META: The Problem of Fourth Wall Breaking
Martin Phipps
metafiction. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_wall and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metafiction ). The articles do not
address the issue of when, if ever, one should break the fourth wall
in fiction.
Critic Vincent Canby described the fourth wall as "that invisible
screen that forever separates the audience from the stage." In the
case of a story, it is the requirement that the characters do not know
they are in a story and, thus, never refer to themselves or the events
that occur as fictional. When the narrator addresses the reader
directly, it is not fourth wall breaking: it is the equivalent of the
narrator in a play standing at the front of the stage away from the
actors: the characters see neither the narrator nor the audience. It
is fourth wall breaking when the narrator addresses the characters
directly, assuming the characters can hear him, because, in a story
that does not break the fourth wall, the characters are not supposed
to even know about the narrator.
In LNH stories, fourth wall breaking takes many forms: 1) the
characters make metafictional references, ie they refer to drama or
comedy as forces of nature or they predict the outcome of a situation
based on the genre of story they believe to be in at the time; this
particular technique appears to be favoured by Saxon Brenton, 2)
characters speak directly to the narrator / author, usually
complaining about what has just happened to them; this particular joke
has gotten old and is rarely used in LNH stories now, 3) a character
represents the writer himself; taken to its logical conclusion, the
character should know everything that has happened in the story so
far, have a fairly good idea what is going to happen next and chose to
change the course of events if he/she doesn't like how things are
going; given that LNH stories also allow for retro-active continuity,
all "writer characters" should have god-like powers and most
apparently choose not to and 4) characters will deliberately make "in
jokes" refering to current popular comics or movies and/or refer to
something as a "homage" or "rip off" of something from a popular comic
or movie. Sometimes a real life person like Rob Liefeld or Stan Lee
will make a walk on appearance in an LNH story and this is fourth wall
breaking because we're reminded that it's "really him" and not a
fictional character.
Fourth wall breaking is typically used for comic effect, especially in
LNH stories, although this isn't always the case: sometimes the fourth
wall breaking is taken quite seriously. For example, Saxon Brenton
sometimes has characters wax philosophically about what it means to be
fictional characters in a fictional "reality". The logical result of
this is the "Church of the Fourth Wall" where parishioners go to
worship the writers as gods. Other authors tend to step back a bit
and have most characters remain skeptical about the very existance of
these "writers", feeling that most characters need to be blissfully
unaware of the true nature of the "reality" they find themselves in if
the plots are going to advance at all. Another example would be
stories in which fictional characters travel to the "real world" only
to find that the "real world" is actually a yet another fictional
reality that closely resembles the real world, something which has to
be true because any reality that exists in a fictioanl story is, by
definition, fictional.
Some of the comedy regarding fourth wall breaking comes about when
some characters are aware of the writers and readers and some are not,
thus resulting in some ironic comments that unaware characters either
miss entirely or simply remain puzzled over. (That this is true was
actually explored by John Byrne when he wrote She Hulk for Marvel
Comics.) When a character who is unaware of the true nature of the
Looniverse actually does discover that he/she is a fictional
character, however, it can be a very dramatic moment equivalent to a
religious experience. (That this is true was actually explored by
Grant Morrison when he wrote Animal Man for DC Comics.)
Alas, breaking the fourth wall is not always a good idea. For
example, it is my personal opinion that villains in LNH stories should
never be aware that they are in a story because it creates the
inherent contradiction of somebody _knowing_ that they are the villain
and yet doing nothing to change their ways. Perhaps it would be
interesting to have a villain find out that he is not only in a story
but that he is considered the villain and see how he would react:
after all, nobody in real life actually sees themselves as evil. The
problem arises then that when presenting an evil version of the LNH,
for example, the LNH's evil counterparts should not refer to
themselves as "the evil LNH" but should, in fact, see our LNH as weak
and disposable. In is, after all, in the interests of "improving the
human race" that (what most of us consider to be) the greatest evils
commited in the real world were carried out.
Thus, fourth wall breaking is a useful techniue, used by LNH authors
for the sake of eliciting both drama and comedy, but it should be used
sparingly as, after more than sixteen years, it's pretty much been
done to death.
Martin
PS: I noticed before I posted this that I had misspelled "Saxon
Brenton" as "Saxon Breaking" :)
Arthur Spitzer
> Alas, breaking the fourth wall is not always a good idea. For
> example, it is my personal opinion that villains in LNH stories should
> never be aware that they are in a story because it creates the
> inherent contradiction of somebody _knowing_ that they are the villain
> and yet doing nothing to change their ways. Perhaps it would be
> interesting to have a villain find out that he is not only in a story
> but that he is considered the villain and see how he would react:
> after all, nobody in real life actually sees themselves as evil. The
> problem arises then that when presenting an evil version of the LNH,
> for example, the LNH's evil counterparts should not refer to
> themselves as "the evil LNH" but should, in fact, see our LNH as weak
> and disposable. In is, after all, in the interests of "improving the
> human race" that (what most of us consider to be) the greatest evils
> commited in the real world were carried out.
>
I disagree about the whole villains shouldn't ever break the Fourth Wall
thing...
It seems you're leaping to bizarre assumptions regarding what happens
when a villain knows about the fourth wall...
I think various villains like Steven Howard's Arthur E. L. Presence and
that lizard creature (IMPLO?) in Retcon Hour who went around canceling
series were pretty cool villains.
I've thought up a couple of villains myself though I've never used them.
Fake LNH Writer -- he's a con artist who has the power to trick
characters into thinking he's a real LNH Writer. He carries around a
fake LNH Writers Guild card and some fake Saxon Brenton and Tom Russell
reviews praising the fake series he claims to write...
The Fourth Wallower -- Some elemental creature who becomes more powerful
every time someone breaks the fourth wall. A perfect villain for Fourth
Wall Lass...
I think some series that broke the fourth wall all the time like
Badger's Swordmaster and Abhay's Refugees of Net.ropolis were a lot of
fun. If you can do it well do it... and if you can't...
Arthur "breaking the cliche wall" Spitzer
Martin Phipps
> Martin Phipps wrote:
> > Alas, breaking the fourth wall is not always a good idea. For
> > example, it is my personal opinion that villains in LNH stories should
> > never be aware that they are in a story because it creates the
> > inherent contradiction of somebody _knowing_ that they are the villain
> > and yet doing nothing to change their ways. Perhaps it would be
> > interesting to have a villain find out that he is not only in a story
> > but that he is considered the villain and see how he would react:
> > after all, nobody in real life actually sees themselves as evil. The
> > problem arises then that when presenting an evil version of the LNH,
> > for example, the LNH's evil counterparts should not refer to
> > themselves as "the evil LNH" but should, in fact, see our LNH as weak
> > and disposable. In is, after all, in the interests of "improving the
> > human race" that (what most of us consider to be) the greatest evils
> > commited in the real world were carried out.
>
> I disagree about the whole villains shouldn't ever break the Fourth Wall
> thing...
>
> It seems you're leaping to bizarre assumptions regarding what happens
> when a villain knows about the fourth wall...
>
> I think various villains like Steven Howard's Arthur E. L. Presence and
> that lizard creature (IMPLO?) in Retcon Hour who went around canceling
> series were pretty cool villains.
But Arthur E. L. Presence never broke the fourth wall in so far as he
never spoke directly with the writer (as far as he knew) or the
narrator or the readers. Yes, he knew he was in a story but as far as
he was concerned he was the one writing it.
I suppose this brings up an interesting point that stories that break
the fourth wall are metafiction but not all metafiction necessarily
breaks the fourth wall.
IMPLO is a good example of a villain who broke the fourth wall: he
refered to any story he was in as part of a "series" which meant he
was aware that somebody out there was writing it. I assumed that
Pointless Death Man also knew about the fourth wall to the extent that
he presumably knew that it was the writer who was sending him out to
kill people... but that was never actually established in story.
Thing is, IMPLO and Pointless Death Man were more like forces of
nature than fleshed out villains. Arthur E. L. Presence is a bit more
interesting: he kills people because he knows he can and thinks nobody
can stop him; he doesn't seem to be aware that somebody else is
writing him.
> I've thought up a couple of villains myself though I've never used them.
>
> Fake LNH Writer -- he's a con artist who has the power to trick
> characters into thinking he's a real LNH Writer. He carries around a
> fake LNH Writers Guild card and some fake Saxon Brenton and Tom Russell
> reviews praising the fake series he claims to write...
>
> The Fourth Wallower -- Some elemental creature who becomes more powerful
> every time someone breaks the fourth wall. A perfect villain for Fourth
> Wall Lass...
>
> I think some series that broke the fourth wall all the time like
> Badger's Swordmaster and Abhay's Refugees of Net.ropolis were a lot of
> fun. If you can do it well do it... and if you can't...
Again, if the villains wink at the reader and say "Ha ha ha! I'm the
bad guy" then the story is lost on me. You might as well bring in
talking snails at that point. :)
Martin
Tarq
> Again, if the villains wink at the reader and say "Ha ha ha! I'm the
> bad guy" then the story is lost on me. You might as well bring in
> talking snails at that point. :)
I think that a villain could be quite powerfully written like that,
really. "Your reality is 'higher' than mine, you see me as the
villain, all you'll ever see me as is the villain, why shouldn't I go
around killing people? It's not like it makes a difference anyway."
Ken, the Digimon Emperor from Digimon Adventure 02, is a good example
of this, in a way; he sees the Digital World as being 'fake', so he
has no qualms about enslaving and torturing the Digimon.
In everyday life, a person might squash an ant if it crawled on their
leg. Their reasoning? It annoyed them. Something annoying a person
seems pretty good reason to wipe out *real* life; 'dangerous' animals
are put down, insects are sprayed and poisoned, and just because their
location inconveniences a human. If a person wasn't real and they were
being annoying, would you really care about whether or not you hurt
them? No one seems to mind slinging insults at humanesque robots, or
even hurling abuse at people on the Internet who they've never met --
these people aren't 'real' to them. So if you were heavily
disillusioned with the world and believed that it didn't matter
whether or not you killed everyone, would you hold back?
It makes sense to me that there would be some breed of person who
wouldn't.
~Mitchell
PS -- On a related note, are talking snails really that much more
absurd than flying humans?
Martin Phipps
I think you probably argue that a person, in real life, who regarded
other people like ants and had no qualms about killing them would be a
psychopath. We just saw a very good portrayal of just such a villain
in the movie... um... the name escapes me... it's doing very well
though... Dark something or other.
Anyway, this is a frightening kind of villain but the whole
effectiveness is lost if the villain is correct and there are, in
fact, absolutely no consequences to anything he does. I mean either
there are consequences and the villain should reconsider his actions
or there are no consequences and therefore no drama.
> PS -- On a related note, are talking snails really that much more
> absurd than flying humans?
By about one order of magnitude, yes. :) Anyway, it isn't ordinary
humans who fly in comics: it's either mutants or aliens or people
using alien technology. Ordinary humans flying around would be around
the same order of magnitude of silliness as talking apes. That's all
my opinion, of course. :)
Martin
Tom Russell
> PS -- On a related note, are talking snails really that much more
> absurd than flying humans?
No. :-)
Though the point isn't whether or not it's more absurd. The great
thing about this genre is that you can take things that are absurd on
their face-- giant green man in tiny purple pants, cosmic gods at war,
talking apes or snails, grown men dressed up in pajamas-- and take it
seriously: not as camp, but as art and drama.
Those who fail to understand that-- and, indeed, to embrace it-- are
less likely to enjoy or comprehend the appeal of the genre's more
fantastical contingent: Kirby, Morrison, Busiek. And while there's
certainly a lot more in the genre besides that, I'd hate to live in a
world without it.
==Tom
Martin Phipps
But taking it seriously as a writer means actually trying to get
something to work. Only a lazy writer would throw something absurd
out there and not at least try to make it seem plausible. If in a
story that is already absurd on its face you add yet another element
of absurdity then it becomes the kiss of death. Let's face it, not
all fans of Superman are going to embrace Krypto the Superdog. Nor
all fans of Batman embrace Batmite. Hell, most fans of Batman seem to
think Batman does just fine without Robin thrown in!
Martin
Tom Russell
> But taking it seriously as a writer means actually trying to get
> something to work. Only a lazy writer would throw something absurd
> out there and not at least try to make it seem plausible.
Agreed.
> If in a
> story that is already absurd on its face you add yet another element
> of absurdity then it becomes the kiss of death.
If I agreed with that, I'd hate the Fourth World instead of love
it. :-)
But I understand your point, that some things stretch credulity. I
think it's kind of relative, though, and as always, a matter of
differing tastes.
> Let's face it, not
> all fans of Superman are going to embrace Krypto the Superdog. Nor
> all fans of Batman embrace Batmite. Hell, most fans of Batman seem to
> think Batman does just fine without Robin thrown in!
I see your point there-- not every character, concept, or story is to
all tastes. (If it was, it wouldn't really be any damn good.)
There's something to be said in favour of the peculiar, the unique,
and the sublimely ridiculous-- and the superhero genre can get away
with that more, I think, than most other genres, even in the
speculative realm.