Hello, I sorta need help. How do I look at a character more objectively and consistently? I'm re-reading Kurt's letters + lore for a personal writing project and I feel like I'm being too fixated on his flaws and in turn, missing who he is as a person. Like Alice, in a way.
Thank you, have a good day.
Hi there, thank you for the ask.
Your difficulty is quite understandable. Kurt's longest letters are taken from Orpheus and Alice, who suffer from different forms of internalized ableism. Orpheus projects his trauma and ableism by seeing Kurt through the lens of an irrational dreamer and wholly flawed, while Alice projects her trauma through the idea that there's normal reactions to trauma and abnormal reactions like Kurt's. Combined with the Game Nine crews own unreliabilities and we see how Kurt's flaws can cover his complexity.
Neither of them are looking at Kurt the person, but trying to apply Kurt to a preconceived notion. The pompous dreamer, the madman whose sanity drains by the day. But those are stereotypes, not Kurt.
Looking at a character from an objective perspective is difficult. Orpheus and Alice feel human because they're unreliable and do the above. Unlike Orpheus and Alice, though, we can acknowledge our biases and try to overcome them.
I really recommend looking at the Diaries one can play through while. There are a few records of them, so I will link Kurt's here. Each one of them takes place from the perspective of their diary writers and the behavior of the characters slightly differs with each character. Servais and Naib portray Kurt as more hostile, William's more nuanced, and Kurt, from his own perspective, is most sympathetic.
As you watch it, I really suggest thinking about context. This is the best way of learning to examine a character objectively. We see, from his own perspective, Kurt's conclusions were from understandable evidence. Part of why Kurt was so suspicious of Servais was because he learned from William what had happened and the two, without the full picture, assumed Servais was a dangerous murderer. This is not to say Kurt didn't project on the others, but that he made inferences from context. So, to understand Kurt, we must understand why he acts.
We see from Kurt's experiences in the military (as detailed in his Seventh Letter) that he initially had reached a, for lack of a better term, stability with his delusions, with many of his fellow soldiers being understanding towards him. We know something happened to Kurt that caused him to become more defensive and, as a result, discharged from the military. Considering his parents' lack of support, this was what lead to Kurt's delusions intensifying. Remember, while Kurt doesn't have total control over his delusions, we know from his Sixth Letter that he was aware of them to some capacity and chose to lean on them as support. So, one of Kurt's flaws is his defensiveness over his delusions, as seen in Game Nine. But why did he reach the point of such defensiveness?
Kurt is defensive, Kurt is naive, Kurt is open-minded, Kurt is insightful. But all these traits were forged by Kurt's life experiences.
If we want to look at Kurt objectively, we have to think of each of these traits as we read his Letters, his Diaries, how other characters think of him, and think about why he behaves the way he does. What were the personal circumstances, the societal circumstances? Why do some characters like him and others dislike him? Why does he dislike some characters and not others? Try to avoid putting him into a box (the Dreamer by Orpheus, the Madman by Alice) and think about the why. In IDV, even the most flawed characters have "Why's" that drive them.
Good luck with your writing project.
