character identification poll

[rm]

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

[Poll #1541697]

Comments

[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.