The Fandom

Perfection is in the Eye of the Beholder

Ok, first of, if anyone is reading this, take my advice: If you ever feel like you need to release some social frustrations, publishing them is one of the greatest ideas you could possibly do. If writing is not your thing, then you could always just scream at no one. That's pretty fun too, no matter how crazy it might make you seem.

Onto my third article.

Why must people overlook facets of a character's flaws, whenever they favour them to an extent where they view them as the central part to the plot of that universe? I SERIOUSLY don't understand how some people can do this. If a character is known to have some depressive tendencies and are heavily influenced by what others think of them, then it makes sense that they can change within an instant their personality. Sometimes that's how people cope with their depression, or how they battle their depression; by showing others that they can do and are capable of being whatever they thought they weren't able to be. Sadly, I can say that I have learnt this from some personal experiences. Nothing beats motivation stemming from wanting to disprove someone. If a character is known to have a disability, then of course it makes sense for us, the audience, to take into account this factor when viewing their behaviour toward the other characters. Someone on the spectrum shouldn't be judged fully by the audience, if we don't remind ourselves that they find it harder to understand the middle ground of socialising. So, whenever I stumble a post on people's judgement regarding a character's worth in the plot, with what they have done in the situation they have been placed in by their creators... If people dismiss these types of background information, consequently sharing a very biased view on which characters are important, I get very sensitive. 

I mean, if I can forgive a rogue warrior from almost backing out of a war, just because of some past grievances with the head syndicate of said race, then you can absolutely forgive a character's weird action or irritating tendency to do things wrong if they can't help it. Every day we do something weird. Every day we do things we can't control because it is a part of our person. Every day we interact, and I can assure you, that there will at least be one moment from that day which you'd wish you'd react differently. Maybe you didn't give something a try, or you may have ordered another thing for lunch than what you were really craving for. You get annoyed with yourself and with others, that's just being human. What I'm trying to say? It's no different with the characters we view, read, play as... they are either written so badly to resemble us, or written so well as to show us who we are not. If you are going to judge a character as to say they can die (the main character, mind you) and the plot will be so much better without them, maybe you are right, but if this was a real person you had talked about, you just committed bullying. Congratulations. For those that say I'm taking this way too far, some of these comments are made by fans who say "insert title/quote/ship/character here" is life. So is it really taking this too far? Feel free to tell me otherwise. I probably won't listen.

Back to the whole bias thing. Having a favourite character is normal. You are either attracted to someone like you, be attracted toward someone you'd like to be/admire, or be attracted to a character that opposes your own. I just hate it when this infatuation gets too far. If you can manage to overlook someone's autism, someone's allegiance to family over love, someone's depression, just so that you can justify your favourite character's importance within a universe, doesn't that tell you that you might be SLIGHTLY biased? Too biased, perhaps?

I mean, please! I have personally favoured characters countless before, but I have always admitted to them having flaws. If I ever read them slander an authoritative figure, I have screamed in the past "You dimwit, don't be a rude person! She could literally ban your Grigori ass!" Seriously, it is a flaw in my eyes, if you can't control your annoyance to an older figure and save it for when it counts. It's called strategy. Recently, I've come across some views, where the fans of a character, completely overlooks how she can be so rude - how can you still laugh and not be affronted for the other character's behalf, it's that bad - and in another, they completely dismiss how she is mentally abusive to her boyfriend. Being rude as to insult someone repetitively without any bad comments from people favouring them? Repetitively making fun of your boyfriend and not apologising when he asks you to stop, or says he doesn't like that you think you're teasing him, without  having said fans of said character, stop shipping them? There is just something wrong there. I see it done countless of times, it really hurts.

Yes, girls can be abusive. Yes, being sarcastic all the damn time can be considered annoying and rude. Waiving these instances just because they are your favourite character, is on the other flip side to being innocuous. If these thoughts are circulated amongst the majority of a fandom, therefore, shared and passed on to the younger generation of fans, we are inevitably constructing a society where we continue to overlook inconsequential (at the time) flaws which will coalesce into something much more harmful in the long run.

Can people stop being blinded by bias? We are given eyes to see and explore, not to remove images because they do not fit with our perceptions, or to remain ignorant and be still with that one image you love.