I am writing my second scene for scriptwriting right now. (Actually, I'm taking a break to reflect.) It's a curious topic to think about drama and narratives. Imagining possibilities that have not, and most likely will not take place. Engaging in your world by engaging in a world self-created.
I was debating with myself if I, as a conscious agent in reality, have actual control over the characters in my scene, conscious agents in a fictionalized reality. Seeing as my goal is to make my writing as plausible as possible, I have to restrict myself to what is set as "characterization" and "narrative structure". A character acting out of character is a serious offense in criticism of drama. You can't have Beowulf jumping into a glorious fight with Grendel and in the midst of the fight decide that he wants to be a circus performer without saying he has a serious bipolar disorder! (That might be laughably entertaining if you're going for something surreal, but if you're going for a serious epic, it fails.)
So if I'm restricted, how can these be my characters? If my characters are restricted to their personalities, how can they be free?
Well, it has to do the setting of a criterion choice. I'm free to choose the restrictions imposed on my character based on my own creativity, and based on that choice, all of the pieces should fall into place. The characters aren't free from the world. They aren't restricted though either. They're free in the world. The world created is interdependent. The agents are as much apart of the world as the forces said to be controlling them. What gives them control is their ability to rise to action. As the humanists and the existentialists say,"You can always make yourself into something other than what you were made out of."
Even if their is a deity that is writing our lives, in order for him to make our lives good fiction, he has to let us have our own control. He isn't forcing our hand to do anything he wants us to because the character set for us resists it. It's almost like narrative is a choice encased in a choice encased in a choice until death.
This post was a little bit disorganized, but so is life.
Until Next Time!
Christ Martyr Parson
You are a sexist for calling that deity a "he".
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think what you say makes a good deal of sense but I'd like to expand on it.
Obviously, I don't believe in any deities, and I don't think omnipotence is possible, but let's say there is a god who can create a universe with a wide range of conditions/laws for it to follow. Among them, I would assume, there would be the universes that have conditions where it wouldn't be irrational for Beowulf to out of nowhere decide to become a circus performer. While that might not make sense to us in this universe, presumably it would make sense there. Additionally, while I think these conditions give us some freedom, I would guess that sort of universe would give those agents more freedom, however you wish to take that. We, as agents already in a reality, can only make sense of realities that are similar to ours, which is why it make sense to some degree to say your characters are writing themselves, but I would think if there is a deity who created realities, they could make a reality of any kind they wish, and still have it make sense.
Though, maybe if there is a god, they are in the same situation we are, where it's hard to fathom a rational reality and have it at the same time be largely different than its own, which would make it in tune with the "it's not dragging us by the hand" statement you made, which makes us still free, but far more limited than the agents that live in a universe we might find erratic.
That makes sense to have theoretically alternate universes that are qualitatively different than our own. I would be baffled to see one, but that's because it's a really abstract concept.
ReplyDeleteAlthough, a universe that is erratic doesn't necessarily make agents free there either. Who knows, it's really plausible that the universe we live in isn't as ordered as we think. Perhaps the actual finite nature of our perception creates a logical universe. If you look at the universe rationally, it will look back in kind.
An example of this being the narrative structure of our lives. Taken from a 1st person perspective, our lives will seem routine up to a point, but take into account all the lives and perceptions on the planet, including those of animals, from the 1st person perspective. There really isn't a conclusive way of sorting this out entirely. Evolution is a chaotic process, survival is chaos. We exist as orderly minds flying through chaos. All the rational arguments for God fail because if he existed I don't think he could be rational.
Sure it may seem orderly if we look close enough, but the closer you get to what you're examining, the more likely it is that something even more minuscule will appear. I think that's what is so unfathomably fascinating about the universe we live in. The details are virtually endless.
I just thought most of these ideas sounded cool, so I said them. I hope you found them equally as exciting.
Christ Martyr Parsons