The Rise of the Boring Character

"Boring" characters are experiencing a resurgence in fiction today. Okay, perhaps boring is the wrong word; these characters are only boring compared their more extreme brothers in fiction. But unlike so many other fictional characters, they don't break the rules, and they don't harbor unexplained hatred of authority figures. They might have nine to five jobs, and they might be decently groomed and wear unstylish, non-designer suits and ties. On the other hand, they're not the Everyman.

One of the earliest examples I can think of this is Sam in Return of the King (the movie). By all rights, he shouldn't be cool. He's not some badass like just about every other character in the movie, he has no special destiny, no real role other than helping his buddy (and making heartfelt speeches). Yet he ends up as the coolest guy in the film (although he is more Everyman than anything else).

(What might be the earliest example I can think of is the Internal Affairs guy from the TV show Fastlane; I think his name was Rollins or something. But he was a rather nerdy, an annoying by-the book-stickler, and he liked gospel music WITHOUT being religious. He was weird as hell, but he was also entertaining, and when he explained why he was such a pain in the ass, even likeable. However, I think my college buddy Dan and I were the ONLY ones who have ever seen that show.)

In the TV show White Collar, the two main characters are Neil, a young charismatic con artist (based on Frank Abignale, I believe), and Peter, the older, married FBI family man. It would have been incredibly easy to make Peter some boring guy, but he ends up being cooler than the cool criminal who likes to break all the rules. Why? Because he's effective. He doesn't need to violate regs or go behind his boss's back (well, sometimes, but it's generally to protect Neil) to get his job done.

The show Psych features a similar style of character; Lasiter is still straight-laced, but can be rather unstable.

In the TV show Community, in the season one episode The Science of Illusion, two of the characters become campus security officers. The ever genre-savvy show poses the question to them: which one will be the badass cop, and which will be the by-the books cop? This is one of those tropes that literally EVERYONE knows about. (By the way, I'm not ever going to link to TV Tropes. That site is a black hole!)

The correct answer is that the badass and the rules-lover are the same character, best personified by this guy, the greatest fictional cop known to mankind. :)

In the absolutely brilliant movie Hot Fuzz, supercop Nicholas Angel exemplifies this character (at least for MOST of the movie). By always following procedure, he essentially becomes unbeatable, a faceless soldier of an unmoving bureacracy, but in a good way. He can act with absolute moral clarity. When he acts, he's not just one man, but a representative of the entire police force. And if you take away all of that, he just becomes a guy with a gun.

That's where Dirty Harry fails.

Stories, or at least some stories, are moving away from using the freelancers, hired guns, and lone wolves to characters with more structure in their lives, and less kinds of insanity. These kinds of characters, the 'boring' characters, not only belong to organizations but use the principles of these organizations to accomplish their goals. I think this kind of movement is probably a good thing.

The important factor is that these characters need to be effective. A character whose principles or organization always stops him from success might seem noble, but in reality he's just stupid. I think I'll talk about a fictional character's competence, and how it's demonstrated, in my next blog post.