Escapists: What makes a person/character "deep"?

[Charisma]

I've been wondering recently the differences between shallow and deep and since you nerds are (usually) quite on the ball I thought I'd bring my musings to your attention.

In my ramblings I've thought the operative element of depth is suffering - how much pain, shame, sadness, grief, and/or regret a person carries around with him or her, how many skeletons they have to hide or deal with, whether they brood constantly or are still generally pleasant people despite their struggles.

But I think, that can't be all of it. Depth seems a more difficult disease to catch than all that.

So what else do you think factors in? Do you think a brooding antihero is less deep than a sweet and kind survivor of childhood trauma? Is part of depth the strength acquired as a result of one's problems?

Dazzle me, Escapists, with your depth.

 

[NeutralDrow]

Breadth of emotion, or plausible explanation for limited emotion.

Hidden suffering is only one manifestation of that, and not even a totally reliable one (inappropriate angst, or overreactive angst, can ruin that). Frankly, most any sort of backstory can result in depth if it's not only extensive enough, but if it's possible to get a feel for how it affected the character. Even totally archetypal characters can be deep if they're given plenty of plausible reason to conform to the archetype.

Without that reason, they're just archetypal for its own sake, and can be called "shallow." Doesn't necessarily make them less entertaining, but they're almost by default less interesting.

 

[Mazza35]

An interesting back story does make a character deep, especially when it comes into the story that the audience is being exposed to. Oddly, humans often find pain and suffering very interesting. (They will like a character whose parents were killed, compared to a character who has everything they want) I guess they could also relate to the character as well. You also argue that past problems rising into the story would be more interesting if it were say, a character who was exposed to lot's of death at a young age and is battling psychiatric problems.
Rather than a boring character with a uninteresting back story. As I said before, humans as quite curios toward pain and suffering (I don't know why, I don't study psychology)

Just my view.

 

[Hiikuro]

I think I eventually came to the conclusion that a deep character is not created for a role, but is caught up in a role.

That is, the character is made with the intention of creating a person who you could sit down and have a long chat with, rather than creating the character just to move the plot along.

 

[Mazza35]

I think I eventually came to the conclusion that a deep character is not created for a role, but is caught up in a role.

That is, the character is made with the intention of creating a person who you could sit down and have a long chat with, rather than creating the character just to move the plot along.

That is a very good outlook on it, I concur with you! (Gives cookies c

 

[BonsaiK]

Dazzle me, Escapists, with your depth.

The deepest people are the ones who realise how shallow they really are.

Do I win the thread?

 

[Thaluikhain]

I was going to say that it's very hard to define depth, which is why so many people fail to make characters deep, but then I saw this:

I think I eventually came to the conclusion that a deep character is not created for a role, but is caught up in a role.

That is, the character is made with the intention of creating a person who you could sit down and have a long chat with, rather than creating the character just to move the plot along.

[small]Stupid people giving concise answer to questions I was going to say are too hard to answer[/small]

 

[white_salad]

A character that goes beyond their backstory. They're more than just "the guy whose parents were murdered" or "The girl who was raped". I know that traumatic events in a life would make a person, but there is more to someone that what happened to them. They should have goals beyond their backstory. They should have hates and like snot related to their backstory.

In other words, they can have an interesting past, but they have to just be human too.

 

[HapexIndustries]

Complex, believable human emotions and reactions to the things around them and the things they've experienced. A shallow character shoots a guard in the face as he escapes capture. A deep character might:

have a reason to hate that guard
be reminded of something totally unrelated
worry about whether or not he should have killed the guard
contemplate his own mortality in a sudden pique of fatalism

This isn't really the best example cause most of these sound retarded. Real simple example: Qui Gon Jin... shallow character. Han Solo... deep character.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Simple, humanity makes them deep, we act by knowledge from prior experiences/life and so should the characters.

It's hard to always do this right tho, because it's all in the subtle details that most developers wont bother with, so they emphasize one or two character features and be done with it, mostly they hit the uncanny valley where the characters just feel like creepy dolls.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbFFs4DHWys

 

[Darth Caelum]

Well, my own personal opinion on what makes a character deep or not is what constitutes said character.

A person is made up of many things, his past, his emotions, his beliefs, his goals and the reason for his goals. It is very, very, very, very rare for a person to get excellent all across the board. Rather, a person cannot go through life without suffering, in whatever form the writer chooses to make. It does not have to be 'Oh god! My village was destroyed by a Dragon! REVENGE!!!' or anything like that, not that an interesting character who must balance his need for revenge and his own sense of good isn't interesting, but more subtle means can be used.

He must also have flaws, both in skill and personality. Skill, because people don't typically like characters who steamroll the competition, and personality, because people don't like Mary Sues. Generally.

Circumstances, as in the general theme of the story, may also be taken into account with the character to make him interesting. A Knight in Shining Armor os not interesting or noteworthy in a world where the Heroes always get their way. The same character in a world where nothing you do matters, but the character does it anyway, can make for very interesting story telling.

More or less, characters are complicated, and it takes a skilled writer to not only conceptualize such a character, but to also make him believable. 90% of all stories involve the premise 'Guy is in a bad situation. Triumphs. Gets everything he wants in life.' That's not very interesting is it? But if properly fleshed out, it can grab your reader's attention very well.

I also notice that i wrote all of that as if I was giving you tips in how to write a character. Sorry about that, I write some stories you see, and I have some experience in these sorts of things so....yeah.

Anyway, I hope this answers your questions OP.

 

[The Gnome King]

Honestly, to me, depth is the ability to see outside yourself and focus on issues other than your own world/ego/what-have-you. It's the ability to feel true emotion for other human beings, it's showing me something new about the world or myself that I wouldn't have learned otherwise.

Depth can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. Suffering might be one way to gain depth of character but I do not think it is the only way; nor do I think all those who suffer are "deep" people.

It's kind of like the famous definition of pornography in a way - people know it when they see it.

 

[floppylobster]

Contradiction.

Thought many people (not saying anyone here) seem to think if they understand the motivations of a character and then the character does something else then that is enough. But I say true contradiction, struggling with your beliefs, and a willingness to confront them makes for an interesting character.

 

[TheIronRuler]

Everything is relative.
Your question is relative to your understanding, your comprehension of the meaning of "deep".
Before I could answer your question I should comfront the meaning of the word.
My oxford dictionary doesn't recognize this meaning, therefore I could only guess your intent.
I can guess that what you mean are people with different understanding of their surroundings, being a stranger in a different land. But I could only guess.
If my guess is truely what you consider a 'deep' person, then to answer your question I can state that a 'deep' person is not made. A person cannot evolve its consciousness in a way he could become a 'deep' person. Being a 'deep' person is being special, and usually misunderstood.
If one wants to achieve this goal, one could never succeed.

* If you find and mistake or grammatical errors, I ask you to try and ignore them.

 

[Madman123456]

A Character has depth if there are many facets of that character to be revealed as i get to know the character better. If the Character approximates the Experience i would have while getting to know a real person in the same time frame, that character is as deep as its going to get.


In my Adventures in my action RPG i'm just making up as i go, i'll meet a guy who seems like a total badass. Later, the Character reveals new facets; The Badass isn't all he is, he is also an accomplished hobby baker and maybe he knows a lot about the inner workings of any machinery i might find in the game world because it turns out he used to work with that a lot before he became a badass mercenary/soldier/warrior/whatever.
He became that not necessarily because something bad happened to him, like his family was tragically killed and now he's out for revenge or something like that.

He may have motivations that are new to my.

Even if we can slap a sticker onto most People and file them somewhere, there will be things about them that make them unique, like motivations i never heard before to do things i've never considered.


If a character can give me the feeling that i'm interacting with an entity i have never met before, rather then cliche character #503, that character is "deep".

 

[StormShaun]

F*ck we are not nerds, just gamers, anime/manga freaks.....thats it

Also deep I would say is making my own character eg Saints row or DA origins

 

[Spacewolf]

I wouldsay that a character is deep when they no longer need to explain their actions as you will understand what caused them to make that desicion without it needing to be spelled out