(Sorry for the late reply, the holidays are really taking me offline this year...)
Oooh, I did not know about your love redemption button. Interesting! I can definitely see the attraction, and would actually be interested in knowing the specifics. I don't think I have the exact same button, but I do definitely enjoy a good redemption, and it crosses over into what I love about dark characters.
I actually need to think about this a lot more myself...
As you know, I do often love characters who are dark, as long as they are interesting - and frequently I find them far more interesting than heroes, simply because they can be more multi-faceted and provide more narrative potential. I don't think I can call my interest redemption, exactly... although it's not entirely unlike it, either. ;-) I generally want to explore those characters and their strengths and weaknesses, how they became what they are and made the choices they made. The person they are... and the person they can become, how they can / could have been different, all of that. And because I am a sucker for a happy ending (where "happy" can be pretty darkly happy depending on the situation, but you know, still happy *g*), that does often end up involving redemption, too.
But in terms of the character, I do need a basis to work with, some kind of glimpse of a baseline personality that I find not only interesting, but potentially relatable in some way (I hesitate to use "likable" - but it is that, too, even if it only applies to some traits rather than the entire person).
For examply, I love Seishirou as a character (though not as a person) because to me, he is very interesting to explore. He has an alien way of viewing the world and relating to people that I find fascinating, and he has traits that I can appreciate despite his everything. His relationship with Subaru is fascinating to me because of what it says about him, how it changes him and how (in my view) he traps himself in his own snare, and in the end surrenders to it with characteristic cruel flair. And it all works for me because I do see a baseline character that I find relatable, for reasons I'd have to think about longer to properly put into words.
In the case of Slimer and PEG, I dont see anything interesting there... a very slight glimmer in PEG, perhaps, because of his obsession for the blind cultivator whose name I can't remember, and the twisted mockery of affection it is. But it's so twisted, and what he reveals of his childhood is so off-putting (in terms of how his personality is evidently structured for him to react the way he did, when he did), that I have no interest in exploring it further - this is a person I do not find relatable, and I don't want to spend a lot of time in his head because I will not be able to identify with him, and will probably just feel nauseated. For me it's even more extreme with Slimer, who (in my view of the character) appears to have gone down his path on the basis of personality traits that I find actively off-putting even in characters that never commit a single crime. So, yeah, even if he grows up in circumstances that never have him do more than spread gossip about school rivals behind their back and gaslight his partners about why he cheats on them, he will still be someone I have absolutely no wish to read about. But of course there is lot of interpretation involved there!
Thank you very much for the links, I will check them out as soon as regular service is resumed! ;-)
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redemption through love and liking evil characters
Date: 2019-12-29 12:13 am (UTC)Oooh, I did not know about your love redemption button. Interesting! I can definitely see the attraction, and would actually be interested in knowing the specifics. I don't think I have the exact same button, but I do definitely enjoy a good redemption, and it crosses over into what I love about dark characters.
I actually need to think about this a lot more myself...
As you know, I do often love characters who are dark, as long as they are interesting - and frequently I find them far more interesting than heroes, simply because they can be more multi-faceted and provide more narrative potential. I don't think I can call my interest redemption, exactly... although it's not entirely unlike it, either. ;-) I generally want to explore those characters and their strengths and weaknesses, how they became what they are and made the choices they made. The person they are... and the person they can become, how they can / could have been different, all of that. And because I am a sucker for a happy ending (where "happy" can be pretty darkly happy depending on the situation, but you know, still happy *g*), that does often end up involving redemption, too.
But in terms of the character, I do need a basis to work with, some kind of glimpse of a baseline personality that I find not only interesting, but potentially relatable in some way (I hesitate to use "likable" - but it is that, too, even if it only applies to some traits rather than the entire person).
For examply, I love Seishirou as a character (though not as a person) because to me, he is very interesting to explore. He has an alien way of viewing the world and relating to people that I find fascinating, and he has traits that I can appreciate despite his everything. His relationship with Subaru is fascinating to me because of what it says about him, how it changes him and how (in my view) he traps himself in his own snare, and in the end surrenders to it with characteristic cruel flair. And it all works for me because I do see a baseline character that I find relatable, for reasons I'd have to think about longer to properly put into words.
In the case of Slimer and PEG, I dont see anything interesting there... a very slight glimmer in PEG, perhaps, because of his obsession for the blind cultivator whose name I can't remember, and the twisted mockery of affection it is. But it's so twisted, and what he reveals of his childhood is so off-putting (in terms of how his personality is evidently structured for him to react the way he did, when he did), that I have no interest in exploring it further - this is a person I do not find relatable, and I don't want to spend a lot of time in his head because I will not be able to identify with him, and will probably just feel nauseated. For me it's even more extreme with Slimer, who (in my view of the character) appears to have gone down his path on the basis of personality traits that I find actively off-putting even in characters that never commit a single crime. So, yeah, even if he grows up in circumstances that never have him do more than spread gossip about school rivals behind their back and gaslight his partners about why he cheats on them, he will still be someone I have absolutely no wish to read about. But of course there is lot of interpretation involved there!
Thank you very much for the links, I will check them out as soon as regular service is resumed! ;-)
Jin Ling and Lin Jing - yeah. Same problem. ,-)