seriousfic is awesome.

In addition to being a fine author of fanfic, he/she/whichever is an Apodictic Speaker Of Truth on a number of subjects, the latest one being Joss Whedon and Doctor Horrible. Well, at least, he/she/whichever starts by talking about Joss and Doctor Horrible, but that merely serves as a springboard for his/her/whichever's thoughts on what is so very, very wrong about the Whedon style of writing romantic relationships. I'd recommend you read his/her/whichever's whole essay, but in the meantime, allow me to copypasta my favorite quotes:

More and more, I’m starting to think of Joss Whedon as the Michael Bay of dialogue. He writes really good dialogue that lets you go on a really fun ride, but the destination is always the same. His twist endings are always “unexpectedly, tragedy strikes!” Basically, he’s that old cliché of darkness and edginess somehow being more artistically valid than a happy ending, with all the smug pretension such a position demands. I mean, “I give my audience what they need, not what they want”? How did fandom let him off the hook for that and the one-way, almost dictatorial street of creator-fan interaction it implies?

[...] He sees characters cynically, as puppets that are moved around to create Good Drama. We’re not supposed to root for couples or feel sorry when they split up. We’re supposed to applaud the Good Drama, the labyrinthine workings of this colossal machine built from secrets and characterization and continuity. It whirls and winds and grinds and eventually arrives at a Tragic Conclusion, while we applaud politely and observe that yes, truly, Joss Whedon is our master.

When TPTB have a canon ship, it at least provides a sort of loyal opposition for fans who ship something else. There’s a plan they can oppose, instead of this irrelevant miasma of pairings that are all just as meaningless as the other. It kind of makes you suspicious of all the time spent on relationships in BtVS when by the end of the show, pretty much everyone was either single or widowed (except for the eleventh-hour lesbian relationship, because killing off Tara was politically incorrect). It’s like going into a romantic comedy and being told beforehand that the star couple won’t get together. Joss Whedon always ends his pairings with a tragedy, so what does it matter?

Worse yet, this attitude has spread through the television world much like herpes at a convention in Vegas. Somehow, no relationship, platonic or otherwise, can be complete unless there’s a tragic ending. It makes things… ‘profound.’ Which is why every series of Doctor Who has to end with some tragedy befalling the Companion du jour, despite the chest-thumping proclamation of DW as a humanistic, positive show.

[...] Of course, this is because the conventional wisdom says that Moonlighting started to suck when David and Maddie got together.

That was over twenty years ago.

Think about this. Imagine you’re writing a story, and someone comes up to you and says you shouldn’t go in X direction with the plot because another story did something similar twenty years ago and people didn’t like it. What would you say? “Well, maybe they didn’t do it right, but I’m going to do better!” “But here it fits the characters, and lets me tell all kinds of new story!”

Apparently, a lot of people say “Righty-o, more of the same old, same old then!”

They didn’t want Clark Kent and Lois Lane to be married. They don’t want Peter Parker and Mary-Jane to be married. They just want this eternal circle-jerk of sexual tension, as if this is the grand poombah of storytelling greatness. Sexual tension. Unresolved sexual tension.

For some reason, romantic love is always a mirage on the horizon, never something tangible, consummated, treated maturely. Which is pretty dang weird. We don’t have this problem with platonic love.

[...] Yet, the idea of treating romantic love with the same kind of consistent dignity is never broached. For some reason, heterosexual monogamy is a taboo. It’s not just outrageous, it’s NUTRAGEOUS.

This subversion of the cliché has become so common that it’s as cliché as the cliché it’s supposed to replace. And, at the very least, the cliched happy ending is satisfying when earned. For some reason, God only knows what, writers everywhere have become convinced that while deus ex machina to give the good guys a happy ending is unforgivable, similarly contriving circumstances to give them an unhappy ending is worthy of praise and adoration. It’s profound! Artistic!

[...] THIS. IS. NOT. GOOD. STORYTELLING. And don’t fool yourselves that it is just because Joss Whedon gives you a fan-boner.

Go read the rest of it, because even though I didn't repost all of it above, I still agree with every single fucking word that he/she/whichever wrote.

So, thank you, seriousfic, for being eloquent and thoughtful enough to say what I've long wanted to, except that my words on the subject would not have been nearly as good as yours.

Truly, you are a gentleman (or lady) and a scholar.

Honestly, I can't respect anyone's opinion who not only equates Michael Bay with "really good" anything, let alone suggests that his name is synonymous for it, no matter what qualifier comes afterwards. That's just crazy talk. He/She may as well be delivering this opinion with a tin-foil hat on.

Because every single sentence that follows, as far as I'm concerned, should be tattooed on the inside of every writer's fucking skull.

ESPECIALLY with regards to writers who want to maintain endless unresolved sexual tension between Lois and Clark, or Peter and Mary Jane.

I don't hear anybody claiming that tragic endings are more "artistic", so a rant about how that is a bullshit claim just seems like a strawman argument. Likewise the Moonlighting issue, as that show had nothing to do with tragic endings, and was all about the dangers of building all of your appeal around the hostile interactions of "will they or won't they" sexual tension.

I can believe that somewhere, there are people making these arguments that leaves them open for debate, but I just haven't seen them personally.



Another point of contention for me is framing so much of the argument around how Joss Whedon chooses to write the stories of characters that *he* created, and the seeming indignity stemming from putting his opinion of where those characters should go above the wishes of certain fans. For comic book characters with a long, pre-existing legacy, there may be some argument there, but for the creator of the characters? I say he gets to tell whatever story he damn well pleases.

You can't trip over a LiveJournal account without finding someone who thinks that Joss Whedon is A God Of Writing because "negative endings are inherently more realistic" (actual quote), and Moonlighting has specifically been cited as an example of the supposedly imperative need to undo the Spider-Marriage by several Marvel staffers, including both Tom Brevoort AND Joe Quesada.

As for Joss doing what he chooses with his characters ... see, as a writer and as an audience member, this is where I'll admit to being conflicted, because on the one hand, a writer shouldn't exist to appease his audience (because that way lies your least favorite person in the world, Michael Bay), but if a writer believes that their vision for their characters should be sacrosanct ... well, that's great if they're Alan Moore, but most people aren't, and as a result, you get a LOT of Anne Rices and Laurell K. Hamiltons instead.

And yes, I'm saying this as someone who would hate the idea of compromising my own characters for the sake of the audience, but by the same token, I've learned over the years - much of it from my writing here on the Parodyverse - that a writer can be wrong about their own characters. There have been a number of times where I was wrong about CrazySugarFreakBoy! and company, and either Ian or somebody else pointed it out to me, or I realized it on my own upon reflection.

It's an impossible-to-define balance, but there needs to be some way in which the artist can honor his or her vision, but the audience can correct them if they're fucking up, in ways that are more refined and effective than the attempts to strike that balance that we have now.

Maybe Joss has the same tropes (happy couples are doomed, there must be a tragic death, etc.), but even so, I still didn't see the end of Dr. Horrible coming. Maybe that makes me an idiot, but I felt it got better as it went along and ended as a lovely little super-villain origin story and Greek tragedy.

( My apologies for lack of participation on this board; though my time is more and more limited due to grad school commitments, I do want to stop in here and participate more. And seriousfic's article touched on issues of storytelling and pop culture that have bugged me for a long time )...

As much shit as Joss Whedon gets over the way he treats his characters, the fact that he is willing to take risks with them is still one of the main reasons why he is a renowned writer/director and legend in fandom, while authors like seriousfic speak to a small corner of LiveJournal ( but act like they have much more importance; the " famous to 15 people " rule of the Internet leads to just as big egos as the " pop cultural phenomenons " are accused of having ). To say that Whedon is always successful when he challenges his characters is false, but to say that the reason he is allegedly a bad writer is because of the way he treats his characters and their relationships shows a very myopic and unsophisticated view of the craft.

Seriousfic uses the fact that Whedon does not view his characters as people, but as tools for his plot, as a bad thing, evidence of a cynical and arrogant mind. This is not a flaw with Whedon so much as a fact of fiction. The characters do not have lives of their own; they do not exist, except as tools to convey the artist's message. And that message has to be one that has importance outside of the fictional universe. It has to reach out and touch something in the audience, something they might not think they want to be touched. This involves doing bad things to the characters, making them suffer so we can see them handle it; the essence of drama being conflict, and all. To treat the characters' welfare as paramount over the story is to be completely unable to see the forest for the trees.

And yet, this is how a disturbingly large portion of fandom operates; they fall for the characters and want to see them happy and healthy and in good relationships. This is a mindset that treats series fiction not as storytelling but as commitment porn, living vicariously through happy couples. They would like to have seen Xander and Anya live happily ever after and raise a brood of kids and die together in their sleep at a ripe old age. Nobody else would have given a rat's ass about that storyline, but this doesn't matter for the " ship " fan; they just operate on their wants, regardless of what's best for the writer, the general audience ( those not way too invested in the stories ), or the publisher that needs the profits to continue putting out the series.

I personally prefer my relationship in real life over any enjoyed vicariously through fiction, but unfortunately that view seems anomalous on too many forums.