Characters: Action vs Reaction

[kintsugi]

So basically, I saw a post online about a fandom that I particularly enjoy claiming that the heroine of the story in question is actually an example of a terrible female character because she has no agency. I disagreed and felt that the lead actually had a bunch of agency and most of the story was about her having agency and discovering her own power and being awesome, and the end argument that we left on was that, because all of the heroine's actions in the story weren't entirely her own actions but reactions to other things, she didn't have any agency.

Not linking the original article because that's not exactly what I want to discuss.

However, this did get me thinking. I hear the suggestion that characters should act vs react all the time, but I've never really stopped to think about what it means.

See, twelve years of institutionalized learning of history has taught me that nothing happens in isolation. Everything is caused by something else, from your primal fear of spiders to the sparking of WWI. Short of deciding to go off and do something completely random for no reason whatsoever, everything you ever do is basically guaranteed to be a reaction to something else. I saw a movie which I liked, which caused me to go online and read an article about it, which caused me to have a debate with someone, which caused me to post this in this forum.

In short, I think that every deed I'll ever do that has any sort of meaning in the world is a reaction to someone else. The idea that I need to carve my own path and do everything entirely on my own, with no help or inspiration from anyone else, seems silly. People don't exist in isolation. The idea that the characters I write or enjoy should not be held to this same constraint seems unrealistic as well, because fiction is meant to, at some degree, be a reflection of real life.

So yeah. My stance here is that everything a character ever does is actually a reaction to something else, short of completely random lashing out (which, honestly, I would find unrealistic and irritating anyway). Thoughts? Perhaps I'm just interpreting something wildly wrong.

 

[Persephone]

Every decision a character makes is ultimately caused by something else. That is seldom disputed. But, the decision they make is how they get classified as reacting or acting.

Reactive characters and decisions aren't really making choices so much as they are either waiting for someone else to move before acting or just going along with the crowd. There are uses for this, such as when the villain is obnoxiously overpowered or too mysterious or unpredictable to track or when a character is meant to be portrayed as simply swept up in things much larger than them. Generally the latter is used to portray a character with associations that would normally make them evil without making them a villain by default.

Characters and actions better described as "action" generally make first moves and force other characters to bend to their decisions. Rather than simply try to flee or outmaneuver an obstacle they develop a plan to smash it. Of course, their motivation for smashing or forcing others hands are in turn influenced by other things. But they choose to deal with it in a way that actively changes the course of events, or at least attempts to change it. To me that's the primary difference.

 

[GoneGuy]

Human agency refers to the ability of humans to make free choices based on the concept of free will. Agency reinforces the claims that humans make their own decisions. This does not encapsulate how the decisions are made, thus leaving room for either free will or external influence. Therefore, I like to look at this from a physical viewpoint, based on Newton's Third Law: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Each character reacts to their environment and the influences of their past, present and future. Let's call an aristocratic father the "action", and the son's prejudice against others the "reaction." Think of it as a line of dominoes - every action instigates a reaction, which is an action in itself, thus furthering the character and providing a greater understanding of what drives them.

To be honest, I like a character who "reacts" more than characters who "act" without reason, because I like to see how people get to where they are today.