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Psychoanalysis...
The problem with taking a psychoanalytic approach to fic critcism and discussion is that, well, fic isn't life and the characters aren't real people. (Duh)
Recently, many of my acquaintances have complained to me about a general lack of psychological realism in certain characterizations. Remus Lupin and Jonathon Kent come to mind as supposed examples of naughty authordom. Readers are rightly pinpointing logical inconsistencies in the characterizations of these two, in both canon and fanon, and not simply the kind of very human illogical that we are all prone to, but the kind of illogic indicative of a very fucked up individual.
How can Jonathan freak out about Helen's connection to Lex, in one episode, then give Lex a very personal gift in another? Fic writers often explain this as being Martha's influence, but I don't think we've seen evidence of her having this kind and this level of influence over her husband. We're meant to believe that both are genuine actions. In fact, we're meant to believe that Jonathan is one of, perhaps the most genuine and reactive character on the show. Everything comes directly from his heart.
How can Remus Lupin seem to be so honest and insecure on one hand, and so manipulative and confident on the other? Is one more true to his essence than the other? In the pensieve scenes, we have a teen who is either so cowed by his friends that he dare not speak up, or a teen who just doesn't give a damn, and refuses to involve himself until it's important to him. We know he doesn't like or respect Snape and that he cares for his friends deeply. We know that he's a smooth talker, but also that he was suspected of being a spy. Logically, he shouldn't be able to both the extremes.
A psychoanalytic approach does not take into account the logic of archetypes, cultural expectations and myths. It doesn't allow a character to be consistent mythologically, but not psychologically. For example, characters in ancient tragedies rarely behave in psychologically consistent ways. This isn't a flaw in the texts, so much as it is a difference in the type of story telling going on. We are so used to demanding psychological realism that other kinds of story telling tend to get maligned. However, no story will ever have 'real' characters. Writers depend on archetypes and shared, cultural references far more often than even they suspect. It isn't always evident, until you take the text out of its cultural context.
Fic in particular seems to depend on shared cultural references and archetypes, fanon, of course, is simply a set of archetypes, myths and cliches. However, the kind of story that many of us want to tell, is extremely dependent on very particular and specific cultural references. The Hurt/Comfort fic. The road trip fic. The summer fling. These are all ideologically informed, culturally specific and can be confusing to people who've never encountered them before. Certainly they also play off of more broadly "human" myths, but the fic form is overwhelmingly the modern, western, middle class version of the story. For many people, you have to get H/C before you understand that epic Blair/Jim cavefic, or that Wesley/Lilah angrysex vignette. A psychoanalytic approach makes the story seem thin and poorly though out, but really, you're missing much of the resonance and the layers in the characterization.
Looking at say, the Harry Potter series with expectations of total psychological realism, will prevent you from appreciating the fairy tale elements. If Remus seems to be an impossible character, it might be because you can't read him on different levels.
Ultimately, fiction isn't a social experiment or illustration. Characters bow to the needs of the story, and sometimes act in ways that are inconsistent to a single way of reading. If Harry Potter isn't a perfect fairy tale hero, its because he's also a modern, realistic hero.
Recently, many of my acquaintances have complained to me about a general lack of psychological realism in certain characterizations. Remus Lupin and Jonathon Kent come to mind as supposed examples of naughty authordom. Readers are rightly pinpointing logical inconsistencies in the characterizations of these two, in both canon and fanon, and not simply the kind of very human illogical that we are all prone to, but the kind of illogic indicative of a very fucked up individual.
How can Jonathan freak out about Helen's connection to Lex, in one episode, then give Lex a very personal gift in another? Fic writers often explain this as being Martha's influence, but I don't think we've seen evidence of her having this kind and this level of influence over her husband. We're meant to believe that both are genuine actions. In fact, we're meant to believe that Jonathan is one of, perhaps the most genuine and reactive character on the show. Everything comes directly from his heart.
How can Remus Lupin seem to be so honest and insecure on one hand, and so manipulative and confident on the other? Is one more true to his essence than the other? In the pensieve scenes, we have a teen who is either so cowed by his friends that he dare not speak up, or a teen who just doesn't give a damn, and refuses to involve himself until it's important to him. We know he doesn't like or respect Snape and that he cares for his friends deeply. We know that he's a smooth talker, but also that he was suspected of being a spy. Logically, he shouldn't be able to both the extremes.
A psychoanalytic approach does not take into account the logic of archetypes, cultural expectations and myths. It doesn't allow a character to be consistent mythologically, but not psychologically. For example, characters in ancient tragedies rarely behave in psychologically consistent ways. This isn't a flaw in the texts, so much as it is a difference in the type of story telling going on. We are so used to demanding psychological realism that other kinds of story telling tend to get maligned. However, no story will ever have 'real' characters. Writers depend on archetypes and shared, cultural references far more often than even they suspect. It isn't always evident, until you take the text out of its cultural context.
Fic in particular seems to depend on shared cultural references and archetypes, fanon, of course, is simply a set of archetypes, myths and cliches. However, the kind of story that many of us want to tell, is extremely dependent on very particular and specific cultural references. The Hurt/Comfort fic. The road trip fic. The summer fling. These are all ideologically informed, culturally specific and can be confusing to people who've never encountered them before. Certainly they also play off of more broadly "human" myths, but the fic form is overwhelmingly the modern, western, middle class version of the story. For many people, you have to get H/C before you understand that epic Blair/Jim cavefic, or that Wesley/Lilah angrysex vignette. A psychoanalytic approach makes the story seem thin and poorly though out, but really, you're missing much of the resonance and the layers in the characterization.
Looking at say, the Harry Potter series with expectations of total psychological realism, will prevent you from appreciating the fairy tale elements. If Remus seems to be an impossible character, it might be because you can't read him on different levels.
Ultimately, fiction isn't a social experiment or illustration. Characters bow to the needs of the story, and sometimes act in ways that are inconsistent to a single way of reading. If Harry Potter isn't a perfect fairy tale hero, its because he's also a modern, realistic hero.
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I think that psychoanalysis can add something valuable to the mix, and it's certainly something to keep in mind when world building, but it's not nearly the most important part of making and reading fiction. You can't write a great story working off a personality chart, and neither can you produce an insightful reading.
It's a tool, and not a reliable one.
It's rather disconcerting to read an essay where someone tries to justify (or denigrate) a certain fanfic characterization based on psychoanalysis.
YES. So annoyed by those random proclamations that so and so is clearly suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and just couldn't do that. *rolls eyes* Good fiction often depends on what isn't said and no story, no matter how detailed, has ever had an accurate representation of a whole human being.
...modern psychoanalytic theory says that such people behave in so-and-so a way.
It's also kind of funny to see the unconcious privleging of modern thought. *g*
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However, as a literary critic who does a lot of psychoanalytic criticism, I think it's important to recognize that psychoanalyzing the characters themselves, as if they were people, is only one of the possible ways of using psychoanalysis, and in my opinion the least effective as a general rule. One can more profitably treat a whole text, including the characters, as a sort of dream, a symbolic representation characterized by condensation, displacement, projection and so on. To take an example from
As a college English teacher, I am always reminding my students that the characters aren't real people, that they don't have lives outside what happens in the book, etc...it's very hard to rid ourselves of those expectations. But in fanfic, something very interesting happens: the whole thing is predicated on imagining that the characters do have these lives, and moreover the characters are shared communally and the lives developed in many different ways. It's an approach to characterization unlike any I have encountered before, and it raises fascinating theoretical questions. But I can totally understand how ficcers can get caught up in these debates. It's kind of hard to imagine how fic could get written *without* thinking of the characters as having psychological lives. Or is it? Not being a fic writer myself, I probably shouldn't presume.
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*pounce* I love this method of analysis, since it reveals layers and connections we don't often see. Also, it's fun. ^_-
The biggest problem with psychoanalysis (rather than attempting to write psychological realism) is that many fics don't have anything like real people functioning as characters. I suspect that many people build characters by feeling, rather than psychological logic, when writing, so they might not make sense on that particular level, while they do on another. The writers are imagining an existence beyond JKR's story, but it's not necessarily one that can be readily analyzed in this way. I mean, if someone is rewriting HP as the journey of a Buddha, psychoanalysis might not be the best way to approach the characters. (Gah, now I want to write Buddha!Harry...)
It's an approach to characterization unlike any I have encountered before, and it raises fascinating theoretical questions.
I'm trying to convince the English department to let me do a senior thesis on this. There's a certain reluctance to treat deritive fiction as 'serious literature' and worthy of study.
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fiction as
'serious literature' and worthy of study.
Make them! Are you, or are you not, a witch?
I think the term "psychoanalysis" has different connotations for different people. To me it primarily denotes the school of psychological theory begun by Freud, and, as a treatment, a very specific type of psychotherapy that involves 4 or more sessions a week, lying on the couch, free association, the use of a basically Freudian method, and many years to complete. The type of literary criticism called "psychoanalytic criticism" I associate with something quite different from what you're talking about. It's not really something for fic writers, in general, though it would be interesting maybe to compare writers who were strongly influenced by Freud, like Kafka and DH Lawrence...
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I have to disagree with this, to a certain extent.
There's a degree to which I agree - fictional characters are, indeed, fictional characters, and their behavior in the works they come from is largely determined by the demands of the story/narrative; however, I think the appeal of certain characters both as parts-of-fiction and as ficcing toys to play with comes from a certain amount of identification. What makes interesting characters interesting characters, engaging characters, is that on some level they're "real", or "valid"; they basically parse as real people to us, at least to some degree.
When writing fic, I think it's a given that we're basically trying to isolate, examine, and play with those aspects of the characters that interest us, or ring true for us; and I think the kind of psychoanalysis-as-characterization essays you find disconcerting are basically trying to articulate this in another way. What they/we/I(?) find psychologically improbable is, for us, what jars the narrative and ruins the dramatic impact.
A personal example: I recently read a really good fic that had a character who was horrendously sexually, mentally, and physically abused, throughout his life, to the point where he'd developed DID, offer to let another character (who he'd been raised to assassinate) semi-sexually torture him, so said other character could find out whether he really was a sadist - after what in canon is a few months of not-very-close association, and in the fic about five minutes of discussion after character #2 makes his "I'm worried I might be a psychopath/sadist" revelation.
In terms of being "in character" for these two - it was, more or less. The dialogue was dead on, the behavior was fairly accurate. It was well-reasoned, even enjoyable. But given the fictional "history" of the characters, it didn't make sense, and that was where it stopped working for me. Essentially, it became the point at which I could see the puppet strings: the author wanted these characters in bed, and she manuevered them there. She did it really skillfully, but because of the lack of what I perceived as psychological veracity*, it didn't ring true. It jolted me out of suspension-of-disbelief, I was no longer absorbed in the story, it no longer seemed to be telling itself, or like something I was observing/participating in, but rather something that was being told, being created.
I think that's a valid criticism, personally. Now, granted, I think using "psychological analysis" to insist that one can only write a certain character a certain way is utter BS, but I think it does have its place in criticism. Without some kind of rationale behind a character's actions, stories just become a series of disconnected events. Examing a character from a psychological basis seems to me like the literary equivalent of an actor going "yeah, but what's my motivation?"; or, more to the point, saying "these actions didn't ring true to me, didn't make sense."
It's why I can't buy into/don't like most redeemed!Draco stories - not that I have trouble accepting the possibility that Draco could be redeemed (after all, this is fiction, anything can happen, and if Draco needs to be redeemed for the purposes of the story, then redeemed he shall be), but because I don't buy the way the author progresses Draco from brat to saint, if s/he bothers trying to progress him at all.
* Or even psychological treatment: after reading the passage, I came up with a few ways I could have found it to be realistic; it just would have taken a few more K of fic and a somewhat different emotional emphasis to do it.
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Yargh. That should be well-written, rather.
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Psychoanalysis can be a powerful tool, but it is flawed, because we aren't analyzing real people, and therefore it should be used with care. What really gets me? When people cobble together a bunch of signs and diagnose a character with a mental illness, without considering the other possible interpretations of the traits.
Psychoanalysis performed badly is just horrific.
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True. Admittedly, in the case I cited, the first character is canonically suffering from DID and all kinds of mentally fucked up. A great deal, though not all, of the psychological damage he undergoes happens "on screen", as it were, and the author takes pains to state (through various medically trained/savvy characters posing for the authorial voice), that yes, the character really has DID, and it really is rooted in the abuse and trauma.
When people cobble together a bunch of signs and diagnose a character with a mental illness, without considering the other possible interpretations of the traits.
Oh, yes. That annoys me no end. Not every socially/emotionally dysfunctional person was necessarily abused as a child, for example.
Hm. I think that while, on the whole, I don't have a problem with using a psychological model (of which there are, indeed, many) to create a "realstic" psychocosm to serve as a backdrop for a character's actions, I do object to the trend of using "psychoanalysis" to pathologize characters more-or-less for the hell of it. (For all I occasionally do it...)
On the third hand, I'm insanely picky about - er - characterizsation isn't quite the right word here, but it'll due - human interpretation of characters in fic in general; I have an extremely high threshold for what I'll "buy into" in terms of fiction, and it's not just fic and the issues of characterization that have to do with relationship to canon. Ask me about Mercedes Lackey sometime. Or, wait, no, don't.
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I read one of those too recently, think it's the same one? I mean right down to the DID and assassin bits.
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Dude.
... actually, this case of DID is even more canonical than Omi. In the sense that the split happens on-screen (don't ask), the alters are shown conversing, and the authorial voice comes right out and declares it DID at multiple stages.
(The character eventually gets therapy, and the fic happens after/during that, but, still.)
So, who do they stick Omi with? Aya? I'm betting Aya.
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(All from my friends, but.)
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There's other stuff there, but that's the most Omi-seme one.
Ironically, I h4t0rz the chick who wrote it now. But she is pretty damn good.
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And the Knight/Aya is good, if girly. Same directory, just back a bit.
Then there's the Omi rapes himself fic. It's nifty.
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Hmmm...
Of course, I pick and choose my critical methods, not adhering to one school of thought or another and yeah, I definitely come down on the "well, the story *requires* that, so that's why it's like that" side of the fence.
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Yup. :) I didn't want to get into a long investigation of all the ways people are confused by Remus, so maybe I'll do another post? Hmm. More than a few people have remarked that Remus doesn't read like a real man, that he's better understood as a metaphor, or an arghetype, or even a stock character from a British school story.
I'm not a Remus fan, but he does seem real-ish to me, but then, Jonathan Kent seems like the most real character on Smallville, so there you go.
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I really think this calls for an icon.
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Yeah, you should. *g* Especially as you're *not* a huge fan of his.
More than a few people have remarked that Remus doesn't read like a real man, that he's better understood as a metaphor, or an arghetype, or even a stock character from a British school story.
arghetype. hee!
Ahem.
I dunno. Remus seems real to me, but yeah, Jonathan Kent also seems real to me. Far more real than some of the other characters in either of their 'verses.
I'd need to hear more about what makes them seem *unreal* or simply as plot devices, to understand and so perhaps, argue the point.
I will say that Remus reminds of me friends I've had, and teachers I've known, and that most of his contradictions can be worked out in light of his lycanthropy. He easily *could* have been a plot device, but I don't think he is.
Of course, I'm hopelessly biased in his favor.
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Once I started really thinking about writing HP fic - or more, pointedly, Remus-centric fic, which is mostly what I write - and started thinking about his characterization, I didn't find the contradictions we're shown in his character in the books to be all that difficult to reconcile, but maybe I'm missing something that other people see or maybe I'm just blinded by how much I like him.
I wrote about his [canon] characterization here (http://www.livejournal.com/users/musesfool/417356.html) (with addenda here (http://www.livejournal.com/users/musesfool/417725.html)), and well, I'll let that stand for what it is.
I guess I need more information than that there are all sorts of contradictory things he does or that we don't know everything about him, because well, people do all sorts of contradictory things, and we don't know everything about any of the characters, and because he does seem real to me, far more so than say, Quirrell, who obviously *is* a plot device, or Tonks, who currently has no real depth, or Draco, who's a 2D spoiled brat from what we know of him.
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I shouldn't have implied that I think it's impossible to write Remus well, because JKR does it. I *agree* that Remus is one of the most "real" seeming characters, if not the most, in canon. But I think the contradictions underpin that, and I think they're hard to preserve. More than that, I think a lot of the tradition procedures of fanfic authorship, which involve finding a missing piece and working with it (e.g. why was Snape a DE, and how did he come to defect?), actually work to the disadvantage of Remus characterization. For example, in Fabula Rasa's _Stone Cold Sober_ (one of my favorite works by one of my very very favorite ficcers), there is a running joke about how Remus often pretends to be asleep in order to listen in on things. But this makes Remus seem very different than he does in canon...not because we know he's asleep in that first scene, but because the fact that we don't know is part of his characterization. See what I mean? Filling in the blanks makes him less real, less interesting, and filling in the blanks is the ficcer's default mode.
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Filling in the blanks makes him less real, less interesting, and filling in the blanks is the ficcer's default mode.
Hmm... I'll have to think more on that, because I'm not sure I agree, but I've never quite looked at it (it being Remus's characterization, not why I write fanfic *g*) that way before.
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Friended you.
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ahaha-- this is something I have posted on before: the difference between psychological and, e.g., allegorical representation, and the consequences for characterization. I think the conflict between modes is especially pronounced in the figure of Dumbledore. My mini-essay on this (shorter than yours) here:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/idlerat/8639.html
However... well I'll put this under Isis's comment because I want her to see it too.
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Yes, psychological analysis is a tool, but it can be used with good authors. (As a note, I think both the examples you use of JKR and Smallville have terrible authors. But that's me.) Why? Because good authors do tap into that realism that makes analysis effective. The trick is remembering that it isn't the totality of the character, just as historical criticism wouldn't see the totality of one piece or new criticism or any critical technique.
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That's actually why I chose them. I figured that the less self-conscious the canon was, the easier it would be to show how characters are built without psychological logic in fic. Canon being a more universal example, so to speak. It also makes it easy for everyone on my flist, since the majority of them are a part of at least one of these fandoms. So.
I would disagree with this simply because really good characters, archetypal, mythical, etc, are going to be internally consistent and have psychological realism.
Well, if we look at Jacobian revenge plays, I think we'll find some examples of characters that feel logical, far more than they actually are. Likewise with opera. Their actions are all out of proportion to stimuli, and sometimes they're acting more to type, than to the situation. There's psychological realism in the way the characters are constructed, in that we can see many real people contained within them, but because they're so big they don't always behave logically.
I just got out of bed, so I'm not sure how well I'm articulating the idea. ;)
The trick is remembering that it isn't the totality of the character, just as historical criticism wouldn't see the totality of one piece or new criticism or any critical technique.
Yes. I find that especially with younger fen, there's a tendency to latch onto one kind of analysis and use it for every character, every story, everything, everywhere. I would like to blame it on a lack of formal training, but I'm not sure if that would be accurate.
Lupin just reads... as confusing and there to facilitate the plot.
Would you like to help me construct a post on this? *g*
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