Today I had planned to post about the Matoro death flame war that seems to be getting worse rather than dying down. With the death of another character in the latest serial chapter, the issue spreading to this, and the new Character Death Policy, this will be a little more general, starting with the reasons the policy was made. Bold is for important points, not emotionalism.


Why

I'll ask that we don't discuss the details of what happened -- that is just going to make things worse. But suffice it to say, many people on both "sides" would do well to read my "Friends Can Disagree" entry below.

It used to be that we took character deaths in perspective -- as an element of fiction. When Lhikan died, I don't recall there being anything remotely like a flame war. Occasionally there would be a question topic or even a complaint, which we would answer with the obvious -- to keep up suspense in fiction, you do need to actually have bad things happen sometimes.

Besides, Lhikan has gotten more story time since his death than the vast majority of characters that lived.

But those complaints were usually reasonable, and even if someone did go overboard, they didn't form "sides" and start fighting.

It seems that a lot of us have lost the ability now.

Now, I understand why this happened -- Matoro was a popular character, and also one of the originals, so I've seen emotions on both sides turn this into a flaming trigger, and death is a difficult thing for us to come to terms with, sometimes even in fiction. Someone I know has come to tears before from a character death, and I can understand it. I can understand being disturbed at this, and I can even understand it when people go overboard. Plus this seems to have been mixed with our love of inventing fads.

But what we don't need is people forming sides that attack each other or post "isn't that side nuts?" topics, making fun of people, etc. These have continued, and I have seen trolling and even direct insults posted by people who've been here long enough to know better. (Again, please do not discuss who or where; that is between them and staff.)

It's for this reason that the policy was made.

Now, I don't want anyone to misunderstand -- topics discussing character deaths reasonably are still allowed, in S&T where they belong. The policy is purposefully not super-strict, so I don't want anyone thinking this discussion is banned. Nor are memorial banners banned, etc. as long as they don't go to extremes.

Perspective Clash

I think this happened because there are basically three different philosophies out there about fictional death.

1) That it's an element of fiction like any other, intended to be taken seriously within the fictional context.

IMO this is the only reasonable perspective. Character death can be serious -- as an author myself, I always write with a serious point behind my works, even my comedies, and I hope that in addition to being entertained, the audience will grasp the serious theme, and hopefully I'll even be able to help them cope with serious issues in real life through this. To do that you do have to allow yourself the chance to feel the emotions of the event as much as you do the thrill of action, but keep it in perspective.

For example, the point of Matoro's death was that sometimes heroes willingly sacrifice their own lives so that others' lives will be safe, and that though this is very hard to come to terms with, such sacrifice deserves our utmost respect in real life. It's the ultimate form of honor.

However, Matoro was still just a fictional character, so we should keep that in perspective. In fact, keeping it in perspective is very helpful for understanding the point the author is making.

2) That it's just the author trying to get rid of a character -- the "killed off" psychological shield I talked about in this past blog entry.

This has been taken waaaaay overboard in 'net culture. I can understand it to a small degree in a TV show with actors who want out -- but Matoro, Lhikan, etc. aren't that. There's no excuse to pretend this was why Matoro died, IMO. (And like I said, some dead characters get more focus afterward than living characters, like Lhikan compared to, say, Nuhrii.)

Not to say that this shield isn't understandable -- people don't like to face death emotionally, in fiction or real life. But this perspective, sadly, blocks out any hope of the author helping readers cope, through the device of fiction, with real death.

Especially when people instantly shout to everybody who hasn't read the book yet "Oh My Gadunka, Dumbledore Dyes!11!1!" Spoiling the event ruins it for others, so you inflict your own inability to cope on others. That can get serious fast.

(Or make "RIP Matoro banners five seconds after they get the comic, a point that I forgot for the policy and am working on now. )

3) That the character is as real as real people emotionally but inside a "safe" world of fiction, thus killing them is almost like murder.

I don't think people in this category consciously think the author is a murderer, don't get me wrong. But this is behind a lot of the sigs and posts that got out of hand, and especially behind some "protest" petitions. The idea is that people who hold to this perspective actually think the author did something wrong by writing the character's death into the story.

I will admit that if anyone did this when a character died in the Bionicle Paracosmos (as some will), part of me would be a little pleased, selfishly, because it shows I got through to them enough that they don't brush aside my underlying theme with "killed off ell oh ellz!!1!1." However, it would also be disappointing because they're coming at me and telling me I did something wrong, instead of seeing the point I was making. They probably wouldn't even realize my reaction is to barely even register their anger but to instead measure them.

There is one valid point these members have -- this isn't real life and so yes, it's possible, on paper at least if you'll pardon the awkward cliche-usage, to write a fictional world where good guys cannot die. But in reality, this just ruins suspense, taking away the thrill of the adventure/action scenes because you know they won't die -- and that thrill is a huge part of the whole point of adventure mystery.

So sometimes, you do need to have characters die. But, obviously it has to be realistic if you want to create the right impact of it, otherwise it would just feel like shock tactics. (That might be done a lot in other fiction, especially TV, but IMO it has never been done in Bionicle; it's been to keep up suspense.)

And what readers who have never written serious fiction (even for entertainment) often don't understand is this -- stories often write themselves. For example, in at least one story I have written in the Paracosmos, I hadn't planned for a character to die, but as events unfolded, the characters and events forced me into a situation where I realized a death was unavoidable.

And so it happened.

This is true of almost all of a storyline, not just death -- for another example, I also had a situation where according to my outline, the good guys would fail (but not fatally) in a conflict, but as I wrote it, the characters outwitted me (outwitted the bad guys, that is ), and they actually won. It threw my planning for the next few chapters into chaos and I had to spend another day re-working the outline.

(And I could list a plethora of examples, including one that messed up some of my future plans for other epics -- although the end result of those plans is cooler.)

Chances are slim that anyone would object to this happening -- yet the same machine is driving it. To be consistent, readers should apply this fact to death as well.

When you have characters defined well, and you have used your imagination to come up with the starting scenario and background substance enough, all an author really needs to do is spend time writing and thinking logically about what would happen. The rest falls into place, sometimes so unexpectedly that the author can be as ignorant of where it's going as the readers.

When it comes to death, you have to understand that to authors like me at least, when you come to a situation that demands a death, putting in a copout survival mechanism out of the blue feels like a profound slap in the face, even a betrayal of a code of honor. Sometimes, death writes itself.

Besides, the fact that it's fiction argues against the idea of getting too emotionally invested it in.

So.

Most of the time, when a character dies, people don't talk calmly and intelligently about their different perspectives, as they might with other issues. I think it's just the deep seriousness of the theme that causes this. People get touchy about it, and tempers flare more easily -- so that anyone who has a different perspective must be stupid and whatever your perspective is must be obviously right, so you aren't willing to discuss it.

Add a little jalapeno, and voila, your flame war is ready to broil.

What's shameful about this, especially when one side starts making fun of the other, is that it actually accomplishes the opposite of what both sides usually intend -- trying to treat death seriously in real life. The attacks become more important, and personally I get an almost ghoulish vibe from the way it seems to get turned into a game sometimes. That is disturbingly similar to a lot of the "Forums Gone Bad" situtations I described here, and it happened in a matter of months.

Both of the perspectives I described as unreasonable are, nevertheless, understandable. I can understand seeing them as forms of immaturity -- but when you act as mature as a two-month old in response you just shoot yourself in the foot.

When you see someone putting up some kind of a psychological shield like that, don't insult them. That just makes them hold the shield up higher and harms BZPower as a community. Even though it's fiction, when you mistreat the event on a forum, you are making it serious, no matter which "side" you're on. Try to be understanding instead.

Discuss Intelligently

So basically there it is. Discuss intelligently, instead of "clashing" as described above.

Yes, you might be profoundly disturbed by something someone did, and yes, maybe they went overboard. But privately discuss reactions you object to with staff members, and otherwise, you can intelligently talk about different perspectives, in topics in S&T, in this blog entry's comments, perhaps via PM as long as you are polite. Even with the subject of death, it's not worth fighting over.