Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
Show a little human decency
Kalos:
--- Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 17 Nov 2010, 20:49 ---If we can't be decent toward imaginary people, who can't affect us, how can we be decent to real people?
--- End quote ---
...seriously? If you're going to be preachy, at least make sense.
If I can't be decent towards an imaginary person who can't affect me, how can I be decent to real people? Because they're real. They have feelings, ambitions, hopes, dreams. There's consequences for the way I treat them, their life matters (if not to me, than to someone). Marten, Dora and Faye are blobs of pixels, abstract ways of displaying binary information. If I call them an asshole on the internet, they're not going to care, because they're incapable of caring, because they're fictional characters.
Ettore:
--- Quote from: Kalos on 18 Nov 2010, 01:09 ---
--- Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 17 Nov 2010, 20:49 ---If we can't be decent toward imaginary people, who can't affect us, how can we be decent to real people?
--- End quote ---
...seriously? If you're going to be preachy, at least make sense.
If I can't be decent towards an imaginary person who can't affect me, how can I be decent to real people? Because they're real. They have feelings, ambitions, hopes, dreams. There's consequences for the way I treat them, their life matters (if not to me, than to someone). Marten, Dora and Faye are blobs of pixels, abstract ways of displaying binary information. If I call them an asshole on the internet, they're not going to care, because they're incapable of caring, because they're fictional characters.
--- End quote ---
I may be wrong, but I think you wouldn't be able to write anything good.
Fortunately, QC characters are more to Jeph than just characters.
Cheers
Ettore:
--- Quote from: Jeans on 18 Nov 2010, 03:05 ---There is a huge difference between being able to appreciate and care about a well-written character and pretending that the character is actually a person.
You use the words "[they're] more than … just characters". Whether you're aware of it or not, the word "just" there kind of betrays your own narrow view of what a character constitutes! Rather than a fictional entity that can be emotionally evocative in its own right, it's just a flat thing you can't care about, so you have to elevate characters to the status of actual human beings when you are moved by them. Which I think is pretty silly! There is a clear distinction between a character and a human being in real life - human beings can be communicated with, and act independently of any author or creator.
That said, I disagree with Kalos as well. I think a fictional character actually can have feelings, ambitions, hopes and dreams (these are, after all, some pretty key traits of human beings, which human characters need to possess to seem genuine), but they exist in a fictional universe that can only be affected by the author. What we say about them in the real world is completely irrelevant to them, unless Jeph introduces to the comic a narrator that explains to Marten that he is a fictional character.
--- End quote ---
How many things you did deduce from my two-liner...
Apparently we agree.
"Just characters" was my way to describe Kalos's "technicism": emotional involvement is essential both to the artist and the reader.
Failing to achieve that bonding is failing to confer urgency to your art.
Cheers
muffin_of_chaos:
Fictional characters that we have absolutely no interaction with don't deserve (per se) "human decency." We can pretend that they're real people that might in some possible way be influenced by something that we say about them, but I'm not sure why.
The characters are "flawed" archetypes, they're a mirror of society and relationships reflected from Jeph's mind in an angle he chooses. The characters are incredibly valuable to us as fractal bits of the story gestalt. Not being able to see that value, diminishing them to snapshots of real people (who aren't written to provide contrast to reality and are too complex to be relateable to the masses), is in my opinion a mistake.
Being able to dissect them and the story, to mess around in writing with how we feel about them and compare such thoughts with others, seems like an opportunity that sucks to be wasted. As long as people are civil and open-minded--and sometimes if they aren't, if they don't cross some line--being respectful in our discussions of the characters as if they're real to us shouldn't be necessary, even if at times it might be ideal.
Ettore:
--- Quote from: muffin_of_chaos on 18 Nov 2010, 04:04 ---Fictional characters that we have absolutely no interaction with don't deserve (per se) "human decency." We can pretend that they're real people that might in some possible way be influenced by something that we say about them, but I'm not sure why.
The characters are "flawed" archetypes, they're a mirror of society and relationships reflected from Jeph's mind in an angle he chooses. The characters are incredibly valuable to us as fractal bits of the story gestalt. Not being able to see that value, diminishing them to snapshots of real people (who aren't written to provide contrast to reality and are too complex to be relateable to the masses), is in my opinion a mistake.
Being able to dissect them and the story, to mess around in writing with how we feel about them and compare such thoughts with others, seems like an opportunity that sucks to be wasted. As long as people are civil and open-minded--and sometimes if they aren't, if they don't cross some line--being respectful in our discussions of the characters as if they're real to us shouldn't be necessary, even if at times it might be ideal.
--- End quote ---
I bet you like Bertold Brecht very much...
Well, i prefer Shakespeare, as I prefer life over judgement.
This does not mean that life cannot deliver judgement, of course. But firstly, it's life.
A character CAN be a mirror over society and reletionships, and, really, if they are "alive" they somehow will be, because the reader will project is own judgement over them.
But there are authors to whom their characters are only that mirror. A mere result of their technical skills in writing. I see that in your words (I can be wrong).
Still not being a romantic and not losing the focus over the awereness and the expertise necessary for his work, Jeph writes "Doesn't make it any less sad for me to post, though".
And I think that if he didn't feel that way, maybe the last two panels in today's comic wouldn't have been so sad to me, too.
P.S.:
I haven't spoken (or written) English for a long time, my syntax used to be better. My apologies.
Cheers
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