Yes hi this is my blog post for the day, here we go.
Today in Sci Fi we continued our discussion on Farenheit 451's dystopian aspects as of Part 1 (The Hearth and the Salamander). That didn't last long and we got more into the idea of "foil" characters in texts.
A foil character is a character whom presents an opposite personality or drive towards another character, usually to provide some positive conflict in the plot. You see this a lot in and outside of sci-fi for such a reason: It makes the characters interesting.
Like someone in class explained, you can't have two Batman's, they'll just agree on everything and be edgy together and it wouldn't be fun. At all. Thus two characters with opposing reasoning, such as Spok (I know it's spelled "Spock" I just like saying "SPOK" it sounds ridiculous) and Doctor Mccoy with their respectable forms of logical and emotional reasoning provide hemispheres for even types of "good guys" in a story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrVqmYzGTuM
That was about it really, we got off on a tangent listing these foil characters as a class till we ran out of time. I personally thought it was cool but kinda annoying how many shows have foil characters of emotion vs logic, it gets repetitive and far less innovative. There are many less covered debates such as "Freedom vs peace," or "Anarchy vs tyranny," or anything really. Any sort of dichotomy could be used for foil characters and it bothers me that everyone picks the easiest one.
That is all.
Great post, Sean! I especially love your grievance with emotion v. logic. It can feel pretty repetitive, and the dichotomy dates back to some of our oldest literature (the ancient Greeks always embodied the conflict as Dionysus v. Apollo). Can you think of any characters in particular that foil these other binaries (freedom/peace, anarchy/tyranny)?
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