ABSTRACT
Character-building strategies premised on binaries leave many stories untold through oppositional categories like character versus characterization and active agent versus passive victim. Embedded in the character/characterization binary is the belief that a character’s true essence emerges only when put under pressure and that one’s essence is neither related to the context of their lives nor identities. This chapter employs queer and trans theory—particularly around straight, cis time and its relation to subjectivity—to illustrate the bias undergirding the character/characterization dichotomy. Agency within character-building is explored for wielding hegemonic patriarchal power focused on individual dominance, with no consideration for community or relational dynamics. Stories of domestic, social, and state violence perpetuate the same pursuit of power and violence via revenge narratives, scorning resistance strategies employed by abuse survivors to maintain safety while foreclosing opportunities to capture alternate forms of agency. Similarly, linear character arcs erase the multiplicity, fragmentation, and fluidity of many lives, particularly when viewed through queer, trans, and disability frameworks of thought. These structures are designed to break a character down to their essence, filtering multifaceted consciousness and desire through a machine of normative expectation to make characters more palatable and, by extension, universal.
