Deadpool and Domino from Marvel Comics
Contrary to the belief of some people, characters don’t know they’re in a fictional story. I know Deadpool is one of the exceptions, but even then he can’t hear you shouting at the comic book. Screaming for the blonde to turn around in a horror movie is a futile use of your vocal chords. Yet many people, myself included, do this when we really get into a book, show, or movie. It’s only natural . . . to a point.
There’s a strange trend that I’ve seen over the years where people rail against characters doing something stupid. Some of the arguments are warranted, but I think there’s a factor we forget. Characters have no idea they’re in a story. They don’t know everything the reader knows, exist under pressure that the reader doesn’t have, work with time restraints while the reader has plenty of time, and so many other factors. I guess what I’m saying is that putting a real person in many of these situations, there would be a chance of a stupid mistake as well.
Here’s a general example: EVERYONE groans when a person goes off alone in a horror movie and dies. It’s a joke at this point. We all see it coming. Now raise your hand if you’ve ever walked away from a group into a dark area of a house or place you think is safe because there’s NO POSSIBLE WAY you’re in a horror movie. How much you wanna bet those characters are thinking the same thing? If the killing has already started then you have fear overriding common sense. Most people don’t think clearly when their brains are scrambled by adrenaline and terror. It tends to be the ‘fight/flight’ reflex and both options will get you killed in a horror movie. Probably in real life too if you have an armed killer after you. Yet, we always seem to expect these characters to be smarter, wiser, and more composed than a real person.
Let’s be honest here. If every character made every right decision then you’d have no story. Mistakes have to happen to bring tension and some level of reality. After all, a hero who never makes a mistake is hated for being too perfect. It’s unbelievable too. A character that screws up repeatedly is more realistic for some reason. Probably because many of us know a person like that or at least judge someone in that light. This is getting a little off topic, but my point is that you do want realism in your stories. A big part of that is mistakes and not having the characters act like they’re in a story.
I actually enjoy stories more when I remind myself of this. It helps find the flawed logic and realize that I could have done something equally as stupid in the same situation. To be honest, I’m pretty sure I’ve made movie level mistakes in my life. So who am I to judge a fictional being that thinks it’s ridiculous that anybody would find the events of his/her life worth viewing?
Legends of Windemere 
My brain always kicks into gear a good five minutes after I’ve gone somewhere stupid. I found myself in the middle of an abandoned wing of a hospital once, driving the gardeners wife who was in labour up in Zimbabwe in the early hours of the morning – in a storm too! The wind was howling, doors were moving. Creepy, creepy – ran out of there like the wind. 😀
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People do seem to have a lot of ‘seemed good at the time’ moments. I would have bolted from that place too.
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Deadpool and Domino cracked me up! (I hope the Deadpool movie will be good.)
I hear what you’re saying. Characters making wrong choices brings conflict to the story. Granted, some conflicts seem a bit contrived. But an author can solve that issue through foreshadowing, so that the character’s decision will seem inevitable, rather than unbelievable. I was just reading a scene where the main character mentioned that he’s trained to hunt vampires. But vampires are much stronger than he is. He hears some noise out back and soon realizes that there are four vampires out there killing people in an alley. A reader might scream at the book, “Don’t go out there!” But he just said he was trained to hunt the creatures. I wanted him to go, because I wanted to see how he would handle himself in a situation where he was outnumbered.
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The movie is looking good so far with the R rating and the set pics. Can’t be any worse than the ‘Deadpool’ in the Wolverine Origin movie.
It is tough to make a bad choice come across as more than a plot contrivance. I hope the vampire hunter mentioned or hinted at his training prior to the incident. Kind of like 4 people trapped in an elevator and one suddenly goes ‘Wait! I’m an elevator repair guy and I’m holding my tools!’ 🙂
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Ha ha! Yes. The author set it up nicely. The main character’s mission was set up from the moment a vampire entered the bar where he works. We know why he chose not to call attention to himself by immediately going on the offense. (He’s hiding from a group that wants to kill him.) But because he can see beneath the vampire’s glamour, the vampire quickly catches on that the bartender can see him as he really is. Though the vampire leaves after a slight scuffle, the bartender knows that he’ll probably encounter the vampire and his friends if he leaves the bar. Which he does. I appreciated that.
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Sounds like it was done very nicely with no unexpected decisions.
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I strive for at least a little tragic irony in my stories (where the reader knows something that the hero doesn’t, and they want to shout it out at them). I think it makes for more involved/invested readers.
As for stupid decisions, I’m reminded of this hilarious Eddie Murphy stand up bit (in Delirious? Or Raw?) where he mocks people going into a haunted house and ignoring the obvious signs, like whispering voices, blood-dripping walls, apparitions etc. In his words (as remembered 20 years later by my sieve-like memory), if he were in their shoes, the movie would be surprisingly brief:
“Eddie: Honey, this is the perfect house for us! Colonial style, five bedrooms, stunning view, and you can’t beat the price…
(eerie voice whispers in his ear: “Get! Out!”)
Eddie: …too bad we can’t stay and look at it any longer! Bye!
(the end)”
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I saw both of those and I’m not sure which comedy show had the jokes. I do remember them, which is kind of ironic since he starred in ‘Haunted House’. Horror movies seem to have the biggest rate of audience members screaming at the characters.
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Or throwing pop corn into the air (or at the screen)
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You make some good points, Charles. People definitely don’t used the reason when fear and adrenaline have taken over, and we all make mistakes. Then there are the set-ups where the characters appear to be completely in control and do the stupidest things. My all-time groaner is the long kiss while the burning roof is collapsing and the barrels of gasoline are blistering hot. Those make me shake my head and wonder.
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The odd thing is that I know of a few people who were in complete control until one ridiculous muck up. That one mistake that might make sense in their head, but is horrible in practice. This is something that is so hard, if not impossible, to translate to books since people expect better of fictional characters. For some reason. I mean, we’re talking about an industry where the weapon of ultimate evil is rarely destroyed until half the landscape is burning.
I think I can see the rationale behind kissing in a burning building. I’m assuming the characters have no way of getting out easily, so it’s like a final act of happiness that they try to hold onto while waiting for death. Doing it with an open door a few feet away is the sign of a disturbing fetish.
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They always get out of the burning building. But only after I yell at the tv! Thanks for the fun post.
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You’re welcome. Keep on yelling and saving those characters. 😉
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If characters thought they were in a story they would ask for more money. Great post.
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I shall give them their current salary times 1,000. (I don’t pay them now.)
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Excellent.
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Ha! I admit I yell at them for doing stupid things. I have to say, though, I recently read a crime novel published in 2010 and many reviewers were saying things like, “A woman wouldn’t go back to her home alone if a man she vaguely knew had tried to rape her there.” WHAT??? I lived alone for 12 years. I would have. “A woman wouldn’t invite a man to her home she hadn’t seen in ten years.” I would, and I did. “A woman wouldn’t walk home alone at night.” I did that on a regular basis. Maybe I was just stupid, but I resented these male readers saying these things about a female character.
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That’s something I see too. A lot of people take what they would do and hold that as the only option. As you point out, it happens a lot with female characters. It’s like people are no longer able to realize that there’s a huge world of various reactions to every situation. Some are good, some are bad, some are logical, and others are off the wall. Yet each one is viable.
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I just love your response. We all seem to think human behavior is predictable and it really isn’t. Spend a few years in psychiatry and you see quite clearly that it is not.
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“They don’t know everything the reader knows, exist under pressure that the reader doesn’t have, work with time restraints while the reader has plenty of time, and so many other factors.”
Dramatic irony = the audience knowing things about a situation that the characters in the story don’t know. It’s a time-honored storytelling technique for increasing tension, dating at least as far back as the ancient Greeks. (The audience knew the queen was Oedipus’ mom, but HE didn’t.) Having characters in a story know things they cannot realistically know just because that knowledge prevents them from doing something the AUDIENCE knows is a bad idea = bad storytelling. (It’s also bad storytelling to prevent a character from knowing things just to make sure they do something stupid, such as a police officer who forgets everything she ever knew about handguns because the author wants to base a plot on the character’s ignorance.)
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Good points. Though I think dramatic irony goes over a lot of people’s heads these days. I see many friends ranting about a character doing something stupid even though they didn’t have the correct information. Many times it’s because the reader sees an easy way to victory that the characters don’t use. The damn eagles in Lord of the Rings is a good example. So many people point at them as the ‘cure all’ for the story and a reason why the entire thing is stupid. Yet there would be no story if that actually happened, so you need harder paths to be taken at some point.
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I agree that it adds tension when readers to see a character making a mistake that could cost their lives. Like in Game of Thrones (Part 1 of Song of Ice and Fire) Eddard Stark was my favorite character, but I could see his doom approaching. It was kind of traumatizing.
The thing is, you can’t have your character make stupid mistakes. Mistakes have to be totally logical and true to the character, otherwise people yell because it’s so contrived.
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True, but I’ve seen people yell about characters that never make mistakes. There’s a balance that one needs, I guess. I do wonder why stupid mistakes are such a no-no. They happen in real life all the time. It’s like our fictional characters are forbidden from being that real.
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