The Lydia Paradox (The Unintended Memorable Character)

Imagine a character, that is slightly sarcastic, but has no major role.

Won’t you always remember that character?

The answer is, yes. Yes you will.

Well, what about a world that is vibrant, with vibrant characters…But one of them, is kinda boring and a complete opposite of the world they inhabit. You’d probably best remember that character over every other one, won’t you? Yes, of course. Why? Because there’s something different about that particular person.

And this is what I like to call, The Lydia Paradox when it comes to writing.

It’s when a character with a mundane role, or a bland personality actually gets remembered just for that. In a world setting, where almost everybody is animated and has some level of character, “the boring mundane character” tends to stand out the most. It’s almost like Squidward in Spongebob–yeah you know Spongebob is the main character…but you remember Squidward, for him being different.

To give a little background information, Lydia was a character that came from the Bethesda video game Skyrim. This is her description:

Lydia is a Nord housecarl obtained upon completion of the quest “Dragon Rising.” She receives the title of Housecarl from Balgruuf the Greater in Dragonsreach. Immediately after the Dragonborn is promoted to the title of Thane. As Housecarl, she is sworn to protect the Dragonborn with her life, and to carry their burdens. She is a follower, as well as a marriage candidate for the Dragonborn. (Elderscrolls.fandom)

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And that’s it! That’s her entire description in a nutshell. So basically, she’s supposed to be boring. There’s not much to her as a character, there isn’t much else we learn about her, and yet there is a MASSIVE culture built up around her as a character in the Elderscrolls games.

Why? This is why.

When you’re writing a plot, naturally a good writer will tend to make every single character have their moment to shine. The paradox comes in when you give one of your characters a mundane part or role, and it stands out over the others.

Just like the Lydia; Skyrim, and the Squidward; Spongebob examples, sometimes a character that the author can’t relate to, can turn out relatable to other readers. In fact, the struggle is when a writer relates to a character, that others on the outside looking in, might not be too fond of.

It’s actually a prevalent problem in Hollywood, and I think I discussed it plenty of times in my prior blogging posts; a person who is cool in real life is able to understand how to make cool characters in their story (unless they were secretly a nerd without realizing it).

It’s also probable, that the more a character tries too hard to be remembered, the more they start to become annoying. It’s almost like a Rule of Cool factor, where a boring character is viewed as suppish, or a character that doesn’t try too hard to be noticed, is seen as ‘more interesting than the main character’.

Sometimes a writer might also make a character they can relate to, but others might not be able to. Maybe they’ll make them rude, or arrogant, but loveable, without realizing that they just made an insufferable character in their story, and gave them the supporting role.

…Or maybe in a world that’s living through a candy coated lense, that arrogant character might be just what the audience needs to ground the plot.

In any case, mishaps involving the misuse of the Lydia Paradox will absolutely kill your novel or movie before it even gets started.

In fact a writer without realizing it, might be able to design a perfect character that is so relatable, it’s the main reason why a fandom reads or watches the story.

So I bet you’re asking, “Well uncle Greg, how the heck do I make such a character? Huh? I wanna make that Lydia character!”

Well, if we look at Lydia as a character; she’s down to earth, straight forward, and no nonsense.

Now let’s look at the world of Skyrim; it’s a game riddled with dragons, it’s an open world, and it’s nordic with vikings and a lot of chaos.

Now analyze the player as a constantly moving force in the game, changing events, and taking part in them, being whatever; elf, mage, warrior, stealth, we can now start to understand how a grounded character might be remembered more, can’t we? In this setting, Lydia reflected a sort of checkpoint for the viewers to come back to, something that isn’t attached to the everchanging world the main character inhabits.

This is the perfect formula for a memorable character, in this sense, because we can instantly recognize that this person is different, but not so much in a way that is off-putting. It might even have proved comforting for some of the players who used her as a follower. Out of all the craziness, there was one that seemed grounded.

When writing a character and trying to design one that has that same memorability as your good o’l pal, Lydia here, you have to examine the roles of each of your characters in your novel.

What characters serve what purpose?

How would you best describe the world they inhabit?

In a world that has a lot of survival horror elements, that one guy that’s always being an ass is probably going to be hated by viewers, aren’t they? While the one that’s the most helpful and trust worthy will be adored.

This is because in that example world, team work, diligence, and the ability to survive is important to the worldspace, as much as it will be for the readers and viewers as well.

And so no, in a zombie apocalypse, that whiny teen girl that’s complaining about how life sucks isn’t going to be a liked character, is she? Neither will that village idiot Steve, who keeps getting people killed. We need characters with sensible roles.

Perhaps in a world space that is vast and open, but the parents are a bit strict, that whiny young and eager teen might be relatable! But she wouldn’t be so, in a zombie filled hell hole, that requires all hands on deck, where her antics could cost you the lives of other relatable characters. XD

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How about a character that offers some comic relief in this world from time to time? Sure! That would work! But just don’t overdo it, or else you’ll run into the annoying clown syndrome (That’s where a character tries to be funny too much, and they start to seem like a fly in the room making noise)

Steve might work in a world space that needs a second look at life; Beavis and Butthead are basically just two village idiots. They work together in the plot perfectly, when the world isn’t set to lose lives, like The Walking Dead, or a serious world like Star Trek.

These are just some on the fly examples, I can definitely keep going on and on with different tropes and character concepts, but the main point that The Lydia Paradox reminds us of, is that it’s important to examine the different roles of each character, and how they fit in both the plot and story.

Anyways, that’s one uncle’s take, hopefully this might help some homies with their writing.

Happy Trails!

-Sincerenly, Everybody’s Favorite Uncle, Gregory Thomas

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https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Lydia_(Skyrim)

Tropes to avoid-The Johnny Boy Failed (The Lover Fail trope)

Imagine a story that involves a male protagonist. They had a plot that was simple: defeat the dragon, and save the kingdom.

And so, they go on this massive, large adventure, only to discover this beautiful princess in a castle. She had been imprisoned by the locals of the village for crimes unknown to the reader and protagonist.

The male knight falls in love with her and frees her. Together they spend the remainder of the story falling more and more in love with each other, only to come and realize that the princess was the dragon destroying the protagonist’s kingdom.

She transforms horribly into a dragon against her will, and the knight is forced to kill her. He saves the kingdom, but he’s now a depressed recluse, and can never truly accept his victory, and this leaves readers and viewers feeling like the protag just wasted his time, and that the entire love scene was pointless bloat.

That’s the Johnny Boy Failed Trope.

This overused and out-of-date trope features a protagonist who loves a supporting character, only for the love to end in vain; it’s a depressing way to write a plot, and leaves no fruit at the end.

I call this bad trope this, because it takes up after the last Valentine’s Day episode of Johnny Bravo, where after getting rejection after rejection, finally meets a love interest that loves him back, but they wind up never being able to be together, because she’s in the “FBI” so after spending the entire day together, she wipes his memory of them ever being together.

Stupid, isn’t it? Why can’t they just be together, dammit? Exactly. That’s the problem with this form of storytelling. Now imagine if we did this for 4 seasons, built a core audience, and then disrespected them with this unsatisfying ending that makes people feel sad.

This is why we should never use it.

Many well-known stories have used this trope; Samurai Jack, Johnny Bravo, Dexter’s Laboratory, even the Teen Titans and the anime Tenchi Muyo, Futurama—the list goes on

…And it all ends the same; make a perfect lover, rip her from his arms.

These flawed stories are usually written by writers who, for some unknown reason, may feel some type of way about their personal relationships. Maybe they never experienced true love, or maybe they’re some 40-year-old virgin, I dunno, and they use this plot as a moral to push a personal agenda or wage a sexist vendetta against relationships that seem too good to be true and force it to be so in the story.

The reason, why this doesn’t work, is because as discussed, this leaves a bitter resolution that fails to captivate or solve the problem presented. It also makes people sad, and as we all know, people blot out sad stories from their minds. No doubt 10 years later, people will be more likely to remember Sleeping Beauty in Disney’s golden age, than the ending to Samurai Jack; because fans will be happier to tell that story than tell their kids about the one that just sucks.

It’s ok to let your male and female protagonists score and let them find true love. Don’t be ashamed to let them get it easy and allow the story’s resolution to involve one where both win in the end, and there is no sorrow.

Go on, and let the knight be able to cure the dragon-princess with a magical potion, and turn her back to his dotting lover. Or let that wandering samurai get the girl in the end—Go on, let Johnny Bravo get to marry his FBI lover already. This will let fans breathe easy, offer a TRUE resolution to the conflict, and allow the story to actually end, instead of leaving things feeling pointless and half-finished.

Take it from your O’l Uncle here,

you don’t want to end things on a sour note with your novel, unless you plan on ending it on a good note in the end, otherwise you’re gunna have a bunch of angry disgruntle fans, and a lot of people second-guessing reading any more of your works, for fear of it containing the sad ending.

-Sincerely, Everybody’s Favorite Uncle, Gregory Thomas

The Folly of Hacking

One of the folly’s I found with hacking, is that it’s pointless.

With hacking, you’re either using it to:

A. Rob Peter to pay Paul (You’re broke, and so you rob somebody else, that is also broke so it’s a waste of time.)

B. You’re looking to get yourself arrested by the FBI (Waling and overall attempting to hack somebody rich is most certainly going to get you arrested and put in a federal prison. There is always a way to track you, so you’re living off borrowed time trying to steal from rich people like Jeff Bezos.

C. You’re supporting a pointless cause (like living in Russia, you’re trying to hack a country that is so far gone in its corruption, that you’re merely an ant up against them. This is pointless.)

D. You’re bored. And have no idea what you’re doing (just what the tin can says, you’re bored, are a script kiddie, have too much time on your hands, and too bored to do anything productive.)

All of these things combine to explain exactly why viruses just aren’t as ramped as they used to be back in the 90s and early 2000s. Hackers finally understand how pointless it is. They’re much better off hacking large data companies such as Google, and stealing data straight from the source, then they are trying to use dark web to hack, or just simply wasting their time trying to steal from people who are just about as broke as they are.

-Sincerely, Everybody’s Favorite Uncle, Gregory Thomas

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-Sincerely, Gregory Thomas

The Shower Thoughts of the Lost

A human has a brain that rests in eternal darkness, and yet society still asks the heart, why does it sin?
The body of darkness, is just a body.
The eyes seeing red, is just looking at a color.
World War 3 is not a war, it’s an emotion.
Like children on the playground of fear and rage, the weakest one among you are enslaved.
And like office buildings meant for decay, mold gathers in the form of men and women.

Our children leave for school, and come back filled with hatred.
But this is the way of the world.
The faithful to Christ enter a church, and come out with more questions than answers.
And this is the folly of they who desert.
Rage bottles up, in the yound adult’s mind. Surrounded by friends in highschool, yet alone in an empty room at night.
And drafting unqualified men and women for new wars,
“The last shit you take,” says a soldier, “Is the corpse you leave behind.”

Scholars go into college, and come out lost and empty; in more ways than one, a bank account does not exist.
Neither do the funds.
Lost are the young, yet desperate are the boomers.
Forgotten are the gen X’s, and cumbersome are the Zoomers.
As it is just like God’s Son; He carried the cross.
We have our own crosses to bear, in this bog of despair.

The Writer’s Mirror: How Our Personalities Shape Our Characters

“As within, so without. Light begets plenty, darkness begets famine.”

The secret to the Rule of Cool is that if a person is cool in real life, they’ll be able to create a convincingly cool character when they write. Conversely, if a writer is genuinely nerdy, uncool, and quirky, they will likely fail at making a character seem cool.

This principle applies to writing emotional scenes as well; if the writer is an emotional person, they’ll write emotional scenes with ease. An angry person will be able to create scenes that incite anger more efficiently than a writer who is usually calm and collected.

In other words, “you are what you eat”; you write what comes from your soul.

In fact, in any novel you read, psychologically, the protagonist is just a stand-in for the author, and all of the characters in the book are just different interpretations of the protagonist.

For instance, in Harry Potter, Harry Potter is essentially a self-insert of J.K. Rowling, and Hermione, Ron Weasley, Dumbledore, and even Voldemort, the villain, are all just different interpretations of Harry Potter’s own personality.

Throughout the entire Harry Potter series, Harry had moments where he was overly cautious and stern, like Hermione, sought revenge like Voldemort, was wise like Dumbledore, and bashful like Ron–all of these traits can be found in J.K. Rowling’s personality.

This is the case for every single novel any writer writes, because just like art, books and their concepts come from the writer’s subconscious.

In other words, a writer isn’t ‘writing’ anything, they are essentially just talking to themselves over a word document.

Therefore, a writer who understands how to be cool, and has experienced it or been successful with it in their own lives, will also be able to depict it well in their stories. A writer who understands the concept of doing bad things, or what they may depict, will also be able to write compelling villains.

A writer who has a dull sense of humor will struggle to write comedic moments, while a writer who is very funny in person, will excel in writing convincingly funny scenes.

It’s convincing only if the writer understands it.

This is one of the reasons why Disney is failing to produce quality content in most of their franchises–if the plot is ‘woke’, it’s because the writer is ‘woke’ in real life. If a movie is corny and unfunny, then the writer is also corny and unfunny in person. If the action and events seem played out and rushed, then the writer is also getting tired of writing action scenes and is rushed in real life.

It can’t be hidden; it all comes from the mind.

Indeed, it is possible for a nerdy writer to successfully create a cool character that is convincing. However, this may only be because, unbeknownst to the writer, they might have secretly been cool all along.

So, the moral of the story: write what you know! Stay away from what you don’t know, or study from those who have succeeded in a certain genre you’re trying to write.

Quote on the Protagonist and the Author

In any novel you read, whoever is the protagonist, is the author, and whatever characters in the story are merely different representations of the protagonist.

Cosmic Horror Novels should have a Noir Setting

Cosmic Horror novels are a unique and sometimes challenging genre to write.

Last year in 2023, I currently wrote two cosmic horror novels back to back; the first and its sequel.

The first time I written a novel based after H.P. Lovecraft’s Cosmic Horror style, I reflected on the time period Lovecraft was born, and couldn’t help but wonder how the time and setting was important for his work’s premise.

Born in the 1800s, it would be behooving that most of his novels would have a noir-like, or an old-fashioned setting.

In the novels I wrote, I based them in the 1940s WW2 era, carefully considering the clothing of the characters, and the setting. The more I did this, the more I began to visualize the noir-like quality of what I was describing. The mood was dark, lonely, and there was this certain longing for a thing that seemed unachievable, yet right there in front of us.

It was somber, almost desolate, which added to the horror elements when they finally arrived. For me the noir made me feel safe, almost relaxed, and when they dissipated, it helped me to appreciate them for the safe haven they provide for my protagonist.

It was very interesting. There were objects like lanterns, rain, dark houses and buildings, and even descriptions like long winding corridors, with even a female supporting character to help the male protagonist come to his senses.

Cosmic horror often deals in the unknown, and unknowable, Noir writing tends to also follow the same format;

the mystery of an unsolved crime, or the uncertainty of truth. With cosmic horror; the uncertainty of the protagonist’s fate, there’s almost a fog-of-war over the world they inhabit. There’s knowledge there, but is the fruit edible to us as mortals? There’s a road here, but is a road meant for the protagonist to travel?

While HP Lovecraft’s personal ideals I found distasteful and damaging to his work’s premise (what with his fascist view toward African Americans in his life and also in his writing) the idea that a situation can be so inexplainable that it transcends reality in a chilling way is fascinating.

While writing my own version of a cosmic horror novel, I found the similar aspects between noir and cosmic horror to be pretty interesting, it helped to keep the novel steeped in mystery.

A man may walk down into a speakeasy, but what awaits him within? A truth may reveal itself, but does its origin reside in man or monster?

-Gregory Thomas

Reflection in Characters

There comes a time in your story, that a writer should have their characters ponder the rain.

What I mean by that is, they should have a series of events happen, then from time to time, drag them to the side, and have them reflect on what has happened. Doing this humanizes characters, even supporting characters should have events like this happen.

It’s like having Batman stand in silence by himself, not talking, not hearing anything, just pondering about the loss of his parents.

Both male and female characters should do this.

The ‘rain’ can be simply sitting down on a couch, listening mindlessly to a radio station with a thousand-yard stare, this alerts the readers that they are thinking about what has transpired, and shows them at their most vulnerable.

A writer should also do this out of the blue, instead of forcing it upon the reader.

Like a man having his wife and kids killed, and having a pondering in the rain moment is too forced; of course they would be upset.

Catching readers off guards by having a successful soldier who has won countless battles, stop and stare off into space with a somber look to himself is almost out of character, and perfectly encapsulates a soldier who has seen many battles, and they are starting to affect him. Here, they wonder if their success is misguided, and these subtle moments of clarity help to bring the setting, plot, and progression into perspective. In other words, the characters break the 4th wall, wondering if they either belong in the world they inhabit, question whether what they are doing is right or wrong, or even ponder whether they will live to see tomorrow, or whether a loved one will.

It’s the calm before the storm moment.

These moments can be disguised as many things, a mother staring off at a father going to work, a soldier, a doctor or nurse staring off in the distance, or even a small child staring curiously out at nothing. There can also be objects used as metaphors, like a child staring off at a tank, could foreshadow them growing up to join the same wars, or s traveler staring at a corpse on the ground; maybe toward the end of the story, that might foreshadow their own death.

How to Write Effective comedy

Sometimes humor can’t be explained.

It is formless, and comes from two souls shaking hands.

Where horror comes from the mind understanding the calamity, humor works where two people understand the amusement.

That means in order for something to be funny, it has to be naturally amusing.

Somebody that is popular is more likely to understand what makes something popular than somebody that isn’t; it is the same way with humor, in where one must naturally be funny, in order to know how to write it in a plot or in developing a character. Dark humor is when what is where the meeting of the minds understanding the dire situation is so in tune, that it becomes ironic. In other words, when something is grime, it’s funny, because everybody knew the chances of success were slim. This is the logic of dark humor. Like an old 90-year-old lady falling down the stairs, after trying to climb down them wearing high heels.

It is also possible to create what is called, tragic humor. Not to be confused with dark humor, tragic humor resembles the laughing man that bursts into genuine tears, like a mother’s daughter going missing for 1 year after going camping, only to find her alive having joined a pack of wolves and living like Tarzan out in the woods; here, there were tears before humor. Or a soldier dying from a gunshot wound, only to see a vision of his late wife in heaven calling him home. he smiles before dying.

Here, this is the logic of creating tears of joy, the audience is happy there is some form of resolution but saddened because it still led to sorrow.

Then there is childlike humor, which is humor geared toward younger audience. Like a writer telling a fart joke might make younger age groups laugh, but not necessarily older audiences. This means that it is possible to make a plot that is very funny for children, but corny or hoohum for adults.

All in all, in order for a writer to be able to successfully create humor in their writing, they have to have an understanding of what makes it funny, and what is funny to others in general. They can’t just be the only ones laughing at the joke.