Characterization and Optimus Prime

[leclairage]

So an anon over on CuriousCat a little while ago (come visit me, ask me questions!) asked about any headcanons I wanted to share and any tips I had about characterization. So I wrote a short essay, mostly about Optimus Prime and the different ways I like to write him. Thought I'd put it up here as well!

I feel a bit...weird about giving advice? or talking about my process? Because I still don't feel very experienced as a writer. But it's under the cut if you're interested!

Do I have any headcanons... I was trying to find one in particular to talk about, and what I realized is many of mine contradict each other. (Or they're going into fics that I don't want to spoil.)  

And the reason for that is I think of characterization as something malleable. When writing fic, usually you're trying to keep things 'in character,' so that what you're writing matches up with the character archetypes of the source material. To do that you have to figure out which elements of that character are essential or recognizable. But there's always wiggle room to work with. 

For example, you might say a key character trait of G1 Optimus Prime is that he's calm and collected. But is he calm and collected because he's a little repressed? Because he knows his troops need calm from him, so he relies on sheer will power? Because he has a deep well of self-confidence and wisdom? Because the power of the Matrix is helping him keep a clear head? Is it a combination of those things? Writing a faultlessly self-confident Optimus Prime is very different from writing an Optimus Prime who is hiding his doubts behind a facade of calm. I generally lean on the 'hiding his doubts' side, but I like a combination.  

Once you pick even just one key trait and decide why it's there, a lot of other things fall out from that. If Optimus is holding himself together with will power, superglue, and the Matrix, then he's also a bit lonely, he isn't very open with others, he's reserved. In a story, breaking that facade is a whole character arc. If he's calm because he's faultlessly self-confident, maybe he's also a little arrogant, and breaking that open is a character arc (cough Last Mech Standing cough). And once you add other key traits in, you get a fuller perspective. 

And those traits can contradict each other a bit. Like, Optimus is honorable. Optimus cares about others. Optimus loves playing basketball (that's canon!). And all of those are malleable too: what kind of morality/honor does he subscribe to? He's playful, well, why? When? How much? And what might push him to act 'out of character?' Which is so, so much fun to play with. For Optimus, Megatron is a great way to push him to act out of character. And that's canon! Is Optimus Prime the type to resort to low personal insults? No! Unless it's Megatron. 

Which is one of my favorite tips—characterization is affected by context. What is your character like talking to their best friend versus talking to their worst enemy? Or their crush? Optimus talking to Ratchet is wildly different from Optimus talking to Megatron, for example.

Comments

[astolat]

I loved reading this! :D Would love to see another for Megatron if you are so inclined. <3

[yvannairie]

*nods along as I read this* Pretty solid, pretty solid. OP definitely lends himself to multiple reads, because that heavy performative edge is such a key feature of the Optimus Archetype -- you can go shallow or go deep with it, and often the arc is seeing how deep you can go with it while operating within the constraints of that archetype.

That being said, something about this... doesn't quite sit right with me. Maybe it's just the format but the way you pair up certain traits and behaviours... doesn't feel like it's quite that simple? Like, say, I can see ball-of-anxiety Optimus being just as capable of being a bit of an arrogant prat because he obfuscates his motivations, or professes one set of motivations while holding onto another, more risk-averse one, and Flawlessly Confident Godly Prat Optimus probably spends a lot of time massaging the anxieties of the people around him who aren't as confident, being more confident in assuming risk.

When you're reverse engineering an existing character, applying constraints to your interpretation of them is useful... at first. But I get the feeling that you might sell your own understanding of Optimus a bit short if you think your interpretations "contradict each other", because characters with more than two dimensions by necessity end up with some behaviours that go crosswise to their motivations and principles. If you kind of... take the various aspects of Optimus you describe, I don't get a sense that you're actually looking at different "takes" on the same character, but rather a potentially more full-bodied individual character portrait.

Then again, you only mention G1 Optimus in the post, and I'm just having the worst time trying to delineate for myself when you're talking about his motivations, his self-reflections and his actions, so maybe what I'm perceiving as hedging is actually some combination of trying to delineate G1 OP from the Optimus Archetype combined with me just being bad at reading.

Either way, I enjoyed this :D I'd be interested in hearing you unpack how you write other characters, what you think the key interpretational branches of their character are, and how it informs your character voice for them.

[leclairage]

Oh, for sure, I definitely wasn't trying to definitively describe G1 OP—I think he's a complex character and 'calm' is only one key trait. (Also, I discovered that CuriousCat has a character limit while writing the initial post, so it's fairly truncated as a result.)

I agree with you about the two main examples I gave (calm because he's confident OP and calm but secretly anxious OP) having some overlap in the details of the character that results from the two interpretations. Absolutely, the OP who is internally confident and self-assured can be a little arrogant *and also* kind and caring to others who are anxious. And once you add in his other, sort of, key archetype traits so to speak, the picture gets even more complicated. How those traits all interact together gets us an even more complex picture of who he is as a character.

I was more trying to illustrate the point that, regardless of the details, the two interpretations of G1 OP's character (confident v anxious) both fit his character archetype? They're both in-character interpretations of canon (imo)? In the sense that both interpretations match to a key trait*: calmness. I have written him both ways, or somewhere in the middle—which has resulted in different character arcs for OP.

(Also it was supposed to be a response less about OP himself and more about characterization. God knows I could write a lot more about the full spectrum of Optimus Prime's character and his potential interpretations.)

As far as 'contradictions' go—you're absolutely right. Contradictory character traits aren't a problem per se. I was talking more about the process of how I got around to talking about OP's character in my response, if that makes sense. I was thinking about him going, oh he's like this, except no, he could also be like this instead, and I could/have written him as either/or or both.

I do think that I was describing two different variations on the same character—not just a more complete, three dimensional interpretation. (Though I absolutely take your point that the combination of those variations into one thing is a really interesting result.)

I was thinking about my own writing primarily, where I have had in mind two different interpretations of the same character in this way—in Domestic Affairs, Optimus spends a lot of time second-guessing himself. Like, a lot of time. He's also a little arrogant too, but simultaneously humble, comfortable with vulnerability. In Last Mech Standing (which, I don't know how I manage to write PWP that turns into like, character studies, but it keeps happening) he's on the other end of the spectrum. Very self-confident, decisive, even impulsive, and arrogant. And in some ways the fic is about Megatron just ruthlessly taking him down a peg, and Optimus getting a little more humility. Through...sex. Because that's my brand.

Thanks for engaging with this—I, uh, really love talking about OP in case you hadn't guessed ;)

(Re: G1 OP v the OP archetype, I think the main thing that separates G1 OP from the generic archetype is honestly his dad jokes? He's playful, and he's 100% a dad.)

[yvannairie]

Oh no, you saw right through my plan to get you to elaborate on your OP thoughts :P whatever am I going to do now, I guess I'm just gonna have to sit here and talk back to you so you say more delightful smart things like I knew you would.

All facetiousness aside -- the combination of a character limit and trying to do more of an view-from-up-high "characterisation 101" post explains why the original sounded strangely nonspecific and general. I am Entirely Unsurprised and also Immensely Delighted by your grasp of his character, and what you said pretty much gave me an uncontrollable urge to yank at an frayed corner I found because??? That can't have been all of it, can it?

Also, knowing better what you mean by writing different versions of the same character (re: your comparison of Domestic Affairs!OP and Last Mech Standing!OP) does make me see the merit in that wording even if it leaves me kind of ">:|c???" on the inside. I tend to approach characterisation as much more of a four-dimensional melange, where the different "versions" of a character are honestly more, just... the same person, but in different lighting, from different angles and under different circumstances. It's more of a Continuous Mess Of Nonsense, and the only time I'd use your phrasing is when I'm talking about AU versions of the continuity in question.

Ultimately, like I said in my previous comment, something about the original post read as... hedging for me, which stuck out really bad because I definitely know your grasp on character is less shallow than that :'3 I'm glad you took the time to clarify.

(Also Re: G1 OP vs the OP archetype -- you're so right, G1 OP being such a giant doofus is definitely one of the reasons he's such a Big Mood good guy comfort character. I've said it elsewhere that OP's defining feature as a member of the Red-White-And-Blue Boyscout Values club is his humanity, but even that humanity can take on different aspects depending on which continuity we're talking about, and for G1 it's definitely that sense of warmth and good humour he has, it's great.)

[leclairage]

<3 <3 <3

I like your idea of a "Continuous Mess of Nonsense" lol. Optimus Prime contains multitudes, in a manner of speaking. But re: different 'versions' of the same character, a lot of what I find myself doing when writing fic is bridging the gap of the lack of information we have from the source material? For most non-book fandoms, you don't have any canon material told from the point-of-view of individual characters. In G1 we never get OP's inner thoughts. If I want to write a fic that's told from 3rd person limited, with internal monologue and thoughts and motivations, I'm pretty much making that up.

So I approach it as, the actions the character takes in canon are a fulcrum that their core personality revolves around. (Though, in fairness, there are a lot of things about G1 that I just wholesale ignore because...it's G1.) Like, you have a set of actions or statements, and you have to tie them together with a personality. The more detailed the set of canon actions etc, the less flexibility you have on defining the character's personality. So that's what I'm thinking about when I say 'wiggle room' about a character. (And I do still thinks that's true even in cases where you do get inner thoughts, to an extent.)

To go off for a bit about G1 OP—part of why I think his character is flexible is because we don't get nearly as much information about his motivations for *being where he is* in canon present day, than we do for most characters in leadership positions. Because he's the dockworker who wakes up in a new body and then, uh, surprise becomes the leader of their entire race? But none of that was *on purpose*—so how he feels about it is an open question.

And he could have any number of different feelings about that without contradicting canon necessarily: from 'this is a horrible burden and I wish anyone else were in charge' to him enjoying power and buying into his own myth—with lots of different possibilities in between.

(hehe @ 'Red-White-And-Blue Boyscout Values club' so true. I really want to write a fic that's focused on his humor but I haven't figured out the shape of it yet.)