You know what? Ive had it, i am really annoyed with the little whiny complaints people are making about Maul "not getting enough focus"/Shadow Lord giving attention to other characters instead of being Maul aura farming 90% of the time (fuck yall for me having to use that stupid phrase), or acting like this is some sort of nefarious deception on the showrunners part, luring people in with promises of Maul and pulling the rug out
1. That's how television storytelling works, this isn't a first person perspective story like a book or video game, you need other characters and their perspectives
2. This is not some unique to disney sw thing or even a new thing in general, shows/movies/etc have used a character's name for clout and at the same time given attention to other characters before, its an old trick
3. At no point was this show advertised as being Maul only, the only thing that "implies" (if you only think for no more than five seconds) no one else would get attention in this show is the title, which is nonsense, in any case, from the start the marketing has prominently featured Devon and Lawson, it has been very clear from the get go that they are important (more so than the background nightbrothers everyone obsesses over) and this is their story too, and that they have their own supporting characters (Daki, Two-Boots, Rylee)
4. Relating to that, Maul is an established character, Devon/Lawson aren't, we need to get to know them, we don't with Maul, we know who he is
5. Maul has a fundamental limitation that Lawson and Devon don't have, his fate is already written, and he has the same mindset that he has now when he dies 17 years later, this means he cannot grow as a character, or if he does grow hell just regress back to what he was before, thus the show needs characters capable of growing and changing with the circumstances, Maul on the other hand is doomed to fail, he will lose it all and die on tatooine, the peak of his accomplishments and relevance being when he killed Qui-Gon in tpm 27 years ago, but Devon and Lawson's fates are undetermined, they can grow
Maul is a static character, Devon and Lawson are dynamic characters, and if you spend too much time with Maul, his inability to grow and change becomes a problem, as you're just focusing on a guy who will never change, that's bad writing and storytelling, and it struggles to keep audiences interested
Ironically, Maul here is in the opposite situation of what he was in Clone wars relevant to other characters
In clone wars Maul was the one who's fate was unwritten, while almost everyone else had already been decided by revenge of the sith
But in Shadow Lord Maul's fate is decided, he will die in 17 years on tatooine, but what will become of Devon, Lawson, etc is unknown
6. Maul is the reason the plot happens, it all comes back to him, he is why these characters are here and involved in what he's doing, he brought Devon and Lawson in, they are people of interest to him, they are extensions of Maul's story, Lawson being Maul's major opponent and Devon struggling with the choice to join or oppose Maul
7. Less is more, yknow Maul wasn't in TCW or Rebels that much right? He's only in 6 episodes of the original (2008-2014) run of tcw, 5 episodes of the revival (2020) run of tcw, and 5 episodes of Rebels
That's 16 episodes, Maul only appears in 16 across two shows that have over 200 episodes between them
But he makes an impact with those few appearances, and as a stated in point #6, everything in this show comes back to Maul, even when he's not there on screen he's there
8. Speaking of episode numbers, using less of Maul and giving time to other characters (who were actually advertised as being major characters not just random side characters you latched onto and decided were important because you liked them) is important because we have far less runtime overall
We only have 10 episodes of 20-30 min runtimes, this is the shortest animated show season we've ever had, the glory days where clone wars, rebels, and resistance got 20 episodes a season and ample time to play around with the setting and characters are over, hell we're not even getting 16-ish episodes a season like bad batch did, even an 8 episode live action show season has more run time as they've got 30-45 min episodes
Maybe hopefully that will change next season but for now we've got limited time, so we need to give attention to the new relevant important characters so we can know who they are and what their deal is
Braveheart (1995) and The Patriot (2000) are not only both violent epics very loosely based on historical events, but their protagonists are very similar up to a point. William Wallace declares that he has returned from years abroad "to raise crops and a family. And if I can live in peace, I will." Benjamin Martin also cites family commitments in his refusal to support South Carolina in seeking independence from British rule: "My wife is dead. I have seven children. Who will care for them if I go to war?" Numerous critics describe The Patriot as "American Braveheart" emphasizing the themes of vengeance and national identity that drive both films. Superficial similarities aside, these films are very different, and the main difference comes down to the protagonists themselves. Through consistent characterization, Braveheart is able to show that Wallace is who he says he is, something The Patriot fails to replicate in Martin.
We are introduced to Wallace as a little boy who is horrified by the excessive cruelty English king Edward III visits on the Scots, and he grows into a man who is is horrified by the excessive cruelty English king Edward III visits on the Scots. Apart from gaining an education and a whole lot of muscle mass, Wallace does not change much within the first half hour of the film. In fact, he has not changed much by the end of the film's nearly three hour run time. Some cite his lack of development as a writing flaw, but simple characters can still be effective. And one thing Wallace certainly is capable of is learning.
One scene that particularly highlights this is the wedding that occurs shortly after Wallace's return and after King Edward has reinstituted the right of nobles to the first night with any bride on their land. When the English lord comes to claim this right, some men in attendance get agitated and a violent conflict seems imminent until the bride offers herself up to save her husband. Wallace watches these events unfold and decides that he and Murron will marry in secret. He is, after all, trying to live in peace! But then the English target her with harassment and eventually kill her because, as the film has painstakingly established numerous times already, they are excessively cruel. This is the event that inspires Wallace to take a leadership role in the Scottish rebellion, and he never looks back.
The seeds of the man Wallace will grow into are sown in the first twenty minutes of so of the film, not only his horror at British treatment of Scots but his affection for Murron as well. And adult Wallace maintains an almost childlike inability to grasp the nuances of politics in his dealing with Scottish lords like Robert the Bruce. In short, Wallace feels like the same person over the course of thirty years, if we accept the character as being the same age as Gibson at the time of filming. The Martin who stays out of the war to protect his children and the Martin who abandons his children multiple times years later do not feel like the same person. The Martin whose shirt is splattered with the blood of wounded British soldiers he helps and the Martin whose face is soaked in the blood of a British soldier he hacks to mincemeat just a few minutes later do not feel like the same person. Given the time it takes Martin and Villeneuve to recruit and train the militia, it is well within possibility that one or more of the men whose wounds he treated were later killed while trying to surrender by men under his command. What the fuck, Benjamin?
These drastic, Jekyll into Hyde transformations Martin undergoes may well be meant to come across as complexity but succeed in giving us a hero who gets to have his cake and eat it too. A war criminal in the streets who is also, we are told, a loving father plagued by nightmares in the sheets. The problem is, we actually see the first part. The harrowing story Martin tells us about his actions at Fort Wilderness reinforces the unhinged violent personality we see in his treatment of the last British soldier in his one-man massacre and the surrendering British troops. And while he said before the war that he would prioritize his children's safety, we never see him actually do that. He asserts to General Cornwallis that British officers are continuing to target civilians but is then as shocked as anyone when a British officer actually does that. The work of anchoring his characterization is shouldered almost exclusively by characters close to him, who insist that he "has changed," that he is "a good man."
Okay.
I've often wondered since rewatching Braveheart how different the wedding scene and Wallace's reaction to it might have gone in the hands of The Patriot's filmmakers. I imagine something like this: Wallace watches, shocked, as the English carry off his friend's bride. He turns to Murron. "Murron, this is terrible . . . for them. Nothing like this will happen at our wedding, though. We're built different. The English would not dare!" And then at their wedding, the English ride up to collect Murron, and Wallace watches shocked, shocked that this would happen . . . again. Braveheart may be heavy-handed on some points, but give me heavy-handed consistency over wild characterization inconsistencies duck-taped together by other characters' comments any day.
Before I rewatched Braveheart, I had not seen a Mel Gibson movie--besides the one I write about all the time--in at least a decade. I avoided him because I had the idea that most of his roles are variations on a character I generally find uninteresting: unhinged man bent on revenge. And it could be said that Martin is not only the "middle" role by film release date but also the bridge in the gap that separates Wallace, a man without children, and Graham Hess of Signs (2022), a man without a vengeance arc. I would argue, instead, that Martin is the weak link in Gibson's filmography, a man who lacks both Wallace's purity of purpose and, as we'll see in my next post, Hess's humility.
Not every character needs to change to prove the Main Point. Sometimes a character, like Sonic or Captain America, embodies the Main Point, and then every character around them is changed by them.
For example, Captain America embodies “The Price of Freedom is High, but I Can Trust Others to Sacrifice For it With Me.” He believes that at the beginning of Winter Soldier, and he never changes; he believes it all the more even after the organization he was working for betrays him. The characters who see that he embodies that ideal and change based on his example are Natasha Romanoff and Nick Fury.
Nat and Fury start the movie believing that, if put to the test, nobody else can be trusted to pay the price for freedom. So they have to lie and spy to stop threats before they start. But by the end, Fury is willing to sacrifice his secrets and Nat is willing to sacrifice her life, because Cap showed them that other people can be trusted to sacrifice for freedom.
Or Sonic. In just about every game, Sonic embodies the main point of: “Keep Moving Forward to Do What’s Right.” He literally never, ever changes. When he falls he gets back up. When he fails he keeps going. When he’s facing impossible odds, he jumps right in the face of them. Even his gameplay is all about maintaining momentum, getting that momentum back when you get hit.
He doesn’t change, but the characters who interact with him do. Tails constantly follows Sonic’s example of solving problems even after he’s made a mistake. Amy goes from waiting on the sidelines and thinking only about what she wants to finding her own way to help. Shadow goes from literally being stuck in the past, one way or another, to just deciding who he is and how he wants to do the right thing based on the present; moving forward.
I think that “characters of Change” are OFTEN the main character, but not ALWAYS, and some of the most enduring characters are actually just static.
I was thinking about Zuko and Obi-Wan Kenobi from ATLA and Star Wars today and how I love them in different ways?
Obviously I love Zukos growth. His drastic change in what he believes and knows and learns. Everyone knows he’s got the best redemption arc around. He changed so drastically and it’s absolutely amazing. It’s the change and his journey that I - and many others - love.
And Obi-Wan, yes he has a story and learns and grows but not like Zuko. There is really no drastic change of knowing and beliefs. Because if there is one thing you can count on when it comes to Obi-Wan Kenobi - his beliefs don’t change. You can always count on him to be a Jedi; to try so hard and do his best and literally be the good guy.
I don’t know. I’ve just been thinking about them and their differences in the type of characters they are and how different it is. It’s kind of like dynamic and static character. Most people see static characters as a bad thing but in some stories; in some ways, I actually really like it, generally when it comes to certain good characters. Because you can count on them. They are reliable and steadfast and you can count on them.
I love both types of characters and I’m glad that I found certain characters like this because otherwise I probably would have thought static characters are bad. It’s often taught as bad but honestly; not every character has to go through a huge shift in belief or moral compass or whatever. Sometimes they can be loyal, steadfast and reliable through a story.
Characters are the heart and soul of any story, so it makes sense that those of us who write or analyze stories focus much of our time on the ins and outs of character and characterization. Yet a lot of this analysis ignores certain types of storytelling, unfairly idealizing some story and character types over others. Worse than that, even, is that which misunderstands the relationship between an author and their characters. I've noticed three particular misconceptions which crop up the most, and I have a theory as to where they come from (Hint: it's moralism!).
Misconception 1: Character Driven Stories are Better than Plot Driven Stories
Character driven stories are those where the characters have some goal or desire and work to achieve it; the plot is generated by the characters’ choices. Plot driven stories are those where events happen and the characters have to react to them; the plot is also generated by characters’ choices. If the characters didn't make decisions, they wouldn't be characters! So what's the difference?
In character driven stories, there’s a sense of urgency that can be appealing. What is that character willing to do to get what they want? Why do they want it? Will they get it, or learn that perhaps there are things more important than their goals?
For plot driven stories, it’s interesting to see what the characters do when things are thrown at them. How will they get out of this scrape? Why do they react this way vs that way? Can they really beat such insurmountable odds?
I think the root of the misconception that character driven stories are superior is based largely on bias against certain genres. Literary fiction tends to be heavily character driven, in that not a lot happens other than the characters making choices. Genre fiction like fantasy and sci-fi are mixed, where inciting incidents kick off the plots and random encounters along with choices made by the characters keep it going. Comedy, adventure, and horror are at the far extreme, usually totally driven by plot and circumstance rather than character goals. Much of the derision of plot driven stories is genre bigotry in disguise.
Both types of stories have something to offer us, and it’s rare to find a work of fiction that is only driven by characters or only driven by plot. Most stories mix them, to great success. People need to get off their high horses and focus on writing the best characters they can, whether they drive or react to the plot.
Misconception 2: Dynamic Characters are Better than Static Characters
Speaking of writing the best character, clearly that means writing a dynamic character who learns and grows over the course of the story, right? Wrong! Static characters have their place, just as plot driven stories have theirs.
First of all, a story is not the same thing as a life. While we all do grow and change over time, a story is a window into a particular time, through a particular point of view. Some characters have gotten their changing out of the way in the backstory. Others serve as constants for the other characters to rely on. It would be weird if every character, including the side characters and villains, all changed by the end of the story, because this isn’t necessarily their story, not the beginning of it, not the end of it, not the time when they happened to do their changing.
But what about protagonists? Surely they must undergo some sort of transformation, right? It depends on the character, and the story, and—you guessed it—the genre. Take cozy mysteries, or slice-of-life, or comedy. We don’t want Sherlock Holmes or Yotsuba or Bertie Wooster to change and grow; that’s not the point of their stories or their characters. We want to come back to those books, again and again, and know exactly who's waiting for us.
Even genres that generally have dynamic protagonists don’t require them. Take Lina Inverse, of the fantasy series Slayers, who is just as gluttonous, greedy, and wild in Season One, Episode One as she is in the finale of the fifth season, made fourteen years later. What about Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird? Though she slightly changes over the course of the story, mostly in how she perceives her father and Boo Radley, it’s more important for her to be the static viewpoint character through whose innocent eyes we see what’s happening in Maycomb County.
Again, there is a place for both static and dynamic characters. As long as they are each well-developed and serve their stories, it doesn’t matter if they change or not.
Misconception 3: Nothing You Make a Character Do is Out-of-Character
I don't even know where to start with this one. No, wait, I do: reductio-ad absurdum. If Javert, from Les Miserables, decided to join the Thenardiers in their skullduggery rather than either accepting Valjean's mercy or jumping to his death, that would be out-of-character. If Uncle Vernon, apropos of nothing, warmly embraced Harry and said that he had come to truly accept him as his son, and that he had been misguided all these years and seen the light, that would be out-of-character. If Luke Skywalker were to not see and seek the good in some relative of his and instead decided to kill that relative off before they could go full Dark Side, that would be out-of-character (ahem... AHEM!!!).
Just because you are the writer does not mean you can do whatever you want with the characters. If that were true, they wouldn't be characters, but rather cardboard cut-outs that you cause to do random actions and say random things. Characters are supposed to represent real people, and real people act a certain way from situation to situation and over the course of time. Past behavior predicts future behavior.
That's not to say people can't change, for weal or woe, but that usually happens in one of three ways. First, they change over time, as dynamic characters are wont to do. Second, they have a "road to Damascus" moment; much like miracles, these tend to be considered deus-ex-machina and are thus rarely employed in fiction. I would say these usually happen when character A does some act of kindness or sacrifice for character B, and B is struck by this and realizes they must change their ways (again, for weal or for woe; Javert gets such an act of kindness from Valjean, but instead of accepting it he chooses to kill himself rather than live in Valjean's world of mercy. What a guy!).
Finally, there are stressors. These might be the character losing their job, or getting betrayed, or having someone close to them die, or breaking up with a long-time love. If you’ve heard the term before, it’s likely from the context of criminology; stressors are often what precipitate a violent crime. If a kind, sweet character suddenly goes bad, maybe it's due to a string of stressors. Notice I said a string; you have to have some sort of build up for a character to really go off their rocker or it will feel like it came out of nowhere. For a crash course in this sort of in-character change, I recommend Tangled: The Series, which artfully depicts not one, but two characters' roads to perdition in unexpected but understandable ways. These kinds of stressors should feel like the final straw in the bale that broke the camel's back.
For all of these changes—gradual, road-to-Damascus, or stressors—the change itself still needs to be in-character, which means that the writers need to know who their characters are and what makes them tick. If this villain is shown an unprecedented act of kindness, will they immediately forsake their plans, start going easier on their own minions, or withdraw for a while to think? It might be that only one of those courses of action would be in-character for that particular person. If this character's loved one is murdered, is that enough to make them go on a revenge spree? And are the particulars of who is caught in that revenge spree in-character?
I submit that Hawkeye killing criminals in Avengers: Endgame is in-character—he's already a hero, so he's still technically protecting innocent people, even if that means mowing down bad guys who "should" have been killed in the Snap. It makes sense, given who he is and where he's coming from. I also submit that Katniss agreeing to a final Hunger Games for the Capital's children in Catching Fire was out-of-character. She had seen what those death games were like first hand, especially for little kids like Rue, and it doesn't make sense—even if her sister was murdered—for her to do a 180 and throw away everything she stood for. Had she been shown, earlier on, to not care about the lives of Capital citizens, or to have a dehumanizing or vengeful streak, I could see it. But she didn't, so her sudden bloodlust came out of left field. I also can't accept the murder of her sister as the last in a line of stressors because—despite the horrors Katniss had seen inflicted on the people of the Districts—the Capital also did that to their own citizens. It is made abundantly clear that the Capital is willing to murder their own people (Katniss witnesses this first hand as she makes her way through the Capital streets), so it doesn't fit for Katniss to choose further violence towards the people she has seen being slaughtered by the very people she is fighting. Her action (and, by the by, Haymitch's going along with it) felt startlingly out-of-character.
The Moral of the Story
Going back to the above example, if Katniss's actions were so out of the blue, why did Suzanne Collins write them that way, rather than choosing another route? I think it's fair to say her intention was to underline the horrors of war and what it does to people, which... is a bit patronizing. The entire Hunger Games Trilogy was about the horrors of war. We saw children forced to kill each other. We saw an entire district reduced to rubble. We saw people melting in the Capital A-bomb-style. To then feel the need to have Katniss—who by this point is already so hardened by what's happened to her that she barely blinks at the violence around her—give up everything she has fought for and become like the very evil she has been fighting seems to be hitting us over the head. But that story needed a moral, and Collins really, really, really wanted to make sure we got it.
And that is perhaps the greatest misconception of all, and the root of the other three: the ardent insistence that stories need to teach a moral. Some of you might balk at this, saying, perhaps, that modernism and post modernism have gotten rid of the whole idea of "the moral of the story", but they didn't. They just changed what the morals were. True, early novels is England and America had a puritanical streak, and some people, back in the day, insisted that stories teach lessons about religion, and virtue, and the dangers of a life of debauchery. Truly, fewer and fewer stories, as the years went on, dealt with these particular topics, but those morals were subsequently replaced with lessons about feminism, and representation, and the dangers of war and racism. Before any one flips their lid, they should know that I support all of those morals: I love religion and virtue and feminism, and am really not keen on war, racism, debauchery and such. But I'm really not keen on being preached at in books
Obviously, not all, or even most, books are preachy. They weren't way back in the day and they aren't now. And yet, there seems to be a sneering favoritism for books that offer some sort of moral over those that are, frankly, just fun and entertaining. Books where characters make choices—moral choices, though they aren't always explicitly called that—are seen as superior to books where people respond to the plot by going on adventures or getting into scrapes. Dynamic characters who change—by either learning lessons and growing as people or, contrarily, losing themselves to a life of vice and sin (even if we no longer describe it as such)—are so much better than those silly characters who simple exist, neither rising to the heights of heaven nor descending to the depths of hell, with nothing to teach their audience about where life might take you. Nothing you make your characters do is out-of-character, because they don't represent people but instead archetypes and Vice and Virtue and whatever else you need to preach—Uh, I mean tell—your story.
Again, I'm not against stories having morals; heck, I'm one of those last few weirdos who can't stand books that have an immoral message. What many people don't understand, though, is that there is a vast and cavernous difference between an immoral story and an amoral story, and that amoral stories, be they wacky comedies, cute slice-of-lifes, puzzling mysteries, or tales of derring-do, are not bad, nor even inferior to other stories. They are not inferior for offering fun, plot driven stories, nor for having constant, static characters. They are not inferior for not having a moral. In fact, I submit that any random amoral story with well-developed characters is superior to a "moral" story—be they old morals or new—where the author forces the cast to act painfully out-of-character in order to beat us over the head with a message.
Basically, the point of a story isn't to teach something, at least, not necessarily. The point of a story is to be true to itself. That might mean having some deep message, or it might mean being thoroughly entertaining, or maybe both. Characters, similarly, should be true to whatever story they find themselves in. As I said at the beginning of this post, characters are the heart and soul of any story, and I mean any story: plot- or character-driven, dynamic or static, moral or amoral.
And those, dear readers, are my thoughts on character.
In the process of writing your story, you will likely stumble upon two different types of characters: static characters and dynamic characters. (these are their major categories but they, of course, can also be broken into smaller ones) Both are useful for different circumstances, and the short descriptions below can assist when you are determining them.
Static Characters:
A static character is a character who stays consistent throughout the story. They face little to no development in regards to personality despite what changes may be present in the plot. The purpose of making a role in your story static may be to highlight the events or the world rather than the character or even because they just don't change (maybe it's more realistic for that particular situation). Though it is possible that they have some development, it is subtle, and they remain possessing their common traits. Typically, authors will make heroes or protagonists static characters as they have favourable characteristics and this way, they stay likeable.
An example of this is Sherlock Holmes. As the detective goes through his stories, he finds things out, but they are not about himself. Instead, they are about the story, and the protagonist stays intelligent, confident, etc.
Dynamic Characters:
Dynamic characters are the opposite of static characters as they undergo significant change. The conflicts that they face in the story influence them so much that they develop A LOT. These characters are a bit easier to build a story around as it could include anything from coming-of-age to a significant life transition to a turn for the worse. The term itself, dynamic, does not refer to the characters traits, but instead, how those change.
An example of a dynamic character is Harry Potter who goes from a poor and mistreated child into a hero who is willing to sacrifice anything for the good of the Wizarding World. Not only does he get smarter and more aware, but the series also becomes darker, which is evident as you read.
So, now, if you are wondering what type of character that you should use, it really depends on your writing style, who you are aiming to appeal to, and the situation in your book itself. If you are looking to connect, dynamic characters may be the best option. (but, again, it depends on the situation) This is because everyone changes and the audience, when reading, will be able to recognize that and feel for the characters. Other times, however, this may not be the case. If you are shooting for a broke, relatable college student, then maybe they don't really change. Life remains mediocre, and that's that. (This example is from the show, 'Please Like Me.' It's very underrated so you should definitely check it out. Please. Also, this note inside of the parentheses isn't a part of the writing advice (just life advice in general) but yeah)
But what I cannot stress enough is that IT DEPENDS ON THE SITUATION. If the events that occur are important personally to the character, then they will change (even if it's a tiny bit). If they aren't important, then change is less likely. So, simply follow that logic. There isn't anyone who knows your story better than yourself, so make your own decision. Trust yourself, and the eventual effect will pay off.
Thanks for reading everyone. I hope this could help. Cheers!
Pooping in Public. Don’t Be A Static Character, Baby.
Pooping in Public. Don’t Be A Static Character, Baby. Writing Tips!
Carrie’s teaching a class at the Writing Barn for the next six weeks about . . . character!
That means we’re talking a lot about character in our house.
Of course, we’re also being characters because being characters is more fun than talking about them. It’s like the difference between telling in your writing and showing.
And in the writing world one of the big annoying things writers hear…
Okay, we all know who we are. Those of us who were drooling over the new Gilmore Girls: Year in The Life special. I’ll admit to being one of those avid Gilmore Girl watchers in the day. I loved the goofy cultural references and felt especially validated when I understood them without looking them up. The verbal patter….oh man, the witty repartee between Lorelei and Rory over giant mugs of coffee. As a person with a difficult mother, I particularly related to the backhanded stabs and pointed barbs Emily used to draw blood. I related. Through six seasons, I related.
The entire ‘I slept with Christopher’ thing pissed me off. I quit cold turkey.
Season seven held zero allure for me, and once the series popped up on Netflix, I watched the very last episode. Just that one episode and you know what? I didn’t miss a thing. So when A Year in The Life was announced, I harnessed my inner Grinch several weeks early. Humbug.
BUT then, and I’m squarely blaming this on April Moore, on a trip to Sonoma to drink copious amounts of wine and visit fabulous friends we arrived for our return trip home too many hours early at the airport. Oh, I’ll blame that on the liberal imbibing of wine, but the Gilmore Girl thing is squarely on April’s shoulders. She was revisiting episodes in preparation for the special.
Oh man, nostalgia is a terrible thing.
Let me be clear, I can binge watch with the best of them. Sick in bed, folding laundry, sick in bed. Usually, I turn on Netflix or Amazon on while I’m cooking or doing boring things like accounting. Bleh. Background noise, you know, keep one side of the brain occupied while the other is busy doing something onerous. The more I thought about it, the more that bitch Nostalgia niggled my ear. I succumbed. Mind you, I should be digging into research on fungi and pharmacology, but hey….taking a stroll into witty TVland was more appealing.
I’m going to digress for a moment, bear with me. I’ve always advised students to go back and read books they read when they were younger. Hated books. Beloved books. Boring books. After my stint as an air traffic controller, I returned to university to finish my abandoned English degree. Required, in my desire to teach literature and writing, to dive into deeper reading waters I had to revisit books previously shelved. Pun intended.
Catcher in The Rye. Still hated it. To Kill A Mockingbird. Loved it more. Two literature surveys: Arthurian Legend and Jane Austin. Rocked my world. I also took a few film courses because I thought about a Film as Literature class would be fun to teach. It was.
Going back to books of the past can be a mind blowing experience.
The adult you can experience a completely different book than the younger you did. Of course, a life lived can also ruin things for you. No big surprise. Gilmore Girls is a dilapidated ruin for this author. Oh, the sharp banter and cultural jaunts still entertain, but I had to face facts. Lorelei Gilmore and her daughter are a couple of train wrecks.
Static characters who repeatedly choose the same terrible paths with zero growth or wisdom from the last terrible path. Given the trope of a teenage mother made good on her life, we should be offered more from the character. I know. No, I wasn’t a teenage mother, but I did have to deal with three children under the age of seven while broke, going to school, and dealing with difficult people in my life. You grow. Because you burn.
I hate characters who end up in challenging circumstances because they’re stupid, no matter how charming, fast talking, or stylish they are. Bad things happen to smart people too. Ideally, intelligent people don’t make the same mistakes over and over….believe me, there are plenty of new gaffs out there to knee-cap you.
I know some of you are ready to come at me with torches and pitchforks, but take a good hard look at the ‘new’ special. Same ol’, same ol’. It’s essentially four, two-hour rehashes of a seven season series that should have ended two years before it did.
Don’t get me started on the cast of characters who barely made an appearance because, frankly, their careers are on fire currently compared to some of the actors who don’t have anything going on at the moment. I’m not knocking gainful employment, but give us something worth our time. I will say bless Kelly Bishop, who proves actresses CAN age gracefully without being sucked and tucked and plumped unlike another actress who will remain unmentioned here…come on, it’s been TEN years people. Lorelai wasn’t in stasis.
I certainly include silly characters in my stories. Silly characters can be fun. I just don’t like reading, watching, listening to hours and hours of them getting into the exact same trouble they stumbled into the first hour. And if you haven’t watched the new run yet? Can you say sucker punch?
Nostalgia Hurts: Writing Fluff was originally published on JC Lynne
