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."

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[rexluscus.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.

Yes! IAWTC.

Deep structural similarities help, but surface similarities get in the way.

[byzantienne.livejournal.com]

I bet there's something to that, actually. The city helps you be that kind of liar, the kind where you believe it too, until you don't.

And really, we ought to have coffee. Just in general.

(As for the Sparrow -- did you ping on Sofia instead?)

[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]

I did, somewhat, but not too strongly on anyone in that book, really.

And true true. We should. Also, I think NYC private school, in particular, makes everyone a liar. The criteria for getting by are so weird.

[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).

[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]

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.

[byzantienne.livejournal.com]

That book hit me very strongly a couple of times -- but I read it first when I was a religious studies major and trying very hard to fall in love with God, and a second time when I was alone in Turkey for several months, so I think I was primed for it.

Email me? I don't know what your schedule is like, but this weekend is pretty unscheduled for me.

... and yeah. NYC private schools teach you how everyone is a liar, all the time.

[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.

[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.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

I figured :) But I wanted to dispel any ambiguity.

[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.