characters in power
Mar. 23rd, 2008 04:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethSomeone's meta over here says:
Abraham Lincoln once said that to get the true measure of a man's quality, you shouldn't judge him by how he handles adversity, but how he handles power. I find that's useful when writing characters, because at some point in the story, someone is going to get power over someone else, and what they do with it often sets the measure and pace of the rest of the story.
So I'm thinking Giles and Ethan. And Giles doesn't come out of that one looking good. Neither does Ethan, of course - all his transformations are power-over and they're not, as a rule, welcome... though they're usually asked for, in a careful what you wish for way. But Giles? Put him in power and first he'll use torture to get information (yes, kicking the crap out of someone is torture), then he'll send them off with the military torturers to be experimented on, painfully, and eventually killed. And then we don't get to see him even being sorry for it. Which is a huge great character problem right there. Sure, he thinks he's doing the 'right' thing, the necessary thing... but doesn't everyone? Even if you have to rephrase it to 'seemed like a good idea at the time'. So. Right mess.
Giles also attempts to have power over Buffy... but mostly doesn't, as set up from the start - as early as the Witch she's ignoring him and challenging him on how he expects to stop her. When he does have power, with the crystal and the injections... very bad. But he goes out of his way to fix it.
Giles never that we saw tried to fix what he did to Ethan. Which is another reason we keep going there in fanfic. Need to fix Giles, so he needs to fix Ethan.
In Torchwood it gets interesting. Right up through recent episodes.
Jack, of course, has a lot of power a lot of the time. What does he do with it? Torture, sometimes. Mind probe, which is also torture. Both times the story gives him the result he wants, making it difficult to notice the small RL problem where torture doesn't work. It poisons the data, makes it impossible to assess reliability, because you can't make someone tell you the truth, just tell you what you want to hear. You think that's the same thing? Then you don't need torture, because you already know the truth. So this, with the torture-that-works, is a problem.
Jack also has a problem in that he sometimes acts as if the natural consequence of him giving orders is the whole world taking them. Now he worked his way up through the ranks - he makes a point of this - and he's got more experience than any other human of our era, so that's the authority he's relying on. Rank, experience, knowledge - he knows what he's doing. But... most of us? Not in the military. Democracy. Even with our small knowledge we can get to choose who we want to represent us, what we want to have done in our names. And how many chose Jack? How many would choose his actions? So he's acting from power he's earned... but it interacts poorly with the free will of others, because it isn't power they've given him, just that he's assumed.
My objections to Jack's exercise of power are really close to the same to my objections to the Torchwood Institute and Torchwood Three. Maybe I'll leave it there for now.
But Owen... now here the distinction gets interesting. Because what we saw at first was Owen in power. He has a spray that makes people do what he wants. So he uses it. Gleefully. He seems to find that entirely OK. Just ignore everyone else's choices, he'll make them do what he wants. And that continues true once he gets hold of the gun and points it at Jack... he's going to assert his dominance if it kills everyone. Yeah, I've seen other angles to that, but not the curent point.
Owen in adversity is the part that makes us like him again. Because lately, he's the guy who reacts to being on the other side of the power equation by using his... damn near powerless self, even his state of reduced power, to help others. He put himself between Martha and the gun. He used his emotional turmoil to help others through theirs. Owen in adversity is a solid, albeit bitchy, hero.
Owen in power? Is an arsehole.
Useful distinction.
Abraham Lincoln once said that to get the true measure of a man's quality, you shouldn't judge him by how he handles adversity, but how he handles power. I find that's useful when writing characters, because at some point in the story, someone is going to get power over someone else, and what they do with it often sets the measure and pace of the rest of the story.
So I'm thinking Giles and Ethan. And Giles doesn't come out of that one looking good. Neither does Ethan, of course - all his transformations are power-over and they're not, as a rule, welcome... though they're usually asked for, in a careful what you wish for way. But Giles? Put him in power and first he'll use torture to get information (yes, kicking the crap out of someone is torture), then he'll send them off with the military torturers to be experimented on, painfully, and eventually killed. And then we don't get to see him even being sorry for it. Which is a huge great character problem right there. Sure, he thinks he's doing the 'right' thing, the necessary thing... but doesn't everyone? Even if you have to rephrase it to 'seemed like a good idea at the time'. So. Right mess.
Giles also attempts to have power over Buffy... but mostly doesn't, as set up from the start - as early as the Witch she's ignoring him and challenging him on how he expects to stop her. When he does have power, with the crystal and the injections... very bad. But he goes out of his way to fix it.
Giles never that we saw tried to fix what he did to Ethan. Which is another reason we keep going there in fanfic. Need to fix Giles, so he needs to fix Ethan.
In Torchwood it gets interesting. Right up through recent episodes.
Jack, of course, has a lot of power a lot of the time. What does he do with it? Torture, sometimes. Mind probe, which is also torture. Both times the story gives him the result he wants, making it difficult to notice the small RL problem where torture doesn't work. It poisons the data, makes it impossible to assess reliability, because you can't make someone tell you the truth, just tell you what you want to hear. You think that's the same thing? Then you don't need torture, because you already know the truth. So this, with the torture-that-works, is a problem.
Jack also has a problem in that he sometimes acts as if the natural consequence of him giving orders is the whole world taking them. Now he worked his way up through the ranks - he makes a point of this - and he's got more experience than any other human of our era, so that's the authority he's relying on. Rank, experience, knowledge - he knows what he's doing. But... most of us? Not in the military. Democracy. Even with our small knowledge we can get to choose who we want to represent us, what we want to have done in our names. And how many chose Jack? How many would choose his actions? So he's acting from power he's earned... but it interacts poorly with the free will of others, because it isn't power they've given him, just that he's assumed.
My objections to Jack's exercise of power are really close to the same to my objections to the Torchwood Institute and Torchwood Three. Maybe I'll leave it there for now.
But Owen... now here the distinction gets interesting. Because what we saw at first was Owen in power. He has a spray that makes people do what he wants. So he uses it. Gleefully. He seems to find that entirely OK. Just ignore everyone else's choices, he'll make them do what he wants. And that continues true once he gets hold of the gun and points it at Jack... he's going to assert his dominance if it kills everyone. Yeah, I've seen other angles to that, but not the curent point.
Owen in adversity is the part that makes us like him again. Because lately, he's the guy who reacts to being on the other side of the power equation by using his... damn near powerless self, even his state of reduced power, to help others. He put himself between Martha and the gun. He used his emotional turmoil to help others through theirs. Owen in adversity is a solid, albeit bitchy, hero.
Owen in power? Is an arsehole.
Useful distinction.