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It's strange, sometimes, what upsets you in fiction. Strange the things that push your buttons. Usually, I don't tend to get upset at things if they're presented as a character's viewpoint (though I yell at characters plenty for them). I usually only really get upset if the story is set up in such a way to make something that offends/hurts me seem justified beyond the scope of the story. I mean, if the story is set up so that we're supposed to come away thinking such-and-such a thing is right.
(Conversely, I have no trouble with a story setting out to make a statement that, under some circumstances, a terrible thing may be necessary. Because, horribly, sometimes they are, if they are the lesser of evils. But. Lesser of evils is still evil. Necessity is not the same as justification. A character who chooses the lesser of evils out of necessity does not, in doing so, make themselves evil, provided they remember that it was evil. So long as they do not think they were right to do it. But that's ... Anyway. Moving on ...)
(Conversely, I have no trouble with a story setting out to make a statement that, under some circumstances, a terrible thing may be necessary. Because, horribly, sometimes they are, if they are the lesser of evils. But. Lesser of evils is still evil. Necessity is not the same as justification. A character who chooses the lesser of evils out of necessity does not, in doing so, make themselves evil, provided they remember that it was evil. So long as they do not think they were right to do it. But that's ... Anyway. Moving on ...)
One of the things that I've met in a couple of stories that ... well, that upset me, was a number of characters getting angry at someone for not trusting them, and the story seemingly agreeing with them on it. Because that ...
You cannot demand that someone trust you. Seriously. You cannot demand trust from someone, not on your terms. Trust is, only and ever, earned from someone on their terms, or else it's not really trust. It's ... that strange combination of resignation and acceptance and desperation and hope and lack of other options that makes a man take his enemy's hand when he's hanging off a cliff. Not because he trusts his enemy to help him, but because he has no other option. That isn't trust. That's hope and fear and lack of choices (and an extreme example, yes, but you get the picture).
I've read things like ... oh, a surviving Blake magnanimously forgiving Avon for the sin of not trusting him, which ... which rubs me completely the wrong way, because a lack of trust? That's not a crime. That's not something that needs forgiving, because it wasn't wrong in the first place. Avon, by that stage, had no reason to trust Blake, and a string of betrayals just behind him that made him incredibly unlikely to trust anyone. Blake, in that story, had no right to forgive him a lack of trust, because Blake had no right to expect trust in the first place, or demand it. Now, Blake most certainly had a right to forgive Avon (or not) for shooting him, because attempted murder, no matter how understandable, is certainly something someone is allowed to get upset over. But he'd no right to demand trust, and be offended when it wasn't supplied, and hand down forgiveness from on high for the lack.
(Just as a side note, characterisation of Blake in fanfics seems to vary hugely, and some upset me more than others. Heh. It's just a thing)
I've seen it in other places, too. Highlander fanfic, sometimes, when people get upset at Methos that he has a squirrelly way out of any situation, and a back-up route should even his closest friends decide that a five-thousand-year-old Quickening would taste yummy. Which doesn't bother me on its own, because Duncan is just the kind of person to genuinely get upset over that, and that's understandable. It's when the author does this thing where Duncan is proved right, that Methos should have trusted him all along, and Methos agrees by the end of it that 5000 years of experience and reasons for lack of trust should get bumped aside, and he should blindly follow the kid. Which ... is kinda not really Methos. Forcing a character to trust another character for the sake of a fic is ... Well, firstly, kinda cheap-feeling, and secondly, weirds me the hell out.
That said, of course, I've seen some fabulous stories where characters earn trust, on the trust-giver's terms. I'm very fond of those stories. It's just the ones where the writer seems to think that the 'hero' should be trusted automatically by everyone they meet, regardless of the personal reasons/motives of other characters. The one where the story seems to set out to prove that distrusting such-and-such a character, even if it's only by having an extra back-door for themselves on the off-chance that the hero gets a bit shirty, makes a character morally wrong.
I just ... it's something I see in fanfic sometimes (and pro-fiction, too), and it really, really upsets me. This idea that trust is something you can demand. That you do a set number of good deeds for somebody, or spend a set amount of time with them, or behave a certain way towards them, and then you can automatically expect them to trust you, and have a right to get upset if they don't. Because ... trust doesn't work like that. Trust is something someone gives you, when some internal standard is met, or some internal threshhold reached. It is not something you may demand, as payment for actions or lack thereof. You can demand resignation, acceptance, compliance, but not trust. You can persuade someone that you are the best option of many or few, but that is not the same as trust. Trust is not something you have a right to. It is something you are gifted.
I understand characters getting upset. I understand people getting upset, when they don't understand the reasons for someone's distrust, when they wonder what, exactly, they have to do to earn a suspicious character's trust. I understand that anger. But the fact is, trust cannot be demanded of someone, and no-one, ever, has the right to say 'I have done this for you, now you must trust me'. Even if the story seems to think they do.
I just ... I understand, too, that there are situations where someone's lack of trust gets people killed. See above, regarding Blake. A lack of trust there had spectacularly bad results. And I understand, too, that someone has the right not to want to go into danger with someone who doesn't trust them at their back, because they don't know what that person will do. But the solution to that is not to somehow attempt to force them into trusting you, to demand it of them. If a person cannot trust you, they cannot trust you, and the reasons for it may have nothing to do with you. It may be, then, that they are not the person to stand beside you, but that's not their fault. Trust cannot be forced, not even by the person themselves.
*grumbles* Is this the point to admit that I don't trust those 'trust-building exercises' you hear so much about? Or, perhaps, to admit that I'm not much of a team-player? Heh. But. I don't like this idea, that trust is something that may be bought, asked for, or demanded. That trust is withheld by some conscious choice, and the person who withholds it is committing some sort of crime against whoever thinks they've earned it. Trust, at least in my experience, doesn't work that way. And trying to force it only makes me extremely wary of someone, even if that someone is just the writer of a fanfic.
Okay. End of mini-rant. Heh.
You cannot demand that someone trust you. Seriously. You cannot demand trust from someone, not on your terms. Trust is, only and ever, earned from someone on their terms, or else it's not really trust. It's ... that strange combination of resignation and acceptance and desperation and hope and lack of other options that makes a man take his enemy's hand when he's hanging off a cliff. Not because he trusts his enemy to help him, but because he has no other option. That isn't trust. That's hope and fear and lack of choices (and an extreme example, yes, but you get the picture).
I've read things like ... oh, a surviving Blake magnanimously forgiving Avon for the sin of not trusting him, which ... which rubs me completely the wrong way, because a lack of trust? That's not a crime. That's not something that needs forgiving, because it wasn't wrong in the first place. Avon, by that stage, had no reason to trust Blake, and a string of betrayals just behind him that made him incredibly unlikely to trust anyone. Blake, in that story, had no right to forgive him a lack of trust, because Blake had no right to expect trust in the first place, or demand it. Now, Blake most certainly had a right to forgive Avon (or not) for shooting him, because attempted murder, no matter how understandable, is certainly something someone is allowed to get upset over. But he'd no right to demand trust, and be offended when it wasn't supplied, and hand down forgiveness from on high for the lack.
(Just as a side note, characterisation of Blake in fanfics seems to vary hugely, and some upset me more than others. Heh. It's just a thing)
I've seen it in other places, too. Highlander fanfic, sometimes, when people get upset at Methos that he has a squirrelly way out of any situation, and a back-up route should even his closest friends decide that a five-thousand-year-old Quickening would taste yummy. Which doesn't bother me on its own, because Duncan is just the kind of person to genuinely get upset over that, and that's understandable. It's when the author does this thing where Duncan is proved right, that Methos should have trusted him all along, and Methos agrees by the end of it that 5000 years of experience and reasons for lack of trust should get bumped aside, and he should blindly follow the kid. Which ... is kinda not really Methos. Forcing a character to trust another character for the sake of a fic is ... Well, firstly, kinda cheap-feeling, and secondly, weirds me the hell out.
That said, of course, I've seen some fabulous stories where characters earn trust, on the trust-giver's terms. I'm very fond of those stories. It's just the ones where the writer seems to think that the 'hero' should be trusted automatically by everyone they meet, regardless of the personal reasons/motives of other characters. The one where the story seems to set out to prove that distrusting such-and-such a character, even if it's only by having an extra back-door for themselves on the off-chance that the hero gets a bit shirty, makes a character morally wrong.
I just ... it's something I see in fanfic sometimes (and pro-fiction, too), and it really, really upsets me. This idea that trust is something you can demand. That you do a set number of good deeds for somebody, or spend a set amount of time with them, or behave a certain way towards them, and then you can automatically expect them to trust you, and have a right to get upset if they don't. Because ... trust doesn't work like that. Trust is something someone gives you, when some internal standard is met, or some internal threshhold reached. It is not something you may demand, as payment for actions or lack thereof. You can demand resignation, acceptance, compliance, but not trust. You can persuade someone that you are the best option of many or few, but that is not the same as trust. Trust is not something you have a right to. It is something you are gifted.
I understand characters getting upset. I understand people getting upset, when they don't understand the reasons for someone's distrust, when they wonder what, exactly, they have to do to earn a suspicious character's trust. I understand that anger. But the fact is, trust cannot be demanded of someone, and no-one, ever, has the right to say 'I have done this for you, now you must trust me'. Even if the story seems to think they do.
I just ... I understand, too, that there are situations where someone's lack of trust gets people killed. See above, regarding Blake. A lack of trust there had spectacularly bad results. And I understand, too, that someone has the right not to want to go into danger with someone who doesn't trust them at their back, because they don't know what that person will do. But the solution to that is not to somehow attempt to force them into trusting you, to demand it of them. If a person cannot trust you, they cannot trust you, and the reasons for it may have nothing to do with you. It may be, then, that they are not the person to stand beside you, but that's not their fault. Trust cannot be forced, not even by the person themselves.
*grumbles* Is this the point to admit that I don't trust those 'trust-building exercises' you hear so much about? Or, perhaps, to admit that I'm not much of a team-player? Heh. But. I don't like this idea, that trust is something that may be bought, asked for, or demanded. That trust is withheld by some conscious choice, and the person who withholds it is committing some sort of crime against whoever thinks they've earned it. Trust, at least in my experience, doesn't work that way. And trying to force it only makes me extremely wary of someone, even if that someone is just the writer of a fanfic.
Okay. End of mini-rant. Heh.
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