Different rules
Jan. 31st, 2005 05:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethOkay, I wrote a much longer version of this that still turned out to be too short to actually prove my point with examples, so I'm just going to state my point instead-
Sunday I was talking to an RL friend and, well, basically whining about fandom stuff. My usual whine (I so need new episodes towhine talk about). So he cut me off by saying that all the stuff I was complaining about was, actually, plausible. All the characterisation issues, all the subtext that doesnt actually mean anything or go anywhere, all plausible. Real people do actually act like that.
And my point was, it might be plausible RL, but stories shouldn't do that!
And then I thought that might be a dumb point.
But, I've been thinking about it, and I think that stories really do have different rules.
Some character 'developments' bug me just because I don't like them. That is just me, and I grumble about them fairly quietly, because they are perfectly valid story choices, just not the ones I was hoping for.
Other times they bug me because they don't seem *right*. And when that happens there are basically two reasons.
The first is that when we watch or read we are hoping to get the *whole* story. In RL, people do things for reasons we don't know, and may never know. This we accept, for RL just kind of happens. But in a story if someone does something for unknown or apparently inconsistent reasons we are left with the question of *why* did they do that. If the story never answers that question then it is incomplete. Which is annoying.
Also, often an answer will leave us with more questions. Which is a good way to keep the story going, if you are at the start or middle. If the story is headed towards an ending then stuff needs to start to wrap up. Obviously, in episodic television, not every single thread can be wrapped in one season, but there is a difference between 'plot threads for future use' and 'dangly character lack of explanation that ends up making it look like the author not the character did a thing'.
The other reason some character developments irritate me is ideological. And it is on that level that the queer subtext of most shows tends to end up being annoying to me. Sure, it is plausible that an individual character be straight. But when every single character everywhere is straight? Annoying. And while it is often quite plausible that individual characters will act in certain ways there are aspects of how their behaviour changes the queer subtext that really do annoy me sometimes.
Those two things, The Whole Story and The Ideology, don't apply to RL in the same way. So what is perfectly plausible RL can still fall down on those two standards.
Which, in my case, leads to whining.
Sunday I was talking to an RL friend and, well, basically whining about fandom stuff. My usual whine (I so need new episodes to
And my point was, it might be plausible RL, but stories shouldn't do that!
And then I thought that might be a dumb point.
But, I've been thinking about it, and I think that stories really do have different rules.
Some character 'developments' bug me just because I don't like them. That is just me, and I grumble about them fairly quietly, because they are perfectly valid story choices, just not the ones I was hoping for.
Other times they bug me because they don't seem *right*. And when that happens there are basically two reasons.
The first is that when we watch or read we are hoping to get the *whole* story. In RL, people do things for reasons we don't know, and may never know. This we accept, for RL just kind of happens. But in a story if someone does something for unknown or apparently inconsistent reasons we are left with the question of *why* did they do that. If the story never answers that question then it is incomplete. Which is annoying.
Also, often an answer will leave us with more questions. Which is a good way to keep the story going, if you are at the start or middle. If the story is headed towards an ending then stuff needs to start to wrap up. Obviously, in episodic television, not every single thread can be wrapped in one season, but there is a difference between 'plot threads for future use' and 'dangly character lack of explanation that ends up making it look like the author not the character did a thing'.
The other reason some character developments irritate me is ideological. And it is on that level that the queer subtext of most shows tends to end up being annoying to me. Sure, it is plausible that an individual character be straight. But when every single character everywhere is straight? Annoying. And while it is often quite plausible that individual characters will act in certain ways there are aspects of how their behaviour changes the queer subtext that really do annoy me sometimes.
Those two things, The Whole Story and The Ideology, don't apply to RL in the same way. So what is perfectly plausible RL can still fall down on those two standards.
Which, in my case, leads to whining.
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no subject
Date: 2005-01-31 06:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-31 07:02 am (UTC)