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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   44945 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022

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I ended up late with this post, with the topic being discussed on the late subreddit, but hey, let's bring it here and pretend it's original.

A lot of fiction uses the same character arc, which is called the positive character arc in the business or the hero's journey by Joseph Cambell:

  • the hero had a tragic event in the past

  • the hero has a flaw because of this event

  • the hero answers a call to adventure

  • the hero tries using the flawed approach and keeps failing

  • the hero reluctantly tries using the correct approach as a tool

  • the hero finally has some initial success, but the flaw bites him in the ass and he almost loses everything

  • the hero has a cathartic experience, rejects the flaw and adopts the right approach

  • the hero righteously wields the right approach and overcomes the opposition

This kind of arc is omnipresent: you see it in capeshit, it child-friendly comedies with Jim Carrey or Eddie Murphy, in Disney/Pixar and Dreamworks cartoons.

What I've noticed is that modern heroines do not follow the same arc. On the surface, it follows the same beats:

  • the heroine had a tragic event in the past

  • the heroine thinks she has a flaw because of this event

  • the heroine answers a call to adventure

  • the heroine lets herself be held back and keeps failing

  • the heroine tries letting herself go and starts succeeding

  • the heroine finally has some initial success, but the tragic event comes back and she almost loses everything

  • the heroine has a cathartic experience, rejects the tragic event and embraces her full power

  • the heroine righteously wields her full power and overcomes the opposition

When I look at this version of the heroine's journey, which I have tried to express in the most charitable terms, it does still look a lot like the hero's journey. Yes, the flaw being thinking you have a flaw is a weird one, but it's still a flaw. The heroine still overcomes it and the adversity, what's wrong with this arc?

I think it's the duality of the flaw that is missing. In the beginning of the hero's journey the tragic event is in the past. The hero is one with the flaw. He might not be living in the best possible world, like Shrek or Earl from Up!, but everything he has he has achieved with the flaw. The flaw is not pure weakness. You can reasonably construct a reverse story, a story of downfall or corruption:

  • the hero is pure

  • the hero answers a call of seduction

  • the hero tries using the righteous approach and keeps failing

  • the hero reluctantly tries using the flawed approach as a tool

  • the hero finally has some initial success, but his idealism bites him in the ass and he almost loses everything

  • the hero has a traumatic experience and embraces the flaw

  • the hero wields the flaw and obtains a victory that he learns all too late is hollow

You cannot do this with the heroine's journey, the reverse heroine's journey is just gaslighting that ends with a mental breakdown. The hero goes down and up in his journey (and up and down in his reverse journey), the heroine just goes up and up, there's no moral lesson beyond "don't let yourself be trod upon".

This is probably much pithier than it should be, but perhaps "equal rights means equal wrongs." That is: I think an important key to writing a good female character (any character, of course, but right now it seems most salient here) is to let her make mistakes, and let them be her own fault. Agency has its downsides as well as its upsides (with power comes responsibility, culpability, blame.)

But this runs into a problem: basically any given flaw can be construed as a harmful stereotype by someone motivated to find such things. Characters belonging to demographics that have many defenders are much riskier to write for public consumption than are characters that belong to demographics that don't.

I've recently been blown away by Better Call Saul and specifically how compelling the character of Kim Wexler felt in that it so completely ridiculed 99% of recently written female lead characters.

And yeah it seems it just comes down to this, Kim actually has character development, her entire arc revolves around a real struggle with honesty and playing with the truth, which is thematically appropriate for a lawyer show, and she actually has a legitimate hard time with failures and losses, and falls and trials before she can redeem herself in whatever ways she still can.

In other words, she's actually human and not mere propaganda as Orwell would put it.

Notice that Kim is also a very competent lawyer and likeable person, and this is recognized and remarked upon by almost everyone that encounters her.

If that was all there was to her then she'd be Mary Sue-ish. But there's absolutely nothing wrong with depicting your characters as competent and well-liked! That's not the issue! First it helps that you show their competence rather than having everyone else gush about it, and second they have to struggle with actual problems and even make mistakes, even if said struggles and mistakes are invisible to all but the audience.

I loved that in BCS the only people that knew Kim's personal struggles and demons was herself and Jimmy (and us, the viewers), as far as everyone else was concerned Kim never did anything wrong and rarely made mistakes.

One thing I loved about Kim was a sort of "uncanny valley" about her that made her so close to being a Mary Sue and appear as one to so many characters within the show. It was to the extent that even I as an audience member who got to watch her darker parts felt confused as to why someone like her was with someone like Jimmy, and I had to constantly remind myself that she really wasn't the perfect hyper-competent well-put-together lawyer that her image made her out to be. Her flaws were huge and significant for the impact it had on so many lives, but also subtle due to her presentation, which I suppose was a common theme with most of the main characters in that show.

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