Unseen Enemies

[flemmings]

Argh the western defaults are kicking my butt. Today's western defaults that form the shield-ring in my way are:

1) Telling the other guy how you feel is Good. Talking about how you feel is a praiseworthy exercise, conducive to understanding other people's emotions, and operates exactly the same as an exchange of intellectual opinions.

So I'm going to have a character who knows what the other guy's feeling are without being told, because he knows what feelings people tend to have in these circumstances and doesn't need to have it all laid out with diagrams and dissected with a fine scalpel. Besides the fact that laying it out with diagrams is as embarrassing as analyzing the quality of one's bowel movements, and that goes for everyone in this society.

2) Understanding how the other guy feels is Important.

So I'm going to have a character who doesn't think it important to understand how the other guy feels, it's important to help him act as a proper member of society. *Why* he isn't acting that way is only important if it's a physical and external 'why' that can be corrected. His own internal motivations don't matter.

3) Romantic love Matters. When it conflicts with duty the problem, over here, is making duty seem even marginally important because the default is that romantic love Matters more than anything. Even if duty wins it's a sad loss because romantic love Matters. The only thing that trumps romantic love is another deep personal obligation, which pretty much has to be to your spouse, because no other obligation is as strong as romantic love.

So I'm going to have a character who suffers more from his dereliction of duty than from the pangs of dispriz'd love. *And* this character is going to be extremely likable.

And after that I'll change water into wine.

Mmmhh... wine.

Comments

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

Have you seen 2009: Lost Memories? (I don't know if time travel stories appeal to you, this is such a film, made in Korea). Having seen it, I then read lots of reviews that complained that "every Japanese character turns out to be evil", which confused me as I saw characters struggling with duty vs selfish desires and the tragedy of the film coming when the main character found he had conflicting duties (and his best friend proved easy to manipulate by the characters coded most strongly as evil because of his romantic love for his wife).

Mind you it suffers from the same failing found in films from all cultures - tragedies could be avoided if the characters actually explained facts to each other.

[mvrdrk.livejournal.com]

So I'm going to have a character who suffers more from his dereliction of duty than from the pangs of dispriz'd love. *And* this character is going to be extremely likable.

So you need to write a character who doesn't talk about its feelings, doesn't care about others feelings, and acts as if duty is more important than romantic love?

I'm going to really love this character! You are going to be pulling your hair over writing it.

Now I'm going to go off quietly and 'squee' over this.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

doesn't care about others feelings,

He cares about the feelings he's supposed to care about. If someone is sad because their brother just died, he'll be supportive and subdued. If an adolescent is paralyzed with shyness he'll-- well, consult someone more experienced as to the best way of handling this social difficulty. He's sensible enough to know that he doesn't know everything (and anyway his society tells him that all the time should he be tempted to forget.) He's not a narcissist or a St Bernard or even your older daughter, though I keep the latter in mind as I write him.

And I *am* tearing my thinning hair out doing it.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Time travel is a fave, though I might be wary of where in time a Korean is likely to time-travel to, especially if there are Japanese around.

Tragedies that could be avoided by informing people of facts are the kind that drive me a bit bananas. I get a bit hand-wavey French about the stupidity involved. Unavoidable tragedies of Just The Way It Is are what does it for me, but I might look this one up. Thanks.

[mvrdrk.livejournal.com]

Yes. I was over simplifying for brevity. I knew what you meant, which is why for the squee.

And you should get Where is my Cow? this week sometime, if the post office works as advertised.

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

The action kicks off with a scene in 1909 and due to what happens, Korea remains a Japanese possession. (What happens when one country is another's imperialist possession - not to mention the concept of AUs - seem to have escaped the people who contributed "oddities" and "goofs" to the Wikipedia article, where they complain that the Korean characters speak Korean-accented Japanese; that the Koreans are able at all to speak Korean, and that a Korean nationalist business might use Korean terminology). I wish there was another film set somewhere during the timeline at the start of the movie, which looks like a very interesting AU!