Machine or Mannequin?

I read Sarah Rees Brennan’s novel The Demon’s Lexicon last weekend. It was quite enjoyable (although I still don’t understand the title, but nevermind, I’m always missing details by the end of a book), and I recommend it. However, I’m bringing it up mainly because it reminded of something I’ve been meaning to write about for a while – since I started watching Dexter, in fact. And that is… (drum roll, please) characters without emotions.

I don’t just mean characters like Mr. Spock, Sherlock Holmes, or Dr. House, whose conceit is that they do their best to have no emotions but really feel everything deeply, to the extent that the climactic moments of their stories often involve them, purposely or accidentally, letting their feelings burst through*. I also mean characters like Dexter Morgan and like Nick, the protagonist of The Demon’s Lexicon, whom the author or writers want us to believe truly don’t feel things most ordinary human beings do, like love, compassion, and empathy. Their problem is the converse of Spock, Holmes, and House’s: instead of having a well of emotion that they must constantly stifle and negate, these characters start from zero and must desperately cultivate the appearance of being normal.

While the initial appeal of Spocks is similar to that of Dexters, I think the two types of character work very differently, at least for me.

I like Spock, Holmes, House,  etc. because I can identify with them: I, too, have difficulty putting my emotions out there for the world to see. I want to be reassured that not only is that a normal problem to have, but that you can deal with it and still be a good person living a reasonably fulfilled life. In other words, I like to put myself in these characters’ shoes because I see something about them that corresponds to the way I think I am.

Characters like Dexter, on the other hand, appeal to me because sometimes it’s fun to pretend to be like him. When you don’t feel anything about other people, that gives you a certain power over them: there’s nothing holding you back from hurting them or ridiculing them or venting any of the aggressive, anti-social impulses we all sometimes feel.

And that’s just the thing: we all do sometimes feel like Dexter (or the talented Mr. Ripley, or Rorschach…). Who hasn’t experienced a moment when everyone around them appears to be doing or saying something totally stupid just for the sake of social convention? Who doesn’t find themselves occasionally not experiencing an appropriate emotion like, say, grief at a funeral or joy at a friend’s engagement? And who hasn’t on occasion faked some sort of feeling for the sake of others’ perceptions?

All of us like to believe we’re special somehow, and, more to the point, we want to believe that these little lapses don’t mean we’re horrible people. It’s fun to imagine just for a moment that the reason we make mistakes like this isn’t our fault – that, like Dexter and his cronies, we’re secretly different from everybody else, physically incapable of emotion.

Even better, lack of emotion makes characters like Dexter dangerous. Dexter wouldn’t be such an efficient killer if he felt his victims’ agony or the ordinary disgust most humans experience when faced with mutilated bodies; Nick wouldn’t be as skilled a swordsman if he didn’t enjoy it so much; Rorschach wouldn’t be so formidable a fighter if he empathized with the crooks he brings down.

While part of the fun of sympathizing with characters like Spock, Holmes, and House is also the vicarious thrill of power (since their stories, too, suggest that their knowledge and ability stem from their emotional control), it’s a different sort of power. Where Holmes is brilliant, Dexter’s deadly. Holmes’s power comes from competence and genius and is facilitated by his (pretended) lack of emotion; Dexter’s entire power is his lack of emotion.

Now, if you’re enough of a Star Trek fan to be interested in my example of Spock, you might be itching to ask if I’m not being too quick, lumping all characters among whose defining qualities is that they’re emotionless into the Spock/Holmes/House and Dexter/Nick/Rorschach bins. What about characters like the one who finished first in TV Guide’s poll of all-time favourite Starfleet Officers – Lieutenant-Commander Data?

Data seems to be an exception because he genuinely doesn’t feel emotion – he’s an android, with a positronic brain – but his appeal doesn’t come from being the ruthless badass each of us sometimes wishes we could be. Data may lack empathy, but that doesn’t stop him from looking out for other people’s interests: he’s no Dexter. On the other hand, Data certainly doesn’t belong in the Camp Spock/Holmes/House either; unlike them, he really, truly feels nothing, and even more unlike them, he tries his hardest to experience human feelings**.

The appeal of Data, I think, is different from that of the denizens of Camps SHH and DNR***. We care about Data, but we don’t usually step into his shoes to become him. His childlike attitude and innocence is appealing, and it prompts interesting scenes and humourous events when he interacts with other characters. Star Trek fans are protective of him and enjoy watching him “grow”; he occasionally attracts our empathy when he’s the “outsider” being treated unjustly (as in “The Measure of a Man” or that first scene on the holodeck when Riker calls him “Pinocchio”) or our fantasy-identification when his super-cool android intelligence/speed/strength saves the day, but we don’t connect to him the way we connect to Picard because there are no emotions to connect to.

I’ll end this ramble with a final thought: despite the appeal of putting oneself in the shoes of an emotionless but powerful character like Dexter, it seems that a lot of writers who employ DNR characters want to have their cake and eat it, too.

Even characters who are physically incapable of experiencing emotion are still shown to form attachments to other characters: in The Demon’s Lexicon, Nick is clearly devoted to Alan; in Watchmen, Rorschach admits that Nite Owl is a good friend to him; and in the Dexter series, Dexter chooses to spare the life of his foster sister, Deb, because he doesn’t want to see her dead. Is a character who forms absolutely no, 0%, nada, zip, nyet emotional ties impossible to sympathize with? Do readers (and audiences) need a character to be at least a little empathetic? (After all, we like characters to be enough like ourselves that we can identify with them, and if you’re reading a book to identify with a pretend person in the first place, chances are you do experience at least some empathy.) Or is it a structure thing – if your character doesn’t form emotional ties, how do you motivate him or her**** to do interesting things or interact with interesting people? Hmmm…

* “I am… and always shall be… your friend”/ “You’re not hurt, Watson? For G-d’s sake, say that you are not hurt!”/ “We’re not friends anymore, House… I’m not sure we ever were.” *dramatic chord!*

** Some of my fellow nerds may recall the brief conversation to this effect between Data and Spock when they met in the “Unification” two-parter… oh dear, I’m a super nerd now.

*** Apt acronyms, perhaps, considering their attitude toward emotion and the usual end state of those with whom they come into conflict?

**** But, as my list of examples seems to show, regrettably almost always “him”.

2 Replies to “Machine or Mannequin?”

  1. interesting analysis, sar.

    I dont know Dexter or anyone really besides the star trek references to really comment, but what you’re saying are interesting ideas.

    What is the audience’s role in all this, do you think? (If there is one; does it matter where you yourself fall on the emotion scale? Do highly emotional people still enjoy Spock in the same way or for the same reasons as highly non-emotional people?)

    I WONDER.

    hehe yeah I read your blog when Im bored.

    :D

    <3 debra

    1. Hmmmm… I think “Dexter” would upset you; don’t watch it. :P

      Interesting point about the audience contribution to their relationship with emotionless characters. Some of these character seem to inspire love-hate responses along lines of personal preference – a lot of people I’ve met either love or hate Dr. House, for example – but others have fans all across the spectrum. Like, I’d put Mom on the more emotional side of the spectrum and me on the less emotional side, but we both like Spock…

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