(04-18-2017, 06:49 PM)Caspar Wrote:(04-18-2017, 04:36 PM)Nero Wrote: Amnesia as a plot point works, but I wouldn't particularly call it interesting. 90% of the timeI think no character advances without the writer's will, since after all, they don't do anything without you moving your fingers. Even in regards to the interactions with other characters, it's still the writer deciding who affects their character and how. Isolating the character, or putting limits on how far they can develop through things like memory loss controls information, but frankly gratuitous retcon use, or simply limiting RP to select people/motifs serves the same purpose. If that's the case, I question whether it's a problem with amnesia as a motif and not creative control, as so many hot button topics on this forum end up being about. Granted, it's not my favorite motif, but I'll use it when I feel it's suitably entertaining for others.
it's a paper-thin character device that basically says "the plot/character advances whenever the writer wants it to advance" and is subject to intensely arbitrary conditions. At best, it's a minor footnote justifying some of a character's eccentricities and at worst, it's a character's sole defining feature.
Amnesia is going to be something glossed over. You can argue that treating it so inconsequentially is a bit meta game-y and you wouldn't be wrong, but I can't feel invested in an amnesic character or the dilemma of a character's amnesia because more often than not it's just a railroad, so there's no point in trying to go off the tracks.
Pretty much every RPer I know who has a "personal storyline" advances it at their convenience, so this is hardly uncommon, nor limited to amnesiac characters. Just not being IC alone is the most effective method of creative control.
While it's true that characterisation and the advancement thereof is dependent on the writer in a literal sense, in practical terms a character's advancement in a narrative is relative to the context.
For example, if a mortal character has their head cut off, then yes, in a completely literal sense, the writer can decide whether or not that character dies. That's not really a choice in terms of consistency and context, however; if the character does anything other than die immediately, then it needs to be adequately explained with some degree of plausibility or else it ends up being deus ex machina. That's an extremely binary example of course, but the principle applies to more ambiguous situations as well.
And while yes, a writer does have control over what kind of contexts their character engages in, that too is subject to consistency; the writer's control and choices are never truly total. You can't have your characters contemplating fate underneath an ice temple one second and then suddenly teleport them to a desert and have that be at all acceptable without explanation, not unless the writer chooses to not have any plausibility in their narrative.
That's the the key difference--retcons, selective roleplaying, and advancement of a "personal" story are explicitly out-of-character methods of information control wherein the amount of information is dictated almost purely by OOC circumstances, while amnesia and the circumstances thereof are explicitly in-character, and therefore is (or at least, should be) be subject to one's personal standards the same that any other personality trait would.
Which is a bit of a problem, because amnesia is a poorly understood phenomenon which lends to the fact that it's used in very whimsical ways. I'm not talking about realism, but when and why a character suddenly "remembers" something is very often poorly defined or head-scratchingly coincidental.
To further illustrate my point, let's say a character doesn't know their name. Let's say they find their nametag. The writer chooses whether or not the character suddenly remembers their name. The ephemeral nature of memory means that the character not remembering their name is just as possible as the character suddenly remembering their entire lives in photographic detail. It's totally arbitrary as to whether or not the character will remember their name at that point or not, which is why I don't find amnesia at all interesting.
Let's say our amnesiac character still doesn't know their name, but finds a photo with their name written on it and a big arrow pointing to an image of them. Again, it's totally possible for the character to not remember anything and say "I guess that must be my name" as it is for the character to suddenly go "I remember everything now!". There's absolutely no rhyme or reason to amnesia; either it happens, or it doesn't, dictated by absolutely nothing other than whether the writer feels like revealing it at that point, which is why I don't find it particularly compelling.
