Conversation

I’m tired of simple character motives in shows/movies/books (dead family member, love, save the city from terrorist, win the big game). Even literary characters mostly just add a second contradictory motive like “wants to get rich but also keep his friends.”
4
26
Maybe because one of the uses of fiction is test-driving simpler motivational structures for size through identification. Since real people are a rolling quagmire of motives that never really get figured out, and then you die basically confused about wtf it was all about.
4
36
Hmm. Many candidates being proposed are more obscure literary fiction of the sort I don’t enjoy reading for other reasons. I guess I’m most interested in complex but still genre.
2
7
In complex-but-genre, some I’ve liked are: Abelard Lindsay in Schismatrix Plus, whose motive seems to be to get out alive and adapt. Bender in Futurama: needy, selfish, suicidal, but pulls his weight even while grumbling.
1
30
Genre motives are easier to make complex if it’s an indefinite series. Poirot is fairly complex due to mechanical effect of being in a series of novels. It’s like a real person hidden under a cartoon. Opposite of the villain in roger rabbit.
2
10
Every time I post a prompt like this I realize people who respond generally have more refined tastes and esoteric awareness than I do. It’s like knowing a language well enough to ask questions but not really understand the answers.
5
27