character identification poll

[rm]

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

[Poll #1541697]

Comments

[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.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

I normally don't think much about either, but virtues at least don't actively put me off. Huh.

[moosesal.livejournal.com]

I think there's a reassurance in seeing characters be just as fucked up as real people. Characters who aren't flawed annoy because they don't feel real. So even when I don't share flaws with a character, I'm drawn to the fact that they are flawed in some way.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

IAWTC.

[firinel.livejournal.com]

ditto.

And I admit that there are certain flaws I find... almost endearing, because I identify them as being similar to a loved one who is, otherwise, endearing.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

It's not so much that I don't like flawed characters, it's that I don't identify with characters who have my flaws, they don't interest me. In part it's aversion (and ok ego) but I suspect it's also that my particular flaws tend, on television, to make the character rather unlikeable and hard to watch. :D

[angstzeit.livejournal.com]

For me, characters without flaws aren't real. They have no meaning for me because they're alien to me. And the flaws I understand best are my own. I need to feel I could be that character in order to identify with them. Which isn't to say I can't enjoy a character I couldn't be, I just don't identify with them.

However, none of these selections seems to exactly match what it is I'm identifying with in a character. It is a bit amorphous and variable for me and generally some combinations of factors.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

I absolutely agree that characters without flaws are boring and not very watchable or real. For me it's more that I don't want them to have my flaws, or if they do I just don't find them very interesting. I'm sure part of it is avoidance. But I suspect it's also that my flaws tend to make people unlikeable on television -- not perhaps with the audience, but with their fellow characters, and I don't like watching someone be disliked/humiliated.

[contrarywise]

For me, it's not so much that I identify with characters who share my actual flaws, but that I can understand their choices and actions through their flaws/weaknesses because in the same situation I can see myself doing much the same thing. It's a subtle distinction, and I may not be explaining it well. Also, I've discovered I have a thing for pretty, broken men. (Hi, Jack Harkness! Hi, Ianto Jones! Hi, strangely functional relationship that should be really fucked up but somehow isn't!) Also, flaws, and how one deals with them when they inevitably smack you upside the head at the worst possible time, are an awesome "in" to a character. Strengths make things possible; flaws make things interesting.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Hi, strangely functional relationship that should be really fucked up but somehow isn't!

I suffer from an interest in this too.

[cruentum.livejournal.com]

I totally ticky-boxed flaws and I'm not surprised. ;)

[ubixtiz.livejournal.com]

I'm sometimes deeply uncomfortable with seeing flaws I recognise in myself reflected back at me in fictional characters, but I'm compelled despite (or pehaps because of) that. I don't know whether I'm more or less forgiving of flaws I recognise on some level as my own, but they're a point of vulnerability for me regardless, and a very effective place for a character to get their hooks into me.

[dremiel.livejournal.com]

Huh? I completely understand not wanting your flaws reflected back at you and the tendency to overreact to flaws in another because they are issues you have as well but at the same time I often find flaws, perhaps the smaller ones rather than the character-defining ones, to be an easy way into a characters thoughts and motivations.

On a tangential note, as a long-time RPGer I always get into my characters via their flaws and quirks and will forever find disadvantages (social, physical, mental, emotional) an easier entree than advantages. "Invisible" disads are even easier, somehow.

IOW I'm going to have to give this a lot more thought to see if it's really that I'm identifying with the flawed character or simply understanding the flawed characters and if, in the end, that is a big difference for me or not.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

As I said above -- I definitely agree that characters with no flaws are boring and unrealistic. I'm just not very interested in characters with my flaws.

I do wonder how many people are reading "really like" for "identify with". :)

[rm.livejournal.com]

Many, I think, based on the comments.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

Alas, for we all stumble on the block of personal etymological interpretation. Still, I don't think the data is flawed, per se, and has inspired quite a few interesting discussions.

[rm.livejournal.com]

That was the main goal, since LJ poll's are data that is flawed by definition.

[dremiel.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I get the mirrored flaws issue. I guess I don't mind seeing some of what I think of as my minor flaws onscreen and that does engender identification without it being irritating. I do think that many people - here and elsewhere - are giving close attention to what it means to truly identify with a character and are going with "the character appeals to me".