Do you agree that it is possible for a character to actually be objectively "bad", and thus worthy of direct criticism? And that one of the ways in which a character can be objectively bad, is if it's what is commonly referred to as a "Mary Sue"? And do you agree that the very act of criticizing something doesn't mean we consider something to be "a cardinal sin"? Because the wording of this response kind of sounds to me, like you are implying any and all criticism is petty and toxic.DementedSheep said:
Ooooookay. Why is the term "Mary Sue" being thrown around like paint?
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Ah, so you're saying there are no "objectively bad" characters?DementedSheep said:
Being a "Mary Sue" or a "Gary Sue" is a valid criticism by itself, because that implies a character to be lazily and poorly written. In some genres (For example action movies) Gary and Mary are more accepted. In some genres they are terribly out of place. In all situations, they are childish and boring to look upon as an adult observer.
"That character is a Mary Sue" means "That character is disproportionally powerful/clever/loved/whatever without proper justification within its own token universe". It is an easier way of saying something is poor writing. Mary Sues are poor writing. It is wish-fullfillment and absolutely childish. Does it work for some movies and books? Certainly. That doesn't make it less lazy.
Pretty much the point I was getting at, no one's pretending or hiding ulterior motives, if these people are saying something negative about a character but not reassuring us that they still like them then you should be safely assuming that they don't like them.s0denone said:
This uproar is a bit of a joke, are we going to need to pretend to like every female character because of how sensitive people are to criticism towards them.
Pretending criticism of criticism is because of "teh girl" is just as inane as presuming all criticism of the character is for the same reason.Gengisgame said:
The overwhelming majority of counterpoint reasoning in this thread is criticism of sloppy arguments, misapprehensions or misrepresentations. People could be criticizing a potato and it would be just as fucking stupid. If you want to read about the gendered aspect of the debate, we had the Return of Kings thread for that.
I'm not assuming, I'm asking for clarification on what you said, based on how it seemed to me. Like I said, the way you said it, sounded like you were making a blanket statement, hence my request for the clarification.DementedSheep said:
Pretending that this isn't about the gender aspect is just ignorant, pretty much every major article regarding the issue says the criticism is made because of some form of sexism, removing the gender aspect is removing the main reason why people are talking about.BloatedGuppy said:
People could be criticizing a potato and still someones sloppy argument is another's valid point, we are talking about character which can be incredibly complex because even if the criticism lands that could have been what others wanted in the character.
All of them, eh? Literally EVERY media article. To say nothing of the fact you're posting in this thread, not the comment section of a media article. Remember what I said above? About sloppy reasoning? Yeah.Gengisgame said:
Questions of whether someone is "overpowered" or enjoys "too much success" are a matter of opinion. When those opinions are rooted in events that never happened, informed by a complete overlooking of salient evidence, or are supported by verifiably incorrect statements, then you have lousy/lazy argumentation. Which is kind of amusing, since "lousy/lazy characterization" is the charge being thrown around, but I imagine some people are quite happy to demand others employ critical thinking whilst demonstrating none themselves.Gengisgame said:
Which is not to say everyone who is criticizing this character is being a jackass about it, that would be absurd. Some people, like Frankster, or Dazzle, just don't like her. That's fine. There's no writ demanding you like a character, and one person's likable is another's annoying. I give fewer than zero shits what someone's opinion of fictional characters is, I cannot underscore that point enough. I just get antsy when there are attempts made to present such opinions as "objective" by lacing them with ten miles of concentrated bullshit.
But surely you will agree that "bad writing" exists, yes?BloatedGuppy said:
No character is objectively unenjoyable, uninteresting or otherwise unlikeable - but a character may be objectively poorly written, right?
I think that is actually one of the cornerstones of current feminist critique of media: That certain female characters are objectively poorly written in order to fill a stereotype or appeal to a section of the fanbase.
Male and female characters alike suffer from being created by lazy writers. "Mary Sue's" fall into that same category; and it may well be a primary reason for someone not liking that same character.
Please to define "bad". There is incomprehensible writing, but that hardly qualifies as writing at all. "Twilight" is popularly considered terribly written, but was wildly popular. Some people would struggle to get through a page of "Ulysses". I've had people on this website assure me George RR Martin is an incompetent hack, while he wins awards for his high quality work. It's subjective. 'Bad' is almost entirely in the eye of the beholder. Particularly when we're dealing with an unfinished work.s0denone said:
You're welcome to make an argument in an attempt to support that, but I doubt you'll get much traction. Take a character like Superman. As bland and one dimensional as characters get, certainly at inception. One of the most enduring pop cultural sensations of the century. Is Mickey Mouse a bad character? He's no Walter White, but he's iconic. You have to consider what the goals of the character and the goals of the piece are. This is Star Wars. They're not writing Tony Soprano. A primary complaint issued at Rey is that she's overtly archetypal, and we've basically described virtually the entire fucking Star Wars film universe.s0denone said:
Star Wars? What? I am talking about issue with writing in general, not specifically Star Wars or indeed Rey, though I can see how you misunderstood that.BloatedGuppy said:
That fact that you would say that objectively "bad" writing doesn't exist makes this argument wholly pointless though. I would invite you to read what I edited into my previous post, which you seem to have missed:
I think that is actually one of the cornerstones of current feminist critique of media: That certain female characters are objectively poorly written in order to fill a stereotype or appeal to a section of the fanbase.
And to your point: Yes, Superman is absolutely a poorly written character (though later iterations have attempted to inject more depth)-- He is the archetypical child-fantasy wish-fullfillment. That doesn't make Superman bad, make Superman movies bad or ruin him as a character - but he is an amazingly boring character (at least original takes on him were) totally absent of any of the aforementioned depth.
I don't think Mickey Mouse is a bad character. Forgive me, I haven't been following anything he's been in since I was a child, but as I recall he had many arguments with his neighbours, many different plotlines, attempts at romance with Minnie Mouse etc. etc. There was a lot of meat on those child-friendly bones.
Rey from Star Wars is not an objectionably unlikely character, but the fact that she seems to have further wound up the "chosen one" mechanic we know from previous Star Wars movies makes her, in my opinion, boring and it is objectionably lazy writing to not just copy plotlines from earlier movies, but to make her almost totally infallible.
I don't give two shits if the main character is black, green, purple, white, male, female, transvestite, transsexual or whatever the fuck, as long as they are interesting and their plot is engaging. Star Wars the Force Awakens as a movie was exactly what I expected it to be. It wasn't overly disappointing or exhilarating. Rey was a boring, predictable character and her massive level of "power"(if you will) and her being like an in-built deus ex machina completely extinguished most of the tension otherwise present in those scenes.
And to round this back to your "Bad is in the eye of the beholder" argument, there isn't really much to say. If you think no such thing as "objectively bad" exists, you are being totally ridiculous. Movies and books that are objectively bad are written all the time, that doens't mean they are subjectively bad.
You can like a movie that is objectively a bad movie, that doesn't make it a good movie, it just means you like that particular type of schlock. That is totally fine. The same goes for books. The same goes for characters and how they are written. Me enjoying "Death Race" doesn't make Jason Statham less of an archetypical action movie bad ass (read: Gary Sue) nor does it make Death Race a good movie. Just like if I like "What's Her Number". It doesn't make the movie better, the characters more two-dimensional or anything. It just means I like that particular type of schlock.
There is a market for bad movies. They generate a profit. That doesn't make them "good" movies. That means there is a market for that brand of "bad".
Heat seeking and they curve over the thermal vent because that's where it would see IR waves, as just one example.LifeCharacter said:
No, that makes them subjectively bad. One of the most persistent and pernicious misunderstandings I see on this website is that "tropes" are inherently wicked, as opposed to just commonly seen devices. Complaining one would like to see less of B and more of A is not saying B is intrinsically shit and A is intrinsically amazing, and anyone claiming otherwise is making an intellectually bankrupt argument.s0denone said:
Yes I think you'll find most people want to watch interesting characters and enjoy engaging plots. Where they differ is in what kinds of characters they find interesting, and what kinds of plot they find engaging.s0denone said:
Yes, there is a totally ridiculous side to media criticism. It's the side that claims a piece of media can be objectively valuated. As in, you can take a piece of media, and claim it is a verifiable FACT that it's "Good". I realize there's a certain degree of intellectual insecurity inherent in holding opinions, and it's nice to think our point of view is supported by divine writ, but there is no conceivable metric by which we can determine whether or not something is "Good" or "Bad" from the perspective of media criticism.s0denone said:
I always saw it as Luke using the Force to guide the torpedoes into the shaft, which was why Obi-Wan told him to use the Force, because as we saw with the first failed attempt the targeting computer wasn't going to get the job done.LifeCharacter said:
Something can be objectively bad without being subjectively bad and vice versa. Saying there is no way to gauge literary skill is frankly mindblowing.BloatedGuppy said:
I don't think my viewpoint is supported by" divine writ, but I take it as a fact that something like "Twilight" is objectively bad. Just like "Jack and Jill" is.
Even skill assessment, which is divorced from "quality" assessment (or universal qualification as "good" or "bad") is subject to bias in interpretation. History is riddled with boundary pushers and experimental artists who were ridiculed or dismissed for not confirming to the standards of the day for assessing "quality", and were later feted as visionary. It would take extraordinary arrogance for us to assume that media criticism has reached its apex, and that we know all there ever is to know of quality craftsmanship.s0denone said:
And even THAT is to say nothing of genre or the intent of a piece of media. I don't want or need escapist pulp fiction to be intellectually dense or rambling and philosophical. I doubt the people who did enjoy mass market frippery like Twilight or 50 Shades of Grey would have felt it was much improved were it rendered in Shakespearean prose or delivered in dry academic vigor. "Written better" is a fucking meaningless distinction when you're talking about entertainment media, the primary purpose of which is to entertain. Is a metric of quality not "How well something serves the purpose for which it was created"?
"By today's best understanding of "quality" writing, Moby Dick has superior prose to Harry Potter. Not that this will have any impact whatsoever on whether someone will actually enjoy reading it." What an exciting, high value argument.
It's not that I find it boring, it's that I find it to be useless, academic pedantry. It has absolutely no reflection whatsoever on value, and serves primarily as intellectual masturbation for people who want to assert their opinion as scientifically validated fact. If that strikes you as opprobrium, that's because it is. Conceptually, I find the idea of "objective" valuation in art and media to be risible.s0denone said:
In fact, I find it so preposterous that I'm going to have to presume we've experienced a fundamental breakdown in communication and I'm simply not understanding what you're trying to say. That, or you're winding me up.
I realize this was meant to be your "drop the mic" moment, but cheers, I'm sure I will.s0denone said:
Except that doesn't makes sense. That would mean that the entire plan to blow up the Death Star was a pointless endeavor from the word go. The whole point of it is that any of the pilots going at that thing could've made the shot.Tank207 said:
Wasn't it still a difficult shot though? Like no bigger than a swamp rat?Metalix Knightmare said:
Like thats why they launched everything they had at it, they were count on superior numbers that one of them would make the nailing shot.