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Characters and layers
Sep. 23rd, 2008 03:38 pmI was blog trolling at work (as in trolling for fish, not being a troll) and came across this thoughtful entry about characterization and "layers"; or, why the new 90210 series sucks. It happens over and over again in shows (and also in books), where the writers think they're "adding layers" and being "deep" when all they're doing is adding more things to the surface; things that don't always make sense, or that don't have a reason for being except that the writers thought it would add "meaning."
Anyway, there are plenty of examples of authors who got it right - characters who seemed shallow at the beginning, but turned out to be layered and multi-faceted and deep - but down toward the end of the comments, the author wonders if there are any examples of characters who seemed deep at the beginning, but really turned out to be shallow. I immediately thought: Snape.
He seemed like such a great character for the first 3 or 4 books (y'know, before the series went bad); here was this nasty guy who was actually working for the Good Guys. How intriguing! He must have some hidden core of morals! I wonder why?? I wonder how?? I wonder what else he's hiding???
And then the last book squashed him flat. Barely more than paper thin. He really was just a nasty guy who had some not-really-believable traits tacked on to make the plot work. At least that's how it seemed to me; I'm sure there are people who would disagree. If you have an argument for why Snape really was a well-rounded, believable character, please, I would love to hear it. I was very disappointed by how Rowling ultimately handled Snape's character and I would love to be undisappointed. Anything that moderates the sour aftertaste of the latter half of the series would be welcome.
And now I really should get to my homework.
Anyway, there are plenty of examples of authors who got it right - characters who seemed shallow at the beginning, but turned out to be layered and multi-faceted and deep - but down toward the end of the comments, the author wonders if there are any examples of characters who seemed deep at the beginning, but really turned out to be shallow. I immediately thought: Snape.
He seemed like such a great character for the first 3 or 4 books (y'know, before the series went bad); here was this nasty guy who was actually working for the Good Guys. How intriguing! He must have some hidden core of morals! I wonder why?? I wonder how?? I wonder what else he's hiding???
And then the last book squashed him flat. Barely more than paper thin. He really was just a nasty guy who had some not-really-believable traits tacked on to make the plot work. At least that's how it seemed to me; I'm sure there are people who would disagree. If you have an argument for why Snape really was a well-rounded, believable character, please, I would love to hear it. I was very disappointed by how Rowling ultimately handled Snape's character and I would love to be undisappointed. Anything that moderates the sour aftertaste of the latter half of the series would be welcome.
And now I really should get to my homework.
