Not too long ago, someone said something that’s stuck out for me about professional writing: if you’re not upsetting someone then you’re not doing your job right.
In this case, it was about being a reporter. It’s pretty obvious how it applies there. But I think it applies to a lot of writing as a whole too. If you want to say something of value, if you want to reach someone, then you’re going to upset at least some people along the way.
However, there’s an important difference between upsetting people for good reason with great writing, and upsetting people for terrible reasons with terrible writing.
Here’s some examples of what I mean.
A certain editor at Marvel has been known to say and think that making people mad is a good thing because in his eyes, it boosts sales. And honestly, to a certain extent, it’s true. You release Jane Foster as the new Thor, some guys whine about it, it boosts the profile and encourages buy-in. I saw Wonder Woman in theaters, despite my refusing to buy DC stuff since the “Harley Quinn” of the “reboot,” because some guys were opposed to female superhero films and I wanted to help push for more such films.
But in the case of the editor I’m referring to, his argument was to do things to piss people off just for the sake of pissing people off. Put words in characters’ mouths to have them say out of character stuff just cause it’d make people mad. Completely change a character into something they’re not just to make people mad. Secret Empire being just one example. The editor’s attitude appeared to trickle down to writers under him, too, as those writers seemed to respond to Twitter complaints by mocking people.
Another example is character death.
A lot of fiction has character death. It’s tough, I personally think a majority of the time it’s a useless waste, but there ARE cases where character death is actually good in fiction and getting upset about it is a good kind of upset.
I’ve said many times about how various shows like Walking Dead or Once Upon a Time know how to do character death, but one that’s stuck with me is the death of Mariel in the Arc the Lad anime.
Elc, the main character, spends a lot of time for several episodes talking about Mariel. He talks about escaping White House (an “orphanage” that’s a cruel research facility) as a kid and leaving Mariel behind. He talks about how much Mariel meant to him, and how he’s going to return and rescue her. She’s built up heavily as a very important character that inspired and supported Elc, who you want to see saved.
But when Elc finally breaks in to save her many years later… she’s been turned into not just a monster, but a mother of monsters. Not only that, her monster body is massive and interconnected to the room and its devices. Her body’s been turned into something that creates creatures of death and destruction, and she can’t live outside the room. She’ll never see the outside world like she wanted to do in trying to escape when they were kids. All throughout it, she clearly still has her child voice and child mentality. It’s horrific, it’s the core of the episode, and so much time is just Elc and Mariel in that room with the weight of it all really demonstrated. Then Elc kills her because it’s her only escape.
To me, that’s good character death. It shows the character had immense value and worth. It says something deep and meaningful. It shakes you enough to stick with you. I saw it a decade ago and it’s the thing I remember most of the anime.
A bad character death, though, is what happened to Dreamer on Gifted.
Everything that led up to her death was easily avoided. Every sacrifice of her character became completely pointless. She stays behind (on the wrong side of a door for no reason, by the way) so the kids can escape, the kids refuse to use their powers and get caught. The kids refuse to use their powers for the villain, villain threatens Dreamer and Blink, Dreamer tells the kids not to give in and in so doing sacrifices herself, she gets killed and the kids immediately decide to give in and use their powers against Dreamer’s wishes. We’re told snippets of character that could have been built on or seen instead of told, but that’s it. And finally, the writers couldn’t contain their eagerness to rush past Dreamer’s death and hype up the Cuckoos as the big takeaway everyone should talk about from the episode.
Instead of. You know. The character who fucking died for no reason other than, apparently, to throw her away ASAP.
What happened to Dreamer on Gifted is bad character death because there was no good reason for it. There was no deeper meaning or purpose behind the loss. There was no real insight into the character attempted. It wasn’t even the focus of the episode. It was a minor footnote. A character dies, and to the writers, that’s just flavor text to what’s happening with characters they actually care about.
There are many ways you can upset an audience.
Some of them are good kinds of upset. They build you toward a greater appreciation of things. They open your mind to new thoughts and ideas. They provide needed support for groups that often don’t get it, and they promote ideals that need promotion.
Some of them are bad. They mock what you saw value in. They’re close-minded attempts to persuade you toward negative, bigoted views. They punch down at people who need help, and tear down ideals that inspire people to do great things or be better people.
If you’re going to upset people with writing, it’s important to know the difference between good upset and bad upset.
salarta 