Character Voice, Attempt Number Two

Tags

character development, character voice, doctor who, story dynamics, writing

Informal part one here.

I know that not all of my readers are into Doctor Who, but this minisode makes a great jumping-off point for a new discussion. If you don’t want to you don’t have to watch the whole thing (the important part starts at five minutes and thirty-three seconds in), but it makes more sense if you do.

Notice how the Doctor (yes, that was the Doctor, even if you didn’t recognize him–he’s probably the most obscure one) says “Cas… I apologize.” He says “I apologize” instead of “I’m sorry” like the Tenth Doctor. Not only is this appropriate to his accent, which seems to me (lifelong American and non-expert that I am) to be a little more upper-class and even slightly archaic compared to the Tenth Doctor’s, but it’s also because the connotation is different.

For instance, when the Tenth Doctor would say “I’m sorry,” he was generally apologizing for some harm he’d unintentionally caused, or else he was saying just how sorry he was that he couldn’t save someone. David Tennant, on the other hand, saying “Sorry” is not actually the saddest thing in the world. It’s just the most adorable thing.

On the other hand, here we have the Eighth Doctor deliberately saying “I apologize.” Notice that he’s apologizing for what he is about to do. However, he isn’t sorry. His voice sounds more rueful, like he’s mourning the passing of a dream. If he feels any sorrow, it’s because the Doctor is dead and he’s about to be forced into a role he never wanted to fill, but he isn’t sorry for what he’s about to do. He’s feeling sorrow that things turn out this way, but he’s not going to back down. This is one of the things that I like most about the Doctor, but it also makes me a little bit afraid of him–his resolve is terrifying at times. This scene broke my heart, by the way, because I remember how adorable Eight was in the movie–he was such a sweetie!–and now he’s broken down and given up and that just hurt. *pounds on Life in general for being Evil* The way it’s played out, this scene is just so marvelously powerful, not least because of the word choice.

Also, kudos to Eight for being the only Doctor to double over rather than arching back during his regeneration.

Before the first rehearsals, actors working on a movie will sit down and read through the script together with the writers, producers, directors, etc. Not only does this show up any remaining grammatical errors, it also allows for any last minute changes to the script that might be necessary to add more depth to the characters. Does one of the lines just not sound right? Think about the character and then re-write it. Voice is extremely important.

Word choice and connotation, pauses and beats, intonation, volume, accent, and even misused words are your tools. You should be able to white out or even mix up the character’s names on a script and still be able to tell who said what. If you give it a decent try, maybe you’ll even be able to hear what each character “sounds” like. For now, forget the movie metaphor and the full sensory sweep. Consider the character’s socioeconomic background, history, the company he or she keeps, and so forth. How do they talk? How do they sound? Are there any misused words?

Can you hear your characters yet?

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The Brooklyn Project: Writing Anger, Part Three

Tags

character development, character types, characters, fantasy, novels, story dynamics, writing, writing about emotion, writing tips and advice

I never expected this segment of the project to take this long! Oh well.

In the first segment, I discussed why anger is important to your writing (you have to include emotion or your characters will come off as unfeeling or sociopathic), and typical ways character types get angry. In the second, I talked about some specific examples.

Now it’s time for the tips on how to work characters getting angry into your own work. Yay! *throws yogurt instead of confetti*

Now that everyone has had their free yogurt facial, I’m going to start talking.

As you saw in my last post in this series, characters often act in given ways due to their backstory. This isn’t necessarily part of their personality, though. For the sake of this post, I’m referring to personality as an enduring set of traits that influence a person to act in a certain way.

Some characters may go through a lot of trauma and never show any outward sign of it. Others may struggle to come to terms with it, but their core personality remains the same. Others are completely different following the experience.

Another quick checklist, this one for determining whether or not an experience (traumatic or otherwise) changes a character:

• How intense was the experience?
• How profound an effect did it have on the character?
• Was it a “first time” of some kind?
• How old was the character at the time?
• How long did it last?
• How long ago was it?
• How much of the character’s entire comparative life span did it take up? (e.g. if it’s been happening to them all their lives, or if it’s a more recent occurrence, or if it happened years ago but took up years.)

Also you have to consider the character. Some characters are just more resilient than others.

When a character gets angry, consider how they do it. Do they rage? Do they threaten violence? Do they use their words, and how do they use their words? Do they just walk away, or do they confront the problem?

Here’s an example from one of my novels:

Before the monster could shatter Cael’s bones with that massive paw, it suddenly reeled backwards, writhing in agony, a faint blue light shining from somewhere in the area of its maw. Its death throes lasted for only a few seconds, but it seemed much longer. As the beast fell, Arden leaped down from its back.

‘What are you doing here, Cael?’ he asked in a quiet, calculated voice, his face immobile.

‘I thought someone was in trouble,’ Cael stammered.

‘And you just wandered off?’ The words were velvety smooth but as perilous as quicksand. Not trusting himself to answer aloud, Cael nodded. ‘What did I tell you?’ Arden asked, his eyes flashing. Cael wondered if Arden was going to punish him in some way. But rather than doing anything, Arden continued in that dulcet, threatening tone, which was, in a way, more terrifying than anything he might have done.

‘Don’t wander off.’

If you can’t tell, Arden is a Type Five and Cael is either a Type One or Two. 😉

Remember that some characters are just innately more terrifying when they’re angry than others.

If your viewpoint character is the object of the anger, make sure to decide whether the other character’s form of anger is frightening to them or not, then pick out a few details that stand out to them. Choose just a couple of reasons why the anger is frightening and focus on them. Scrub your writing of too many details and purple or flowery prose–you can use a few details and a few unusual words, but don’t use too many, which will bog your writing down and detract from the emotion of the scene.

The same advice can also be useful for writing other forms of fear and shock as well. You can also, if you like, include some incongruous details for your character to notice: the color of a friend’s eyes, a brightly-colored balloon, a flower, the fact that it’s suddenly clouded over or cleared up. Use them to create a sense of detachment and for contrast.

Good luck with your writing!

Thanks for reading, and God Bless!

The Brooklyn Project: Writing Anger, Part Two

Tags

bbc sherlock, captain america, captain america: the first avenger, captain america: the winter soldier, character development, character types, characters, doctor who, marvel, star wars, story dynamics, writing, writing about emotion

Welcome back to this Brooklyn Project special on Writing Anger!

In the previous post, I explained why anger (and other emotions) is important to your novel and the different tendencies of character types in anger. In this post, I will give specific examples, explain how backstory can influence a character’s emotions, and give some advice and handy tools for writing it into your novels.

Anger tends to vary drastically within types as well as within genders. Take Obi-Wan Kenobi and the Doctor, for example. I have them both classed as Type Fives because they’re both extremely complex characters who use a lot of misdirection and subtlety (as a side note, I watched part of David Tennant playing Hamlet and I’d have to say, Hamlet is Type Five as well.) Obi-Wan and the Doctor are both a bit more emotional than the stereotypical Type Five (Sherlock Holmes, for instance), but they have tendencies towards different emotions. Obi-Wan, while he’s a generally optimistic person with a mostly-happy childhood, is also a realist (see? really complex!) and slides toward sadness as an adult (as a child, he had a very quick temper), and I’d imagine that of all the Star Wars characters he’s probably the one hiding the fact that he has to take antidepressants. Obi-Wan has a tendency to switch topics without warning (non sequitur to the Rest Of The World), but has come to manage that in his adult life so he acts more like an INFJ than an INTJ (which I’m pretty sure he is.) The Doctor is much more bipolar. He sometimes has dramatic mood swings, jumps from idea to idea without consistency and gets depressed when he loses Rose in his tenth incarnation. (The Ninth and Twelfth Doctors were both much more focused, while Eleven just seems a bit aimless and underdeveloped to me.)

As a child, Obi-Wan was under a lot of stress much of the time–his teachers had high expectations, he routinely exceeded them, which in turn made his teachers set their standards for him even higher. No one ever particularly told him that he was clever, which certainly helped him to become the humble character we all love, but it didn’t do much to help him cope with his workload–being observant, he knew that most of his age-mates weren’t working this hard. Either he didn’t know the reason, or he simply rationalized it that he was stupid, because he was working so much harder than everyone else. Because he was stressed, he tended to flare up in anger when bullied, which made people perceive him as an angry person when he really was a compassionate and thoughtful one under a lot of stress. (He was probably also dealing with depression, but it went unnoticed because he didn’t fit the stereotype.) This was dramatically exacerbated when he came closer to the cut-off date for apprenticeship. It was a self-fueling cycle that pushed him down, but fortunately Yoda observed what was going on, realized that he was caught in a cycle and they weren’t seeing his true self, and used the fact that he’d recently gotten into a fight with another Jedi hopeful to get him out of the Temple and away from the cycle. (“The Rising Force” by Dave Wolverton. What makes me think he was dealing with depression? The hopeless way he responded to being taken away from the Temple and his difficulty in finding the will to fight back when attacked on the transport. I may be wrong about depression, but that seems to fit the facts.)

As an adult, Obi-Wan was not as likely to flare up, even when provoked. It took a major provocation (oftentimes aimed at his loved ones rather than himself) to get him angry. While he was outwardly a model of serenity, he was really a visionary, passionate and idealistic, and had an innate ability to read other people and respond to them in a disarming way. (Oh, sorry, did I say Obi-Wan was INTJ? It’s really hard to tell if that big letter is a T or an F, especially with him.) Obi-Wan was both a traditionalist and a reformer, and given enough time he might have been able to get the entire Jedi Order back on track. Obi-Wan always had a sarcastic and often dark sense of humor with a love of wordplay and a cutting wit that he used as a smokescreen to hide any internal trepidation. However, his sarcasm was more often a part of his humor than of his anger.

As an adult, Obi-Wan responded to anger in one of two ways. One was a sudden burst of anger (in response to sudden provocation), followed quickly by calm, rational thought, and the other was a cold, distant, controlled and calculated wrath that was completely terrifying, even if you were not the target of it at the time. Obi-Wan was not an angry person, however. His anger was aroused and then when it was over, it was completely gone.

The Doctor, while he had a similar upbringing (taught at an academy with little to no familial contact after his induction), was always more of a rebel. While Obi-Wan had an intuitive understanding of the world and the people around him, the Doctor, while brilliant, would often find himself confronted by situations and things he didn’t understand. The Doctor never particularly cared about other people’s opinions and was often more sassy than sarcastic. Sarcasm was not often a part of his anger, either. The Doctor didn’t often have those rapid flare-ups of temper as an adult–his anger was a constant, a perpetual and constantly controlled presence and as such it was always tightly controlled. When openly angry, the Doctor’s anger was similar to Obi-Wan’s calculated cold fury. He would often be verbally cutting (though not sarcastic,) whittling people down (often to tears) with words. His word choice, posture, and expression would all become menacing. For me, the most effective thing about David Tennant’s performance as the Doctor was the way he could play a character who is sweet, charming, frankly adorable and a little bit ditzy but who is at the same time an intensely driven individual, with an ever-present and deep-rooted anger–especially the way Tennant is able to jump so quickly between the two.

There was another image I was going to use, but it’s the most terrifying expression you are ever likely to see, so I’m going to refrain. This blog is mostly G-rated, after all.

Their angry expressions vary, too: Obi-Wan presses his lips together tightly, the Doctor tends to display his teeth (which is slightly unnerving in its own right–Ten’s teeth are sort of angled-in, which prompted him to comment “That’s weird” immediately after his regeneration.) Obi-Wan’s anger is all in the way he looks calculatedly at people, while the Doctor’s anger is all in the eyes and mouth–eyebrows draw together, lips curl back, and his nose wrinkles a little. The Doctor looms over people, while Obi-Wan tenses up in his core and has to remind himself to breathe. That last one could be more because Obi-Wan’s training was a little more martial in style, so he’s preparing to leap into action at any second. The Doctor’s anger intimidates, while Obi-Wan prepares to fight.

(Bottom line, fangirls: The Doctor is scary. He does have a fluffy side but he also has quite the dark side. Do not occasion David Tennant giving you The Eyebrow… if he did it to me I’d probably burst into tears.)

Let’s talk about Steve Rogers, a typical Type One. Steve doesn’t get angry often, but when he does, you do not want to get on his bad side. Captain America: The Winter Soldier has several prime examples. In the first fifteen or so minutes of the movie, he tells Fury off for not giving him the whole story about the opening mission. Rather than verbally attacking Fury or using sarcasm, though, he lets Fury know he’s angry and then tells him why in plain language that’s not calculated to make Fury angry in turn. As a result, we find out how much Fury really respects Steve–in response to Steve’s accusation, he shows us that he values Steve’s respect by showing Steve SHIELD’s latest top-secret project: Project Insight. You wouldn’t think that Fury would let something like Steve’s respect be that important to him, but it is.

The other notable anger we see Steve display in The Winter Soldier is his anger following the shock of discovering that his best friend is still alive and has been brainwashed into a Soviet superweapon. “Would you have compartmentalized that too?” he asks Fury, the most biting his language to Fury has gotten thus far. He’s being a little bit irrational, which is not really typical for Steve at all. I think that in the scene on the bridge when Sam Wilson says “He’s the kind you stop,” Steve is still angry about it but keeps himself from lashing out viciously at Sam because it is not Sam’s fault.

You can’t really see it on his face when Steve is angry because his angry look is more “calculating” than “angry.” You have to listen to him to know he’s angry. Also, Steve’s sarcasm is rarely connected with his anger–it’s more self-deprecating. We generally only see him use sarcasm when he’s angry with himself or trying to work with people, and then he uses his sarcasm the same way–to defuse the situation through self-deprecating humor. It’s very rare for us to see Steve use anything but plain language–which would seem to be a fairly common trait for Type Ones. They can get technical, but most of the time they whittle things down to the barest meaning they can.

Bucky Barnes is different from most Type Twos. He’s brave, funny, active, adventurous, and a people person. Cool factor was harder to figure out, but he’s the Winter Soldier. However, he isn’t as much of a planner as Steve is and as a result we never see him planning anything in particular. Rather than acting or taking the initiative, we see him reacting (which is probably because his supposed death is the “Mirror Moment” of The First Avenger–the moment the main character goes from reacting to initiating the action.) Bucky is more of what I’d call a mature Type Two–a Type Two who is aware of their own character flaws and dark side, making it more of a character strength for him than a weakness. He’s less existential than Type Ones or Fives though, so he doesn’t deal with such deep self-hate as, for instance, the Doctor, Obi-Wan, or Steve.

When Bucky gets angry, it’s normally because someone has attacked Steve (verbally or physically.) I’d imagine that when someone badmouths Steve, Bucky attacks them personally with his words and tears them down completely. He is quietly angry about the injustice of people constantly taking it out on Steve, but doesn’t quite know what to do about it (because he’s more based in social norms than a Type Five like Sherlock, who would not be held back in going after the wrongdoers simply because it wasn’t “okay.”)

Wow. This post turned out long. I’ll have to split it into three, rather than two as I had planned… Stay tuned for the final installment of this series!

Thanks for reading, and God Bless!

For Mother Love And Father Care

Tags

character development, completed stories, doctor who, fanfiction, guardians of the galaxy, marvel, short stories, story dynamics

Okay, this… um. It’s a bit sad, and I’m posting it mostly for the Doctor Who fans on here…

How I got the idea for this: I was thinking about Marvel, and then Peter Quill’s line from Guardians of the Galaxy came up: “I look around, and I see losers. People who have lost stuff. But today, life’s given us something.” (And I won’t finish the quote because he dropped a profanity in the next sentence. Faugh.)

Anyway, it made me think. And writing this made me cry, so you’re not alone.

Enjoy!

---

For Mother Love and Father Care

                His life began with a promise.

“Mommy, it’s the big bad wolf,” the little girl whispered, tears streaming down her cheeks and dampening her long, blond hair. “It’s come for me.”

                Her mother consoled her as best she could, secure in the delusions of adulthood, where the worst thing that could happen to you was eviction or losing a job.

                However, Rose knew better.

 

                “Please, send someone to see about the crack in the wall,” Amy pleaded as she said her prayers. “Please, please, please.” With the crack, she was terrified of sleeping in her room. It rumbled and growled and sometimes it felt as if the world was falling apart around her.

 

                “Mom?” Jack asked from the doorway as his mother leafed through the paperwork. “When is dad coming home?”

                “I’m afraid he isn’t,” she said, a catch in her voice. “He won’t be coming home, ever.”

                “Where has he gone? Doesn’t he love us?” Jack sobbed.

                “He loves us, yes,” his mother whispered. “But he’s dead, Jack.”

                “What?”

                “Jack, remember this always. Death stops the breath, but it can’t stop the heart. Your father died for a friend’s sake. That’s the ultimate act of love.”

 

                “There’s a monster in the void,” the boy sobbed into his pillow. “Please, Daddy, please take it away.”

                “I can’t. I am so sorry,” the father replied, gripping his son’s shoulder.

                “But it knows my name,” the boy insisted. The father closed his eyes, wishing that his precious son could have stayed a child just a little while longer.

                He had been having these nightmares since his eighth birthday.

                “Don’t be afraid to be scared,” the father said. “Courage is doing the right thing despite your fear.”

Adults forgot sometimes the harsh reality of a world of nightmare, shutting themselves away in their safe delusions where the worst thing that could happen was losing a job or being evicted. True, those were terrible things to happen, but not so terrible as the child running from the evil he knows is all too real when those who should defend him tell him it is not. Being evicted is not as terrible as losing a home. Losing a job is not as horrifying as becoming lost for all of eternity, an anchorless wanderer, drifting forever through a lukewarm, empty mist.

He swore to protect them, and he would. He always would.

“Your father was a wonderful man, Rose.” Jackie whispered. “You don’t remember him. You were just a baby when he died. He was clever, and he was kind. He would have gone a long way in the world if he hadn’t been hit by that kid.”

 

                “But it was a child’s dream that brought you here. You dreamed that you could hold back death,” the stranger said. Grace looked away. Deep inside, she would never forget Collin. If time travel was real, couldn’t they just go back and save him?

 

                “Amelia Pond. Like a girl in a fairy tale,” the stranger rolled the syllables around his tongue like the silkiest chocolate ice cream.

 

                “Amelia Pond, that was a brilliant name—”

                “Bit fairytale.”

He would protect them, for this.

The Fatherless Girl grew up to change history and re-write Fate, and save her friends a million times over.

 

                The Girl Who Waited would grow up to teach a lonely man how to be human again.

 

                The Boy from Boeshane would grow up to seek a new way.

 

                The Girl Who Dreamed grew up to seek out lights in a new sky.

 

                The Lonely Boy grew up to weave himself an armor of words and walk the stars forever, forging his own destiny and swearing to defend them all—to heal and not to kill, to protect and not to destroy. The solemn oath was the beginning of his life.

No child deserves to cry alone. No person should be allowed to believe that they are unloved. No living being should be allowed to think for the tiniest second that they were not important.

These children would grow up to set new lights afire.

This was his oath.

And he would never break his oath.

August not-quite-TCWT: My First “Masterpiece” *cringe*

Tags

c.s. lewis, character development, robin hood legends, star wars, story dynamics, the chronicles of narnia, worldbuilding, writing

Okay. I forgot to do this before but I’m hesitant to leave it undone. So.

The prompt, as re-released by Rosalie, for August, was “What was the first thing you wrote of your own accord?”

*grabs Thinking Pillow and Kennedy-the-Dragon and sits against the Doctor’s back, thinking*

Oh my. What a doozy of a question.

Probably my first autonomous work, *smacks Turquoise in the face for insinuating that I use too many long words* written when I was nine, was a compendium of poorly written Robin Hood legends with the worst OC I have ever written. She wasn’t named Sparkles Purple Power or whatever, and she actually did have some bad habits, but she was the closest I have ever gotten to a Mary Sue. She was a very weak character, her backstory was the most cliche, she had no personality and, worst of all, she didn’t ever actually do anything (except burning the trenchers and shooting one of Prince John’s men in the backside. She was so useless she couldn’t even hit him in the back of the head. Or the ribs. Or the lung. Or any part of him where her shot might have actually done some damage. Oh, it was played for laughs, but it had been left in the wrong spot and came across as if I didn’t respect my topic at all.)

Basically, think Merida, only without the spark of life that makes Merida compelling, a tragic backstory, and no actual motivation.

Maybe that’s why everyone sounded so self-satisfied and kept rehashing everything they already knew?!

(I really did get my start writing fanfiction, you see.)

Or, wait!

It was a horrible copycat of “The Chronicles of Narnia” which started out okay (ish), but quickly spiraled downwards as I didn’t have the patience to tell a story which was longer than a front-and-back page. It had a fairly good concept if I could’ve developed it better, but now it’s been shelved. Permanently.

I hope that for posterity’s sake and definitely not out of pride that it stays hidden until the end of time.

I’m not sure how old I was when I wrote that. It was, however, definitely more than a decade ago.

After the Robin Hood fail, my next attempt at writing was a novel-length fanfiction of Star Wars, which taught me a lot about characterization and how to differentiate characters by trial and error, but nothing about story–it was horrifically plotless and basically drifted with whatever ideas I wanted to throw in. As a result, the main character (another unfortunate OC who was marginally better than my first and worst one), while she did improve in her lessons and became better at the Jedi arts, never really experienced any major personal growth. She really did deserve better.

My third (fourth?) serious attempt at writing was another young lady with a tragic backstory, maybe a bit more character and personality, but still with a negligible plot and no real character development. And the world I built for it was sadly lacking in depth and originality. Faugh.

After that, though, I did improve somewhat.

It’s been a journey, to say the least. *sigh*

Character Voice (and what exactly IS a Yankee, anyway?)

Tags

agent carter, avengers, c.s. lewis, captain america, character development, character voice, characters, dreamworks, hogan's heroes, how to train your dragon, marvel, professor v.j. duke, space trilogy, star wars, word choice, writing

Okay, I know I posted recently about something along these lines, but I just couldn’t leave it alone.

Character voice is word choice, not accent. But character voice is also defined by regionalism, and while accents are not easy to write, they can be implied.

I’ve been thinking a bit about how word use can define character voice, as well. Recently, I came across the word “nebby”, which evidently means curious to inhabitants of Pittsburgh (Thank you, Professor!), which I had not heard before.

Also, would Obi-Wan ever use slang? Or would Tony Stark ever say “You lot”? (Yes, there are British Avengers fans out there–I can not take credit for this one–someone online mentioned that they wished that there was such a thing as Reverse Brit-Picking for Avengers fanfiction. If anyone from the British Isles wants to write Avengers fanfic–I VOLUNTEER!!! I may not be from New York, but at least I can help you make them sound American. ;-P)

The other thing that inspired this post was a rambling headache. (Yes, I am sorry.)

I was thinking about how different words mean different things to different people (like, in Great Britain, a “jumper” is the same thing as a “sweater” to us. Also, instead of “cell” they say “mobile.” (Major plot point in a Sherlock episode, here. Which is really crazy because the MacGuffin thingy is the same as Agent Carter‘s.)

And then, I was thinking about my uncle who lives in New York but was not born there. Thus, to an American, he’s not a Yankee. To an American, a Yankee is a born-and-bred New Yorker (I think it’s more the city than the state, but I could be wrong.) Meanwhile, in Hogan’s Heroes the Cockney former thief, forger, and all-around conman Newkirk regularly calls his American counterparts “Yanks”. I could go into the etymology of the word, but that’s really not the point here.

The point is that tone can be regional, and you can learn quite a bit about a character, not only by their word choice, but also how they use those words.

It’s very important that each character just sounds like their role. One example of how this is brilliant: How To Train Your Dragon. From the first moment he opens his mouth, you can tell that Hiccup is the sarcastic social pariah. And the phony Scottish accents of the adults? They create an illusion of time and place, even if it’s not an entirely historically accurate illusion… (Well, most modern-day occupants of the British Isles have at least one Scandinavian ancestor… Which is why Steve Rogers can be Irish when his name doesn’t sound like it. Rogers is probably a corruption of a common surname type–Rogerson–which is sort of normal for historical Scandanavians… just like Ransom in Lewis’ Space Trilogy comes from “Ranulf’s Son”… *gets pulled off-stage by a giant hook*)

In short, whether you’re looking to emulate Faulkner or simply to try your hand at creating the regional illusion, word choice is as important as–if not more important than–accent. Maybe you won’t even need to imply accent if you use word choice correctly…

And your spell check won’t want to strangle you as you put together the final drafts of your characters’ dialogue.

You’re welcome.

Thanks for reading, and God Bless!

Theoretical Science: Nature vs. Nurture?

Tags

ahsoka tano, character design, character development, rebels, science, star wars, the clone wars, theoretical science

Back when Star Wars: The Clone Wars was still running, viewers who watched the supernatural-themed storyline known as “The Mortis Arc” to fans saw this version of Ahsoka:

Yet, in Star Wars: Rebels, we see this:

I think we can safely pass this off to a character redesign after Disney came in… or that version of Ahsoka on Mortis is still in the future… but seriously!? What gives?

It’s possible that the version of Ahsoka in the future we saw on Mortis was a version that belonged to a future where the Jedi Order was not destroyed and the Rebels version is the result of Anakin turning to the Dark Side.

Basically, Anakin’s turn destroyed the possibility of the future that that Ahsoka belonged to. (That theory is borne out by the appearance of Rebels Ahsoka: the shapes of her face are harsher and sharper, to fit a colder future.)

But if you look at Ahsoka, she really looks very different in between the two versions. Not only is the Rebels version less Shaak Ti, but her costume has changed as well; it now appears to be a close-fitting sheath dress with a chest piece and “kama”, or short kilt made of blast resistant fabric, as well as the central tabard that has remained a part of her look ever since the very beginning:

(That purple thing? That’s the tabard.)

You can see that they’ve been shifting towards a less-orange, more vital look for her skin, but her coloration seems paler in Rebels, even compared to the “Season Three Look”.

This leads me to think that Togruta (Ahsoka’s species) tend to grow as influenced by their outside surroundings, and that the Ahsoka we saw on Mortis belonged to a kinder future.

If you look closely at her, it’s clear she’s the same character, but her personality and appearance have been changed by the situations around her.

(Irisbloom5 has suggested that the Ahsokas we saw were at different points in their life span, which is hard to verify, since the vision version of Ahsoka has longer montrals (the blue and white part of her head; according to Wookiepedia, the montrals are a sensory organ that has to do with spatial awareness; a bit like echolocation, maybe an ultrasonic sense) but a body form that doesn’t look quite like an adult’s, unlike the Rebels version, which has shorter montrals, but a more adult body form. I’m not certain if this is true, though it is likely–Togruta are supposed to have a roughly 95-year life span, which is greater than the 72-year average for humans, so it’s possible that they age differently as well.)

Sorry this was less of a theoretical science post and more of a ramble on character design changes, but it made me curious. 😉 I’m a writer. My mind works like that. 😛

As always, thanks for reading, and God Bless!

“Big Hero Six” Review!

Tags

big hero six, character development, disney, heroes, marvel, reviews, the avengers, the incredibles, villains, world building

Last week on Sunday, I saw Big Hero Six for the first time. And while it didn’t completely blow me away, instantaneously, like some other films I’ve seen, I thought it was a pretty good movie.

And then, I was sick on Monday and for most of the week. And while I was sick I re-watched it, and went WOW!

Okay, from now on, there will be SPOILERS, so if you have not seen it yet, consider yourself warned.

Sometimes, it seems like Disney movies are always either hit or miss. Sure, they’ve done some movies that are okay, but mostly they either smash or bomb. And just to be kind to Disney, I’m qualifying this as a Disney movie even though technically it’s also Marvel (though it was made by Disney Animation, not Marvel Studios.)

This movie is, first and foremost, a family movie. So much of it is driven by the dynamics of the family, and the movie benefits. Hiro’s relationships with his brother and aunt (Tadashi more than Cass) have lasting impacts on his actions, decisions, and his entire life. This would make it like Disney’s other animated superhero classic, The Incredibles, but the family dynamics in Big Hero Six are different. Rather than being about a more mainstream family that has drifted apart over time and must find out how to come back together, Big Hero Six is about two brothers and an aunt who are very close knit, and then has one member torn from them. As such, it’s somewhat darker and more of a drama than a family comedy.

I had had part of the movie spoiled for me, but I also knew it had to be without receiving any spoilers, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that they didn’t kill off Tadashi almost as soon as they’d introduced him, instead giving him his own hopes and dreams and making him a hero in his own right. More power to you, Big Hero Six.

This movie deals with some pretty heavy stuff for a Disney movie. Personal loss, grief, dark sides, what people are willing to do to other people to get what they want–Hiro is no angel, and at one point his grief drives him to take away what makes Baymax unique, what makes Baymax himself, in order to get back at the villain. However, I was delighted once again–at the end of the movie, Hiro redeems himself, following in his brother’s footsteps to save the daughter of the man who had been trying to kill them.

Now, on to the characters!

I absolutely loved the characters. They were diverse (not just racially), and well-fleshed-out. Wasabi is probably my favorite, though I loved all of them. The filmmakers did an amazing job, especially with Baymax. His almost glitch-y repetition of words and phrases like “Tadashi is here” actually made him seem more human. Also, though his played-for-laughs misunderstandings of metaphor and figures of speech and his expression of the sound of the explosion for a fist bump are funny, they’re even more endearing.

I thought it was amazing, how well Hiro’s grief was expressed by the writers and actors, and the moment when he takes away Baymax’s personality to get what he wants (revenge on Callahan) was gritty and tragic. I am so impressed with how well they did this, and still more impressed by Hiro’s redemptive act, mirroring his brother’s sacrifice earlier in the movie. Too often, people forget to add the necessary balance (aka, adding the redemption to counter the transgression in a hero or keeping a sympathetic villain villainous by having him violate something sacred to the reader), leading to an unbalanced story or an antihero who is completely unlovable, or worse things. Such as a villain who doesn’t drive the story forward because, I don’t know, he’s not really a freaking villain!?! (Sorry, that’s my pet peeve.)

Speaking of villains, while I pretty much predicted who the villain was going to be about halfway between the beginning and the big reveal, I still think Callahan is one of the most compelling villains I have ever seen. Think Inigo Montoya gone badly wrong, out for revenge for his daughter rather than his dad, and you have Callahan. It’s one of the best motivations for a good man gone bad that I can think of, and is compellingly done. One of the quotes, though, was disappointing to me; when talking about Tadashi’s death, Callahan exclaims “Then that was his fault!” or something like that. I thought he cared about Tadashi and would have been more satisfied if Callahan had showed that he, too, felt guilty about Tadashi’s death. Maybe he blamed Krei for that, too? It seems like a waste of potential for character development.

When I first heard about the premise of this movie, I thought it sounded a lot like Iron Man. However, it’s not like Iron Man at all. While the premises (making bionic suits to fight villains) are very similar, the execution is different, and Big Hero Six is entirely innovative. Microbots? Tony Stark has nothing on them. Also, aren’t you glad they didn’t make any Jericho jokes? (Because the Jericho missile played the same role in Iron Man that the microbots did in Big Hero Six.) While there are parallels between the movies, Big Hero Six doesn’t feel like an Iron Man ripoff. In my opinion, Big Hero Six has even more heart (though, about the same amount of style) as Iron Man.

The visuals of this movie are incredible, with a more sleek feel than Iron Man, and the team dynamics are similar, though distinct from, The Avengers. It really feels like a near future sci-fi story, but is realistic enough that you can believe it could happen any day. The setting, San Fransokyo, is actually in California, but it takes place in an alternate history where, after the 1906 earthquake, San Francisco was largely rebuilt by Japanese immigrants, creating a unique, streamlined, Asian-American, city-of-the-future culture. It is so beautiful and believable, you’ll want to take your next vacation there and then be surprised to hear that it’s not a real place.

However, I do have a few issues with elements in this movie. For instance, how did Callahan live after his presumed death? Did he have a separate bank account set up to allow him to lay low after faking his death? In which case, does that mean that the fire was set by Callahan, or was it just a “lucky” accident? Also, Callahan’s use of the microbots seemed a little lackadaisical–if he’s such a robotics genius, why doesn’t he innovate something new to use with them, or figure out a new way to use them, or play around with them a little more?

For another thing, I would have loved to see more of the titular team… you know, acting as a team. Mostly, we just see them operating on their own, coordinating their attacks, but otherwise just working alone, which was sad for me. The teamwork in Avengers was what elevated it above all other movies of its genre, in my opinion, but Big Hero Six is, out of necessity, different. While Avengers always was a team movie, with an equal focus on each character–it was essentially a journey with six equal protagonists–Hiro Hamada is clearly the main focus of Big Hero Six. All his teammates are supporting characters, and while they are autonomous, they aren’t given equal screen time, like the Avengers were. Still, that doesn’t mean that all the characters couldn’t have done more team stuff. (I did like it, when early in the movie, they ended out cancelling out each others’ work because they weren’t being a team. Way to go, Disney, showing that teamwork is necessary!)

Other than that, I did see the Big Plot Twist coming from a mile away, but maybe that’s just because I’m an author and I write Big Plot Twists. Good grief, I’m practically the unchallenged queen of Big Plot Twists! Still, Disney, you’re getting predictable, and I like to be surprised.

Overall, though, my experience was all positive, though, due to the issues I mentioned, I can’t give it five out of five. So I’ll settle for giving it four and a half out of five stars.

(On a side note, if you must cross your crossovers, forget the Big Four (also known as the Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragons); I want to see Rise of the Guardians, How to Train Your Dragon, and Big Hero Six crossovers!!!)

Big Hero Six, ladies and gentlemen–the best animated superhero movie since The Incredibles.

The Brooklyn Project: Protagonist-Centered Morality and the Double Standard

Tags

accountability, ben hur, character development, characters, dynamic characters, ladyhawke, responsibility, story dynamics, the brooklyn project

Continuing from my first post on protagonist-centered morality; scroll to the bottom and you’ll find the comment from Sarahtps that inspired this post. I’ve also probably posted on this before, but who cares, you can never have enough character development posts. 😉

How annoying is someone who spouts preachy nonsense without following it in real life? … yeah, that’s what I thought you’d all say. ;-P This is another reason why protagonist-centered morality deserves to be ditched; it creates a double standard. Otherwise known as you-just-made-your-hero/anti-hero-a-hypocrite. And somewhere in the world, there is a reader who will call you on it. There are multiple readers who will hate on your hard-written book because of it.

Simply put, even if your heroes (well, only anti-heroes do this; real, actual heroes don’t,) don’t hold themselves to the standards they hold others to, you should.

If your hero breaks a rule and doesn’t feel any remorse for it, have karma come back to bite them in the posterior for it. Even if they later do feel remorse, do not hesitate to let the universe at large slap them silly for it. Temporal punishment is a thing, you know (and if you have never heard that term before, you are not a very-well-catechized-Christian and I can tell you what it is on demand. ;-P )

A good example of this would be in the case of the antagonist(s) in Ben-Hur; Massada ends up almost dying in a chariot race and then being permanently crippled, almost as a direct result of his abuse of Judah’s mother and sister, and Iras, the woman who betrays Judah earlier in the book, is stuck taking care of the now-utterly-boring Massada. (She tries to play the pity card with Judah, but she dug herself into that pit and he knows, I think, that the only way for her to ever redeem herself is not by attempting to seduce him but rather taking care of Massada. However, I think it’s pretty clear that she and Massada will eat at each other with their words until he gets her executed or she poisons him out of spite. Sorry, it’s been a while since I read it…)

I’m trying to recall the title of the book and names of the characters I had in mind while writing this post, but for some reason they continuously slip my mind. The story featured a redeemed thief who was continually held back from trying to be a hero due to his past… maybe it was Ladyhawke? Though that’s a movie, not a book…

Actions have consequences (I’m certain you’ve heard this before in much less polite terms.) Don’t forget that, and don’t let your heroes forget it, either. Even if they don’t hold themselves to the standard, it falls to you to hold them to it.

Protagonist-centered morality and double standards make Mary Sues. À bas les Sues!

The Brooklyn Project: Protagonist-Centered Morality and Why it’s Bad

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accountability, baroness orczy, bbc merlin, bbc sherlock, captain america, captain america: the first avenger, captain america: the winter soldier, character development, characters, dynamic characters, editing, harry potter, heroes, marvel, marvel superheroes, star wars, story dynamics, the brooklyn project, the scarlet pimpernel, undo the sue, writing

Sometimes, an author will become so preoccupied with his or her hero or heroine that they can do no wrong–even when they are. The rules bend for these protagonists. And people in the stories (and occasionally the reader as well) see nothing wrong with this.

This can potentially lead to the creation of a Mary Sue.

Protagonist-centered morality is bad because it takes away the possibility of accountability as well. If your hero does something wrong, you want it to have repercussions. They can’t just get away with a slap on the hand! It reinforces to the reader that the hero has done something wrong, and it also makes for deeper characters. If the hero has slipped up once, they have to fight harder to even be allowed to do it right the next time..

On the other hand, if you don’t add responsibility, your protagonist can become spoiled and obnoxious (as in real life) or unrealistically angelic (sickening.) The latter would make him/her a Mary Sue, no matter how many de-Sue-ifiers you threw in to try and balance it (without removing the lack of accountability.)

Apart from the message that it sends, that it’s okay to do bad things, it’s bad for the story at large.

I’m trying to think of a few examples, but all I can think of is that, though in the final cut, we never see the response to Steve’s failed attempts to enlist, falsifying information, I think there was actually a scene planned where someone found out and didn’t trust Steve for a while. They just didn’t officially tell anyone because if they did he’d be court-martialed and they couldn’t have that. In the planned Howling Commandos fanfic that I’m writing, I was going to have one of the people in the USO show tour find out and hold it over Steve. There are, however, strong consequences when Steve fails to predict that the train is a trap and save Bucky, even if it’s not technically his fault.

Another example would be the BBC show Merlin. While, all around, this is generally a good show, the BBC slipped up a bit (for once); this show displays a bit of protagonist-centered morality. Though, later on, they add more consequences, even to past actions, early in the show there are a few episodes where Merlin slips up and gets away with it. However, for the show’s other protagonist, Arthur, there are always consequences to his actions. Inconsistent much? Or just waiting around? *sigh* I wish they’d done it earlier on.

In the BBC show Sherlock, we’re actually hoping to see protagonist-centered morality blown out of the water; at the very end of the last season, Sherlock killed someone, point-blank, in cold blood (attempting not to give spoilers here); we want to see how people react to this. There’s always mistrust, and rightly so, after something like that.

In Star Wars, Obi-Wan’s attempt to distance himself, to not become emotionally involved, backfires when Anakin turns to the dark side; Obi-Wan’s aloof affection was simultaneously too much and not enough.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier comes with a thorough message about accountability (where Civil War is essentially about people’s Constitutional rights, from what I’ve heard). This is especially true for Natasha, who risks, in a selfless action that proves she is capable, no matter what she (and incidentally, Hydra) thinks, of heroism, she spills all her dirty secrets across the Internet in order to bring Hydra down (again, trying to avoid spoilers.) Ironically, this bypasses the same failsafe that Hydra thought would protect them; they insist that Natasha (or anyone, really) wouldn’t incriminate herself like that.

From what I’ve heard, Harry Potter is really bad about this–it sounds like he consistently breaks rules of both the magician and human world without any consequences.

One very good book that could make better use of accountability (without outright protagonist-centered morality) that I love is “The Scarlet Pimpernel.” Except for Marguerite, the book doesn’t use it quite as well as it could…

Accountability. Use it for deeper character.

Thanks for reading, and God Bless!