I only watch one of the four shows you mention, so I can't really compare them, but I most definitely agree with you on Joss's skill at creating characters, especially female ones. Of all his incredibly complex characters, in a way it's *Anya* who impresses me most, because she seems so shallow at first glance -- and second. Once you look at her, though, there really is a person with flaws and virtues underneath all that bluntly open love of sex and money (even w/o taking the last two eps into account), and those loves fit into her personality rather than driving it. It's also why finding well-written Anya in fanfics is really very rare.
People are fascinating, so much so that even when I don't like someone, I find them interesting. I truly believe that there is no such thing as a dull person (dull characters? yes. people? no.). Even someone who lives a dull life is a whole world entire, with unseen currents and hidden waterfalls.
Very true. Of course, in real life, I admit that I generally don't want to know nearly that much about people; I'm far more comfortable looking at them when they're fictional. Straying OT, this is why I hate it when people within a complex fandom (usually HP, in my case) brush off or try to stifle discussion (or fanfic) of a particular character because they're "one-dimensional" or they just "don't have any depth." It's one thing to say that as a discussion of the author or writers, but not as a commentary on the actual characters. Once you've got a fandom that provides you with plenty of characters that seem human, most discussion on them treats them as though they're real people; when we try to explain a character's personality or motivation, we avoid saying, "Well, it was really convenient for the storyline to have a character who does X, so this character does X." These discussions are why I'm in fandom. Despite that, some people dislike hearing certain characters (frequently Draco) discussed that way, so they go on about how the character is boring and has no depth. This doesn't work, because we take characters in the fandom as real, and there are *no* real people without depth, whether or not they choose to show it to everyone. We have less information to work from for some characters, but that doesn't mean there aren't layers and "real" personalities to explore.
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People are fascinating, so much so that even when I don't like someone, I find them interesting. I truly believe that there is no such thing as a dull person (dull characters? yes. people? no.). Even someone who lives a dull life is a whole world entire, with unseen currents and hidden waterfalls.
Very true. Of course, in real life, I admit that I generally don't want to know nearly that much about people; I'm far more comfortable looking at them when they're fictional. Straying OT, this is why I hate it when people within a complex fandom (usually HP, in my case) brush off or try to stifle discussion (or fanfic) of a particular character because they're "one-dimensional" or they just "don't have any depth." It's one thing to say that as a discussion of the author or writers, but not as a commentary on the actual characters. Once you've got a fandom that provides you with plenty of characters that seem human, most discussion on them treats them as though they're real people; when we try to explain a character's personality or motivation, we avoid saying, "Well, it was really convenient for the storyline to have a character who does X, so this character does X." These discussions are why I'm in fandom. Despite that, some people dislike hearing certain characters (frequently Draco) discussed that way, so they go on about how the character is boring and has no depth. This doesn't work, because we take characters in the fandom as real, and there are *no* real people without depth, whether or not they choose to show it to everyone. We have less information to work from for some characters, but that doesn't mean there aren't layers and "real" personalities to explore.