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Date Posted: Tuesday, June 27, 10:36:12am
Author: JayBee
Subject: Hmmmmmm.
In reply to: Nell 's message, "Tuesday Roundup (why? Its Tuesday of course!)" on Tuesday, June 27, 08:52:53am

I'd love to have you steer me to where this positive take on Paul was going on in the fandom, because everywhere *I* looked, he was pretty much universally seen as a bad guy. (I did see criticism of Nikita along the lines of "Why doesn't she just quit whining and do what Operations says," but I think it's important to point out that those arguments were never actually made in a way that indicated the proponent actually approved of Operations at *all*. Rather, the implicit theme underlying all of these arguments was: "Michael wouldn't complain or protest like that, and why can't Nikita follow his lead?")

Interestingly, some of my issues with Nikita arise from a kind of mirrored response of yours: not only the fandom, but in fact the canon source presented Nikita as the heroine and Paul as a villain. It was simply expected that the audience would accept this. The characteristics they shared (and there were *many*) were very clearly intended by TPTB to be flaws in Paul, but perfectly acceptable in Nikita. This kind of double-standard -- excusing behavior that would be criticized in anyone else just because a character is deemed the hero -- *really* irks me.

When I write Paul, I pretty much write him as an asshole. Because he was! I don't try to whitewash his behavior or excuse what I think are pretty glaring flaws. But once you accept that these *are* flaws, you can move on to exploring what might be interesting or even positive about the character. (And in his case, I think his essential cynicism and somewhat dark sense of humor make his flaws a little more palatable than I find them in Nikita, who's just so insufferably *earnest*. *Wince*)

However, I have made a few attempts at writing Nikita as well, and doing so has been quite helpful in my getting to the point where I find her less annoying. When I'm in control of how the character is presented, when I can write *her* as a bit of an asshole without having to excuse it because she's The Heroine (tm), she's much more pleasant to contemplate.

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