Posted: 12 December 2018 at 10:36pm | IP Logged | 1
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Brian speaks the truth, as he often does.
This is the great danger of recklessly writing characters off-model: the off-model versions can become the default versions of characters for entire generations of audiences.
In recent years, I’ve seen so very many lame defenses for writing characters horribly off-model: “People change.” “It’s more realistic.” “We need to shake things up.” And so on and so forth. What they really tend to boil down to is ego, incompetence, negligence, willful vandalism, or some combination thereof.
Me, I’ve come to the conclusion that the best writing is that which adheres to the established, y’know, characteristics of a character. Where the core—the beating heart—of a good character is still recognizable even across numerous decades and changing tastes of both audiences and creators. The sort of writing where characters almost “write themselves”. Stan Lee had this experience on FANTASTIC FOUR. And, as I’ve recently noted elsewhere, the writers and actors of BREAKING BAD and BETTER CALL SAUL have pointed out that they are so deeply immersed in the characters that they’ve abandoned numerous interesting potential plotlines because they would require the characters to act and/or think out of character. Characters come before plot.
And that’s the real trick, I think. Strongly-defined characters have something there for writers to latch onto. A specific set of traits which define them, and dictate what they would say or do in virtually any situation. These stories are all fictional, of course, and so the writer has complete control over what happens. Good writing is what happens when a writer understands a character enough to create a picture of them which is logically consistent with their past behavior. Bad writing is when a character is pushed down a path because the writer wants to tell a specific story, or because they simply don’t understand a character.
Cyclops is an example of a great character who has been mishandled to the point of unrecognizablity. He used to be the shining star of the X-Men. The brooding leader. The master tactician. The Riker to Xavier’s Picard, who represented Xavier’s dream in the outside world. The man who won Jean’s heart, and loved her more than his own life.
The list in Andrew’s initial post is almost laughable, really. Completely alien to the character created by Lee and Kirby, and expanded upon by later creative teams (including our host, of course).
Edited by Greg Kirkman on 13 December 2018 at 10:18am
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