a character to make a living.

But fans do it. To the extent that the message or symbolism that they've given the character either consciously or subconsciously takes precedence over story. If the writer kills the character or worse has the character do something that is contradictory to this message the fans espouses or believes in - the fan blasts the writer, fellow fans who still love the character and/or writer's writing, and the story in general.

Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. I know I've done this, so I get this in a way...and I find myself questioning the tendency in myself. I think it's natural...to make a character, fictional or otherwise into a role model, an icon. We have even done it with cartoons or drawings. Certainly with celebrities and writers. But again, it is dangerous...because they can't stay on that pedestal or in that status for long. And we often worship ...forgetting the flaws.

We want perfection in our heroes. It makes me think of the Hopi Native Americans or maybe its the Navajo, that put a flaw in all their artwork...believing that to do otherwise brings bad-luck, it blasphemes nature, and traps the devil. There's something to that, I think.

Woe to the writer who kills the icon, or worse an iconic pairing that represents a fandom's cause...because you may well end up with a boycott. Love turns to hate in a flash. The once revered writer is now despised. The tv series banned and hated. The plot ignored. The writer may have or may not have intended the pairing or character to fit that cause. Nine times out of ten it is accidental. I seriously doubt Whedon created his characters for this purpose...mainly the writer is unaware of his or her audience as they are creating the characters. Or they may feel and justifiably so that to treat this pairing as special and immune to the dictates of their universe is offensive and it is better to treat them the same as all the others. After all, RT Davies most likely thought, if I am going to kill Tosh and Owen, shouldn't I also be okay with killing Ianto? To treat one as better than the other or more special is not fair to any character and offensive to me, a homosexual man - it would bug me if another writer did that. Much as Whedon likely felt in regards to Tara...should I treat Tara any different than I would have treated OZ in her place? Isn't that worse?

Granted it is annoying when writers kill people off to further the plot but it is also realistic. People die. We are mortal. To have a series where no one but the red-shirts or guest-stars die is a bit silly and unrealistic and 1960s. Death has less resonance. And death is the only non-temporary thing in our lives. It gives life resonance and meaning. We would most likely take life for granted without it. For Willow - the worst thing for this powerful female character who wants to control everything in her life is to have the person she loves most taken from her, as a freak accident, something she cannot control, rewind or change. Same is true of Jack Harkness - the worst thing for this character who can't die and is immortal is to face mortality with the death of the person he loves. IF it wasn't painful - it wouldn't resonate, it would not mean anything. For a character who, particularly in Children of Earth, seems to be fairly blaise about other's lives as well as his own, to lose the one person he loved the most and control...is important, it makes him aware of the temporariness of life - something he'd forgotten.

But when you get so wrapped up in the iconic pairing or your own love of a character - you lose all that. You lose the story. Fans of Tara/Willow and Ianto/Jack lost the story, in much the same way that fans of Spike did or fans of Angel or Buffy. Their vision narrowed to a pinprick and they lost the big picture. They did not see everything else. And that's the cost of making one character or pairing representative of your social cause.

b) This leads me to the other problem, where we become way too emotionally invested in one character or pairing. To the point that we wish to dictate to the writer what they should or should not do with the character or pairing. This intensity of emotion...is often what gives "shippers" a bad name and causes kerfuffles. Unlike (a), the individual who has become obsessed with the character isn't so much turning the character into a cause or icon, as turning the character into a personal best friend/boyfriend/girlfriend. OR they may just identify strongly. Something about that character resonates on a deep subliminal level - and the viewer falls in love. I understand this, actually, I've fallen in love with characters and wanted desperately to figure them out and get more of them. And I've stopped watching tv shows or reading books or comics, where that character is summarily killed off. Or the writer threatened to kill them. But I've noticed some fans take it to extremes, and like me, we lose the story.

The other day at work, I ran into my bud, Will, he feeds the squirrles in Rufus King Park. He groused to me that his squirrels all lost their homes, because they chopped down all the trees. You'll see when you go, he told me. I wasn't planning on walking around the park that day, a)it was cold and b) my leg hurt (back issues), but curiousity won out and I went. What shocked me was hardly any trees were gone. Just one - a big, beautiful, oak, which clearly had to be chopped down before it killed someone. But Will saw that tree gone and it didn't matter, might as well have been all the trees. This is similar to the fan who adores one character in tv series or book above all the others, and when that character is killed much like Will and his favorite tree - the writer might as well have killed all the characters.
Like Will they don't see why the writer had to kill the character, why it was necessary for the story or how it furthers it - they just see the dead character. That's all. They can't see the forest for the trees.

This is true in life as well.


When a loved one dies...we scream at the universe or God, and ask why did you take this person from me? As if the only important beings in the entire universe are well this person and me. Which of course is incredibly myopic or self-centered. We can't see past ourselves. Or that maybe this person's death makes way for another life. Or how it advances things. It's not apparent to us, it can't be. We can't see past our own lives - we do not have the ability. But while reading fiction or watching it...we can actually see the broader picture, we can see the string of events that lead to this moment (assuming the story is written half-well, it isn't always) and we can see that if that tree didn't go, it would have screwed up the park and the life in it. Or not. It's hard to know for certain. Tara died so Willow would be forced to confront her inability to deal with having no control over things. She also died to further Buffy and Dawn's arcs...both had begun to rely on Tara as a sort of substitute for Joyce. In a way its an echo of Joyce's death. Ianto died ...to demonstrate the importance of life to Jack - who had become somewhat callous. Or he died merely to show how we can't control everything and there are bound to be casualities, much like Anya dies at the end of Buffy. OR Spike dies. Or the entire Angel Investigations team most likely dies entering that alley at the end of Not Fade Away.

It's the writer's commentary on the one thing we all fear and cannot control - the loss of our loved one's to death. In our tweens, teens, twenties and even thirties we feel immortal, as if nothing can hurt us...death seems like a story in a book unless of course we suffered from it directly, in which case it is all too real, and we grow up faster. By the time we reach our 40s, most of us have lost people dear to us, and death begins to become more and more of an unwanted companion.

If we didn't care about the character who is killed, the death would have little meaning. Much like the red-shirts in Star Trek. The show would be too safe.

But fandom doesn't tend to see it this way. Often they over-react. They hate the writer.
They hate the other fans. They scream and yell and grieve loudly as if someone killed their own child or parent. The death becomes about the fan, not the character, the story is gone, all the fan sees is the character's death. It is all that matters. They create shrines and memorials to the character. The character is more than the series. It doesn't matter that other characters died in the series, or even why that character did. They feel betrayed. As if the writer killing that character was a personal assault on the fan, even though the writer most likely has never met them or even if they did...the story matters to the writer and there are a lot of fans. Not all agree. And if you cater to one...how do you cater to the others? After all if RT Davies let Ianto live for the Ianto fans, shouldn't he also have let Tosh and Owen live? Shouldn't he had let others? Where do you stop? Sometimes you have to remove a tree to plant another. And in a series like Torchwood, which is admittedly horror, if you don't kill off main characters, does it make sense to kill any...and will the audience take you seriously?

I'm not saying you shouldn't grieve for a favorite character or set up a memorial. But I am saying that if you can, try to step back a bit and see the story, but it in perspective. If not today, tomorrow - when you can think a bit more clearly, granted tomorrow may well be 10-15 years from now.

I loved the character of Spike, I did not always like how the writers chose to tell his story, but I understood why and I saw their story...which works for me and doesn't at the same time. I'm glad I took the time to see their story. Because it was an interesting, if not always a good one. Same with Tosh and Owen, I may not have liked how it ended, but I can see no better ending and it worked. Stories...are how we deal with what scares us, they are how we figure out who we are, what we want, and how we should go about it - they are wonderful what-if's...told in a safe setting. With multiple outcomes. No story is set in stone, but our own, and even that is constantly being re-written in the stars until we die and rejoin whatever maker created us.


This admittedly may be seen as a somewhat controversial post...so, if this topic is at all triggery for you? Do us both a favor and scroll on by. Just my opinion, after all. And as you know, my opinions aren't necessarily set in stone, they are often changeable as the tides. [ETA: if you are coming from a link, or are new to this journal, please be advised that I have a 0 tolerance rule for nasty comments and trollish behavior. I will delete you without warning and without comment as if you were spam.]

Comments

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

"It's the writer's commentary on the one thing we all fear and cannot control - the loss of our loved one's to death. In our tweens, teens, twenties and even thirties we feel immortal, as if nothing can hurt us...death seems like a story in a book unless of course we suffered from it directly, in which case it is all too real, and we grow up faster. By the time we reach our 40s, most of us have lost people dear to us, and death begins to become more and more of an unwanted companion. "

It is a fairly modern thing... or maybe I should say it is a situation that only those of us in 'developed' nations have... Because for much of the world they still see death from an early age. Infant mortality is still high in some countries. War, poverty, famine, and disease are still stalking people around the world, we are very lucky that it is rarer here.

When I read 'Little Women' as a child, and Beth died, it was a shock to me. In most stories I read no one died. But of course in the world that Louisa May Alcott grew up in there were a lot of deaths (her little sister really did die, and she served as a nurse during the Civil War, seeing a great many young men die). I'm sure Alcott wrote about her sister's death because it was true, and because people weren't trying to protect young readers from having sad things happen.

But somehow now days TV viewers resent it if they aren't protected, as you say: they can get very angry if a favorite character dies (as though in life we get to pick and chose who lives or dies).

Of course I'm aware that I have a bit of an unhealthy fascination with death, probably from having lost too many people I loved.... Anyway, I enjoyed your post (I hope no one gets upset with you about it!).

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

But somehow now days TV viewers resent it if they aren't protected, as you say: they can get very angry if a favorite character dies (as though in life we get to pick and chose who lives or dies).

I remember back in the day debating S6 BTVS with a fan and I asked why they are watching. They stated they wanted to be entertained. They wanted a nice comfy tv show, where the bad guys were well-defined, and the good guys were too...that there was humor, and no one they liked died. They wanted the Buffy of S1-3, where their favorite characters survived the day.

It was hard for them to wrap their heads around the other point of view. And I gave up.

There's also to a degree...an over-identification with a character, when a fan falls in love - to the point they can't quite see straight.
The character either reminds them of a loved one, a part of themselves,
or ...it's just something they can't even explain. When the writer kills that character - to the fan - it's like losing a loved one, a best friend. They are as devastated by that character's death as they would have been if their loved one or pet died.

It's never really happened for me. I suppose you could say I felt that way about Spike, but I didn't cry when he died - I was unmoved (mainly because I knew at that point he was coming back) and I did not cry when
they died or were about to in NFA.

So it's something I don't really understand. For me, the characters remain fictional - they never quite enter my life in that way. But I've also read and watched a lot of dreary/realistic fiction - with a lot of death and from an early age. Plus experienced death at an early age.

When I read 'Little Women' as a child, and Beth died, it was a shock to me. In most stories I read no one died. But of course in the world that Louisa May Alcott grew up in there were a lot of deaths (her little sister really did die, and she served as a nurse during the Civil War, seeing a great many young men die). I'm sure Alcott wrote about her sister's death because it was true, and because people weren't trying to protect young readers from having sad things happen.


My first fictional death? Was I think Dumbo's Mom in the Disney film when I was 5, which was followed by the real life and somewhat gruesome death of an acquaintance/boy-friend (todd simcox - I can still remember his name), who I'd known since nursery school - he got hit by a bus in the first grade. Then of course my Grandmother's cat, Claymount, who I was upset about because I found his body. She told me somewhat unsympathetically - things die, deal with it, then launched into a detailed description of her own mother's death when she was 10. My Uncle Jim's death followed that about four-or-five years later.

I think the real life experience of death enabled me to put fictional character death into perspective. After all, I didn't really lose the fictional character. I could re-read. The book is over. But the real person or animal is forever gone and all I have is memories that fade.
The book or tv show doesn't. In a way fictional character deaths are easier - you have their voices, their stories forever embedded on pages or on film...but you loved one (unless you videotaped or filmed them and I never did) not so much.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Sigh, I'm guessing I'm the only person who edits and changes the response and post completely, but still leaves typos behind. ;-)

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

LOL
my first laugh of the morning... thanks for that!

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

Yeah I definitely think that experiencing real life death at an early age does give you perspective. And you learn to develop coping mechanisms to deal with losing someone you love. And actually for me deaths in books and TV shows help me deal with my own losses in real life, they let me explore my feelings.

I was such a spoiler phobe that I didn't know Spike was going straight to Angel when he was killed off on Buffy (also I had been out of the country and avoiding ALL websites to remain unspoiled until I could see those final three episodes). But Spike's death didn't upset me because I felt he was really given his due: it was redemptive and very fulfilling, particularly since I knew the show was over anyway.

Of course I loved having him return on Angel! It was ridiculous, and completely negated his heroic sacrifice, and all of that worked (for me) with his character.

I'm not sure I'm ever that passionately in love with characters either, usually when I start feeling that strongly about the characters I end up falling in love with the writer. This has been my experience w/Game of Thrones. I absolutely adore a lot of the characters (in both the book and the show, some characters I like better in the TV show than the books, and some are better in the books...) but all that did was make me curious about George R.R. Martin. I would be very disappointed if he kills off Tyrion, but I wouldn't get mad at Martin because I can see he is telling a brilliant story in his own way, and I wouldn't want to get in his way.

I like being along for the ride, and let the storyteller go where ever they need to. And that sentence is appallingly bad grammar... but it is still early and I'm still kind of out of it.....

[metanewsmods.livejournal.com]

Hi, can we link this at metanewsfandom?

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Yes.

[treadingthedark.livejournal.com]

Don't have too much smart stuff to add, but I definitely see myself as one of those who completely fell in love with Spike, and was happy to be spoiled for his return. I would have been absolutely devastated at the end of Chosen if I hadn't been. I was devastated enough at the end of the series, and am still bitter that we never got more Spike.
On the other hand, though I liked Tara her death had no emotional resonance for me. I didn't even care that much when Joyce died. I was tired of hospital scenes by then so glad we weren't getting any more of them. Even Angel's death at the end of Becoming, I was sad for Buffy, but I really didn't care that Angel was gone.
But Spike, ah, that was different. When I first heard the rumor he was going to die I was gutted.
Season 8 comics meant nothing to me regardless of quality because Spike wasn't in them. Definitely a case of the character being more important than the story for me.

[flameraven.livejournal.com]

I think the general complaint about Tara's death is that it falls into the Dead Lesbian trope and so has some unfortunate implications. Kind of like if there is one minority in a horror film, they're going to die first. Since Joss Whedon was seen as progressive for having a lesbian romance in mainstream TV at all, people were disappointed that he then killed one of the couple off, because of course LGBT couples are never allowed to be happy. I suspect this is also a part of the fan rage over Ianto's death, in addition to the general sadness because people loved the character.

For Tara, I don't think this is entirely the case, I think it's more the Joss Whedon "rule" that no one is allowed a happy relationship in his shows. As you say, it also furthered the plot, but it still has that bad connotation. I don't think fans are wrong to get upset about that-- we should examine all the messages in media, both the obvious and less so.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Yes, and no.

In both series, people died. It would have been one thing if the tv series that Tara or Ianto died on had been say a tv series where no one dies or something like Star Trek where only red-shirts die - in that case - yes, they have a point. But here? The writer had killed Jenny Carpenter in the second season, Angel in the second season - only to bring him back again, Buffy twice, Joyce, and in the episode that Tara dies - Buffy also, almost dies. Sure the fact that she dies right after having reunited with Willow and in the same episode as a sex scene is a bit...dicey...but if you watch the series and know the horror trope that happens to heterosexual couples. So again, I think the fans are shall we say, over-reacting? Seriously, get passionate about protecting same-sex marriage or fighting for LGBT rights, this is JUST a cult tv series - it's merely a reflection.

we should examine all the messages in media, both the obvious and less so.

Emphasis on examine. Emotion tends to get in the way of it. If you examine the series as a whole, and look at the trope - you'll note that the fans complaint doesn't quite hold water. IT only does if you ignore the rest of the series and the horror trope that the writer is playing with - which is have sex? You die. Get happy? You die.

It's important to look at all the angles, see the entire picture - not just focus on the bits that support one view.

I've argued both sides of this debate by the way. And while I can see the fans point of view (it was far more heated in 2002 and I remember an entire fan discussion board which was dedicated to Willow/Tara calling it quits and leaving the fandom) - I see the writer's pov as well. I think the fans aren't examining the story so much as reacting to it - and that is actually the problem. IF you examine it - you see that it doesn't quite fit the pattern they see...or it does and it doesn't. I can literally argue it both ways and have. So the message isn't as cut and dry as people want it to be.

Same with Ianto's death - while I could see their emotional reaction to Ianto's death - the problem was they did not examine the messages or the story, they merely reacted to it emotionally.

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

I always thought that Tara died, not because she was Gay, but because she was perfect. I mean obviously her death was a huge motivation for Willow to freak out, but Tara's character itself had gotten to the point where she had no faults or problems or any place to grow. Like Fred, Fred had also fulfilled so much about herself that I couldn't really see where they could take the character (and again, killing her was a huge motivation for Wesley totally losing his mind).

Kind of like Beth in 'Little Women', when a character is too saintly then it is kind of time to kill them off. Or is that just me being cynical?

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

No, it's a trope. That's how I knew Tara was going to die. In fact a friend who wasn't online and completely unspoiled, predicted it for the same reason. Very anti-climatic death - saw it coming a mile away.
Because it fit the trope - when a character becomes too perfect, all her issues resolved, the writer has no where to go and kills the character off to further everyone else's storylines.

And you're right they did the same thing with Fred. Also a bit with Cordelia in S3 - when she went up to the heavenly beyond - which annoyed Whedon who felt the character had been sabotaged and he had to do damage control. And with Doyle in Hero.

It's why Tara's death never bothered me. I was bewildered by the fact that it bothered everyone else.

[sophist.livejournal.com]

Wait a minute. You know someone who was both (a) online in 2002 and (b) unspoiled for Tara's death? I don't think that's possible.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Not one but two no less, apparently. If you weren't emotionally invested in either Willow or Tara, you more or less saw it coming a mile away. The same thing with Spike and his arc - people who were not emotionally invested (either for or against the character) saw the arc fairly clearly.

Goes back to my central point - emotional investment blinds you to the plot.
Except for the whole taking out the chip or getting a soul arc - that confused everybody including the actor.

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

I was both of those! I actually expected them to kill Tara, but I was very shocked by the method and timing.

[dreamflower]

Here from a link in metanewsfandom.

You make some excellent points. As readers/viewers we get invested in characters and feel cheated if we lose those characters or if they change in ways we don't expect.

But that's what an AU is for. Instead of hating or slamming the original writer when a favorite character is lost, go looking for "so and so lives fanfic" or write some yourself (generalized you, not specific you). For every character in a fandom who's died someone has written a story somewhere in which he or she lives. (It may not be a particularly good story--but it will be out there.

As much as we would like to believe otherwise, its all FICTION. The writer has the right to do whatever he/she wants with his/her characters--we may not like it, and if it's handled poorly, it may turn us away from the rest of the story--but it's not our right to always have a happy ending; we are not guaranteed one in life, we certainly are not guaranteed one in fiction.