A-Z Characters & Transformation: Ruth and Rahab, Radical External Change

My current A-Z List tackles characters who transform. I mention in my post about Kate from Taming of the Shrew, 

I use "transform" throughout this list from its narrowest to its broadest sense. That is, a character may transform internally or externally, for good or for bad, slightly or to an extreme, beneath a mask or without a mask. 

Ruth and Rahab from the Old Testament undergo external transformation. They also represent the point of view of Jews within the Jewish diaspora. As parts of what became the Old Testament were being collected, Jewish populations were debating various perspectives. Ruth and Rahab represent a particular position on marriage--namely, that marriage of "foreigners" is acceptable (Ezra represents an opposing position).

As transformative characters, Ruth and Rahab are remarkable. They don't simply change location and group identity--they do it in ways that leave a lasting impression. 

They make these changes without giving up their selves. Ruth debates Naomi (another powerhouse) kindly yet confidently. Rahab is utterly unapologetic. They are not even vaguely victims, despite desperate circumstances (dead husband, besieged city). They are level-headed women who make decisions and accept the consequences--in both cases while protecting others (mother-in-law, entire household). 

I wrote stories about both Ruth and Rahab, one sci-fi, one historical. These woman are tough enough to survive any context.  

A-Z Characters & Transformation: The Queen Who Transforms Yet Remains Herself

Extreme transformation is attractive--but careful transformation is more believable. In my master's program, New England Studies, Anne Hutchinson may have attracted more attention (Look how she stood up to the patriarchal system!) but I always found Anne Bradstreet more interesting. In truth, I don't think it is that hard to "buck" the system--though it can be unpleasant when the system doesn't budge and a person gets squashed instead (Anne Hutchinson was exiled). 

Survival and adaptation within the system, however, is far more difficult, thoughtful, and ongoing. Anne Bradstreet married and raised kids and led the life of a Puritan woman within her community--and she also wrote poetry and got published. 

Anne Bradstreet reminds me of Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen starring Helen Mirren. The queen doesn't decide half-way through the movie to tout disestablishmentarian. She doesn't abandoned her identity, doesn't give up her royal title. She also doesn't perform one of those classic "yell at everyone for being jerks" scenes. 

She believes in her role and obligations. She believes in the grandeur of the monarchy she represents. She also worries about its possible obsolesce. She adjusts. She adapts to a specific set of circumstances. 

(And she's played by Helen Mirren.)

Consequently, one of my favorite parts of the film is when she returns to Buckingham Palace and forces herself to inspect the flowers for a dead woman who poured scorn on her and her office. 

As she turns to the crowd, a young child extends flowers. Queen Elizabeth assumes they are for the memorial but no, the child replies, they are for the queen. 

As she moves along the row, the woman at the rope courtesy to her, at first mostly older women but, as she proceeds, younger ones too. 

At the same time that she is adjusting to unusual circumstances, she is shown respect for herself, the person who adapts to her times without losing herself. 

Quincy, Luther's Dog: Great Character Actor

In my most recent A-Z List, I've been exploring characters that change. 

One of the funniest non-human examples is Luther's dog Quincy. 

Quincy is a basset hound. As the guy at the pound says, "A ficus tree and basset hound are pretty much the same thing." 

Except--

Quincy will go crazy when he is left alone or when he sees certain people/colors. So, he destroys the band room and later attacks the band director. 

The hilarity of these moments is how entirely sleepy and unaffected Quincy looks when he appears on-screen--as compared to what people hear him doing or hear about him doing. 

Rather touchingly, Quincy also changes in terms of getting older and eventually dying. That is, he lives a full pet life with Luther, who is equally impacted by Quincy. Eventually, Luther ends up with a new "little" Quincy.  

A-Z Characters & Transformation: The Little Princess

On my list of Characters Who Transform, I am now tackling princes and princesses. 

As mentioned at the beginning of this list, some transformation are internal. Others are external. The transformation of Sarah's life in The Little Princess is entirely external. 

External transformations are quite effective. Still--many children's novels usually also rely on an internal transformation. Mary Lennox and Colin Craven from The Secret Garden, for instance, change their looks and lives outwardly, but that outward transformation is occupied by an inward epiphany or resolution. Edmund and Eustace from The Narnia Chronicles are further good examples. Even Lucy Pevensie undergoes moments of shame and cowardice. 

Frances Hodgson Burnett created two child protagonists who are good and kind and pretty much flawless from the get-go. It is to her credit that the books are so strong. 

Both are like royalty, though they are not technically royal: Cedric, Little Lord Fauntleroy and Sarah, the Little Princess. 

Both children do suffer heartache, including, for Cedric, homesickness, and, for Sarah, weary depression. However, neither of them ever commits wrongs, even when pressed to the wall. 

Again, to Hodgson Burnett's credit, neither of them come across as self-righteous and self-satisfied. Cedric suffers a bit from being almost too good to be true (it's that suit!) but Sarah comes across as more resilient than Pollyannish. 

In both cases, too, the protagonists suffer from external conflicts and are rescued by external means. I submit that one reason Hodgson Burnett is able to pull off this feat is because the rescues are so thoroughly delightful and overwhelming. They are true "deus ex machinas"--however, they don't seem random but rather extraordinarily satisfying.  

I mean, if one is going to throw in a rescue, one might as well go BIG! 

It's not a plot choice I suggest writers rely on too often. Even Tolkien said, of the eagles, that they were "machines" and shouldn't be relied on too much (his eagles only come after the protagonists have, in fact, descended into the pit--they are not purveyors for grace; grace is already provided since death is not an automatic negative; rather, the eagles are purveyors of life being far more interesting when characters are still alive). 

Again, a lesser writer could never pull off what Hogdson Burnett accomplishes in her books. And I suggest that one reason that she succeeds is that, like with Tolkien's eagles, the character are already doing okay. Sarah would likely, eventually, simply take over the school or at least move on to a better one. Cedric is already beloved by his grandfather, whatever happens to his birthright.  

A-Z Characters & Transformation: Is the Transforming Royal Fact or Fiction?

In my latest A-Z list--Characters who Transform--I've reached Prince and Princesses. 

A remarkable number of fictional prince and princesses have transformed, from bad people to good ones; from being in disguise to being revealed. 

Prince Hal is supposedly one of the former. In reality, he never went through a dissolute phase and even in Henry IV, Parts 1 & 11, Shakespeare remarkably has him confess, in monologue, that he is mostly playacting. He is quite clear with Falstaff, even as prince, that Falstaff's influence on him is negligible and will eventually die. 

But the IDEA of a playboy reforming to be a good king is too good to pass up. It's the underlying character evolution of Gilgamesh! So the oldest tale on record has a prince (he is actually a king when the tale begins) acting like a playboy and annoying his citizens--until Enkidu comes along. It is Enkidu's death that propels Gilgamesh to hunt for answers to something larger than "hey, yo, how drunk should we get today?" Upon his return to the city, he retakes his place as a wise and productive sovereign. 

The manga and anime, Royal Tutor, presents a back story of a not-exactly-playboy prince but a prince who doesn't seem to be all that aware of his citizens' needs...until he begins to sneak out at night and pal around with Heine. Likewise, Mark Twain uses growth with his prince whose disguise allows him to learn about real life. 

In C.S. Lewis's quest tale, The Silver Chair, the prince is enchanted (disguised) as a kind of blithe, unthinking playboy (with a mommy complex). When he is chained to the silver chair, his underlying nature is revealed: he is, in fact, a prince in captivity. I think it would be quite easy to back-write a playboy attitude into the prince's character development. He is ensnared by the enchantress when his mother dies but, seriously, what was he doing rushing off to act all angsty around the first smooth-talking fae who crossed his path...rather than sticking by his dad and assuming more responsibilities? 

In the above cases, trials hone the prince into someone who CAN be a good king. 

I'm not sure that outside of narratives, this type of honing is a given: Prince Harry doesn't seem to have imbibed the American idea that work = virtue. I suspect that politicians and celebrities are so cushioned by sycophants, they require a certain amount of chutzpah to see through the fawning to begin with.  

A-Z Characters & Transformation: The Surprise Reveal or What the Audience Truly Wants

In one of his discussions on horror, Stephen King points out that the human brain can imagine greater horrors within a text than a film can capture. Granted, there are exceptions. I watched the black & white French Les Diaboliques as a student. All of us in the theater gasped-as-one at the great reveal. 

So often, however, these moments run the risk of falling somewhat flat. The "man behind the curtain" turns out to be...

The Wizard of Oz. A conman (or a couple of Ferengi) who is not what everyone thought. Not a grand spectacle--just an ordinary guy pulling wires. 

With Baum's Oz, the almost random ordinariness of "O" is rather the point: "A little old man with a bald head and a wrinkled face." He readily admits to being a "humbug" though he argues, "I'm really a very good man, but I'm a very bad Wizard, I must admit."  

Seeing as the book is, possibly, a dream of Dorothy's, the non-surprise here makes sense. It may also explain why I don't care for the book. I have a hard enough time with the dreamlike sequences in Miyazaki's work--but they at least seem to capture a feeling of transcendence. The Wizard of Oz comes across as a very long in-joke, which I find unsettling. 

But again, Baum is a good-enough writer to use the "reveal" as is. The "thing" behind the curtain will not live up to expectations, so the story addresses those disappointed expectations. 

Another solution to the gap between what viewers/readers imagine and what the lifted curtain presents is to give away the reveal. In Heaven's Official Blessing, Xie Lian--and the reader--are fairly sure of the true identity of San Lang. It isn't exactly a secret--it simply isn't addressed until necessary. Likewise, the audience knows the twins in Twelfth Night are alive, even if they do not.

Which suggests that the reveal isn't for the characters' sake. Rather, it is artistically satisfying for the audience to watch the confrontation, the reveal, the ripped-off disguise. We know it is coming: we still want to see it happen.   

(Regarding the placement of Oz on this list, Characters Who Transform: the character doesn't transform, but his transformation or reveal alters the main characters: the impact of the reveal is greater on others than on the character.)  

A-Z Characters & Transformation: Nero Wolfe, The Untransforming Detective

My latest A-Z List is characters who transform. I also address characters who don't transform: what constitutes transformation; what doesn't. 

One of the most amusing non-transformations is book detectives who remain the same age over several decades. It's rather like TV detectives who never retire (though Murdoch, who begins his career in the series at approximately 35 is still believably working 18 years later, and the series does move forward in time, so every season is the next year in the early 1900s). 

Miss Marple, Poirot, Nero Wolfe--they all remind me of my left-brain father getting frustrated when my mother began to lose her memory and talked about her parents as still being alive. He would growl, "They would be 130 years old!" 

Rex Stout reputedly stated about Nero Wolfe, "I didn't age the characters because I didn't want to." I LOVE that. Some authors get apologetic. Others, like Sayers, intend to age their characters from the beginning (Wimsey marries when he is 45). But Rex Stout apparently perceived his mystery stories the way I perceive sci-fi: put THIS character into a situation and see how the character handles it, whether the situation is pre-World War II or a 1960s bohemian neighborhood--

Which may explain why Nero Wolfe has proved so "translatable"!  

A-Z Characters & Transformation: Transformed Monsters, Justification or Truth?

Many, many people have written stories from The Monster's perspective, whether the Monster is Grendel or a serial killer. In truth, these stories aren't the product of modern psychology. The tradition goes back to Shelley's Frankenstein and even farther. 

The desire to creep into the "other's" mind and understand it is very old. The Epic of Gilgamesh presents a point where Humbaba, the giant or ogre that Enkidu and Gilgamesh have come to kill, presents his "side" and pleads for his life. Arguably, he is lying to waste time (Enkidu and Gilgamesh kill him anyway). But he gets a surprising amount of dialog. 

My favorite example of a justifying Monster is The Dracula Tape by Fred Saberhagen. Using Bram Stoker's own text, Dracula argues that he has been massively misunderstood. His "truth-telling" is  fun because he isn't entirely trustworthy. Ambiguous. Sarcastic. He doesn't present a Dracula transformed into a decent, virtuous, sacrificing hero. Rather, his "truth-telling" transforms him into...a guy who isn't quite as bad as people say.  

Monsters who turn out to be UTTERLY unlike their original characters are a little too much, like stories which turn out to dreams. Far better to have a Smaug who speaks half-truths than a Smaug who uses Bilbo as his personal therapist. 

Monsters should never be entirely stripped of their monster-selves, even when transformed.  

A-Z Characters & Transformation: Lionel from Christie's Nemesis

Lionel, the nephew of Miss Marple, is a great example of a character who transforms--

And he isn't in the book! 

In the Joan Hickson Miss Marple movie Nemesis, Lionel is Miss Marple's waffling nephew who shows up in St. Mary Mead when he is at loose ends. He accompanies his aunt when she starts out on the pilgrimage/investigation set in motion by Jason Rafiel. 

From a writing perspective, the change here is perfect--on the page, Miss Marple can think about her task and review her options. But absent a voiceover (and I generally side against voiceovers), a film requires conversation. As a physically strong man with an ironic sense of humor and complete willingness to follow his aunt's lead, Lionel (played by Peter Tilbury), makes a great companion. He also acts well opposite Joan Hickson since he carries a touch of camp about his mild persona. 

And he changes. The film is far more generous with all the male characters, including Mr. Rafiel's estranged son Michael. One of the most touching scenes is when Lionel takes the initiative (finally) to track down Michael and gently inform him of the investigation's conclusion. 

The transformation is gently done--it doesn't distract from Miss Marple's work and triumph. As all good transformations should be, it is all show, no tell. Lionel doesn't become someone else. He remains Lionel, only a more grounded and experienced Lionel.  

He also doesn't distract from the plot. Overall, the film is quite faithful to the book. 

Excellent writing!  

A-Z Characters & Transformation: Does Kate of Taming of the Shrew Transform?

I questioned whether I should include Katherine from Taming of the Shrew on my A-Z Characters Who Transform List. Does she transform? She gets married. She remains married. She defends her husband in the play's climatic ending. But is she truly "tamed"?

First, I see Petruchio and Kate as distinct people. They aren't representative of men and women. They are Petruchio and Kate.  

A great many people, however, feel that the relationship must be explained or justified in some way. One common interpretation is to argue that Petruchio is trying to "help" Katherine by teaching her social rules. The version I saw during my Theatre in London program used this interpretation (and was one of the few to use the frame story). It is the same interpretation used by the BBC version, John Cleese as Petruchio. 

It is unbelievably sexist. 

It is far more sexist than Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton behaving like...Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Elizabeth Taylor's Kate hasn't been trained (like a poodle) to play a social game (join the right clique, flatter the correct people, use the proper vocabulary). She is a force of nature who comes up against another force of nature and finds she is willing to fight it out. At the end, she is still able to leave him guessing.   

My absolute favorite version, however, is Shakespeare Retold's with Shirley Henderson and Rufus Sewell. Sewell's Petruchio is frankly kind of nuts. Henderson's Kate is this tiny bundle of super-intelligent political acerbity. They adore each other. At the end, she tells off her bratty sister. She is willing to give up everything for Petruchio. He is willing to give up everything for her. What's the problem?

This Katherine isn't tamed. If anything, her true self--what has always been her true self--gets concentrated and distilled. 

Fantastic couple! 

As for the initial question--I use "transform" throughout this list from its narrowest to its broadest sense. That is, a character may transform internally or externally, for good or for bad, slightly or to an extreme, beneath a mask or without a mask. 

At the end of the play, the character of Kate is no longer single and she is happier. 

So, yes, in that sense, she does transform!  

A-Z Characters & Transformation: The Ultimate Transformation Tale, Joseph of Old

Joseph of Old is the Old Testament's most complete epic. One of its most endearing qualities is that it embodies--in a way that few epics do other than the Epic of Gilgamesh--change, even transformation. 

The transformation is not only external but internal; not only directly stated but implied. 

Externally, Joseph himself transforms from farmer to urbanite powerbroker. 

Internally, his oldest brothers transform from envious to repentant. The change is focused not on the oldest son but on Judah (which explains the odd little tale of Judah and the prostitute in the middle of the epic). It is Judah who offers himself in Benjamin's place. 

Joseph transforms internally from distrust to trust. He embraces his brothers, implying forgiveness. After Jacob's death, he assures the brothers that his forgiveness goes beyond filial obedience. He will not take revenge on them at any time. 

It's a remarkable story and lends itself to endless interpretations around a coherent whole. The first "fan fiction" I ever wrote was about Joseph. The computer ate the document, and I never tried to start over. I realized that I didn't have much to add (beyond Mann and Andrew Lloyd Weber) since I think the original holds up fairly well. Unlike with various fairy tales, I didn't think a "true" version was lurking underneath.

The tale Of Joseph stands quite well without "fixes." There's a reason great epics last with so much intact! 

I recommend the Genesis Project/New Media version:    

Part 1 

Part 2 

Part 3 

Part 4 

Part 5 

A-Z Characters & Transformation: Izzy's Transformation through Maturity

Izzy, Willy-Nilly by Cynthia Voigt is a YA novel about a fifteen-year-old who loses her leg in a drunk driving accident that is not her fault.

Izzy or Isobel is a pleasant, "nice" (in her own words), somewhat proper (though not prim young woman. She gets average grades and has rather ordinary friends. She is pleasant and pretty and gets along with others. 

There is more to her than even she realizes. There's little doubt she would have grown up to be a thoughtful, nice woman with commonsense and grounded insights. 

The accident doesn't alter her personality. In fact, Voigt captures a truth here--which is that grand events (for good or bad) don't fundamentally change people's temperaments, which is why people who win the lottery end up bankrupt. If one is bad with money to begin with...

Likewise, studies have shown that people who undergo terrible trauma, such as losing a leg, often revert to a baseline within a year. 

Lost leg in shark attack.

The book takes place in the first 5 months after the accident. Izzy hasn't yet gotten the cast off her other leg. And she won't get her plastic leg until the stump has fully healed. The reader is introduced to Izzy while she is still undergoing the great upheaval in her life. 

She experiences change. She sees her erstwhile friends for the rather self-centered and shallow, limited people they are. She doesn't stop being friends with them; she simply moves on. She gains new, more honest friends. She expands her skills and interests (without suddenly becoming a prodigy at something). She doesn't lose her niceness or sense of propriety but she gets more real and stronger. And the bravery that she has always had comes out when she prevents a younger woman from making the same mistake she made.   

It is skilled writing, made more so by Izzy maturing into the woman she would have become. She admits that if she could go back, she could change what happened to her--but "the richness in me; there was so much more than before." 

She still gets sad. She is still nervous about the artificial leg. She still wishes that things could be different. She doesn't suddenly become all-knowing (just as she doesn't suddenly become a prodigy at an instrument or other talent). And she doesn't suddenly become a poster-child for a CAUSE. She adapts--and as she adapts, she matures. She adapts in the here and now.  

A-Z Characters & Transformation: The Lover Sees Through the Disguise

One of the best episodes of Granada's Sherlock Holmes is "The Adventure of the Crooked Man." 

Years earlier, Nancy DeVoy fell in love with Henry Wood. A fellow officer, James Barclay, was jealous of the relationship since he wanted Nancy for himself. He arranged for Henry to fall into enemy hands, a move that Nancy--who becomes his wife--later characterizes as resembling David's treatment of his general Uriah. 

Henry survives torture and mutilation and finds his way back to England. Thirty years have passed, but he encounters Nancy who recognizes him. He then confronts her husband who dies from the shock. Holmes's investigation doesn't uncover a murder but does clear Nancy of suspicious in her husband's death. 

I find it entirely believable that Nancy would recognize her past fiancee, despite the passage of time and physical damage. 

Whether or not a wife/fiancee would recognize her lover from years earlier is a question I've discussed with my mother since we both love mysteries, and mysteries often use such disguises, such as in Agatha Christie's Murder in Mesopotamia. My mother believes that it depends entirely on the people involved. (After all, I'm not sure David McCallum ever changed!)

The wife in Murder in Mesopotamia, for instance, is rather self-absorbed. It's a little odd that she wouldn't recognize the man she married over twenty years earlier but the novel's set-up and the character's personality prepares readers for that possibility. In Henry Wood's case, on the other hand, he could still retain the voice, speech patterns, and underlying facial bones of the man he once was, especially since--unlike the husband in Murder in Mesopotamia--he isn't attempting to hide himself. 

In this rather romantic tale (and Arthur Conan Doyle was a romantic!), the disguise is not from the lover but from the detectives/authorities. And the disguise is one that Conan Doyle and Christie relied on: people's assumptions about what they are going to see. 

It takes Holmes to see past the "crooked man" who uses magician tricks to entertain soldiers to the young soldier of the past, to connect that man to the man with whom Nancy fell in love.

Nancy never suffers a doubt.   

A-Z Characters & Transformation: Major Houlihan, Great Well-Rounded Female Character

I mention earlier on Votaries that Major Frank Burns had more potential than the writers allowed for. 

Apparently, Loretta Swit objected to her character's ongoing affair with Frank. (Maybe Swit did; maybe she didn't--what gets reported isn't always accurate).  

In any case, I've always considered Major Houlihan one of the great female characters of the 1970s. She doesn't spout off the correct-sounding stuff. She is a full character with layers. And I never had any trouble understanding why the seemingly tough and ambitious Houlihan would have an affair with Frank. 

First, she likely isn't as interested in marriage as she thinks she should be--she is a product of her time period, and a woman in the military is still an outlier. She sees friends getting married and settling down and having kids. She would hate that life, but a part of her thinks she is supposed to love it--until an actual marriage fails her. 

Second, a person can be savvy and hard-headed in one area yet a fool with romance. She marries a jerk--in fact, she acknowledges at one point that Frank was better than her cheating husband, Lt. Colonel Penobscott, who was entirely shallow and fell short of Frank's devotion.

Third, she isn't stupid--the obvious person for her to hook up with his Hawkeye...and they would kill each other in a fortnight (as the episode when they sleep together proves). Hawkeye is too cynical. He is also, work-wise, her mirror. She doesn't need a mirror, and Hawkeye isn't comfortable with one (as the episode with a female surgeon proves). 

Fourth, Houlihan has enough self-knowledge to understand herself regarding Frank. To him, she states, "You were military issue. I got you with my mess kit and khaki girdle."

Consequently, I wouldn't pair Frank with Houlihan in the long run. I would have them become good friends who can confide in each other. But Frank is looking for a wife--and, as stated above, Houlihan isn't necessarily looking for a husband, even if she thinks she is.   

The above analysis is based on the character--what she does, what she says, how she says it. The complexity and strength is there!  

Fantastic character! And excellently acted!  

A-Z Characters & Transformation: Brother Fidelis

*Spoilers*

Ellis Peters' An Excellent Mystery provides a female in disguise. Godfrid Marescot becomes betrothed to a young girl, Julian Cruce, before he leaves on Crusades. He behaves honorably but is severely and specifically wounded in the area of the groin. Subsequently, he breaks off his betrothal to the now-nineteen-year-old young woman and enters a Benedictine monastery. He adopts the name Humilis. 

Julian Cruce considers herself still betrothed (a not unlikely belief since betrothals had considerably more legal weight at the time). She enlists the aid of a servant to help her sell some jewels, change her guise, and enter the monastery as Brother Fidelis. She adopts muteness and becomes Humilis's companion. He is inevitably going to die and she helps him through those final days. 

The story is finely told. As with many of the Cadfael books, Peters ties the events into part of the civil war raging in England, specifically the attacks on the city of Winchester and destruction of nearby religious houses. 

And story is also infinitely touching and deeply romantic. Julian Cruce's disguise does not fundamentally alter her character, except to bind her more closely to her chosen spouse. 

What I appreciate with The Excellent Mystery is Peters' acknowledgement that the un-transformation must be handled in such a way to prevent dishonor and disgrace to all parties. 

There's no "but people mustn't react that way! how dare they! the good people--like Hugh and Cadfael--don't, so all the other good people won't either!" 

In fact, Cadfael does an excellent job at the end of the book summing up the "case" he had to solve: 

"There'll be no scandal, no aspersions cast on either Hyde or Shrewsbury, no legatine muck-raking, no ballad-makers running off dirty rhymes about monks and their women, and hawking them round the markets, no bishops bearing down on us with damning visitations, no carping white monks fulminating about the laxity and lechery of the Benedictines...And no foul blight clinging round that poor girl's name and blackening her for life. Thank God!"

I love how Peters retains Cadfael's personality. He doesn't want anyone's "social media" commentary--not the gossips, not the self-righteous tut-tutters. 

Cadfael solves the problem by taking advantage of an unexpected storm. It's a powerful example of how disguise and transformation can entail wit and sacrifice. If Brother Fidelis's transformation was a difficult matter to bring about, it needed to be a difficult matter to undo. Luckily, Brother Cadfael is there to help out!   

A-Z Characters Who Could Transform: Major Frank Burns Deserved a Better Ending

Larry Linville left MASH when he (correctly) judged that his character, Major Frank Burns, was never going to expand beyond his role as the jerk/butt of jokes. 

I think the writers failed Burns (and Larry Linville). They replaced him with the complex-from-the-start Winchester but truth is, like Howard from Big Bang Theory, Burns had the potential to progress beyond his less palatable behavior. He just needed better writers. 

From the beginning, Linville gave the character a degree of self-knowledge as well as wistfulness at others' irritation. That is, Linville allowed that Burns might be teachable or trainable. 

Here's what I think could have happened:

Frank's wife back home divorces him (she has learned about Houlihan). Frank goes off the deep end when Houlihan gets married to another cheater (another Frank but more shallow). So far, these events follow the show (more or less). 

Unlike in the show, he stays with the 4077. A woman surgeon visits. Frank falls for her 100%. (My personal assessment is that Frank's personality requires a non-abstract relationship for him to improve.) 

Unlike Houlihan, this fellow surgeon not only likes Frank: she knows how to handle him. She demands that he live up to a certain standard. She then leaves, but they stay in contact through letters. Frank goes back to his old ways sometimes. He rises above them other times. 

In other words, Frank becomes very much like Howard and like Eustace from The Silver Chair. A guy whose "better self" is in process. 

I enjoyed David Ogden Stiers' Winchester. But I don't think the problem was that the show required a different character. I think the problem was the writers didn't know how to write themselves out of the useful-for-one-purpose hole they put Frank in.  

A-Z Characters & Transformation: C.S. Lewis's Great Flawed Character, Edmund

C.S. Lewis's Edmund has come up on several A-Z lists. Here he is again to represent a character who transforms. 

In her essay about Edmund, "King Edmund the Cute: Anatomy of a Girlhood Crush," Diane Peterfreund explains why Edmund is her favorite of the Narnian heroes. He's mine too, and I agree with Peterfreund's analysis. She points out that Edmund qualifies as a bad boy, but what makes him appealing is that he is a reformed bad boy: a bad boy who uses his bad boy past to gain insight into himself and others. 

Peterfreund points out, "Edmund...seemed [to me] to have pulled it together. He may have been somewhat graver than Peter, but he was still a cheerful guy, overall." In other words, he isn't a brooder.

Totally!

In terms of writing, Lewis's success with Edmund is three-fold:

1. Edmund's "fall" is very human. 

He isn't a sociopath. He is a normal human with normal resentment. He does betray his family--and that reality is not glossed over or excused by Lewis--but not for Big Bad, Larger-than-Life reasons. He isn't plotting to overthrow the universe. More Spike than Angel, his "fall" is human, rooted in day-to-day behavior (Lewis makes the point that Edmund has been away at a horrible school and has picked up horrible snide habits, again without excusing Edmund). Edmund's salvation is also very human. For instance--

2. Edmund retains his personality.

Edmund repents and recovers. And he gains a reputation of being wise with the ability to make level-headed judgments/assessments. 

He doesn't lose what makes him Edmund, however. In Voyage of the Dawn Treader, when talking to Eustace, he says, "You were only an ass, but I was a traitor." The tone is perfect. Edmund isn't apologetic. He isn't sappy. He isn't whining. He is matter-of-fact and even slightly sardonic. 

And it is notable that Eustace tells his story to Edmund first. Edmund has a practical nature that tackles problems in a practical fashion. The cousins have one characteristic in common.

3. Edmund's repentance or restoration is something he takes seriously. 

He doesn't dwell on his mistakes but he does use them. In Prince Caspian, when the siblings are lost, Edmund takes Lucy's side on where they should go next, precisely because he once let her down.

In sum, Edmund isn't just a bad-boy-reformed. He is a consistent and believable character who has turned his life around. Lewis accomplishes this feat through entirely non-dramatic characterization. 

A-Z Characters & Transformation NOT: Deacon, The Ultimate Sinner

In my current list about characters who transform, I define "transformation" by discussing who I don't include. 

The character here--Deacon from Nine Tailors by Dorothy Sayers--is a great example of character who never transforms.  

Nine Tailors is often considered to be Sayers's best mystery. It has a complicated enough plot that even if one knows some of the background, the mystery remains (What happened to Deacon? Who exactly did the burying of the body in the graveyard?). Moreover, the plot, though complicated, does not rely on implausible time tables (Sayers did a time table mystery with Red Herrings). 

Best of all, the characters are clear and consistent. 

Deacon is one of Sayers's most vile villains, but he isn't serial-killer vile. Rather, he is like someone who belongs in Dante's Inferno, a work that Sayers would translate in the 1940s. 

Deacon's sins not only lead to him hurting others. He ends up leading a far more horrible life than he could have led otherwise--and keeps digging himself in deeper.  

*Spoilers.*  

He engineers the initial theft, then dupes his co-conspirator. He escapes from prison, then kills a soldier and ends up unwittingly on the front. He returns to England much later, then gets recognized. He was going to be returned to France, then ends up in a belfry, where he is killed by the bells. 

That is, like sinners in Dante, Deacon mires himself deeper and deeper in sludge. He is not stupid. He is venial and short-sighted. The short-sightedness is exactly that of a clever man who is always convinced that a better plan is around the corner. He cannot see beyond the sludge. 

Sayers and C.S. Lewis and Dante (and Joseph Smith) resolve the problem of faith and works in a similar way. Grace is freely and constantly offered. Another life, another choice, another direction. The inability to take that grace is directly linked to what the person wants.

None of them argue that bad things don't happen to good people--or, for that matter, that an entirely indifferent awful (a volcano is a fairly indifferent thing) won't happen to good people. Rather, they argue that people create the personal and mental worlds that they then inhabit. 

In Dante's Inferno, the dead spend more time thinking up excuses and attacking each other (and castigating Virgil and Dante) than in making choices. In fact, in Dante's universe, they can no longer make choices. They have talked themselves into dead ends. They have decided the universe offers nothing but the rage or gluttony or treachery that they have invested themselves in. 

Likewise, Deacon never stops trying to figure out his next "easy" solution. (I'm reminded of research that shows that drug dealers actually pay less than minimum wage to their workers.) The "easy" solution for Deacon is an endless round of misery, not just to others but to himself. 

Deacon ends up in a literal corner. And the community, through the bells, takes revenge. 

In the book, the inscription for the main bell reads,

NINE TAYLERS MAKE A MANNE – 

IN CHRIST IS DETH ATT END IN ADAM YAT BEGANNE

A-Z Characters & Transformation: Dante

Dante's Divine Comedy is truly remarkable. It backs up the belief that people in history were not all that different from us.  

The Divine Comedy in many ways is a medieval piece. Yet at the same time, it is utterly modern. The poetry is a bit daunting. But Dante's approach to characterization feels like something out of Joseph Conrad. 

For one, the story is told almost ruthlessly through a single perspective. That observation may seem obvious since Dante uses first-person. But in truth, ancient writers weren't averse to the royal "we" as well as the omniscient "we." For that matter, "I" in ancient verse is often relating a story that gives way to another person's story. People speak. They don't necessarily relate. 

And yet Dante the narrator not only controls the narration but what readers see is only ever within his knowledge and experience. He rarely breaks the fourth wall to instruct the reader or to leap ahead in time. He is limited. 

And, amazingly enough, he undergoes change. 

Heroes and heroines from ancient epics do undergo change. But in truth, most of that change is external. Homer's Ulysses never fundamentally alters. He is always the same guy, no matter what occurs. Medieval heroes are not quite as unaltering--self-enlightenment or self-knowledge has entered folktales--but they often change quite abruptly from one emotional state to another. 

Yet here is Dante the narrator subtly changing over the course of the Comedy from a scared guy who faints a lot and gets somewhat querulous and clings to his guide to bit by bit, a courageous fellow who asks courteous questions and is able to see his guide, Virgil, as a whole person with his own idiosyncrasies. 

Granted, part of Dante's change is that Virgil represents in his entire being the power of rationality. Dante the writer will ultimately argue that rationality and humanism are not enough to get a person into direct contact with God. They can get a person very far. They are necessary, even. But they can't bring that gap of faith. 

Paul's magnanimity. Christ's bread of life. Grace. Not all the "I know"s in the universe can leap the highest point of Purgatory into Paradise. The foolish virgins can't collect enough oil, especially since they set aside meeting the Bridegroom, however ill-prepared they were, for the equivalent of collecting points. The Bridegroom doesn't say, "You don't have enough." He states, "I don't recognize you." 

So Dante is making a point. Remarkably, he does it in a non-allegorical way. Virgil isn't a symbol or even, as in many allegories, the holder of a single trait. He's a guy. He gets exasperated with Dante, protective, pleased. He chides him, lectures him (not as the Man Who Should Lecture but from within his personality). He shows great courage as he attempts to resolve issues, despite being occasionally rebuffed. Dante the narrator goes from nearly worshiping him to treating him like a favorite if odd yet still respected and deserving of respect uncle. 

Dante the narrator grows and changes in his behavior and in his understanding. He is relatable to us moderns.