do characters deserve ugliness?

[cacian]

for example the story of Cinderella, the two sisters are described as ugly and mean whereas the central character Cinderella is in contrast their complete opposite, beautiful and obedient/kind. The end of the story concludes with Cinderella getting the prince. The sisters however get nothing and so the reader does not know what happens to them next.
I feel as a writer and reader that all characters introduced in a story must be given a proper ending in order to justify the use of the number of characters as well as bring a closure to all of them.
My question is the following:
Is the usage of beast versus beauty concept necessary to reinforce ones qualities over another? It feels that one must suffer for the other to triumph which comes across as weak to me anyway.
In this story in particular I think the writer is relied on taking from one character to give to the other which leaves the reader with no choice but to believe and agree.

what do you think?

[hillwalker]

You're asking 2 questions here.

Does the destiny of every character ever mentioned in a story have to be accounted for so we know they achieve closure?

What a strange idea. If so I imagine 'War and Peace' would probably finish up 5 times as long.

Is it fair to have heroes and villains in a story?

Well if every character in a story was bland and virtuous, and the reader had no way of differentiating between the two or no motivation to engage with one rather than the other, there wouldn't be much conflict or emotion to write about.

In other words : No plot = no story = no readers.

H

[cafolini]

I can understand why Cacian wants closure for every character, but that's not how living is. Yet, there is a point in this cacianation. What if there were closure for everything?
Asking that question is not pertinent because there is actually closure for everything as the story closes. Some characters simply close by not figuring in the score. What forbids that but a prejudice against the proper closure? Impertinent.

[Scheherazade]

Cinderella is in contrast their complete opposite, beautiful and obedient/kind. Cinderella is not obedient. She went to the ball!

And can you provide other examples from literature to support your point? I am not very comfortable making generalisations based on fairy tales.

What's more, I believe the more complex characters are, the more engaging they are. The assumption that some characters are all good while some others all bad is rather simplistic in my opinion.

[islandclimber]

Does the destiny of every character ever mentioned in a story have to be accounted for so we know they achieve closure?

What a strange idea. If so I imagine 'War and Peace' would probably finish up 5 times as long.


Forget 'War and Peace'! Imagine how ridiculously long 'In Search of Lost Time' would have become, though Proust did try to provide a destiny of sorts for many of the characters in his tale.

The worst example I can think of would be Peter Nadas' "Parallel Stories." 1100 some odd pages and I don't think he offers closure for any of his characters. Everything is left open-ended, like life. Even the multiple stories and plot-lines being related fail to tie into one another. It is messy, fragmented, schizophrenic, and wonderful.

Cacianation! Cafolini came up with a brilliant term here. I wonder if we could push for its inclusion in the next update of the OED? Maybe?

[cacian]

Cinderella is not obedient. She went to the ball!

And can you provide other examples from literature to support your point? I am not very comfortable making generalisations based on fairy tales.

What's more, I believe the more complex characters are, the more engaging they are. The assumption that some characters are all good while some others all bad is rather simplistic in my opinion.

I meant obedient in the sense that she was the step daughter whose dad has died hence the poorest by neglect. Obedience in the sense that she did not have a choice over her destiny until the ball that is.

About examples from literature I think of the Le Bossu de Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera both their characteristic are pitiful and their sheer 'ugliness' is accentuated by the fact they cannot could not get the girl they liked and to their tragedy death awaits. In fact it seems that the more the character is hindered with some kind of physical disability the more their opposite lead increases in likability physically but suspends in morality.
There is a moral disbelief a suspension of feelings and yet the reader feels compelled to go with the heroine rather then the hero.

These 'ugly' characters meet their death as a conclusion to their existence in the book. The rest is live happily ever after is another conclusion to the hero/heroine.

[cacian]

I can understand why Cacian wants closure for every character, but that's not how living is. Yet, there is a point in this cacianation. What if there were closure for everything?
Asking that question is not pertinent because there is actually closure for everything as the story closes. Some characters simply close by not figuring in the score. What forbids that but a prejudice against the proper closure? Impertinent.

Well in reality every person human beings meets their eventual closure through circumstances experiences and their children and death the ultimate conclusion. In books many characters remain unsolved and I do find reading stories where many do stand out in my mind because I have no idea what to them. I feel as a writer I must ensure some kind of relief to all characters so that credibility wins over readability. Readers are fussy and so gaps such as this do make books a little unreal. If we are to subplot our stories to our close realities we must bridge the gaps be tween characters in a story and characters in real life. That is a feasible link that will make any story credible.

[hillwalker]

Readers are fussy and so gaps such as this do make books a little unreal. If we are to subplot our stories to our close realities we must bridge the gaps be tween characters in a story and characters in real life.

Your insane generalisations and skewed reasoning are wrong on so many fundamental levels. Most intelligent readers employ their imagination when they read about fictional characters. They don't finish the book then become distraught because they don't know what happened to the guy who drove the taxi that the hero took in chapter 1 or the woman who served coffee to the heroine in chapter 8.

If you believe that death = closure then perhaps every single character in every novel should perish at the end. A kind of Texas Chain-saw Massacre where they all die happily ever after. That would presumably improve your own personal reading experience.

H

[stlukesguild]

:mad2: