Maybe We Should Go Back

Tragic Characters and some thoughts about race

I started thinking about tragic characters today. Before it gets confusing I want to explain that the typical "tragic hero" archetype doesn't really apply to what I'm talking about. I'm talking about characters who embody tragedy, a character marked for destruction whose only path leads to inescapable doom despite whatever choices they make. You want them to live, to be happy, but you just know this can only end badly.

Gollum from the Lord of the Rings comes to mind. Truly a pathetic character if ever there was one and yet, hearing his back story, some part of you hopes that maybe he can come back, maybe he can become himself again, maybe the ring will lose its power over him. But another part of you knows that there is no coming back. The ring had taken so much of him that its fate had to be his fate too. There was no separating the creature from the object of destruction. At some point, the force or object of destruction becomes so intertwined with everything you are, you become one being. One tragedy.

The first tragic character I was introduced to was probably Pharaoh from the Bible (Exodus). There was this glimpse of humanity when the Angel of Death kills his son and you see this sad broken man who lets the Israelites go once and for all. But then you read the words, "the Lord again hardened Pharaoh's heart." I've always wondered about those words. Could Pharaoh have done anything to change his choice or had "the Lord" really hardened his heart? And can we blame "the Lord" or any other outside force (drugs for example) for our own destructive choices or are we, in the end, the ones who harden our own hearts, who mark ourselves for destruction by becoming intertwined with the force of our destruction? As a drug addict this subject is close to my heart, because at what point are you and the drug One? When is it too late for you to be you again?

Who is your most tragic character?

For my own writing, my thoughts first jumped to Gus from the Reaper series. No other character have I so obscenely tortured, whose backstory I have so viciously toyed with so as to suck out any semblance of light, hope or joy. I guess you could argue Austin's backstory is worse, but I disagree because I introduced him as inwardly strong. He didn't have to go through a transformation to become a fighter because he already was one. But Gus had to go through the painful process for three books. And that's where I realized I'm wrong, because a true tragic character is born doomed. There is no chance of that transformation ever happening.

Using this criteria, my most tragic character is actually Mahaylia. Here is a girl born into a life of hopelessness. She is marked for destruction from day one. And what's particularly sad is that I based her off of real life girls. Mahaylia is fictional, but the girls she represents are real, and so is their destruction. She's a memorial to every dead, nameless victim. The force of destruction she was intertwined with was not something she chose. It chose her. Like God hardening Pharaoh's heart, what choices could she make?

This gets into complex problems like poverty and the destruction that still lingers from slavery and Jim Crow laws and how the world views Black women and Black girls. I don't pretend to be an expert about any of this. I'm a Native American but pass as white, so I have access to every privilege and don't deny that. But what pains me about current times is that poverty and racism create tragic characters. No, not characters. People. Real people who get blamed for being marked for destruction BY the very people that made that force of destruction! I'm talking about systemic racism.  This is why I despise the, "You can be just as successful as a white person because (blah blah blah)!" Or "Well if you're not doing anything wrong you don't have to worry about the police shooting you!" These statements represent a small minded worldview that chooses to ignore a huge open wound on our country that marks certain people for destruction and certain others for redemption based on race.

This entry really went somewhere I wasn't planning to go. I really did mean to write about tragic characters only, but I guess I couldn't help connecting this subject with real life.

We can't do much about the forces of destruction in the world. I guess it helps to be aware of them, to recognize them, and to fight them when we do.