unspeakablehorror | Entries tagged with characterization

I think it's so fascinating that a character can have so many clashing interpretations that nevertheless still all embody some vital essence of the original character. Not every interpretation will be to my taste, but that doesn't make it bad. There are things I do think can make a characterization bad, but appeal to my personal preferences isn't one of them.

I will never say that my characters have a mind of their own because I feel this elides an important truth about characters in stories. And that is this: while a character can certainly act outside of the narrow scope of a writer's personal experiences, a character cannot act outside of the writer's worldview.

Your limitations and prejudices will be incorporated in your writing. If your model of what kinds of people can exist is limited, your characters will be limited to existing and acting within those contraints, and will not be capable of acting outside them, which they could if they truly did 'have a mind of their own'. In fact, every author has such limitations because none of us have a perfect understanding of what is possible for other people in this world. All of us lack an understanding of certain cultural contexts that exist outside our scope, and all of us lack a perfect understanding of the minds of others. In some cases, these limitations are not so noticeable to the reader, and in other cases they may be glaring. But in all cases, they surely exist.

And more than that, even when an understanding exists within our worldview, we may not wish to depict that dynamic in our writing. There are many things I avoid writing either for practical or preferential reasons. For example, while I am quite cognizant of the existence of sexual assault, I tend to avoid depicting it in my writing for preferential reasons. I have read/watched and appreciated a number of stories that depict sexual assault, for example The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, though I've intentionally avoided others. But when I write my stories, even the worst villains are almost never depicted sexually assaulting another character. So this is not something my characters are generally capable of doing, precisely because they don't 'have a mind of their own'. They are my puppets, and they dance where I want them to dance. Conversely, if depicting this topic was important to a writer, the opposite may be true: certain characters will almost certainly sexually assault others. Because they will dance where the author wants them to dance.

So this is why I do not say that a character 'has a mind of their own' or that the character 'wrote themself'. I see no reason not to take the credit for doing things I have in fact done, or in other cases, to take the blame for a poor narrative choice. It's not the character's fault. It never was.

I sometimes feel that when people talk about 'complex' villains, what they mean is villains who are less evil, or more morally grey. And while I do find a number of morally grey villains to be complex, I would say it's not their moral greyness that creates their complexity. Complex villains *can* be morally grey, but they can also be unrelentingly evil.

What makes a villain complex to me, then? A history that informs their present day behaviors and attitudes. Specific goals and motivations that exist that inform what specific actions they take. For example, I'd say neither Plagueis nor Palpatine are especially morally grey characters as depicted within the Darth Plagueis novel. But I would say that the novel adds quite a bit of complexity to both of these characters. We learn their history, their preoccupations, and their underlying motivations. And all of this increases their complexity as characters. They're also quite distinct from each other in their personality and approach to accomplishing their goals. The prequels also increase Palpatine's complexity as a character, which they do by showing his indirect approach to seizing power, not by making him a good character...who was wronged...by a gangster woman (no, I will never get over this Star Wars Underworld plot proposal).

What I'm saying is, regardless of how evil a villain is, they can still be a complex character. And regardless of how morally grey they are, they can still be a very simple character. Moral greyness is not tied to character complexity. To make a character morally grey, the author just has to make them be less evil, much like to make a very evil villain one just has to make them do more evil things. But to make a character complex, they have to create detail and specificity for the character.

Kylo Ren has been compared to a lot of other Star Wars villains, but the one who I think he most resembles is…not Darth Vader.

I bring up Vader because he’s the most common character people draw comparisons to when discussing Kylo Ren. While they do both have some surface similarities in temperament, they’re actually otherwise quite dissimilar.

There is, however, a character whose EU arc greatly resembles that of Kylo’s, despite having, in certain respects, a very different temperament.

And that character is…not Jacen Solo.

That character is Palpatine.

My source for a lot of this is the Darth Plagueis novel, so I will reference that heavily in this post, but I will also reference the movies in which he features.

Let’s look at the similarities, starting at birth.

Palpatine is born to wealthy, politically influential nobility. House Palpatine is one of the great Houses of Naboo, supposedly tasked with keeping Chaos itself at bay.

Kylo Ren is born to a wealthy, politically influential Princess and Senator and a war hero general who were instrumental in destroying the Empire and helped to build the New Republic.

Palpatine encounters a powerful near-human Sith Lord who convinces him to murder his entire family.

Kylo encounters a powerful near-human Force sensitive who convinces him to murder family (his father and uncle).

Palpatine kills his father first.

Kylo kills his father first.

Neither Palpatine nor Kylo lose any limbs (as of Ep 8)

Palpatine kills Plagueis in his sleep.

Kylo kills Snoke shortly after he closes his eyes.

Palpatine uses emotional manipulation to turn the younger Anakin to the Dark Side.

Kylo uses emotional manipulation in his (unsuccessful) attempt to turn the younger Rey to the Dark Side.

Kylo keeps some less powerful Force sensitives called the Knights of Ren around.

Palpatine keeps some less powerful Force sensitives called the Inquisitors around.

Palpatine becomes Chancellor shortly after killing Plagueis, and later Emperor.

Kylo becomes Supreme Leader shortly after killing Snoke.

Palpatine is the main antagonist of the original trilogy.

Kylo Ren is the main antagonist of the sequel trilogy.

Palpatine has a confrontation with Luke Skywalker. Palpatine dies shortly afterward.

Kylo Ren has a confrontation with Luke Skywalker. Luke Skywalker dies shortly afterward.

Anyway, that’s just what I can think of that’s similar/has echoes between them. Obviously they’re not identical in every aspect, and I certainly think there are important differences between them, but the number of similarities is quite large. I mentioned this a while back in a conversation with sl_walker and a few others and just now got around to posting it.

Tumblr-tags: kylo ren, sheev palpatine, star wars, character similarities

Post archived from this Tumblr post. Can't believe I finally found this thing! I have been looking for it for ages but been unable to track it down because Tumblr search is garbage and it wasn't coming up when I searched 'kylo ren' on my blog.

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Entries tagged with characterization

Infinite Interpretations

Taking the Credit and the Blame for Characterization

Morally Grey Is Not the Same as Complex

Kylo Ren Character Comparison (Tumblr Archive)

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