[SGA] Sweet Charity Ficpost #1 -- for Amberlynne

And it's a whole month and a half ahead of schedule -- I'm as shocked as you are. Less shocking is that the word counts is more than 300% overbudget (a trend that will be continuing for the other stories), but I figure that the recipient isn't likely to complain. :)


Title: The Convocation
Summary: The idea was so startling that Rodney actually shut the laptop and pushed it aside. "You're serious," he said to Teyla. "Someone in the Pegasus Galaxy is hosting a scientific conference?"
Details: SGA, McKay/Sheppard, light R, ~3,500 words.
Notes: The first of my three Sweet Charity fics, written for the wonderful and generous amberlynne. A., I threw a twist on your prompt, but it gave me a new way to work in the ingredients you were hoping for. I sincerely hope you like it, and thank you so much again for doing this with me. Additional thanks to shaenie for the beta.


( For the next two weeks they're out in the field every other day doing diplomatic follow-up, all to planets where the only people who've met John and Rodney before think that they're -- and the thing is, John acts like everything's normal and no one seems to question a thing. )

A few thoughts on how to have bigoted characters without creating a bigoted text.

So I've been watching with interest as some of you on my dual flists weigh in on the SPN misogyny debates. Having seen next to none of SPN S3, I have no informed opinion to offer on the specifics of the arguments for and against, and I'm not going to try.

What I'm mulling over is a more general conundrum:
1. Promoting hateful and biased opinions is not something I'm in favor of, but
2. limiting your major characters' viewpoints to the political beliefs you want to promote limits the range of characters you get to write about, period, and
3. structuring your stories to ensure they directly address those political beliefs can get old and preachy really, really fast.

I've written main characters who were, among other things, elitist snobs, highly amoral, excessively violent, capable of deep cruelty, and (on at least one notable occasion) completely insane. All of those are traits I'd consider flaws in a friend, but in a character, they give me the potential to tell different, interesting, sometimes deeply unsettling stories. I'd like to think that I, as a writer, would be willing to write a story about a misogynist, racist, homophobic or otherwise bigoted protagonist.

That said, I have no interest in writing a misogynist, racist, homophobic or otherwise bigoted text -- a text whose ultimate effect is to promote those views. And I don't want to have to rely on pedantic, borderline OOC or after-school special monologues by more enlightened characters to make sure the reader understands that I'm not in favor of the views my protagonist holds.

So what's the solution? So far, I've come up with three possible mechanisms, but I think they're pretty good ones:
1. Let the character be wrong because of those views.
2. Engage with those views in a context where they have the potential to make the reader uncomfortable.
3. Let the character change.

( A more detailed explanation of what I mean. )

I may not be able to reply to comments any time in the next day or two, due to school eating me, but I'm really interested to hear what your thoughts are -- whether you think these solutions would work, whether you can think of other ways to tackle this, if you'd ever create a sympathetic character whose views you found abhorrent, what you think your ethical obligations as a writer/artist/etc. are in terms of using what you make to further the beliefs you hold dear. Please weigh in if you've got the time.