Fun but a tough one: giving fictional characters hope

Faith & Science Conversation
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I’ve been asking a lot of tough (and sometimes random) questions on theology. Fortunately, all of the questions I have posted here have been given very thoughtful and informative responses, so first of all, thank you for your help!

I’ve come to know this forum as a wonderful bunch of philosophers and science lovers that also enjoy a bit of casual conversation. So, I had a bit of a non-theology question that at face value doesn’t seem too difficult but upon my pondering lends itself to be a very difficult question to answer.

Despite how much I despise English class, I’ve always enjoyed writing stories and was hoping to write something to be a sort of reflection on my development of understanding the nature of reality and being comfortable with life. I was inspired by works like Undertale, the indie game where the player is challenged to look inwards at their own morality by playing a game where, in-canon, the characters are essentially digital beings and some are even aware of us the player. My story was hopefully going to be about the characters learning they are characters in a book but coming to terms that that doesn’t mean that they should be fatalist about it but rather see it as a beautiful thing.

However, pondering this, I’ve found it very tricky to convey how this can be a good thing. In an internet culture where dark humor consists of characters finding out they are just video game characters and thus their entire life is a lie etc. etc., I’ve it very hard to convey this message, especially since I’ve found very little of the alternative for inspiration, where characters find the beauty in their strange reality (which is another reason why I want to write this piece in the first place). Here are a couple of ideas that I have to try and explain this beauty:

  • Characters are reflections of their author, so we essentially share in their reality. Basically how Marvel is the brain child of Stan Lee, so Marvel is a part/legacy of Stan Lee much like the Declaration of Independence is for Thomas Jefferson
  • Since people love characters so much, so the characters in stories can rest easy knowing that someone would always love them
  • The characters serve to convey a message to us, the viewer, so their lives always have meaning for as long as they remain in the story
  • Technically, the characters cannot feel anything (as they only exist in words), but when is the reader imagines their feelings and other things they essentially become real in our world in the minds and hearts of the reader

If you guys have any thoughts on how I can try to convey this, I would love to hear your input!

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Interesting! So would a characters like Sauron or even Saruman feel loved by Tolkien? (Or Voldemort by Rowling if you’re more into Potter’s world?).

I remember Dorothy Sayers reacting somewhere to a reader’s query about she didn’t make her detective, Lord Peter Whimsy, a Christian. She essentially replied that it just wouldn’t be in his nature to do that. She was in a sense honoring her character’s life as being “his own”, though she didn’t try to “go meta” with him in the same way you’re suggesting, at least not that I know of.

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Thats an interesting point and I think, in a way, they somewhat have to. After all, those two villains alone represent some of the most iconic villainy in cinema (another would certainly be Darth Vader), with unique backstories, designs, and philosophies to contribute to their worlds. Such characteristics don’t just appear on their own. Much like God loves even his sinful children, authors need to love even the villains who challenge their hero’s. One element i certainly want to include is an allegory of Christianity in the background. I’m working on a wise young female character who would be the very embodiment of good in stories who will share the wisdom that leads to the appreciation of their reality.

Another aspect I want to try to work on, perhaps in a different work, is essentially my take on the battle of good and evil that goes on within stories. Shortened version of my story philosophy, the plot is essentially a physical thing, and the good and evil that exist in the story universe is a direct consequence of that in our reality. After all, Voldemort isn’t depicted committing crimes that don’t exist in our own world: he murders and he hates. Essentially, I want to create a “story about stories,” much like Tron tries to create a unique explanation of how computers work.

I certainly need to work on how to articulate these two different ideas, one being that characters are loved by their creators but that good and evil is still present because of it’s existence in the higher reality of their authors (if that makes sense). In the end, I want the characters to still be responsible for their crimes, but how do I articulate this if their actions are determined by their authors? Do I try to articulate this at all? I think considering how I want a Christian allegory in this story, I think I should try to work a means of redemption for the villains, even if they may seem to be unable to decide for themselves. Have any thoughts on this strange contraction, free will for characters even though we authors are their only source of decisions?

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I suppose I’ll share my workings of the story so far. So, the premise of the story is that all stories exist in the same plane of existence, in a sort of mega multiverse full of smaller multiverses that are constantly created from a enormous white hole at the center of this reality. This white hole is simply the manifestation of human imagination, as once an idea is created it cannot be in-created (much like matter can leave theoretical white holes but never go back across). In canon, this universe is connected to our planet in some mind-bending manner (it is connected psychologically in our side but physically on their, meaning the character’s, side). The characters in my story are a hyper intelligent species of alien that resembles insects on Earth: the Exo-Insectoids. They are a universe scale civilization that shares their universe with several other species. This universe exists in the same way as say the MCU, DC comics universe, and any other fictional universe; they aren’t some god-like species, just some random buggeds who became self-aware. A short while ago, they discovered this mega-multiverse and have been studying it ever since. They are a very morally gray species, much like a giant space America. Their studies often leave unrepairable imprints on other plot lines and often make easily avoidable mistakes. Anyway, it becomes quite obvious to them the existence of plots as a physical construct and the pre-determination of stories. To many of the bugs this isn’t a big deal but rather something to be used: if they can control the plot, they can control reality (essentially become a class 1 civilization). However, as should be expected, this leads some of the researchers to question their own reality. Throughout the story I want to work these questions through and essentially show the reader that there is nothing to fear about life and the nature of it. Unlike other writers who would probably take this opportunity to write some dark story about characters loosing hope about their lives because of this discovery (as is present in many online works now), I would like to give hope to this universe.

If I can teach myself the skills of animation, I would find it better to put this story to video instead.

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I think how I kinda want to address this is by giving them a sort of version of free will we believe we have in real life. The authors/the plot will dictate the events that occur, but it’s the characters who choose how to respond. This kinda provides a set-up for very meta and mind-bending events to occur, sort of creation versus creator discussions (especially if I could portray a character who is being dragged through constant and soulless sequels).

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It sounds like a discussion my kids (who love LOTR and others) would love.

We were just discussing GK Chesterton’s quote on the way in to school today–as best as I can remember it, “Truth is of necessity stranger than fiction, for fiction we create to suit ourselves.”

I feel there is another quote I’d like to recall, of the purpose of fantasy, but it’s escaping me (not GK Chesterton)–

Thanks for the thoughts.

Randy

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There was a similar quote - here’s my paraphrase:

Fiction is [often] obliged to try to stay plausible. Reality [truth] has no such constraint.

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As a former English teacher, I’ll quote Michael Jordan, “And I took that personally.” haha

An interesting premise. It reminds me of my time in the Reformed camp, where God was in control of everything, but “all things work to good” for those who believe. So what if you were predestined to believe? As long it worked out well for you in the long run …

In fact, I remember reading theologians like John Frame, who specifically compared free will to characters in a story. If a character in story commits a murder, is the author responsible for the murder? It was his defense against the problem of evil. God may have predestined the murder, but he’s not ultimately responsible for the outcome. God isn’t the author of evil, in other words. The argument falls apart on close inspection.

The same thing happens with people in your life who die. They cannot feel or speak and exist only in memory, but they remain real in the hearts of minds of those who remember them.

Sayers is right. I occasionally write fiction, and every character has their own backstory and motivations for their actions. Sometimes, the choices they make even surprise you as the author. I also don’t love all the characters in my stories. I’m not playing God; I’m trying to write an interesting story.

The character follows their own internal motivations and arrives at their own decision within the context of the story. In an important sense, the author gives the character free will.

There are two types of stories: plot-driven and character-driven. For the first, see Aristotle’s Poetics, and for the second, see Lajos Egri, The Art Of Dramatic Writing: Its Basis in the Creative Interpretation of Human Motives

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Thank you for the pointers!

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I’m going to take a chance and share an unusual video which I found on another forums in a thread about Jung’s concept of individuation. It offers a theory that Jesus was the first human being to completely individuate in Jung’s sense of the word. That recasts everything about the Bible’s story in a way which may be threatening, offensive or at least surprising to some. For that reason I’ll make this a private thread and invite anyone who wants on board. I’ll start by inviting everyone who has already posted in this thread.

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Not so much giving you thoughts on your questions. All of which are good questions, and I hope you reach a point where you are closer to understanding.

This attitude has helped me, and now I’m going to share it with you.

Yes, “fictional” characters aren’t “real”, sort of. They are “real” to the extent that they live, interact, and speak in the environment you have created for them. And internally within that framework, they follow the same general “rules” that we follow. You can’t “make” a character do anything they don’t want to do, or make them “say” anything they don’t want to say.

You can, but then bad things happen.

Therefore, listen to them when they “speak” to you. They will tell you when you are doing something wrong.

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I ran into that at a conference in the early 1980s. It was somehow linked to the idea of archetypes, but I don’t recall the connection.

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I’ve invited you to view the heresy again but the title of it is:

Why Jung Believed Jesus Hid Knowledge to Escape the Demiurge

I believe this means by indicating what he meant in parables rather than concrete assertions.

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Isn’t this idea based on the gnostic gospels?

Of course, the question here is: why should Gnostic texts, written much later than the canonical Gospels ( let alone Paul’s letters, which predate all the Gospels), and never accepted by the early Church, be regarded as the ones that tell the truth?

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Indeed. I’m skeptical of any claims of authority for texts at all. I still think you have to read one to find out if it has anything to say to you. There is no way to rule any out unless, as in the case with institutional Christianity, everyone decides that some postulates are canonical. So within such groups there can be wide agreement.

But that video just looks crazy with loony bin levels of conspiracy theory.

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I wasn’t speaking merely about authority, though; I was also (and especially) referring to the dating of the texts.

Those texts are universally recognized by historians as significantly later than the canonical ones. That was my point. A Gnostic gospel written in, say, AD 40 or even AD 65 would be a different matter. I still wouldn’t accept it if it had been condemned, but for non-Christians ( or for Christians who don’t recognize the authority of the successors of the apostles ) it would carry a different kind of authority. My point is that, as things stand, it would be very difficult to reasonably justify placing trust in a second-century text claiming that Jesus did not die for our sins, while at the same time refusing to trust the creed in 1 Corinthians, which was written anywhere from two or three months to at most two or three years after the Easter events and affirms the exact opposite.

The dating of the texts is of great importance, which is why the Illuminists have, for centuries, sought to place the canonical Gospels and even the Pauline letters progressively later in time (many claimed they had been written in the late second century and that all the Pauline letters were forgeries written much later): they knew that, if successful, they would substantially undermine the authority of those texts (since no one at the time of their writing would have been able to challenge them and, moreover, if they had been written as late as the Illuminists claimed, any pretence of reliance on eyewitness testimony would have been debunked).

Then came the Third Quest, and the very tool that had been devised to dismantle Christianity turned out to be immensely helpful to Christians. Of course, the Illuminists could not have foreseen this, since they believed the Gospels to be complete frauds and assumed that any serious historical investigation would expose them as such. The historical-critical method may well go down in Christian history as Christianity’s own version of FAFO (“f**k around and find out”).

Well, let us set canonicity aside. Even independently of the canon, the antiquity of a text (or better yet: its proximity to the events) matters greatly when assessing its truth. After all, which is more likely: that a text * written at most three years after the events is telling the truth, or that the truth is to be found in a text written at least a hundred years later which contradicts the very tenets of the aforementioned ancient text?

*1 Cor 15,3-5: “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve.”

It is certainly difficult to justify the claim that such an ancient text shouldn’t be trusted, while at the same time arguing that second-century texts are somehow more reliable.

I am not saying that such a position cannot be taken; I am saying that it is very difficult to justify it reasonably.

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This video in my opinion is very interesting as it contains some truths (and obviously some falsehoods as well, just like when he seems to hint at Christianity as a dualistic system where there are two equal forces that oppose each other, which couldn’t be further from the truth, that would be Zoroastrianism; or when he talks about subsequent incarnations)) about the actions of some evil entities, at least from my experience (or better yet, from people I know that have practiced these things)

Which is why, despite having studied occultism in the past, I have never practiced It.

P.s: obviously there is a lot of bullshit in that channel, like…a lot, for example videos that talk about the Annunaki or other baloney stuff LMAO, but there are some fragments of truth in some videos here in there, certainly one has to separate the wheat from the chaff ( a good 80/85% of his videos and I’m probably being conservative Lol)

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Watched the first minute. Seemed like overly hyped conspiracy theorizing to me. I’ll pass.

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There wasn’t a conspiracy theory in that video. He holds some rather ridiculous conspiracy theories in other videos, though.

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Might have been the tone of voice in this one. Even if AI, someone selected it.

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