This is difficult to describe, because how do you really know whether an author cares about her main characters? It’s not something she can simply say. Instead, it’s something you feel or at least, I do, in the way characters are portrayed and treated. Perhaps it’s that they are taken seriously by the story itself. They matter.
Even when an author makes a character suffer or die a terrible death, you can sense that the decision was not made mindlessly. There can be a feeling that a kind of creative presence is standing with the character. Pain is not treated as merely functional or convenient for the plot. There is dignity granted freely, even when the character himself believes his life or death is meaningless.
I felt this while reading Les Misérables. At a certain point, I had the impression that Victor Hugo genuinely cares about Jean Valjean, Cosette, Gavroche, and even Javert. He grants them dignity and moral seriousness, which makes their fates matter to me. Even when they fall, they are not mocked or kicked around by the author/story.
That said, one might ask: what about the Thenardiers, the people who abuse Cosette?
The Thenardiers lack dignity not simply because they are villains, but because reject it themselves. In contrast, Javert, despite being deeply flawed, values dignity and so is treated as tragically human.
So perhaps what I respond to is not an author’s affection for every character, but an author’s commitment to portraying and in some sense defending the humanity of those characters he has written who value humanity themselves, even characters whose fate is to struggle, suffer, and look desperately for meaning in their suffering. When a writer really believes that his characters’ inner experience matter, even when their fate appears cruel or meaningless, you can feel it too.
People sometimes forget that suffering and tragedy is all around us (including our own) but we do not take notice of most of it and pay selective attention only to some. The genius of a good author is to shine the light on a few lives, and make these lives matter, even when the world remains silent or indifferent.
Btw I don't know if I was able to express my meaning. It's a kind of feeling that is hard to put into words and reading over this post, I don't blame you if you feel confused but I hope at least something I said made some sense.
by big-enchilada
1 Comment
This hits so hard – you’ve put into words something I’ve felt reading but could never articulate. There’s definitely a difference between an author who treats their characters like chess pieces vs one who genuinely sees them as people worth caring about
I think this is why George RR Martin gets so much grief for certain deaths in ASOIAF – not because characters die, but because some of them feel like they got tossed aside for shock value rather than honored for what they meant to the story. Compare that to someone like Terry Pratchett who could make you cry over the most ridiculous characters because he treated them with such genuine warmth
Have you read anything by Ursula K Le Guin? The Tombs of Atuan especially gave me those same vibes where you can feel the author’s deep respect for her protagonist even when putting her through hell