LogFAQs > #877422115

The Wave Master posted...

I feel horrible for feeling the same way the writers do about Peter Parker.

He isn't a happy character, he is a tragic character, he should suffer.

Peter Parker is primarily driven by guilt. The guilt of loss and failure compel him. He can't and shouldn't have victory without first experiencing loss.

That actually raises an interesting question, though. SHOULD it be that Peter has to suffer through loss to experience victory, or is it more the case that every moment of happiness or victory should immediately be followed by painful loss?

Because I'd say the former can actually make for interesting characters, and is at the root of a lot of "hero's journey"-esque story arcs, but the latter is more the way people tend to write Peter. He is literally not allowed to be happy, ever. The stronger a given moment of joy, and the longer it lasts, the worse it's going to be when everything blows up in his face.

And that can be kind of depressing. A character who suffers greatly but ultimately overcomes adversity is an interesting character. A character who is literally doomed to suffer eternally with no respite or hope of redemption or ultimate success is a character I don't really want to read about, ever.

(And which may go a long way towards why I pretty much NEVER identified with or ever really liked Spider-Man even at the height of my comic obsession).

I wouldn't even necessarily say that's a TRAGIC character, as tragic characters tend to have ultimately doomed endings, but usually aren't one long string of tantalizing success jerked away at the last moment, leaving a life of constant, nonstop boots to the gut.

I might even say that interpretation of Spider-Man is FAR darker than even Batman at his very worst, because even in the bleakest versions of Batman where he's pretty much miserable his entire life from the moment his parents die until his own death, it's still really only one WHAM moment followed by the consequences of that moment. And often, Batman's way less bleak than that, because he's always had a lot of little lights in the greater darkness.



Zeus posted...

Flash's mom died and he doesn't mope the entire fucking time.

To be fair, he did shatter the entire universe to try and save her.


---

"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family