Everybody's a loser but me!

[sistermagpie]

Coming out of about three or four different discussions going on right now, I was thinking about well,

Okay, so we all know the certain kind of fan of a character, who loves their character because in their mind everything that character does has a motivation that makes him look really good. Even when this idea seems to require serious contortions of canon to do so. Like, if a character kicks a puppy it becomes how he was worried the puppy was going to be run over by a wildebeest that might be coming round the bend and he just wanted to move the dog quickly. Speculation about the future can be positive or negative. Like, I could believe that Draco will switch sides and be the hero of everything, and while that might be unlikely I could still think that without warping his current character, because I'm talking about the future. He could be a snot now and in the future be anything. The idea is something will happen so that he would change.

Then there's the other kind of thing, where in every scene your favorite character is in he has the finest of motives, and is usually thinking about other people. If he's thinking about himself well, can you blame him? He's suffering in a way no one could not react to by doing exactly what he's doing in this scene. It also happens that everyone else in the scene--at least the people opposed to that character--are acting out of purely stupid or selfish motives, and whatever their motivation is in no way explains why they are being so horrid. Now, sometimes this kind of interpretation is just ridiculous. Like, if your interpretation of the scene where Draco gets the Slytherins to sing "Weasley is our King," is that Draco is trying to push Ron to get out from under Harry's shadow by pushing him to have to work hard. Other times it's not so crazy, like if you have two people arguing over whether Remus was passive-aggressively needling Snape in the Wolfsbane scene. Is he calling him by his first name to irritate him or to be friendly? That type thing.

I think it was no_remorse who recently said that people can forgive characters for cruel actions far more easily than they can forgive them for stupid actions and I think that's somewhat true of RL as well. That is, if somebody is obnoxious it's fine, but if you're just embarrassing, it's not. People are often willing to say they'd do whatever they had to if the reasons were right, but nobody ever wants to be the loser. (In fact, I've always thought that was one of the things that made Frodo so brave and misunderstood, that he agrees not to attempt to do the almost impossible, but to be the person who fails to do the impossible.)

Nobody ever wants to be the putz. We might know that we weren't very nice to so-and-so, but I think we usually think that if people understood the context of our actions they would see we were actually being cool by doing whatever we were doing. Yet we all know that many people are just idiots whose behavior makes you think, "God, don't they embarrass themselves?" It's like good taste-everybody thinks they have it, but everybody doesn't.

I was just thinking how this maybe plays out in fandom, where you can have a character that appears to be doing something that is objectively wrong, or selfish or immature or cruel, and people just don't see it or at least won't say they do. I don't think it's always because they literally see the scene differently--sometimes people do, but with the more out-there readings the person usually goes in wanting a particular character to look good. So okay, you like a character, then they do something lame. I guess you've got a few choices. You can a) not like the character anymore because they "weren't what you thought they were," b) be horrified at the lameness and so frantically come up with a reading that combats the lameness to deny it to yourself or c) continue to like the character just as they are, but come up with a reading to deny the lameness to others.

I know the last two sound the same, but I think they're slightly different. The first one assumes you're turned off by what they did. The second means you don't really have a bad reaction to a scene, but when other people do you sort of say, "Eh? What's so bad? She's just, uh, trying to help that guy. Besides the guy is a jerk." I wonder if that's what we do in our life. For instance, I, like most people, try to avoid extreme lameness, but it struck me tonight that surely there have been times when people have looked at me and wondered why I acted like such a loser. A few times yeah, I feel like one myself because I did or said something that was stupid even to me. I seriously wish I hadn't done it. But other times the thing that seems lame to somebody else was probably behavior I thought was just fine. Maybe not me at my best, but an acceptable form of meltdown.

I was thinking maybe that's how we get drawn to characters, but that's not always true. I cringe a lot when Draco opens his mouth in canon but I still love the character. It's a different sort of relationship than I have to, say, Frodo, who I'm more likely to defend. With Frodo, if somebody says he's being lame in a scene (He's whining! He's too pessimistic!") I'm likely to say no he's not; he's deadpan funny and realistic. But that's probably because he didn't annoy me that way to begin with. With Draco it's more that because I like him it's more unpleasant when he's acting like a loser, but I can't deny he's being a loser because I feel like if I did I would be one myself. So there are some times where somebody is taking what appears to be a negative action in canon and making it selfless or positive and I think they just don't want the character to be a jerk. Other times it seems like really the person doesn't have any problem with the action to begin with, because maybe they don't even get why it's bad. Which gets us back to that whole idea of having different ideas of how not to be a loser.

p.s. My college roommate just had twins. She's a redhead. They are already "Fred and George" in my head. Any suggestions for an appropriate gift?

Comments

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

interesting post but i'll only comment on the gift thing. i was very happy with later age clothes (unless they aren't her first boys), i.e., maybe buy 9 or 12 months if you really want to buy clothes (you need to check season and their size, though which might be an issue)

One thing i could never get enough of were receiving blankets, b/c I used them for darn near anything.

Books are always great, and again, esp. for first time kids and maybe a bit older (we're now getting to some of the stuff we got at birth and baptism with my 6 year old, but how many baby books do you need?)

My personal standard is always the Sears baby book, but i tend to give it a while before birth and it does send a certain message...

i know i had this total list of nifty things that i adored, but since my youngest is three already it seems like this was all an eternity ago! [yes, retrograde amnesia lets the species survive!!!]

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Actually, I was thinking of maybe getting something for her this time since having two boys seemed like such work! She has one son who is...I can't remember how old he is now. But definitely whenever I get baby clothes I always get the older clothes (trying to figure out how old they'll be in that season).

[dorrie6.livejournal.com]

I've often been amazed at the lengths to which most people (and I'm including myself in this) will go in order to be able to convince themselves (and others) that they are never in the wrong. We are masters of self-deception. I think sometimes people will do the same for fictional characters they love or identify with especially.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and then there's that awful moment where you realize you've been doing it and feel like an even bigger idiot! At some point it's almost easier to just admit you're being a jerk or your character is, rather than trying to figure out some way to turn black into white!

[cleverthylacine]

mmm, I've been accused of this but I certainly don't think Draco is never wrong. It's just that so often I'd do exactly the same thing, esp if I were his age.

If I could still find some of the songs/poems jokes I made up about people I didn't like when I was 15, I'd post them.

I really liked "Weasley is our King"--that doesn't mean I thought it was nice. Just Ron is so annoying that there is part of me which was cheering Draco on anyway...

[arclevel.livejournal.com]

I hope I'm not quite *that* bad. ;-) As for the reasons for justifying it (which I do frequently), I'd have to go with all of the above, depending on the character and situation. I know that personally, I tend to come up with several readings of any given situation, and then I subconsciously pick the one I like best and run with it. Unsurprisingly, this is usually the reading that makes my favorite characters look best and my least favorite characters look worst. I probably don't go to the extremes you state above primarily because I have a much greater tolerance for bad behavior in my characters, so I don't need them to be nearly *that* nice, nor do I want them to be. (I guess that would be C on your list?)

To be honest, I'm getting tired of always clarifying that I know that what X character did was wrong, or that I realize it was petty or stupid or cruel or whatever. Partly, it's repetitive and it tends to distract me from what I really want to discuss. Partly because my inner (and outer) contrarian immediately wants to go "no, it wasn't wrong," even when I know danged well that it was.

Partly, though, it's because sometimes I really am unsure as to whether it was wrong or, more often, I know it was wrong, but I don't think it was as serious a wrong as the person I'm talking to does (see current Percy discussion). In those cases, I feel like there's an assumption that what was done was clearly very wrong, and so if I don't automatically agree with that, then either I'm blind to character X's faults (as you detail in your post), or else I must have no morals. Sometimes, though, looking at an issue from another angle really *does* provide a viewpoint that's mitigating or exculpatory, rather than the usual explanatory. A while back, I posted a possible view of one of Snape's nastiest moments that really did mitigate the nastiness of it. I have no idea if it was an accurate reading, and even by that reading, it wasn't a shining moment for Snape, but it was mitigating nonetheless. And sometimes in discussions of the "bad" characters, I feel like we aren't "allowed" to show their actions as less bad, we're only allowed to explain them and show that there are human motivations behind them -- but they're still bad, bad, bad. This is especially strange since lots of us think that the "good" guys have done things much worse than many of the bad guys, yet we're constantly called on to reiterate that the bad guys are, indeed, bad, while this rarely seems to occur with the good guys' misdeeds.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I'm getting tired of always clarifying that I know that what X character did was wrong, or that I realize it was petty or stupid or cruel or whatever. Partly, it's repetitive and it tends to distract me from what I really want to discuss. Partly because my inner (and outer) contrarian immediately wants to go "no, it wasn't wrong," even when I know danged well that it was.

Yes, that's exactly the position I feel I'm in a lot. I think part of it is that there is a widespread belief that if one can react unemotionally to "bad" things and talk about it rationally, particularly if you can point out the *good* aspects of what the person is doing, then you must be amoral. To take an even more extreme case, the Death Eaters. Time and again I've read people who say they just find it "scary" that people defend the DEs and think they're right. Now, maybe there really are people who feel that way--though I have never seen them and if they exist I don't think they sound that different from the person who thinks character X deserves torture, misery, exile and death. But more often it seems to me people are just able to understand the mindset or at least want to. Like, why is it scary to suggest that the Muggleborns do seem to pose a danger to the WW? Even things that are petty and stupid sometimes have motivations that aren't.

Sometimes if you really look objectively at what is being done it just really does come out that the characters who repulse people (usually because they were mean to the good characters) have still not committed wrongs on the level of what they're being accused of, or even on the good guys have reached (yesterday, for instance, I was thinking about the Polyjuice scene which is always seen as the Trio being good guys, and realizing how disturbing that possibly is).

A while back, I posted a possible view of one of Snape's nastiest moments that really did mitigate the nastiness of it. I have no idea if it was an accurate reading, and even by that reading, it wasn't a shining moment for Snape, but it was mitigating nonetheless.

Actually, I read that and meant to comment on it because I hadn't thought of it before and I had to admit it makes the scene a bit more realistic to leave it ambiguous because Snape really doesn't make a habit of those kinds of remarks. He doesn't pick on people's looks or even notice the looks of teenaged girls that we can see. While being nasty and humiliating isn't OOC for Snape, it's the only time we see him doing it that way. He hates Hermione for being a know-it-all, not for being funny-looking, which he himself is. So yeah, maybe he just couldn't help himself from making a joke about her front teeth because he hated having to see her face in class everyday, but he may have just been annoying her by blatantly denying his pet student had hexed her. Obviously he didn't care he'd made her cry, so he's still mean, but your reading is more in line with what we know about Snape.

I feel like we aren't "allowed" to show their actions as less bad, we're only allowed to explain them and show that there are human motivations behind them -- but they're still bad, bad, bad. This is especially strange since lots of us think that the "good" guys have done things much worse than many of the bad guys, yet we're constantly called on to reiterate that the bad guys are, indeed, bad, while this rarely seems to occur with the good guys' misdeeds.

Yes, and this can get really wearying because there are times where you're like, "How bad exactly do you think he is?" I mean, you feel like you're having to manufacture all this fake horror just to prove that you are not bad bad bad yourself. There's many times I feel like that, and that the actions of bad guys sometimes get blown out of proportion to the point of absurdity, and the same action in the hands of a good guy is no big deal.

Also, as I said elsewhere, there's just more badness to examine on the good guy's side because we don't know the bad guys. So sometimes when people feel like I'm constantly picking at the good guys flaws I feel like I'm just talking about canon because that's all that's happening in canon. Ignoring it seems like ignoring the story.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Heheh I certainly don't tend to like losers... in theory. In practice, I think a number of my closest friends are kinda... losers. Ermmmm... yeah. And so is my family. And so am I. I'm kinda sekritly vicious-- or rather, pitiless, as malafede would say. I don't have pity (ie., the willingness to protect the 'virtue of') even people I love. Heh. Er.

Anyway, out of all the things about human beings that annoy me (...and there are a lot of things but let's just not go into that), patheticness (or whininess or dorkiness or cluelessness, what have you) has to be near the top of the list-- and I really do think you nailed it with it being more 'okay' to be mean than a pathetic dork. As far as myself-- I don't make friends with mean people, but I definitely make friends with dorky loser people (though I don't hold back on the 'you're a pathetic freak' when I'm really close with you-- then again, I've never been that close to more than like, a couple of people, so).

With Draco, it's interesting because-- well, he pisses me off a lot, and makes me groan a lot, and kind of disgusts me a lot, to the point of me wanting to wring his scrawny little neck sometimes. But I love him. I think it all started off on the wrong foot with me identifying him both with my own obsesso ragegirl self and my much-hated-and-much-obsessed-over ex. I think the aspects of Draco I really immediately 'attached' to aren't what most people attach to when they say they were or are 'like' Draco-- because I'm not 'like' him in the sense I'm 'like' Luna-- I'm just madly intense and emotional like he is (...in my head), so I dig. On the other hand, I hatehatehatehate & can't stand pathetic wankers who pick on people on a sort of-- 'if I see you in real life I will avoid you like the plague' level. What the hell, they'll probably avoid me too. If someone thinks Luna & Draco would make great friends, I'll just have a hearty laugh.

So yeah... I don't defend Draco at all, clearly. Heh. It's just that I have this... bond with him, which is generally just how I connect to characters. It's not that I think they're great, necessarily, and sometimes I think they kinda suck, even, it's just that I -get- them, and they speak to me. I can feel them in my head or heart or both-- they become real. When that happens, I can't help but care about them. Sometimes I'll defend a character if someone is just saying something -stupid- or -wrong-, like 'Draco deserves to be tortured' or whatever-- 'cause okay, he's a stupid pathetic little boy = fact. 'He deserves XXXXX'? Judgment.

The people using a), what with the deciding they don't like a character since he did something wrong/pathetic/stupid really piss me off the most when it comes to Harry. I don't think my own reaction to Harry's 'questionable' behavior in OoTP fit into any of those types, though. I wouldn't deny he was wrong/lame/scary/whatever, just that to me, it makes sense why he'd be like that and moreover, I don't really -care- even if I don't deny it. To me, that's -Harry-, and I accept Harry because my relationship with him is different than with any other character. It's not that I excuse him-- it's that I understand him and see no need to put him down or feel embarrassed for him. With Draco, when I get out of my own head and out of Harry's head, I feel the same-- instead of thinking he's pathetic, I just think he's understandable, while the actions he does are still groan-worthy. It's just that because I see where he's coming from, I don't step outside his own perspective long enough to feel disgusted. It's not that I love him, then, though-- I can just identify with him if I want to. It's not that -I- would do what he did-- it's that I see why he did what he did on the emotional motivation level, and that's enough. Then again, I'm just like that with people-- even if I disapprove of actions, I have to really hate you to disapprove of you as a person. I don't think I hate anyone.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think with both Draco and Harry they definitely have the advantage of not asking for pity, which keeps them from being a certain type of loser. Like with Draco he's almost owned his own repulsiveness--he's so blatantly all about, "You hate me, don't you? Well, too bad! I won't go away!" And even when he does something really cringe-worthy the fact that through sheer stubborness he appears again and refuses to accept the humiliation...there's a strength there.

The thing is I don't think there's a single character in canon that I feel embarassed for to the point where I just can't take them, or whatever. Like, with Draco there are times when I cringe for him but more in a way where I feel like he sort of knows on some level what he's doing. It's like you said, there's no need to excuse him because you get where he's coming from. Like, as much self-awareness as he probably lacks he actually does seem to have embraced his actual situation at school. Like when people talk about whether or not he's a real rival to Harry because he gets beaten in everything--the fact is, Draco doesn't seem to think he's a real rival so it's not a problem. It's not like he walks around as if he's as good as Harry and doesn't get it. On the contrary, he deals with Harry as just what he is--a dog nipping at his heels, a pest there to gloat over his worst moments and try to ruin the good ones. Most of his taunts are either spoken to other people where Harry can hear them or, if they're too his face, from a position of, "Think you've got everything don't you, because you're so much more than me?"

So in a way the only reason to be embarassed for Malfoy is if he's not living up to what you as a reader want him to be--perhaps this is where Fanon!Draco comes in. And that's why I think I connect all this to fandom, because while most of the characters seem to be okay with themselves fans of certain characters make them more embarassing by defending them in ways the characters don't defend themselves. I mean, Snape isn't the one who claims he joined the DEs because he was picked on or identifies himself as friendless and a loser. Sirius isn't the one who describes himself as abused and still a child because his life was robbed. Draco seems to aspire to be a sort of raven (or vulture, for ps!) sitting on the shoulders of great villains like his father--he's wisely covering up any self-esteem issues with nastiness!

[pinkfinity.livejournal.com]

I recommend anything from the Barefoot Dreams company, especially their blankies or miniblankies. Softest stuff ever.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Ooh, thanks! Blankies might be nice. I was thinking about a massage but I'm not sure how to get one for somebody who lives in a different city.

[trobadora]

I really dislike the attitude in fandom that acknowledging someone's faults means you don't like them, or conversely that if you like someone you have to defend and argue away every single one of their less-than-stellar moments. I like complex characters, not perfect cardboard cutouts up somewhere on a pedestal.

And on this:

I think it was no_remorse who recently said that people can forgive characters for cruel actions far more easily than they can forgive them for stupid actions

My impression is that people also forgive deliberate cruelty much more easily than thoughtless cruelty - "at least he was paying attention..."

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

My impression is that people also forgive deliberate cruelty much more easily than thoughtless cruelty - "at least he was paying attention..."

True--which is maybe why characters like the twins and Harry's OotP attitude seem so dangerous to me. They're not paying attention, and that can sew the seeds of a lifelong enemy that you're not even aware of!

[ljash.livejournal.com]

There's an interesting bit in there that I'm going to pluck out and talk about and ignore the context it's in. :) Bear with me.

The bit about lameness vs. being an asshole. Cruelty vs. being pathetic. You also had a lot of intersting stuff about how readers insist on interpreting such things, but it's interesting how people are more willing to give a chance to the mean character than the pathetic one. And why not, they make for better reading. More people are interested in Draco than Neville. More people are interested in Draco as the miniature Spike he was in the second movie (and to a lesser extent the second book) than the wussy bully he was in the third book. Now people are interested in all kinds of interpretations of Draco, but why did he capture their interest in the first place?

When you mentioned real life, I had an embarrassing flashback to high school. It was when I particularly noticed that there was this one kid who was painfully earnest and kind of dopey, kind of lame, and I avoided him. I was generally one of the picked-on, so I liked the underdog and hated the cruel jocks, but even I didn't like getting roped into conversations with this person and tried to avoid eye contact. It was the first time I confronted that idea and it made me feel not good about myself.

I don't tend to tolerate assholes in real life, either, but sometimes they're easier than people who are just painfully inept. I feel like it shouldn't be that way, but somehow it is.

I am less likely than other people to say a character is whineing and dislike them for being weak, and I guess I'm like that in real life, too. But happy, earnest, enthusiastically lame people can make me wish I was on another planet. I kind of wish it wasn't that way. I think that some people have more strict rules about what's lame than others (for instance, you said you look back and think people were looking at you like you were nuts and that you acted like a loser, when in fact it seemed perfectly fine to you; it might seem fine to me, too, and to lots of people. Some people care more than others, some people have more of a sense of what's cool and they freak out worse when people deviate. These people are to be avoided) and while I might not be as judgemental as some about what's lame, I still react the exact same way when I feel it. I don't like that about myself.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

But happy, earnest, enthusiastically lame people can make me wish I was on another planet.

Oh god, yes. I know just what you mean. In fact, it makes me think of something roxannelinton said recently about Luna, that she kept wondering why she would hang out with people who thought she was nuts or didn't treat her well. There's a point where people can be seeming to ask for it or something. Or also the type of person who mixes arrogance and lameness in ways you can't believe--like, I remember this one girl in my elementary school who in first grade was a complete outcast. One day I said something to her about Groundhog Day--we must have been hearing a story about it because we were in the library. She said, "Groundhogs don't come out of their hole to see their shadow, they come out to mate. I know that because I know more about animals than anybody in the class."

And I remember being like, "Dude! Nobody ever talks to you and you blow a casual comment like that?"

It gets back to something go_back_chief once talked about too, this myth that anyone who is ever picked on must therefore be really nice and cool, when of course sometimes they're picked on because they're annoying. It's not necessarily a badge of honor.

And Neville is a great example, even though objectively he handles being picked on with more dignity than Draco, it somehow doesn't matter.

[malafede.livejournal.com]

I planned to give you a longer answer but I'm near comatose with... flu right now (lame reason for being near comatose, I know), so I'll keep it short.

The fact that lameness horrifies people so much is amusing to me, not really because lame people aren't really lame, but because it gets to the point where lame gets confused with amoral - like you said, a personality trait worse than cruelty like the two things have anything to do with each other. It's like it needs to be further vilified so that people can express their disgust more incisively, because lame lacks dignity and I think this is a button for some people, that makes them see the character as subhuman in the same way for some the villains are subhumans. So for me it really goes back to the same old issue where some people are demonised or othered whereas it would be more honest to regard them as "personally disliked".

Fans use a lot of double standars in declaring this or the other character a loser, like they do with evil characters, and I'm sure I do it as well and my own pov prevents me from seeing... though I think I have an unintentional advantage on this because I am just not interested in defending people's morals or dignity to death, mostly because my own button would be that no matter how low they sink, they still have their dignity. (I was chatting with Reena the other day and it turns out my own worse trait is something like... *parades weakness, makes statement*)

Was this incomprehensible in a semi-comatose way?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Makes sense to me! And I love that idea, that people have to make it more incisive by making it evil. I think that's why I always find it so funny when people read certain scenes as darker than they are--like with Draco plotting to kill Harry at a point when it's really beyond him. Or going back and forth between the idea that Harry has grown beyond him and that the Death Eaters would mark him now if he could. Dude, I know the Death Eaters were pretty lame in OotP, but if they're letting Draco in the game's over!

Like I remember reading once where this person was going on about how Harry was so compassionate-yet-put-upon in OotP, and one of the things he had to deal with was Draco bullying the whole school, implying that Draco had this reign of terror in OotP. I was like, um, did I miss that? Or recently I remember somebody challenged the idea that all the Inquisitor Squad did was take some stupid points with the idea that they did a lot more than that--they paraded around like they owned the school!!! Um, that's even LESS than taking points.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_rp_zeal_/]

It just... sucks more to be a loser, than being an unapologetic baddie, than being an anti-social cynic, than being about everything else! Even Draco lovers like us, who acknowledge his lameness do so in a pretty condescending way—oh we know he sucks, we think it’s endearing/funny/okay, but (most importantly) we are absolutely NOT like him in that way. Or at least no longer are.

As if Draco is a particularly stupid but beloved pet.

Ours is a world that is big on winning and looking good. I myself try my best to appear anti-lame as well (and fail far too often to my liking). Though I can’t help to think the eager attempt to not appear lame, is pretty lame in itself *g*

Oh and as for gifts for the babies... what about gift vouchers of Baby Depot and the likes?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I found a salon right near her and got her a certificate so she can get a massage!

Even Draco lovers like us, who acknowledge his lameness do so in a pretty condescending way—oh we know he sucks, we think it’s endearing/funny/okay, but (most importantly) we are absolutely NOT like him in that way. Or at least no longer are.

So true--and that's why I'm glad he has Pansy in canon, because I feel like she's more down on the ground with him. I mean, I'm an adult so there's always going to be that condescension, and then there's the added factor that I'm not like him anyway, so when he makes a mistake I can easily see what he should have done differently. It's always easy to see when other people are doing something dumb, but if we could all see it in ourselves we'd never make mistakes.

That's again why it's always so interesting when the people who hate the character the most seem exactly like him--Draco seems to attract this type. Basically, young people who seem confident that they are better than everyone and that some inferior people must be put in their place. So you've got somebody on one hand totally denying anything but evilness in Draco, while also demonstrating the lameness in themselves.

*is lame*

[malafede.livejournal.com]

I think my repressed animus is Draco.

[go-back-chief.livejournal.com]

Even Draco lovers like us, who acknowledge his lameness do so in a pretty condescending way—oh we know he sucks, we think it’s endearing/funny/okay, but (most importantly) we are absolutely NOT like him in that way. Even Draco lovers like us, who acknowledge his lameness do so in a pretty condescending way—oh we know he sucks, we think it’s endearing/funny/okay, but (most importantly) we are absolutely NOT like him in that way. Even Draco lovers like us, who acknowledge his lameness do so in a pretty condescending way—oh we know he sucks, we think it’s endearing/funny/okay, but (most importantly) we are absolutely NOT like him in that way.

LOL! Yup, guilty as charged!:DDDD

Or at least no longer are.

I'm not entirely sure it's POSSIBLE for someone who IS, currently, like Draco, to really like him. I'd wager they're in denial, and don't recognise themselves in him (well, maybe in Leatherpants!Draco;-)). Probably, most of them (in case they read the books, and talk about them on the net, that is) think they're Harry, and go to great length ranting about how awful Draco Malfoy and his fangirls are. "Especially the 'mature', 'intellectual' ones, who come up with ridiculous theories about Draco being Harry's shadow, etc, they must all DIE!" Hey, maybe our condescending attitude is the REAL answer to this passionate hatred?;DDD

I like idiots...

[go-back-chief.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of a conversation I had with my sister a couple of ears ago about a teenage TV show called "Freaks and Geeks". Basically, this was a REALLY good show, in both our opinions, one of the best TV series about teenagers we'd ever seen. It was incredibly funny, had realistic characters, brilliantly acted, and had actual teenagers casted as the teens (as far as we could tell, anyway). Anyhow, the topic of our conversation was, why ever was THIS show cancelled after only one season, when crap like "Dawson's Creek" and "91200" were allowed to continue year after year after year. And what we came up with was that its characters were simply TOO realistic. One thing that we had noticed, was that all the adults we knew, who had watched the show (all of us because we had been bullied by my sister into it;-)) loved it. It was all about recognition for us, we remembered what it was like to be this skinny out-of-place geek, or the weird loser in awkward situations. We could see all the embarrassing things that both happened to the characters, and the characters put themselves through, and laugh at it, because we recognised it oh-so-well, and the more familiar, the funnier.

But the show wasn't marketed to adults, it was marketed to teenagers. So, presumably, the audience it SHOULD have had, the adults, didn't watch it, and the marketed audience, the teengagers didn't show enough interest. And why didn't they? The conclusion my sister and I came up with, was that when you still are that skinny little geek, who has to deal with all the awkwardness and embarrassment, it's far harder to laugh at it, when it's shown on TV. You don't want to see yourself as Sam, when he's taking his father's advice and announces that he's "proud of his body", only to have his towel ripped away from him, because that might be too similar to something that happened to you that day. Instead, you want to take a nice trip from reality, and imagine you're Pacey, from Dawson's Creek, the guy who is really the cool, witty, handsome rebel, although, supposedly, he's unpopular in school, and underappreciated by his friends and family. (And so, we have Leatherpants!Draco.:D)

Re: I like idiots...

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Hee! Perfect icon! I remember Freaks and Geeks and I agree with your thoughts on it--though there they also apparently had the disadvantage of setting the show in 1980. I think I was almost the same age as the characters, as many baby boomers were the same age as the kids on The Wonder Years. Unfortunately, those kinds of shows often turn off modern kids because they don't care what things were like in 1968 or 1980.

That's what I remember reading in an article that spoke to kids about shows the season F&G was on. You know what show they liked the most at the time? "Popular." Which was, iirc, a sort of OTT satire about popular girls. Presumably they would describe that show as more like what high school was like, when of course it wasn't at all. At least, the teenagers were all gorgeous etc., just like on Dawson's Creek. It really does probably take a while before you're able to look at yourself that way, even physically. Most teenagers probably prefer to see themselves as adults rather than the awkward fashion disasters they might really be.

long blathery response

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

I guess you've got a few choices. You can a) not like the character anymore because they "weren't what you thought they were," b) be horrified at the lameness and frantically come up with a reading that combats the lameness or c) continue to like the character as they are, but come up with a reading to deny the lameness to others.

You could d) Completely fail to see the lameness at all, I suppose.
Lameness is in the eye of the beholder and all that.
Some people are actively repulsed by Neville or Draco or Colin Creevey or Peter Pettigrew or Percy, some can actually not see whatever everyone else is seeing.
And while I don't particularly like weak/lameness is myself, I've never been bothered by those character's particular failings. I think authorial suggestion is what I react worse to, which is probably why Neville is my least favourite of that group!
I mean, you say the:

"idea is something will happen so that he would change."

Whereas perhaps I can recognise that as demands literature conventions, and character's future happiness; they should and likely will; I would like them just as much if they didn't.
If Draco or Pansy or Crabbe or Goyle stayed the same fairly flat stereotypes they are now, they'd still be my favourites and I would see no reason why they should have to change, because I don't see them as in the wrong now. (I am She, the Blind Fangirl!)
Ora rather, I don't know why I should be repulsed by their actions or that they're wrong in say, being a bully, and be expected to adore Fred and George?
Why should I 'admit' what's obvious to others, when the text hasn't admitted what's obvious to me?

I think that while they get the hatred in the text and by the vast majority of the fandom, they almost have it easier, in that we don't know their motivations and thoughts.
If we knew them, we might not like them.
I mean, we're in Harry's POV here, so we know for example that
a) he's happy to see people suffer in OotP
b) he tried to cast an Unforgiveable
c) he sees nothing objectional in many actions you and I would consider 'wrong'

Now, Pansy/Draco/Millicent/Insert Minor Character here? We don't know.
They could like nothing more than seeing people in pain, they could be casting Unforgiveables every night and practising in the day, and they could see nothing objectional in someone say, hexing another person to the point of brain damage, as long as that person isn't them.
In fact, there's tons of evidence to support that all this is true!
But we don't know, so we can give them the benefit of the doubt.
A lot of people for example, convey the Slytherin's friendships as false - Crabbe and Goyle are idiot bodyguards, Draco couldn't give a shit about them, Pansy's a devious sycophant.
But unless JKR does what she presumably doesn't want to, and gives them some airtime, we can assign them some fairly rosy motives with no evidence to contradict us.

Re: long blathery response

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

Or even e) Compare why someone would disgusted with said act of lameness committed by Character X as opposed to other acts of lameness by Character Y or Z.

I mean, it's very human for example to want to look good in front of people you like, but I was much more disgusted at Harry's horror at being seen with Luna and Neville in OotP (fucking thing, I've been looking at it in prep for the_snarkery!) than I was by Luna and Neville than themselves, and I don't even like those two.
I was much more grossed out by the reaction to Draco who is lame in the extreme frequently, than I am by said lameness.
It's like: I can understand why someone would mock Colin Creevey (I keep coming back to him as he's kind of the King of Lame, for me), I'd do it myself, but if someone said Colin's lameness doesn't deserve mockery, it deserves say, Draco or the Slytherins kicking the shit out of him and laughing, I'd be much more squicked by that than I would be his behaviour, even though that also disgusts me.

I was just thinking how this maybe plays out in fandom, where you can have a character that appears to be doing something that is objectively wrong, or selfish or immature or cruel, and people just don't see it or at least won't say they do.

It's almost more frightening if they genuinely don't see it than if they do and just aren't telling. It's difficult, though, isn't it?
Sometimes I get the feeling in fandom, that people try and explain away other people's reactions too much. So, like, if I don't like, say, Ron or Harry or Hermione's reaction to something, someone will attempt to explain it to me:
But X is going through A, B and C, which explains why they did D!
Or as you put it:

He's suffering in a way no one could not react to by doing exactly what he's doing in this scene.

When of course, if you're all reading the same books (sometimes I wonder!), you know the character's motivations, if they're fleshed out.
I can quite clearly see that it's human to make mistakes, to treat others badly, to be mean-spirited, but it's as if accepting those flaws means they don't exist or again, as you put it, that they couldn't possibly have acted any other way or done anything differently.
I personally believe people (real or not! ;) should strive to improve themselves, not according to others' standards (characteristics such as viciousness is one of my most prized ones, and I wouldn't want to be rid of that; or like I said above, I see no reason for characters to 'have' to change to fit in with fans/JKR's/the Gryffindors ideals) but their own (I would want to change more if I associated myself with say, Neville Longbottom or Peter Pettigrew than a Draco Malfoy or even a Harry Potter, because the like you say, most people, including me, despise the weak 'lame' parts of themselves, even if the other two have done much worse actions) and just because it's obvious why someone does the things they do, doesn't make them acceptable.
I can't pretend certain behaviours don't bother just because I can emphasise with the person performing them. Love the sinner, hate the sin and all that.

Likewise, if you're say, someone who dislikes Draco, you can intellectually understand that it's human to say, be cowardly or jealous or vicious; and even recognise those abilities in your favourite characters or yourself, but if there's a particular trait that gets a visceral reaction for you, such as cowardice, a million intellectual explanations aren't going to make you like or even accept what you don't like.
My hot button isn't cowardice or jealousy or (verbal) viciousness, because I've never particularly valued (physical) bravery or whatever the opposite of jealousy is; and I've never loathed myself for being vicious or jealous, hence it doesn't bother me so much in others.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that the characters we loathe often have a lot of ourselves in them.
I've always detested figures in a text that I've felt to be 'exalted' or 'heroic'.

[shusu.livejournal.com]

I dunno. I guess it depends on how and why one likes the character. My first 'love' did stupid things all the time. A dozen books later, the best thing I squee'd over was him doing an incredibly stupid thing and vowing not to move ever again. He's a very smart character, mind. I guess when something embarrassing happens to a character I love, I go "Eeeek" instead of "Urgh."

Now, my other love once disturbed a murder scene. And was witnessed. Stupid! Everyone in that fandom cringes and laughs to think of it. But at the same time it fits his character, in that he was assessing the situation and not really thinking about himself (or maybe his incredible brain just took a vacation for the sake of Plot.)

I think... I don't necessarily forgive a character, but I am more likely to sympathize with him if he does something stupid *or* cruel if it comes from his personality. Like, I'm less likely to admire or get into a character who does evil out of his principles if those principles are wishy-washy and he's not real concerned with keeping them 'pure.' Characters who are not consistently themselves do not rate highly with me anyway.

I don't necessarily think the best of my favored characters all the time... in fact I think I like them more if they do something that's not "perfect" or not in "good taste." And I don't do a thing to defend them; normally I say "yeah remember that time when he did that! wasn't that awful?"