When you disagree with the author's choice within a story...

sunandshadow

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Reading (or watching a movie or anime) is usually not an upsetting hobby, but there's one rare case where a book/movie/anime can really get under my skin, in a bad way. Sometimes in a story a character will make a choice which the author clearly feels is the "right" choice, but I personally think was a profoundly wrong choice. For example, a character might forgive someone who did something I think that character should have considered unforgivable. Or a character might choose to make a sacrifice that I thought they should have considered unacceptable or not worth it for what they expect to gain. Or a character might have to choose between two goals, and the moral of the story is that goal A is the one that really matters while I think the moral should have been that goal B is the one that really matters.

So I just wondered, is anyone else bothered by this kind of thing, or is it just me? Does it make you want to write a story with a similar situation where the character makes the opposite choice?
 

chickenma

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Sometimes I want to re-write it (happens for me more often in movies), but most of the time I just stop reading.
 

PandaMan

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I occasionally do, especially regarding romances that develop too suddenly or the two individuals don't seem right for each other. It will bother me more, the more I enjoy a book, movie, or TV show.
 

MRevelle83

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For the most part, this kind of thing does not bother me. It is part of storytelling, and it is something I try to keep in mind when I write- humans are not perfect, and characters should sometimes make decisions that the reader doesn't agree with. Even if they are never proven wrong, it's something that just happens in real life so I have no problem with fiction reflecting that.

What I DO have a problem are when the story stops being being a story and being a springboard for the author's views. Such as when the author is obviously trying to change the reader's mind on a subject.

Case in point: the 60+ plus page monologue in Atlas Shrugged. Whereas the story SHOULD have just let the character had his views, the author tried to lecture the reader in how they should think and feel about this philosophy and the story.

Also, on the other hand (and from an author who I actually like to read), JK Rowling did this once. There was a character in the fifth Harry Potter book who was treated to a series of humiliations because she betrayed the protagonists. While I have no problem with this- one of the things I love about this serious is how flawed and believable the characters usually are- the way JK Rowling herself painted the rather disproportionate retaliation as righteous (despite kinda justifying this character's actions) kind of rubbed me the wrong way.

But as for characters making different choices than I think they should make? No, I won't be bothered by it. I save my energy on thinking how I would have just made these scenes more interesting. :)
 
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Persei

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It happens often.

I don't mind much when characters make decisions I don't agree with, though I get reaaally bothered when an author paints a terrible choice as The "Rightest" Choice Ever Made. It is possible to tell between a character making a bad choice due to their flaws and biased views, and a character making a bad choice because the author thought it was the right choice (usually the character comes out unscathed of those scenarios, when as far as logic goes, there should be some consequences).

What is a right choice and a bad choice is very subjective, but all choices have consequences and I have seen authors breaking suspension of desbelief by erasing all negatives consequences of a choice. This is usually the part of the book where I stop reading.
 

sohalt

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Oh absolutely. I can't remember ever being particularly blind-sided by it, however. if it's reasonably tightly plotted, there's going to be some kind of forshadowing for the central conflict, and usually the first couple of pages already contain enough hints about the author's system of values for me to guess how they're going to resolve it.

I used to make a bit of a point of reading stuff that was not my cup of tea implied worldview-wise when I was younger (necessarily, because I was catching up on the canon; that's going to include a lot of stuff that's toxic to contemporary sensibilities)- for the intellectual exercise, and often, because values or not, the prose might still be beautiful (and just because you disagree about certain elements, doesn't mean you won't find some wisdom in others). So that kind of thing wouldn't necessarily make me stop reading. But when the shoe finally dropped, I'd be hardly be that emotionally invested in that particular aspect of the narrative.

But yes, plot developments that don't go my way in the stories I read and watch and listen to, constantly make me want to redo that kind of plotline in my own stuff. It's a great source of inspiration. It's maybe my main source of inspiration.
 
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bearilou

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Hmmm...I'm trying to think about the last time this happened to me and I'm drawing a blank. In fact, I can't think of a time.

I suppose I have been lucky that I don't normally pick authors who proselytize in their text.

And if there's been any bad choices made by the character, I've just chalked it up to the author staying true to the character by having them make the bad choice. I'm hesitant to assign any deeper more nefarious motivations as to why the character made the bad choice as being the author believing it to be the most correct way to handle a situation.

But, as I said, I haven't read anything that comes to mind as me rolling my eyes by authorial intrusion into the text in that manner.
 

Lyra Jean

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I read one book, and it basically turned into a story preaching about the evils of slavery instead of just being a good story. I finished the book because it kept promising to get better. But alas it didn't. The MC didn't grow or change in the slightest. It was historical fiction.

I'm just not going to read her work anymore.
 

vagough

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I read a mystery/detective book recently by a big-name author and had this exact experience. The MC was strongly attracted to another character of a different race but didn't move ahead with having a physical relationship with her, even though that was the most logical progression (based on action and emotions) of the storyline up until that point; the implication was that he pulled back because of the race difference. I'd been teetering on the edge of whether to read more of his work, but that tipped the balance against doing so.
 

Rina Evans

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I read a mystery/detective book recently by a big-name author and had this exact experience. The MC was strongly attracted to another character of a different race but didn't move ahead with having a physical relationship with her, even though that was the most logical progression (based on action and emotions) of the storyline up until that point; the implication was that he pulled back because of the race difference. I'd been teetering on the edge of whether to read more of his work, but that tipped the balance against doing so.

When do you think something like that is acceptable as part of the character, though? I've been asking myself this - how to differentiate between the characters doing wrong things because they're flawed (and no one is there to tell them to get their head out of their ass), and the characters doing wrong things because the author believes they're right? The author can't put a big flaming disclaimer, after all.

It's something I've been struggling with while reading my favorite genres. When characters are mildly (not glaringly) offensive, racist, mysoginistic... etc. Difficult not to put the book down in frustration.
 

Lissibith

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I leave bad reviews. :)

Seriously, I have a hard time stopping in the middle of even the worst books. But if the author does something in the book that makes me uncomfortable, I flag it high up in my review. If it makes me uncomfortable, odds are good it will make other people uncomfortable too and they'll be glad of someone letting them know to read elsewhere. I know I have been.

And considering a lot of the decisions made in my sci-fi story were made to be the opposite of things that bugged me in the sci fi and fantasy I've been reading... yeah, I can get a bit reactive. :D
 

NellaFantasia

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For me, there's a big difference between the book being badly written and something happening within the story/a character making a choice that's unsettling to my personal tastes. If a book is badly written, then yes, I get an urge to want to rewrite it so it'll make more sense to me. If it's the latter...well, usually I just sit in my emo corner for a couple days.
 

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I stop reading that author's books.

Case in point: Charles Todd. They had me hooked for life on their wounded hero, Ian Rutledge. Then, in book 6 or 7, they shifted the focus off Rutledge and onto the mystery du jour. Ruined the series, which was different and gripping. I won't pick up another book by them.
 

sunandshadow

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Hmmm...I'm trying to think about the last time this happened to me and I'm drawing a blank. In fact, I can't think of a time.

I suppose I have been lucky that I don't normally pick authors who proselytize in their text.

And if there's been any bad choices made by the character, I've just chalked it up to the author staying true to the character by having them make the bad choice. I'm hesitant to assign any deeper more nefarious motivations as to why the character made the bad choice as being the author believing it to be the most correct way to handle a situation.

But, as I said, I haven't read anything that comes to mind as me rolling my eyes by authorial intrusion into the text in that manner.
I wasn't talking about proselytizing or authorial intrusion. Here's a simple example: a few decades ago in romance novels it used to be quite common for the "hero" to kidnap the heroine and lock her in a room until she agreed to marry him. In some stories he totally treats her like a child who can't make her own decisions, including imagining that he is somehow within his rights to punish her, whether by spanking or sending her to bed without supper, and in some stories he basically rapes her. Because it's a romance novel, the heroine has to be in love with the hero at the end of the book, so she has to forgive whatever he does. The author understands that this is how romance novels work, and has total control over both the hero's behavior and the heroine's reaction to it. So the author is clearly choosing to present the heroine's forgiveness as a correct response to the hero's atrocious behavior, which is excused as "boys being boys" or "evidence of his passionate love for her" (cause apparently you don't have to respect someone as an adult capable of making their own decisions in order to love them). No preaching or authorial intrusion involved.
 

bearilou

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I wasn't talking about proselytizing or authorial intrusion.

Sometimes in a story a character will make a choice which the author clearly feels is the "right" choice, but I personally think was a profoundly wrong choice.

Sounds like authorial intrusion to me.

I was launching off of this as well as a few of the comments about the author making the character do something to make the author's point.

And it's what bothers me about assigning motivations to the author for the character's choices. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't but I can't be convinced that just because a character makes a questionable choice it's because the author thinks it's okay.

I may not like the choice the character makes but as long as it stays true to how the character was set up, then like it or not, I'll far more enjoy it than if I do see the author's hand in the maneuvering of characters.

Usually there are other indicators as well if the author has intruded into the text.
 

vagough

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When do you think something like that is acceptable as part of the character, though? I've been asking myself this - how to differentiate between the characters doing wrong things because they're flawed (and no one is there to tell them to get their head out of their ass), and the characters doing wrong things because the author believes they're right? The author can't put a big flaming disclaimer, after all.

It's something I've been struggling with while reading my favorite genres. When characters are mildly (not glaringly) offensive, racist, mysoginistic... etc. Difficult not to put the book down in frustration.

That's a good question, Rina. The problem I had in this particular case is that it seemed to be the latter -- that the author just didn't want this to happen because he was, I don't know, uncomfortable with it or something. I'm okay with having a character struggle with something I don't necessarily agree with as long as the author gives the reader glimpses into that character's internal debates and issues and struggles. That makes it interesting to me as the reader, but it didn't happen in this case. It was almost as if the author had decided to let them have a physical relationship and then pulled back because he thought it was unacceptable.

Maybe those internal deliberations pop up in later books (the character in question has a whole series of books about him), but now I'm no longer interested in reading them.
 

Jess Haines

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I've given thought to how I would rewrite a few scenes and such in some books, but it's usually an idle thing. The author wrote the book they set out to (I hope) and it's not really my place to figure out how they could or should have done it differently. It doesn't really occur to me to change anything about their work because it is what it is.

On the other hand, sometimes with movies and TV I get terribly tempted to write fanfic just to rewrite the stuff I hated... ;)
 

Charging Boar

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Like chickenma said, my first reaction is to rewrite.

My second is to give it a bad review.

And it makes me less likely to read more books from that author.

You think it fair to give a book a bad review because you don't agree with the author's philosophy? That is some BS, imo.
 

Brightdreamer

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You think it fair to give a book a bad review because you don't agree with the author's philosophy? That is some BS, imo.

No, I think it's fair to give a bad review if I don't like a book. I bought a novel, not a lecture. If the author cannot craft characters for whom those decisions come naturally - if it's clear that the author's spouting off via fictional characters in order to browbeat me with their personal philosophy, that their main reason for writing in the first place was to preach - then I do not like the book. Therefore, it gets a bad review from me.

ETA - In the interest of full disclosure, yes, I have squirmed at some characters' choices and philosophies. It only factors into the rating when there's no reason for it, or if they're so over-the-top - say, a pro-choice character who also eats kittens and runs over puppies while clear-cutting rainforests and gunning down strangers, to emphasize how little "those people" must value life - that they're clearly a Symbol created by an author to drive home their Message.

I also give bad reviews for just plain inconsistent behavior, with or without a message.
 
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sunandshadow

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You think it fair to give a book a bad review because you don't agree with the author's philosophy? That is some BS, imo.
I think it's completely logical to give a bad review to a book you think other people shouldn't read. That's what bad reviews are for - warning people against a book.
 

heyjude

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Characters frustrate me sometimes, but I'm never bothered enough to care much one way or another.

It's this:

What I DO have a problem are when the story stops being being a story and being a springboard for the author's views. Such as when the author is obviously trying to change the reader's mind on a subject.

that drives me crazy. Every single character thinks all Christians are idiots. All (insert political party) are raving lunatics. Like that. I've thrown one or two books across the room for that, and even left a bad review or two. (Then I go leave a couple of good reviews for books I loved. Karma, or something.)
 

DragonHeart

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Depends on how much I disagree with the author's choice. Case in point: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins. Granted, I thought the story started going off track in Catching Fire but Mockingjay is where it all fell apart. There were so many plot decisions I disagreed with, mostly relating to who lived and who died (and in some cases, how they died) that by the end I was mostly just annoyed and glad to stop reading it. Because of this book I'll never read anything else by Collins.

I didn't leave an unfair review or anything, I just rated it and moved on to another (much more enjoyable) book. I actually can't think of any other books or authors where I really felt so consciously aware of the author making plot choices and then disagreeing with them so strongly.
 

briannasealock

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Fan fiction fixes everything. If there's something the author missed out expanding, or whatever you can bet that somewhere there's a fan fic someone wrote that either explains it or fixes it or whatever.

This happened to me in Death Note. Won't say what it is because that'd ruin the WHOLE series for those who haven't seen it, but let's just say that I came across fan fiction that is now my head canon for Death Note. :)

Also. The one and only book I hate and still loath to this day. The Devil's Arithmetic. I was homeschooled as a kid and mom used Sun Light Ciriculum for history. And TDA was one of the books included that I had to read. I got to the end and was sobbing my eyes out and thew that book across the room. Then I told mom I was never going to read another book about the Holocaust ever again. I won't ever read that book again either and I will NEVER recommend it to other people. Don't get me wrong. It's a good book, but it traumatized me and I have issues because of it.
 
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chompers

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I once read a book where I felt the ending was both wrong and right at the same time.