As we discussed earlier there are basic literary archetypes/characters found across all media. My hypothesis is that different people perceive different characters/literary archetypes differently and that this caused by their different political views and cultural or religious backgrounds. This in turn affects how we read/perceive these archetypes and then as authors (creators of our own characters) how we portray these literary archetypes when we turn them into our own unique characters.
For instance Kharina (whom I know from Sinister Shadow’s Forum for a long time), is strongly anti-racism and strongly anti-war (a basically Politically Correct person), from appraising her various posts I would also say she is a gentle, thoughtful person who empathises easily. In her fanfiction stories Yeerks, especially the Peace Movement, are treated sympathetically as she is able to empathise with the Yeerks: having no eyes would be awful and you would do anything to see, and that most Yeerks are normal people who wish to live happy lives and wouldn’t consciously seek to harm their hosts. Cassie or Aftran is often her heroine. She is also definite that Rachel would’ve been unhappy had she survived book 54 as violence was too much part of her nature and whilst she is able to empathise with Jake, she finds his 17 thousand Yeerks utterly reprehensible.
That different people view and portray different heroic characters/literary archetypes in particular ways (either sympathetically played straight or unsympathetically deconstructed) likewise those same different people will view and portray different villain characters/literary archetypes (either unsympathetically played straight or sympathetically deconstructed. This is not itself bad: we all have our favourite characters/literary archetypes and choose to view and portray them differently.
I first started to articulate this hypothesis that our political and moral values affect our portrayal and perception of certain literary archetypes. When I read Riza San's 'As if by magic' on Fanfiction.net and noticed that Ax was portrayed very unsympathetically. Now I will admit that I am an Ax fan and would notice an unsympathetic portrayal of Ax more than I would notice an unsympathetic portrayal of Cassie. Like the Riza San, I am Australian and I am therefore familiar with the ideologies that are propagated by the Australian media and education system. Sadly this short piece has turned into a giant rant against the Australian media and education system. I sincerely apologise for the length and occasional irrelevance, but I have been having this thought for weeks.
I began to wonder what particular values the author might SUBCONSCIOUSLY hold and how this affected her portrayal of Ax. It is possible that that Ax represents all the values that are hated in today's politically correct Australian society: he is self controlled and stoical (except when it comes to food), where as the modern Australian media glorifies hysterical emotional people whilst castigating self control and stoicism. There are several legal cases that are emblematic of the Australian media’s distaste for stoicism and self control: Lindy Chamberlain was falsely convicted of murdering her baby girl because she did not sob hysterically in public and failed to act like a weak willed sook. Joanne Lees was also treated unsympathetically in by the Australian media because she also failed to act in a way that confirmed our ideas about how a grieving woman should behave. Conversely the hysterically emotional and very guilty, Schappelle Corby is lionised by a the Australian media, she was frequently seen crying and screaming throughout her trial and looking like a weak girl in need of protection…
Ax is elitist in his respect for rank and insistence on calling Jake ‘prince’ (though the latter ties in to Ax’s militarism see below) , which is contrary to the spirit of ‘mateship’ and ‘egalitarianism’ of the Australian education system, which is really over familiarity i.e. ‘calling total strangers by their first name in an effort to seem more matey’(previous generations often addressed each other by Mrs Brown or Miss Green etc) and ‘appealing to the lowest common denominator’. Of course Australian teachers are almost all Republicans and attempt to inculcate their students a distaste for tiles (shudder) like Prince (vomit).
Ax’s true eccentric relationship with food is also contrary to the Australian spirit of false eccentricity so admired by Australian journalists: Schappelle Corby, a stupid, conventional woman if ever the was one was, was glorified for her hysteria, hippy/criminal family (the media didn’t say this, they pretended that Corby was innocent) of course there is nothing eccentric or heretical about having a hippy criminal family, which is just immorality. Real eccentricity and heresy requires a difference of opinion and different, rather than immoral behaviour. Lindy Chamberlain, so demonised by the Australian media, was a Seventh Day Adventist and who dressed her baby girl in a black matinee jacket, her husband campaigned against smoking and alcohol using a tiny coffin. All of this was later construed as being part of a Seventh Day Adventist-Satanic cult and the woman was found guilty of murdering her baby for being genuinely eccentric!
Ax is intellectual gifted (in comparison to the other Animorphs) and as Orson Scott Card says in ‘Character and Viewpoint’ intellect is a certain way to make your protagonist unsympathetic to most readers as it typically an attribute of villains. This is especially prevalent in Australian media where it is called ‘tall poppy syndrome’
Leading on to Ax's formal language, and back to Orson Scott Card, who also noted that formal speech is an attribute of villains. This is even worse in the Australian education system that fails to fails to correct bad grammar/informal language on the grounds that this is elitist and bad for the childs self esteem. Sadly this distaste for formal language and grammar has even affected the English education system (the very origin of English and the home of Shakespeare, Austen and Elliot)…This is based on the ideas of Steven Pinker (Konrad Kottak also accepts this belief whole heartedly) that because grammar is innate, it is wrong and elitist to correct a child’s grammar and merely a way for the elites to shame the under-privileged. Theodore Dalrymple deconstructs this pernicious ideology brilliantly but that’s an aside.
Ax is a soldier and fully supportive of the military ethic: whilst respectful to authority (like calling Jake Prince) he ruthlessly seeks the necessary victories (as shown numerous times in the series), and whilst he may only be an aristh he comes across like a British officer. This is contrary to the anti war spirit of the Australian media and education system. Of which the long term Australian over emphasis of the Gallipoli disaster, whilst ignoring victory at Beersheba is an example of. The anti-war/pacifist stance of Australian teachers and journalists, who constantly decry justice as ‘revenge’, the journalists who weep profusely at the death of a soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan as if it were the end of the earth. I suspect this is done more to undermine the war effort than genuine sorrow for men who volunteer to fight- generally the Australian media after any disaster talks constantly of grief and sorrow and promotes the idea that we should ‘let our feelings go’ seems to undermine stoicism and military values…
Finally Ax is ethnocentric and rightfully proud of the achievements of Andalite culture and science, despite its flaws (treatment of disabled which is quite understandable for large herbivores, after all we shoot a horse that breaks its leg). This is obviously contrary to the spirit of cultural self hatred and multiculturalism that is the raining ideology in Australian media and education. Generally Australian teachers indoctrinate their students to feel ashamed of western culture and history, English and Australian history in particular. According to my year 10 history teacher, until the great and glorious Gough Whitlam came along, Australians were all evil, emotionally repressed, eugenicists, English imperialists (just see the movie rabbit proof fence for this black armband view of Australian history), fortunately he brought about the wonderful light of multiculturalism and ended all that evil. Any one who expresses any pride in traditional Australian culture is of course ethnocentric.
