Tuesday 28 April 2020

Character Dichotomies - Fantasy Lit Edition

As I noted at the end of yesterday's post, I struggled to think of character bonds built on heavy dichotomy but with a very strong crucial commonality like that of Peralta and Holt in Brooklyn 99. I gave two, and would like to recant of one very quickly after, and have been trying to think of more ever since to examine how it works in written fantasy form.

It's hard. For whatever reason, it doesn't seem to be a big part of how the genre is written, or at least the parts that I read. We'll often see two characters with a strong bond, but it is rarely written in that way. Good examples of what I see more commonly would be something like Locke Lamora & Jean Tannen (Gentlemen Bastards) or Fahfrd & The Grey Mouser - close comrades with complimentary skills, who sometimes argue but are mostly harmonious and don't have heavily different personalities. Another common example would be the lovers - Phedre & Joscelin (Kushiel's Legacy), Tavi & Kitai (Codex Alera), Mara & Kevin (Empire Trilogy) - they come from very different backgrounds and can clash on that, but they share big commonalities. This is where Falco and Helena Justina from Lindsay Davies' detective books belong too; pairing recanted.

Many Epic Fantasy series feel too big and sprawling to really invest so much of the story in two characters, although we sometimes see it between MC and Mentor (which mirrors Peralta & Holt). Many standalones don't delve deep enough into the characters. It feels like fertile soil for Urban Fantasy and YA, both categories I don't delve too deep into, but I struggle to think of good examples from what I've read. 

There are of course antagonistic pairings. Claire & Hero from The Library of the Unwritten (which I'm currently half-heartedly reading) snarl at each other a fair bit due to a number of differences in personality and background. But there's no commonality seen so far (halfway through the book), just a common purpose. Was that the author's intent? The movement from common purpose with antagonism to friendship is a common one but it is one where I feel putting some form of a bond in early helps a lot. 

Ultimately, I only came up with five interesting examples, two of them from the same author:

Sam Vimes & Captain Carrot (Discworld)
Girton & Aydor (The Wounded Kingdoms)
Granny Weatherwax & Nanny Ogg (Discworld)
Chava & Ahmad (The Golem and the Jinni)
Rand & Moraine (The Wheel of Time)

I'll start from the bottom. I only thought of R&M last minute, having initially discounted them to only really being there for half the series. But that's still a lot of words, and the best half of them too, and in many ways it's the pairing closest to P&H and the best example of what you can do with this sort of dichotomy in Epic Fantasy. Here Moiraine is the highly driven, very polished mentor who is willing to do anything if it makes Rand - sometimes diffident, sometimes stubborn, wholly young and inexperienced - the man she thinks he needs to be. While their backgrounds give a natural contrast, the real conflict comes in terms of their morality. 

Rand is - at least to start with, and never entirely not - a sheep herder from the countryside with simple views on right and wrong. To Moraine, the ends justify the means; there is either victory over the Dark One or total doom for mankind. She can view the suffering of her own countryfolk with dispassionate eyes because resources spent there lessen the chance of victory. The bond? That part of Rand agrees that if faced with total destruction, all is permitted to evade it. That part grows under her guidance until he too is willing to look away from compatriots - although with far more sadness - when he believes it necessary. Rand grows harder, more Machiavellian, more authoritarian and while many factors go into it, the lessons Moiraine teaches are the most important ones. By contrast, Moiraine finds herself more and more out of her depth, and in some ways, their position switches. It's an interesting journey and arguably its ending harms the story, but it is fairly simplistic as a dichotomy and I'm not sure it adds that much to their characters.

With C&A, the contrast is central to their characters, particularly as neither is human. I know, I know, massive spoiler, never would have got it from the book title. Chava is the golem, Ahmad the djinni, and in Wecker's story, those two are very much different in outlook and being. The biggest obvious difference is that Chava was created to be a slave and finds herself unexpectedly free; Ahmad to be extravagantly free but awakes a slave. The obvious bond is that they are equally uncomfortable and in a way only the other can come close to understanding (although obviously there's still a big gap there). It's mildly ironic to think that in a genre full of different species, it took this unusual combination to unlock the potential of inhuman friendships.

The one caveat I have about them, certainly in terms of stealing ideas, is that that everything I just said is situationally based. Yes, their personalities still contrast each others, but I'm not sure the intensity of it, or the bond are there if its just the personalities. Changing the situation may change their relationship, and perhaps that has something to do with why The Golem and the Jinni's sequel has yet to come to fruition. That is pure speculation of course, and situations and personalities can both change again, but the dichotomy isn't hard baked in. 

Now for WOE (W&O is close to woe, and damned if I'm not writing WOE in caps every chance I can get), which is a very human pairing where everything is rooted in the personalities. To draw the dividing line - Nanny Ogg wasn't so much last in line when they handed out shame as saw it and walked on by, where as Granny Weatherwax is both somewhat prudish and has a monumental ego. There's a close similarity to Peralta-Holt there and it feeds into so many of their actions, from talking to strangers, to how to use their magic. I guess there's a reason that the uptight one and the relaxed one are such a common odd couple (although again, I only started to know it from reading outside fantasy) and they are, in their way, as relaxed and uptight as it gets. Nanny is completely comfortable in her own skin - I doubt Granny has spent a single comfortable day in hers.

Is there a bond and commonality though? Certainly there's a bond that comes from their age, power, and common history; there simply aren't that many of their peers around. But an intensely personal one that exists for just them? I think there is one of a sorts, although it's kinda one sided. Nanny is just about the only person Granny can relax a little around, the only one where she doesn't constantly have to be the all knowing witch around and can just be Esme. Not only does she know Nanny really isn't a judger at all, but she knows Nanny understands what it is to bear her responsibilities. Now I type it, I can definitely see some P&H there in WOE; Holt relaxes a bit around Peralta too. I don't think Granny wants to be Nanny Ogg, not for one moment, but in all other ways it's a very similar type of relationship and proof of how effective this sort of character dynamic is.

G&A is - I say this only as I start to type and think - a rather different use of this sort of bond, not least because the two characters' relationship and personality change a great deal over the series. I must take a moment to diverge and say it vex me a little that for all the possibilities fantasy offers with its huge series, few authors target huge spans of time that really let us see how characters change over the span of a lifetime. G&A go from intense enemies, to suspicious allies, to wary friends, to all-but-brothers (all while Girton goes through a similar reverse arc with another character). Girton goes from optimistic and a little naive, to angry and wounded, to tired and questioning, finally ending at peace; Aydor goes from petulant and entitled, to a mild cypher, and then to joyful and boisterous - and at peace. He finds his peace earlier than Girton but in the first and last book, they are strong contrasts (maybe this is part of why I don't like the second book as much?).

The bond - and to me there is a definite one, one that definitely develops - is somewhat built on envy. Aydor envies Girton's close relationship with those around him; Girton, when not afraid of the bullying envies Aydor's privilege a little, and later his contentedness. There's long periods where each would on some level rather be the other. It's less about sharing a personality and more about circumstance, but there does seem to be a commonality in that both are happiest when they are least burdened and can simply be a warrior with their friends. That I think is more an element of the series (Barker does focuses on the crushing nature of power) as it's something they share with other characters, but it is there. 

Finally, the one I thought of immediately last time - V&C. It's a very, very easy comparison. Grizzled cop with very different personality to their affable optimistic junior? Yup. There are of course differences to P&H. Vimes is defiantly of the streets (even when he isn't to anyone else), burning with suppressed rage, and gives off sarcasm and cynicism like steam off a hot pan. Carrot often sounds like "a civics essay written by a stunned choirboy"; he is far too mature and responsible for his own good. Yet on closer inspection, the comparison doesn't work so well. Why? Since the irreverent/respectful part of this has been swung around so the respectful one is the subordinate, there is less conflict. Could I repurpose this as Vimes and Vetinari? No, because they don't spend enough time together. And neither, when you come down to it, do Vimes and Carrot. When investigations come up, as the two senior figures, they have to split up to cover ground.

I do not have a theory of how to do it here. All of the examples I've used here have come from extremely good books, so it's not like mixing it up makes a book bad, or there's only one way to do it. There's also a ton of extremely good books that don't have it, although I have to say the fact I grabbed examples from my favourite author and the best trilogy with continuous characters this millennium suggests I have a heavy bias towards this. And it is perhaps this bias that leads me to say I think I see an underexpoited use of character dynamics in the fantasy genre.

And the great thing about this character dynamic, and those like it where characters have very tight bonds and obvious contrasts? It packs a lot of character into a single dynamic, because whenever the characters interact you get a lot for both, and the audience can start reading into them due to their bond. For me, fantasy is a weird genre in that it is very character-led due to them being the terra firma in the strange altered secondary worlds, but also expected to be very action heavy. When it works it's fantastic but it is all too easy for one of them to go missing due to constrained space. The more character building you can get in when showing them off, the better. 

Is there a risk in that the characters feels flat without their dichotomy around? Maybe, but it doesn't happen in any of examples I name. Weatherwax's journey with Brutha is epic, Vimes can bounce off anyone, some of my favourite Girton scenes are with Merela, and so on. I mentioned that I feel like missing Rand-Moiraine time made the Wheel of Time worse, but that was because of Moiraine's replacements. Min was cool, but the rest? In fact, the fact I'm saying the rest points to the problem. Big casts make for the risk of weaker characters and dynamics. And of course, sprawl is the Wheel of Time's real problem. Yes I think removing that dynamic made it worse, but that's not on Rand.

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