Poll time!

[author_by_night]

This is in response to another poll a friend did regarding characters that were messed up because of bad writing. So here's my question - can writers (of shows, books or movies) mess up characters?[Poll #1673373]

Comments

[sheryden.livejournal.com]

Writers are not omnipotent. They can and often do screw up, and I say that as a writer myself.

[govcampbell.livejournal.com]

Book authors, by definition can't mess up their own characters. They are how they wrote them, and if you don't like it, that's not the author's fault.

On the other hand, I've seen many a TV show where the original writers have left and the new writers have completely changed the character, to the detriment of the show. It destroys the feeling of the show. Prime example: The West Wing was never quite the same after Aaron Sorkin left the show. I thought some of the characters lost their way after he left.

[akashasheiress.livejournal.com]

I think it sort of depends. On a show like Doctor Who, for instance, where there's been a myriad of producers and writers over the past 47 years and nobody can be said to ''own'' the show, I can see that being a very legitimate complaint, but also a matter of taste. This is also true for other shows, movies and literature where certain themes, values and character traits have already been firmly established.

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

I think the longer a series goes on, the more likely the authors/creators will have their characters do things that feel "wrong" for that character. Mostly what I think it is, is that the authors are rushed and we don't get to see exactly how the characters got there.

My prime examples are Remus Lupin from HP early in book 7 where Harry fusses at him and pretty much Willow the entirety of season 6 of Buffy.

[hinotori.livejournal.com]

+1 for the Remus thing, that would've been my example as well.

How to explain this ... I think that good characters develop a life of their own, and when those lives don't converge with what the authors want from the plot, they try to force them to suit the plot. And that kind of thing shows.

[magikcat112.livejournal.com]

Normally, in terms of characterization what authors write should be accepted as what that character is. "Bad writing" is often a term for "I would've done it differently".

However, authors can take you down one road, and then do a one-eighty on a decision that you aren't sure how they got there (for example, if Harry had killed the Death Eaters at the cafe in book seven, it would've made me confused, because all his decisions up until then made it clear killing isn't his thing).

I also think that an author can make a character so unrealistic that nothing about them seems "right". Bella from Twilight first comes to mind (I once forced myself through the series to find out what the hype was about). Edward leaves her like yesterday's laundry, and when he comes back there's "nothing to forgive"? Please--you take a poll on teenage girls, I guarantee it that "there's nothing to forgive" won't be the first thing that comes to mind. I won't even go into her reaction to having a vampire watching her sleep.

[lokrur.livejournal.com]

This is an interesting question. I think it depends. In theory writers own the characters and create them and therefore they should be able to know everything about the characters and whatever they write is a part their creation and therefore justifiable.

But sometimes writers are not good enough to do their characters justice - make a possibly intersting character two dimensional, because they don't have the ability to show the third dimension. And then there are always cases when all of a sudden a character takes a u-turn, and either he or his actions change drastically without any explanation.

[bitchet.livejournal.com]

Writers can develop characters poorly or inconsistently but that does not make the character OOC. Sadly, what happens in canon is part of the character, crap though it may be.

(I will say that tv might be different from books or even movies as tv is written by different people and has different showrunners. But, even then, what happens is still canon and still part of the character's history.)

[white-serpent.livejournal.com]

I think sometimes writers have a plot in mind and the character is required to do things for the plot that don't make sense in the context of what's been previously established by the author.

An example here would be Melrose Plant in Martha Grimes' books. In one of the earlier books in the series, we tap into one of his childhood memories of being on a fox hunt, smeared with the blood at the end-- and horrifically traumatized, etc., etc. One of the worst experiences of his childhood.

In a later book, the plot she had set up involved him hunting-- and it was all jolly fun and this memory which was so significant to him in a previous book didn't come up at all. (I could understand him making a conscious effort to get beyond it, or realizing as an adult that he'd overreacted... or, really, just something.)

This is a screw-up on the writer's part. She clearly forgot about this by the time she got to the later books. (And, believe me, a lot of readers remembered it quite well.)

In other cases, things aren't really screw-ups, they're because the reader invests a lot in a character and thinks the character is "just like them." Then the character does something that "they wouldn't do", and the outrage begins.

But real mistakes do happen.

[vifetoile.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, I forgot to add 'Snow Flower and the Secret Fan'! That book screwed over this one character, Beautiful Moon. The author writes this book that's really focusing on the two principal characters, but Beautiful Moon is their nice, kind of personality-less friend. And then when they're all getting ready for their adult lives, I think it becomes pretty clear that the author can't think of what to do with Beautiful Moon.

So, in the one day in thirteen years that she gets to sit outside (no kidding, this is set in China, where upperclass women stayed inside ALL THE TIME), she gets randomly stung by a bee, has an allergic reaction, and dies. Horribly.

That's just plain carelessness, just "I have run out of ideas, here, death." Not even going into the hideous miscommunication and wangst conflict that she introduces in Act Three.

[vifetoile.livejournal.com]

And then 'Heroes.' Oh, 'Heroes.' But Heroes I think failed in part because they listened way too much to the fans, instead of doing what was right for the story. So they went with what they thought would be popular, and it backfired because it was horribly handled, and because popular stuff is usually dumb.

On the other hand, sometimes authors make character choices that make sense to the Author, and make sense in a certain way, but not to the Reader. Like Susan in Chronicles of Narnia. Or Shylock at the end of The Merchant of Venice. These things may be done with the best of intentions, and good reasons, but they don't make sense to the fans. That's a matter of interpretation.

But sometimes the authors are stupid. And they... I don't know, let the plot override characters, or refuse to change their beloved characters even for some badly needed character development.