Musings on characterisation and such

[Sage]

To make this a conversation ...
To what degree does canon actually dictate how we portray the characters?
Am sure we can all be open minded about alternative takes on characters, but where do you draw the line and say 'nope sorry, s/he is OOC'?
how far can you deviate from the general perception of a character without it being OOC?
Are you more lenient if said OOC trait goes against canon or fanon, where does one end and the other start when it comes to characters?

The reason I ask is because I was reading through a CS fic recently on fanfic.net, and umm well let's just say it wasn't one of the best. Actually had a fair few gapping flaws but the thing that really did it for me what was the characterisation of Colonel White.

This was the start of the 'madness', I quote ...
"-yes, I read the same medical report you did, Paul," White is saying, and Adam knows when White calls you by your given name, your Christian name, it's serious ...

Huh, what, since when has he ever done that? I mean actually in canon. Well OK except 'attack' but that doesn't really count because ...
A) it was a dream sequence
B) he actually said 'it's Adam, isn't it?' ... which suggests to me he isn't in the habit of using first names or he'd have used it without any hesitation. [yes that's Symphony's POV, but surely the same would apply to the angels]

Am all for diffrent interpretations with fanon stuff (as is only fitting for an unrepentant slash writer) but seriously canon doesn't portray White as a 'fatherly' sort. He might feel a bit paternal toward his staff but is still there CO and acts like it.

Oh and now you mention it, no I don't think he'd ...
* Let Scarlet take a day off, every month. Even if his hormones or whatever made him behave in odd ways. They have a team of female fighter pilots for Christ sake, you don't really think they get time off with PSM#.
* be all cool about his two main agents having screwed each other. Especially if there was a strong suggestion it was non-con.
* consider Blue and Scarlet 'his two favourite boys'. Rather unprofessional favourtism aside , they are mature officers under his command. Not a couple of adorable wayward nephews. Speaking of wayward I should think they are more likely to be the bains, rather than lights, of his life. How many times has he read them the riot act in the series itself?
* consider being informed of a major shift in the relationship between his staff just 'oh by the way' type thing.
* be amused by the above, and people having it off in public areas of the base. Might be a bit hard to explain if the president had dropped by wouldn't it?

#if anything they'd be an assest in that state, PSM and major fire power has gotta be a force to be reckoned with.

All just my opion of course, but what do you think?

Signed
Baffled, of Hampshire

PS I don't have the story's URL to hand, but can get it if you wish.

[Marion]

Sage Says:

To what degree does canon actually dictate how we portray the characters?

I would say that canon doesn't actually give you much to go on, and what it does supply is either woefully inadequate or often implausible.

Am sure we can all be open minded about alternative takes on characters, but where do you draw the line and say 'nope sorry, s/he is OOC'? [By this I take it you mean 'out of character'? Not everyone's 'in' on the jargon, you know ]
how far can you deviate from the general perception of a character without it being OOC?

Where a character in the series HAS no given character - you're free to do what you like. General perception is fanon and not really the authorative voice.

Are you more lenient if said OOC trait goes against canon or fanon, where does one end and the other start when it comes to characters?

I - personally - would say that I can tolerate unusual characterisations as long as they are plausible. I might not like them - very often I don't - but if I can see the reasoning behind it, I accept that the author has as much right as anyone to 'move the goalposts'. That applies to slash fiction as much as anything.
What I do have great difficulty in, is believing that the primary Spectrum Captains and the Angels would act like teenagers resident in some exclusive boarding school for the precocious, and this is because what is indesputable is that these are experienced soldiers, or they wouldn't be there. The men are all early-mid thirties - even though the Angels strike me as implausibly young - and always accepting not all of them were from miltary backgrounds, they were all in responsible positions. But once again, this is according to written sources; no ages are given on the TV shows.
They must certainly need to 'let off steam' from time to time, but even that aspect should to be done in a way that takes account of the perceived characters.

This was the start of the 'madness', I quote ...
"-yes, I read the same medical report you did, Paul," White is saying, and Adam knows when White calls you by your given name, your Christian name, it's serious ...

Colonel White does it all the time in NCS. I don't like it there either.

Am all for diffrent interpretations with fanon stuff (as is only fitting for an unrepentant slash writer) but seriously canon doesn't portray White as a 'fatherly' sort. He might feel a bit paternal toward his staff but is still there CO and acts like it.

The TV show - the true canon, if you like - shows nothing very much of a personal nature for any characters - except the occaisional 'Paul' and 'Adam' in moments of stress/tension - and the Blue/Symphony 'romance' (and even that might be the product of a fevered imagination)
The printed 'canon' of TV21 books, annuals etc - do mention that the colonel, is very fond of the Angels - who he sees as the daughters he and his late wife never had. (The Angels and the Creeping Menace by John Theydon - says: Green knew how his chief felt about the five 'wonder girls'... Deep down he knew his chief regarded them as akin to the daughters he had wanted and never had before his wife died.) I guess it depends where you decided canon ends and fanon starts.
As for the rest of the story - which I think I have read - it is rather unlikely, but so are many of the stories and situations dreamt up by fan fiction writers all the time. Given that this is a slash story (if it is the one I'm thinking about) I don't think the whole premise of the story is at all likely - so the rest of the characters acting out of character is in keeping with that aspect of the fiction, for me at least.

[Prismatic Avatar]

I would tolerate it (maybe not like it) unless it flew in the face of the original's source material or spirit. For instance, having Scarlet portrayed as a coward or Blue as a narcissist. Highly unlikely given their environment or the spirit of the series. However, Magenta might be portrayed as being thuggish. I might not like it (I wouldn't!) but it's a valid trait given his background.

I think I know the stories you refer to and I found it difficult to believe in the Spectrum and characters being portrayed, but that might be me looking at Spectrum with distinctly rose-tinted glasses. But I also wouldn't see the relationship as described in the story meshing with that of the series. There would be a distance, I'm sure.

And White would have hung them from the aft turbines by their nose hairs!

[Clya Brown]

The trouble with this question is that the original series really offers very few clues as to character traits. Being written for children, the deeper issues of interest to adult fans, like whether or not two characters could realistically have a sexual relationship aren't addressed: they're hinted at sometimes, but no more than that - and it's not difficult to see why, I think. Unless it's established at the outset that two of them have an ongoing relationship, like Troy and Atlanta from "Stingray" or Alan and Tintin in "Thunderbirds", creating one in the middle of the series is likely to cause problems later on when people start asking embarrassing questions like "So did they have a bust-up, then?" Affairs often end messily, but since it's necessary for everybody to be at least on amicable terms at the start of the next episode for the next adventure, it's far easier not to create the relationship in the first place.

I can think of at least a couple of shows where the problem was solved by imagining that the inevitable affair has run its course prior to the start of the series and then dwindled to a few embers of its former intensity, leaving the characters as friends with just the hint of a "past" to spice things up a little. Steed and Emma Peel were apparently conceived that way in "The Avengers"; also Will Riker and Deanna Troi in Star Trek TNG were written as erstwhile lovers who were separated by the pressure of their respective careers. In the latter example, the situation was only permitted to be resolved in the very last movie of the series, when they finally got married.

One "series" in which that convention isn't adhered to is the James Bond movies, in which he develops a relationship with a new woman or women every single time. Interestingly, nobody asks embarrassing questions about what happened to the last one when the next movie opens: it's almost as if we understand that the movies aren't intended to be regarded as a sequential catalogue of the hero's exploits, but more as a series of snapshops to be considered only in isolation. Doing that as a TV series would leave too many questions to be answered about what happened to the last girlfriend, though interestingly the writers of "The Professionals" did allow Bodie and Doyle to have a succession of girlfriends, all of whom magically vanish at the end of each episode. Presumably we were expected to believe that none of them had any interest in more than a casual relationship, which seems somewhat unrealistic to me, irrespective of how convenient it might have been to the scriptwriters.

It does however raise the question of how realistic it would be to have a relationship with a hero in a TV show in general, and OCS/NCS in particular. Personally, I've always felt that the Spectrum captains and the Angels would make very poor partners for "normal" people. Speaking as a man, I can admire the exploits of the (OCS) Angels - and write fanfic for them, which I have - without finding them in the slightest bit desirable as real characters. Oh, they're very pretty and all that, but can you imagine the strengths of their personalities? As I envisage them, they've achieved more in the first ten years of their careers than most people could achieve in as many lifetimes. A "real" woman like that would scare the hell out of me. The only sort of man who would be good enough for them would have to be a superhero - and a superhero would in turn make an almost impossible partner for a "real" woman.

I feel that to make it believable, you have to write for them with the "superhero" tag hovering at the back of your mind, and employ just a hint of doublethink when you're describing their adventures. Trying to make them too human runs the risk of destroying them as credible characters, because the originals were never conceived as fully human characters themselves.

[Marion]

I can see what you're saying - although it has come far too late for me, Doc - I've spent way to much time and expended far too many words trying to make them 'normal' people! I see the characters as ordinary people doing an extraordinary job in exceptional circumstances and I try to imagine how anyone would cope with the situations they find themselves in. It can lead to all sorts of problems - and I almost wish I'd stuck with 'superhero' tags for them. However, I know nothing about the superheros of comic and SciFi universes - and would be clueless about what counts as acceptable - so I'm stuck with trying to balance the mundane with the spectacular.

I think that's the strength of Captain Scarlet - yes, it was written and produced for children, but it lends itself to an adult interpretation much more convincingly than say 'Thunderbirds' does. These are disparate individuals thrown together in a (fairly) enclosed community - ideal material to work with.
One thing I don't subscribe to is that each of them has to be partnered with one of the others - I think that would be unlikely. They might flirt and even become 'intimately involved' with members of the group - but it doesn't strike me as all that plausible that they'd all pair up - in hetero or same-sex relationships. There is one 'canon' relationship - as far as it goes - and one more or less accepted fanon one, which is enough for me. That also allows more interesting permutations for the rest
At least I think so and I enjoy reading what everyone makes of them.

[Clya Brown]

Yes, I'd agree that permanent pairings would be unlikely to occur in such an environment, as I suspect they'd all find the potential for being unfaithful far too much of an attraction. These characters are putting their lives on the line with almost monotonous regularity, leading to a "live life to the full while you can" attitude. My own guess would be that you'd get a sort of "Hollywood" environment, in which everything is all giggles and innuendo as a facade, but very busy after lights out, leading to frequent changes of partnerships and a corresponding acute desensitizing of everyone's more tender emotions. I'd also guess that "love" as ordinary people would understand the term would become very difficult once they all recognised that any object or objects of their affections could easily be dead next month; next week or even tomorrow.

Obviously the original show didn't touch on such matters at all, not least on account of the brief to create a kids' action series: even attempting to address such issues would have had the Mary Whitehouse brigade spitting blood, and anxious questions from concerned parents being sent to "Talkback" and "Points of View". We're extrapolating the product of a bygone era forty years into the future here, in the same way that "Team America" asked what became of the little kids who pulled faces at Alan Tracy for being such a sissy as to actually have a girlfriend (yee-uck!), unlike his heroic older brothers (who didn't waste time with such irrelevancies).

I suppose that's the real appeal of this TV series: it takes us back to a time when life was delightfully simple - before we grew up.

"It was easy then to tell truth from lies;
Selling out from compromise;
Who to love and who to hate,
The foolish from the wise.

But today there is no day or night;
Today there is no dark or light;
Today there is no black or white,
Only shades of gray."

[Marion]

Very true, Doc. After all, I guess when people are in the sort of dangerous situation/environment that our heroes are in, they must be gentically programed not to put 'all their eggs in one basket' or invest too much time and energy in something that can't guarantee a return - emotionally speaking.
For some people that doesn't work though, which can be their personal tragedy. At least - I imagine so... and I can see why the original series steered clear of such minefields. That only means more options for the Fanfic writers to indulge in though - especially as we're not writing for children nor hemmed in by the Mary Whitehouse Brigade.

"It was easy then to tell truth from lies;
Selling out from compromise;
Who to love and who to hate,
The foolish from the wise.

But today there is no day or night;
Today there is no dark or light;
Today there is no black or white,
Only shades of gray."

'Shades of Gray' by Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil, as perfomed by the Monkees in 1967...

[Carrie]

I loved your thoughts on the matter of relationships, Doc! Nice points of philosophy as usual..

In reference to your point:

I've always felt that the Spectrum captains and the Angels would make very poor partners for "normal" people

I guess that's why most of us watch this stuff...We don't really want 'normal' people..we want fantasy heroes and heroines doing scary and wonderful things...including falling madly and badly with the wrong - or - right, people
Heck - real-life doesn't see Scarlet or Wolverine or Captain Apollo cleaning the toilet...and we don't usually want to watch or read about it...well, not unless there's a nasty creature lurking there just waiting to bite their hand off....
We, as viewers and readers, want conflict and fighting and death.. because it makes our hearts beat faster without actually facing said catastrophes, in much the same way as we go on that rollercoaster for the same thrill.
So, I'm not so sure it's so much whether the relationships are presented as 'realistic' or not, more about the fact that when the characters of interest have consumated said relationship, or at least confessed 'love' for the other, the conflict ends and therefore the buzz of the 'Will they/won't they' factor has gone. If the same characters are in that relationship, the frisson can only be re-ignited with a new source of conflict. eg: the relationship becomes in jeaopardy.

[Marion]

Carrie said:

So, I'm not so sure it's so much whether the relationships are presented as 'realistic' or not, more about the fact that when the characters of interest have consumated said relationship, or at least confessed 'love' for the other, the conflict ends and therefore the buzz of the 'Will they/won't they' factor has gone. If the same characters are in that relationship, the frisson can only be re-ignited with a new source of conflict. eg: the relationship becomes in jeaopardy.

I agree with almost all of that, Carrie - without some tension/ friction a story that focuses on a relationship can pall. Look at the romance writers who make their living writing a variation on a similar plot: Boy meets girl - boy hates girl, who hates boy right back - boy loves girl- boy loses girl - boy gets girl back etc...

With CS there is always the element of danger in their lives that might terminate their relationship - and their lives. We know it probably won't - if they're leading characters - but they can't know that. Every time they go out on a mission it might well be the last time - with the exception of Scarlet, of course.
Maybe that is why I find his 'romance' with Rhapsody rather dull? Where is the tension/friction there?
The only time I tried to tackle it was from the angle of what happens as she ages and he doesn't - or only does at a much slower rate (the jury is still out on that one.)
I can see that there might be an underlying tension between them then.