RYSLIG APP
Feb. 2nd, 2016 08:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unconchionableOOC INFORMATION
Name: Isabelle
Contact:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
shipoftheseus
Other Characters: n/a
CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: Roger
Age: 10
Canon: Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Canon Point: A few weeks after the rescue at the end of the book.
Character Information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_Flies#Roger
Personality: Roger is a social pyromaniac with the emotional range of a thumbscrew. Specifically, he is a firestarter but not the fire. Roger is not the passionate one, not the one who spins out of control - that’s Jack. Roger is not destructive on his own, because he doesn't want to get in trouble. But Roger makes Jack worse, and Jack in turn creates circumstances that allow Roger to do incredible damage. Roger is not obsessive, nor especially proud. He doesn’t need the respect or friendship of the other boys, and for most of the book he seems like a natural loner, who participates in the narrative primarily out of inertia, with the small confines of the island serving as a fishbowl to keep him in contact with the rest. Before Chapter 11, he is not actively destructive of the boys’ makeshift society, but he also does not feel any instinctive pressure to go along with it. He does so at first, apparently, predominantly for lack of other logistical options.
However, even at the very beginning, when Roger is essentially going along and flying under the radar, whenever he does speak up, it has the effect of promoting disunity and chaos. When Jack, charismatic and aided by his head-choir-boy trappings of outside authority, declares that obviously he should be chief, it is Roger who destabilizes the momentum of this pronunciation with a suggestion that they should have elections, leading to Ralph’s selection as chief instead, sewing the first seeds of the rivalry between the two. Roger makes no bid for power himself - he’s simply not interested enough in either the admiration (Jack) or welfare (Ralph) of the others to put himself forward, and he seems to prefer not being the center of attention. Roger does not wish to be controlled - something either excess scrutiny or Jack's overbearing nature might bright about.
Roger is willing to cast doubt on the culturally approved assumption, first established by Ralph but quickly corroborated by the others, that of course they must and will be rescued. Roger says he’s been watching the horizon the entire time they’ve been stranded so far, and hasn’t seen any hint of any ship. At the time this is described by the narrator, through Ralph’s eyes, as gloomy pessimism on Roger’s part, but the salient thing is how willing he is to ignore what they have implicitly, collectively deemed to be acceptable and unacceptable realms of speculation. He doesn’t have the empathy to mold himself naturally to to the group’s expectations and vital hopes - but neither does he deliberately flaunt them while the group is cohesive. When he receives immediate pushback, anger and disregard for the suggestion that they may not be rescued, he immediately withdraws it, and fades into the background once again.
Roger is not being especially machiavellian in these moments. He certainly doesn’t foresee so early the calamity that he is contributing to. He isn’t a scheming architect of destruction at the age of ten. It’s simpler, more impulsive: he sees a wound and he pokes it. He sees a comforting illusion and calls it out, not because of any iconoclastic conviction about the truth or rebelliousness, but because he does not value or reflexively respect others’ comfort.
There are two moments in the book when our omniscient narrator dips into Roger’s head, and both are chilling. In the first, Roger throws rocks at a younger boy but deliberately throws them to miss, because the memory and influence of the adult world that would have punished him for hurting another child the way he wants to is still strong enough to hold him back. He is adaptive enough and intelligent enough to avoid punishment in the world before the island and to avoid attracting hostility once stranded, but he behaves and cooperates only in response to overt negative pressure. In short, Roger civilizes neatly, minimally, and only under duress.
The longer they’re on the island, the less Roger feels that pressure. The second time we get a glimpse of his POV is after Jack has rejected Ralph’s authority and set up his own ‘tribe’ which, in a frenzy of paranoia and violent enthusiasm, murders Simon when he stumbles into their post-hunt dance. At this point, no one wants to acknowledge what happened, and everything is very tense. On returning to Jack’s camp, another boy tells Roger that Jack has tied up and beaten a boy named Wilfred. Roger asks why, but Jack hadn’t offered a reason. This passage follows:
Moments afterward, Jack, shaken and unwilling to back down, “screaming wildly,” censures Roger for “not being on watch” and then, when Roger stares at him unfazed, rounds on the twins Sam and Eric, who came with Ralph and Piggy and were captured. Jack yells at them and pokes at them, demanding to know why they aren’t part of his tribe, and then this exchange occurs:
Lord of the Flies is often interpreted as a simple, binary progression from orderly civilization to chaotic anarchy, but this isn’t what’s happened. There are power structures in place both at the beginning and the end. A system of weak social reinforcement is replaced by a system of strong physical reinforcement. Roger has very little actual preference between anarchy and Jack’s sort of authority - in both cases, Roger does not have to deal with consequences for preying on those weaker than him. That’s what he wants, and after the epiphany on the rocks, it’s what he will dedicate himself to carving out for himself again, regardless of ideology, whether it means undermining a society that promotes accountability for violence or insinuating himself into one that elides it.
5-10 Key Character Traits: unobtrusive, opportunistic, cruel, perceptive, pragmatic, level-headed, insidious, brutal, independent, unambitious
Would you prefer a monster that FITS your character’s personality, CONFLICTS with it, EITHER, or opt for 100% RANDOMIZATION? EITHER
Opt-Outs: Naga, Kelpie, Werebear, Merperson, Wendigo
Roleplay Sample: On the TDM!
Name: Isabelle
Contact:
Other Characters: n/a
CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: Roger
Age: 10
Canon: Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Canon Point: A few weeks after the rescue at the end of the book.
Character Information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_Flies#Roger
Personality: Roger is a social pyromaniac with the emotional range of a thumbscrew. Specifically, he is a firestarter but not the fire. Roger is not the passionate one, not the one who spins out of control - that’s Jack. Roger is not destructive on his own, because he doesn't want to get in trouble. But Roger makes Jack worse, and Jack in turn creates circumstances that allow Roger to do incredible damage. Roger is not obsessive, nor especially proud. He doesn’t need the respect or friendship of the other boys, and for most of the book he seems like a natural loner, who participates in the narrative primarily out of inertia, with the small confines of the island serving as a fishbowl to keep him in contact with the rest. Before Chapter 11, he is not actively destructive of the boys’ makeshift society, but he also does not feel any instinctive pressure to go along with it. He does so at first, apparently, predominantly for lack of other logistical options.
However, even at the very beginning, when Roger is essentially going along and flying under the radar, whenever he does speak up, it has the effect of promoting disunity and chaos. When Jack, charismatic and aided by his head-choir-boy trappings of outside authority, declares that obviously he should be chief, it is Roger who destabilizes the momentum of this pronunciation with a suggestion that they should have elections, leading to Ralph’s selection as chief instead, sewing the first seeds of the rivalry between the two. Roger makes no bid for power himself - he’s simply not interested enough in either the admiration (Jack) or welfare (Ralph) of the others to put himself forward, and he seems to prefer not being the center of attention. Roger does not wish to be controlled - something either excess scrutiny or Jack's overbearing nature might bright about.
Roger is willing to cast doubt on the culturally approved assumption, first established by Ralph but quickly corroborated by the others, that of course they must and will be rescued. Roger says he’s been watching the horizon the entire time they’ve been stranded so far, and hasn’t seen any hint of any ship. At the time this is described by the narrator, through Ralph’s eyes, as gloomy pessimism on Roger’s part, but the salient thing is how willing he is to ignore what they have implicitly, collectively deemed to be acceptable and unacceptable realms of speculation. He doesn’t have the empathy to mold himself naturally to to the group’s expectations and vital hopes - but neither does he deliberately flaunt them while the group is cohesive. When he receives immediate pushback, anger and disregard for the suggestion that they may not be rescued, he immediately withdraws it, and fades into the background once again.
Roger is not being especially machiavellian in these moments. He certainly doesn’t foresee so early the calamity that he is contributing to. He isn’t a scheming architect of destruction at the age of ten. It’s simpler, more impulsive: he sees a wound and he pokes it. He sees a comforting illusion and calls it out, not because of any iconoclastic conviction about the truth or rebelliousness, but because he does not value or reflexively respect others’ comfort.
There are two moments in the book when our omniscient narrator dips into Roger’s head, and both are chilling. In the first, Roger throws rocks at a younger boy but deliberately throws them to miss, because the memory and influence of the adult world that would have punished him for hurting another child the way he wants to is still strong enough to hold him back. He is adaptive enough and intelligent enough to avoid punishment in the world before the island and to avoid attracting hostility once stranded, but he behaves and cooperates only in response to overt negative pressure. In short, Roger civilizes neatly, minimally, and only under duress.
The longer they’re on the island, the less Roger feels that pressure. The second time we get a glimpse of his POV is after Jack has rejected Ralph’s authority and set up his own ‘tribe’ which, in a frenzy of paranoia and violent enthusiasm, murders Simon when he stumbles into their post-hunt dance. At this point, no one wants to acknowledge what happened, and everything is very tense. On returning to Jack’s camp, another boy tells Roger that Jack has tied up and beaten a boy named Wilfred. Roger asks why, but Jack hadn’t offered a reason. This passage follows:
Sitting on the tremendous rock in the torrid sun, Roger received this news as an illumination. He ceased to work at his tooth and sat still, assimilating the possibilities of irresponsible authority. Then, without another word, he climbed down the back of the rocks toward the cave and the rest of the tribe.This moment is Roger’s epiphany. The rules he has obeyed are - to his mind - arbitrary. Under different power, they would not be imposed, and he could hurt people with impunity. Immediately after this, Ralph and Piggy come to demand the return of Piggy’s stolen spectacles (necessary for lighting either a signal or a cooking fire, in addition to Piggy’s needing them to see) from Jack. A messy, fraught, screaming confrontation comes to an abruptly terrible end when Roger uses a lever and a boulder (‘defenses’ originally set up by Jack) to murder Piggy and shatter the conch shell whose trumpeting call both symbolized and psychologically imposed a civilized authority reminiscent of the outside world. Again, there’s no long-term manipulation - Roger isn’t the one who sets up the massive rock so it can fall on anyone below. But he sees an opportunity to remake the island into a world where his sadism is not restrained, and he takes it gleefully.
Moments afterward, Jack, shaken and unwilling to back down, “screaming wildly,” censures Roger for “not being on watch” and then, when Roger stares at him unfazed, rounds on the twins Sam and Eric, who came with Ralph and Piggy and were captured. Jack yells at them and pokes at them, demanding to know why they aren’t part of his tribe, and then this exchange occurs:
“That’s not the way.”We never see what Roger does to them, but when next we meet them, both boys are abjectly terrified of Roger, to the point of avoiding his name. Ralph asks if Jack hurt them, Jack who has been disintegrating emotionally and the primary force for escalating violence for most of the book up to Piggy’s death, and they scoff. No, not Jack. Roger steps out of obscurity and immediately eclipses him with deliberate brutality that is only possible because of Jack’s charisma in the first place. Jack is still chief - Roger makes no attempt to depose him, but he also makes immediately and emphatically clear that Jack has no authority to command, condemn, or constrain him. Though not brilliantly manipulative, Roger is clever, cold, and clear-sighted. He has the social acumen to use Jack’s pride, fear, and emotional volatility to nudge Jack into being exactly what Roger wants: an authority that legitimizes rather than disciplines Roger’s cruelty, and that cannot actually control him at all.
Roger edged past the chief, only just avoiding pushing him with his shoulder. The yelling ceased, and Samneric lay looking up in quiet terror. Roger advanced upon them as one wielding a nameless authority.
Lord of the Flies is often interpreted as a simple, binary progression from orderly civilization to chaotic anarchy, but this isn’t what’s happened. There are power structures in place both at the beginning and the end. A system of weak social reinforcement is replaced by a system of strong physical reinforcement. Roger has very little actual preference between anarchy and Jack’s sort of authority - in both cases, Roger does not have to deal with consequences for preying on those weaker than him. That’s what he wants, and after the epiphany on the rocks, it’s what he will dedicate himself to carving out for himself again, regardless of ideology, whether it means undermining a society that promotes accountability for violence or insinuating himself into one that elides it.
5-10 Key Character Traits: unobtrusive, opportunistic, cruel, perceptive, pragmatic, level-headed, insidious, brutal, independent, unambitious
Would you prefer a monster that FITS your character’s personality, CONFLICTS with it, EITHER, or opt for 100% RANDOMIZATION? EITHER
Opt-Outs: Naga, Kelpie, Werebear, Merperson, Wendigo
Roleplay Sample: On the TDM!
