Curse of knowledge

[yvannairie]

Currently struggling with what to make of the fact that a lot of people's "characterisation" really boils down to giving characters traits they find cool, righteous or "relatable" with little regard to how those traits would actually interact with their established characterisation.

Like, there's nobody out there making their fave "gay and homophobic", as interesting and potentially well-tracking trait that would be.

Comments

[yvannairie]

I wonder if this is why people get so much more personal about takes they don't like, because they're implicitly having the conversation while treating characters as nothing but vessels for self-expression (a thing that occurs with people who make every character the same in my experience) and therefore all criticism of a thing becomes criticism of you.

I can sort of even relate to that myself, that was definitely the source of why I didn't like certain people, because everything they said felt like an attack on me and my preferences and the kind of person that I am. I still get that sometimes, bc I so associate a certain tone of discussing things in fandom (the "you have to be fucking stupid or uneducated to like this") and unfortunately... that's just the way some people express disliking a thing.

[palominocorn]

Oh yeah, tons of people are projecting heavily onto characters and taking it personally, especially if they have not much else going for them. If liking a certain work is the one bright spot in your life, and the protagonist is just like you, then any criticism of the protagonist is a criticism of you. And if you've had a dysfunctional upbringing where criticism feels like an attack, well. "This character is not very smart" feels like someone calling YOU a dumbass.

I can relate to it too; when I was a teenager I remember getting really upset when my friends didn't like my OCs, because my characters have pieces of ME in them, and what does it mean if my friend don't like pieces of me?

I mean, that is how some people express dislike, and I'm not going to pretend I haven't done that, but also that's... a crappy way to do it? Not that educating strangers on the internet about "subjective vs objective statements" and "people have different life experiences" is a fruitful endeavor.