~~ rationalization fixation
May. 31st, 2004 02:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaI think I get carried away and forget to say exactly what I mean sometimes, so when I say "I hate fanon Draco", I don't actually mean that in a sweeping sense, really. I mean I can't stand the idealization of particular characteristics in any person. I mean that to take away someone's right to make awful mistakes in judgement is, to me, to take away their humanity.
Everyone has their horrors, y'know. My horror is forcing people to be self-aware, mostly because I so -want- them to be that way naturally somehow, and also because I feel I'm rather violently irrational and I cling to my emotional responses to things, I suppose. I feel a strong empathy towards someone who'd have their (unhealthy) passion stolen from them.
The only real excuse I can think of for loving idealized characters is that this is a normal part of growing up, of adolescent development-- so it would be perfectly okay for a 14 year-old, say, to have idols, to refuse to see the ugly irrationalities of human nature in their favorite celebrity or someone older they look up to. This is a left-over from how children view their parents, I'd imagine.
This sort of reminds me of fairy-tales like Cinderella, where the girl hero is, at first glance, perfect: obedient yet reasonably rebellious, kind yet mean to the ones that deserve it, and of course, as pretty as can be. The thing is, behind this veneer of supposed perfection, Cinderella is more like where Harry started off-- the real core of her is a girl who -fights- and resists keeping to her "place". It's not that she wants to be beautiful or powerful, really-- which is why she winds up with these things. She's basically herself regardless of -what- she's doing, which is why she can make the transition. That is the core of the fairy-tale, I think: not that she was always perfect, but that she was always fiercely, sincerely alive, and that shone through.
But above a certain age, doesn't the need for idols become dangerous? This sort of willful blind eye towards our flaws could easily become something that -has- to be there, it seems to me. At what point do we need fanon Draco, for instance, because ugliness is no longer palatable? And that point where we need to tell this lie to ourselves to feel okay-- that's the point of dystopia; of horror.
It's an integral part of growing up, isn't it? Seeing the world and the people in it without its childhood glitter (yet still retaining a sense of wonder and the capacity for hope, of course). You grow up and you realize that Santa Claus didn't exist-- just like Harry did. You realize that your father was a prick and your mentor figure lied to you for whatever reason, that you basically have no one but yourself because you can never predict when people will change or disappear-- and the things people had said to protect you have actually been lies that now hurt you. You realize you're existentially alone, and there's no friendship and no father-figure-- nothing there to fully lift that burden.
And without that realization-- without that bleakness to be accepted or overcome or what have you-- what's the real worth of the ideals one still holds, anyway? What's so exciting about someone being able to overcome these existential issues with some epiphany of reason? What can anyone take away from a story like that? What's the use of it, even as fantasy, in the end? It has nothing to do with us; it doesn't have to do with our hearts.
One may wonder why, exactly, I'm -so- upset... and okay, it's.... Somewhat hypocritical at first glance, but. Eh. It's specific things that bother me, like... not so much the enjoyment of whatever fantasy but... when I think about it..... the implications. Like, in reviewing and thinking about it, mostly. Gah.
It occurs to me that most leading characters in American pop culture (well, movies & TV) are heavily idealized, so perhaps there's a genuine mass appeal to this that stretches beyond amateur writing do's & don't's. Perhaps there's something about the culture that encourages the creation of these "stars". I would say that fanon!Draco easily fits the mold of a pop or movie star. In a way, he's possibly more rational rather than emotionally-centric, but that's a small quibble. He's basically of a certain Hollywood-style heroic mold, isn't he. Hmm. The only difference is that Hollywood heroes start out that way; they don't really start ugly, generally.
This brings me to all kinds of thoughts about the submersion of ugliness & undesirable qualities in the men (and boys) that are set out for public consumption. It's not a coincidence that fanon!Draco is pretty enough to be an American-style model-- stick-thin, blond, often expressionless, pouty. I suppose that's what they look like in Vogue & so on, isn't it? Yeah, I think so.
~~
It's the type of fanon "fixing" that bothers me. The rationalization-type fixing. I don't care if someone's wittier, snarkier, sexier, more dapper, or has an entirely different personality, not so much. Buuuut, when you make anyone more -rational- & kind of force them to be "right", that's when I get upset.
These are the most commonly idealized supposed "improvements", and basically they grate on me. The idea that one can just wake up and be reasonable and "see the light". For some reason, I can't leave that alone.
- Becoming self-aware: as far as I know, this takes not only intelligence but a fair amount of introversion to achieve, especially during adolescence. True self-awareness, where one actually sees one's mistakes in the short-term and overcomes one's prejudices by sheer force of reason, is almost unheard of. No one does this, in other words; or so close to no one that it's equivalent.
There is very little that could be said to justify such a ridiculous development in any person, but if it did happen, the process of such complete re-evaluation would have to be painful and time-consuming. It is impossible to "wake up" to "reality". You can only pain-stakingly reconstruct it, especially after years of brain-washing by one's parents & the society one is part of.
- Rage removal: keeps happening simply because one "matures", and inexplicably, love is the inevitable consequence. Anger seems like the greatest hurdle to love, since it tends to overwhelm all other emotions and is so difficult to let go of. So perhaps this makes sense in a way, but it still bothers me 'cause it's so much like some horrid form of cheating. To be -cheated- of one's anger without it being dealt with... that's a frightening thing to me.
While love may follow any number of previous feelings, from irritation to admiration to hatred, actual "love" takes some significant amount of knowledge of that which you love, as well as a healthy amount of that fickle beast called "self-awareness". Many characters say, "but we don't know each other, how could we love each other" in fics, but then go on and proclaim love anyway. This, while realistic in terms of denial by the characters, shouldn't be reinforced by the objective events or turns a story takes.
Love is routinely denied and acted against the grain of by people who're not very self-aware or not ready to face its consequences. Accepting it when it's unexpected or contrary to past experience is part of accepting oneself in general, which takes time and a certain amount of courage enough people simply don't have, anyway. Commitment is an even greater hurdle to cross for such people, on top of all that.
And I suppose it's personally upsetting to me to have anger be summarily removed as if it was never of any real consequence. It's like-- where does that sort of thing -go-, anyway?
- Rationality: along with logic and common sense, this is a rare and precious quality with most teenagers, and a goodly portion of the human race in general. If there is an obvious, "sane" solution to some problem, one can trust most people not to take it into account. This is just another way of saying that young people are notorious for making mistakes, and these mistakes are generally a consequence of not listening to what their heads tell them.
One of the most improbable things you could imagine is writing a character who simply has a tendency to make the right choices. That in itself is a dangerous lie if it's believed, because you create this -type- of person who does the "right thing", as if it's a consequence of the "right" personality type. There's no such thing as a person who tends to do the right thing, really.
In Hollywood movies, you often have the main character somehow dance through the whole film, jumping these rigged hurdles like a professional athlete, it seems. The whole point is that the hero has to win. The philosophy is the same, even if it's transferred to fanon!Draco, who suffers the opposite fate in canon. I mean, in reality, no one wins, really. There's no such thing as a "winner" in practice-- everyone sacrifices something precious when they pursue a goal to the exclusion of whatever else. We are all losers, basically, and rationality and reasonable decisions don't actually make us any more likely to "succeed" in terms of other human beings.
I think I've succeeded in losing whatever real point I had, btw, once I got over my sudden... er... frustration. Yes. That's it -.-
Everyone has their horrors, y'know. My horror is forcing people to be self-aware, mostly because I so -want- them to be that way naturally somehow, and also because I feel I'm rather violently irrational and I cling to my emotional responses to things, I suppose. I feel a strong empathy towards someone who'd have their (unhealthy) passion stolen from them.
The only real excuse I can think of for loving idealized characters is that this is a normal part of growing up, of adolescent development-- so it would be perfectly okay for a 14 year-old, say, to have idols, to refuse to see the ugly irrationalities of human nature in their favorite celebrity or someone older they look up to. This is a left-over from how children view their parents, I'd imagine.
This sort of reminds me of fairy-tales like Cinderella, where the girl hero is, at first glance, perfect: obedient yet reasonably rebellious, kind yet mean to the ones that deserve it, and of course, as pretty as can be. The thing is, behind this veneer of supposed perfection, Cinderella is more like where Harry started off-- the real core of her is a girl who -fights- and resists keeping to her "place". It's not that she wants to be beautiful or powerful, really-- which is why she winds up with these things. She's basically herself regardless of -what- she's doing, which is why she can make the transition. That is the core of the fairy-tale, I think: not that she was always perfect, but that she was always fiercely, sincerely alive, and that shone through.
But above a certain age, doesn't the need for idols become dangerous? This sort of willful blind eye towards our flaws could easily become something that -has- to be there, it seems to me. At what point do we need fanon Draco, for instance, because ugliness is no longer palatable? And that point where we need to tell this lie to ourselves to feel okay-- that's the point of dystopia; of horror.
It's an integral part of growing up, isn't it? Seeing the world and the people in it without its childhood glitter (yet still retaining a sense of wonder and the capacity for hope, of course). You grow up and you realize that Santa Claus didn't exist-- just like Harry did. You realize that your father was a prick and your mentor figure lied to you for whatever reason, that you basically have no one but yourself because you can never predict when people will change or disappear-- and the things people had said to protect you have actually been lies that now hurt you. You realize you're existentially alone, and there's no friendship and no father-figure-- nothing there to fully lift that burden.
And without that realization-- without that bleakness to be accepted or overcome or what have you-- what's the real worth of the ideals one still holds, anyway? What's so exciting about someone being able to overcome these existential issues with some epiphany of reason? What can anyone take away from a story like that? What's the use of it, even as fantasy, in the end? It has nothing to do with us; it doesn't have to do with our hearts.
One may wonder why, exactly, I'm -so- upset... and okay, it's.... Somewhat hypocritical at first glance, but. Eh. It's specific things that bother me, like... not so much the enjoyment of whatever fantasy but... when I think about it..... the implications. Like, in reviewing and thinking about it, mostly. Gah.
It occurs to me that most leading characters in American pop culture (well, movies & TV) are heavily idealized, so perhaps there's a genuine mass appeal to this that stretches beyond amateur writing do's & don't's. Perhaps there's something about the culture that encourages the creation of these "stars". I would say that fanon!Draco easily fits the mold of a pop or movie star. In a way, he's possibly more rational rather than emotionally-centric, but that's a small quibble. He's basically of a certain Hollywood-style heroic mold, isn't he. Hmm. The only difference is that Hollywood heroes start out that way; they don't really start ugly, generally.
This brings me to all kinds of thoughts about the submersion of ugliness & undesirable qualities in the men (and boys) that are set out for public consumption. It's not a coincidence that fanon!Draco is pretty enough to be an American-style model-- stick-thin, blond, often expressionless, pouty. I suppose that's what they look like in Vogue & so on, isn't it? Yeah, I think so.
~~
It's the type of fanon "fixing" that bothers me. The rationalization-type fixing. I don't care if someone's wittier, snarkier, sexier, more dapper, or has an entirely different personality, not so much. Buuuut, when you make anyone more -rational- & kind of force them to be "right", that's when I get upset.
These are the most commonly idealized supposed "improvements", and basically they grate on me. The idea that one can just wake up and be reasonable and "see the light". For some reason, I can't leave that alone.
- Becoming self-aware: as far as I know, this takes not only intelligence but a fair amount of introversion to achieve, especially during adolescence. True self-awareness, where one actually sees one's mistakes in the short-term and overcomes one's prejudices by sheer force of reason, is almost unheard of. No one does this, in other words; or so close to no one that it's equivalent.
There is very little that could be said to justify such a ridiculous development in any person, but if it did happen, the process of such complete re-evaluation would have to be painful and time-consuming. It is impossible to "wake up" to "reality". You can only pain-stakingly reconstruct it, especially after years of brain-washing by one's parents & the society one is part of.
- Rage removal: keeps happening simply because one "matures", and inexplicably, love is the inevitable consequence. Anger seems like the greatest hurdle to love, since it tends to overwhelm all other emotions and is so difficult to let go of. So perhaps this makes sense in a way, but it still bothers me 'cause it's so much like some horrid form of cheating. To be -cheated- of one's anger without it being dealt with... that's a frightening thing to me.
While love may follow any number of previous feelings, from irritation to admiration to hatred, actual "love" takes some significant amount of knowledge of that which you love, as well as a healthy amount of that fickle beast called "self-awareness". Many characters say, "but we don't know each other, how could we love each other" in fics, but then go on and proclaim love anyway. This, while realistic in terms of denial by the characters, shouldn't be reinforced by the objective events or turns a story takes.
Love is routinely denied and acted against the grain of by people who're not very self-aware or not ready to face its consequences. Accepting it when it's unexpected or contrary to past experience is part of accepting oneself in general, which takes time and a certain amount of courage enough people simply don't have, anyway. Commitment is an even greater hurdle to cross for such people, on top of all that.
And I suppose it's personally upsetting to me to have anger be summarily removed as if it was never of any real consequence. It's like-- where does that sort of thing -go-, anyway?
- Rationality: along with logic and common sense, this is a rare and precious quality with most teenagers, and a goodly portion of the human race in general. If there is an obvious, "sane" solution to some problem, one can trust most people not to take it into account. This is just another way of saying that young people are notorious for making mistakes, and these mistakes are generally a consequence of not listening to what their heads tell them.
One of the most improbable things you could imagine is writing a character who simply has a tendency to make the right choices. That in itself is a dangerous lie if it's believed, because you create this -type- of person who does the "right thing", as if it's a consequence of the "right" personality type. There's no such thing as a person who tends to do the right thing, really.
In Hollywood movies, you often have the main character somehow dance through the whole film, jumping these rigged hurdles like a professional athlete, it seems. The whole point is that the hero has to win. The philosophy is the same, even if it's transferred to fanon!Draco, who suffers the opposite fate in canon. I mean, in reality, no one wins, really. There's no such thing as a "winner" in practice-- everyone sacrifices something precious when they pursue a goal to the exclusion of whatever else. We are all losers, basically, and rationality and reasonable decisions don't actually make us any more likely to "succeed" in terms of other human beings.
I think I've succeeded in losing whatever real point I had, btw, once I got over my sudden... er... frustration. Yes. That's it -.-
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no subject
Date: 2004-05-31 02:25 am (UTC)What's utterly fascinating is that there's this episode called Absolute Power where we see a vision of what the world would be like if Daniel were given the entire store of knowledge of every member of a very technologically advanced race. It starts off he's just more help to the US government than he was before, and then within a year he's taken all real power in the world to himself and he's nuking Moscow in furtherance of his plan to defend the planet. So the St. Daniel people seem to be of the opinion that the world would be a much better place if Daniel ran it with no interference from those who don't appreciate him, and the show, interestingly enough, has categorically stated that that's really not the case.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-31 02:49 am (UTC)Funny thing is, people don't actually trust rational, logical-type people in real life or anything, and aren't really swayed by reasonable arguments. Maybe it's just some sort of geek-writer power-trip ideal or something. Heh. Sort of the way people saintify Remus, too, sin't it? Just because he's reasonable & empathic doesn't make him... I dunno... better like that. I've always thought people (a lot of amateur-type writers, anyway) often just don't know what to -do- with "nice", "reasonable" characters. I mean, one's supposed to write from life, but how many people like that do most of us know in real life? So maybe they do sort of inevitably become caricatures a lot.
Still, imagining fanon!Draco as equivalent to Remus somehow is cracking me up >:D
no subject
Date: 2004-05-31 03:27 am (UTC)super-hotnessempathy. He's really good at connecting with people and not putting their hackles up.Unless it's someone he likes, and then he puts up their hackles constantly on purpose. :)
no subject
Date: 2004-05-31 03:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-31 03:56 pm (UTC)Myobsessionissopure.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-31 04:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-31 04:10 pm (UTC)*off to read it again*
no subject
Date: 2004-05-31 06:18 pm (UTC)...
Any SG-1 fan should definitely should read it. It may not be nearly as kickass if you don't know the characters and can't picture their faces and intonations, though it's still probably pretty amusing.
(Dammit, how can she do *everything* so well? Like, there's my favorite Buffy fic and one of my top 5 Smallville loves, and Sherlock Holmes, and Master & Commander and even... *Gatchaman*...)