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Meta Month 20 - Baseless Fears
This post is about Ike/Soren, but at heart, I think it is about how tropes lose their power and how to restore that power to them.
But I'm really just writing about Ike/Soren here.
There is an extremely common type of Ike/Soren story, in which Soren is afraid of something (generally something that will adversely affect his relationship with Ike), the truth comes out one way or another to Ike, and Ike's reaction is extremely favorable and proves all Soren's fears wrong. I blame A support.
There are alternatives. Ike could leave for no apparent reason, or Soren could literally choke to death on his imagination, or Ike could say something uncharacteristic justified by the heat of the moment. All amounting to the suggestion that Ike would never ever ever ever have any reason to behaves as Soren fears. Soren's fears are just irrational baseless phantoms! And then Soren's happy and they make out or whatever.At one point I liked this type of hurt-comfort, as evidenced by my ability to draw up quite that many non-recent samples on a whim. I, uh, even wrote one. Or maybe a few.
But here's the thing -- and I speak not as a reader of any one of these stories, but as a reader following this pairing who has been presented only with these things again and again. The overall effect suggests that Soren doesn't really have any reason to worry about the health of his only interpersonal relationship. He is being silly. This is his one crazy groundless emotional weakness.
It is not outside of the human psyche to be worried about something logically ridiculous, but it's a problem in terms of storytelling power. The presentation of this fear as completely baseless depowers it. Soren grew up with a woman who treated him as a burden, a sage who found him inadequate, a village that stoned him without provocation, and a country of laguz who shot him looks of disgust before denying his existence. There's a pattern to his story. He's going to see these patterns in his story. And it's very powerful to him.
Now a writer might go "Yes, we know, that's why there are paragraphs of Soren lamenting his life of woe in these stories," and yes, this is again true -- on a single-story level.
But this is not how the reader experiences them. The reader has seen my-caretakers-and-the-laguz-hated-me a thousand times. The reader has been conditioned to expect that flood of but-ike-is-different paragraphs at the end. Even if written compellingly from Soren's point of view, at heart the reader knows that Ike will never reject Soren, and if Soren can work up the courage to confess everything will be okay.
It's so antithetical to the way Soren experiences that anxiety and confession. I think the perpetual retelling of this arc has effectively robbed it of what truly makes it compelling.
On a side note, it also suggests that Ike is okay with Soren, always, unconditionally, just because. I am not okay with that implication. Ike sticks to his principles, and no two people ever have quite the same beliefs. People can and do get over their differences, but they are not without their sources of conflict. The game itself presents us with one major difference in beliefs between them, and while Ike literally calls out every other instance of racism, Soren's goes unchallenged. I think the game wants to excuse Soren because his racism stems from trauma and not ignorance, and I am not okay with that implication either.
And so, after seeing the most recent "Soren is afraid, Soren confesses, Ike soothes his fears" story, I decided* that it might be interesting to write a fic in which Soren's fears are realized. To put the fear back into his fears. It isn't a major rift and Ike is going to leave him forever. It doesn't need to be. It's just enough to prove his fears justified, to him, and scare the shit out of him. It's these moments that make Ike's ultimate acceptance mean more.
* Actually I should credit WET NOODLES, who said she anticipated that said story would be about an actual rejection -- and was terribly disappointed. I found the idea interesting.
But I'm really just writing about Ike/Soren here.
There is an extremely common type of Ike/Soren story, in which Soren is afraid of something (generally something that will adversely affect his relationship with Ike), the truth comes out one way or another to Ike, and Ike's reaction is extremely favorable and proves all Soren's fears wrong. I blame A support.
There are alternatives. Ike could leave for no apparent reason, or Soren could literally choke to death on his imagination, or Ike could say something uncharacteristic justified by the heat of the moment. All amounting to the suggestion that Ike would never ever ever ever have any reason to behaves as Soren fears. Soren's fears are just irrational baseless phantoms! And then Soren's happy and they make out or whatever.
But here's the thing -- and I speak not as a reader of any one of these stories, but as a reader following this pairing who has been presented only with these things again and again. The overall effect suggests that Soren doesn't really have any reason to worry about the health of his only interpersonal relationship. He is being silly. This is his one crazy groundless emotional weakness.
It is not outside of the human psyche to be worried about something logically ridiculous, but it's a problem in terms of storytelling power. The presentation of this fear as completely baseless depowers it. Soren grew up with a woman who treated him as a burden, a sage who found him inadequate, a village that stoned him without provocation, and a country of laguz who shot him looks of disgust before denying his existence. There's a pattern to his story. He's going to see these patterns in his story. And it's very powerful to him.
Now a writer might go "Yes, we know, that's why there are paragraphs of Soren lamenting his life of woe in these stories," and yes, this is again true -- on a single-story level.
But this is not how the reader experiences them. The reader has seen my-caretakers-and-the-laguz-hated-me a thousand times. The reader has been conditioned to expect that flood of but-ike-is-different paragraphs at the end. Even if written compellingly from Soren's point of view, at heart the reader knows that Ike will never reject Soren, and if Soren can work up the courage to confess everything will be okay.
It's so antithetical to the way Soren experiences that anxiety and confession. I think the perpetual retelling of this arc has effectively robbed it of what truly makes it compelling.
On a side note, it also suggests that Ike is okay with Soren, always, unconditionally, just because. I am not okay with that implication. Ike sticks to his principles, and no two people ever have quite the same beliefs. People can and do get over their differences, but they are not without their sources of conflict. The game itself presents us with one major difference in beliefs between them, and while Ike literally calls out every other instance of racism, Soren's goes unchallenged. I think the game wants to excuse Soren because his racism stems from trauma and not ignorance, and I am not okay with that implication either.
And so, after seeing the most recent "Soren is afraid, Soren confesses, Ike soothes his fears" story, I decided* that it might be interesting to write a fic in which Soren's fears are realized. To put the fear back into his fears. It isn't a major rift and Ike is going to leave him forever. It doesn't need to be. It's just enough to prove his fears justified, to him, and scare the shit out of him. It's these moments that make Ike's ultimate acceptance mean more.
* Actually I should credit WET NOODLES, who said she anticipated that said story would be about an actual rejection -- and was terribly disappointed. I found the idea interesting.
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Baaaasically this is really, really good. I agree completely etc and blah, and stop making me want to write Soren. You make him sound more interesting every time you post on him. :|
TBH I would rather leave the Sorening to you. You do it so well. =P
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So if I'm making you interested in him I am down with any fic you want to write. :DD
Actually, I should take a line from Xirysa on this one. I ARE EXCITE.
Edited for needless arrogance.
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But yes. Ike is not an all-forgiving saint of a man. Nor is he psychic. If anything, he's a bit more oblivious than most. I don't see any reason why he would magically know why Soren would exhibit a trait he takes serious issue with elsewhere, or really with a lot of other things Soren might do. Canon might not really touch on it, but I think the possibility is absolutely there. Refusing to acknowledge it time after time not only makes Soren look like an irrationally paranoid weirdo when he has good backing for his fears, but also renders Ike much blander than he could be.
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THE BROWNFLUENCE. IT SPREADS.no subject
It is not outside of the human psyche to be worried about something logically ridiculous, but it's a problem in terms of storytelling power. The presentation of this fear as completely baseless depowers it.
Obviously, I can't say much about Soren here, but I'm really glad that you made this observation, since it pertains, really, to every piece of writing or media you see, and just really helps to emphasize how closely related characterization and storytelling ability are intertwined. Staying in the fandom bubble, so to speak, Lucius and Priscilla are examples of characters who frequently fall into this pit, and I'm also very much reminded of Mark's earlier post regarding Lyn.
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I get Lyn though. Doing her internal conflict re:Sacae justice is difficult.
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A lot of Ike/Soren writers arguably have Ike down even less than Soren. Can't blame them myself. Ike's hard to get a handle on.
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Hopefully, that made sense. Otherwise, I just might've misunderstood what you said, so if that's what happened, sorry. ^^
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This. A poorly-written Soren is at least something actively objectionable, but even a mediocre Ike, especially in a formula story, is often just... so terribly uninspiring. There is nothing to hold my interest as a reader.
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Interesting. Bears more thought.
I think this plays into my utter lack of interest in ANYONE's novelization of Lyn's Tale at this point-- we know what happens. We know she gets there and things are fine. If she doesn't, as in "Guile" or "The Crimson Knight," then there's a story, but the basic tale has been told so many times (especially the first two chapters of it) that even a skillfully-told, fleshed-out version has a diminished impact. There are no stakes, because the ending is foreordained, and the chances of an FE7 writer actually maiming or killing a character at the outset, or allowing for mistakes to be made, are pretty low... especially if Mr. Tactician is center stage.
I suppose there are exceptions out there, somewhere, but I can't think of anything that truly broke the mold without diverging from the canonical plot.
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I think Mark's example is good: FE7 novelizations have been done so many times that it's hard to feel invested in their struggles or anxious at any point of suspense because you know what's going to happen. The characters in question can be perfectly IC. The writing can be good. But the reader simply isn't going to be that invested, for reasons somewhat outside of the story itself. And when the thing you're writing about is supposed to be something that matters a lot to the perspective character, that lack of reader investment really cheapens it.
It's like, imagine this. You read a short story in which a boy needs to go through a dark forest to deliver some life-saving medicine to his sick father. The trees loom, the crescent moon doesn't provide much light, and the forest animals are vicious. Yet still he summons up the courage to go through the forest. It's a harrowing experience for him, but he manages to find his way to his father's cottage and delivers the medicine. Okay, you might think, that was brave of him and that was sweet.
And the next day there's a new short story about a girl who needs to go through a dark forest to deliver an important message to the general on the other side. It's even new moon this time, and the thorn-bushes tear at her petticoat, and oh god was that a spiderweb against her head or the wing of a man-eating owl? But she ends up making it to the other side relatively unscathed and delivers the message that saves thousands of people. Maybe you're still moved by the conclusion, but dark forests are starting to sound rather unthreatening to you.
So when the next day there's a story about a man who needs to cross a dark forest to escape the soldiers trying to imprison him, you're thinking, Get real, stop dithering about whether to face the soldiers or go in the dark forest from which no one has ever returned. The forest is obviously less dangerous. And the author can describe the forest in the most terrifying ways ever (Dark! Looming! Ominous! Spawned a thousand legends!) but the fact is, when the guy chooses the forest and gets through it with nothing worse than a couple of scrapes, you're going to nod and feel convinced that you're pretty right that dark forests in short stories are not a genuine threat. As a result, the guy's waffling over the soldiers and the forest seems rather contrived, almost absurd, like, how dumb are you not to just leap into the forest? Obviously nothing will happen.
Dark forests have lost their power to you, and to anyone else following this sequence of short stories.
Now, what would really make you sit up in your seat is if some woman traipses into said forest because she needs to ____, and she actually gets attacked by a coyote, barely manages to get away, and ends up on the other side covered in her own blood with some serious injuries to her arm and side. At first you might be like, what? What just happened there? That doesn't happen in dark forests! ... I guess they're dangerous after all.
I guess it's like a super-extreme form of show not tell in suspense. It's not enough to talk about how something might hurt your character and how scared he is. Your character has to get hurt sometime in the large scheme of things, or that suspense seems baseless to the reader.
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And in tacticianfic, much like Ike/Soren "he will reject me!" fic, following the mold seems justified. When I first set out to write fic in which Ike is actually not okay with Soren, I sat there for a good few minutes sorting out exactly what Ike was supposed to be not okay with. It would be OOC for Ike to be not okay with Soren's heritage. It would be silly worldbuilding for Ike to not be okay with Soren being gay. And so on. In novelizations, it technically goes against canon to have any deaths during Lyn's tale, and Lyn must survive her ordeal and win in order for there to be Eliwood's story at all. There are constraints that spawned the trope to begin with, and it requires a lot of familiarity with the tale and thought in order to break the mold and try to restore power to it.