My main exception is sometimes snarky people get a pass (but other times snark really annoys me, I'm not sure what the difference is -- maybe something to do with how well the narrative supports their mean-spiritedness, and also the degree of mean-spiritedness).
Yes! I think there's a line between snark and mocking humour that I find rather cruel. So I found Rodney McKay the former and John Sheppard the latter, even though really Rodney is the way more abrasive personality. But his fault is mostly impatience with people, and pretty scattershot in his aim, which I really empathise with. (I am SO impatient with adults, especially when I feel they should know better! I do my hardest not to snap/snark at people these days, but sometimes it's a massive struggle. So I love snarky awkward impatient scientist-types.) Otoh, John rubbed me the wrong way because he made a lot of "jokes" aimed at particular people which just came off as mean and not funny to me. I think the narrative treated both these characters as sometimes wrong and generally funny when they were acting like this, but I found Rodney's flaws much more forgivable than John's. They just felt less personal/targeted.
(Um, if you didn't watch SGA that entire paragraph may be completely meaningless. I just stumbled into a pit of Old Fandom Feels, sorry! XD)
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branchandroot
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Date: 2014-12-09 11:38 pm (UTC)Yes! I think there's a line between snark and mocking humour that I find rather cruel. So I found Rodney McKay the former and John Sheppard the latter, even though really Rodney is the way more abrasive personality. But his fault is mostly impatience with people, and pretty scattershot in his aim, which I really empathise with. (I am SO impatient with adults, especially when I feel they should know better! I do my hardest not to snap/snark at people these days, but sometimes it's a massive struggle. So I love snarky awkward impatient scientist-types.) Otoh, John rubbed me the wrong way because he made a lot of "jokes" aimed at particular people which just came off as mean and not funny to me. I think the narrative treated both these characters as sometimes wrong and generally funny when they were acting like this, but I found Rodney's flaws much more forgivable than John's. They just felt less personal/targeted.
(Um, if you didn't watch SGA that entire paragraph may be completely meaningless. I just stumbled into a pit of Old Fandom Feels, sorry! XD)