Forum - View topicThe "Whiny" Card: Valid or Not?
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Akane the Catgirl
Posts: 1091 Location: LA, Baby! |
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If you've been around the forums at all, you might have seen a certain "criticism" applied to characters like Shinji Ikari or Madoka Kaname. What am I talking about? I am, of course, talking about the classic "whiny emo kid" complaint you see too many times in too many discussions. But the question is, is it a valid criticism? Here's my personal opinion to start you off:
Most of the time, no. To me, just because a character cries or makes it very clear that the situation they are in is horrible doesn't necessarily mean they are whining about it. Often or not, the problematic situations they are in are indeed very problematic. From witnessing the deaths of loved ones to being rejected and feeling alienated, these characters are forced to go through hell and back, and even then, they might not get their happy ending. The case of Shinji Ikari is especially weird because he's well-written from the perspective of a character drama but terribly-written from the point of a narrative. I do believe he has interesting conflict and has a well-rounded personality and a genuinely sympathetic backstory. The problem to me doesn't lie with him so much as his character arc has nothing to do with the overall mystery the story sets up. With Madoka Kaname, my personal interpretation of the story as that she is not the main character. In fact, I don't believe there is a main character in Madoka Magica at all. Rather, Madoka is a viewpoint character, introduced to an unfair system and forced to watch her mentor and best friend get put through hell, and she unable to do anything to ease their suffering due to the meddling of a mysterious protector. Still, she performs seemingly small actions that impact the plot in huge ways even before the end. With that out of the way, why is fandom culture so averse to this particular archetype. Once again, here's my theory: 1) Fan-entitlement Most stereotypical fanboys are here not because they want a well-written story, but because of escapism. They want to plunge deep into a fictional world where they can be doted on by sexed-up harem girls or be the white knight, or in the case of fan girls, be surrounded by sparkly bishies. So when they see that their main character isn't a cardboard self-insert, they're going to throw a huge tantrum about it. They wouldn't sit there and cry about it! They'd be awesome! 2) Societal Expectations This especially applies to male characters who cry. In our society, boys are taught to hide their emotions and release their anger and sadness through violence or other actions. We are told that emotions are feminine and that men acting in ways that are stereotypically feminine is a Bad Thing. Honestly, would you see as much complaining about Shinji if Gainax did go through with their original plans and make him a girl? You did, didn't you? 3) Dissonance (Loosely tying in with #1) We know that these stories are fictional. We know these characters aren't real. Let's take it a step further; I bet most of you never had to deal with witnessing the sudden death of a close friend or family member. I'm pretty sure a whole lot of you were never neglected by a parent or had to deal with a mental illness. Fans watching shows featuring your Shinjis or your Madokas can't relate to them because they don't know and/or don't care about what it's like to go through something like what I just mentioned. That's my theory. Does anyone want to contribute or add their own theories? |
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Vaisaga
 Posts: 13224 |
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Actually I think it's more the case that a whiny character is too much of a self-insert. People like to think if they were in the same situation they'd be all awesome and stuff, but deep down they know they'd be just as depressed and reluctant. We lash out at people too similar to ourselves because we can see the traits we don't like about ourselves in them. Shinji is definitely a case where he has every right to be depressed. His life genuinely sucks. There have been characters who I felt complained for no reason. Akito from Nadesico for example. He had tons of girls after him, he got to pilot a robot like Gekiganger, and he was treated fairly well in general. But he'd still whine about it and hide in his room most of the time. |
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Errinundra
Moderator
 Posts: 6523 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
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I took it as Nadesico taking the piss out of the whiny main character trope, ie no matter how good he has it, he'll whinge. As to the Akane the Catgirl's thesis, while I don't want to get into yet another NGE discussion, I repudiate the assertion that Madoka is whiny. She bears much worry with little complaint. |
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DJStarstryker
 Posts: 140 |
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Whiny characters have the same problem as the "every man/woman" characters: they feel bland because they are too much like your average person. I personally think it doesn't have anything to do with societal expectations or dissonance. There are characters that go against those things that people like. It's all about the escapism aspect. If they are "too" real, then they feel boring. They are like you or people you know.
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Lain'sHairline
 Posts: 158 Location: Dallas, TX |
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Major props for posting this thread and challenging the conventional "wisdom" of anime fans about this subject.
Since I'm newer I haven't seen the brunt of what you're referring to but from experience I've never called a MC whiny, maybe I've been lucky enough to avoid bad series entirely or I just don't use that adjective in context with anime. |
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Yttrbio
 Posts: 3652 |
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I'll just vote for "Boring" as the problem. There are a lot of consumers (myself included) who watch things for entertainment value and couldn't care less about the character arc of a character like Shinji, or whether his reaction is appropriate to his situation. I found him to be obnoxious for the same reason I was rolling my eyes all throughout reading Catcher in the Rye. At the end of the day, I just didn't care what the author/writer wanted to say. Why would I? He's just some guy, and watching someone else masturbate (essentially) is no kind of fun.
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jl07045
 Posts: 1527 Location: Riga, Latvia |
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I'd say it's first and foremost a psychological defensive reaction. One of the main roles of a protagonist is to anchor us into a story. We are supposed to attach ourselves to the protagonist to experience it, so we're obviously invested more into what the protagonist is doing. A healthy mind usually resists depression/insecurity unless it is strong enough to overwhelm it, so the reader/spectator is more likely to put a distance between themselves and the protagonist.
There's also expectations. You watch/read something, but find it boring or not doing what you want it to do. You get angry, but instead of being angry at yourself for not dropping it, you vent it out on the easiest target, which often is the whiny character. |
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ChibiKangaroo
 Posts: 2941 |
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I'll just refute the OP's main point with a comparison:
Yoko Nakajima/Usagi - Whiny/emo character done right Shinji/Madoka - Whiny/emo character done wrong The difference should be obvious, but if anyone is unclear I'll explain. |
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Ignatz
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It is not at all clear to me. Care to explain?
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FenixFiesta
Posts: 2581 |
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Remove the overt setting for a bit in Madoka and we can observe that she has misgivings about her hum drum normal life, there is little doubt that she has self esteem problems and that Madoka doubts her life won't make a difference in the world, this is blatantly a paralleled existence to Homura where the key difference is that Madoka has a network of childhood friends that she can get her mind off of her self loathing issues.
Madoka is written decently as a youth that is having trouble seeing where life will take them even if most of the negative feelings are of a self constructed variety. |
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Chiibi
 Posts: 4828 |
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Akane wins the forum for this thread. Calling a character "whiny" when their life absolutely sucks and crying is a healthy human reaction is complete BS.
I don't want a robot who doesn't emote for a main protagonist. I want a person I can feel sorry for and root for. People's standards for "characters" these days are f*cking ridiculous. |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Madoka wasn't whiny at all, especially given the circumstances.
Shinji was indeed whiny, but he had a right to be given how effed up his life was. People who think that characters should be awesome 100% of the time and never feel any doubt or fear or sadness . . . well those people really piss me off.
Or a Mary/Gary Stu either. |
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12skippy21
 Posts: 785 Location: York, England |
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You should not hold anime characters up to a higher class of individual over 3D people. Humans tend to be whiny and annoying at least some of time, so by creating flawed characters we tend to moan about them because it reminds us of normal life. Meanwhile "shounen" heroes or Mary-Stu's as dtm42 put it tend to be characters we idolise as it represents how we wish to be, similar to Superman.
I agree that flawed characters, even those that piss me off (Shinji being one of them), are better than perfect individuals as it limits what you can do from a story telling point of view. |
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Kruszer
 Posts: 7983 Location: Minnesota, USA |
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There are some legitimate bounds for criticizing "whiny" characters if their actions are extremely irrational and hurtful towards others (EX: Quess Paraya from Gundam: Char's Counterattack), but in most cases that does not apply. Normally, I just take it in stride. So what if I don't like that character because he's emo? It doesn't mean the show is bad, or he can't play an integral part in the story.
Also on a side note, I find it rather amusing when people complain that fictional characters aren't like real people. Fiction is escapism where a narrow field of possibilities, called reality, expands into wider infinite possibilities where impossible stuff happens daily, so I just think it's a really dumb thing to complain about. |
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Chiibi
Posts: 4828 |
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True but you do need to make your char somewhat human...otherwise your audience would not be able to relate to him or her, thus probably wouldn't be able to get invested in their story. |
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