I've been talking about the various shades of heroes, focusing mostly on those who might not seem like the traditional hero -- the ones who are darker or flawed. These days, though, it seems like it's easier to get audiences interested in these darker heroes than in the traditional good guy. I was recently on a convention panel about bad boys vs. good guys, and someone said that the good guys are boring, which is why people like the darker heroes more. I said that if your good guy is boring, then you're doing it wrong. But how do you write a good guy people will like?
First, you have to like the character. If you think your white-hat hero is a sanctimonious, boring goody-goody, you can't expect your readers to like him. If you're not doing that on purpose because you think it's a twist to have the white-hat guy be a jerk and the darker guy be the real good guy, then think again about why you want this character in your story. If this isn't the sort of character you can write well, then don't try to make it work. Go ahead and write the character who appeals to you.
A nice guy doesn't have to be perfect. Another comment made at that panel was that it's hard to relate to a pure and perfect hero. My response was that the hero doesn't have to be pure and perfect to be good. Even the best people with the noblest intentions can make mistakes or fail. Attempting to do something nearly impossible and having a bad outcome or being misled by someone with evil intentions doesn't even create a shade of gray. Good people can have bad moods, be discouraged or snap at people. Good people can have flaws and blind spots. A generally positive trait can become a flaw in some circumstances. Being too trusting or too self-sacrificing can be a flaw. Good people can have fears and phobias and weaknesses that they try to resist.
It also helps if the hero doesn't see himself as perfect and if other characters recognize his flaws. I think this is the main thing that's turned audiences off of a lot of the traditional heroes. Writers forget to have the hero recognize his own flaws or be at all self-critical. The guy who's noble and righteous and who sees himself that way can come across as a bit of a jerk or holier than thou. In real life, people are often harder on themselves than anyone else can be, and they're more conscious of their own flaws than other people are. You don't want to overdo this, though, where the hero is constantly beating himself up for invisible flaws, to the point where it looks like the hero's biggest flaw is that he doesn't realize how awesome he is. He just needs to be realistic about himself and aware that he isn't perfect while he tries to improve. On the other hand, it can really help gain audience support if the hero is a bit of an underdog, if the other characters underestimate him, dwell on his flaws or misinterpret his motives. That generally works a lot better than if the other characters are full of non-stop praise or if they don't seem to see flaws that are obvious to the audience.
It's okay for the white-hat good guy to have a sense of humor. That seems to be another misconception about this kind of character. I keep seeing the Luke Skywalker vs. Han Solo comparison when the good boys vs. bad boys issue comes up, with the idea that you get the bad boy Han Solo with all the funny quips and boringly earnest Luke Skywalker. But if you really look at those movies, Luke is very funny, as well. I got sucked into one of the marathons on cable a while ago, and I was astonished by just how many of the funny lines or funny reactions came from Luke. He wasn't at all humorless. He was actually quite snarky, he had Han's number from the start, knowing just how to manipulate him, and he gave as good as he got from Han. If you let your good guy have a sense of humor and give him some of the good lines instead of reserving all the fun stuff for the bad boy, you'll go a long way toward making him someone we want to cheer for.
When you're writing a more traditional good guy hero, take advantage of the possibilities inherent in the character. One of these is contrast. You can get a lot of drama and humor out of a contrast between character and situation. A dark bad boy hero in a dark, dangerous world isn't all that interesting. Put an earnest nice guy in that dark, dangerous world, and you've got something you can play with. There's also a lot more potential drama and angst about putting someone with a strong moral compass into an impossible situation. The darker hero may be more of a pragmatist and able to make the rational decision, even if it's a lesser of two evils. The guy who really believes in doing no harm and who has lines he can't make himself cross is going to have a lot more trouble when he's between a rock and a hard place that involves a moral dilemma in a choice between two evils or two mutually exclusive goods. But trying to make a moral choice doesn't mean a good guy has to be stupid or that you have to frame the situation that way -- like the common trope where it's presented that the good guy killing the bad guy who is in the process of killing or hurting multiple people is somehow an evil act, so in order to remain truly good, the good guy can't really do anything. And sure, lots of innocent people died, but the good guy's hands remain clean, and that's good! You have to let your good guy be smart. He can feel bad about being forced to kill someone, even as he recognizes it as the right thing to do, without him turning to the dark side because he killed the villain. Screwy morality is one of the big things hampering the good guys in fiction.
I've been using the masculine pronoun here for simplicity, although it applies to all heroes. However, it's a lot trickier with a female protagonist because it seems like audiences are harder on them, and a lot of the criticism comes from women. A white-hat heroine who's at all competent is likely to be labeled a Mary Sue and dismissed. That's why it's important to let a character have flaws that are recognized. Sadly, it seems like a female character who's at all confident in herself will be labeled a bitch. On the other hand, the dark bad girl generally has to act like a man in drag and will be criticized if she acts at all feminine. I don't really know what the solution is, other than to try to write decent female characters while ignoring the inevitable backlash criticism and support as a reader or audience member the good female characters who are out there.
Showing posts with label heroes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label heroes. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Dark Heroes and Anti-Heroes
I'm still talking about heroes and the different kinds of them. In today's market, the dark hero or anti-hero is very popular. If you want to get technical, according to most of the writing books I have, an "anti-hero" is someone who would usually be a villain in the role of protagonist. That would be something like a story about a pirate in which we're encouraged to cheer for him evading the Royal Navy, a bank robber in which we're hoping he'll elude the police, mobster stories, heist and caper stories, etc. But people often use the term anti-hero to describe a hero who does things that aren't generally considered "heroic" -- the hero who's more violent than he should be, who breaks the law or bends the rules in the name of the greater good. I'd generally consider that a "dark" hero, but the lines get blurry, and some characters cross over the lines, so I'll discuss both in the same post.
If we're going by the technical definition, I think the main dividing line between a dark hero and an anti-hero would be whether the hero is doing what he's doing for the greater good. A dark hero might be doing illegal things, but he's doing so because they're necessary for a cause outside himself. Or he might be breaking the law of an unjust government. Robin Hood might be an example. He's a thief, but he's targeting the corrupt and redirecting their wealth to the needy. An anti-hero would be stealing for his own gain. An example of that might be the con-man hero of the movie Catch Me If You Can, who until the end of the movie is using his considerable skills to move himself up in the world and make his own life more luxurious and exciting.
But a character can sometimes be both. One good example might be Mal Reynolds from the TV series Firefly. He was a thief, scavenger and smuggler. In some episodes, he and his crew were openly pulling criminal heists. Their usual victims were the corrupt government or corrupt individuals, but the profits from these jobs went to the crew, not to any kind of aid to poor people. But then Mal was also a sucker for an underdog and had a habit of taking "jobs" for no real pay in order to help someone who needed help. He was on the wrong side of the law, but only sometimes was he a true anti-hero.
Then there are the pseudo anti-heroes, the characters where their illegal background is more about character development than plot -- the bad boys with hearts of gold. There's Han Solo in the Star Wars movies, who was a smuggler before his entry into the story. We see the consequences of his criminal background, but once he's in the story, he doesn't really do anything criminal. A similar example would be Duke Crocker on the TV series Haven. He's a criminal and smuggler, and there are references to his criminal activity throughout the series, but he isn't really an anti-hero because his role in the story isn't about his criminal life -- it's not about him pulling off a job that we hope he gets away with. His criminal life is character development and a source of conflict when circumstances force him to team up with his childhood friend, who's now a cop, in order to save the town.
A dark hero might be someone who behaves like a villain, even as he works toward the greater good. He might be violent, he might not care about collateral damage, he might be a generally nasty person, but he's putting himself on the line against evil. Urban fantasy is full of this kind of figure.
Dark heroes and anti-heroes are really popular right now, and there don't seem to be a lot of limits as to how dark you can go. If someone can pull off a serial killer as a hero, you've got a lot of room to work with. But you still have to make the audience identify with and believe in these characters. They have to be human beings. Show a variety of their relationships. Give them people they care about, and who care about them. If someone we like loves these people, we can see that they're lovable. Or maybe they've lost someone they loved, and we see their pain over that.
Give them motivation or some explanation for why they're the way they are. Going back to Catch Me if You Can, we saw the way that young man was brought up and how unhappy his life became when everything fell apart, so we understood his need to escape into a fantasy world, even if that world was created with illegal acts. The bank robber doesn't necessarily have to be getting money for his mother's lifesaving operation, but we need to see why he's willing to go to these lengths to get money. Mal Reynolds in Firefly was desperately trying to maintain his independence by having his own ship and his own crew, and he would do anything to keep his ship running and to provide for his crew.
You can also gain audience sympathy by making a character like this charming and highly skilled. We like caper stories because they bring together a team of people with specialized abilities who are usually the best at what they do. It's fascinating watching them work, even if we don't sympathize with what they're doing.
These days, it may actually be more difficult to make audiences love a truly good hero than a dark hero. There are ways to do it, though, and I'll talk about that next time.
If we're going by the technical definition, I think the main dividing line between a dark hero and an anti-hero would be whether the hero is doing what he's doing for the greater good. A dark hero might be doing illegal things, but he's doing so because they're necessary for a cause outside himself. Or he might be breaking the law of an unjust government. Robin Hood might be an example. He's a thief, but he's targeting the corrupt and redirecting their wealth to the needy. An anti-hero would be stealing for his own gain. An example of that might be the con-man hero of the movie Catch Me If You Can, who until the end of the movie is using his considerable skills to move himself up in the world and make his own life more luxurious and exciting.
But a character can sometimes be both. One good example might be Mal Reynolds from the TV series Firefly. He was a thief, scavenger and smuggler. In some episodes, he and his crew were openly pulling criminal heists. Their usual victims were the corrupt government or corrupt individuals, but the profits from these jobs went to the crew, not to any kind of aid to poor people. But then Mal was also a sucker for an underdog and had a habit of taking "jobs" for no real pay in order to help someone who needed help. He was on the wrong side of the law, but only sometimes was he a true anti-hero.
Then there are the pseudo anti-heroes, the characters where their illegal background is more about character development than plot -- the bad boys with hearts of gold. There's Han Solo in the Star Wars movies, who was a smuggler before his entry into the story. We see the consequences of his criminal background, but once he's in the story, he doesn't really do anything criminal. A similar example would be Duke Crocker on the TV series Haven. He's a criminal and smuggler, and there are references to his criminal activity throughout the series, but he isn't really an anti-hero because his role in the story isn't about his criminal life -- it's not about him pulling off a job that we hope he gets away with. His criminal life is character development and a source of conflict when circumstances force him to team up with his childhood friend, who's now a cop, in order to save the town.
A dark hero might be someone who behaves like a villain, even as he works toward the greater good. He might be violent, he might not care about collateral damage, he might be a generally nasty person, but he's putting himself on the line against evil. Urban fantasy is full of this kind of figure.
Dark heroes and anti-heroes are really popular right now, and there don't seem to be a lot of limits as to how dark you can go. If someone can pull off a serial killer as a hero, you've got a lot of room to work with. But you still have to make the audience identify with and believe in these characters. They have to be human beings. Show a variety of their relationships. Give them people they care about, and who care about them. If someone we like loves these people, we can see that they're lovable. Or maybe they've lost someone they loved, and we see their pain over that.
Give them motivation or some explanation for why they're the way they are. Going back to Catch Me if You Can, we saw the way that young man was brought up and how unhappy his life became when everything fell apart, so we understood his need to escape into a fantasy world, even if that world was created with illegal acts. The bank robber doesn't necessarily have to be getting money for his mother's lifesaving operation, but we need to see why he's willing to go to these lengths to get money. Mal Reynolds in Firefly was desperately trying to maintain his independence by having his own ship and his own crew, and he would do anything to keep his ship running and to provide for his crew.
You can also gain audience sympathy by making a character like this charming and highly skilled. We like caper stories because they bring together a team of people with specialized abilities who are usually the best at what they do. It's fascinating watching them work, even if we don't sympathize with what they're doing.
These days, it may actually be more difficult to make audiences love a truly good hero than a dark hero. There are ways to do it, though, and I'll talk about that next time.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
More Wacky Morality
I barely survived the kindergarteners last night. I had no energy and not much in the way of lesson plans. The main thing we had to do was work on the song we're singing in church the Sunday after next. My problem child was in full-on brat mode, and it spread to all the other kids. When we were singing the song, he started doing it in funny voices and then making up his own crude words. The other kids followed suit. I shut off the music and gave them the full guilt treatment, reminding them that when we sing in church, we're singing to God and asking if that's how they talk to God. That settled them down enough that we were able to practice together with the preschool choir. I'm still worried about what they'll do in front of an audience. Problem Child is the type who would choose that time to act out and get attention.
Otherwise, Beethoven saved my bacon. We had a rhythm stick day, first seeing if we could copy rhythms. Then I showed them how music can sound like other things, and we made a rainstorm using the sticks. And then I put on the "Tempest" movement of the 6th Symphony, and it turns out last year wasn't a fluke. They listened to it in rapt near-silence. I still had more than five minutes left, so we got out the crayons, passed out paper and had them draw what the music sounded like to them. I may check the Peter and the Wolf CD out of the library and start introducing them to that, bit by bit. Small children seem remarkably receptive to classical music if you present it to them as something cool rather than treating it like musical broccoli that they should only consume because it's good for them. If I can just instill a love for music in general in these kids, I figure I'll have done my job.
I've been thinking more about yesterday's wacky morality post and realized even more weirdness with the Star Wars universe. Supposedly, it would start Luke down the path to the Dark Side if he killed the Emperor to save his friends, the Rebel forces, the Ewoks and pretty much the whole galaxy in general. And yet, killing the Emperor to save his son was what redeemed Darth Vader and turned him away from the Dark Side. So apparently the same action can either doom you or save you, depending on where you start, and personal motives are better than big-picture motives? And it also seems that shooting down fighter pilots or shooting stormtroopers has nothing to do with your dark vs. light status (since no moral questions were ever raised about that), but killing the person who's sending them into battle will make you evil. Moving that into our world, it's like saying it was perfectly okay to mow down all the German troops (many of whom were conscripted) and bomb German cities, but it would have forever darkened your soul to take out Hitler one-on-one.
I don't know if this is really a black and white vs. shades of gray issue. It depends on how you look at it. On the one hand, there's the view that the villains are bad and should be dealt with accordingly. On the other, there's the idea that villains act one way and heroes act another way, and if a hero acts like a villain (regardless of motive), it's bad, but if a villain ever acts like a hero, then it's good. So killing is bad for the hero, except for killing the villain's minions, which is okay. But if the villain kills the right person, he's redeemed.
This issue may be why Grimm was my favorite of the fairy tale shows. I think they've shown Nick to be a pure white hat because he's taken a cop's approach to his family legacy, treating each creature he comes across as an individual case. He's not "kill 'em all" like his ancestors, but rather befriends and helps those who need help and deals with the ones who are a threat, whether they're a threat to humans or to other creatures. He may feel some remorse when he's forced to kill, especially when it's someone acting more out of biological imperative than out of sheer malice, but there's no implication that he's turning toward any kind of dark side when he does so. He's a good person trying to help the greater good, even if that sometimes gets messy, and I don't get the impression that we're expected to question his morals.
Otherwise, Beethoven saved my bacon. We had a rhythm stick day, first seeing if we could copy rhythms. Then I showed them how music can sound like other things, and we made a rainstorm using the sticks. And then I put on the "Tempest" movement of the 6th Symphony, and it turns out last year wasn't a fluke. They listened to it in rapt near-silence. I still had more than five minutes left, so we got out the crayons, passed out paper and had them draw what the music sounded like to them. I may check the Peter and the Wolf CD out of the library and start introducing them to that, bit by bit. Small children seem remarkably receptive to classical music if you present it to them as something cool rather than treating it like musical broccoli that they should only consume because it's good for them. If I can just instill a love for music in general in these kids, I figure I'll have done my job.
I've been thinking more about yesterday's wacky morality post and realized even more weirdness with the Star Wars universe. Supposedly, it would start Luke down the path to the Dark Side if he killed the Emperor to save his friends, the Rebel forces, the Ewoks and pretty much the whole galaxy in general. And yet, killing the Emperor to save his son was what redeemed Darth Vader and turned him away from the Dark Side. So apparently the same action can either doom you or save you, depending on where you start, and personal motives are better than big-picture motives? And it also seems that shooting down fighter pilots or shooting stormtroopers has nothing to do with your dark vs. light status (since no moral questions were ever raised about that), but killing the person who's sending them into battle will make you evil. Moving that into our world, it's like saying it was perfectly okay to mow down all the German troops (many of whom were conscripted) and bomb German cities, but it would have forever darkened your soul to take out Hitler one-on-one.
I don't know if this is really a black and white vs. shades of gray issue. It depends on how you look at it. On the one hand, there's the view that the villains are bad and should be dealt with accordingly. On the other, there's the idea that villains act one way and heroes act another way, and if a hero acts like a villain (regardless of motive), it's bad, but if a villain ever acts like a hero, then it's good. So killing is bad for the hero, except for killing the villain's minions, which is okay. But if the villain kills the right person, he's redeemed.
This issue may be why Grimm was my favorite of the fairy tale shows. I think they've shown Nick to be a pure white hat because he's taken a cop's approach to his family legacy, treating each creature he comes across as an individual case. He's not "kill 'em all" like his ancestors, but rather befriends and helps those who need help and deals with the ones who are a threat, whether they're a threat to humans or to other creatures. He may feel some remorse when he's forced to kill, especially when it's someone acting more out of biological imperative than out of sheer malice, but there's no implication that he's turning toward any kind of dark side when he does so. He's a good person trying to help the greater good, even if that sometimes gets messy, and I don't get the impression that we're expected to question his morals.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)