Oct 09 2008
Two Things Every Character Needs
Okay, two things on top of purpose, image and question. Those are a bit more intuitive. These two things don’t have to be part of the character at creation; they may well show up a little ways into the game. It’s best to have them early, though.
What are they? Someone to fear and someone to respect.
This might sound counterintuitive, particularly for the more heroic characters. But really, what’s the fun in being truly fearless? Better to be afraid and face the challenge anyway.
Fear doesn’t need to be the fear for one’s life that so many people think of when they see fear. Sure, it’s interesting. But there’s also fear of the unknown—haven’t you ever been worried about something because you couldn’t quite quantify it? What about fear of disappointing someone? And one of my favorites, fear for mental integrity. Near-invincibility is all very well, but what about having to deal with opponents who know how you work, who can slip into the cracks between your beliefs and pry them apart or twist them until they’re no longer usable? There’s also fear of loss—perhaps of a thing, or a person, or maybe something more intangible like memory or identity.
Even the reactions to the fear don’t always have to be avoidance. Freezing up can work as well, or false bravado. What about charging straight at the source of the fear to make it look like one isn’t afraid? Or obsessively trying to eliminate it, whether acknowledging why or claiming that it’s a different reason entirely? One of my favorite characters deals with her fears by keeping them close to her; for her, the fear is a motivator and a source of strength, enough so that the problem for her is more getting around to actually eliminating the fear.
And then there’s respect. This one’s pretty easy for characters who haven’t been around all that long; it shouldn’t be too hard to come up with someone they want to emulate or outstrip. Teacher-student relationships, friendly or not-so-friendly rivalries, hero-worship and inspiration by legend—all of them can be covered by this category. Best of all, this gives them hooks into the rest of the world, and their own potential arcs—what happens if they outstrip their idol? What if they discover said idol isn’t who she’s supposed to be? Or if they turn out to have mutually incompatible viewpoints in some other respect? What if the admired/respected person is defeated by a third party?
People to respect can vary, as well. Teachers, parents and older siblings are the most likely, with heroes of legend and Big Important People also highly likely. But someone doesn’t have to be big and impressive to be admirable; what about the woman from the town ten miles away who comes in with her medicines every week? How about that teacher who somehow manages to stay calm even when the entire class is being a bunch of little monsters?
The tough part of both of these is how to scale them up when you’ve gone beyond the level of the original occupant of the role (or in the case of the fears, eliminated them). I personally favor the idea that there’s always something else to replace the original occupant of the role with; it doesn’t have to be logical, after all. And looking for someone new to respect can be worthy of a character arc in and of itself.
What do you think? Good potential there?
I’m just stepping into this late in the flow and have, so far, only read the one entry. However, I’m in complete agreement on characters must have something to fear and someone to respect.
I don’t know that they need “someone” to fear, but everyone’s afraid of something. And characters with nothing to fear are, um, either not believable or, at least, unlikely to be readily identified with. It doesn’t have to be death. Everyone has something to lose. (Or why would we care about them?)
I also agree about someone to respect, though I never consciously thought about it before. But I always have someone for my own characters.
But I’m sort of with Leftblower. I don’t see that a character becoming more means that a mentor becomes less. I’m also not sure why the fears have to be eliminated, rather than conquered…for now.
The key element for me is that a character grows. A stagnant character is, well, dull.
Yeah. Pretty much what I was trying to get across–I was a little rushed when I wrote this one, had to run out to the airport and couldn’t give it the once-over it deserved.
The reason I used the examples I did was partly as a sort of shorthand. In the case of the fear, it was because, well, gamer-audience. For the mentor, I suppose it was partly the loss of the “I wanna be her when I grow up” mentality that prompted me looking in that direction; I had one character a while back who had been inspired by a meeting with a person, and then took what she’d seen the other person do and improved on it. I think it wouldn’t've become quite as much of an issue if the other one hadn’t done a sort of reciprocal “…wow, I could never do that”–rather disappointing, in my opinion–and left me-as-said-character with an unfilled need for someone who wouldn’t turn the dynamic around whose exploits I could use as a measuring stick. If that makes any sense. I think this is likelier to happen with role models than mentors; if you’re the kind of person who latched onto one, it’s better than even odds you’re going to latch onto another one later. Ever aiming higher and all that.