Angst Dissonance: Difference between revisions
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Let's face it, life is tough, and it's not made easier when you're a [[Chew Toy]].
And when the going gets tough - and let's face it, since [[True Art Is Angsty]], it ''will'' - even the tough can start to whine. Of course, [[Age-Appropriate Angst|depending on age]], the whining will be different, but nonetheless they'll whine. In fiction, however, no matter how justified the character's complaints are there's a delicate balance between enough whining and too much, and unfortunately characters that should have a right to angst can lose the sympathy of the audience if the audience no longer wants to listen. Many situations in fiction do not happen in real life, therefore most audiences cannot truly sympathize with the character and can find him annoying. This phenomenon is known as
There are a few theories as to why this occurs. Note that Angst Dissonance is a [[Subjective Tropes|personal limit]], and different people have different levels of tolerance for exactly how much they're willing to put up with; Furthermore, a lot of these depend as much on how the character is being read / written rather than any inherent issues in the text;. Nevertheless, some of the key contributing factors to
#You are listening to a stranger's problems. No matter how much of this character's life you've watched, a viewer still can't know the character personally, and it makes the whining that much more difficult to tolerate. This particular point can be alleviated if the character is written in such a way that the reader ''does'' feel that they know the character, but this can be difficult to achieve, and depends partly on the reader being able to make this connection in the first place. Characters whose tragic circumstances are introduced before we get to know them at all are especially prone to this.
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#As with real people, no matter how serious or genuine the complaint some fictional characters [[Wangst|can just go way over the top with moaning about it]]. They may also just be moaning about nothing, or something that is [[Cursed with Awesome|actually pretty cool if they thought about it]]. The creators may also be [[Deus Angst Machina|trying WAY too hard]] to make things angsty for their characters, which can pull the audience right out of the story if it's just too obvious and contrived.
#Alternatively, the creator may insist on returning to a particular well of suffering for a character so many times that the audience becomes irritated and bored with seeing it dragged out well past what they feel is its sell-by date. Even if the angst is relatively well-portrayed and concerning something that would be genuinely difficult to overcome, eventually the audience is going to start insisting that the character ''and'' creator both get over it and move on to something new; the beauty of fiction is that, unlike in [[Real Life]], the grieving process doesn't ''have'' to be dragged out over a lengthy period of time and can be dealt with in a compressed fashion.
#The character who is doing all the angsting may be juxtaposed against other characters who have just as many reasons to
#No matter how justified they may be in doing so, characters who whine about being [[Celebrity Is Overrated|famous]], [[So Beautiful It's a Curse|beautiful]] and / or wealthy are unlikely to win the audience's sympathy very easily. There may be genuine drawbacks involved, but there are also ''lots'' of advantages to being beautiful, famous and wealthy that makes people who have these things whining about them particularly insufferable to people who don't.
#For the most part people who spend all or most their time complaining about
#Even in real life, most people don't actually like hearing people complain, but they may listen anyway out of sympathy. With fiction, they expect to be entertained.
#The character is whining about something that happened to them after they were passed the [[Idiot Ball]] and got themselves in trouble through their own stupidity.
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Angst Dissonance can lead to creators going right into [[Wangst]] if the Dissonance goes way over the top, as no matter how genuine the complaint people will get turned off if the character's moaning goes too far, especially if ''all'' they're doing is complaining without attempting to effectively deal with the problem. If the creators try too hard to generate angst for the characters without accurately judging exactly how much angsty backstory the audience can reasonably tolerate, and don't take steps to pull back when they might be going too far, then [[Deus Angst Machina]] can be the result. Angst Dissonance can also be the result if the show's relying on a visit from [[Diabolus Ex Machina]], which can damage the show's credibility and the audience's ability to [[Willing Suspension of Disbelief|suspend their disbelief]]. If the character's complaints stem from something that is actually pretty cool, then the character is [[Cursed with Awesome]] - and audiences hate it when characters ''complain'' about powers and abilities that they'd love to have.
Using a [[Cozy Voice for Catastrophes]] can mitigate
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Characterization Tropes]]
[[Category:YMMV Trope]]
[[Category:Sadness Tropes]]
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