It’s great when we see ourselves in stories, isn’t it? And I don’t just mean characters who match our appearance, neurotype, or other group identity, I mean when characters do or say or
think things that make us go, “Wow, that’s me!” Or when the narrative gives the reason for what the character does and it could have been written about you.
Yes, it’s great — usually. We love to find heroic, funny, clever characters to be relatable. We even like having flaws in common with them. But what happens when we relate to the “wrong” character?
This happened to me when I read the first “Red Dwarf” novelisation, Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers. The TV series showed what the characters said and did, but the beauty of a novel is that it allows the author to show characters’ thoughts as well. On top of that, novels can easily incorporate backstory elements; so we got to see the past experiences of the characters instead of just hearing about them in bits of dialogue.
Here’s a passage that I found to be painfully relatable:
He found the process of revising so gruellingly unpleasant, so galling, so noxious that, like most people faced with task they find hateful, he devised more and more elaborate ways of not doing it in a ‘doing it’ kind of way.
In fact, it was now possible for him to revise solidly for three months and not learn anything at all.
The first week of study, he would always devote to the construction of a revision timetable. [...] Every hour of every day was subdivided into different study periods, each labelled in his lovely, tiny copperplate hand; then painted over in watercolours, a different colour for each subject, the colours gradually becoming bolder and more urgent shades as the exam time approached. The effect was as if a myriad tiny rainbow had splintered and sprinkled across the poster-sized sheet of creamwove card.
The only problem was this: because the timetables often took seven or eight weeks, and sometimes more, to complete, by the time he’d finished them the exam was almost on him. He’d then have to cram three months of revision into a single week. Gripped by an almost deranging panic, he’d then decide to sacrifice the first two days of that final week to the making of another timetable. This time for someone who had to pack three months of revision into five days.
[A few anxiety-ridden days later, filled with everything except revision…]
...the final day’s revision before his exam.
Waking at four-thirty in the morning, after exercising, showering and breakfasting, he would sit down to prepare a final, final revision timetable, which would condense three months of revision into twelve short hours. This done, he would give up and go back to bed.
Which was why he failed exams.
Now, as the narration says, most people do this kind of “busy work” to avoid hated tasks. So this character’s pretty relatable, isn’t he? Great!
Wait, who is he again?
It’s Rimmer.
Yes, we just related to Arnold J. Rimmer. Are you horrified yet? If not, I’m going to assume it’s because you don’t know who he is. Trust me, you do not want to have anything in common with this character. Only you might just have discovered — like I did — that you do, actually, share a flaw with him.
Now what?
Well, one result is that I developed a degree of empathy for this character. Hats off to Grant & Naylor, they created a joke character and then humanised him. And, if there’s a human side to Rimmer of all people, then maybe there’s a human side to the real-life cringe characters out there, even the really annoying ones.
Well, maybe.
The other result is that whenever I catch myself procrastinating by making increasing detailed plans, I can tell myself that I’m being like Rimmer and I need to stop.
Now.
Because, there might be a human side to Rimmer, but he’s still Rimmer.
Eugh!
