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I had every good intention to get myself acquainted with Alias yesterday, but after a visit to the next video/DVD store ended up with the first season of Six Feet Under rented instead. Having seen the first two episodes...
( Spoiler cut, just in case )
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superplin wonders about the tendency to whitewash favourite characters here, down to excusing each and every action and insisting they're always in the right. I think I first encountered the phenomenon in my early days of internet fandom, in Highlander circles (you could call it Methos the Fluffy Horseman, I suppose), recognised it again in Blake's 7 (here you can illustrate it with two categories of stories: PGPs in which Blake apologizes to Avon since, you know, it was Blake's fault that Avon shot him, and post-Orbit stories in which it is revealed that Avon knew where Vila was all the time and never would have gone through with it anyway). Then I met it again, with a vengeance, in Jossverse circles. Doesn't matter whether the character in question is Spike, or Faith, or Lilah, or Lindsey, or Wesley, or Xander. The character is always right, and/or misunderstood, in any given situation, and any character who doubts it can only be wrong/evil/self-righteous/heartless/any of the above.
It occurs to me that two of my fandoms seem to be somewhat free of this tendency, but then again, I have not read nearly as much postings relating to them. Bearing this caveat in mind, I'm not aware that any of the Babylon 5 characters made it into sainthood in the eyes of the fans, or that there is bashing of other characters to elevate or excuse him/her. Similarily, Deep Space Nine from what I can tell doesn't have these character wars, either. I mean, from what I can tell some stories might go overboard with the Julian worship but not at the expense of any of the other characters. If I'm wrong, feel free to mention it in your comments.
I wonder whether this relative fannish peace and lack of need to whitewash is related to the fact that both shows aren't just ensemble series (that's true for BTVS and AtS as well) but that they are multiple pov narratives? Because book-wise, there is something similarily going on in the Potterfandom. I find Snape highly interesting myself and would like it if JKR gave us more three-dimensional Slytherins other than him and Phineas Nigellus, but (literally) cleaned up Romantic Hero!Snape smacks of whitewashing just as much as the tendency to just reverse the Gryffindor/Slytherin bias from the novels into making the entirely of Slytherin House a convent of Misunderstood Saints and all Gryffindors into Cruel Bigots. And HP, while offering a huge ensemble of characters, is firmly Harry-centric in its pov, just as Highlander is mostly Duncan-centric, BtVS is Buffy-centric, and so on. And not so coincidentally, the canon pov character is more commonly than not singled out to bear the ire of the whitewashers.
Babylon 5 and Deep Space Nine, on the other hand, do have leading men as far as the credits are concerned but do not necessarily have them as the focus of the overall narrative. This might also be why they're spared the related phenomenon of hero-bashing. Multiple pov narrative is a tricky thing, and possibly the reason why both of these shows fought for their ratings while on the air, but the result was that on DS9, you didn't have more shows centring on Sisko than, say, on Kira, or Odo, or Quark. And on Babylon 5 you don't have to be a Centauri-phile like myself to regard the Londo & G'Kar arc as the heart of the show; JMS has said so himself. Yet neither of them is the hero in the sense of leading man, or the villain in the sense of primary antagonist. And they certainly aren't the sidekicks or romantic interests, either.
(Of course there are first season shows with G'Kar as the villain, and there are second season shows with Londo as the villain; similarly, you have shows in all seasons with them as the heroes in the sense of main characters. But I'm talking of the overall story.)
Maybe whatever psychological need causes the need to whitewash certain characters and to bash others does not arise when the original text offers more than one or two focal points for the overall narrative?
One last related link:fernwithy (author of the Star Wars and HP stories I praised on various occasions before) on heroes, villains and the rejection of the "but he was cooler when he was evil" phenomenon, here.
( Spoiler cut, just in case )
superplin wonders about the tendency to whitewash favourite characters here, down to excusing each and every action and insisting they're always in the right. I think I first encountered the phenomenon in my early days of internet fandom, in Highlander circles (you could call it Methos the Fluffy Horseman, I suppose), recognised it again in Blake's 7 (here you can illustrate it with two categories of stories: PGPs in which Blake apologizes to Avon since, you know, it was Blake's fault that Avon shot him, and post-Orbit stories in which it is revealed that Avon knew where Vila was all the time and never would have gone through with it anyway). Then I met it again, with a vengeance, in Jossverse circles. Doesn't matter whether the character in question is Spike, or Faith, or Lilah, or Lindsey, or Wesley, or Xander. The character is always right, and/or misunderstood, in any given situation, and any character who doubts it can only be wrong/evil/self-righteous/heartless/any of the above. It occurs to me that two of my fandoms seem to be somewhat free of this tendency, but then again, I have not read nearly as much postings relating to them. Bearing this caveat in mind, I'm not aware that any of the Babylon 5 characters made it into sainthood in the eyes of the fans, or that there is bashing of other characters to elevate or excuse him/her. Similarily, Deep Space Nine from what I can tell doesn't have these character wars, either. I mean, from what I can tell some stories might go overboard with the Julian worship but not at the expense of any of the other characters. If I'm wrong, feel free to mention it in your comments.
I wonder whether this relative fannish peace and lack of need to whitewash is related to the fact that both shows aren't just ensemble series (that's true for BTVS and AtS as well) but that they are multiple pov narratives? Because book-wise, there is something similarily going on in the Potterfandom. I find Snape highly interesting myself and would like it if JKR gave us more three-dimensional Slytherins other than him and Phineas Nigellus, but (literally) cleaned up Romantic Hero!Snape smacks of whitewashing just as much as the tendency to just reverse the Gryffindor/Slytherin bias from the novels into making the entirely of Slytherin House a convent of Misunderstood Saints and all Gryffindors into Cruel Bigots. And HP, while offering a huge ensemble of characters, is firmly Harry-centric in its pov, just as Highlander is mostly Duncan-centric, BtVS is Buffy-centric, and so on. And not so coincidentally, the canon pov character is more commonly than not singled out to bear the ire of the whitewashers.
Babylon 5 and Deep Space Nine, on the other hand, do have leading men as far as the credits are concerned but do not necessarily have them as the focus of the overall narrative. This might also be why they're spared the related phenomenon of hero-bashing. Multiple pov narrative is a tricky thing, and possibly the reason why both of these shows fought for their ratings while on the air, but the result was that on DS9, you didn't have more shows centring on Sisko than, say, on Kira, or Odo, or Quark. And on Babylon 5 you don't have to be a Centauri-phile like myself to regard the Londo & G'Kar arc as the heart of the show; JMS has said so himself. Yet neither of them is the hero in the sense of leading man, or the villain in the sense of primary antagonist. And they certainly aren't the sidekicks or romantic interests, either.
(Of course there are first season shows with G'Kar as the villain, and there are second season shows with Londo as the villain; similarly, you have shows in all seasons with them as the heroes in the sense of main characters. But I'm talking of the overall story.)
Maybe whatever psychological need causes the need to whitewash certain characters and to bash others does not arise when the original text offers more than one or two focal points for the overall narrative?
One last related link:
fernwithy (author of the Star Wars and HP stories I praised on various occasions before) on heroes, villains and the rejection of the "but he was cooler when he was evil" phenomenon, here.
