Sir Not Appearing In This Book

[Queshire]

A character can have a huge impact on a story despite never actually physically appearing. Or at least that's something I want to explore in my latest story idea, but you know, it doesn't seem to be something that's been majorly explored and I'm wondering if there's a reason for that as well as whether you guys have done anything with it and your ideas as a whole.

On the side of the heroes it's not uncommon to see a character who does not otherwise appear serving as a push to inspire the hero. It could be a loved one who ends up dying or a more experienced hero who the character tries to catch up to. However, how often do they have an influence on things in the story aside from just giving a push to the hero? It doesn't seem that common to me. If I think about it, the one who most exemplifies that sort of thing would be Nagi from the manga Negima, as well his son Negi in the sequel series UQ Holder.

I'm more interested in the side of the villains though. It's common enough to hear a villain mentioned before they appear in order to hype them up, but they always end up showing up eventually. Is that really that necessary? I mean, think about Harry Potter. The first part of the first book is a good example of what I'm talking about, but even then they have voldie showing up in the end. Would it have affected anything to have had Quirell be a death eater seeking the stone to revive voldie without needing to have voldie show up? The second and third books are a good example of the sort of influence I'm talking about, but I'm not sure if I should count that since he already showed up in the first book.

I understand that you can't hype up this guy and then never do anything to resolve that, but isn't there ways to do that aside from the guy showing up?

What do you guys think?

 

[fantastic]

Well, imagine this situation. Hero goes on a journey to defeat the villain. On his ways he defeats many creatures villain summoned. After hero reaches villain, villain is already dead. He died in order to summon all the creatures hero defeated on his way. So, the villain died even before hero went on a journey. And perhaps by defeating all these creatures, villains's strongest creature is summoned. And hero must defeat it.

Hero had to fight villain many times but he never truly met him.

Or villain is defeated in a way without being shown. Imagine king of other kingdom being a villain. After his forces are defeated, he is defeated as well. But he was maybe never shown and hero maybe did not ever meet him.

 

[Mythopoet]

Well, you are aware that Sauron never really appears in LOTR, right?


Also, nice Monty Python reference.

 

[WooHooMan]

Well, you are aware that Sauron never really appears in LOTR, right?

He indirectly appears. Being a, y'know, not-mortal with vague powers, there's a lot of ways to give him influence in the story without him appearing in the flesh.

On a similar note, there's a cartoon/comic series called Berserk that has characters like that. Something that I really dig about that plot is that there are layers of conflict.
At the lowest level, there's the main protagonist and the main antagonist. Above them are a group of demonic entities who gave the main antagonist his power, instigating the story's main conflict. But they rarely appear in the story itself and seem to have their own agenda. Their leader even has his own archenemy who's an occasional ally of the main protagonist.
And then above those demons, there's a bigger villain who doesn't and perhaps never will appear in the story but is the prime mover behind everything in the series. Sort of akin to Morgoth in Lord of the Rings in that he exists and has influence but is never seen or mentioned.

I guess for a simpler and more mainstream example: there's the Emperor in the first (and kind of in the second) Star Wars movies.
Maybe Big Brother in 1984 (assuming he exists) or the Inner Party in general.

I don't know if that's what Queshire is looking for but I think stuff like that is pretty cool. It can really make the setting seem really grand to have bigger conflicts than the one the hero is involved in.

 

[Lunaairis]

In GoT Rhaegar Targaryen is the reason why everything is as it is, yet he never actually appears. Instead he is only mentioned by everyone, so you end up learning a lot about a character you never actually get to meet.

 

[Chilari]

I guess when you think about it, some of the people who have a strong influence on our own lives are people we've never met. Politicians are a prime example, because their policies and decisions have a knock-on effect on the taxes we pay, the things we're entitled to, etc. But there are others too. The guy who lived in your house before you who decided to paint the second bedroom bright yellow and broke the bathroom lock and put the cat flap in the back door, and who the neighbours still gossip about and compare you to. In my case, my fiance's father still has an influence on my life, even though he died when my fiance was 7 and I never met him, and he is still mentioned periodically and we've visited his grave etc. The CEO of the company I used to work for often sent out company-wide emails about things, had his photos and quotes in documents I created, needed to approve my pay rise when I went from temp to permanent, but I never met him.

So it's reasonable for a character to have an influence on a protagonist without ever actually appearing.

Another example of this is books 1 and 2 of Avatar: the Last Airbender - Ozai has huge influence on the plot, but we only encounter him in a flashback, and at no point do Aang, Katara and Sokka encounter him. Sozin too, who isn't encountered til book 3's The Avatar and the Firelord history lesson episode.

 

[wordwalker]

When you write a story, you make decisions on what characters to add-- what aspect of the world is worth seeing embodied as a person, who'd be fun to oppose or at least contrast the leads with, and so on. Historical and off-screen characters can be an extension of the same thinking, if you see the seed of something that's so interesting the character could carry his weight even through records and legends. Almost all the universe that matters is made up of characters anyway; this is just find ones so interesting that out of sight doesn't have to be out of mind.

One odd example is Star Wars. While we're just in New Hope, Luke's father... those footsteps is a seamless part of the destiny Luke is stepping into, and it's a perfect synergy in that one movie. And of course, it's what makes the next revelation such a kick in the teeth-- and it could have done that even in a more subtle story where Vader was also a dead but famous figure by then.

It can be the connection a possible character has to our heroes, or maybe a contrasting lesson, or just embodying an interesting part of history. Sometimes a person doesn't belong on stage, but he's still too good not to use.

 

[Ruby]

I took this a stage further, thinking about TV's The Big Bang Theory and Howard Wolowitz's mother who is heard and never seen. So I Googled it and am very upset to discover that the actress who played her, Carol Ann Susi, died last year. As a result, the writers apparently killed off the character too. Were you all aware of this?

 

[Nagash]

Yeah; I read a post from CBS some time after the episode aired.

I don't even like this show, but having spent many years watching it, it did came off as kind of sad.

 

[wordwalker]

TV is good at this kind of near-miss presentation; another example is Frasier's infamous Maris, Niles's crazy wife. They built her up as such a bundle of wierdness it was obvious they wouldn't even try to do her justice in person.

On screen that partly depends on the cast's skill at talking her up, and the medium's implication that there might (but probably won't) be an performer worthy of actually showing that character. But it still applies in a book: how well you can position those hints and how funny (or ominous, or tragic) you can make the execution.

Plus, it gets attention. By refusing to take the obvious route and just show that character, you're spotlighting how colorful they are even without that, and how well you can pull it off. And if you're doing something really interesting with that ghost...

Remember Keyser Soze?

 

[Penpilot]

I took this a stage further, thinking about TV's The Big Bang Theory and Howard Wolowitz's mother who is heard and never seen. So I Googled it and am very upset to discover that the actress who played her, Carol Ann Susi, died last year. As a result, the writers apparently killed off the character too. Were you all aware of this?

Yep, huge fan of the show. Same thing happened with Mrs. Krabapple on the Simpsons. Times be changing

 

[Ruby]

Hi wordwalker, I'd completely forgotten about Frasier - of course, one always hopes that Maris will appear!

Returning to the original post about books, the classic one must be Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, where Rebecca is already dead and the MC's name is never revealed.