Sob Story Logic Flaws and the Reactions to the Unsympathetic

[Silhouette]

So I had this conversation with a friend earlier and its something I'm sure at least some people have noticed at least once. Now, whether good or evil, most people's characters have different amounts of sympathy they are willing to give for another character's "bad circumstances" or "sob stories." But what about those of us who have characters who for one reason or another... can't or won't sympathize?

Heres an example: We have character A, who is'nt cold and stoic or anything, he or she is your average person, but just does not sympathize with people who don't have a work ethic.

We have character B, who is upset because they claim their pack/clan/pride whatever ditched/exiled them for being smaller or not very strong. [And I am NOT by any means saying that everyone who has a character of this set-up or background is intentionally looking for attention or sympathy, just that SOME of them are.]
 
When character B shares this little tale with character A, and character A does not have any sympathy for B and claims that B obviously didn't work hard enough to meet the standards set before them and it is their fault, the player of character B...sometimes doesn't seem to know how to react when they don't get the "Oh Im sorry to hear that, or I feel so bad for you" response they wanted.

I guess the gist of what I'm trying to say is, when characters who are specifically made to catch sympathy and don't get it, they tend to dance around the subject OR more often, respond with some kind of over-emotional backlash that is void of both response /and/ reason. You're going to attack them? For what? For being honest? What DO you want them to say?

"My parents died when I was young, oh woe is me for the rest of my life!"

 ...Have you ever met someone who's parents died at a young age or were never around? Most of the ones I've heard from either A. Got over it. B. Didn't really know the parent and therefore didn't care. C. Didn't know/was too innocent at the time to know what was going on and got over it. Now I am not trying to make light of anyone's or anything's death, just trying to make the point that the majority of people after a grieving period, make a healthy move on to the rest of their lives so WHY are there so many characters who are completely "destroyed" by this?

And even IF you have a character going through this prolonged grief for years and years... wouldn't that have had some adverse effect on your character's physical or mental health by now? They won't be "super strong" anymore, not even when hyped on adrenaline.

Unless the events that are causing this grief are varied and /constantly/ on-going...there comes a time when they do need to eventually get over themselves or keep it to themselves. Because the rest of us don't typically want to hear about it. You can tell us once or twice that "Your sisters were brutally mauled by bears" and we'll remember. I don't need constant reminding, whether as a player or as a character just because I'm not sobbing along or coddling the victim in question all of the time. Why is that so hard to understand?

Anyone else encountered this?

[AlphaEclipse]

I know EXACTLY what ya' mean. I don't understand why people can't just forget the past and think about the future. I mean, if your parents died when you were a newborn/very young pup, number one, you wouldn't know them to well and you weren't very bonded, so well... How can you say that you knew them and how they thought. Or even how they use to talk to you about (insert idea here). No. That's not possible. In reality, pups, cubs and (young) children don't remember little things like that when they are newborns. Do you remember the first time walked? Or the first thing you ever ate without being told? Probably not...

I also don't understand why we should feel sympathy for this person either. What if the character you were RPing with had a 'not so nice' past and didn't tell anyone. Should your character feel bad for them then? I don't think so... I think that is just someone attention seeking if they have to tell everyone they had a 'horrible' past, their parents dying and them being abandoned involved. When I come across people like this while RPing, they usually come up to me all sad and they tell me: "My parents died when I was born and I don't know what to do...." Well, again, why do you feel so sad. You barely knew them, and WHY/HOW were they killed? It's makes no sense. I  usually reply back: "You should get over it and start thinking about the future..." (Then I smile or something...) Then: "KILLS NO MISS. Y U BE MEAN TO ME." ... Really? Was that necessary? I was trying to help, not make you feel worse. Arg... It just bugs me. xD

Yes, one or two of my characters have prolonged grief but it's doesn't follow the, 'Parents died, was abandoned' story. I usually make my own plot that took place in the past and merge it with the plot used in the RP. (And I'm not going insane spamming the chat, Y U NO HAVE SYMPATHY? That's just plain rude.

[darkknight]

The whole idea of a sob story for a character, to me, is just too commonly overused. I can relate to this not-giving-the-wanted-response or being-pounded-about-how-bad-my-life-was subjects. People who do this just don't understand that everyone has a different reaction they will take to them. For instance, someone could tell me their parents died in a fire, I'd say,
"So, that explains your fear of fire? You should overcome your phobia, don't let your fear defeat you."
The Person: "My parents died! How can I be brave to fire! I miss them, I need love not advice!" -runs away-

The world does not revolve around your character. It's fine to have a story that has a misfortune in the middle or beginning, but if you are going to do that - know how to play the part and tell your character's story. Do not simply preach about how miserable you are, seek sympathy, or claim to have a years depression, be realistic with your character. Harry Potter lost his parents, you don't see him whimpering throughout the series, Firestar didn't even stay with his parents and he turned out well. Simply try to take the example of existing characters to make your own ones, at the same time, being original. Don't stick with the parents-died-I'm-sad routine or I-was-exiled/abandoned- I-need-sympathy, we all have a dilemmas and achievements. Make a story worth reading twice.

[SoulRevenge]

I've encountered this many times, and while I do not automatically judge one with a more 'tragic' back-story, in fear of being judged merely because so many see this sort of thing to be negative, even if the character does not act in the manner you might've mentioned (I've made sure to steer clear of mere mentioning of it, you know?), and this observation and what sort of backrounds and how a character goes around on it pleases me very much!

Very little users do not look at the physiological effect that the dwindling on such subjects (or how it is held in the view of the character); they are typical-acting, perhaps even excited, however the manner they act when they think of the subject or talk about it differs very much from their actual personality. If one is to dwindle on such a subject, and if the subject is to leave such a dreadful scar, they would, as you say; not act normally. Nevertheless one of the things that I adore is when things that happen to character and the manner they view it effects their personality and over-all mental state correctly.

Examples would be in The Hunger Games, where Katniss Everdeen reacts in a somewhat logical manner to what she has gone through. At the age of sixteen, she is forced into an arena to kill others; almost commits suicide after learning that she would have to kill who she was with the entire time, was forced into the games once again, where the people she knew before her first set of the games seemed a bit more, 'alien'; Gale, mostly speaking. She went practically insane, and in the prologue she even mentioned that she feared having children, in the cases that they may be taken away like others' had been.

Another would be Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov killed a pawnbroker and (forcefully) her younger sister in order to test a theory. This back-fires, and along with trials that test the true power his mental state holds, he eventually breaks. However, it is mentioned before that he came from a poor family with no father; he reacted exceptionally well, but how he treats himself (barely eating, etc. . ) just from the start along with flashbacks of what might've gone on in the past contribute further to his insanity.

I get what your saying, of course; sadder backstories are fine, oh yes quite fine, but what of the manner in which they are portrayed? What about the logic behind the character's behaviour?

[Lady_Alizarin]

You all present good points here, especially when it comes to the logic of young cubs/pups/kits wouldn't even know their parents if they were killed while the character was really young.
I've heard so many of these sob stories and same-old-same-old backstories that it's gotten so cliche. In fact, none of my characters have these kind of backstories where they lost their parents when they were really young or something of the sort. None of my characters go around telling people sad stories about their past constantly.

There is only one character I used to play that had a tragic past. He was a warrior cat rogue, and the only sad backstory he had to share was how his twin sister was killed in a collapsing city building. The story goes that there was a conspiracy behind the death of his sister and a fellow clanmate to cover up a scandal that his clan leader was trying to hide. His sister knew the scandalous secrets the leader was hiding behind the clan's back, so the leader left her and another warrior to die in a rescue mission. When my character found out about it, he mauled the leader (without killing her) and became a rogue after the clan banished him. Even though he went through the tragedies of losing his sister and his friend, he doesn't sob about it every single day. He would rather not think about it or bring it up too much at all. He has only retold to the story to a few friends of his, but that's it. And when he does tell it, it's not because he is seeking sympathy, it's only to tell of how and why he became a rogue.

I have a few other characters that have experienced misfortunes in their lives, but they don't go around preaching about how horrible it was all for the sake of gaining sympathy and pitty. Yes, the stories were sad... but they moved on with their lives and are living for the future.

And it irks me to see a "miserable" character get upset whenever someone doesn't give them the reaction they were hoping to see. I don't like it when they blow up and get all emotional like, "OH YOU WOULDN'T UNDERSTAND!! YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE ABANDONED AND UNWANTED!!" Cry me a river. All my character was saying is that it's not a good idea to linger in the past all the time.

[Silhouette]

And it irks me to see a "miserable" character get upset whenever someone doesn't give them the reaction they were hoping to see. I don't like it when they blow up and get all emotional like, "OH YOU WOULDN'T UNDERSTAND!! YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE ABANDONED AND UNWANTED!!" Cry me a river. All my character was saying is that it's not a good idea to linger in the past all the time.

Another response I would have to that is "Okay, if I don't what its like so then WHY are you telling ME in the first place?!"

[unnbrellas]

All of your points are very true.
There is also the fact that your character's personality might to be very sympathetic. For example, once I meet a sob storied wolf while I was on my main character (Silver). Silver is tough, and doesn't put up with moping around. So that obviously didn't go well. But had I been on another character, perhaps one who overall was much kinder, that character may have gotten some sympathy.

[Smilodoncat]

About half my characters have typical pasts. The other half have sad back-stories, but they never whine about them, and they don't really even come up unless someone asks.

My character Allie (she's a dog, but she's from an alternative world where dogs are like humans, long story,) was born into poverty. She never knew her father, and her mother was an alcoholic. At 16 she had to drop out of high school to work in order to support herself and her mother.
However about 20 years later, long story short, she is President of the United States.
Your'll never hear her whining about her past, or even really talking about it. Why? She got over it.
She never was even all that depressed. She's the kind of character that doesn't just sit around and sob, she gets up on her feet and gets the job done.
Another one of my characters, 3479, is an original species that is factory farmed. If that's not a tragic life, I don't know what is. 3479's past effects her much more than Allie, but not in the typical sob story way. She is afraid of everything, and her first reaction is too attack. She is also mute, due to never being taught language, and she is too old now to learn. When I roleplay her, I roleplay her more like a wild animal. She doesn't care about her past, she's more focused on not dying.

So I think it's fine to have a sad/tragic/bad/whatever past, as long as your not preachy about it. And try to make your characters react realistically about it.

As for those characters who do like the preach. At some point in RP they just need to be told "Get over it!".

[Wildfang1]

I don't really have a character I roleplay as, since I haven't RPd with anyone yet, but I do get what everyone is saying.
Sometimes when I am running around Feral Hearts with my characters I come across some people complaining about how 'tragic their life is,' and how 'no one understands them.'
I think if you want to create a tragic character, or do a tragic backstory, you would have to do something with them so they won't be annoying. The character you create is not the sole character in the RP, so if you want to star as the main character, write your own story.
My thing is if your parent(s) die when you are young, depending on age, you will have a vague or no recollection of them at all. The character can be sad every once in a while over the fact they don't have parents when they see other people with their parents, but that could be it. They don't have to angst over it.
If your entire pride/pack/whatever died, and you are a sole survivor, then you have a sad story. if history is repeating itself in your new pride/pack/whatever, I can see the character have a freak out. Survivor guilt won't be too bad as long as they don't do it as much, or if their personality gives the reason for them to angst about it. For example, it just happened, or the character has a personality that they beat themselves up over the fact they were unable to save people. Or they have really bad PTSD, which can happen in real life.
Bottom line is that if people want to create a 'tragic' character, they should take into account certain things, because no one wants a character that is being angsty all the time.

[Lokiisboss]

My goodness I cannot express how much I hate characters who write a quick two or three sentences that go along the lines of this:

"my mom and dad dead i killed them when i was a puppy. then pack exiled me and killed siblings becuz i was an evil demon. now i is alone but i am a demon and i killed my mate." *Totally not making fun of illiterates or powerplaying demons*

The majority of my biographies are sad, but these are just stupid and made up. My bio's are actual BIOGRAPHIES and I usually, if not always, have role-played what happened in the story. And I also stick to them in role-play. For example, I had a character framed for the murder of his sister (For power), chased out, cheated on by his mate and disowned from his second pride and I got called out for it. Well guess what, it ACTULY HAPPENED.

I also had a character that's mate was mutilated and killed by hyena's as a teen (Thus backing his bloodlust for hyena's) but this actuly happened aswell!

I had a tiger cub character whose mother and siblings were murdered by poachers in front of her, so she was raised by her father and his clan of female tigresses (Whome all adopted my cub character, he even called them all 'Mummy' ). When he got older, someone asked him about his past. He said that his mother died at a young age and his father said she was in the sky, the person assumed I was looking for sympathy and began appologizing for asking, but I cut him off and explained that I never knew my mother (AS IT SHOULD BE IF YOUR PARENTS DIE AT A YOUNG AGE)

OH and might I mention my character that was taken from her clan as a kit, watched (who she thought at the time was her father) die trying to save her, then be raised by someone who she thought was a vile murderous rouge, end up killing the rouge and him turning out to be the father? Guess what fella's, it happened. My biographies are never made up and they usually share the same amount of greif as the next fella, but I am not an attention whore. I don't go around and try to get everybody to give me sympathy for my 'greif'. You learn to move on in rp and stick to your character's past to help predict the future.