Characters and fan entitlement

[athenaltena]

I should be in bed right now, but I had a thought. Those are quite annoying when it comes to wanting to sleep, but oh well.

I follow a comic where one particular character has gained a fairly large fanbase and a large amount of sympathy, but the creator did not intend for this and has made this abundantly clear. He says that the character lost all of her redeeming traits over time and that she wasn't supposed to be sympathetic, and he calls out the people who treat her sympathetically. Recently he updated the first chapter she appears in and made her negative traits come out much more obviously, and to me it just affirmed what I thought of the character from the start, mainly that she's an immature, whiny bitch who pushed away anyone who might have helped her and pretty much got what was coming to her.

But here's the thing: The people who like the character are angry that he did this, and seem to think that he doesn't know his own character and what she's "really" like. This strikes me as very odd and very entitled because he created the damn character and just because what he writes doesn't match up with someone's personal version of who she is doesn't mean that he's wrong.

I've been thinking about my own antagonist, and if people do sympathize with them I will be horrified because it will honestly be missing the point of who this person is and why they do what they do, so I can understand why this author reacted the way he did to people taking his character and casting her in a light he didn't intend. I know back when Harry Potter was being published there was (and still is) a large subset of people who idolize characters like Draco Malfoy who, let's be honest, are pricks or worse, and JK Rowling had pretty much the same reaction of "WTF is wrong with you people?!"

So my question is this: What "rights" does a creator have over their character, and on the flipside, what do the fans have, if anything, and do they have the right to say that the author's interpretation is less valid than their own? That's not to say that you can't tell someone that they did not write a character well or consistently, it's more whether the fans have the right to say that they know the "real" version as opposed to the person who created them.

Comments

[a-white-rain.livejournal.com]

Writer should get final say over everything (doesn't always happen if there is cowriter, editors, or if it's in screen play, directors etc). However, soon as the stuff is out there, it belongs to the readers.

Some crit is stupid (see: lots of Aang basing in Avatar fandom). However, it's the right of the readers to do as such. And it if really bothers people enough, drop the series. or write fix it fic.

[athenaltena.livejournal.com]

So, (just making sure I'm understanding you) if I say that character X is a sociopath who is incapable of forming any real relationships, that's okay? Or in the case of this author, if he says that the character lost all of her redeeming features?

I get what you mean by it "belonging" the fans what with the whole matter of subjective experience, but it's when people start going after the writer for not writing the character "their way" that I start to get annoyed.

[a-white-rain.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's okay, it's your stuff.

And, I'm the first to realize how annoying Fans Who Refuse To Get The Most Obvious Stuff are, but that's really part of the price when writing gets out there. I'm also a strong believer in the author is dead, as well.

[athenaltena.livejournal.com]

What's "the author is dead"? I don't think I've heard that term before.

[a-white-rain.livejournal.com]

Basically, as I've read it, authorial intent doesn't matter. I mean, it does in some circumstances. If we're talking unfinished stuff and the author has said, say, a pairing is going to happen directly, I think it's pretty stupid to debate on what will happen (not the same as debating if it's good).

And, of course, I enjoy hearing what writers say about their own work. And authorial intent can being interesting discussions sometimes. But basically, I think the intent has, as a whole, little meaning.

I mean who the fuck can say for sure what Homer was saying, or Shakespeare? They're dead. But there's still merit in discussing their stories.

[athenaltena.livejournal.com]

I think I get it, and I think the internet has lead to some blurring of that line (though Louisa May Alcott got crap for not pairing up Jo with the person some people wanted her to, so it's not like it's a new thing).

I can see where the idea of treating a story as a whole story comes from too, especially since many things end up being unintentionally on the writer's part. I didn't intend to write about the War on Terror, but it snuck in there without me realizing it and now I've just decided to go with it.

[a-white-rain.livejournal.com]

lols there is an interesting history on that. I'd suggest looking up the ship manifesto for them.

[athenaltena.livejournal.com]

The Jo thing? I know the abridged version of it, but it sounds like quite the story.

And of course pairings and ships are a whole 'nother realm of insanity when it comes to fans, so I'm not even going to touch that. ^^;

[a-white-rain.livejournal.com]

Basically she didn't want any ship at all for Jo. Fans kept insisiting that she should and it frustrated her because she wanted people to be into Jo as a person not as a wifefigure.

[aureantes.livejournal.com]

Hmm...yeah, her winding up in Fritz's arms always did strike me as a bit shoehorned/wrong for her, come to think of it. I was okay with Laurie and Amy getting together, because of their respective 'prettiness', and never really wanted Jo to get married either, I suppose, but I think there'd be real possibilities in an alternative Jo/Laurie 'ship where she's decidedly the dominant (as she clearly was) and marriage isn't even an issue.

Hmm....revolutionary Victorian-era BDSM, anyone...?

[kryptyd.livejournal.com]

I think that if a writer has any bit of subtlety at all then of course fans will have different opinions about the characters. Some people, myself included, simply think baddies are cool, and also that heros/goodies are often a bit boring/predictable/stupid/whatever. It's funny that you mention Draco. I didn't like him in those books, but I was a massive fan of Snape and as the books went on and got more and more annoying to me and the "good" characters displayed more and more deploreable traits (IMO) Snape became the only thing in the series I really cared about. Now I'm not for a moment saying he wasn't horrible. He most certainly was. But he was interesting and I sympathised with him, and enjoyed reading all sorts of fic where revisionism about him and other bad characters was rampant. I didn't think I knew better than JKR how he should be written, but I could find sympathy/an excuse for every thing he did in canon. For example the worst thing he did in the series I thought was use a racist slurr about Hermione, but I immediately thought that he was staying in character as a spy rather than being a big racist, and that turned out to be correct in the end as we saw he didn't really have any problem with mudbloods at all!

It's obvious that JKR and I disagree about what constitutes "good", but I don't think that means that I should have stoped reading her work, especially when I really enjoyed the fandom at the time; although that's getting into a slightly different issue. Wow, I'm going on and on,

Anyway, I don't know what story you're talking about here but to me it sound like a childish thing that the author did. Why couldn't he handle people having differing opinions about his character? He should have continued to write her with subtlety and let the fans form their own opinions of her, not bang people on the head with THIS IS A BAD MEAN CHARACTER! I don't mean this in an entitlement way, just what is the problem with people having an alternative take on your characters, even if you the author don't agree with it. Isn't that part of the artwork coming to life?

[athenaltena.livejournal.com]

I never actually read HP until the end (I dropped it around book 5 for reasons I've forgotten at this point) but I think it makes sense in Snape's case. It's more the revisionism that fans sometimes do to characters where they pretend that the worst things they do didn't happen, and while I'm fine with someone who says they like and sympathize with character x even though he did bad things y and z I draw the line when they pretend y and z didn't happen. Fanfic is something different, I more when they go after the author themselves.

The character in question isn't someone I hate per se, but she did a lot of unforgivable things (abusing a child for 10 years chief among them) and though I can't speak for the creator I know what annoys me about the people who are fighting with him is that they tend to ignore that part or try to justify it so she wasn't at fault for it, even though the entire point of that story arc is about taking responsibility for what you do. This updated version didn't really change the sequence of events, it just showed the perspective of the kid more clearly and made the motivations of the person who abused her more obvious (long story short she took out her frustration on someone who didn't deserve it and made an enemy out of her when she could have gained an ally). Part of the reason he did it was to make what happened later make more sense (this earlier version was written in 2003 and needed some updating anyway).

But yeah, I get that the author can't control how people interpret the characters, but when they go against the facts of what really happened because it doesn't fit their version is when I start to wonder about entitlement..

[riverwynne.livejournal.com]

I agree with what both [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] and [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] have said.

Some people just like the baddies. I happen to be one of them. I was in workshop with an author once that said that he usually found the antagonists to be more interesting protagonists because they weren't as predictable. It's the whole "Ooh! What is the bad guy going to next" thing.

A class I took this semester focused on literary theory, and as a our final paper we have to pick a work and theory and break it down. Some things the author intentionally puts in the story, sometimes they don't. Sometimes certain things are inferred depending on what crit you use. However, because we have all of these different literary theories, different readings and views can be teased out. (I hope this makes sense. I had a better explanation, but I hit the wrong button and Firefox ate it.)

As far as "Character entitlement" goes... once you put your characters out there, they are no long just yours. They are your readers too. People are going to disagree with you on where your taking your storyline and the way you're developing your characters. I don't agree with what the author did stating the way "This is the way she's supposed to be," but rather I think he should have let the fans keep their vision of her.

[athenaltena.livejournal.com]

Nothing wrong with liking the bad guys (in fact some of my favorite characters are not so much villains as just not very nice people, John Constantine comes to mind) and it is true that they often end up being more interesting than the "good guys." I've actually been thinking about that when it comes to my project, and one theory I have is that a lot of writers are afraid to give their "good guys" serious flaws, so they often come of as not being as interesting. Not sure how true that actually is, but it's one theory I have.

There does seem to be a fine line between the author being appropriate or not when it comes to telling people what the characters should be like, but there was a long history of people disagreeing with him on parts of one character, and pretty much any time she showed up a fight started (usually instigated by one or two people who seemed to think that this character could do no wrong).. I can't really blame him for getting frustrated with it since some people started implying nasty things about his personal life, but he tried to stay out of it for the most part. So ironically like the character it's not something he probably should have done, but why he did it is understandable.

[riverwynne.livejournal.com]

I agree with you. I think a "good guy" needs flaws to make them likable and "real". There's also the Mary Sue/Gary Stu Factor. The character is has no flaws and everybody likes them, they can do no wrong etc.

I can see why he would be frustrated and upset about it then. It sounds like these people really like to stir the pot.

[athenaltena.livejournal.com]

I've actually made it a point to give pretty much everyone I write some negative sides, and since I'm going for grey morality for the most part (except for one person, who is pretty much a sociopath) and I think it makes things more interesting. I actually have a note about the real bad guy not to make them a mustache twirler since that's an overdone character type and not very interesting. I hate what this character does, but I try to make them interesting.

(Forgive my possibly improper use of "they" but I don't want to give away too much in case I end up putting said story up here at some point, don't really want to spoil it. ;))

I feel bad for this particular author since he gets a lot of crap, and though I don't always agree with him he doesn't deserve a good part of it. The fact that he doesn't speak English as a first language makes him look more crass than he actually is when he responds to people, but every time I've had to deal with him he's been perfectly pleasant if you keep that in mind.

[aureantes.livejournal.com]

It's pretty much conventional wisdom that designated villains do tend to "have more fun" when it comes to acting, and that it's easy to make supporting characters more interesting as people than the lead roles are...the self-censorship that comes into play when trying to write or portray "good" characters for an audience can really bog and blanden them down with stereotypical expectations, and I know from my experience roleplaying that it takes a certain degree of neuroticism, shadows, sleaziness, kinkiness, sociopathy or other complications to make a character (canon or not) interesting enough for me to sustain playing them. Unequivocal (or even red-bloodedly healthy "normal") "good guys" are hard enough to play straight..."good girls" are basically impossible for me to get into, as they bear a double load (or more) of cultural pressure.

[kawakiisakazuki.livejournal.com]

I think ideally an author should stay out of fandom as much as possible, even if it may seem really hard. Any story will always tell a lot about you that you didn't intentionally put in. Maybe the evil villain reflects some basic truth about the human condition that the author doesn't even realise but that resonates with fans, or something like that. I think the author should focus on telling the story the way they want to, not trying to control the way how others read it. That will never work anyway.