no clever title

[meganbmoore]

In my post from earliermusouka_mangabrought up a very good point:  the idea that all bashing of female characters is just dismissed as jealousy.  I don't know if that is all it is with others, but I'll give my take on that, and how things often come across to me when I see negative statements about characters.

(This is also prompted by a few unrelated discussions elsewhere.)

Before I get into that:  When I friend someone, I don't really care if a person likes slash, het, gen, or couldn't care less about any pairing ever(not really synonymous with gen.)  All I really care is that we have a few similar interests, they seem interesting, intelligent, and don't seem insane(or at least are my kind of insane) and seem to be more about liking the common interest in general than about disliking certain things about it or characters in it.

For example:  The oldest (and now, I fear, much neglected) members of the f-list are comic book fans (and some other overlapping interests) I met at the old CrossGen boards.  I friended  dangermousieabout two years ago because I saw her comments in the posts of a mutual friend and followed her back to her LJ, and thought she seemed interesting.  She liked anime and manga, but most of her posts were on doramas and Bollywood, things I had never heard of.  That, obviously, has changed, and a huge chunk of my f-list I met through her, either directly or through people I met through her.  Another large chunk comes from  chomijior I one finding the other through the  love_deeper community.  I friended  musouka_mangaa few months back when I started reading Kekkaishi, because her posts on the series to  scans_daily a long time ago are what got me interested, and she had focused primarily on the heroine, Tokine.  I also tend to friend people when they get mentioned or linked to a lot on the f-list, because I figure I should just read the posts when they're posted.

The purpose of that rather unnecessary ramble was to say that my f-list tends to be really diverse, with likes and dislikes all over the place.  When a new episode of a TV show airs, I often see back-to-back posts from both sides of shipping wars, and things like that.

Anyway, to get back to the main point after that long digression:  When the subject of disliking characters comes up, it usually seems to boil down to several statements:

( "dislike" can be exchanged with "only tolerate," "am annoyed by," "can't be wild about," "despise," etc.)

1. I dislike A because of X quality. 
2. I dislike A because of X quality, and don't see why B likes A/always saves/helps A, etc.
3. I dislike A because of X quality, and think B would be better with C/that B/C is more interesting than B/A.
4. I dislike A because of X quality, and wish A were not the third party in B/C.
   
With #1, there's no perception that the character is disliked for anything but that quality, however, when #2-#4 are a factor, even when they aren't stated in "I dislike A because of X quality" but known through other means(past discussion, glance through LJ, etc.) then there is the perception that, if it weren't for A's connection to B, especially if there's a preference for C, that X doesn't have as much to do with it, but rather, that A gets the blame or dismissed because of B, or because A makes B/C less possible, if not impossible, and that without that connection, A would be better liked.  This doesn't mean that it's always the case, but it's often very, very hard to believe otherwise, if #2-#4 are factors.

To use two character's I dislike for example(and I'm not sure they're good examples, come to think of it, because with both, it centers around how they treat their girlfriend, but maybe it works...I don't actively dislike enough characters to have a large pool to draw from, and some with better diversity involve spoilers for various fandoms.)

I dislike Rei in Super Gals! because of how he treats Aya, and, for that matter, everyone else around him.  I understand why Aya likes Rei and I liked him myself for similar reasons(and liked the pairing a good bit) until a little bit into the second season.  I was assuming, however, that there would be character growth throughout the series for him.  However, there was essentially regression instead, and he just in general treats everyone around him-especially his girlfriend-pretty badly.

I also dislike(almost passionately hate, in fact) Duncan Kane in Veronica Mars.  I cannot, however, with 100% honesty say that I know it's all about his character.  I disliked Duncan in season 1 because he supposedly loved Veronica but, again, dismissed her and treated her badly, and didn't care that everyone else treated her like dirt.  Certain plot revelations late in the season turned the dislike from mild to pretty intense.  Due to one of those revelations, I assumed there was no way they would ever make Duncan a love interest for Veronica after that.  In season two, however, they dated, and my dislike intensified into hate.  Part of it was that the idea of Duncan as Veronica's(or really anyone's) love interest after the end of season 1 made my stomach churn, and partly because he still didn't seem to care about Veronica herself, seemed willing to dismiss her, and didn't care about how anyone else treated her.  I do know, however, that it's possible that at least some of the increased dislike is because I prefered Veronica/Logan and, if not Logan, the only one I would have been interested in seeing her with(or could have bought) is Weavil.  I know I disliked Duncan when I thought he could never be Veronica's love interest or be an obstacle for Veronica/Logan.  I don't know, however, if I'd dislike him as much as I do if he and Veronica hadn't dated again in season two.

(Both male because...well, the only female that immediately came to mind was Relena, and I'm not sure if "dislike" is as accurate as "am bizarrely fascinated by, yet scared of, and while I complained while she was onscreen, I missed her when she wasn't there."  So...uhm...I went with male characters even though it was discussion about female characters that prompted the post.)

I don't know if all of that will make sense to anyone who...well, isn't me, but maybe it will.

Comments

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I just had Owen explained to me and hated him enough to not want to watch the show. *points to Duncan for part of why*

[jennawaterford.livejournal.com]

I find Torchwood very hard to watch -- I have it on the DVR and skipped a lot of season 1 and think I'm going to end up doing the same for season 2... it's just... never good enough! And the whole Owen thing... *pulls hair*

I never liked Duncan as much as I thought I was meant to. But I think the show sort of casts him in a darker light. Veronica loves him, but it's not exactly that we're meant to root for him.

After all, he does *spoiler* *spoiler* Echols in order to avenge *spoiler* and protect *spoiler* -- which is kind of awesome and kind of horrible at the same time.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Yes...I think that revelation was the only time I ever actually liked him.

Mostly, though, I thought that we were meant to see him as Veronica's true love, which caused an intense "H--- NO!" reaction in me almost from the start.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

As someone who's been watching, just don't.

Don't ever force yourself to watch something because other people like it, because, no. You won't like it.