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Meta - The Tragedienne
Jan. 28th, 2010 03:14 pm[ooc: From ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kittydesade's Arcana]
THE TRAGEDIENNE
The Tragedienne is a popular archetype in noir, political commentary, and romance fiction. In any genre where a happy ending is not only not guaranteed, but almost forbidden, one is likely to find a Tragedienne. She carries within her a great drama that will be written out in the course of her life. Most often she is not careful and the grief that comes to her is of her own foolishness or her own indirect making, although that is largely due to the contrivances of the plot and the purpose with which the story is written. Tragic characters most often are so because there is a lesson to be learned. In real life, one has the ability to learn the lessons before it is too late, and the point of no return rarely exists in so certain a form.
The Tragedienne is usually an innocent or an admirable character. There is very little of malice or mischief about her, although she has the bad luck to fall in with a bad crowd. Perhaps she falls in love with someone she should not (a Sorcerer or a Blade [Mun insert: Or both]) or she is the victim of someone close to her in her youth. Or perhaps she is caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Whichever the cause, over the course of her life she continues to make her decisions as reactions, rather than actions. She is caught along in the wave of the drama surrounding her and carried to an unhappy ending. The most famous example of this is most likely the titular heroine of Romeo and Juliet, although Romeo himself does not escape this. She reacts out of love, to her parents' plans for her and to the consequences of Romeo's duel. It might have been better, or at least more cleanly cut, if he had adopted the sense and restraint of Benvolio, or if she had simply run away instead of concocting a ridiculous plan of false death.
More often than not, even the tragic ending is directly of her own making. Tragediennes who endure the most prominently throughout history and fiction tend to be suicides, either when her life has gone on beyond bearing or in the course of martyring herself for a cause or a person. In the rare cases that her story doesn't end with her untimely and tragic death, she often runs mad from isolation, from grief, or from some overwhelming, pyrrhic gift.
kittydesade's Arcana]THE TRAGEDIENNE
The Tragedienne is a popular archetype in noir, political commentary, and romance fiction. In any genre where a happy ending is not only not guaranteed, but almost forbidden, one is likely to find a Tragedienne. She carries within her a great drama that will be written out in the course of her life. Most often she is not careful and the grief that comes to her is of her own foolishness or her own indirect making, although that is largely due to the contrivances of the plot and the purpose with which the story is written. Tragic characters most often are so because there is a lesson to be learned. In real life, one has the ability to learn the lessons before it is too late, and the point of no return rarely exists in so certain a form.
The Tragedienne is usually an innocent or an admirable character. There is very little of malice or mischief about her, although she has the bad luck to fall in with a bad crowd. Perhaps she falls in love with someone she should not (a Sorcerer or a Blade [Mun insert: Or both]) or she is the victim of someone close to her in her youth. Or perhaps she is caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Whichever the cause, over the course of her life she continues to make her decisions as reactions, rather than actions. She is caught along in the wave of the drama surrounding her and carried to an unhappy ending. The most famous example of this is most likely the titular heroine of Romeo and Juliet, although Romeo himself does not escape this. She reacts out of love, to her parents' plans for her and to the consequences of Romeo's duel. It might have been better, or at least more cleanly cut, if he had adopted the sense and restraint of Benvolio, or if she had simply run away instead of concocting a ridiculous plan of false death.
More often than not, even the tragic ending is directly of her own making. Tragediennes who endure the most prominently throughout history and fiction tend to be suicides, either when her life has gone on beyond bearing or in the course of martyring herself for a cause or a person. In the rare cases that her story doesn't end with her untimely and tragic death, she often runs mad from isolation, from grief, or from some overwhelming, pyrrhic gift.
