[and resent characters who get things handed to them by the narrative]
Rrgh, yes. Yesssss. ...I don't suppose you've watched Stargate: SG-1 up through season 9, have you? Because one of the best examples I can think of this is how they introduced New Male Lead Cam Mitchell, which was pretty much that a character with established unflappability (hey, he works with the best of the best, people around him routinely save the Earth, have blown up stars, come back from the dead, y'know, multiple times, negotiate with aliens, save the galaxy, save other galaxies, etc, etc, and he does not bat an eyelid at any of this) gets shown completely fanboying over the new guy.
And with that one scene, the writers made me hate Cam Mitchell forever.
It wasn't even that I disliked Cam as a character. I didn't have time to. I just... fkdflkjsdl, basically.
One of those other writing truisms I like is that characters have to earn their happy endings. And they have to earn your engagement, and your emotional involvement, and I am not overfond of writers who think that they can just obligate you to be on a character's side.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2013-08-02 09:03 pm (UTC)Rrgh, yes. Yesssss. ...I don't suppose you've watched Stargate: SG-1 up through season 9, have you? Because one of the best examples I can think of this is how they introduced New Male Lead Cam Mitchell, which was pretty much that a character with established unflappability (hey, he works with the best of the best, people around him routinely save the Earth, have blown up stars, come back from the dead, y'know, multiple times, negotiate with aliens, save the galaxy, save other galaxies, etc, etc, and he does not bat an eyelid at any of this) gets shown completely fanboying over the new guy.
And with that one scene, the writers made me hate Cam Mitchell forever.
It wasn't even that I disliked Cam as a character. I didn't have time to. I just... fkdflkjsdl, basically.
One of those other writing truisms I like is that characters have to earn their happy endings. And they have to earn your engagement, and your emotional involvement, and I am not overfond of writers who think that they can just obligate you to be on a character's side.