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Last writing ramble for awhile*
Oct. 3rd, 2004 10:15 amRead an odd fan fic yesterday. Or rather, I read half of a disturbing (to me)fan fic and skimmed the rest. In it, Shane Helms is Bradshaw's mistreated sex slave. Over the course of the story they wind up hanging out with some other masters and slaves, and the scene builds to the three masters gang raping one of the slaves.
Now Shane knows exactly what's going on and he knows the other slave is not enjoying the rape, but rather than help the slave he uses the moment to escape. And when he rescued by a new, kind master minutess later he makes no mention of the being raped slave. He just leaves the scene happily rescued.
That floored me. CANON!HELMS IS A SUPERHERO. Superheroes help people. They do not leave people to suffer. And decent people, superheroesque or not, do their best to help people. If they cannot prevent a crime, THEY CALL 911.
Now, granted, I loves me some noble heroes. I love characters doing the right thing no matter what the consequences. I love characters whose morals and fears are in conflict. So maybe I'm re-acting to the story subjectively rather than objectively.
But...
In fiction, be it original or fan, I think certain attributes are expected out of protagonists. Heroes (in the protagonist sense, not necessarily the heroic sense) have to be just a little more "good" or ethical than what we expect out of people in real life. Like in real life, I wouldn't expect anyone to run into a burning building to save a pet, but in fiction I expect the character to either:
A) Run in and save that pet.
B) Feel tremendous guilt because he didn't
Unless the point of a story is anti-heroism, I expect fictional characters to behave a tick or two higher on the Do the Right Thing meter. It's fiction. I want prettied up (or uglifed) moments of humanity. If I cared how people truly, truly behaved, I'd go sit in the mall food court and eavesdrop.
And that idea creates a little bit of a dilemma for me. Keeping a character "in character" is important to me, but so is creating an interesting/sympathetic character for my story. Fan fic needs to be satisfying at a fan level and at a story level. Stay too "in character" and I think the story suffers because it's not heroic enough. Go too fictionalized and the basic promise of fan fic (a story about an already established character)is broken.
* Yeah, right.
Now Shane knows exactly what's going on and he knows the other slave is not enjoying the rape, but rather than help the slave he uses the moment to escape. And when he rescued by a new, kind master minutess later he makes no mention of the being raped slave. He just leaves the scene happily rescued.
That floored me. CANON!HELMS IS A SUPERHERO. Superheroes help people. They do not leave people to suffer. And decent people, superheroesque or not, do their best to help people. If they cannot prevent a crime, THEY CALL 911.
Now, granted, I loves me some noble heroes. I love characters doing the right thing no matter what the consequences. I love characters whose morals and fears are in conflict. So maybe I'm re-acting to the story subjectively rather than objectively.
But...
In fiction, be it original or fan, I think certain attributes are expected out of protagonists. Heroes (in the protagonist sense, not necessarily the heroic sense) have to be just a little more "good" or ethical than what we expect out of people in real life. Like in real life, I wouldn't expect anyone to run into a burning building to save a pet, but in fiction I expect the character to either:
A) Run in and save that pet.
B) Feel tremendous guilt because he didn't
Unless the point of a story is anti-heroism, I expect fictional characters to behave a tick or two higher on the Do the Right Thing meter. It's fiction. I want prettied up (or uglifed) moments of humanity. If I cared how people truly, truly behaved, I'd go sit in the mall food court and eavesdrop.
And that idea creates a little bit of a dilemma for me. Keeping a character "in character" is important to me, but so is creating an interesting/sympathetic character for my story. Fan fic needs to be satisfying at a fan level and at a story level. Stay too "in character" and I think the story suffers because it's not heroic enough. Go too fictionalized and the basic promise of fan fic (a story about an already established character)is broken.
* Yeah, right.
