and now, yet another spin-off
6 Feb 2006 01:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaigouThe previous thread got me thinking about nicknames, and not just the specifics of what we call lovers. I think one of the issues in fanfic (or any fic) about nicknames is that often writers don't actually think about the characters as individuals, complete independent individuals, and assess how a 'real' person might react. The characters are pixels to be moved about on the screen, and aren't always accorded serious thought in terms of 'would this person really permit this nickname to be used, let alone actually appreciate it'?
I didn't really have any nicknames in school, except for one or two very close friends, each of whom had their own personal nicknames for me. So my first major introduction to the power of nicknames was when we attended my mother's college reunion and some woman came running up to my mom, calling my mom by her maiden name. Mom was disgusted with this (though she smiled and chatted cheerfully like a good Southerner); after the woman left, my mother commented, "she called me by my last name, and I hate that. Only friends can call me by my last name, and she and I weren't friends in college." The woman had pre-empted a level of intimacy between herself and my mother, and for my mother, this rankled.
Now, multiply that by ten, given that the majority of fandoms I like are ones in which the male (and often female) characters do have the power to kick the average mortal's ass for presumptions (even if not all would). I can easily see Neji, in Naruto, not even pausing to respond other than to stab with two fingers and disable the person who dared call him Ne-chan if this person were one that Neji didn't see as having that right of intimacy -- and then he'd keep walking. Heero? That gun that never actually shoots Duo or Relena? I think we'd see it fired damn fast if he were called Hee-kun, let alone Hee-chan. Quatre might just ignore the nickname altogether, and not dignify it with a response. Trowa would stare blankly, perhaps; Wufei would level the person with a punch. Naruto would bristle, Sakura would punch the person, Ed (FmA) would go into fits, Alphonse would politely dissuade the person.
There's a second level to it, too, I think. Hinata might be the only person who could use the honorific (passing somewhat for a nickname in this context) of Neji-chan, but this isn't just because they're cousins. It might also be because Neji, in his delightfully warped way, sees her as a non-threat and thus her use of a nickname (which indicates a level of emotional intimacy) is not a danger to him. Think of your younger siblings or younger cousins who call you Dayday because they can't pronounce 'Kathy' or call you 'Cousin Wobby' as a holdover from the days when the R was a hard sound to manage. They get a free ride on an otherwise ridiculous nickname, but if one of your friends were to tease you with the name 'Cousin Wobby' you just might get a bit aggravated -- even if this is an otherwise good friend. It's still calling on a level of intimacy and back-history that's above and beyond, or different, from what you have with that friend, and we rarely allow such areas to mix and match. Wobby is your nephew's name for you; Rob is your friends' name for you, and to mix them feels wrong and uncomfortable somehow. Why would it be any different for a character? Some level of versimilitude is what we seek, after all.
Nicknames, to a certain degree, are infantilizing. "Babe," "pookie," "sweetie," are ones I've heard lovers use with each other, and there is a level of babying that does make sense--it creates a sensation for lovers of being protected, of being take care of, of being sheltered, just as young children are by their parents. But come on; the characters I appreciate are not characters who might really take well to being protected and sheltered; it's their very independence that attracted me in the first place, their strength against the odds, their determination to be strong on their own two feet. These aren't likely to be people to say, "oh, yes, treat me like I'm five!" as if they haven't spent the entirety of the series (and possibly pre-series) struggling to be treated like anything but a helpless infant.
(I suspect the infantilizing nicknames are as much a way of cutting these overly strong characters down to size as the tendency to turn the boy characters into girls and the girl characters into psychotic bitches.)
And it's not just who accepts a nickname but who uses it, too. Naruto uses 'Sakura-chan', but IIRC, he doesn't use an honorific for Sasuke. Duo never uses an honorific for anyone, and neither does Heero. Relena gives all the males her age a -kun honorific. Konohamaru gives Naruto the 'big brother' nickname, doesn't he? Anyway, Naruto using 'chan' for Sakura is, I think, indication of his attempt to claim some level of emotional familiarity with her as a female teammate (and as an extension of his crush on her), that is, as opposed to -san. But, as I understand it, the honorifics in Japanese are a great deal like my mother's experience in college: one's last name, used by friends, is actually an indication of greater closeness than one's first name. Look at the difference between, say, calling to one person, "Miss Sakura!" versus "yo, Uchiha." Even Americans, lacking formal honorifics, would see the second as being of greater familiarity and likely equality (at least from the perspective of the speaker). If the second person addressed turns around and punches the speaker and says, "don't call me that," then we'd know this familiarity was presumptuous on the speaker's part. And if the first person addressed frowned and said, "please, just call me Sakura," then we know the speaker was actually introducing more distance, not less, by the use of title plus first name.
Granted, all this is really something that boils down to "think about the characters and the situation before tossing this shit out." It's almost impossible to do rules-of-thumb, since a good writer could convince you of just about anything at any time. But we do, as social creatures, have some very clear (if rarely verbally defined) personal rules about the use of names in particular places. If you're at work and your mother comes by to take you for lunch and calls you by a childhood nickname, you're probably going to rankle, even if you don't show it outwardly -- your mother has, in your place of work as an adult, just reduced you (however unintentionally) to the state of a child, by reminding you of that part of your relationship. But when the family gets together at Thanksgiving? Everyone might be calling you by your family nickname and you wouldn't think twice. Duo might, upon occasion, call Heero 'Hee' or 'Ro' or even 'Yuy' but if 'Heero' is what we see Duo using in a business (or battle) context, then any deviation is going to be noticed by Heero and possibly remarked upon. If you've ever worked with someone you're dating (or living with), then you probably are aware of the discomfort if your lover slips and calls you 'pookie' while at work: that's your 'with-lover' persona, not your 'now-at-work' persona. We don't often like to have the lines crossed.
The reason it's impossible to do rules-of-thumb is because there are times when using inappropriate nicknames can be a strong, if subtle, demonstration of character interaction. A character who creates nicknames for everyone is someone taking familiarity before it's granted; it might be a sign of insecurity, or clinginess, or arrogance that s/he controls the speed of familiarity. A character who consistently refuses nicknames shows distance, refusal to grant intimacy. Using a personal nickname in a public/impersonal environment could be a way for one character to 'jolt' another; say, if Wufei were about to go ballistic, Duo calling him Wu-kun could be a skillful (if suicidal) way to distract Wufei from his fury with another point and transfer it onto Duo. With friends, sometimes we do that, and claiming a level of familiarity (or distance) is a much subtler -- if only because we react without thinking and don't always process why we're reacting like that -- way to manipulate.
And now, my lovely independent sap-hating minions, discuss!
I didn't really have any nicknames in school, except for one or two very close friends, each of whom had their own personal nicknames for me. So my first major introduction to the power of nicknames was when we attended my mother's college reunion and some woman came running up to my mom, calling my mom by her maiden name. Mom was disgusted with this (though she smiled and chatted cheerfully like a good Southerner); after the woman left, my mother commented, "she called me by my last name, and I hate that. Only friends can call me by my last name, and she and I weren't friends in college." The woman had pre-empted a level of intimacy between herself and my mother, and for my mother, this rankled.
Now, multiply that by ten, given that the majority of fandoms I like are ones in which the male (and often female) characters do have the power to kick the average mortal's ass for presumptions (even if not all would). I can easily see Neji, in Naruto, not even pausing to respond other than to stab with two fingers and disable the person who dared call him Ne-chan if this person were one that Neji didn't see as having that right of intimacy -- and then he'd keep walking. Heero? That gun that never actually shoots Duo or Relena? I think we'd see it fired damn fast if he were called Hee-kun, let alone Hee-chan. Quatre might just ignore the nickname altogether, and not dignify it with a response. Trowa would stare blankly, perhaps; Wufei would level the person with a punch. Naruto would bristle, Sakura would punch the person, Ed (FmA) would go into fits, Alphonse would politely dissuade the person.
There's a second level to it, too, I think. Hinata might be the only person who could use the honorific (passing somewhat for a nickname in this context) of Neji-chan, but this isn't just because they're cousins. It might also be because Neji, in his delightfully warped way, sees her as a non-threat and thus her use of a nickname (which indicates a level of emotional intimacy) is not a danger to him. Think of your younger siblings or younger cousins who call you Dayday because they can't pronounce 'Kathy' or call you 'Cousin Wobby' as a holdover from the days when the R was a hard sound to manage. They get a free ride on an otherwise ridiculous nickname, but if one of your friends were to tease you with the name 'Cousin Wobby' you just might get a bit aggravated -- even if this is an otherwise good friend. It's still calling on a level of intimacy and back-history that's above and beyond, or different, from what you have with that friend, and we rarely allow such areas to mix and match. Wobby is your nephew's name for you; Rob is your friends' name for you, and to mix them feels wrong and uncomfortable somehow. Why would it be any different for a character? Some level of versimilitude is what we seek, after all.
Nicknames, to a certain degree, are infantilizing. "Babe," "pookie," "sweetie," are ones I've heard lovers use with each other, and there is a level of babying that does make sense--it creates a sensation for lovers of being protected, of being take care of, of being sheltered, just as young children are by their parents. But come on; the characters I appreciate are not characters who might really take well to being protected and sheltered; it's their very independence that attracted me in the first place, their strength against the odds, their determination to be strong on their own two feet. These aren't likely to be people to say, "oh, yes, treat me like I'm five!" as if they haven't spent the entirety of the series (and possibly pre-series) struggling to be treated like anything but a helpless infant.
(I suspect the infantilizing nicknames are as much a way of cutting these overly strong characters down to size as the tendency to turn the boy characters into girls and the girl characters into psychotic bitches.)
And it's not just who accepts a nickname but who uses it, too. Naruto uses 'Sakura-chan', but IIRC, he doesn't use an honorific for Sasuke. Duo never uses an honorific for anyone, and neither does Heero. Relena gives all the males her age a -kun honorific. Konohamaru gives Naruto the 'big brother' nickname, doesn't he? Anyway, Naruto using 'chan' for Sakura is, I think, indication of his attempt to claim some level of emotional familiarity with her as a female teammate (and as an extension of his crush on her), that is, as opposed to -san. But, as I understand it, the honorifics in Japanese are a great deal like my mother's experience in college: one's last name, used by friends, is actually an indication of greater closeness than one's first name. Look at the difference between, say, calling to one person, "Miss Sakura!" versus "yo, Uchiha." Even Americans, lacking formal honorifics, would see the second as being of greater familiarity and likely equality (at least from the perspective of the speaker). If the second person addressed turns around and punches the speaker and says, "don't call me that," then we'd know this familiarity was presumptuous on the speaker's part. And if the first person addressed frowned and said, "please, just call me Sakura," then we know the speaker was actually introducing more distance, not less, by the use of title plus first name.
Granted, all this is really something that boils down to "think about the characters and the situation before tossing this shit out." It's almost impossible to do rules-of-thumb, since a good writer could convince you of just about anything at any time. But we do, as social creatures, have some very clear (if rarely verbally defined) personal rules about the use of names in particular places. If you're at work and your mother comes by to take you for lunch and calls you by a childhood nickname, you're probably going to rankle, even if you don't show it outwardly -- your mother has, in your place of work as an adult, just reduced you (however unintentionally) to the state of a child, by reminding you of that part of your relationship. But when the family gets together at Thanksgiving? Everyone might be calling you by your family nickname and you wouldn't think twice. Duo might, upon occasion, call Heero 'Hee' or 'Ro' or even 'Yuy' but if 'Heero' is what we see Duo using in a business (or battle) context, then any deviation is going to be noticed by Heero and possibly remarked upon. If you've ever worked with someone you're dating (or living with), then you probably are aware of the discomfort if your lover slips and calls you 'pookie' while at work: that's your 'with-lover' persona, not your 'now-at-work' persona. We don't often like to have the lines crossed.
The reason it's impossible to do rules-of-thumb is because there are times when using inappropriate nicknames can be a strong, if subtle, demonstration of character interaction. A character who creates nicknames for everyone is someone taking familiarity before it's granted; it might be a sign of insecurity, or clinginess, or arrogance that s/he controls the speed of familiarity. A character who consistently refuses nicknames shows distance, refusal to grant intimacy. Using a personal nickname in a public/impersonal environment could be a way for one character to 'jolt' another; say, if Wufei were about to go ballistic, Duo calling him Wu-kun could be a skillful (if suicidal) way to distract Wufei from his fury with another point and transfer it onto Duo. With friends, sometimes we do that, and claiming a level of familiarity (or distance) is a much subtler -- if only because we react without thinking and don't always process why we're reacting like that -- way to manipulate.
And now, my lovely independent sap-hating minions, discuss!
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no subject
Date: 6 Feb 2006 09:17 pm (UTC)As for nicknames for lovers ... seeing one of the guys calling his lover 'little one' makes me want to cause something a lot of pain. 'Babe' and 'baby' are the ones I see most often and they make me cringe, but I don't know whether that counts as I hate that nickname in general. I can't see any of the G-boys calling each other 'sweetie' or 'pookie' either x_x. [shudders] Unless, again, it's done just to annoy someone. Then ... possibly. But I may be able to see them using things like 'lover', 'gorgeous', 'handsome' and 'sexy', depending on the setting.
The use of a last name as a nickname is an interesting one. From what I've seen, it could go anywhere from being only a little more familiar than calling someone a Mr. or a Mrs. 'last name' to being even more familiar than calling someone by their first name o_O.
no subject
Date: 6 Feb 2006 09:44 pm (UTC)Naruto, on the other hand, is so tenuous with his social standing, so constantly on the outs, so rarely recognized, that he himself (to some degree) has internalized the villagers' attitude. Yet at the same time, he's determined to make something of himself, and I think that conflict shows up in the way he reacts/honorificizes (guh!) those around him: he's reminding himself, and them, that he's within the circle permitted to use such titles, that he's playing by the rules. His boisterousness comes out in that he does not (that I recall) give honorifics to those he sees as his opponents/equals (Neji, Sasuke, Kiba, Shino, etc) -- he's pushing the boundaries just a little in terms of what he can get away with, but he doesn't do that with just everyone.
Notice the only ones who get nicknames from Naruto are Lee and Jiraiya, both of whom are (to some degree) not really part of hte 'in' crowd (that is, Naruto doesn't know Jiraiya is Sannin until he's already designated the nickname). Fuzzy Eyebrows and Perverted Hermit are, possibly, a way for Naruto to be familiar with them, on some level. Naruto is like that, after all; he does draw people out, especially those on the outside, like himself. But nicknames in this sense aren't just to acknowledge a connection, but also designating that Naruto feels comfortable taking that quicker-into-familiar step; perhaps he's not threatened by either (at least at first).
Oi, I am rambly today.
no subject
Date: 7 Feb 2006 10:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Feb 2006 10:25 pm (UTC)Hrm. Could also be that Naruto nicknames those who truly intimidate him, so to put them on a lower level (of a sort) -- Lee, after all, may not have jutsu but his hardworking soul makes Naruto look like he's been sleeping for the past twelve years. Jiraiya and Ebisu are each high-level ninja, much higher than Naruto, despite his quick assumption that he could handle either of them easily...
Food for thought.