scarfman | Getting what you wanted (Reply)

Responses to my request for input on character flaws has come in on the message board, by email and here on LJ. To condense the several elaborate replies: Lancelot comes off as too self-confident (when not in depressive cycle [an element I haven't paid due attention lately, note to self]) to relate well to others, and Arthur as too passive in his dealing with other people or nations. That aspect of Lancelot is one which I more or less consciously imported from the sources. Arthur's passivity, on the other hand, as I said yesterday is something I've been regarding as a flaw in my writing rather than a flaw in the character I meant to recreate.

Many modern writers (including me when I transplanted these characters into my Star Trek stories, as one longtime reader pointed out) paint Arthur as a supercharismatic leader of men. Since the intended theme of AKOTAS was best articulated by Ector when he said, "When you're called, you answer," it often troubles me that the Arthur here isn't more like those Arthurs. On the other hand, those Arthurs are largely a byproduct of the "new Matter of Britain", the twentieth century versions of the story that hark to the theoretical historical Arthur who against all odds generaled a disunited Britain into beating back the inevitable Saxon encroachment for a whole generation. I've unapologetically eschewed the historical perspective, choosing instead to take as my sources portrayals of Arthur that range from the passive to the downright foolish. It's no wonder if my Arthur takes after them instead of the more recent, heroic ones.

The gripping hand is, as I said somewhere yesterday, the joy and pitfall of working with existing characters you love is that they tend to take over. And I said at the beginning I "did start this strip expecting it to evolve in some ways I hadn't necessarily planned or would not have preferred if asked in advance." I generally am careful what I wish for, and here it is, so I hope you're enjoying the ride too.