reflections of grandeur
5 Mar 2008 03:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaigouRather than bury this in the previous post, I figured I’d just make a new post to highlight a specific element of the multi-POV storyline. I’ve spent most of the morning trying to recall where I first read a true multi-POV -- and I mean deep POV for each, not omni -- novel, in which the POV was not limited to two main characters (as you might find in, say, a romance or rival plotline). I am, sadly, drawing a complete blank, except for the faint suspicion that it may have been a doorstop tome like Centenniel or Shogun, one of those “cast of hundreds!” kind of things. [ETA: ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pxcampbell rocks my world, naming the culprit in two notes: Tom Clancy. The 'woah, I love this' moment was reading Hunt for Red October... again, under the desk, but that time while in Russian History. How apt.]
Now, granted, I read the Michener and Clavell years and years *cough* ago (if it says anything to you, I read both under the desk in two different math classes). A’course, those were my library-eating years, and when I say library eating I mean two different school libraries took away my book-checking privileges “because you read too much”. Apparently some school systems have issues with students who start in the 0000 section in the nonfiction and read everything from there all the way through to the Z section on fiction. I have no idea why.
(Calm down. I should add that the so-called “school library”, where I attended 4th/5th grade, was about the size of my living room and dining room put together, and we were one of the biggest county schools. Pathetic.)
For years after that, I gravitated towards doorstop tomes, not because I necessarily wanted to read things that weighed the same as my head, but because I had really enjoyed being so completely submersed not just in one person but in an entire story. I don’t think I came across another significantly impactful multi-POV story (that stands out in my head) until I read Majipoor Chronicles, which was possibly also the first SFF culturally-emphatic storyline I’d read since Lord of the Rings. Although I should note that technically, Chronicles is both single-POV and multi-POV at the same time; it’s a collection of histories as re-experienced by a young adminstrator in the government, using his off-time to surreptitiously comb through the first-person chronicles of past emporers. It’s a rather intriguing twist on the “here’s all about this world,” with a workable framework tying it all together.
Anyway, I don’t think I actually analyzed what I liked about such a storytelling method until I watched -- bear with me on this one -- first Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and then Gundam Wing. After every episode of BtVS, usually within a day or so the script (or a draft version) would be posted on the ‘web, and I was one of many persuing it for details and notes we might’ve missed during the first viewing. One thing I started to realize, after enough time of reading scripts, was that despite the camera being a sort of “omni” viewpoint, such an impression was superficial. In fact, good camerawork does have a point-of-view. (Whedon’s script sometimes note this, which is why I learned to twig on it while watching, in anticipation of seeing the script later.) The camera angles and approaches indicate the POV character for a scene, and although it may hop at points -- especially when there’s a comedic moment of getting the POV character’s beat+reaction to something -- it’s still fundamentally identifiable for each scene who gets the main “view” through the lens.
Maybe that was also when I started to find myself more and more drawn in by stories with deep, limited POV, as well. But it’s also when I finally came back around to what I had liked in those doorstop tomes, too: that BtVS was, at heart, an ensemble story. On the surface, sure, it was “about some chick who kills vampires” but at all times the so-called ‘secondary’ characters were as primary, especially in terms of their impact on the storyline. Suddenly, I realized there were amazing ‘ensemble’ storylines all around me, and that those stories were perhaps the only ones that captured my interest and consistently held it.
The Japanese animation series -- a political-war series which is sort of Japan’s version of Star Trek, in its age and status -- had the other detail I lacked to grasp what was going on with authors like Clavell and Michener. For every main character (there are five major protagonists, although of them, one is obviously ‘the center role’), there is an echoing character. At first, I took this as some kind of trope in the storytelling pattern: for every guy, a girl. (It didn’t help that the fandom promptly matches up each guy with a girl, even when it’s inappropriate to do so if you look at the actual storyline, but hey.) Then I realized, it’s not even close to the fans’ imposition of romantic notions over these reflecting characters, but the inherent value of the contrast between the characters.
Without swamping anyone with uninteresting details, I’ll try to summarize at least vaguely. (For those of you familiar, yes, I know these generalizations aren’t totally accurate, but let’s roll with it, okay?) The rebel-protagonist who comes from an abandoned/street background wants his culture/homeland to live free of military oversight and is also a politically savvy character; his contrasting girl/echo takes form of a young working-class woman who doesn’t appear to even question why she should, or shouldn’t, join the military, and is remarkably naive about the politics involved. The unexpected big-picture political sharpness he displays is what you’d expect from one educated and trained, like his counterpart. The rebel-protagonist who spends nearly the entire series attempting to cut off his own emotions just to get through the untenable experience of having to fight (and kill), has a counterpart who’s a vehement pacifist and shows her emotions easily and loudly. I could go on and on (though I won’t), because the entire cast -- all forty-something named and active characters -- all have at least one counterpart, if not more, who act as reflections on the twelve focus-protagonists.
If it were a book, the series would probably have a pattern much like this:
1. Joe does A.
2. Joe does B, and Jane counters that C is better (or does C to stop B).
3. Jane considers Joe’s actions through a lens of her belief that B is a bad choice.
4. One of the two changes positions.
Not all of the story is that nice and pat -- sometimes steps 3 and 4 happen with a lot of distance between them, and a long way from 2, at that -- but when I sat down and looked at the entire 49-episode series (and there’s a boatload of plot happening in every half-hour episode), I could see that there is a definite line one can draw from 1, to 2, to 3, to 4, between every set of counterparts. The crux of the series (pretty much all Gundam series, from what I’ve seen) is that of a sort of communion between people, a co-union that must be created for peace to exist.
But what got me about this -- and when I then took that pattern and applied it to BtVS -- was that it falls flat if one of the two characters is obviously wrong. (This ties into my muddled meanderings on how many bad guys a storyline has, and the eventual conclusion that you don’t need more bad guys... you just need more genuine obstacles.) What made me care about the characters wasn’t just the general empathy created in a storyline with a character I can relate to on everyday human terms, but the conflict we’ve all felt when we’re faced with a friend (or potential friend) pointing out the flaws in our argument even when our side of the argument is valid.
On average, the books I’ve read, and shows I’ve watched, and movies I’ve seen, can often be boiled down to a very simple plot.
1. Joe wants A.
2. Jane wants B.
3. A and B conflict.
4. One of the two wins the day.
Add in the bias of the story-presentation making it clear that Joe, or Jane, is “Teh Big Bad!!!”, and the narrative’s work at getting we viewers/readers to sympathize with one POV, and you really have a rather flat plotline. In my opinion, at least: I’m not saying it doesn’t make for a good story. It can. It just doesn’t make for a story that’s truly compelling to me in a sense of still thinking about it days or weeks or even years later. The story opens, and I know almost right away -- assuming the back cover teaser didn’t tip me off -- that this story’s goal is “beat the bad guy and save the world”, or at least the character’s half, or whatever. Unless the story’s going to take a dystopic route or has that oh-so-depressing post-modern “we can never really win” kind of bleakness (oh, yes, Mieville, I am so looking at you), in general you can be pretty sure that the sympathetic guy introduced in chapter one may make a few mistakes, but his antagonist will only be superficially sympathetic, may be intriguing, but the resolution of good guy winning is one that will solve the issues with a positive and warm feeling.
And that’s where the final ah-hah comes into the picture, with a more recent series I’ve seen, called Code Geass. I must add a caveat here: I heard a great deal about this series, but the illustrators who did the character/world designs for the animation have a distinctly, uh, girly/androgynous style that I have always loathed. I just don’t like how it looks. Too, I do like me some robot/SFF series because hey, I am a secret (or not so secret) geeky-fan, but this series is only superficially about the mecha. For the most part, they could’ve replaced “bipedal robots” with “jet planes” or “tanks” or even “motor-scooters” and it wouldn’t have had a lot of impact on the plot. But oh, man, once I finally decided to set aside my prejudice about the visuals and pay attention to the much-lauded storyline... wow. I think I watched all 25 episodes in about two days. (No, I didn’t get a lot done. I was too busy trying to do a little between episodes before admitting I just had to see one more episode and then I’d run back to the computer to see if the next fansub had downloaded yet. Sigh.)
Anyway! Code Geass takes the war-politics issues of the Gundam series, and the broad “we’re all sincere in our beliefs” clash of Shogun and its ilk, and... just wow. In a nutshell, slightly-future Japan has been overrun and conquered by an empire-nation called Brittania, which subjugates the Japanese people and renames them as “elevens.” (I’m not even getting into the political ramifications in terms of the hot buttons this is pushing via real-world concerns of discrimination and subjugation and colonization, okay?) One Brittanian prince, Lelouche, was originally sent to Japan as a sort of political hostage; during the conquest, he was believed killed. He’s survived, living under a pseudonym and protected by a family loyal to his mother’s line. He’s filled with hatred for the Brittanian empire, seeing it -- and more specifically, the rest of the royal family -- as specifically guilty of his mother’s murder. Meanwhile, the son of the former Japanese Prime Minister, is now a young man in the Brittanian military; until he’s determined to be one of the few who can pilot a certain mecha, his chances for advancement are nil because of the built-in discrimination against “numbers” (that is, “an eleven”) ever achieving rank over “full-blood” Brittanians. Despite this overwhelming discrimination, Suzaku is convinced that the best way to change the system is to work from the inside, using peaceful means to bring about positive and lasting change and peace. Obviously -- since a story must have conflict -- Lelouche doesn’t agree.
Here’s the thing: they’re not only childhood friends, they’re also both right. Can you change everything from within the system? No. Does it really help your cause to wage a guerilla war that, despite taking down the enemy, may also harm the bystanders you’re trying to assist? No. Do the ends always justify the means? Probably not. Can being too gentle on the means cost more lives in the short-term, because you weren’t more emphatic about stopping an atrocity? Possibly. Lelouche’s methods are underhanded, cold, vicious, ruthless -- and yet, it’s his actions which really compel the majority of the changes (good and bad) in the world’s dynamics. Suzaku is sincere, honorable, and truly wants to achieve peace -- and yet his options for influence are hemmed in on nearly all sides by virtue of the dscrimination against anyone who looks, speaks, acts, or is, Japanese. The delicious irony (from my perspective as an analyzing author/viewer, at least) is that of the two, Suzaku is the bloodthirsty, angry, violent one -- which is why he fights so hard to keep a lid on himself, to force himself into the mold of being respectable, honorable, and righteous. Lelouche, on the other hand, is the gentle one who privately cries when he’s forced to make some of the toughest choices -- which is much of why he pushes himself to make the hard choices now, rather than draw out the pain for any longer than necessary.
In other words: Suzaku is held back by the knowledge that if he lets loose, he might just say, “kill everyone and let someone else sort it out.” (Okay, not completely, but there’s no mistaking that he does have a bloodthirsty, callous streak no matter how hard he tries to hide it.) For Suzaku, taking the slow, work-from-inside, approach is crucial because it’s the best, maybe only, cap on the potential to go full-throttle, which (in his experience) will only result in disastrous consequences. Lelouche, however, must go full-throttle, because if he slows down to recognize what he’s doing, then he’d have to admit it’s killing him -- thus his hard push for the goal of overthrowing Brittania is against his own internal clock of just how much more he can take before he cracks.
Brittania is not an innocent conquerer, either; more than a few times I was rather shocked at the brutality. Most teenager/young-adult series -- in Japan, Europe, or even the US -- do tend to, erm, “soften” issues like martial law. You’ll see police/soldiers lining people up, shoving them, yelling at them; in Code Geass, the military comes through and simply shoots on sight every man, woman, and child. It gives an entirely new meaning to the expression “redistricting,” and it’s not pretty, and it serves to highlight the immense cost of Suzaku’s wish to work change slowly... but also serves to illustrate the cost paid by innocent bystanders every time the military takes revenge for Lelouche’s guerilla warfare.
In the end (and there’s still a season two, so I will refrain from spoilers), I can only say that the final position of the viewer is that neither young man can win -- truly win in the sense of “beat the other” -- not just because they’re so equally matched... but because, as a viewer, I didn’t want either of them to lose. I could see the value and purpose behind their actions, and each mattered to me a great deal, because I could feel both sympathy, and empathy, for both. Although on the surface, the story was about rebels against a ruthless, even vicious, overlord, the conflict wasn’t in what to do, but in how to do it. When the means conflicted and contrasted so strongly between the two protagonists -- each, in turn, being the other’s antagonist -- it created a dynamic that really knocked the story out of the usual mecha-war-politics ballpark, and into some other genre I can’t quite name. It’s certainly not your older brother’s simple mecha series.
In sum, that’s my take on complex stories.
Still not convinced I have the skills to effectively pull it off (and to some degree, that’s why I’m rewriting again -- I’ve had trouble in the past drafts between balancing the need to push plot forward with tension, versus the fear that I’m losing readers by complexifying things via multi-POV input, versus sometimes just plain slacking on keeping a tight rein and then suddenly realizing the tone’s shifted dramatically into something more, uh, romantic and less tense-unhappy-conflicted). But, that long aside now aside, here’s what I’ve got. Input welcome, as well as any recommendations on any stories you’ve read/seen that also have this level of complexity.
(FWIW: no Stephen King. I only like the man’s short stories. I’ve never managed to get past about page 10 of any of his full-length novels. Dunno why, just doesn’t click for me.)
pxcampbell rocks my world, naming the culprit in two notes: Tom Clancy. The 'woah, I love this' moment was reading Hunt for Red October... again, under the desk, but that time while in Russian History. How apt.]Now, granted, I read the Michener and Clavell years and years *cough* ago (if it says anything to you, I read both under the desk in two different math classes). A’course, those were my library-eating years, and when I say library eating I mean two different school libraries took away my book-checking privileges “because you read too much”. Apparently some school systems have issues with students who start in the 0000 section in the nonfiction and read everything from there all the way through to the Z section on fiction. I have no idea why.
(Calm down. I should add that the so-called “school library”, where I attended 4th/5th grade, was about the size of my living room and dining room put together, and we were one of the biggest county schools. Pathetic.)
For years after that, I gravitated towards doorstop tomes, not because I necessarily wanted to read things that weighed the same as my head, but because I had really enjoyed being so completely submersed not just in one person but in an entire story. I don’t think I came across another significantly impactful multi-POV story (that stands out in my head) until I read Majipoor Chronicles, which was possibly also the first SFF culturally-emphatic storyline I’d read since Lord of the Rings. Although I should note that technically, Chronicles is both single-POV and multi-POV at the same time; it’s a collection of histories as re-experienced by a young adminstrator in the government, using his off-time to surreptitiously comb through the first-person chronicles of past emporers. It’s a rather intriguing twist on the “here’s all about this world,” with a workable framework tying it all together.
Anyway, I don’t think I actually analyzed what I liked about such a storytelling method until I watched -- bear with me on this one -- first Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and then Gundam Wing. After every episode of BtVS, usually within a day or so the script (or a draft version) would be posted on the ‘web, and I was one of many persuing it for details and notes we might’ve missed during the first viewing. One thing I started to realize, after enough time of reading scripts, was that despite the camera being a sort of “omni” viewpoint, such an impression was superficial. In fact, good camerawork does have a point-of-view. (Whedon’s script sometimes note this, which is why I learned to twig on it while watching, in anticipation of seeing the script later.) The camera angles and approaches indicate the POV character for a scene, and although it may hop at points -- especially when there’s a comedic moment of getting the POV character’s beat+reaction to something -- it’s still fundamentally identifiable for each scene who gets the main “view” through the lens.
Maybe that was also when I started to find myself more and more drawn in by stories with deep, limited POV, as well. But it’s also when I finally came back around to what I had liked in those doorstop tomes, too: that BtVS was, at heart, an ensemble story. On the surface, sure, it was “about some chick who kills vampires” but at all times the so-called ‘secondary’ characters were as primary, especially in terms of their impact on the storyline. Suddenly, I realized there were amazing ‘ensemble’ storylines all around me, and that those stories were perhaps the only ones that captured my interest and consistently held it.
The Japanese animation series -- a political-war series which is sort of Japan’s version of Star Trek, in its age and status -- had the other detail I lacked to grasp what was going on with authors like Clavell and Michener. For every main character (there are five major protagonists, although of them, one is obviously ‘the center role’), there is an echoing character. At first, I took this as some kind of trope in the storytelling pattern: for every guy, a girl. (It didn’t help that the fandom promptly matches up each guy with a girl, even when it’s inappropriate to do so if you look at the actual storyline, but hey.) Then I realized, it’s not even close to the fans’ imposition of romantic notions over these reflecting characters, but the inherent value of the contrast between the characters.
Without swamping anyone with uninteresting details, I’ll try to summarize at least vaguely. (For those of you familiar, yes, I know these generalizations aren’t totally accurate, but let’s roll with it, okay?) The rebel-protagonist who comes from an abandoned/street background wants his culture/homeland to live free of military oversight and is also a politically savvy character; his contrasting girl/echo takes form of a young working-class woman who doesn’t appear to even question why she should, or shouldn’t, join the military, and is remarkably naive about the politics involved. The unexpected big-picture political sharpness he displays is what you’d expect from one educated and trained, like his counterpart. The rebel-protagonist who spends nearly the entire series attempting to cut off his own emotions just to get through the untenable experience of having to fight (and kill), has a counterpart who’s a vehement pacifist and shows her emotions easily and loudly. I could go on and on (though I won’t), because the entire cast -- all forty-something named and active characters -- all have at least one counterpart, if not more, who act as reflections on the twelve focus-protagonists.
If it were a book, the series would probably have a pattern much like this:
1. Joe does A.
2. Joe does B, and Jane counters that C is better (or does C to stop B).
3. Jane considers Joe’s actions through a lens of her belief that B is a bad choice.
4. One of the two changes positions.
Not all of the story is that nice and pat -- sometimes steps 3 and 4 happen with a lot of distance between them, and a long way from 2, at that -- but when I sat down and looked at the entire 49-episode series (and there’s a boatload of plot happening in every half-hour episode), I could see that there is a definite line one can draw from 1, to 2, to 3, to 4, between every set of counterparts. The crux of the series (pretty much all Gundam series, from what I’ve seen) is that of a sort of communion between people, a co-union that must be created for peace to exist.
But what got me about this -- and when I then took that pattern and applied it to BtVS -- was that it falls flat if one of the two characters is obviously wrong. (This ties into my muddled meanderings on how many bad guys a storyline has, and the eventual conclusion that you don’t need more bad guys... you just need more genuine obstacles.) What made me care about the characters wasn’t just the general empathy created in a storyline with a character I can relate to on everyday human terms, but the conflict we’ve all felt when we’re faced with a friend (or potential friend) pointing out the flaws in our argument even when our side of the argument is valid.
On average, the books I’ve read, and shows I’ve watched, and movies I’ve seen, can often be boiled down to a very simple plot.
1. Joe wants A.
2. Jane wants B.
3. A and B conflict.
4. One of the two wins the day.
Add in the bias of the story-presentation making it clear that Joe, or Jane, is “Teh Big Bad!!!”, and the narrative’s work at getting we viewers/readers to sympathize with one POV, and you really have a rather flat plotline. In my opinion, at least: I’m not saying it doesn’t make for a good story. It can. It just doesn’t make for a story that’s truly compelling to me in a sense of still thinking about it days or weeks or even years later. The story opens, and I know almost right away -- assuming the back cover teaser didn’t tip me off -- that this story’s goal is “beat the bad guy and save the world”, or at least the character’s half, or whatever. Unless the story’s going to take a dystopic route or has that oh-so-depressing post-modern “we can never really win” kind of bleakness (oh, yes, Mieville, I am so looking at you), in general you can be pretty sure that the sympathetic guy introduced in chapter one may make a few mistakes, but his antagonist will only be superficially sympathetic, may be intriguing, but the resolution of good guy winning is one that will solve the issues with a positive and warm feeling.
And that’s where the final ah-hah comes into the picture, with a more recent series I’ve seen, called Code Geass. I must add a caveat here: I heard a great deal about this series, but the illustrators who did the character/world designs for the animation have a distinctly, uh, girly/androgynous style that I have always loathed. I just don’t like how it looks. Too, I do like me some robot/SFF series because hey, I am a secret (or not so secret) geeky-fan, but this series is only superficially about the mecha. For the most part, they could’ve replaced “bipedal robots” with “jet planes” or “tanks” or even “motor-scooters” and it wouldn’t have had a lot of impact on the plot. But oh, man, once I finally decided to set aside my prejudice about the visuals and pay attention to the much-lauded storyline... wow. I think I watched all 25 episodes in about two days. (No, I didn’t get a lot done. I was too busy trying to do a little between episodes before admitting I just had to see one more episode and then I’d run back to the computer to see if the next fansub had downloaded yet. Sigh.)
Anyway! Code Geass takes the war-politics issues of the Gundam series, and the broad “we’re all sincere in our beliefs” clash of Shogun and its ilk, and... just wow. In a nutshell, slightly-future Japan has been overrun and conquered by an empire-nation called Brittania, which subjugates the Japanese people and renames them as “elevens.” (I’m not even getting into the political ramifications in terms of the hot buttons this is pushing via real-world concerns of discrimination and subjugation and colonization, okay?) One Brittanian prince, Lelouche, was originally sent to Japan as a sort of political hostage; during the conquest, he was believed killed. He’s survived, living under a pseudonym and protected by a family loyal to his mother’s line. He’s filled with hatred for the Brittanian empire, seeing it -- and more specifically, the rest of the royal family -- as specifically guilty of his mother’s murder. Meanwhile, the son of the former Japanese Prime Minister, is now a young man in the Brittanian military; until he’s determined to be one of the few who can pilot a certain mecha, his chances for advancement are nil because of the built-in discrimination against “numbers” (that is, “an eleven”) ever achieving rank over “full-blood” Brittanians. Despite this overwhelming discrimination, Suzaku is convinced that the best way to change the system is to work from the inside, using peaceful means to bring about positive and lasting change and peace. Obviously -- since a story must have conflict -- Lelouche doesn’t agree.
Here’s the thing: they’re not only childhood friends, they’re also both right. Can you change everything from within the system? No. Does it really help your cause to wage a guerilla war that, despite taking down the enemy, may also harm the bystanders you’re trying to assist? No. Do the ends always justify the means? Probably not. Can being too gentle on the means cost more lives in the short-term, because you weren’t more emphatic about stopping an atrocity? Possibly. Lelouche’s methods are underhanded, cold, vicious, ruthless -- and yet, it’s his actions which really compel the majority of the changes (good and bad) in the world’s dynamics. Suzaku is sincere, honorable, and truly wants to achieve peace -- and yet his options for influence are hemmed in on nearly all sides by virtue of the dscrimination against anyone who looks, speaks, acts, or is, Japanese. The delicious irony (from my perspective as an analyzing author/viewer, at least) is that of the two, Suzaku is the bloodthirsty, angry, violent one -- which is why he fights so hard to keep a lid on himself, to force himself into the mold of being respectable, honorable, and righteous. Lelouche, on the other hand, is the gentle one who privately cries when he’s forced to make some of the toughest choices -- which is much of why he pushes himself to make the hard choices now, rather than draw out the pain for any longer than necessary.
In other words: Suzaku is held back by the knowledge that if he lets loose, he might just say, “kill everyone and let someone else sort it out.” (Okay, not completely, but there’s no mistaking that he does have a bloodthirsty, callous streak no matter how hard he tries to hide it.) For Suzaku, taking the slow, work-from-inside, approach is crucial because it’s the best, maybe only, cap on the potential to go full-throttle, which (in his experience) will only result in disastrous consequences. Lelouche, however, must go full-throttle, because if he slows down to recognize what he’s doing, then he’d have to admit it’s killing him -- thus his hard push for the goal of overthrowing Brittania is against his own internal clock of just how much more he can take before he cracks.
Brittania is not an innocent conquerer, either; more than a few times I was rather shocked at the brutality. Most teenager/young-adult series -- in Japan, Europe, or even the US -- do tend to, erm, “soften” issues like martial law. You’ll see police/soldiers lining people up, shoving them, yelling at them; in Code Geass, the military comes through and simply shoots on sight every man, woman, and child. It gives an entirely new meaning to the expression “redistricting,” and it’s not pretty, and it serves to highlight the immense cost of Suzaku’s wish to work change slowly... but also serves to illustrate the cost paid by innocent bystanders every time the military takes revenge for Lelouche’s guerilla warfare.
In the end (and there’s still a season two, so I will refrain from spoilers), I can only say that the final position of the viewer is that neither young man can win -- truly win in the sense of “beat the other” -- not just because they’re so equally matched... but because, as a viewer, I didn’t want either of them to lose. I could see the value and purpose behind their actions, and each mattered to me a great deal, because I could feel both sympathy, and empathy, for both. Although on the surface, the story was about rebels against a ruthless, even vicious, overlord, the conflict wasn’t in what to do, but in how to do it. When the means conflicted and contrasted so strongly between the two protagonists -- each, in turn, being the other’s antagonist -- it created a dynamic that really knocked the story out of the usual mecha-war-politics ballpark, and into some other genre I can’t quite name. It’s certainly not your older brother’s simple mecha series.
In sum, that’s my take on complex stories.
Still not convinced I have the skills to effectively pull it off (and to some degree, that’s why I’m rewriting again -- I’ve had trouble in the past drafts between balancing the need to push plot forward with tension, versus the fear that I’m losing readers by complexifying things via multi-POV input, versus sometimes just plain slacking on keeping a tight rein and then suddenly realizing the tone’s shifted dramatically into something more, uh, romantic and less tense-unhappy-conflicted). But, that long aside now aside, here’s what I’ve got. Input welcome, as well as any recommendations on any stories you’ve read/seen that also have this level of complexity.
(FWIW: no Stephen King. I only like the man’s short stories. I’ve never managed to get past about page 10 of any of his full-length novels. Dunno why, just doesn’t click for me.)
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no subject
Date: 5 Mar 2008 09:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 5 Mar 2008 09:23 pm (UTC)That's it. Hunt for Red October. I was almost positive the story had to be a thriller, but for some reason all I could think of were the Bourne stories, and those are intensely focused on a single POV (though not exclusively, IIRC). Yeah, Clancy rocks when it comes to balancing a huge variety of voices, even the tiny one-or-two scene voices.
Thanks!
no subject
Date: 5 Mar 2008 09:42 pm (UTC)Robert Jordan, too. If you want a fantasy example. The guy was absolutely brilliant with multiple POVs.
no subject
Date: 6 Mar 2008 01:25 am (UTC)And of course, GRRM is the classic example (in fantasy) of an insane number of deep POV characters.