represent the result of harm, yo
15 Dec 2008 11:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaigouWhile reading (hah, more like rapid scanning in slight boredom), hit a line in the story and it just suddenly popped out at me. I'm sure you've read it a hundred times yourself, pick the variation of your choosing:
it saddened/frustrated/angered him to think of a girl/boy so [imply speshul character trait here] being trapped/forced/hurt like that
The reason this stuck out was due to a comment on my own WiP, about the issue of the power-holding character (ie the detective, the cop, the lawyer, the doctor, the spy, the agent, etc) taking a protective and/or helpful attitude towards the endangered [eg non-powered] character. The observation was basically that noblesse oblige only goes so far, and is an impersonal thing. (I'm not saying that doctors and cops are operating under n.oblige, only that if you think in terms of "authority" = "power" then it's not a far stretch.)
Over and over in stories about spies, cops, and all the rest, our white-hatted hero gets characterized not just as someone doing good because it's the Right Thing, or doing good solely for the sake of doing good, but also acting purposefully for a specific character. Plenty of times this is also taken as the lead-in to a romantic subplot, too: the victim just has that extra 'something' that makes our White Hat sit up and want to be all extra-protective.
CP's comment was that of course cops and doctors and the rest of the 'good guys' are in there to help the hopeless, etc. That's part of what defines the good guy. But I say it's more than that; it seems an expected point, especially in action-influenced genres, that you can't really have a good guy who doesn't -- at some point -- accept/extend this connection with a victim.
Because the victim (in the course of the story) represents the harm of the Bad. The victim is not so much a character, at least at first, as symbolic of all the harm potentially or actually caused by the big bad. So to feel a connection to the victim is really just a 'showing' of the good guy's dedication to preventing or resolving ill-doing.
Sometimes, too, we must be given backstory about our White Hat, a game most often played for grizzly gruff cops in their 40s who carry around a picture of a little girl brutally murdered whose killer was never found. (I'm not saying that doesn't happen; it does -- just that in literary terms, it's an authorial ploy.) By showing Mr Gruff being all misty-eyed over Past Victim, the author creates grounds for extending this into protective/care-for current or potential victim.
(Which is yet another reason I hate backstory, sometimes. If it's that well-trodden, then just skip it.)
The third reason this all gelled is because of a strange bit of dialogue in Mo No No Ke, which really jumped out at me when I finally got to see the official subtitle/translation. As the storyline kicks into its final big showdown, the Old Man of the family is being pressured to explain what may have caused this demon to come after the Sakai family. So far, at this point, it's killed five people, and Kusuri-uri (the medicine seller standing in for the cop, doctor, exorcist, etc) has realized that somehow this old man is at the center of things and/or knows the truth of the demon's grudge. When he asks for the old man to explain...
If you want to take a stab at translating Kusuri-uri's lines yourself, I uploaded a cleaned/filtered version to make the dialogue a bit more clear against the soundtrack's ambient background.
I list both because you can see there's obviously some ambiguity in the original text. CP often says that putting Japanese into English grammar would result in sentences that go something like "about the horse, I rode". In this case, I'd guess the construction might be "about whether or you are killed or are not killed, does not matter; about killing/cutting-down the beast is what matters".
The fact is that within the story's context, both interpretations are feasible. Up to this point, the old man has made no even a single move to defend himself from the demon ravaging through the household. It may be that "about whether..." could refer to his passivity. But while Kusuri-uri has attempted to warn the household away from certain danger, he's also shown as likely to be out of the way (by chance or by choice, hard to tell) and let them go screaming to a gruesome death. He protects, but to me it seems clearly to be a by-product of his main goal, which he states here quite explicitly to be the task of getting rid of the demon.
I've been trying to think of any major western storylines in which the White Hat has so plainly stated that the endangered character's life (regardless of guilt or innocence) is possibly irrelevant to the task of catching the bad guy. I expect we'd find such to be totally callous: look, another three victims, another twenty, what matters to me is getting this guy no matter how long it takes.
Yowser.
Naturally we'd get hollywood cramming down our throat, I expect, all sorts of backstory about how this guy doesn't really mean that, he's Mr Gruff because of this, that, or the other. That is, an absolute goal of "kill the demon and the rest be damned" just doesn't seem to show up in any storyline radar I can think of.
What stories am I missing? How else could it be read? Can a White Hat gain audience sympathy even if there is no connection and/or especial attachment to a symbolic victim? Would we believe a western-based character who has little to no care for the victim's eventual end, if we don't also get an entire biopic about the character's life to explain such dismissal?
Anyone?
it saddened/frustrated/angered him to think of a girl/boy so [imply speshul character trait here] being trapped/forced/hurt like that
The reason this stuck out was due to a comment on my own WiP, about the issue of the power-holding character (ie the detective, the cop, the lawyer, the doctor, the spy, the agent, etc) taking a protective and/or helpful attitude towards the endangered [eg non-powered] character. The observation was basically that noblesse oblige only goes so far, and is an impersonal thing. (I'm not saying that doctors and cops are operating under n.oblige, only that if you think in terms of "authority" = "power" then it's not a far stretch.)
Over and over in stories about spies, cops, and all the rest, our white-hatted hero gets characterized not just as someone doing good because it's the Right Thing, or doing good solely for the sake of doing good, but also acting purposefully for a specific character. Plenty of times this is also taken as the lead-in to a romantic subplot, too: the victim just has that extra 'something' that makes our White Hat sit up and want to be all extra-protective.
CP's comment was that of course cops and doctors and the rest of the 'good guys' are in there to help the hopeless, etc. That's part of what defines the good guy. But I say it's more than that; it seems an expected point, especially in action-influenced genres, that you can't really have a good guy who doesn't -- at some point -- accept/extend this connection with a victim.
Because the victim (in the course of the story) represents the harm of the Bad. The victim is not so much a character, at least at first, as symbolic of all the harm potentially or actually caused by the big bad. So to feel a connection to the victim is really just a 'showing' of the good guy's dedication to preventing or resolving ill-doing.
Sometimes, too, we must be given backstory about our White Hat, a game most often played for grizzly gruff cops in their 40s who carry around a picture of a little girl brutally murdered whose killer was never found. (I'm not saying that doesn't happen; it does -- just that in literary terms, it's an authorial ploy.) By showing Mr Gruff being all misty-eyed over Past Victim, the author creates grounds for extending this into protective/care-for current or potential victim.
(Which is yet another reason I hate backstory, sometimes. If it's that well-trodden, then just skip it.)
The third reason this all gelled is because of a strange bit of dialogue in Mo No No Ke, which really jumped out at me when I finally got to see the official subtitle/translation. As the storyline kicks into its final big showdown, the Old Man of the family is being pressured to explain what may have caused this demon to come after the Sakai family. So far, at this point, it's killed five people, and Kusuri-uri (the medicine seller standing in for the cop, doctor, exorcist, etc) has realized that somehow this old man is at the center of things and/or knows the truth of the demon's grudge. When he asks for the old man to explain...
| official subtitles | fan subtitles | |
| Sakai the Elder | The beast can't be held back anymore. Soon, I will be killed by that. | " " |
| Kusuri-uri | I don't care whether or not you are killed. The fact is that I have to cut the beast down. | To you, it doesn't matter if you survive or die, but to me, I must definitely kill it. |
| |
If you want to take a stab at translating Kusuri-uri's lines yourself, I uploaded a cleaned/filtered version to make the dialogue a bit more clear against the soundtrack's ambient background.
I list both because you can see there's obviously some ambiguity in the original text. CP often says that putting Japanese into English grammar would result in sentences that go something like "about the horse, I rode". In this case, I'd guess the construction might be "about whether or you are killed or are not killed, does not matter; about killing/cutting-down the beast is what matters".
The fact is that within the story's context, both interpretations are feasible. Up to this point, the old man has made no even a single move to defend himself from the demon ravaging through the household. It may be that "about whether..." could refer to his passivity. But while Kusuri-uri has attempted to warn the household away from certain danger, he's also shown as likely to be out of the way (by chance or by choice, hard to tell) and let them go screaming to a gruesome death. He protects, but to me it seems clearly to be a by-product of his main goal, which he states here quite explicitly to be the task of getting rid of the demon.
I've been trying to think of any major western storylines in which the White Hat has so plainly stated that the endangered character's life (regardless of guilt or innocence) is possibly irrelevant to the task of catching the bad guy. I expect we'd find such to be totally callous: look, another three victims, another twenty, what matters to me is getting this guy no matter how long it takes.
Yowser.
Naturally we'd get hollywood cramming down our throat, I expect, all sorts of backstory about how this guy doesn't really mean that, he's Mr Gruff because of this, that, or the other. That is, an absolute goal of "kill the demon and the rest be damned" just doesn't seem to show up in any storyline radar I can think of.
What stories am I missing? How else could it be read? Can a White Hat gain audience sympathy even if there is no connection and/or especial attachment to a symbolic victim? Would we believe a western-based character who has little to no care for the victim's eventual end, if we don't also get an entire biopic about the character's life to explain such dismissal?
Anyone?
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no subject
Date: 16 Dec 2008 08:01 am (UTC)...
I've been trying to think of any major western storylines in which the White Hat has so plainly stated that the endangered character's life (regardless of guilt or innocence) is possibly irrelevant to the task of catching the bad guy.
In Western canon this character is usually called the "anti-hero." I think recently the definition of the term has been extended to any character who isn't overtly heroic, but the type experienced a surge in popularity (I'd argue this is also where it was "born," as the character took a definite and defined shape, but others disagree) in 19th century Russian literature, where he (sadly always a he) was a character thrust into the role of savior who actively did not want it and even worked against realizing his new identity. A particular distinction was a marked lack of empathy for the people he was supposed to save, instead focusing on the task at hand so he could get back to his life.
In terms of the anti-hero in genre fiction... Spider Jerusalem of Ellis' Transmetropolitan comes to mind, though his general misanthropy (he tries to save the City not for the sake of the people in it, whom he usually abhors, but for the principle of not allowing evil to come to power) is tempered by a sympathy for (if not an identification with) children and other "innocents." Another example that sticks in my mind is the book by Eve Forward, Villains by Necessity, where she takes great delight in skewering overused Tolkein tropes about light vs dark by having the villains -- while still remaining villainous (i.e., uncaring of the pain their actions may inflict on others, so long as they survive and get the job done) -- be the saviors of the world.
I've also been told Donaldson's The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever is an anti-hero classic, but I'd have to read it myself. (I remember getting very grumpy about people labeling the characters of Joss Whedon's Firefly as anti-heroes, which they certainly were NOT.)
It's one of my favorite character types in fiction, so if you like I can go away and try to some back with a few more examples...
no subject
Date: 17 Dec 2008 03:56 am (UTC)For the ultimate anti-hero, at least in the SFF world, it'll probably always be Elric of Melniboné.
no subject
Date: 23 Dec 2008 04:03 am (UTC)Nope, no more than "actively works cross-purpose to the hero" automatically indicate a villain. But it's a broad indicator and general rule of thumb -- remember, this is humanities. No hard and fast rules.
that for a character to be a hero, s/he must have that connection, that caring for the victim. It's anti-heroes that don't.
"Anti-hero" is a subset of the hero archetype -- they don't cancel each other out, you can be both.
Elric of Melniboné
Eh, I'm not a Moorcock fan. (Helps that I don't much cleave to high fantasy in general.) Plus he always struck me as more of a tragic hero than anti- (more subsets)! But again, humanities and their breadth of interpretation.