Faultlines -- the imperfections of some of my favorite characters

[butterfly]

Angel's an asshole, Xander is a hypocrite, Draco is a brat, Benton Fraser is passive-aggressive, and Joey Potter is self-absorbed as all hell.

Angel is most definitely a major jerk. Alpha Bastard to the max. Controlling, demanding, and hypocritical. Gives preferential treatment to women and to people that he cares about.

Xander gives Buffy shit about keeping secrets while he himself is cheating on Cordy with Willow and he objects to her sleeping with a neutered killer when he's doing the same.

Draco is, above all things, extremely childish. He makes up rhymes and taunts. He constructs pranks and is so concerned about mattering to Potter that he'll reveal knowledge that he should keep secret.

Benton Fraser frequently gives people ample reason to misjudge him and his priorities ("That's the last time he'll fish over the limit.") and then proceeds to make them feel like idiots for doing so ("He was dynamiting the rivers..."). He's also manipulative as all hell ("You're very good." -- "Thank you.").

Joey gives Jen hell pretty much just for existing and being the kind of pretty that Dawson wants. She spends several years running away from love because she's scared of something real. She constantly makes her life revolve around a love triangle.

If you prick us, do we not bleed?
...
If you wrong us, shall we not revenge?

The two lines are part of the same speech, as they must be, for shared humanity comes hand in hand with shared human weakness.

"You're weak. Everybody is. Everybody fails."

I love these characters not in spite of their faults but because of them. These are the things that make them as confused and real and human as anyone else. They are lost, they are yearning, they are incredibly stupid at times. They're hurtful and wrong and hurting.

"Strong is fighting! It's hard, and it's painful, and it's every day. It's what we have to do. And we can do it together. But if you're too much of a coward for that, then burn."

I love these characters because they all keep fighting. To find something worthy or to defend or to try to reach it.

Is there anything in this life but grief?

There's love. There's hope...for some. There's hope that you'll find something worthy... that your life will lead you to some joy... that after everything... you can still be surprised.

Is that enough?
Is that enough to live on?

Comments

[fallingfortruth.livejournal.com]

This is shallow, but his childishness is one of the things that makes book!Draco so freakishly attractive.

That, and the fact that I see him in my head like a young, platinum blond Jonathan Rhys-Meyers.

*cough*

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

He's just a kid. Harry and the others have seen death and such things, but Draco is still just a kid. He's a brat and it's part of why I like him and think that he's not doomed (no one is doomed at eleven or sixteen).

[luvs-phoenix.livejournal.com]

You're weak. Everybody is. Everybody fails."

I love these characters not in spite of their faults but because of them.

Ironically enough we embrace fictional characters for their faults and yet seem unable to do the same for real people.

Not you. Just an observation in general of the real world.

Why is that so do you think?

[taelonmahal.livejournal.com]

Maybe because faults of fictional characters don't affect us in the real world. You just have to turn the tv off and they are gone... while in the real world you can't just make them 'disappear'.

[luvs-phoenix.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Watching them play out beats the shit out of having them play out on you.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

We don't always embrace the fictional, either. It depends on our own buttons. On which faults that we take personally.

I've always had a hard time with Willow, because her big fault (arrogant shortcutting that covers massive insecurity) is one that I've had a problem with in myself.

We have a hard time accepting in others what we hate in ourselves.

To me, this does extend beyond the fictional. The people that I've had a problem with in 'RL' are the people whose faults directly impact me in a negative way (which is direct and understandable) or the people whose faults remind me of something I don't like about myself.

The former is necessary -- we do need to have a reason to shut off relations with a person who is hurting us -- but the latter is just me expressing my inner pain outward.

Example -- Until I could like Spike, I couldn't accept the parts of myself that hide behind a costume. The parts of myself that do, on occasion, find a sad gleeful pain in other people's suffering. Without accepting the people we hate, forgiving them, and moving on, we all continually create shadow-selves that live out the faults that we refuse to acknowledge in ourselves.

[vanilla-tiger.livejournal.com]

I love these characters not in spite of their faults but because of them.

Yes. I adore so many characters and can portray them positively but that doesn't mean that I am ignorant of their faults. So many of them are messed up and damaged, but that's what draws me in. Through their faults that we see their vulnerabilities, we learn to love what they truly are.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Right. And if you don't allow them their faults, if you sugarcoat them, then you do diminish the good that they do, because you've taken away the strength needed to fight past the faults to the good.

[theatre-pixie.livejournal.com]

It's true that their faults make them real--make them whole and three-dimensional. If bad was always bad, then it would be a paper doll in a long black coat and top hat with an evil and cunning expression on his face. If good was always good, you'd see a paper angel with wings and a halo. And, as anyone who's played with paper dolls knows, there is only so much a paper doll can do.

Take Buffy, for instance, Buffy loved Angel and Angel was a vampire. If we were dealing with two-dimensional characters, Buffy the slayer would have to kill Angel the vampire because vampire=bad and slayer=good. But, Angel was a vampire with a soul who no longer fed off of human blood. A two-dimensional character wouldn't be able to deal with an exception to the rule and Angel would have been dust somewhere in season one.

It's the same with Shaggy and Scooby. They believe in cowardice and sandwiches, but for some reason they're with the other guys in the van solving scary mysteries. They meet the monster and run away, where Fred and Velma and Daphne will chase the monster and try to catch him. But who is it you root for every time? Not Velma the know-it-all or Daphne the pretty girl or even Fred... who I think just happens to own the van. No, you root for Shaggy and Scooby.

Really, the greatest shame is that we do have problems dealing with the faults of other people. We can accept and love the characters, but the real people are difficult. Can we honestly say that we would love Xander and Buffy and Cordy and Angel and the rest half as much if we had to deal with them every day? I don't think so. Because the things that we love about them--that make them real to us--are some of the faults we see in ourselves. From a distance, we can love the characters for being like us. Close up, those are the things that drive us crazy.

[sperrywink]

Dude, you incorporated intelligent commentary about Shaggy and Scooby and their place in the Mystery Van into the discussion.
I think I love you.

*laughs*

[theatre-pixie.livejournal.com]

Huzzah! I am beloved! Thank you, sperrywink.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Really, the greatest shame is that we do have problems dealing with the faults of other people. We can accept and love the characters, but the real people are difficult. Can we honestly say that we would love Xander and Buffy and Cordy and Angel and the rest half as much if we had to deal with them every day? I don't think so. Because the things that we love about them--that make them real to us--are some of the faults we see in ourselves. From a distance, we can love the characters for being like us. Close up, those are the things that drive us crazy.

Unsure. There are a great many characters that are hated for various faults (God, Xander and The Lie. There are still people who haven't gotten over The Lie). In the end, I think that understanding and forgiving fictional characters' faults can be used as a stepping stone towards doing the same with real people.

[go-back-chief.livejournal.com]

Unsure. There are a great many characters that are hated for various faults (God, Xander and The Lie. There are still people who haven't gotten over The Lie). In the end, I think that understanding and forgiving fictional characters' faults can be used as a stepping stone towards doing the same with real people.

Excellent point. For instance I think that if I had read the HP books when I was about ten years old, I would probably have hated Draco, because he has some characteristics in common with bullies I had at the time. (Note, I don't really think Draco is a bully, because he mainly harrasses the trio, all of whom hold their own ground towards him, and "bullying", IMO, requires victims. But at the same time his behaviour can many times resemble that of a typical bully, which is why I think so many readers still, mistakenly, see him as the bully of HP.)

But since I was adult when I started reading HP, I really couldn't help loving Draco ever since the first book. The reason for that, I think, was that he was so painstakingly human underneath his insufferable surface. And that sort of drove the point home for me that all insufferable children are painstakingly human, even the ones who could make my own schooldays hell. And knowing that, makes it easy to forgive and move on. It's quite difficult to hate someone, once you realise that they, too, probably have had their own battles to fight, you know?

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Note, I don't really think Draco is a bully, because he mainly harrasses the trio, all of whom hold their own ground towards him, and "bullying", IMO, requires victims.

Oh, so true. The only person that it can be said that Draco ever bullies is Neville and that's all in the first two books (the "St. Mungo's" crack that made Neville snap not actually having been aimed at him at all). If anything, Draco reminds me of a wounded animal, snapping at anything that gets to close because he doesn't trust anyone.

And yes, I also loved Draco from the first, long before I got involved in the HP fandom. He's a spoiled, lonely brat of a child.

It's quite difficult to hate someone, once you realise that they, too, probably have had their own battles to fight, you know?

Yes, again, so true. This is why I've fought so hard against understanding Spike, because I knew that it was the first step to liking him (and I was completely right).

[theatre-pixie.livejournal.com]

I hope, butterfly, that you are correct.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I think that is often isn't used that way, that far too often, people merely wallow in the hate. But it can be used positively -- I've been able to accept much more of myself because of the fictional characters that I've learned to forgive and love.