Talk:Character Bashing

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Tarlan's story is now f-locked and inaccessible, most likely as a reaction to being singled out as 'the bashing fic' of the week in SGA fandom. While I understand that in future there will likely be more 'typical' bashing fics for various fandoms (Tonks in HP, Stella in dueSouth, etc.), as it stands now this page lists several comms... and her fic. Which seems accusative to me. *tries to remember what my point was* Page needs more fic references, I think, if fics are going to be singled out... and also perhaps a cooling-off period to allow historical perspective to prevail? busaikko 13:02, 12 January 2009 (UTC) (why yes, I often *do* miss my own train of thought)

It definitely needs more story references! It would be great if we could get some of the older stories, too, as well as the newer ones. Hey, and what's Hatefic? --rache 15:50, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
Definition from "Types of Fan Fiction" (http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Fan_fiction_-_Types_of_Fanfiction/id/5040555) - Hatefic
Occasionally one may see stories in fanfic sites that do not fit the normal definition of fan fiction because they are not written by people who are fans of their subject matter; rather, they are written to ridicule the subject by somebody who dislikes the characters featured in the story. The act of ridiculing or mocking a story's characters is often called "bashing". There does not seem to be an established term for such stories. An example would be a Lizzie McGuire fanfic story that has as its description "Why Lizzie is a Dumb Blonde". A subcategory is the "character-bashing" fic, devoted to a negative (and often grotesquely out of character) portrayal of a single character whom the author dislikes or resents: for instance, a Lord of the Rings fanfic in which King Aragorn desperately searches for a way to escape his nagging, vicious, vindictive harpy of a wife, Arwen.
Another variant on this is the 'Anti-Fic', where the character(s) that the author dislikes are killed and/or maimed. While character death is often a part or sub-genre of Fanfic, in an Anti-Fic the deaths exist only so the author can express their dislike of the characters.
Note that not all deaths are intended to express hatred to a certain character by an author, as there are occasions where an author will "kill" a character that they favour in order to gain sympathy from the audience.
Also note that some hatefics are intended to express dislike to the entire fandom using any means, including the character death mentioned above. For example, a person who believes that the Harry Potter series promotes the occult will write a hatefic in which the characters promote the occult. busaikko 21:32, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
So really, it's pretty much a synonym of what's here, only with specific terms for what's here. I'm just going to go ahead and add the quotation given and take out the separate link for hatefic, and it can temporarily redirect here until someone has more to say about it. --rache 23:10, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
I've removed the reference, since it's f'locked anyway, and I agree that a 'cooling off' period might be a good policy. (OTOH, if users are recording history as it happens, then the wiki's history pages might be a good reference? It can always be edited later, after all...hmmm! Are the page histories always preserved, or deleted after a time?) --Xparrot 18:32, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
Unless there's a specific reason, such as violation of the outing policy, the history is forever--though it may be archived if we need the space. On another note, I added The Exceedingly Sad And Very Touching Story of How Dr. Elizabeth Weir Died Saving Atlantis in place of Tarlan's story, so there would be at least one example of the 'humorous' type of death story. --rache 18:53, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

bashing-support reference?

I have a brief essay in support of character bashing (http://xparrot.livejournal.com/42975.html) which could be used as a reference, but I'm not sure what the protocol is for adding links to one's own stuff, especially as the essay wasn't particularly noteworthy. --Xparrot 17:13, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Noteworthy is in the eye of the editor, and there's no official standard for notability. Basically, if one fan thinks it relates, they can add it, and if another fan doesn't think it's relavant, they can take it out. So if there's a pull-quote that can be used to pinpoint why a reference is pertinent to the article, I'm happy. In this case, I think the title alone "in defense of character bashing" is good enough reason to add it. Other articles can be added later, but it's great to have one to start it off.--rache 17:30, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

male vs. female characters?

I notice the article's already been toned down a bit, but it still states that female characters are more frequently subject to bashing. Is this really true in people's experiences? I wonder if it's because in slash, the interloper is more likely than not female. I read het just as much as slash, and I can't say I've ever noticed a difference in how much male or female characters get bashed - there's Ron-bashing in Snape/Hermione and Angel-bashing in Buffy/Spike just as much and as viciously as, say, Seven bashing in Janeway/Chakotay. Any idea how to add that perspective to the article? --Dora 21:08, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Interesting! Before I read this, I had just fiddled with the text on the main page to make it more clear that female characters are bashed more. Perhaps it is more equal in fanfiction, but on fora, the amount of both character and actor bashing for females seems vastly higher.--Sherrold 22:23, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

trashing

I wanted to add "Trash" to this page as a synonym, but realized it's used in two very different ways. I've seen "trash" used as character bashing, example "Donna-haters take note, she gets trashed in many of these stories." And I've seen story descriptions that like this one, "This fic trashes A.J. Simon to the max" and refers to whump or get'em. (Resolutions Solo is an SW example) Does it work to add "trash" as a synonym to both "Whump" and to this page? But then how does the redirect work? Or does "trash" need it's own page? --Mrs. Potato Head 21:24, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Does it need a page? Seems like a pretty general non-fandom expression to me. --Doro 19:05, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
I know it gets used in general non-fannish ways now (though I think its use with these zine summaries pre-dates modern slangish use of the word), and the character-bashing use reflects it. But, I don't know what to do with it as a word for "get'em" and "whump." Should I put "trash" as a synonym and redirect the word to "whump"? --Mrs. Potato Head 19:17, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Resources for expanding the page

Since this was nominated as a featured article I thought I'd go looking for some things to add to the page to flesh it out with more quotes and stuff! But I don't have time/brain to work anything into the page, thus I give you a link spam. If you work in one or more of the links below, consider crossing the link out or deleting it or something so everyone's on the same page?

Also, I only went back to the beginning of May, 2018 on FFA, so if anyone wants to dig up more quotes from dememe I'd search "character bashing" (with quotes!) and ctrl+f "2018-04" to find where I left off. - Hoopla (talk) 17:18, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

Links

Obvious Evil Characters

I think there should be something on this page about how character bashing does not mean making canon evil or canon bad characters even more so. Example, is it character bashing to make/discuss fanworks about Gunther (Starsky & Hutch), or Palpatine (Star Wars), or Paracelsus (Beauty and the Beast), or Moriarty (Sherlock), or Voldemort (Harry Potter)? MPH (talk) 14:07, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

That's a valid point.
On one hand, writing truly evil characters as evil is writing them as IC, especially if canon acknowledges how rotten they are. (Even if they themselves feel they have valid motives for their behaviors) On the other hand, some fans take it too far by making them what I call "kitchen sink evil"; i.e. Ozai from Avatar: The Last Airbender is a horrid person for mistreating his wife and children and trying to do a genocide, but some fans also make him a rapist on top of that. Doing so not only makes him cartoonishly Lifetime Movie-esque evil, but serves to make his victims suffer for the sake of it.Sj2014 (talk) 21:06, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Character assassination getting its own article

Sj2014, I would like to suggest leaving character assassination out of the lead, as it is a term with split meaning and something I want to launch an article on its own about. It may refer to subtle bashing in fics, but it also often refers to flanderization and characters being written in a way in canon that either fans don't like, or they feel contradicts their earlier characterization. (e.g. Worst examples of character assassination in TV? on /r/television) Pinky G Rocket (talk) 15:48, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Oh, that sounds amazing, giving the term its own article. I'll leave that to you, then, I can't wait to see it when it launches. Sj2014 (talk) 19:41, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
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