From: seawasp@vm2.cis.pitt.edu (Sea Wasp)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Objectionable characters...? (was: Covenant/LotR parallels?)
Date: 12 Jan 93 21:59:11 GMT
Organization: University of Pittsburgh
Originator: seawasp@unixd2.cis.pitt.edu

In article <1993Jan12.195139.24900@pbhyc.PacBell.COM> djdaneh@PacBell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes) writes:
>In article <1705@blue.cis.pitt.edu> seawasp@vm2.cis.pitt.edu (Sea Wasp) writes:
>>	As far as not liking the Gap... I've only read pieces of it,
>>but what I've seen leads me to believe that he's created even more
>>objectionable characters than the early Covenant, with less redeeming
>>features. 

>"Objectionable characters?"

	Yes.

>"*OBJECTIONABLE* *CHARACTERS*?"

	Hmm, must be deaf. Yes. Objectionable characters.

>from the context of your earlier comments in the quoted article, the impression
>I get is that you do *not* [specifically] mean "unrealistic" characters or
>"characters which make no sense."  Indeed, I get the distinct impression that 
>you mean "characters I don't like."

	On the nose, Einstein.

>Widdwe boy doevn't wike being weminded that the wo'ld ivn't a pwetty happy
>pwafe, doev he?  And doevn't wike people in bookf who awen't pawagonv of viwtue 

	[delete other demonstrations of a temporary loss of typing and
	 linguistic skills meant only as a rather peruile flame]

>There's no problem with characters that *are* wonderful human beings.  Once in a
>while.  I still get a kick from the occasional Kimball Kinnison type.
>
>But as a regular diet, they're pretty fucking boring.
>
>As others have pointed out, the unpleasantness of Thomas Covenant is almost the 
>whole point of the original "Unbeliever" series [almost:  there is also an 
>interesting set of philosophical points being illustrated which have little or 
>nothing to do with Covenant's personality, except in so far as it makes it
>harder for him to come to grips with them].  It is a story of redemption -- and
>stories of redemption are pretty pointless without someone who needs redeeming.
>

	Aye, but the problem is that you are assuming that there is no 
philosophical background behind my comments.

	I had some trouble with Covenant at first because I'd never come
across a character who was at once in such a position to affect things 
and so determined to avoid power and responsibility at all cost.

	If the entire TRILOGY had consisted of characters LIKE Covenant, I
would have stopped reading.

	My impression of the Gap (from the skimming I did -- I had not seen
good advance reviews, unlike the second Covenant series or Mordant's Need)
was that there were a lot more nasty or unpleasant people around.

	Now, you say that the Kimball Kinnison types are damn boring without
something else to break up the monotony. I submit to you that unpleasant
characters are just as dull without good guys around, and are a helluva
lot more depressing to read about _en masse_.

>I *am* suggesting that people who find unpleasant protagonists "objectionable"
>are semi-literate boors who probably masturbate over copies of Stanley Schmidt's
>ANALOG. . .

	I sure hope you forgive me my slight insults above, since I feel your
just-quoted lines are quite a bit worse.

	Why do you read?

	This is, in the most immediate sense, the very first question you
have to ask of someone before you can seriously critique his choice of 
reading.

	I read for ENJOYMENT.

	That is, to me, the major and primary purpose of all fiction. Fiction
that fails to entertain me fails in its essential mission. Period.

	I do not find it entertaining to follow a bunch of dweebs or bastards
through sordid lives and have nothing improve. 

	Umpleasant protagonists are not NECESSARILY bad -- witness the fact
that I READ the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, and the Second Chronicles,
and enjoyed them immensely. 

	However, had Covenant not had other people of a more unified and
kinder stripe about him, two things would have happened:

	1) Covenant would not have been presented with the details and
motivations necessary to aid him in his development from self-impotent
leper to backhanded hero

	2) Instead of a Land of contrasts -- of the depths of deliberate
evil balanced with the devotion of deliberate good, the withholding of
power on principle versus the use of power for no principles, and so on --
the entire trilogy would have been a story of destruction; it would not
have PERMITTED Covenant's redemption. Good is necessary to redeem, just
as much as it is necessary to have sunk into evil or despair in order to
BE redeemed.

	
	Triumph is one of the themes I prefer to see. I can look in
Real Life and see many examples of the Bad winning over the good. Why should
I pay 20 bucks in hardcover in order to see a mere repetition of this
nasty side of real life? When an author has complete control over 
their universe, why shouldn't they strive to step beyond the real and
reach for the DESIRED rather than the FEARED?

	Ayn Rand could have, in Atlas Shrugged, allowed the destruction
of the country to speak for itself; instead she ended the story with
hope, because that was the proper way to end it -- to state that some
things not only SHOULD not endure, but that they MUST not endure. Whether
one agrees with the Randian philosophy of life, that principle of
WRITING is one I hold to passionately. If you demonstrate your principles
well enough, you can CHOOSE to end a thing well without detracting in
one iota from the impact of the ideas.

                                 Sea Wasp
                                   /^\
                                   ;;;
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written