Cliche, Genre, Theme, Myth

[Jason Lee]

So Tara says to me, "I don't like Jeremiah's romantic interests."

"Oh?"

"Luir and Luccia aren't quite right."

"I suppose.  You know who's perfect?  Genevieve.  You could kill Caspian and then she'd fall into his arms."

"That would be sad and she's like 10 years younger than him."

"So?"

"So, that's creepy."

"Remind me not to talk to freshman girls anymore."

"You could make a new character!  She needs to be adventurous, and sweet, and hot, and..."

"Ummm...  I already have a shit-ton of characters and like 4 in the queue.  I just got the zombie samurai.  He's barely out of the wrapper.  Make Eric do it."

"Waaaaah.  Come on.  I know you'll do it right."

"I'll think about it."

****

I do think about it, because unfortunately she's got me.  I love making characters.  Enough that the rest of the group mocks me for having "800" characters.  In truth I have about 20, or maybe 30, but I'm only playing 6 right now, and that's not even double what some people have so I don't see what they are complaining about. ;)

So I say to her, "Bounty hunter!"

And she says, "Yay!"

I quickly say, "Maybe."

*****

Despite how much I adore making characters I never really define them outside of play.  No character backgrounds, timelines, or any of that jazz.  I just get a general idea, a general appearance, toss them in the mix, and see who they turn out to be.  Some of the characters in our campaign have their own blogs, which is probably worth its own topic.  I decided, using the same medium, to engage in a bit of an exercise.  I would make a blog and fill it with little stories designed to be character concepts.  So far, the bounty hunter has gotten all of the attention.  I still haven't decided if I'll play her, but Tara's excited enough about the idea that I'm risking a lashing if I don't.

Here is my little experiment:  Intercapedo.  In case you feel like getting some context for the rambling that is to come.  (Ignore the Elliot entry - he's an active character.)

My bounty hunter is a genre archetype.  Pure cliche.  If you've ever read a detective novel with a female protagonist, like the Stephanie Plum or Anita Blake books, you'll recognize her.  There is nothing, nada, zippo, original in the character.  The fact that she is an archetype does a lot of work for me. Just based on being familiar with the genre I know that:

• She is drawn to, but doesn't really like, men who are trouble for her.
• She is pretty enough that she invokes catcalls and can use her appearance to manipulate, but not so pretty that she isn't self-conscious about her appearance.  She has to have at least one feature to complain about, which helps female readers identify with her.  I'm sure it helps men a bit, but let's face it, this archetype is geared towards women.  If it wasn't the authors wouldn't feel the need to describe what shoes she puts on before leaving the house.
• She'll be fit, but not strong or large.
• She works in a boys club of some kind.  She gets talked down to a lot in her work and not taken seriously.  This just makes her ornery.
• She has some sort of "girly" hobby - like collecting stuffed penguins.
• Conflicts will involve her getting in over her head because she'll puff herself up and take on a challenge beyond her.  Often it'll be beyond her physically, such as catching a very large man.  She'll escape the conflict by luck, possibly running, and probably lying through her teeth.  This will only dig her deeper into trouble.
• And much more...

All of these things, not just the one I pointed out, are things that a female reader especially can identify with.  I think these strong mechanism of identification are why this archetype is so popular.  An incredible amount of information is packed into genre.  Character personalities, dialogue flow, conflicts, and resolutions.  All this information can be used simply by using the genre.  You'll be up and running with a fleshed out character instantly just by using an archetype. 

Genre is built on a structure of cliches.  Cliches are cliche because we like them enough to use them over and over and over again.  Genre is so appealing because it's based on well liked qualities.  Then there is the problem with cliche.  If this character of mine follows her genre perfectly she'll be trite.  Boring.  I'll already know all that will or can happen to her.  That makes the theme already expressed.  I can't do it in play.  I'll be themeless.  Rather, I won't enjoy the theme I end up with.  This is where the criticism of genre fiction comes in.  Too much use of cliche.  Which doesn't mean there isn't good genre fiction.  It just needs something unexpected. 

Do you have to break away from using an archetype to have an engaging theme?  I don't think so, but you would then need a unique situation.  Seems to me like you can still end up with an engaging theme if one side of the collision of character and situation is cliche.  (Important note:  if something is not cliche to you specifically then it does not hinder your engagement in theme.)

*****

For the jargon inclined, this is a semi-split from:  Exploration does not equal Bricolage.  It seems as though bricolage is the process by which genre is created from cliche, just as myth is created from wildlife, weather and culture.  The use of genre in role-playing is also bricolage, because situation, character and setting are built from genre tropes.

[Jared A. Sorensen]

Mr. Lee,

I just wanted to say how awesome you were in "Chasing Amy" and I think it's a crime you were passed up for an Academy Award.

Yours truly,

Jared

[Jason Lee]

Thank you.  Though I feel my best work was in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story.

[Callan S.]

Heya,

Genre is built on a structure of cliches.  Cliches are cliche because we like them enough to use them over and over and over again.  Genre is so appealing because it's based on well liked qualities.  Then there is the problem with cliche.  If this character of mine follows her genre perfectly she'll be trite.  Boring.  I'll already know all that will or can happen to her.  That makes the theme already expressed.  I can't do it in play.  I'll be themeless.  Rather, I won't enjoy the theme I end up with.  This is where the criticism of genre fiction comes in.  Too much use of cliche.  Which doesn't mean there isn't good genre fiction.  It just needs something unexpected.

Is this sorta why you have about thirty characters? That you feel their theme is already expressed, so you move on in making another one? I'm probably off topic here, but shouldn't her cliche values be tested. Like some particular guy at work talks down to her...and she likes this, somehow? Why does she like it, what's different about this guy to her?

The cliche's help set up a structure that the character can then go against, to show something about herself. If she were just a blank, she wouldn't show anything by resisting or accepting something.

(Dodge's as Ron the mod may be swooping in again, right now...)

[Jason Lee]

Is this sorta why you have about thirty characters? That you feel their theme is already expressed, so you move on in making another one?

I have oodles of characters, in part, because I prefer focus in character concept.  Those rockstar + hacker + astronaut + ninja + sea captain kind of concepts just bug me - concepts with so much piled into them they don't make any sense at all.  If I want to focus on revenge I might make a character just for that purpose, play them until I get my point across, then I move on.  One of my current characters is just there to contrast one of my other characters and fill the role of a teacher for one of Tara's.  If I play this character she'll be there to serve Jeremiah's love life.  That kind of stuff.  Given the nature of the campaign they tend to pop back up once I'm done with them, so I end up with a lot of characters.  There is also the fact that I just plain enjoy making and playing different characters.

I'm probably off topic here, but shouldn't her cliche values be tested. Like some particular guy at work talks down to her...and she likes this, somehow? Why does she like it, what's different about this guy to her?

The cliche's help set up a structure that the character can then go against, to show something about herself. If she were just a blank, she wouldn't show anything by resisting or accepting something.

I certainly agree.  I could break out of the archetype that way, and perhaps that's what I'll do, as I'm uncertain I'll get a lot of chance to with situation because Jeremiah classifies as trouble.

[Eric J.]

I smell Ron.

Therefore: Could you state the specifics of this character and their involvement in actual play and any questions or topics you want to bring up?

May the wind be always at your back,
-Empyrealmortal

[Jason Lee]

Therefore: Could you state the specifics of this character and their involvement in actual play and any questions or topics you want to bring up?

Sure.  In the interest of enabling future changes at the Forge I am trying to force myself to provide actual play context for any theory discussions I involve myself in.  The actual play here is journaling the creation of the character, which is meant to help illustrate the relationship between cliche and genre.  I don't have any questions.  This post is more of an explanation about the value and dangers of genre. It's also a response to a question asked in another thread.

[Josh Roby]

Do you have to break away from using an archetype to have an engaging theme?

If you want to discuss, analyze, and address that archetype (what does it mean to be a hard-nosed reporter?), then you can pretty much stick within it.  I don't think you really know everything about that archetypal character from the get-go.  You may know what she does, but you may not know why.  Similarily, you know ten things about what she does, but you don't know how those ten things interrelate.  That said, once you start exploring those questions, you are developing more depth than the archetype really holds, and you're creating an individual character based off of that archetype.

[Jason Lee]

If you want to discuss, analyze, and address that archetype (what does it mean to be a hard-nosed reporter?), then you can pretty much stick within it.  I don't think you really know everything about that archetypal character from the get-go.  You may know what she does, but you may not know why.  Similarily, you know ten things about what she does, but you don't know how those ten things interrelate.  That said, once you start exploring those questions, you are developing more depth than the archetype really holds, and you're creating an individual character based off of that archetype.

I might be using the word archetype in a slightly different way.  The whys of a character's actions are also part of what I'm calling an archetype.  Any quality could be said to be part of an archetype (some may include whys and some may not).  That probably isn't important though, because I think see your point.

That depth will have to be more than minor details though.  It'll have to be dramatically significant (impact plot shaping choices) before I think it classifies as breaking out of the archetype.  Not to imply that character archetypes have nice smooth boundaries.  Every archetypal character is an individual to some degree.  That begs the question of whether or not you can have a character that is both an archetype and round (round meaning rich or complex motivations).  Perhaps so, because I can think of internally conflicted archetypes, such as the former gunslinger struggling with his violent past.  A round cliche is an interesting concept though.  Hmmm.  Not sure.

Also, I agree that if you are just looking to explore the achetype you are fine to stay within it (and by extension within its standard suite of situations).  You'll even get a theme of out it, but will it be an engaging one?  I know this is kind of fuzzy, personal-preference turf, but there is something that leads to a distaste for genre fiction.  (Aside from "fantasy is for children" attitudes.)  Using genre makes it easy to be lazy.  You can pull in all those cliches to create a theme instead of engaging the audience/reader by selling them the answer to the dramatic question.

[Josh Roby]

Did you see the movie Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow?  That's a great example of expert use of archetypes -- that movie simply throws characters onto the screen and starts things happening.  Characters have no backstory, at no point do we get any explanation for anything, and yet there is never anything that we don't understand.  The first scene with the female lead, for instance, has her sitting at a desk in a tan coat and fedroa typing on a typewriter with newspapers in the background.  We know immediately that she's a hard boiled reporter that will do anything to get her story.  Bang.  And then robots attack (actually, I think the robots attack first, but whatever).

Point is, the movie is incredibly engaging.  I loved it.  It's just that the point of engagement isn't in the characters, it's the development of the setting and plot, the mystery of what is happening, the oodles and oodles of color, and so on.  I don't see why you can't create a similar experience in gaming.  It won't be deeply moving character-driven drama, but that doesn't mean it's not engaging.  It's just not engaging in that particular mode.

[Graham W]

Do you have to break away from using an archetype to have an engaging theme?  I don't think so, but you would then need a unique situation.  Seems to me like you can still end up with an engaging theme if one side of the collision of character and situation is cliche.  (Important note:  if something is not cliche to you specifically then it does not hinder your engagement in theme.)

At the risk of being wanky here: Shakespeare and Dickens did a lot of their work with archetypes. They didn't always have unique situations either. If you take a book like "Hard Times", he has a stereotypical wealthy capitalist sacking a beaten-down factory worker and it's tremendously affecting.

...so, yes. The point of that Dickens moment was to say that you can have archetypal characters, and a cliched situation, and even a cliched story, and it can lead to a very strong theme.

[Jason Lee]

Joshua and Graham,

I think you guys are right.  I think I've been over reaching... I even think I contradicted myself in the process, because if successful archetypes have strong character identification methods then they should be fairly engaging just for that reason.  I don't have anything to add at the moment.  I just wanted to acknowledge.

(I haven't seen the Sky Captain movie, but I think I will now.)