But Gene is as good and likeable a *character* as Peter Burke, even if not as likeable a *man*, and therein is the difference with fiction!
Yes, exactly! Good, interesting characters are not the same thing, necessarily, as good, likeable *people* -- they don't have to be people that we'd want to know in real life, in order to be fun to watch on the screen.
Another thing which occurred to me, about comparing/contrasting the fannish response to different characters .... it's not particularly effective to approach it from the "... and all you people are CLEARLY WRONG" perspective unless you're just venting (and don't mind alienating some of your flist). XD Again using White Collar as an example, there are times when I wander around sulking because it sometimes seems like the fandom will let Neal off the hook for ANYTHING, whereas Peter hardly even gets to be human without fandom coming down on him like a ton of bricks. But there's not really a discusson to be had about that. In fact, generally speaking, there's hardly even a decent venting post to be made about that. Mostly it's just me being knee-jerk defensive of a character I like.
Whereas, if you're in the mood for critical analysis, you can have a more interesting time by looking at *why* fandom responds differently to Neal than to Peter, and seems to hold Peter to a higher standard of moral behavior ... (Or whether they even do it at all, objectively speaking. I get the impression that there are at least some Neal fans who think the fandom is terrible and awful and unfair to Neal, as well ...)
We probably tend to notice the negative fandom reaction to our favorite characters and tropes out of proportion to its actual prevalence in the fandom -- sort of how you can get 10 nice reviews and one flame, but it's the flame that you remember...
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Yes, exactly! Good, interesting characters are not the same thing, necessarily, as good, likeable *people* -- they don't have to be people that we'd want to know in real life, in order to be fun to watch on the screen.
Another thing which occurred to me, about comparing/contrasting the fannish response to different characters .... it's not particularly effective to approach it from the "... and all you people are CLEARLY WRONG" perspective unless you're just venting (and don't mind alienating some of your flist). XD Again using White Collar as an example, there are times when I wander around sulking because it sometimes seems like the fandom will let Neal off the hook for ANYTHING, whereas Peter hardly even gets to be human without fandom coming down on him like a ton of bricks. But there's not really a discusson to be had about that. In fact, generally speaking, there's hardly even a decent venting post to be made about that. Mostly it's just me being knee-jerk defensive of a character I like.
Whereas, if you're in the mood for critical analysis, you can have a more interesting time by looking at *why* fandom responds differently to Neal than to Peter, and seems to hold Peter to a higher standard of moral behavior ... (Or whether they even do it at all, objectively speaking. I get the impression that there are at least some Neal fans who think the fandom is terrible and awful and unfair to Neal, as well ...)
We probably tend to notice the negative fandom reaction to our favorite characters and tropes out of proportion to its actual prevalence in the fandom -- sort of how you can get 10 nice reviews and one flame, but it's the flame that you remember...