Characters Who Aren't "Normal"
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| Image description: Bilbo Baggins, as seen in the film series, The Hobbit, a prequel to The Lord of the Rings. These films depict Bilbo's epic quest, something which makes him different from many hobbits - and thus not normal - for many years to come. Today, I'm discussing a few "abnormal" but iconic characters like Bilbo in the hopes that their example of leading lives that aren't normal can be inspirational to those of us who do likewise. |
This type of attitude doesn’t just affect aspec people, but
affects people of all identities and genders, who may not want these things or
may not wish to prioritize them at this point in their life. So when we see
these things being defined as normal and “normal” being associated with
positive states of being such as goodness, happiness, or completeness, that I
believe is where we run into a problem. But part of why I talk about this issue
so frequently on the blog is that this doesn’t have to be the case. We don’t
have to consider these things as automatically being normal and by definition
that not having them is abnormal. Or, more accurately, we can come to
understand that normal doesn’t have to mean the same thing for everyone and
that people who shake off traditional definitions of normal often do so for
good reason.
Something that I think always bears mentioning is that
different cultures and societies might have different definitions of what they
view as “normal.” These are based on a lot of factors – everything from
cultural traditions to religious practices of whatever group is being discussed
to the media different groups of people assign value to. And there are even
other factors to consider, such as how small groups might define normal for
themselves, and the pressures that exist both within these units and society at
large. Therefore, I always think it’s interesting to look at a piece of media
and analyze the world these stories take place in. What’s “normal” for those
people or those characters? What are the pressures placed on these characters
to hit this supposed standard and what does it look like when they refuse to do
so?
In my experience, a lot of great stories happen when we ask
those questions, and a lot of the best characters tend to be people who refuse
to live “normal” lives, whatever that means to them and their society. It makes
it even more ironic to me that society is so obsessed with normal when there
are scores of incredible, iconic characters who buck traditions and refuse
normalcy throughout our media landscape who are often celebrated for their
non-conformity. I talk about these types of characters a great deal on the blog in the form of my usual suspects like Seven of Nine or Cole, but there are so many others out there whom I've never had a chance to really discuss. So today, I want to explore some of my favorite examples of this
– iconic characters who are “abnormal” by the definition of their own society,
but who need to be that way to save the day, win over hearts and minds, or grow
on their journey.
I’m not saying these characters are necessarily aspec - although I do think an argument could be made for some of them, and in some
cases their refusal to prioritize traditional relationships may be part of what
makes their character so noteworthy. But beyond these things, these characters
are not normal because they choose not to conform to the expectations of their
society and that’s the thing I specifically want to focus on in my analysis
today. If these characters can be seen as heroes and icons precisely because
they leave behind the normal and embrace the atypical, what lessons can we
learn from them, and what parallels can be drawn in our own lives?
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Bilbo Baggins
from the Middle-Earth Universe of J.R.R Tolkien
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| Image description: Bilbo as he appears in the films of The Hobbit series (left) and as he appears in The Lord of the Rings film series (right) |
Known to some of us as the bravest little hobbit of them all, Bilbo Baggins is an important and fascinating character from the works of J.R.R Tolkien, appearing first as the protagonist of The Hobbit and then resurfacing in The Lord of the Ring series. When we’re first introduced to Bilbo, he lives what many would consider to be the normal life of a hobbit, living comfortably in the Shire in his cozy house. The typical life is dramatically interrupted, however, when Gandalf the Wizard and the dwarves of the far-off kingdom of Erebor recruit him to help them take back their home from a fearsome dragon. Although initially reluctant, Bilbo accepts the call to adventure, and experiences a great deal of personal growth.
Even when the quest is done and he returns to the Shire,
Bilbo’s adventures have changed how others see him, to the point where he is no longer viewed
as a “normal” hobbit; in fact, in the first chapter of The Fellowship of the
Ring, he is described using terms like “peculiar” and “oddity.” While some
of this has to do with the influence of the One Ring, which has been in Bilbo’s
possession for years at this point, it’s not entirely the Ring’s fault. Beyond
Bilbo’s questing making him strange to other hobbits, both he and his nephew
(or, technically, his young cousin) Frodo Baggins, the protagonist of the The
Lord of the Ring series, come from families that are considered strange to
other hobbits, as they are too. It’s typical to hear both hobbits described as
nice, polite, kind-hearted, and charitable, but nevertheless still seen as
oddities.
As I said in my introduction, the idea of this post was to show that characters who buck the
expectations of their societies and live non-conventional lives are often
iconic, and to illustrate that being different doesn’t have to be bad, rather
than because of anything specifically aspec in the characters themselves. However, in the case of Bilbo Baggins
– and Frodo as well – there actually is a factor of their non-conformity that
does raise interesting aspec parallels. In addition to all the things I’ve mentioned
here, hobbits are also often known for getting married and having large
families, something which neither Bilbo nor Frodo ever do. Again, while one
could argue that the One Ring has something to do with that, especially in
Bilbo’s case after all those years, I think it adds another element of Bilbo
being unique and iconic.
Like all the characters in this post, Bilbo is a heroic
figure. The fact that other hobbits like and admire him, or at the very least
find him an interesting fellow, is the entire point – his strangeness is an
asset. In a way, I think Bilbo is a good example of someone living in a typical
society where people are
Something I’ve always loved about The Lord of the Ring
series and the hobbits especially is that they seem powerless and unassuming, but
both Bilbo and Frodo prove that they can do great things too. In fact, they can
do the things that others can’t do, and while that makes them strange to their
peers, it makes them amazing to all others, and makes them amazing,
inspirational heroes, with Bilbo perhaps the best example of all.
Fa Mulan from
Disney’s Mulan
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| Image description: Mulan and Mushu in the 1998 Disney animated film |
The story of Fa Mulan (Hua Mulan) is a Chinese folk legend about a young woman who takes her father’s place in the Chinese military. Many people likely know the story because of the 1998 Disney animated adaptation, simply titled Mulan. Much like the original story, in the animated film, Fa Mulan is a young woman who takes her father’s place in the army, but the film makes several other bits of commentary about her personality and motivations. Right from the start, we see that Mulan struggles to fit into her society, knowing that she will never be able to be the “perfect” daughter, woman, and bride that her society expects her to be, and trying to reconcile what she knows herself to be on the inside with what society sees on the outside.
While waiting to figure out her purpose and life path, the
unthinkable happens – an invasion by the Huns leads to the edict that one man
from each family must serve in the Chinese army, but the only man in the house
is Mulan’s aged father, who will surely die during the campaign. Desperate to
save her father, she makes the dangerous and highly illegal decision to take
his place, disguising herself as a man and riding off to accept conscription on
his behalf under the name “Fa Ping”. There, she meets and befriends her fellow
conscripts, including a trio of soldiers called Yao, Ling, and Chien Po, and
eventually gains the trust of her commanding officer, Li Shang.
Although the odds seem stacked against her due to her
clumsiness, Mulan eventually becomes a brave soldier, succeeding where many of
the other soldiers fail, even managing to slow the seemingly unstoppable Hun
army with her quick thinking. While her secret does eventually get exposed, she
is able – again and again – to prove that the skills to win the battle do not
lie solely through brains or brawn, but through a combination of them, and is
able to do what needs to be done by combining both traditionally masculine and feminine
elements. Eventually, the young woman who was seen as a disgrace because of her
inability to present herself as society expected is able to buck the
expectations for both genders and become a hero.
However, even more notable than just Mulan’s own personal
non-conformity is the fact that she inspires others to go against the grain as
well. When Mulan is revealed to be a woman, it’s made clear that what she’s
done is both “high treason” and “ultimate dishonor,” a crime and a humiliation
that anyone with sense should want to distance themselves from. One might think
that Yao, Ling, and Chien Po would feel betrayed by her and would want to avoid
her at all costs. And yet, when the emperor’s counsel passes judgment and calls
for her execution, their first and only desire is to see Mulan spared. Up until
that point, all three of them have held views that diminish the women in their
society – a big theme of the story – but now that they know the deeds and
actions of “Ping” have been Mulan’s deeds (a woman’s deeds) all along, they’re
willing to change their minds.
However, they’re willing to take things a step further later
in the story, where it becomes clear that non-conventional warfare is the only
way they’re going to win. They embrace the blending of roles by disguising
themselves as women to help Mulan in her plan, something which would have been
unthinkable earlier in the story – both for them and for Mulan. In the
beginning, we see that the weight of society’s expectations is crushing Mulan
and preys upon her idea of her worth, but now she’s confident enough to make a
plan and have people follow it, a plan that quite literally saves her society. In
this way, her willingness to take on other roles and aspects of society for
herself inspires others to do the same, which I think is the entire point of
being brave enough to engage in non-conformity. And, the fact that her society
is saved by the things they were willing to overlook is inspirational. The fact
that Mulan is “abnormal” is exactly what makes her so heroic.
Alice Kingsleigh
from Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland
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| Image description: The iconic Alice as she appears in the 2010 film |
The idea of not living a normal life could easily be said of any iteration of the title character of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – in fact, many scholars seem to examine how Alice isn’t just going through a very unusual journey when she goes to Wonderland, but how she herself is different from many child protagonists in literature from the time period. However, I think the concept can perhaps most readily be said about the version of the character as she appears in the 2010 live action film directed by Tim Burton, which almost continues the story as portrayed in Disney’s animated film version.
In this live action version, Alice is a nineteen-year-old
young woman who went to Wonderland (or Underland) as a child and goes back
again while literally escaping the expectations of her society in the form of
an unwanted marriage proposal. Again, while this resonates with me as an aspec
person who often knows what it feels like to try and dodge people’s
expectations – albeit not nearly as forced as what Alice goes through here – it also shows us how different Alice is in general. Likewise, the conversation she has
with her mother on the way to the garden party shows us the unique and unusual
ways she sees the world, such as when she says wearing a corset and
stockings feels as absurd to her as wearing a codfish on their heads would feel
to everyone else.
I love this description because, not only does it give us a
glimpse into Alice’s quirky views and personality, but it also sets up the idea
that Alice views conventional wisdom and belief as strange. It’s not just that
she chooses to live her life in a different way or that she chooses to assign
value to the things other people don’t; it’s that her own value system is so dissonant
to that of her society that she’s actually come to view the “normal” as absurd
and the absurd as normal. This makes her trips to Wonderland make even more
sense and even gives rise to the quote that she “believes as many as six impossible
things before breakfast” (a quote from Through the Looking-Glass and What
Alice Found There, albeit not spoken by Alice herself in the original story).
More than that, however, Alice thrives when her quirkiness
is celebrated and when it turns out that her skills are what’s needed to slay
the Jabberwocky, the fearsome creature that terrorizes Wonderland. She may be
seen as an oddity in her own time and place, but she’s exactly what Wonderland
needs, and being validated in this way allows her to keep being herself. In
some ways, the live-action version of Alice almost perfectly combines aspects
of my previous two examples. Like Bilbo, she leaves her typical life to go on a
grand adventure; like Mulan, she ignores the conventions of her society and
those placed on her gender in order to do unconventional things and even
inspire some of the people around her, as is seen by the end of the film when
she goes back to the “real world.”
In a previous post, I briefly discussed the controversial aspect of Alice leaving Wonderland, and I completely understand and even identify with the idea of that being unthinkable. But even so, it’s powerful to see Alice go back and assert herself. She’s making space for herself and for people like her in a society that otherwise doesn’t want her, and I think there’s something to be said for that. I’m sure many people like me – and other types of people who feel like outsiders – wish we had the ability to run away to a Wonderland that finally understands and accepts us. And some of us may be lucky enough to find that and be able to keep it long term. But when life doesn’t allow us that or doesn’t allow us the ability to stay, I think we can follow Alice’s example and carve out a little bit of our own unique and wonderful space amid a sea of tragic “normalcy.” Because, as far as I’m concerned, the only impossible thing is the idea of actually being normal, because what does that even mean anyway?
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| Image description: Alice at the end of the film, departing on a new journey |
At the end of the day, I believe there will always be
standards of “normal” in society and there will always be those who judge
others for not conforming to those supposed ideals. Therefore, seeing
characters who do not confine themselves to these standards will always be
important. These portrayals may not change the minds of those who believe
that normal should be enforced, but they’ll always be available for people who feel out of place, and that, I believe, is their purpose. These media
portrayals exist to show those of us who don’t fit in that we are valuable,
even if those around us can’t see it or refuse to acknowledge it.
While of course I want to see the concept of normal be
redefined when it comes to the idea of things like romance, sex, marriage, and
having children, I know there will always be people who see these things as
important above all and who use them as metrics of success or happiness. But I’ll
also always draw hope from characters like these, characters who embrace the
things that make them different and use them to become heroes. I may not ever
be as brave as Mulan or do the impossible like Alice or go on a massive quest
like Bilbo. But in my own life, I can be inspired by their bravery and
ingenuity, their adventurousness and their imagination, their non-conformity
and their heart. And I can apply these things in my own life whenever society’s
expectations start to weigh me down, reminding myself that my worth, my value,
and my honor in life don’t have to be defined by whether or not I’m “normal.”
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