Journal: Generic Everyman Protagonist

Journal: Generic Everyman Protagonists

by

Paul Adams

So, today I want to talk about the “Generic Everyman Protagonist” common in fiction, or for sake of brevity, the G.E.P. The most notable representatives pf this of course being Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Frodo Baggins, and Luke Skywalker in movies and books, and most of the protagonists of video games. Now these characters can come in all shapes and sizes, though they are often the most common ethnicity in the country of the work's origin, and are often male though there are more than a few females in this role ( a surprisingly high amount in manga and anime, see: Lucy in Fairy Tale). Hence the reason for the four examples listed above all being white males as they are the best known to an American audience. I will be getting into this more later.

Now, the “Generic Everyman Protagonist” exists primarily in the science fiction or fantasy genre but can crop up in other genres. Their purpose in most cases is to give the audience a “lowest common denominator” of sorts to relate to, a center of stability and familiarity to see this strange new world through. In some ways, the basic-ness of their character is their greatest strength. If you are trying to show your audience this vast world or concept that you’ve created, you don’t want them to be constantly distracted because their proxy in the world has way too much going on.

Before I get started, there are a couple of troublesome factors involved. Like I pointed out earlier, many of these types of characters are often white straight males (in Western media, at least). Whether this is whitewashing or social whatever is not something I want to tackle here, but it does feed into the concept brought up in the preceding paragraph, about them having too much going on. Often, but not always, if your protagonist is female, she tends to carry into the story a certain degree of feminist angle. Instead of being first and foremost an observer of the world around her, most of the audience will want her to be a role model, an action hero, the center of the plot's attention at all times, and the writer will factor that in, and as a result, the world that they're supposed to be showing us will not be as developed. The same can be said for a dark-skinned protagonist, homosexual protagonist, or otherwise. Whether you support the causes or not, this can the quickest way to distract from the world you’re trying to present, or such characters and issues can be easily mishandled and authors will avoid them just so they don’t cause more problems. That said, that trend seems to be changing as “G.E.P.s” such as Katniss Everdeen of The Hunger Games and Rey and Finn of the newest Star Wars film did a solid job of filling their role without getting bogged down in these ways.

Another point of contention arises when you use this kind of character to explore other real life cultures, to present a culture your intended audience may not be familiar with by using a G.E.P. they can relate to. Such examples are The Last Samurai and Dances with Wolves. These kinds of stories will often be criticized for “racial appropriation,” especially if the G.E.P., rather than simply experiencing this culture they’re unfamiliar with and connecting to it, rises through the ranks of the culture and becomes their “best” member, their chief or chosen one or hero. This is understandable in some respects, as the hierarchy or fighting styles of the culture are often an important part of said culture, and letting the G.E.P. rise through the ranks lets them experience the culture on all levels, and narratively, it can give structure or purpose to your plot. I think, in the end, it just requires balance. And even if you take them to the upper echelons of the culture, try to avoid placing them at the very top if you can.

Now that the touchy subjects are out of the way, let’s focus on what makes Harry, Frodo, Percy, and Luke work but not others. I think it is a common misconception that because your protagonist is a G.E.P., that means that you don’t have to try with their characters. That you can just place the character in position, have them say the right things and ask the right questions, and that’s it. But I think it’s the opposite. I think the G.E.P. may be the most important character to get right. If you are supposed to experience the world through their eyes, then you are going to need them to be as human as they possibly can be. They need to feel the world around them. They need to care about the world around them. If the reader is to truly live within the world the author is presenting them, they need to feel it the way the G.E.P. character feels it. If the protagonist is simply walking through this “interesting world” of theirs and just kind of staring at it all without feeling any of it, the reader is not going to feel any of it. Although the G.E.P. may have the least going on, plot and characterwise, they need to be the most vibrantly human character in your story. Because in the end, the plot and world is their story, so they have to fill it with every ounce of emotion and feeling that they can.

Harry, Frodo, and Percy were all book characters first, so we were in their heads more than in other mediums. The world of Hogwarts only came to life for readers because it came to life for Harry. After living his life in a broom cupboard, the astonishment he felt exploring every last inch of his new magical world exceeded what would have been felt by almost anyone else, and that wonder came across in every last detail he took in. Frodo had lived his entire life in the sheltered community of the Shire, so every step he took beyond it was filled with terror and uncertainty about this vast world far different from his idyllic home. Percy had a wit and charm to his narration that colored the world that he explored, easing the tension that came with his cliché story arc and ensured that the old Greek myths he stumbled across were firmly translated into something a modern audience would understand.

Luke Skywalker on the other hand is a movie character first and foremost, and so the audience is not inside his head as much as they were inside Harry’s or Frodo’s or Percy’s. But the same principles still apply. Luke was a dreamer, a man who had lived his whole life on a barren farm, and could only imagine what was beyond the stars. When he stepped beyond his world, he was constantly learning and interacting with his new world. Though sometimes he was whiny and stubborn about learning it, he still had a sense of wonder and curiosity that allowed him to see as much of it as he could.

Now, I want to talk about the history of the G.E.P. in video games because theirs is an interesting history. For up to about the turn of the last century in video games, the sole purpose of the game was the gameplay mechanics themselves, and any plot was kept as basic as possible. This is the main reason for the longevity of the character Mario, as his creator Shigeru Miyamoto has continually gone out of his way to keep Mario as basic as possible, focusing on gameplay first, and simply adjusting him to fit whatever new game mechanics they came up with. Some games ended up as duds, but none ever truly hindered Mario’s success overall. Other games trying to compete with Mario, such as Sonic or Bubsy, were created as marketable characters first, and then had games built around them, and their success was often hindered by that fact.

Other games, especially the Role-Playing Game genre and occasionally the Action Adventure genre, including such franchises as Pokemon, The Legend of Zelda, and Final Fantasy, will intentionally go out of their way to make the player character as generic and unremarkable as possible, letting you name the character yourself and never having the character talk, so that you, the player, can then fill the character with your own personality and interests, so that you can “role-play” as them, if you will. In some ways, this is the best use of the G.E.P. for the video game genre, as the purpose of a G.E.P. in the first place is to give the audience someone to explore the world through, and in an interactive medium such as video games, you are the one exploring the world, so adding unnecessary personality will just get in the way more than it will help.

Around the turn of the last century, late 1990s to early 2000s, video games started to become far more cinematic as technology improved and creators were able to do more with what they had, and characters became more human and fleshed out than simple iconic cartoon animals. As more and more intricate stories and depth were added, video games became more akin to movies, but with an added element of your own involvement. This led to an interesting growth in the G.E.P. as creators learned new ways of giving the main character personality while allowing the player to still explore the world in their own way and make their own choices. Some games, such as Mass Effect and Undertale, featured massively branching storylines that made every choice you make matter, and no single playthrough of the games was ever the same twice, and the personality of the player character was slightly altered in each storyline to match the choices the player made, ranging from complete monster to noble hero and every shade in between. Interactive storytelling in video games has changed the G.E.P. into a fusion of generic and complex by allowing the player to determine just what kind of person their character is.

So, this has been a wide look at the “Generic Everyman Protagonist” and the problems and qualities contained therein, and the way they have impacted and been impacted by the mediums they appear in. They are something to remember for my writing, especially as Gavin bears many similarities to these types of protagonists. I don’t know if books or movies will ever be able to accomplish the same kind of level games have taken G.E.P.s to, but I suppose that’s why we have these different types of mediums. But I think we can learn from all forms of storytelling in order to make our own better.

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Magnus Chase Review

Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard:

Series Review and Retrospect

by

Paul Adams

About a month ago, Rick Riordan released the final entry in his Magnus Chase series, The Ship of the Dead, completing the series and bringing to a close a fourth chapter in his ongoing endeavor to present the various mythologies and cultures of the world to modern audiences through literature.

For those who don’t know, Rick Riordan is the bestselling author behind the well-known Percy Jackson series, as well as the lesser-known Kane Chronicles and Heroes of Olympus series. Riordan’s standard modus operandi is to present various mythologies through the lens of a Harry Potter-style fantasy adventure set in the modern day, i.e. a modern teenager or group of teenagers learn that the ancient gods and stories of a specific culture are, in fact, real and that they are an intrinsic part of that mythology. Percy Jackson tells the story of a boy who learns that he is the product of an affair between a Greek god and a mortal, because that’s what Greek gods did. The Kane Chronicles tells the story of a brother and sister who learn that their family is descended from the ancient Egyptian magicians and that they are the chosen vessels for two of the major gods, because that’s what Egyptian gods did, sort of. The Heroes of Olympus is more or less a sequel to Percy Jackson, introducing a new faction of demigods born from the Roman versions of Percy’s gods, because Roman mythology was in many ways a sequel to Greek mythology.

That’s where Magnus Chase comes in. This series tackles Norse mythology and stars a homeless teenage boy who gets killed fighting off a fire giant and finds himself in the Norse afterlife of Valhalla, because that’s what Vikings did. The series also makes the choice to make Magnus a demigod son of Frey, because demigods were also a common theme in Norse mythology, but with a much less significant focus than Greek or Roman mythology. The series then follows Magnus’s adventures to prevent the god Loki’s attempts at starting Ragnarok.

On the whole, if you enjoy Riordan’s writing style, you’re going to enjoy this series. He injects his writing with cheeky humor, likeable, well-developed characters, and does a strong job of representing not only most of the major players and themes of the given mythologies, but also significant aspects of each mythology’s respective culture, and a wide variety of demographics through his strong characters, including, in this series specifically, homelessness, hearing impairment, Islam, child abuse, and transgenderism, among others. His ability to present a wide variety of viewpoints and perspectives and make them all human and relatable is easily one of his strongest qualities.

As for the story itself, it was solid and enjoyable, if maybe it had a bit much going on. Most of Riordan’s books generally follow the classical epic format common in the old myths in which the heroes set out on a quest only to have to stop and fight a new monster or baddie every few pages. As such, Riordan’s style can feel a bit episodic, and this series is no different. However, Riordan can generally input enough entertainment value into the various encounters and weave enough strong character development throughout that it is rare that any given “episode” is not at least somewhat enjoyable to read.

The first book, Sword of Summer, was easily the best, and I personally consider it to be among the best books that Riordan has ever written. This was the book that introduced us to Magnus, his allies, and the world of Norse Mythology. The book was an engaging read that did a lot of heavy lifting in regard to representing some of the most important aspects of Norse mythology. We got a strong introduction to Loki, Thor, Odin, Frey, Freya, Valhalla, Ragnarok, Fenris Wolf, Hel, and the Nine Worlds of Yggdrasil. If you are unfamiliar with any of those terms, read the book. You will know them by the time you are done.

The second book, Hammer of Thor, was the worst of the series, and arguably among my least favorites of his books, but even then, it was not without its enjoyable moments. This one followed Magnus and his allies as they were set the task of finding Thor’s famous hammer Mjolnir, which had been stolen. Among the strong parts of the book were an extended arc spent in Alfheim (the elf world), which explored a major supporting character’s backstory, a middle section involving the god Heimdall, and some of the better moments of a particular new character to the series. Some of the worst moments of the book were a noticeable lack of major gods and players being introduced, Heimdall and Sif being the only ones of note, a certain bowling bag scene that sucked every ounce of pacing and momentum out of the second half of the book, and some of the not-so-great moments of the same particular new character. Needless to say, I was a little concerned about the series going into the third book.

My concerns were assuaged, however, once I finished reading Ship of the Dead. I found it to be a solid finale that ended the series on a high note. No Last Olympian, but a massive step up from Blood of Olympus or Serpent's Shadow. My concern about the lack of gods and major players was quickly put aside, as the book introduced to the reader Frigg, Tyr, Skadi, Njord, Aegir, and a number of other important figures, as well as strong returning appearances from previously introduced figures. The character I went back and forth on, I found myself enjoying in almost every scene, and several other characters got strong development and focus. I particularly want to praise the climax of the book, which I found to be both satisfying and clever. If I had a complaint, it would be that Samirah, the series’ second main character for most of the books, found herself being sidelined and neglected in favor of the development of other characters. But overall, it was a good book.

As far as characters go, we’ll start with Magnus. Magnus Chase is a homeless sixteen-year-old who ends up getting killed and finding himself in Valhalla, here presented as a luxury hotel where Odin’s warriors train and wait for Ragnarok to come. In many ways, Magnus is an obvious return-to-form for Riordan, casting aside the switching perspectives used in Kane Chronicles and Heroes of Olympus, and changing back to the Percy Jackson format of having a single narrator with a bit of a snarky teenage attitude. That said, Riordan still made noticeable attempts to differentiate Magnus from Percy, making sure that he reacted differently to various subjects than Percy would have, and for the most part, I appreciate the effort. If I were to rank them, I would probably prefer Percy to Magnus, but Magnus was still a strong and vivid protagonist to follow.

Next up is Sam, the Valkyrie who brought Magnus to Valhalla. She is presented as a Muslim and a daughter of Loki, which causes her to be looked down on within the Norse world and the regular world. She is also presented as a bit shy and nerdy, but with an independent, driven streak to her which led to her taking up Odin’s offer to become a Valkyrie. Among the characters, Sam is probably one of my favorites, partially because of her nerdy, awkward tendencies, as well as Riordan’s respectful handling of her as someone with strong religious beliefs. As stated earlier, one of Riordan’s strengths is writing real, human characters of varying perspectives.

The third most important character is Alex Fierro, the aforementioned character I had struggled with in the second book. Alex is a newcomer brought to Valhalla in the second book, another homeless kid and child of Loki who identifies as transgender and gender fluid, meaning he or she flipflops between identifying as male or female at seemingly random intervals. In Alex’s best moments, he or she was a thoroughly complex and entertaining character who could add both humor and depth to a given situation, give the reader an insightful look into the mind of someone within that demographic, while also tying thematically into the chaotic, shapeshifting, gender-fluid nature of his or her godly parent Loki. In Alex’s worst moments, he or she could be a chaotic, violent jerk who tended to demand the right to do whatever he or she wanted while not considering how his or her actions impacted others. In his introduction alone, Alex throws a tantrum and mauls several of the inhabitants of Valhalla, and doesn’t particularly suffer any consequence for doing so. All in all, Book Two Alex, at least, reminded me a little too much of some of my least favorite characters out there, characters like iCarly’s Sam Puckett and Naruto’s Sakura Haruno. Characters who treat those around them like garbage, but the reader is apparently supposed to sympathize with them anyway. Thankfully, happily, those traits are almost entirely gone from the third book, or at the very least they are given focus that allows them to contribute to the plot and character development occurring in the book, and Alex is left as the interesting and insightful character he or she was in his or her best moments.

Blitz and Hearth are probably two of the best characters Rick Riordan has ever written. They are introduced as two of Magnus’s homeless buddies, only to be revealed following Magnus’s death as a dwarf and an elf assigned by the god Mimir to watch over and protect him. Blitz is a dark-skinned dwarf with a gruff demeanor and a keen eye for fashion, who dreams of opening his own clothing store. Hearth, on the other hand, is a deaf elf aspiring to be a magician and only communicates through American Sign Language, who suffered through an abusive, dehumanizing (de-elfizing?) childhood at the hands of his father. You may never find, in reality or in fiction, a better pair of friends than these two, both to each other and to Magnus. Their relationship to Magnus is most similar to the relationship between Simba, Timon, and Pumbaa, but I’d say they’re both far more than simple sidekicks. If I had to pick only one highlight of this series, it would be these two characters.

And of course, I can’t forget Magnus’s pillaging party, or as I guess their official name is, Magnus’s Shield Brothers and Sister. Thomas Jefferson Jr. (T.J.), Mallory Keen, and Halfborn Gunderson are a trio of Valhalla inhabitants who live on the same floor as Magnus. T.J. is the son of an escaped slave who died fighting in the American Civil War, Mallory is an Irish girl who died trying to defuse a bomb during the IRA crisis in Ireland during the 1970s, and Halfborn is a berserker from old Norse times who died during a raid. These three take Magnus, and later Alex, in when they arrive in Valhalla, and fight alongside them during daily combat. Throughout the first two books, the pillaging party is mostly relegated to the beginning and the end, having very little to do with the quests taking up the bulk of the books, but are a constant presence throughout the final book, each receiving their own focus chapters and character development. This, specifically, is one of the best selling points for that third book in my opinion.

Finally, we have Loki, our villain. I find that Loki is often among the best characters in any given work he is a part of, Marvel movies or otherwise, and I think that comes from the inherent complexity and charm that comes from the mythological figure. A sometimes harmless, sometimes downright malevolent and evil trickster who effortlessly spins clever traps to get what he wants while convincing you that he only wants to help you, but can also have a certain layer of depth and humanity to him as well, is always going to be a fascinating character, and he is no slouch here either. I can’t say he quite matches up to Luke Castellan of Percy Jackson fame, but he may be a close second.

Once again, Rick Riordan has spun a clever series that does indeed stand up as a good story in its own right, while effortlessly introducing young readers to the ins and outs of Norse mythology, several facets of Norse culture, and a look into the thoughts and feelings of very different, but all equally complex and human, characters. The books have a few problems, especially in the middle book, but nothing I can’t overlook now that I have the full picture. If there was one major change I feel would have fixed many of the issues in the series, it would have been to make it a five-part series rather than a three-part. The second Percy book only introduced Hermes to us, but that was okay in the end, because we had three more books to introduce all the rest. The Magnus series wouldn’t have felt quite so full and had so much going on, because much of the content could have been spread out to other books. And, in the end, we would have had more time with all of these characters, more time to connect with them, more time for the series to make a real impact.

However, I did enjoy the series. It may be Riordan’s second best of the four completed series so far. The characters are as varied and complex as his characters always are. And, I have to say, I would definitely read it again.

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Journal: Love Interests

Journal: Love Interests
by Paul Adams

Today, my thoughts center on the concept of love interests and a few of the issues surrounding them. See, a good romance is a difficult thing to nail, and there are way too many books, movies, TV series, and other forms of story-driven media in which the romance is the worst aspect of it, or the love interest character themselves are the one character that the story could do without. Today I will detail two specific trends that I have noticed, and try to work out a possible remedy for them.

The Mary Jane Effect

So the Mary Jane Effect is a common occurrence that I have named after Spider-Man’s long-running love interest Mary Jane Watson. This phenomenon occurs when a character, most commonly the love interest, is a complex and thoroughly fleshed out character in their own right in their original version, but, because of their role as “the love interest,” are sapped of all personality and turned into little more than “a generic love interest.”

In the original comics, Mary Jane was not written to be a love interest. In fact, the character was created and written to contrast with the actual love interest of Gwen Stacy. She was a type of “anti-love interest,” a character designed to show how much better Gwen was by comparison. Because of this, Gwen became very much the “generic love interest” as mentioned earlier, while Mary Jane was allowed to develop and grow into an interesting and complex character. The story moved forward, Gwen died, Mary Jane became Peter’s shoulder to cry on, and eventually, their relationship came to its natural conclusion and Peter and Mary Jane were married.

Unfortunately, most media adaptations of the Spider-Man comics came after this point in time, thus, because she was Peter’s official undeniable wife by this time, Mary Jane was the one cast in the love interest role in those adaptations. And because she was “the love interest” in those adaptations, she became nothing more than a “generic love interest.” Interestingly, because of this, Gwen Stacy was then written specifically to contrast with Mary Jane in the Amazing Spider-Man series of films, in a sort of reverse Mary Jane Effect.

Mary Jane is the most obvious and well-known example of this effect, but it has cropped up in a number of other adaptations, such as Chi Chi in Dragonball Evolution, Annabeth Chase in the Percy Jackson movies, and most if not all of the love interests portrayed in far too many superhero movie adaptations.

CW Love Interest Syndrome

If the Mary Jane Effect has one saving grace, it is that its victims are just boring. In the case of this next phenomenon, however, those who suffer from it become tiring, infuriating, and often downright intolerable. I’ve named this phenomenon after the programming channel called the CW, who are notorious for their instances of it. The effects of this syndrome are the result of the writers of a work being incapable of doing anything with the love interest besides making them a minor antagonist any time they appear.

Perhaps the CW’s most maddening example of this is Smallville’s Lana Lang. Lana Lang is introduced as the object of our hero Clark’s desire, and many episodes center or at least include his attempts to gain her affections. While this was all well and good for a while, after a while, Lana’s appearances in each episode tended to go something like this.

Some superpowered villain is threatening innocent people.

Clark needs to stop the villain, but his doing so will conflict in some way with Lana’s expectations of him.

Clark chooses to save the day, even if it means losing Lana in the process.

The audience is treated to a truly, truly, wonderful and not-at-all unenjoyable scene of Lana chewing him out and telling him he’s a worthless piece of trash.

The next episode starts with Clark working to repair the relationship.

Rinse and repeat, for seven endless seasons.

After a while, you start to wonder why Clark is even remotely attracted to her any more, or if either of them actually has any real emotion connection with the other outside of simple sexual attraction.

An interesting case study of this syndrome, one that I feel truly demonstrates the CW’s true ineptitude in this matter, is their handling of Laurel and Felicity in their series Arrow. When the series began, Laurel was introduced as Oliver’s intended love interest. And right from the beginning, Laurel proved herself to be an almost uncanny recreation of Lana, filling the exact same role Lana did in every episode, and spending way too much of her dialogue telling off Oliver and spelling out exactly what was wrong with him in every single scene between them.

Then came Felicity, a quirky computer geek that Oliver recruited to be his tech support on his missions. Felicity was a fun and interesting character who contributed to every episode she appeared in and worked well off of Oliver’s stern demeanor. Naturally, most of the show’s following gravitated to her as a far superior alternative to Laurel’s tired and aggravating portrayal.

When the show moved into its third season, the creators seemed to take the hint and listened to their fans, shifting Oliver’s affections to Felicity and making her the full-time love interest. In what might be the fastest character derailment ever recorded, over night, Laurel became an interesting and complex character, contributing to the story and following a strong character arc of her own, while Felicity soon became one of the most insufferable and obnoxious characters on television, existing only to tear Oliver down and make him hate himself for doing what he had to do.

Both of these phenomena appear far too commonly in fiction, and, I feel, have been major contributing factors to the general stigma many have toward romances in other genres. Because of these occurrences, the concept of a love interest in fiction has come to be seen as either contributing nothing to the plot or making everything worse with its mere presence. However, like just about everything else in fiction, it can be done well if handled properly.

What seems to be a possible solution to the Mary Jane Effect, and “generic love interests” in general, is to write a character first before you write a romance. Mary Jane, as well as Chi Chi, Annabeth, and various other superhero love interests, were not inherently written to be love interests. They were written to be characters first. Mary Jane started out as the anti-love interest, which led to Peter falling in love with her for who she was. Annabeth was written to be a complex character who developed a strong and loving friendship with Percy, and romantic interest didn’t really even start to grow between them until the third book. In Dragonball, the character of Son Goku had no concept of romance at all, and didn’t really even grasp the concept of male and female. Chi Chi was a side supporting character who tricked Goku into marrying her. In each one of these, the characters were characters first, their role as love interest came naturally and in the best interest of the story itself.

As for the CW Love Interest Syndrome, I feel a remedy is going to be a little more complicated, but not undoable. For this, I think I will turn to Annabeth Chase of the Percy Jackson books, not the movies. What makes Annabeth and Percy’s relationship work in the end comes down to three things. A) Annabeth was established as her own character first before developing a romance with Percy; B) A genuine emotional connection was formed between them, so that the reader knew that, without a doubt, even when they fought or got mad at each other, they truly did care about one another; and C) the author made sure that the story was better when Annabeth was around, not worse.

Of course, we’ve already dealt with the first, but I feel it does still apply. Lana and Laurel would both have been better characters if they had actually been characters beforehand. As for a genuine emotional connection, I look back over Lana’s entire run on Smallville, and I can’t for the life of me remember a moment when I felt as though Lana and Clark actually cared about each other outside of wanting to get in each other’s pants. And of course, making sure that the story is better when the love interest comes around, not worse. I feel this tends to go a long way toward getting the reader or viewer on the side of the romance. If everything gets worse whenever the love interest comes around, of course the audience wouldn’t want them together with the main character. We’re supposed to want the main character to be happy, aren’t we? Not tormented for the rest of their natural life. In the cases of Lana, Laurel, and Felicity, any time they came on screen, the story ground to a halt and the situation became that much worse for everyone else in the cast. But when Annabeth and other better written love interests came around, they contributed to the plot, actively helping to resolve each given situation, instead of hindering it. In the third book of the series, Annabeth goes missing for a time, and the audience felt her absence just as much as Percy did. And that’s how I think any good love interest should be handled. The audience should miss them when they are not around, instead of groaning when they are.

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