MISC: Do what extent do NON writer characters have free will?

[Andrew Perron]

On Tue, 5 Jun 2012 03:55:17 +0000 (UTC), Tom Russell wrote:

> It's funny-- I'm a big proponent of free will, and people defining 
> themselves and making their own destiny, but WikiBoy, as originally 
> conceived, is very much about someone who has no free will, because he has 
> no self-definition.  He's the victim *because* it's not fair.  He is (not 
> to get hoity-toity about my own stuff) something of an Absurdist hero, in 
> that the world he resides in is a meaningless and amoral one[*]; to tip the 
> scales the other way negates this.

Yeah, but... hmmmmm. This is actually something that's been bothering me
about WikiBoy for a while, but my thoughts on it have only recently come
together into coherent form. Warning for probably pretentious:

You wrote an article awhile back - 2006, perhaps? - about shared universes,
and how different stories and different tones can coexist within one,
enriching each other and the setting as a whole. I completely agree, and
think that that's a very important aspect to creating a successful one.

But... essentially, having an Absurdist story going on in the middle of a
bunch of stories about Justice and Heroism - and more to the point, having
the characters in the latter *aware of the former* and not doing anything
about it - I think weakens both.

Certainly, the general thrust of my work, beyond the humorous aspect, is
about characters working not just to support the status quo but to change
it in a positive way. (I dunno how much that's come out, mind you, due to
my perennial slowness in getting storylines completed, but...) And to have
a story about the Kafkaesque Catch-22 baked-in unavoidable unpleasantness
of existence side-by-side with a story about how seemingly unavoidable
unpleasant situations can be resolved through simple communication... well,
you see my point.

Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, hrm.