character identification poll

[rm]

Quick and dirty, but of interest due to random convo with copperbadge:

[Poll #1541697]

Comments

[pocketmouse]

I very rarely actually identify with characters. I may have a favorite character, but they're fictional and abstracted. When I do identify with a character, it's never all aspects of a character, so it'd be more accurate to say I identify with certain aspects of a character than the character overall. And I don't always realize that I identify with the character until much later. And later I may change my mind and not identify with them any more.

[fmanalyst.livejournal.com]

I tend to identify with aspects of their personalities. For instance, I identified with Ianto and Tosh - Ianto for his job personality - the quiet, snarky organizer - and Tosh for her relationship personality - the shyness, the fear of intimacy.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

When I marked 'gender,' it means that on the rare occasion that I run into a character with a similar gender expression as mine, I tend to identify with them.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Word, that's one of the ways I meant it.

[methleigh.livejournal.com]

When I identify with a fictional character it is because of their ideals and approach, it is because of how they view the world, and I look in real people too for a certain set of characteristics - diligence; the experience of being an outsider that has necessitated the ability to develop and hold their own beliefs in the face of prevailing attitudes; intelligence; fortitude; an intimate knowledge of depression and the struggle to overcome it; the drive to be the best for themselves alone, and the arrogance to know it is possible; a certain tendency to have a reason for all they think, do and say; a certain ability to conceptualise implications of small thoughts and that they reach into infinity. They do not need to be accurate, or be able to determine all of these, but they need to carry the concept and be pleased with it. I give them the freedom to be wrong in these and any things, but they must try. And surprisingly, even with all these criteria, I find people with whom to identify!

These are naturally based on the character's past and realisations ze has had.

In the words of Walt Whitman,
"They do not sweat and whine about their condition
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God
Not one is dissatisfied... not one is demented with the mania of owning things
Not one kneels to another nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth."

[methleigh.livejournal.com]

I think it is also, and perhaps universal, that one identifies, rightly or wrongly, with those who do things. No one wants to think of themselves as boring or lacking identity. I know I don't, and Rene Girard says this. I identify characters who know this and, like me, endeavour to ensure their lives are unlikely. And though this leads to beauty it also leads to pain, and I identify with characters who know and can sympathise.

[byzantienne.livejournal.com]

There is this tension, for me, between identifying strongly with a character because of their desires and their emotional/intellectual relationships/circumstances -- and being very unlikely to identify with a character whose life situation looks too much like mine.

I don't identify with young, struggling academic-types in the 20th or 21st century, or young queer women in same -- there's too much commonality, I can't stop thinking about the way my life looks in comparison to theirs.

But identify with characters who are in complex, negotiated, queer emotional relationships, especially if those relationships involve questions of devotion, multiplicity, compromise? HELL YES. To painful degrees sometimes. (Neal, in White Collar, is fucking with my head in terms of how much I want to have his life. In distressing ways, because he's a liar and a thief and not a good person in most of the ways I'm not a good person...)

Or identify with people whose projects are wholesale devotion to some intellectual or spiritual task? Also yes. (Rodney McKay; Emilio Sandoz in The Sparrow (do you know that book?); Kit Marlowe and Matthew in Elizabeth Bear's Promethean Age series; Leoben, in BSG...)

But if their lives look like mine, I don't end up doing that thing where I can cry for them and do.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Oh, you and I have to have coffee and talk about how uncomfortable Neal is making us. I wonder to what extent its our NYC upbringings too.

And I do know The Sparrow mainly because I read it because everyone said I'd identify with Sandoz, which I don't, actually.

[rexluscus.livejournal.com]

I didn't answer the second question, because I don't know. I can't really separate my aspirations from my current issues from my past experiences, at least with respect to character identification, which seems to come from a shadowy id-like place that I don't have much insight into.

[afterthree.livejournal.com]

I identify most with aspects of fictional characters personalities that correspond to either A) my personality; or, B) personality traits I wish to have/assimilate.

I also strongly identify with characters whose baggage matches mine at an archetype level: for example, I strongly identify with Buffy Summer's inability to show/feel strong emotions in the presence of other people due to 'having to be strong' even though the narrative that led me to that head space is very different than the one that led her there.

[natf.livejournal.com]

IAWTC.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

I am officially weirded out by how many people identify with a character because of their flaws.

Not that I think it's abnormal or something, it's just not something that ever occurred to me would be something desirable to see. I don't actually want my issues reflected back at me, I'm painfully aware of them as it is...

[rm.livejournal.com]

It's flaws:virtues that is blowing me away. I suspected, but I wasn't sure.

[valancy-joy.livejournal.com]

in my case, I think it's mostly when I say to myself "hey I know how [x experience] feels" ... or "wow. they want the same things I want."

the characters I relate to almost NEVER look like me ... but they FEEL like me (or as I do).

[moosesal.livejournal.com]

On the first question, I started to choose "gender" but then felt that it wasn't quite the right fit. I think I identify with some characters expression of gender. And as a genderqueer person, I identify with a variety of gender representations.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Someone else did the exact opposite of you. I've not answered myself yet, but I'd personally choose gender eventhough I bet that would make other people croggle.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I tend to identify with those I'm very much like, those I can see myself become and those I'm afraid of becoming - which sort of explains how I end up identifying strongly with Hermione and Snape, Buffy, Willow (my life path eerily paralleled hers like whoa, minus the death and supernatural shit) and Angel (later on Spike)... and of course Ianto and Jack.

I identify with the angry and quiet ones. The ones who perceive themselves to be a bit skew, their narrative fits with my own perspective of the world, if I can just shift things a bit, everything will work out...

One of the main reasons I began to read fic in Harry Potter was so Hermione could be with anyone but Ron - which again, very weird parallels, though not in the same eerie way like Willow.

I mainly identify with desires, narrative and physical appearance... shallow, but there you go :P

[missdeanna.livejournal.com]

I don't identify with characters that much. Like pocketmouse, I like most of my favorite characters in an abstract sense, rather than because I identify with them.

When I do identify, a lot of things can come into play. I didn't put down "appearance," but sometimes I identify with a character based on fairly superficial things, such as that they like the same kind of clothes that I like or they share my favorite color or number. But then there's Buffy, whom I share very little in common with in terms of specific circumstances or personality, but I identified very strongly with her because she faced a lot of issues that were weighing very heavily on my mind at the time when I watched the show, and having that proxy helped me deal with some stuff.

There are a couple characters that I can say I identify with based on similarities to me, but that's not the biggest thing.

[such_heights]

I find myself identifying with characters who exemplify the kinds of virtues that I strive for myself, particularly if they're valued for it. I think it's because it offers me a way of seeing how I could fit into that world.

[angstzeit.livejournal.com]

As I commented just before, it's hard to pin down what it is that links characters I identify with. But I think possibly "otherness" is a large part of it. I think you're probably getting at that a bit with the gender answer. Introversion, differentness, isolation--those sorts of things.

[kargashina.livejournal.com]

I really get caught by characters that think like I do.., or how i want to think. Sometes this ties into gender expression, sometimes not. Oh, and Marines, tho I suppose that is a subset of experiences.

[cruentum.livejournal.com]

Totes did this on the wrong account, but I marked 'other' on the second question because I have no idea what it is but it's not one of the options you listed and is more a 'ooh, I want to figure you out' insofar, I misread the first question and my answer is probably worthless because I don't "identify" with characters. But I answered more in terms of 'what attracts me to a character'

[anathemadevice.livejournal.com]

For me, it's what THEY are aspiring to, or achieving, or trying to do. In Fiction (esp Fantasy/Sci-Fi) characters have the ability to have larger-than-normal tasks, goals, quests and ethics.

So, I identify more with what I WANT to be like, rather than saying "Oh, that's so me."

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

I'm with pocketmouse too - I don't think what I do with characters is really identifying with them. I latch onto characters who interest me for various reasons, but I never particularly look for or see myself in them. I'm often drawn to flawed and morally ambiguous characters because I find their behaviour interesting and challenging. I like unwrapping complicated people. Sometimes I'm drawn to characters because they feel like a type of person I recognise, and sometimes I do see some things I've done or some situations I've been in, but there's never an entire character I consider an avatar for myself, even in the original stuff I write. I find characters intensely interesting in an abstract, and I think I wouldn't want to feel like I was them because then I couldn't see them properly. I like that whole canvas effect of fiction, but you have to stand back to see that whole canvas, so... I do. I suspect I might be weird in that respect, or at least atypical in fandom.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

I chose virtues, desires, and relationships for the first question.

Virtues and desires seems fairly straightforward to me; I like to identify with characters that I admire. I like to use them as role models for myself. I didn't choose "flaws", but I think that flaws are still an important part of this, because often the virtue that I do admire will relate to overcoming something generally considered a flaw.

Relationships is a bit different, because the characters I relate to don't always have relationships that I would desire for myself. I think, however, that it's easier to relate to a character through their relationships with others (whether romantic/sexual or not). For me, I think I often view the relationships of identification characters in a more figurative way -- so for instance, with Jack/Ianto, Jack represented social acceptance and validation (or, in the case of CoE, the rejection/refusal of those things), which is something I desire greatly, even though Jack is not the sort of person I would personally want to be involved with.

For the second question I chose aspirations and current issues, which I think is fairly straightforward in my case. If I'm trying to achieve something in my life that requires perseverance and bravery, then I'll relate to a character who either has those skills or is developing them. And I get invested in it to the extent that if the character fails (particularly as a result of developing those skills), then it makes me personally feel like a failure.

ETA: Also, in keeping with some comments above, I do also find myself very interested and invested in characters that I don't relate to. Jack and Gwen are perfect examples of this.

[svollga.livejournal.com]

Reading through the comments, I decided to extrapolate.

I stopped identifying with characters since I stopped playing RPG, both live-action and text forms, because I identified too deep. Though role-playing helped me to develop some very useful traits through identifying with characters which were very much unlike me as I saw myself, but which people playing with me thought suitable for me. (Really, being a shy introverted girl and playing a cool domineering man? Helped me a lot, but also broke me in some places I had to mend later.)

Now, I still find that there are characters I identify with - the characters through the eys of which I watch the show, whose storyline rings like 'I could be him/her', 'I understand'. In this case, it's mostly love relationship. I have a very bad history of love relationship, and I seem to look for stories both alike to mine and/or more successful. Because of this, I identify with Ianto in Jack/Ianto storyline and with Jack in Doctor/Jack storyline (for example). Similarities can me almost invisible, and I admit that I can project a lot more that is actually in the show.

[andrewducker]

Approach to the world and ideology are probably the two things that cause me to identify most. But any trait that's spotlighted by the writer that I happen to share will cause some identification. Mention "bullied" or "uncontrollable hair" or "read 2000AD as a child" or "sits staring at his computer screen, searching for the right sentence to finish a post before giving up in disgust and hitting post" and you'll have me identifying all over the shop :->

[rhiannonstone.livejournal.com]

When I identify with a fictional character it's more often than not because I feel like I understand their motivation(s). Which wasn't a tickybox option above, though flaws, virtues, and desires certainly play into motivation.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_saint_cecilia_/]

I identify with a character if I can tell we have a similar sense of humor!

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I identify with different characters for different reasons. I identify with Elizabeth Bennett because my mother is beyond impossible and because I can't take anyone seriously if they don't take me seriously. I identify with Carrie Meeber's attempts to find work and how frustrating it is to want what you can't afford. I identify with both Grannie Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg because I want to be them; I identify with Magrat Garlik, Catherine Morland, and Luna Lovegood because I *was* them.

[timelady.livejournal.com]

I answered with desires. I wanted virtues, too. Honestly enough, I tend to identify most with the comedy reliefs, or the lonely person in the background. Take Xena, I really identified with Joxer when I realized he had a crush on Gabrielle. Admittedly I do identify with unrequieted love, provided it actually works out in the end. For me to identify with a character it really depends on my mood at that moment (which is why I said current issues) and just how much of myself I can see in them (specifically personality). Like I identify with Harry in the earlier Potter books, but not in books 5-7 because his personality shifted way too much.