The paradox of charming character flaws

if I were to ask you to describe a Charming character who would come to mind first would it be the protagonist or hero someone charismatic sometimes but just as often it can be a villain or anti-hero because a character's charm often comes down to those little moments where they do something that scratches that satisfying part of your brain things and stories that you can't help but smile at like a character being awkward but trying his best maybe someone being unreasonably stubborn in acute and sincere way or maybe it's an elf that's lived thousands of years that somehow stole finds ways to be childish my name is pay and today we're talking about how subtle faults can sometimes lead to remarkable charm Charming stories are kind of enigmatic it's hard to put your finger on what exactly makes something so Charming it's kind of like explaining a joke but sometimes stories come along and do something so well that it's obvious frein Beyond Journey's End which is an incredibly Charming show is a perfect example of this storytelling is a subjective art form that doesn't mean you can't try to look at stories through an objective lens it just means that you always be influenced by taste and opinion there's no absolute just general perception and the individual cases people make for specific pieces of Art and when looking at components of stories some things are more tangible than others take for example writing grammar sides more on the objective and Pros starts to slide more into the subjective and I think in that ballpark of more subjective and less tangible aspects of Storytelling is charm furin is a show that I've seen a lot of people praise for having Charming writing and character characters and I do think that I found a major contributing factor to that charm good character faults a common issue for inexperienced writers is creating Perfect characters but a fundamental part of stories with some exceptions is change a common type of change in stories is character arcs and development and for a character to develop there has to be room to grow this is one of the fundamental parts of why character faults are so important however it's not the only benefit to writing flawed characters imperfect characters are constantly used to set up conflict or create Stakes they can be obstacles or set up a Redemption Arc and more than anything imperfection is realistic in reality humans are flawed so well-placed realistic imperfections can help audiences suspend their disbelief and even in some situations well-placed faults can lead to incredibly Charming characters so essentially I'm arguing that there are many potential benefits to writing characters with clear faults to some people this might be obvious but to others it might feel weird that giving an audience potentially reasons to dislike a character can actually contribute to them being more likable so let's apply these lines of logic to ferin not just the show but also the character more tangible examples might help clarify my argument and I want to narrow the scope a little bit so today we're going to primarily be focusing on just episode 4 but I do think that these writing decisions permeate throughout the entire series I'm sure you'll have your own examples come to mind too Fen isn't the only character in the story with well-written faults but I do think she's the most important given her background and abilities if fan was perfect I think it would lead to a really boring story and also think this archetype of the Everlasting elf in Fantasy is so often mishandled it feels like they're constantly written to be beautiful and perfect and wise or harsh and cold which is funny cuz fearing kind of does both of those things but they navigated it so much more eloquently let's start with something that's simple but stupid frein doesn't handle the cold very well it's a reoccurring character trait that is consistent across the series this along with traits like sleeping in and making a mess all feel like they're part of this overarching fault of Fan's almost childish nature it leads to this incredibly interesting character Dynamic where Fern very often fills the function of fen's mother there's something about the irony of it that I find actually very funny which leads nicely into this other idea which I actually originally found in a Reddit discussion this user Aaron is not a devil specifically talks about this idea of the difference between a long lifespan and a long youth in some ways fan as a character feels a bit like an oxymoron she's lived for thousands of years and also sometimes very childish and then there's this reoccurring thing that happens that's really interesting with Haider and a couple other characters where as they age around her they treat her with this reverence because she's wise and has lived thousands of years but they also treat her like she's in the peak of her youth because the character kind of is in many ways she feels 26 which is maybe me projecting cuz I'm 26 and actually if you look at the central conflict in this story it kind of reminds me of missing handling responsibility as a young adult and kind of realizing it was a mistake regretting the decision like having not called your mom enough except in this situation it's not her mom it's a beautiful kind and very vain hero who shared a 10-year adventure with her and taught her many lessons and then died now this youthfulness we actually see explored a lot in this episode and it's fun it works really well and somehow becomes very Charming there's something almost humanizing about it which is kind of a weird thing to say about the main character of one of your stories but Fan's Arc is built around the fact that she struggles to connect with those around her when I saw them representing those difficulties I was worried that they would make her a uninteresting character but she's so expressive and I love it take for example episode 4 once again it's broken into two major segments but today we're just talking about the first Fen and fern take on a longer job to clean up a beach with tons of Shipwrecked litter in exchange they'll get a tone written by the historic Mage FL now this is a really cool moment because it's so so multifaceted there's three things this shows the first is that Fern knows that it's not a legitimate to Fern Having learned her lesson from last week is starting to read her history books and understand Theory better her lessons have taught her that all Toms from flame are fakes second this foreshadows the end of episode 4 but that's for next week and finally this means Fen is willing to do this work for essentially no compensation fan originally says that this is just to help someone in need but when Fern presses her she admits that it's also a bit self- serving this job represents something more significant to her it's part of retracing her old Journey now this is where I think things get really cool they start to reveal all those faults that I was talking about before fen's childish Tendencies and outside of the charm it brings to the character it also serves the plot and we find out when she was here last with himl Haider and Eisen she had chosen not to share an experience with them instead choosing to sleep in so every year this town celebrates the New Year by watching the sunrise over over the water it's supposed to be absolutely beautiful and Fen chose not to come last time she was here with the hero's party and so the goal of the job is to clean the beach by the time of the New Year's Festival there's more Shenanigans like fear and trying to stay up all night to show up instead of just waking up early which for me is incredibly relatable and pretty immediately she fails falling asleep but Fern gets her out of bed and to the beach for the sunrise to my surprise as the audience member the sunrise ends up being a little bit unremarkable comparable to many of the other beautiful views we've seen in the show so far are but there is a cool lesson value in the shared experience this little story is slow and I don't think offers a huge amount of substance outside of the impact of the final scene when Fen sees the value in the sunrise simply INF Fern's expression which is why I stand by this video so much because as I rewatched this episode I found myself completely engaged primarily because of that charm and then somehow they found a way to incorporate those little Charming moments into crucial plot points it's a simple and con incise story and it ties beautifully into what comes next the central a plot of the entire season but I don't think this story is about the plot sometimes in stories we get that moment where you find out it was never about the destination but the journey all along I think Fen Embraces that from the get-go I'm not implying that the plot isn't great just unimportant but that's for next week's video because Fen is an incredibly character-driven story that wouldn't be the same or hit so hard without its incredible charm thanks this is the fifth video in a running series I'm starting to call exploring furin if you enjoyed it consider going and checking out the other for or come back next week I'm actually a little sick so if you notice that in my voice sorry if you want to support me or the series consider going to my patreon there's a link in the description thanks see you next week

Channel: pey talks anime

Views: 54,551

Keywords: anime, anime video essay, pey, pey the musician, frieren pey, frieren series, frieren video essay, pey frieren

Id: sB8QNiMdld0

Length: 8min 19sec (499 seconds)

Published: Tue May 14 2024