A common issue of writing is the usage of stupidity. Many stories feature dumb characters or at least characters who do dumb things. That is almost always used for comedy, give the audience something silly to laugh at. Thats not always a bad thing, the world is full of many stupid people, and artists wouldnt be doing their jobs if they completely ignored that aspect of humanity. What I hate is when the plot is driven by the stupidity or when its in such unfitting contrast to its surrounding context. For example of the former, theres a number of plots that can easily be resolved if one character says something in particular to a specific other character, but then they dont because that would resolve the plot too easily when the writers want to hype the epic conflict. Usually, they writers just ignore the part that doesnt make sense and hope that the audience doesnt notice (which they usually do), though sometimes they at least try to give an explanation (no matter how little sense said explanation makes). FYI, the audience usually does notice it, its just that most dont make a big deal about it and make it sound like the ones that do make a deal of it are wrong for doing so, as if standards of quality are an obstacle. An example of the latter is when theres an intelligent and capable villain who illogically has a dim-witted henchman who screws everything up, because heaven forbid we dont have a comic relief character (even in a work aimed at teens). The henchman is unambiguously a liability to the villains evil plans, yet the villain keeps him around for no clear reason. The villains plot didnt especially make sense outside of be evil, but at least he was menacing and was a serious threat to something all the main and even supporting characters valued. It was a serious situation meant to be taken seriously, yet they just could not resist putting in a comic relief character... just because. Sometimes the stupidity is unintentional, sometimes its deliberate. Im not really sure which is worse: the fact theres this glaring plot hole that simply didnt occur to the writers to fix, or the fact that they thought using stupidity in such an annoying way was a good idea. Personally, I feel stupidity outside of a couple gags here and there is something that should either be criticized or overcome, not accepted. Sometimes they even go as far as to shine intellect in a negative light, but usually were supposed to admire the smart characters in some capacity. Having an admirable smart character is great, but its even better to have a lot of smart characters who are smart in different ways. That way, the audience is given more agency for which characters they can decide to like without it feeling too artificial, and can be a subject of discussion for the fandom.
Posted on: Fri, 26 Dec 2014 13:25:20 +0000
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