A few thoughts on victimhood...

[graculus]

Every fandom has one. The character who always gets it, the one who's more often than not in peril or injured so that the other(s) can rescue him. It's a staple of h/c and always has been. Whether it's Daniel Jackson or Illya Kuryakin (or Obi Wan Kenobi, Harper, Blair Sandburg... the list is endless), there's always one character who gets to be 'the designated victim' more often than not. Often much more often than not.

What puzzles me is how much making those characters any kind of victim, with all the passivity that implies and requires, takes a warping of what we see onscreen beyond all reason. What most of us like about those characters in the first place is their strength of character (call it stubbornness if you like, sometimes that's a more accurate description) and yet writers apparently think nothing of utterly stripping characters of that so that they can be victimised with impunity.

In the worst examples, said victim is tied to the metaphorical railtracks like a silent movie heroine while the manly hero (every fandom has one of those as well, it seems) rescues them. It's bizarre. Because, frankly, you could whump Illya Kuryakin or Daniel Jackson till doomsday and neither of them would just lie there and take it - they'd both be trying to escape under their own steam, snarking at their captors while they did so. They'd suffer the consequences, of course, but neither of them would let a little thing like more pain stop them from trying to do what they could. It's in their nature.

Is there a fandom out there where the risks experienced by the characters are more evenly spread? One where there isn't a designated victim who has to be written OOC in order to play that part effectively? If there is, I'd love to hear about it.

Comments

[moonlettuce.livejournal.com]

If you look at Mulder/Krycek fic for The X-Files then the whumpage is spread out betwen the two of them. (Although, it's usually the other one doing the whumping as opposed to the rescuing *g*) If you put Skinner into that equation, then it all changes. In M/Sk or Sk/K fic, then Mulder or Krycek pretty much automatically becomes the whumped/abused and Skinner rides in on his Big White Horse of Doom (tm) to sweep our little whumped woobie off their feet.

Now, admittedly, there are times when Mulder *should* have 'victim' tattooed across his forehead - his sister was kidnapped, his father hates him, his mother resents him, he was abuducted by aliens, he got committed, he had a brain tumour... the list pretty much goes on. However, he's also shown to be a resourceful son of a bitch. Yes, all of that happened and he didn't take it lying down.

Neither Mulder nor Krycek would let Skinner ride to the rescue and fight their battles for them. They just wouldn't, and to write them in such a way that they would means you aren't writing any version of Mulder or Krycek that I'd want to read.

[graculus.livejournal.com]

... and Skinner rides in on his Big White Horse of Doom (tm) to sweep our little whumped woobie off their feet.

Whisking them off to the nearest Dunelm Mill to buy curtains for that B&B they're going to run together? ;)

[moonlettuce.livejournal.com]

Frighteningly, I've read that fic...

[cycnus39]

Did they adopt orphans and Beagle puppies too?

[graculus.livejournal.com]

Nope, just three-legged kittens and little fluffy orphan baby birds.

[moonlettuce.livejournal.com]

You're not that far off...