One Hundred Fantasy Clichés That Really Need To Rest In Peace

#79: The Skyler Perspective

  When writing most fantasy novels, an author usually goes with the choice of having the storyline be consistently in a first person point of view or POV.  A first person point of view is any storyline that has its experiences expressed by a singular person.  Information not known to the character in this position remains unknown, and experiences are just as new to the character as they are to the audience being entertained by the material.  Every single word describing the character and those around them are in the first person, such as I, me, they, she, he, her, or him.  This literary device is used to make the reader feel as if the experiences the character goes through are their own, making the story more relatable.  Essentially, the audience is expected to escape into a fantasy-filled atmosphere from whatever medium the story is presented in.  It is like putting on the ruby slippers yourself, trying to find the lightning thief with your ragtag group of friends, trying to escape the mysterious center of the Earth, and being given the destiny to save your Clan from ruin.  The character's experiences become your own, which many readers and authors find a strong tool in engaging an audience.  That is why since the dawn of storytelling, most fantasy stories are in the first person.

  However, with every great thing a first person point of view narrative can be, there are severe consequences for limiting yourself to just a singlular character.  Because everything is focused primarily on that character's thoughts or feelings, other cast members are left out.  These character's ambitions, goals, and feelings are concealed to the major focus, blinding the audience from more than one part of the story.  We are left only to guess how these characters feel, based on how our eyes perceive them as people.  This limits the story from expanding to important literary aspects, such as the actual state of the universe these characters live in, the opinions of other characters on the major external conflict, and most importantly making it harder to judge the main character, whether their actions were in the wrong or in the right.  We are to assume because of the first person point of view that the character is righteous and the universe only revolves around them.  This limiting of the creative process, a constant norm in the fantasy genre, is what I would like to call The Skyler Perspective, after the overly hated live action TV character Skyler White from the drama series Breaking Bad.

  The name for this self created cliché originates from the norm of the audience of Breaking Bad to assume Walter White is the all righteous focus of the story.  Due to the plot starting and ending with the actions Walter takes after his mid-life diagnosis with cancer, seeing the other characters' viewpoints on the matter is a much harder feat to achieve.  Although many of the major characters do get a shared amount of screen time, because Walter is the major focus of the show, their ideologies get either ignored or go unnoticed to better focus on the story of a moral Chemistry teacher turning into a villainous drug kingpin.  This case could not be worse for Skyler White, the wife of the titular character.  Skyler's reactions to the lies and inhumane actions Walter is taking are seen by many to be annoying or even completely unjustified.  Although she is a flawed character, Skyler is presented realistically as a person being forced to experience her loving husband turn into a person she barely knows anymore.  She is frightened for her children's safety, and due to her primary character flaw of pride acts with diligence to try to rid the poison that has entered her life.  However, due to Walter being the primary focus, fans are blinded by this truth.  Instead, they can be found ranting on fan sites about how rude or outright annoying the character is, despite evidence on the show saying otherwise.  Thus, many people came to wrongly judge the character and I came up with the appropriate cliché trope name you see today.

  The Skyler Perspective does not end with dramas such as Breaking Bad though.  Fantasy stories of many kinds suffer from the same fate, even if the quality of the story is extremely strong.  The Harry Potter series is limited to the actions of only the main character 95% of the time, making the intentions of villains such as Voldemort less expressed.  The Hunger Games uses only Katniss as their eyes into the world of the Thirteen Districts, making complex ideas such as explaining the full backstory of Panem's slow crawl into existence nonexistent.  Even Blood and Chocolate, a well received werewolf fantasy novel by Annette Curtis Klaus, has the issue of limiting the plot's actions to main character Anges.  This character perspective issue is widespread and if not put under some reins could create a slew of uninspired conveyer belt stories in the future.

  I believe strongly in the principle that there are more than one side of a story.  There can be multiple depending on the circumstances.  Primarily though a story is divided into three sides; his story, her story, and then the truth.  Try instead of a first person point of view perhaps the much rarer second person point of view, or the slightly more used third person point of view.  Stories can be told from multiple perspectives.  If this is done to an inspiring story, a whole slew of creative opportunities can come forth, making what could have been another flat story about a vampire romance incredible.