Exchange of Realities

Sometimes, people just don’t understand what it is they should be doing, or saying—or maybe even thinking. Something needs to get done, and there they are, focused on something else entirely, and they can’t just be told what needs to happen. So what’s a character to do? Manipulate them, of course. This is a particularly important strategy and set of skills for villains, since they really don’t care about the negative connotations of manipulation.

But people designing characters often don’t realize that there are different approaches to manipulation, and they try to achieve one approach’s goal with another’s tactics, then wonder why people think it doesn’t look right. Knowing which is which and how they work is an important thing to learn for people who create manipulators: after all, would you believe it if someone wrote a character who automatically knew how to use a machine gun just because he had decent skill with a pistol, outside of certain game systems where it’s handwaved for simplicity? I wouldn’t.

Before we get into the styles, we need to understand the two basic approaches to manipulation. A direct approach, logically enough, involves direct interaction, usually in person. The advantage to it is that one can easily see one’s own impact, both positive and negative, and adjust tactics accordingly, without having to worry about tangled lines of communication en route. This creates a quick, adaptable, completely deliberate style with its advantages on the offensive. On the other hand, indirect manipulation may have order lag and subordinate misinterpretation, making it more difficult to recover cleanly from setbacks or exploit fleeting opportunities, but it makes up for it by being harder to trace; by the time the target has worked through the chain of intermediaries and red herrings, the manipulator is usually long gone and the tracks are covered.

What, then, are the styles?

• Individual-first. This manipulation strategy depends on precision, every approach carefully tailored to its target and the targets chosen for maximum advantage. While it can have effects on a larger group, particularly if the right target is chosen, those effects are a trickle-down process, and waiting for them to take shape can require a lot of patience. Unlike the other two manipulation styles, this one can be suited to a direct approach—but it can also be indirect, arranging events to achieve a desired result. Users of this style should be good at individual analysis, patient, and excellent at hiding their true feelings.
• Organization-first. This manipulation style is larger-scale, with larger goals. It depends on the idea of visualizing the organization as a single entity, and knowing how to influence that entity as a whole. Some organizational manipulators focus on the leadership; others prefer influencing the rank and file; still others target the information, or the resources, or something else within it. Either way, their overall efforts change the tenor of the organization, and that, in turn, influences the viewpoint of the people within it. This style may also be direct or indirect, but favors the indirect approach.
• Propaganda. This is the most indiscriminate of the manipulation styles, targeting the mindset of the people as a whole. Its greatest advantage is its utilization of general human group-nature, particularly the mob mentality; once sparked, it spreads like wildfire. Unfortunately, this is also its greatest danger: the manipulator has little control over what is done with the information, and a badly chosen rumor can’t just be rescinded. Since propaganda is most easily countered by exposing its source, use of this technique is by necessity indirect.

If you’re not sure what sort of manipulation style a character is suited to, and the recommended skills don’t help, think of it in terms of weaponry. Individual manipulation is like a sniper rifle or a poisoned knife; small impact, but hard to turn on oneself, and minimal collateral damage when mistakes are made. Organizational manipulation is more like a carefully planted bomb—greater damage, including collateral, but still contained, and easier to separate oneself from. Propaganda is like a nuke: it causes maximum damage in minimum time, but is highly indiscriminate, prone to backfiring, and heaven help the idiot who’s setting the thing off while at Ground Zero.

This week, I’ll go into more detail on the individual manipulation styles, so stay tuned!

What manipulation style do your characters do well with?

This article is part of my characterization series.  Feel free to go check out the rest!