{"id":4047,"date":"2015-04-18T06:43:58","date_gmt":"2015-04-18T13:43:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/decastell.com\/?p=4047"},"modified":"2015-04-18T06:43:58","modified_gmt":"2015-04-18T13:43:58","slug":"turmoil-tribulation-in-series-fantasy-why-authors-torment-your-favourite-characters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/decastell.com\/2015\/04\/18\/turmoil-tribulation-in-series-fantasy-why-authors-torment-your-favourite-characters\/","title":{"rendered":"Turmoil & Tribulation in Series Fantasy: Why Authors Torment Your Favourite Characters"},"content":{"rendered":"

I slammed down my copy of George R. R. Martin’s Storm of Swords on top of the bed. It bounced. \u201cThat son of a\u2014”
\n\u201cPlease stop yelling at the book,\u201d my wife said, nose-deep in a different, less contentious novel. \u201cThe author can\u2019t hear you.\u201d
\n\u201cHe\u2019s killed off another of my favourite characters,\u201d I complained.
\n\u201cYes, well, that\u2019s terrible of him.”
\nI took in a deep breath\u2014a necessary preparation for the lengthy speech I was about to deliver\u2014\u201cWhat\u2019s worse, I didn\u2019t even like that character in the first place! But then damned George R.R. Martin went and made me like the character and then boom! Killed \u2018em off right in front of me.”<\/p>\n

I imagine some variation of my rant has been repeated by fans of A Song Of Ice and Fire the world over, always ending with the same question: why do authors insist on tormenting and even murdering our favourite characters?<\/p>\n

The Need for Escalating Failures<\/h3>\n
\"\"
Portrait of romantic woman at fairy forest<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Think of some of your favourite literary characters. What is it about them that you love? I don\u2019t mean the simple, surface attributes like being witty or clever or attractive. I mean the things that will keep you reading page after page to find out what happens to them. Is it their willingness to sacrifice everything for love? Their ability to stand up to even the worst bullies? Whatever those qualities are, chances are they can only really be seen when the character is facing serious adversity.<\/p>\n

But can a character who never fails really be brave or determined? How can we find a character\u2019s inner strength compelling unless we\u2019ve first seen them fail? Falcio val Mond, the protagonist of Traitor\u2019s Blade, starts the novel having already failed many of the most important people in his life. His determination to follow his ideals is only interesting because of the way those ideals have failed him in the past. It\u2019s only through watching the character lose\u2014and lose big–that we can rejoice when he finally succeeds.<\/p>\n

But what happens after that final victory when we move onto the next book in the series? Will you, as a reader, really be as emotionally engaged if the next failure the protagonist experiences is no worse than the ones you\u2019ve already seen them overcome in the previous book? The answer, of course, is no. And this means that things have to get harder. The emotional stakes have to get bigger, and the failures have to get worse.<\/p>\n

The Need for Increasing Torment<\/h3>\n
\"\"
Things have to get worse before they can get better.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The only people who enjoy tormenting the things they love are psychopaths and writers. In fact, the term \u2018enjoy\u2019 is probably a bit off here. I suppose it\u2019s more that the writer feels they have a duty to torment their characters. Now that I think of it, I\u2019m not sure if this makes writers better or worse than psychopaths…<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a long sequence of scenes that take place in Knight\u2019s Shadow which will, I suspect, shock a few people. I didn\u2019t write them to be shocking, it\u2019s just that, well, that\u2019s how they turned out. See, if you like Falcio as a character then it\u2019s at least in part because you feel a connection to his ideals. But at the root of ideals are real experiences\u2014often terrible ones\u2014that shape our ideas about the world. To get to the absolute core of Falcio, I needed to strip him down to the point where there was nothing left except that first, fundamental piece of him that couldn\u2019t be taken away.<\/p>\n

So while failures are a crucial part of the plot, torment\u2014the internal pain that comes as a result of those failures\u2014is vital for character. This, too, becomes more difficult with a sequel. If your beloved character has emerged from his first adventures stronger than before, then the internal pain they experience has to be commensurately higher the next time around.<\/p>\n

The Necessity of Death<\/h3>\n
\"\"
Anubis, the writer’s friend<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So after all that, why in the world would any author kill off a character that fans enjoy? Considering how much work it takes to make people like them in the first place, why would any writer do such a foolish thing?<\/p>\n

The simple answer is that, at a certain point, a character has finished their journey. They no longer have a tale of their own to tell, they no longer reveal anything about the world they inhabit, and their continued presence dilutes the overall story. At that point the author is faced with a question: should I simply disappear this character (have them move, retire, or otherwise leave the stage)? Or do they have the ability to dramatically impact other characters who do have a story to tell? If it\u2019s the latter, then some radical shift is likely required, either through death or turning towards a darker side.<\/p>\n

As a writer, part of my job is to wring every possible ounce of dramatic potential from my characters. If that comes from them living, great. If it comes from them dying\u2026bring on the guillotine!<\/p>\n

Addendum: The Necessity of Life<\/h3>\n
\"\"
who was I going to kill off? You’ll never know.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cSo that\u2019s why I\u2019m going to kill him off,\u201d I told my editor, the esteemed Jo Fletcher.
\nShe thought about it for all of a second. \u201cNo, you damn well aren\u2019t.”<\/p>\n

Okay, she didn\u2019t say it exactly that way. In fact, she never actually forbids me from killing off a character, but she has moved me away from killing off specific characters at various points in the series. The details of the conversations change but the essential question is always the same: \u201cHave you said everything you want to say with that character?”<\/p>\n

That, kind readers, is the one and only reason to keep a character alive: when they still have important things to say.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Note: I originally wrote this for LizLovesBooks.com in 2015<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I slammed down my copy of George R. R. Martin’s Storm of Swords on top of the bed. It bounced. \u201cThat son of a\u2014” \u201cPlease stop yelling at the book,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":1320,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-article","entry"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/decastell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/53\/2018\/03\/Painting-Lost-Duel.jpg",2048,1152,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/decastell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/53\/2018\/03\/Painting-Lost-Duel-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/decastell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/53\/2018\/03\/Painting-Lost-Duel-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/decastell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/53\/2018\/03\/Painting-Lost-Duel-768x432.jpg",768,432,true],"large":["https:\/\/decastell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/53\/2018\/03\/Painting-Lost-Duel-1024x576.jpg",1024,576,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/decastell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/53\/2018\/03\/Painting-Lost-Duel-1536x864.jpg",1536,864,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/decastell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/53\/2018\/03\/Painting-Lost-Duel.jpg",2048,1152,false],"genesis-singular-images":["https:\/\/decastell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/53\/2018\/03\/Painting-Lost-Duel-640x365.jpg",640,365,true],"gb-block-post-grid-landscape":["https:\/\/decastell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/53\/2018\/03\/Painting-Lost-Duel-600x400.jpg",600,400,true],"gb-block-post-grid-square":["https:\/\/decastell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/53\/2018\/03\/Painting-Lost-Duel-600x600.jpg",600,600,true],"author-pro-image":["https:\/\/decastell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/53\/2018\/03\/Painting-Lost-Duel-360x570.jpg",360,570,true],"gform-image-choice-sm":["https:\/\/decastell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/53\/2018\/03\/Painting-Lost-Duel.jpg",300,169,false],"gform-image-choice-md":["https:\/\/decastell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/53\/2018\/03\/Painting-Lost-Duel.jpg",400,225,false],"gform-image-choice-lg":["https:\/\/decastell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/53\/2018\/03\/Painting-Lost-Duel.jpg",600,338,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"decastell","author_link":"https:\/\/decastell.com\/author\/decastell\/"},"uagb_comment_info":13,"uagb_excerpt":"I slammed down my copy of George R. R. Martin’s Storm of Swords on top of the bed. It bounced. \u201cThat son of a\u2014” \u201cPlease stop yelling at the book,\u201d […]","featured_image_src":"https:\/\/decastell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/53\/2018\/03\/Painting-Lost-Duel-600x400.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/decastell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/53\/2018\/03\/Painting-Lost-Duel-600x600.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"decastell","author_link":"https:\/\/decastell.com\/author\/decastell\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/decastell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/decastell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/decastell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/decastell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/decastell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/decastell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/decastell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/decastell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/decastell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/decastell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}