DE: Blind spot

[yakalskovich]

 Continuing with yesterday's theme, does your character have a blind spot about themselves or the people around them, something that they are in denial about or just refuse to see? Alternately, are they hiding anything from the people around them, or are people hiding anything from them?

Comments

[just_cant_lose]

Gene - HAHAHAHA. Um. Does not know he's dead, and actually 22 years old? Bit of a blind spot, that. To say He refuses to see it is a bit of an understatement, and yes he is very much hiding it from people around him, and also himself.

Javert - actually quite free of blind spots, these days. And even when he was all I AM THE LAWR et cetera, he was very honest about his actions and the punishments he thought he deserved for stuff. His denial comes from refusing to see anything outside his own set of rules for the world.

Valjean - consistently fails to see how extraordinary he is. :(

Bruce Banner - refuses to believe that he's not a monster, and might actually be worth caring about even with the Hulk as part of his make-up.

Bruce Wayne - ummmm...well, he's famously unable to move on from what happened when he was a kid, but I think the first movie adequately shows him coming to own that fear, and use it. So no, not really. He's quite self-aware, and has pretty solid reasons for putting on a giant armoured suit and running about at night. It's not like he doesn't know it's a bit odd.

Courfeyrac - is cheerfully self-aware and forthright, and will happily admit his failings as well as his strengths. He doesn't hide things from his friends, barring the names of his mistresses in order to spare their modesty.

Aubrey - lol, tends to go ashore and get tipsy and consider himself a lot more socially suave than he is. And then realise his mistake the next morning, which only makes the hangover worse. He does hide some things from people around him - his occasional nerves at all the responsibility he holds, for example, or the times he has to make a decision when he's not sure it's the right one. But that's mainly good leadership, because he has to present the right face to his crew.

Jim - hides the fact that he is desolate, and alone, and deeply unhappy (his PB's words). I mean, he has fun at work but jobs are only brief flashes of distraction in the monotony of existence. The reason he's so obsessed with Sherlock is because they're essentially the same person, just on opposite sides - it's like seeing a reflection, and wanting to connect with it.

None of this is really a blind spot, though: he's aware of it, it's just that there isn't a solution. Barring forcing Sherlock out to play, which is has done and will continue to do until they reach their conclusion.

[i_am_your_host]

Emcee is very dark inside and self-destructive, and he tries his best to hide it. A few people in Milliways know about it, even fewer have seen it. So most of the time he's in denial about how well he's doing, as he's forcing himself to appear stable and happy for other people's sake. And for his own sake, because he hates showing cracks in his veneer. At his worst, he sees himself as weak and useless and not good for much more than sex (which he does know he's good at, at least!), and he doesn't understand why people would find him helpful on a personal/emotional level. It still sort of confuses him or makes him uncomfortable when people thank him when he doesn't feel like he's done anything.

[yinyangwizard]

Seimei is constantly struggling not to be overwhelmed by his own despair. That's part of why he concentrates so much on work and on trying to help other people (whether they asked for it or not) - it helps him maintain his carefully constructed state of semi-denial about the whole issue. He usually conceals it well, although it sometimes bubbles to the surface in unexpected ways.

[harryhotspur]

Harry's massive, massive blind spot is his assumption that everyone follows the saw code of honor as he does. Surely everyone sees the world the same way as him! Surely no one would ever do something sketchy like pretend to be sick in order to avoid a battle they know they can't win, or lie to his allies to avoid having to (totally justly) take the blame for a dumb rebellion! ...possibly, just possibly this strange kind of trust in everyone is how Hotspur was able to be massively betrayed by his own family and never actually know it. Maybe.

Marius is a giant, walking blind spot. Especially at certain points in canon, his self-centeredness and weird melancholy consumes all. Was there, perhaps, a hugely important successful revolution that ended in the deposition of the current king (though he was just replaced by a new king)? Well, you'd hardly know it to hear events from Marius's point of view. Which, alas, we do. He happily seeks out ignorance, to a certain extent: he has such a radical shift in ideology at the beginning of his storyline, and becomes sort of terrified of having another (or the thought of having to have them continually) and so just-- ignores everything in order to avoid it.

He's also kind of the opposite of Harry: on a certain level, he doesn't trust anyone. His default assumption is that people are mocking him/judging him/dislike him, which is not a very useful starting point for deducing most people's actual motivations. And that's not even getting started on his gross bourgie morality that forces the saddest events of he end of canon to happen.

Those are the conspicuous ones! I'll ponder the rest.

[just_cant_lose]

Marius's blind spots are legend. Also, hilarious. And sad. :(

[heartbeneathastone]

All of the above. *pats him*

[clayforthedevil]

Truly, a bourgeois upbringing is a horrible thing to happen to a man. *noogies*

[harryhotspur]

A tragedy!

[clayforthedevil]

Augh, Harry. :(

[harryhotspur]

To be fair, it's also the trait that makes him act like such a dick.

[crabbycustomer]

Karkat is his own biggest blind spot... most of his omnidirectional hostility is either insincere theatrics, overstated, or histrionics he regrets after the fact, but his hatred of himself is deep and thorough and pretty completely unfair.

Seen from outside, Karkat is a virtual child soldier who grew up more or less feral but somehow managed to preserve his compassion for others and desire for fairness, despite the brutality of life and cultural indoctrination about the virtue of bloodshed and cruelty. But he has made some mistakes with enormous, tragic consequences, and he can't really forgive himself for it, even though recognizing that there is anything to regret still puts him a step ahead of the moral curve compared to a lot of trolls.

And he even sees those trolls as victims of tragic circumstance! He just... can't ever apply that logic to himself. He can get angry about how unfair it was, but he can't make the critical jump to recognize that that unfairness might at least partially absolve him of the blood on his hands.

[forceimbalance]

Please don't mind the player dying of laughter in a corner.

[yinyangwizard]

On a related note, the whole Jedi Order seems to have a huge (and fatal) blind spot re: healthy emotional expression and the need for emotional coping skills.

[garde723]

+1

Basic emotional counseling would've worked so much better than, detach from your emotions and any attachments.

[bjornwilde]

Ahsoka: I would say she hasn't realized enthusiasm will not solve all problems, especially in a war. She will learn a harsh lesson over Ryloth in this regard.

Izana: Their attraction to Nagate. They are well aware of it but hide it from others, and more importantly, him. ETA: Also, they are harboring a deep fear of combat and the gauna. They don't even acknowledge how fearful they are of combat and dying.

Rollo: I think he is blind to how much people like him for him and not just because he is Ragnar's brother. He's also blind to any standing he has in the village because he's looking higher than where he is.

More later maybe.

[genarti]

Enjolras actually is very clear-sighted about himself! I can't think of any real blind spots he has at this point in his... no-longer-life. I mean, blind spots that he's aware of and compensates for by going "this is a weak point of mine, someone else should take point on this or hear out my thoughts and correct me or both," yes, but that's a little different.

Cosette, however, definitely has blind spots. For one thing, I don't think she thinks of herself as a particularly strong person; she doesn't feel guilty about that, she just assumes that she's pretty average, which is totally wrong. Also, she doesn't really consciously realize just how bad she and her entire family (Marius included, Fantine probably being the exception) are about talking about their feelings or secrets, let alone asking each other about theirs.

Also, there's the whole swath of her childhood that she's forgotten/blocked the memories of. She's sort of become aware at this point by things Fantine has said that there are things she doesn't remember that were important, but she hasn't quite brought herself yet to poke into all that. Someday she will, but she hasn't yet.

Thor's blind spot about Loki is less giant than fandom often depicts it, but it's there. His blind spot about his father, however, is giant. Odin is wise and a good father and a great ruler DON'T YOU DARE SUGGEST OTHERWISE OR WE'RE GONNA HAVE A PROBLEM HERE. I'm sure he's got a few other small ones, but I can't think of them at the moment.

Kazul is relatively clear-sighted, but sometimes she does forget a bit about human limitations. (She definitely doesn't have a human attitude about eating humans, but that's less a blind spot and more being a dragon.) Sometimes her temper gets away from her a little, occasionally self-defeatingly, but she's aware of that, I think, whether or not she'd readily admit to it.

[i_am_your_host]

Thor's blind spot about Loki is less giant

I see what happened with your words there. ;D

[genarti]

I have no idea what you mean. :D :D

(...Okay actually it was totally accidental, but it SHOULDN'T'VE been so I'm going to pretend I meant it all along.)

[genarti]

Oh, actually, here's one for Enjolras: sexism! Obviously he's read more about things like feminism in Milliways, and met women who aren't steeped in the same culture he is, and he's significantly better than he used to be. And he's definitely willing to treat and think of someone as essentially an honorary man, if she talks with him about serious stuff and doesn't flirt with him. But, uh, you see the limitations inherent in that godawful term 'honorary man,' even if it's my word for it rather than his; Enjolras does not really fully recognize the extent to which he's internalized his own culture's assumptions and the extent to which they're a blind spot.

[sunbaked_baker]

I could go on at length about just how much Sunshine isn't thinking about the number of vampires who have died at her hands - vampires she knows are people, even if society doesn't view them as such - or the implications of her body-count.

[freedom_is_grey]

Ysalwen often doesn't realize how much she steamrollers other people. She's starting to, a bit, but usually only with specific people who have told her 'hey don't do that'. So.

X is unaware that she is actually a good person. Or likeable.

[clayforthedevil]

Wait, people think Ysalwen is...what, pushy?
*shrugs*
Different crowds, must be. Magic World Bourgeoisie.

((no, he really doesn't think she is. Also pffft, Ysalwen's a sweetie. A Mass-Destruction-Capable Terrifying sweetie.:P))