poll results: Jossverse characters
Apr. 2nd, 2005 08:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wisdomeagleSo if your attention span is longer than mine, you might recall that about I month ago a polled you (and all of fandom with you) on your Jossverse character preferences. Still busy procrastinating on my thesis, I finally present to you the results.
I'm not going to restate the questions I asked; if they've slipped your mind or you never saw them before, I encourage you to check out the original post.
Writing Characters
Writing Characters' Emotions:
I asked about how people feel about their ability to capture characters' emotional state when they're writing fic. The seven easiest characters to write, according to my pollees:
Spike (107)
Xander (101)
Dawn (95)
Willow (94)
Wesley (93)
Tara (92)
Giles (90)
It's interesting to note that, with the exception of Wesley, all these characters are B:tVS mainstays. I'm not sure how else to generalize, except that all these characters were title credits characters for at least three seasons, with of course the exception of Tara, who's an anomaly because by all rights she should have been in the credits S5/6. All these characters are also "normals" -- with the exception of Spike. I'm fascinated by the ease fandom seems to have in writing Spike, given that his life experience is so different from ours. More male than female characters made it into this top seven list, but on the whole it's pretty balanced.
I asked another question about writing characters emotionally; I asked responders to choose the characters they found especially difficult to write. They are:
Drusilla (59)
Angel (56)
Illyria (49)
Lindsey (47)
Oz, Buffy, Lilah (44)
Darla (42)
Connor (41)
Unsurprisingly, lots of villains made it onto this list, and the remaining three vamps in Angel's line: Angel, Darla, and Dru (which causes me to wonder even more what's up with the whole Spike thing! Any insight would be greatly appreciated). Many of these characters are recurring, but I suspect the reason they're hard to write and the reason they recur is the same: Lilah, Lindsey, Darla, and Dru are villains.
The two title characters, Buffy and Angel, also made this list, which leads me to suspect that writing Heroes is difficult for people.
But there's more than one aspect to writing.
Writing Characters' Voices:
I asked these questions the same way I did the preceding ones.
Characters whose voices are easiest to capture:
Spike (100)
Xander (94)
Cordelia, Giles (86)
Anya (83)
Willow (82)
Wesley (77)
Dawn (75)
Tara (74)
First, I'd like to note that these numbers are on the whole lower than the numbers for "ease of writing emotionally," suggesting that voice is just overall harder for many writers.
Again, we're confronted with the list of BtVS mainstays, with the conspicuous absence of Buffy herself, Angel, Oz, and Riley. With these exceptions, everyone who's been in the BtVS credits is on the list of characters whose voices are easy to write. This list also seems to mirror the above list, dealing with emotions, with the addition of Cordy and Anya.
I think a general inference might be drawn that when B:tVS was created, its characters had a unique way of speaking and thinking that many viewers can identify with and replicate easily. AtS, lacking the general coherence of B:tVS, isn't as easy to mimic.
We should note that three Brits, Spike, Giles, and Wesley, have voices just as easy to capture as the Californian Xander, Cordelia, Willow, and Dawn and a 1000-year-old ex-demon from Sweden, which suggests that the difficulties of a characters' speech aren't directly related to life experience or nationality.
Some characters are especially difficult to write technically. The characters whose voices are hardest to capture are:
Drusilla (67) (Let's hear it for the lady!)
Doyle, Angel (50)
Oz (49)
Illyria (47)
Gunn (45)
Lindsey (43)
Lorne (42)
Connor, Darla (42)
Buffy (40)
We note right away that we're looking at more AtS characters than BtVS, and that the category we're tentatively saying is BtVS's mainstay, white teenagers from suburban California, isn't highly represented -- with the exceptions of Oz and Buffy herself.
On the other hand, we've got characters who are English and Irish (Dru, Doyle, Angel), were raised in other dimensions (Illyria, Lorne, Connor), who grew up poor (Lindsey, Gunn), and most notably, who aren't normals. Except for Gunn + Lindsey, each one of these characters had some supernatural element (vampire, half-demon, werewolf, God, full demon, vampire-spawn, Slayer). However, as we noted above, a vampire (Spike) is also the easiest character to write, as are characters who probably grew up poor (Tara) or demon (Anya).
More About Writing Characters
I combined the sums for ease of writing emotionally and writing technically to yield these as the characters easiest to write overall:
Spike (207)
Xander (195)
Willow, Giles (176)
Dawn, Wesley (170)
Tara (166)
And the characters who were hardest to write?
Drusilla with a runaway victory (126)
Angel (106)
Illyria (96)
Oz (93)
Lindsey (90)
Doyle (85)
Darla, Gunn, Gunn (84)
Connor (83)
Though I think it would be fair to say that Dru just wins this category and give her a crown of thorns.
Fun Fact: The same villainous couple contains the character who is hardest and the one who's easiest to write. Yay Spike/Dru!
Characters We Like
Interesting Characters
First, the random useless total number is 2986. That's almost 3,000 bits saying basically "yay, Joss writes interesting stories!" So, yay Joss!
The most interesting characters are:
Wesley (144)
Giles (138)
Faith (135)
Spike (130)
Angel (128)
Oz (125)
Lilah (123)
Xander (118)
Anya (117)
Drusilla (116)
Tara (113)
Doyle (111)
Illyria (110)
I should note that I had difficulty finding an appropriate cut-off point for this one; right now almost half the characters rank among the "most interesting"!
Remember that old chestnut "there are no interesting female characters"? Fandom spoke, and fandom said that's just not true! There are 7 male, 5 female, and one ambiguously gendered characters there, and our gal Faith outscored the perennial fan favorite Spike. Lilah did considerably better than her traditional counterpart Lindsey (who failed the arbitrary cutoff with 105 votes). Buffy and Cordy, incidentally, each had 108 votes, also just missing the cutoff.
Generalizing further, villains did well, especially if they had arcs of redemption. Good guys also did well, especially if they had moral ambiguity. The top five contain two Watchers, one Slayer, and two vampires, which seems to indicate that as a whole, fandom likes the mythology of its show, which is probably a good thing.
Willow's love interests were more interesting than Willow herself; Buffy's love interests (excepting of course Riley) were more interesting than she. Xander and Anya were about equally interesting, and Doyle and Illyria, each of whom was only present for half a season, managed to have compelling arcs!
By this same question, the least interesting characters are:
Riley (45) (Well... we saw that one coming.)
Harmony (71)
Fred (75) (And that one. *sniff* My gal Fred!)
Andrew (82)
Jonathan (87)
Dawn (88)
Connor, Joyce (92)
First, I should note the 100-vote difference between most interesting (Wesley!) and least interesting (poor Riley.) I should also note that these least interesting characters really break down into several subcategories, as Joyce has more than twice as many supporters as Riley. Hence the odd spacing in the list.
Well, what can we say? Family members of heroes (Connor, Joyce, Dawn) are not, as a whole, very interesting to fandom.
Neither, it seems, are one-offs who become main characters: see Jonathan and Harmony. Nor was the Geek Trio a fan favorite -- compare the very popular villains who made it into the top thirteen.
And fandom thinks Riley is boring. If anyone is surprised, then I'll be surprised. (Please note I'm not saying anything about how I feel about Riley, just that it's a well-known fact he's not a fan favorite.)
I really don't have much more insight except that, for the most part, main titles characters got at least 100 votes. And also, Fred is not boring. *sticks tongue out at fandom*
Personable Characters
I asked whether people would like these characters in real life, distinguishing "interesting" from "nice people." Observe:
Tara (139)
Giles (128)
Oz (125)
Xander, Lorne (109)
Wesley, Gunn (108)
Joyce (105)
Doyle (101)
Fred (95)
Willow (85)
Dawn (78)
[No reason for making the cutoff where I did except I wanted to show that people like Fred and Willow! Because they're my girls.]
First off, let's hear it for my girl Tara! Fandom almost universally agreed that Tara is a very, very nice, cool person, whom they'd be glad to be friends with. Yay Tara!
Lots of sidekicks here, and no villains or heroes proper. Once again, guys do ever so slightly better than girls, but not by a lot. I'd like you to note the redemption of the boring characters: they're nice! Also note, though, that Giles is well-liked on both criteria. I'm finding it difficult to be insightful about these darling, loveable characters, since what is there to say other than that they're nice?
Least personable characters:
Harmony (12)
Darla (16)
Lindsey (20)
Drusilla (21)
Illyria (22)
Connor (24)
Lilah (26)
Well, unsurprisingly, most people wouldn't befriend unsouled vampires, evil lawyers, or former Gods. Connor is a little surprising to me, since he's none of the above. I might want to make a note about gender here: Angel and Spike are both much more loved than Darla and Dru -- but it seems counterintuitive to blame gender over other factors.
I might, however, point to the fact that the least loved character, on this criteria, is Harmony, who's not exceptionally evil so much as she is, well, exceptionally stupid.
Interesting vs personable:
Good fences make good neighbors, but good neighbors don't make for good TV -- and the reverse is also sometimes true. I compared the "like them as a character" numbers with the "like them as a person" numbers. The average difference was 37.14, indicating that on a whole, these people are more interesting than they are nice. This is especially true of:
Lilah (97 more people found her interesting than nice)
Drusilla (95)
Illyria (88)
Lindsey (85)
Angel (80)
Darla (89)
These characters are villains or quasi-villains; most of them are responsible for lots of deaths. They're all interesting, but not exactly the kind of person fandom wants to befriend. Most of them are AtS mainstays.
Some characters are about equally loved for their interestingness and their niceness:
Giles, Dawn, Doyle (more interesting by 10)
Xander (9)
Oz (equal)
Lorne (nicer by 1)
Gunn (nicer by 4)
I feel almost as if Oz is the perfect character by these criteria.
Some characters are more beloved than they are compelling. They are:
Tara (26 more nice than interesting)
Riley (23)
Fred (20)
Joyce (13)
Poor darlings.
Other Character Attributes
Characters We Identify With:
One of the things I like best not only about the Jossverse, but about all literature, is reading about the lives of those people who are very different from me -- especially when I can still identify with them on some gut level. For that reason, I'm pleased that each main character in the Jossverse pings at least nine people as being somehow like them. For the purposes of statistics, though, here are the characters who are most identified with:
Wesley (71)
Tara (70)
Xander (69)
Willow (68)
Buffy (64)
Spike (55)
Dawn, Giles (47)
Faith (46)
Angel (43)
Jonathan (41)
Once again, we encounter our old friends the BtVS mainstays, along with Wesley and Angel. Our boy Jonathan finally makes a top-ten list, reminding us that deep down inside, 41 of us are short, wimpy Star Wars geeks whose only friends pressure them into taking over the world. Right?
I didn't do any demographics for this poll -- in fact, this is probably the most demographically oriented question I asked!
It's nice to find Buffy and Faith up here, and even Angel doing well for himself -- I bet Joss would be pleased to see these numbers, because they show that his characters do resonate with people. This is especially true of BtVS, but the AtS characters didn't do too poorly.
While most of these characters are high school - college age kids, Wesley, Giles, Spike, and Angel also made the list, and I think the fact that these characters are so popular according to other criteria shows that fandom (which I assume, perhaps not quite fairly, also to be made mostly of high school - college age kids, most of us female, most of us, especially since we have access to the internet and can use our internet time filling out polls, fairly well-to-do) can reach outside itself and identify with characters who are very different from us.
Both canonically queer characters made the list (though Lorne and Andrew did not)
Male and female characters are almost evenly represented.
Characters we don't identify with:
Harmony (9)
Drusilla (10)
Illyria (14)
Andrew, Lindsey (15)
There were lots of characters with numbers in the 20s; I decided not to include those numbers, preferring to address these characters we identify with the absolute least.
Vampire, vampire, God, evil lawyer... Andrew. The presence of Andrew and Harmony on this list surprised me at first, till I remembered that I phrased the question in terms of arcs. "I identify with this character's emotional arc." In those terms, Harmony and Andrew, who seem to be demographically similar to some of the most identified-with characters, have arcs that are about "going bad" and losing friends. I suspect Andrew killing Jonathan makes many people uneasy about identification. It's just not easy to identify with villains, even if, like Buffy and Willow and Xander and Dawn, they come out of Sunnydale.
Hot Characters:
The purpose of this question was less, uh, academic, really. Mostly I was just curious.
Wesley (134)
Faith (129)
Giles (116)
Lilah (113)
Spike (112)
Gunn (107)
Tara (106)
Cordy (105)
Girls and guys? Exactly even. Wesley? Oh so hot. Evil? VERY SEXY. Tara? RAWR.
And I'd just like you to compare the top five with the interesting list
Wesley
Giles
Faith
Spike
(snip Oz and Angel)
Lilah
Coincidence? Or is interestingness sexy? Or, perhaps, is sexiness interesting? What do you think?
Least attractive characters:
Andrew (15)
Jonathan (19)
Joyce (23)
Lorne (25)
Fred, Riley (50)
Connor, Harmony (51)
Dawn (53)
Um, remember what I was saying about interestingness being sexy? Looks like we've got a mirror of the bottom of our interestingness list, which contains:
Riley
Harmony
Fred
Andrew
Jonathan
Dawn
Connor, Joyce
With the exception of Lorne, whom I think we can throw out of our discussion and conclude that fandom is racist, speciesist, and color-ist, these lists, while the orders are somewhat different, contain exactly the same characters.
Of course, there are lots of issues at stake here, but I think that we have some pretty compelling evidence for the statement characters with compelling arcs are perceived as more attractive than characters who bore the audience.
Consider, dear friends, Illyria. 94 people say that It's attractive, while only 50 find Fred especially attractive. But they are played by the same actor. Make-up does wonders, but blue contacts can't be that appealing, can they? The numbers for interesting? 110 for Illyria vs. 75 for Fred.
Conclusions
1. Fandom has lots of character love!
2. Spike is easiest to write; Drusilla is hardest.
3. Wesley is the most interesting and the prettiest AND the most identified with.
4. Tara is the character people would most like as a friend.
5. Riley is the least interesting character; Harmony is the least liked and the one people identify with the least.
6. Fandom is clearly prejudiced against the color green.
7. On the whole, people find interesting characters to be sexy.
And now that I've done the stats for this poll, I feel I can do another one. Gateverse poll, coming right up.
I'm not going to restate the questions I asked; if they've slipped your mind or you never saw them before, I encourage you to check out the original post.
Writing Characters
Writing Characters' Emotions:
I asked about how people feel about their ability to capture characters' emotional state when they're writing fic. The seven easiest characters to write, according to my pollees:
Spike (107)
Xander (101)
Dawn (95)
Willow (94)
Wesley (93)
Tara (92)
Giles (90)
It's interesting to note that, with the exception of Wesley, all these characters are B:tVS mainstays. I'm not sure how else to generalize, except that all these characters were title credits characters for at least three seasons, with of course the exception of Tara, who's an anomaly because by all rights she should have been in the credits S5/6. All these characters are also "normals" -- with the exception of Spike. I'm fascinated by the ease fandom seems to have in writing Spike, given that his life experience is so different from ours. More male than female characters made it into this top seven list, but on the whole it's pretty balanced.
I asked another question about writing characters emotionally; I asked responders to choose the characters they found especially difficult to write. They are:
Drusilla (59)
Angel (56)
Illyria (49)
Lindsey (47)
Oz, Buffy, Lilah (44)
Darla (42)
Connor (41)
Unsurprisingly, lots of villains made it onto this list, and the remaining three vamps in Angel's line: Angel, Darla, and Dru (which causes me to wonder even more what's up with the whole Spike thing! Any insight would be greatly appreciated). Many of these characters are recurring, but I suspect the reason they're hard to write and the reason they recur is the same: Lilah, Lindsey, Darla, and Dru are villains.
The two title characters, Buffy and Angel, also made this list, which leads me to suspect that writing Heroes is difficult for people.
But there's more than one aspect to writing.
Writing Characters' Voices:
I asked these questions the same way I did the preceding ones.
Characters whose voices are easiest to capture:
Spike (100)
Xander (94)
Cordelia, Giles (86)
Anya (83)
Willow (82)
Wesley (77)
Dawn (75)
Tara (74)
First, I'd like to note that these numbers are on the whole lower than the numbers for "ease of writing emotionally," suggesting that voice is just overall harder for many writers.
Again, we're confronted with the list of BtVS mainstays, with the conspicuous absence of Buffy herself, Angel, Oz, and Riley. With these exceptions, everyone who's been in the BtVS credits is on the list of characters whose voices are easy to write. This list also seems to mirror the above list, dealing with emotions, with the addition of Cordy and Anya.
I think a general inference might be drawn that when B:tVS was created, its characters had a unique way of speaking and thinking that many viewers can identify with and replicate easily. AtS, lacking the general coherence of B:tVS, isn't as easy to mimic.
We should note that three Brits, Spike, Giles, and Wesley, have voices just as easy to capture as the Californian Xander, Cordelia, Willow, and Dawn and a 1000-year-old ex-demon from Sweden, which suggests that the difficulties of a characters' speech aren't directly related to life experience or nationality.
Some characters are especially difficult to write technically. The characters whose voices are hardest to capture are:
Drusilla (67) (Let's hear it for the lady!)
Doyle, Angel (50)
Oz (49)
Illyria (47)
Gunn (45)
Lindsey (43)
Lorne (42)
Connor, Darla (42)
Buffy (40)
We note right away that we're looking at more AtS characters than BtVS, and that the category we're tentatively saying is BtVS's mainstay, white teenagers from suburban California, isn't highly represented -- with the exceptions of Oz and Buffy herself.
On the other hand, we've got characters who are English and Irish (Dru, Doyle, Angel), were raised in other dimensions (Illyria, Lorne, Connor), who grew up poor (Lindsey, Gunn), and most notably, who aren't normals. Except for Gunn + Lindsey, each one of these characters had some supernatural element (vampire, half-demon, werewolf, God, full demon, vampire-spawn, Slayer). However, as we noted above, a vampire (Spike) is also the easiest character to write, as are characters who probably grew up poor (Tara) or demon (Anya).
More About Writing Characters
I combined the sums for ease of writing emotionally and writing technically to yield these as the characters easiest to write overall:
Spike (207)
Xander (195)
Willow, Giles (176)
Dawn, Wesley (170)
Tara (166)
And the characters who were hardest to write?
Drusilla with a runaway victory (126)
Angel (106)
Illyria (96)
Oz (93)
Lindsey (90)
Doyle (85)
Darla, Gunn, Gunn (84)
Connor (83)
Though I think it would be fair to say that Dru just wins this category and give her a crown of thorns.
Fun Fact: The same villainous couple contains the character who is hardest and the one who's easiest to write. Yay Spike/Dru!
Characters We Like
Interesting Characters
First, the random useless total number is 2986. That's almost 3,000 bits saying basically "yay, Joss writes interesting stories!" So, yay Joss!
The most interesting characters are:
Wesley (144)
Giles (138)
Faith (135)
Spike (130)
Angel (128)
Oz (125)
Lilah (123)
Xander (118)
Anya (117)
Drusilla (116)
Tara (113)
Doyle (111)
Illyria (110)
I should note that I had difficulty finding an appropriate cut-off point for this one; right now almost half the characters rank among the "most interesting"!
Remember that old chestnut "there are no interesting female characters"? Fandom spoke, and fandom said that's just not true! There are 7 male, 5 female, and one ambiguously gendered characters there, and our gal Faith outscored the perennial fan favorite Spike. Lilah did considerably better than her traditional counterpart Lindsey (who failed the arbitrary cutoff with 105 votes). Buffy and Cordy, incidentally, each had 108 votes, also just missing the cutoff.
Generalizing further, villains did well, especially if they had arcs of redemption. Good guys also did well, especially if they had moral ambiguity. The top five contain two Watchers, one Slayer, and two vampires, which seems to indicate that as a whole, fandom likes the mythology of its show, which is probably a good thing.
Willow's love interests were more interesting than Willow herself; Buffy's love interests (excepting of course Riley) were more interesting than she. Xander and Anya were about equally interesting, and Doyle and Illyria, each of whom was only present for half a season, managed to have compelling arcs!
By this same question, the least interesting characters are:
Riley (45) (Well... we saw that one coming.)
Harmony (71)
Fred (75) (And that one. *sniff* My gal Fred!)
Andrew (82)
Jonathan (87)
Dawn (88)
Connor, Joyce (92)
First, I should note the 100-vote difference between most interesting (Wesley!) and least interesting (poor Riley.) I should also note that these least interesting characters really break down into several subcategories, as Joyce has more than twice as many supporters as Riley. Hence the odd spacing in the list.
Well, what can we say? Family members of heroes (Connor, Joyce, Dawn) are not, as a whole, very interesting to fandom.
Neither, it seems, are one-offs who become main characters: see Jonathan and Harmony. Nor was the Geek Trio a fan favorite -- compare the very popular villains who made it into the top thirteen.
And fandom thinks Riley is boring. If anyone is surprised, then I'll be surprised. (Please note I'm not saying anything about how I feel about Riley, just that it's a well-known fact he's not a fan favorite.)
I really don't have much more insight except that, for the most part, main titles characters got at least 100 votes. And also, Fred is not boring. *sticks tongue out at fandom*
Personable Characters
I asked whether people would like these characters in real life, distinguishing "interesting" from "nice people." Observe:
Tara (139)
Giles (128)
Oz (125)
Xander, Lorne (109)
Wesley, Gunn (108)
Joyce (105)
Doyle (101)
Fred (95)
Willow (85)
Dawn (78)
[No reason for making the cutoff where I did except I wanted to show that people like Fred and Willow! Because they're my girls.]
First off, let's hear it for my girl Tara! Fandom almost universally agreed that Tara is a very, very nice, cool person, whom they'd be glad to be friends with. Yay Tara!
Lots of sidekicks here, and no villains or heroes proper. Once again, guys do ever so slightly better than girls, but not by a lot. I'd like you to note the redemption of the boring characters: they're nice! Also note, though, that Giles is well-liked on both criteria. I'm finding it difficult to be insightful about these darling, loveable characters, since what is there to say other than that they're nice?
Least personable characters:
Harmony (12)
Darla (16)
Lindsey (20)
Drusilla (21)
Illyria (22)
Connor (24)
Lilah (26)
Well, unsurprisingly, most people wouldn't befriend unsouled vampires, evil lawyers, or former Gods. Connor is a little surprising to me, since he's none of the above. I might want to make a note about gender here: Angel and Spike are both much more loved than Darla and Dru -- but it seems counterintuitive to blame gender over other factors.
I might, however, point to the fact that the least loved character, on this criteria, is Harmony, who's not exceptionally evil so much as she is, well, exceptionally stupid.
Interesting vs personable:
Good fences make good neighbors, but good neighbors don't make for good TV -- and the reverse is also sometimes true. I compared the "like them as a character" numbers with the "like them as a person" numbers. The average difference was 37.14, indicating that on a whole, these people are more interesting than they are nice. This is especially true of:
Lilah (97 more people found her interesting than nice)
Drusilla (95)
Illyria (88)
Lindsey (85)
Angel (80)
Darla (89)
These characters are villains or quasi-villains; most of them are responsible for lots of deaths. They're all interesting, but not exactly the kind of person fandom wants to befriend. Most of them are AtS mainstays.
Some characters are about equally loved for their interestingness and their niceness:
Giles, Dawn, Doyle (more interesting by 10)
Xander (9)
Oz (equal)
Lorne (nicer by 1)
Gunn (nicer by 4)
I feel almost as if Oz is the perfect character by these criteria.
Some characters are more beloved than they are compelling. They are:
Tara (26 more nice than interesting)
Riley (23)
Fred (20)
Joyce (13)
Poor darlings.
Other Character Attributes
Characters We Identify With:
One of the things I like best not only about the Jossverse, but about all literature, is reading about the lives of those people who are very different from me -- especially when I can still identify with them on some gut level. For that reason, I'm pleased that each main character in the Jossverse pings at least nine people as being somehow like them. For the purposes of statistics, though, here are the characters who are most identified with:
Wesley (71)
Tara (70)
Xander (69)
Willow (68)
Buffy (64)
Spike (55)
Dawn, Giles (47)
Faith (46)
Angel (43)
Jonathan (41)
Once again, we encounter our old friends the BtVS mainstays, along with Wesley and Angel. Our boy Jonathan finally makes a top-ten list, reminding us that deep down inside, 41 of us are short, wimpy Star Wars geeks whose only friends pressure them into taking over the world. Right?
I didn't do any demographics for this poll -- in fact, this is probably the most demographically oriented question I asked!
It's nice to find Buffy and Faith up here, and even Angel doing well for himself -- I bet Joss would be pleased to see these numbers, because they show that his characters do resonate with people. This is especially true of BtVS, but the AtS characters didn't do too poorly.
While most of these characters are high school - college age kids, Wesley, Giles, Spike, and Angel also made the list, and I think the fact that these characters are so popular according to other criteria shows that fandom (which I assume, perhaps not quite fairly, also to be made mostly of high school - college age kids, most of us female, most of us, especially since we have access to the internet and can use our internet time filling out polls, fairly well-to-do) can reach outside itself and identify with characters who are very different from us.
Both canonically queer characters made the list (though Lorne and Andrew did not)
Male and female characters are almost evenly represented.
Characters we don't identify with:
Harmony (9)
Drusilla (10)
Illyria (14)
Andrew, Lindsey (15)
There were lots of characters with numbers in the 20s; I decided not to include those numbers, preferring to address these characters we identify with the absolute least.
Vampire, vampire, God, evil lawyer... Andrew. The presence of Andrew and Harmony on this list surprised me at first, till I remembered that I phrased the question in terms of arcs. "I identify with this character's emotional arc." In those terms, Harmony and Andrew, who seem to be demographically similar to some of the most identified-with characters, have arcs that are about "going bad" and losing friends. I suspect Andrew killing Jonathan makes many people uneasy about identification. It's just not easy to identify with villains, even if, like Buffy and Willow and Xander and Dawn, they come out of Sunnydale.
Hot Characters:
The purpose of this question was less, uh, academic, really. Mostly I was just curious.
Wesley (134)
Faith (129)
Giles (116)
Lilah (113)
Spike (112)
Gunn (107)
Tara (106)
Cordy (105)
Girls and guys? Exactly even. Wesley? Oh so hot. Evil? VERY SEXY. Tara? RAWR.
And I'd just like you to compare the top five with the interesting list
Wesley
Giles
Faith
Spike
(snip Oz and Angel)
Lilah
Coincidence? Or is interestingness sexy? Or, perhaps, is sexiness interesting? What do you think?
Least attractive characters:
Andrew (15)
Jonathan (19)
Joyce (23)
Lorne (25)
Fred, Riley (50)
Connor, Harmony (51)
Dawn (53)
Um, remember what I was saying about interestingness being sexy? Looks like we've got a mirror of the bottom of our interestingness list, which contains:
Riley
Harmony
Fred
Andrew
Jonathan
Dawn
Connor, Joyce
With the exception of Lorne, whom I think we can throw out of our discussion and conclude that fandom is racist, speciesist, and color-ist, these lists, while the orders are somewhat different, contain exactly the same characters.
Of course, there are lots of issues at stake here, but I think that we have some pretty compelling evidence for the statement characters with compelling arcs are perceived as more attractive than characters who bore the audience.
Consider, dear friends, Illyria. 94 people say that It's attractive, while only 50 find Fred especially attractive. But they are played by the same actor. Make-up does wonders, but blue contacts can't be that appealing, can they? The numbers for interesting? 110 for Illyria vs. 75 for Fred.
Conclusions
1. Fandom has lots of character love!
2. Spike is easiest to write; Drusilla is hardest.
3. Wesley is the most interesting and the prettiest AND the most identified with.
4. Tara is the character people would most like as a friend.
5. Riley is the least interesting character; Harmony is the least liked and the one people identify with the least.
6. Fandom is clearly prejudiced against the color green.
7. On the whole, people find interesting characters to be sexy.
And now that I've done the stats for this poll, I feel I can do another one. Gateverse poll, coming right up.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-03 01:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-03 01:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-03 02:21 am (UTC)Well, duh! ;)
Gateverse! Poll me, man.
/ersatz Oz voice
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-03 02:23 am (UTC)Yay, new poll very, very soon!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-03 03:28 am (UTC)Bwee! *hearts Tara SO MUCH*
Would love a Gateverse poll, since I've actually written and posted fic for that one, and heck, I'm in the throes of fannish glee here!
Possible typo in your post
Date: 2005-04-03 03:38 am (UTC)Drusilla (95)
Illyria (88)
Lindsey (85)
Angel (80)
Darla (89)
Did you mean Darla had 79 votes?
Re: Possible typo in your post
Date: 2005-04-03 03:43 am (UTC)One Gateverse poll, coming up... soon.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-03 06:55 am (UTC)I didn't see it as a villains issue, but rather a screentime issue. It's hard to know what motivates Lindsey (or even Lilah, besides self-interest) or Oz. Dru's crazy, so of course she's hard to write. Illyria used to be a god, which is a damn hard headspace to get into. All the stuff that's happened to Connor makes it very hard to figure out how he would react to assorted characters/situations.
Spike has gotten tons of screentime, which makes it much easier to figure him out than Darla. Angel's characterization onscreen has, i think, been kinda schizophrenic 'cause he started out being just dark/broody/mysterious and then he had to be fleshed out when he started getting more screentime -- and we had this discussion, didn't we?
Well, unsurprisingly, most people wouldn't befriend unsouled vampires, evil lawyers, or former Gods. Connor is a little surprising to me, since he's none of the above. I might want to make a note about gender here: Angel and Spike are both much more loved than Darla and Dru -- but it seems counterintuitive to blame gender over other factors.
Well Connor's a bit unbalanced, which i feel contributes to the whole "Wouldn't want him as a regular in my life" sentiment. And since Darla and Dru are almost always evil, as opposed to Angel (souled) and Spike (grudging helper, neutered, etc.) i think you're quite right to say it's counterintuitive to blame gender over other factors on this one.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-03 07:10 am (UTC)But yeah, I suppose screentime has got to be an issue. *ponders* The thing is, we really don't have a control. Not counting Spike or Angel, Lilah is the villain who gets the most screentime in all the Buffyverse -- it covers more than a season total, but it's still nowhere near as much time as even Tara gets.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-03 11:27 am (UTC)Yeah, on the Fred/Illyria thing - I know lots of real-life fans who never gave Fred a second glance but whose eyes almost fell out of their heads when they saw Illyria. Maybe it's the bodysuit? Though I think you're right, it's the 'interesting' factor.
And poor Riley. I expected it, but it still makes me sad.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-03 11:33 am (UTC)Poor Riley. *gives you sympathy hugs; Fred didn't do much better*
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-04 12:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-05 01:31 am (UTC)I'm fascinated that Angel ranks so highly as being a difficult character to write. Voice-wise he doesn't really have the elaborate and therefore easy to fuck up speech patterns of, say, a Dru, Oz, or even a Spike and Xander. I wonder how much of that relates to the fact that he was the protagonist and hero, and if there's a comparison to be made between how people relate to him and how they relate to Buffy.
As for the Fred/Illyria sexiness thing, I think some of that also goes with the characters. Speaking as one who does not like Fred in any fashion, I will happily say that Amy Acker is a beautiful and sexy woman. Fred, however, wasn't. Or at least she wasn't supposed to be. Dialogue on the show as well as her mannerisms and even early form of dress (ignoring the china doll outfits that she and Eve wore in s5 for some God-unknown reason) indicate that Fred was meant to be a geeky, plain Jane kind of a girl. Possibly one who underestimated her own beauty, but still mouselike.
Illyria, on the other hand, was supremely confident and had a regal and charismatic demeanor. Fred's closest counterpart is Tara. Illyria is more of an early Spike or even a Lilah.
So my feeling is that how interesting the character is affects things, but also who the character is and how they are portrayed. Yes, it's the same actress, but we're seeing wildly different characters onscreen.
Might be interesting to compare this to the stats of people who don't like Angel but do like Angelus, and who didn't like early Wesley but did like his s4 darker self.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-05 12:52 pm (UTC)But re: Fred and Tara... Tara was a ranked a lot more sexy by fandom than Fred was. I agree, Fred wasn't intended to have the obvious sex appeal of Lilah or Cordy, but we were supposed to believe that Gunn and Wes were instantly attracted to her once she cleaned up a little and came out of the bedroom.
So my feeling is that how interesting the character is affects things, but also who the character is and how they are portrayed. Yes, it's the same actress, but we're seeing wildly different characters onscreen.
You know, that *does* ping for me, because that would explain Joyce's and Dawn's relative unattractive ratings as well. Because they're The Mom and the Kid Sis, and we aren't supposed to be attracted to those characters -- so we aren't.
Otoh, I think the strong correlation between "interestingness" and "attractiveness" can't be totally a coincidence. Hmm. Will mull on this further.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-05 01:28 pm (UTC)So I wonder if the reactions to Fred come not just because she personally was not as sexy/interesting/etc. as Illyria, but because as a part of the show she was annoying, i.e. every time she was on screen fans tended to roll their eyes and beg Joss to stop shoving her down our throats. Same with Dawn.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-05 02:39 am (UTC)*loves on Buffy hard*
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-05 02:50 am (UTC)But, it is pretty interesting. Thanks for doing this!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-05 03:47 am (UTC)On the other hand, we've got characters who are English and Irish (Dru, Doyle, Angel), were raised in other dimensions (Illyria, Lorne, Connor), who grew up poor (Lindsey, Gunn), and most notably, who aren't normals. Except for Gunn + Lindsey, each one of these characters had some supernatural element (vampire, half-demon, werewolf, God, full demon, vampire-spawn, Slayer). However, as we noted above, a vampire (Spike) is also the easiest character to write, as are characters who probably grew up poor (Tara) or demon (Anya).
While I can't account for Spike, one thing I noticed about Tara's and Anya's characterization on the show is that their backgrounds aren't always presented loudly in their story as say Gunn or Connor. One episode touched on Tara's childhood poverty, compared to the prevalence of Gunn's crew or selling his soul for a beat-up, old truck that he couldn't afford. I also always felt that Anya's experience as a demon was sorely underused and only brought up for comedic use. Whereas, we have say Connor who we're constantly reminded grew up in a hell dimension and has enough demon dna to be Jasmine's father.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-05 12:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-05 09:31 am (UTC)thank you for the summary and annalysis - makes for some interesting reading.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-05 12:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-05 01:23 pm (UTC)6. Fandom is clearly prejudiced against the color green.
But not blue...
Hmmm... strange, but true.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-05 01:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-05 08:18 pm (UTC)Thanks for doing this!
You're welcome!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-08 01:47 pm (UTC)Maybe it's the horns?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-05 09:06 pm (UTC)And now I have to go be a dork and fill out the Gateverse poll. ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-05 09:51 pm (UTC)Yay! Thanks for participating!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-06 02:21 pm (UTC)i love lorne, man. might it be that the fandom doesn't find him attractive because he's too swishy? too flamingly camp? that the fandom (largely female) sees him as their galpal instead of sex object? hmm. your statistics indicate that people like him...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-06 04:23 pm (UTC)It seems to me that Joyce falls into a similar category -- we'd like to drink hot chocolate with her, not make sweet sweet love with her -- these characters who... yeah. I'm not making much sense, but I like your idea. :) Thanks.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-06 05:53 pm (UTC)May I put forward an idea about the tendency to have Spike in the easy to write column? He is indeed a vampire, and a villain for a portion of his time in the Buffyverse, but he's hands down the most human vampire we encounter. I love my Dru, but she's definitely 100% vampire (excluding her love for Spike, which nearly got her fried by the Judge). Darla also has a highly vampire-style like: cruel, cold, calculating, and loving it. Angel might have a soul, and I actually like him a lot, but he's so weighted down by his guilt, his constant state of "other"-ness, and his obsession with not letting anyone get too close to him emotionally that he can be hard to identify with.
Spike, on the other hand, is more like your typical Joe Average who just happens to have a set of fangs. He reads. He falls in love. He loves punk. He digs cars and bikes. He watches TV and yells at the characters. He likes chocolate. He has a sense of humor. He follows football (soccer, whatever). He mourns people he's lost. He cared about his mom. Heck, looking at that list, we know more about his likes and dislikes than we do about those of Giles or Oz or almost any other character. He's fully rounded. If it weren't for his penchant for murder and the occasional spiking, this sounds like somebody it'd be fun to hang around with, evil or not.
I'll also add quite a bit of it can be credited to James Marsters, I think. Yes, highly attractive, but the man also played the role with a zest and fine-tuned sensitivity to the character that quite frankly I found awe-inspiring. Spike is in part easy to understand and write because JM did such a phenomenal job bringing him to life.
Just my two cents.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-06 09:11 pm (UTC)Thanks for your input. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-07 02:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-07 11:17 am (UTC)I don't think fandom is racist or colorist, it just prefers blue to green. ;)
And honestly? I found Lorne attractive, green and horns and all. He was sweet in the beginning. I just think his arc removed him from the other characters and there was nothing new about him later, especially in the last season. Dull character arc lowers the interest and thus the attraction.
About interesting=sexy. Yes, definitely! The characters we find interesting usually attract us, and once we're attracted to them, we want to find out as much as possible about them. For me, those characteristics overlap to ....uuhh, 80%? There are always exceptions, but in general I think your conclusion is correct.
Fred/Illyria shows that personality is much more important that exterior. Illyria was not well understood, it left a lot of place for speculation. That makes her intriguing. Then she was kinda dangerous and confident, which is always sexy. All attributes Fred didn't have. Completely independent of her looks, bodysuit or short skirts.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-08 01:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-08 01:46 pm (UTC)I love Andrew and Harmony too. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-08 01:53 pm (UTC)I love the distinction you make between identifying with a character's emotional "arc" and identifying with a character in general. Everyone can identify with Andrew in general, because he's the ultimate Mary Sue for Fandom -- he's geeky, obsessed with certain characters (see Storyteller) and sci fi shows, shy, and a bit of a vid maker. If your question had been worded differently, he might have scored higher. However, none of us like to imagine ourselves killing our best friends.
Actually, stepping back and re-thinking all that, he might not have scored as high as I wish, even with different wording, just because many Xander fans feel Andrew "stole" all Xander's geeky, funny lines, that Xander's place as geeky Shakespearean Fool in S1-S5 was "stolen" first by the Trio in S6 and then by Andrew alone in S7, so many people who would otherwise love Andrew just resent him for supplanting Xander. Whereas I am so obsessed with their very pairing (aaah, Xander/Andrew OTP!) that I can easily forgive this.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-09 06:41 am (UTC)Really not surprised that Spike got most easy to write. He has depth, but... they're easy-to-grasp depths. But... poor Riley. The world needs more Riley!love. *cries*
(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-25 11:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-12 03:03 am (UTC)