Character Autopsy: Ana Rivera

This is the character autopsy, where I take a character that I adore and force them down onto the cold and metallic table and cut them open, exploring what about their character that resonates with me and how I can use it in my own writing. The victim today, however, is different in that I do not adore them, in fact, I despise them, but I feel there are valuable lessons to be learnt from their character and if I happen to enjoy the butchering process, then so be. On the table today is the self-centred and hypocritical street racer of Palm City, Ana Rivera.

A hobby of mine is gaming and I know there are those who look down on it while holding their spicy teen monster romance up to their face like it is a Jane Austin classic, but I liken playing a game to walking into a library and finding a good book. The stories told can be good or bad, but in the same way one can get romantic about a good book, I find myself feeling the same about a good game. So recently, I went to the digital library and found a game I had played previously and decided to engage with it a second time and when I did, a flood of thoughts washed into my mind as I remembered my original feelings about the game’s story, I did not like it. The problem can be focussed into the side character Ana Riveria, a local street racer. You see, in the game you play as a street racer, who by day races in legitimate races in the city to earn money and at night, by her influence, complete illegal races. She is meant to be a character that we agree with and root for as she is oppressed by a corrupt police force and not supported by her older brother, but the problem is that there is no action that she takes that makes her likeable. For example, she has an older brother who runs a successful business as a mechanic and while he used to race, he no longer does as he knows it is dangerous. She is upset that he does not do illegal street racing, and we are expected to agree with her, but that is unreasonable. The brother is right, he has a legitimate business, and she wants him to throw it away to be a criminal, why would he do that? She just comes across like an entitled brat, I mean while her brother is working all day she is sleeping and then at night she goes out and chooses to be a menace to society. Another example comes in the form of her relation to the antagonists, the corrupt police. At the beginning of the story we watch as two cops run an illegal street racer off the road and destroys his car, causing the driver to leave Ana’s crew and return home. She is angry at the driver, that he was scared by a genuine threat from the cop and later she exclaims that “the cops aren’t playing by the rules.” This is hypocritical because she has no right to complain that a police force, which has its city overrun with reckless drivers, are being far more aggressive when she is the one who is literally breaking the law. This brat complains that the cops run her off the road but she is far worse, I mean think about what life would be like living in Palm City, knowing that every night you drive there is a chance some dingus in a Nissan is going to drift around the corner and sideswipe you and kill your family. She talks about how driving gives her power, but there is a whole day time, completely legal race competition that she could compete in and earn money, instead she chooses to be a criminal because she only cares about herself, not her brother, her friends or the family that she ran off the road trying to win her race.

I understand that the story has to try and position the street racers as somewhat heroic, because we play as the protagonist and the gameplay requires we do illegal street racing, but the key takeaway from Ana is that even if a character does bad things, their behaviour must have at least some element of being morally good, or we won’t like them. I think of Danny Ocean, a thief, but charming and even though he breaks the law, his actions do not make him detestable. The anti-hero needs to act in a way that makes them likeable, it is clearly not good enough to have them act like they are right, but their actions need to reflect some kind of morality. If Ana was not a hypocrite, acknowledged what she was doing was wrong and honestly, stopped acting like she was a victim when she is far worse than a police force that steals illegal street racer’s cars (I honestly didn’t have an issue with the antagonist’s actions because again, imagine living in Palm City, it would a hellscape), then she might have been likeable. I think in my writing, I always need to balance out the actions of characters. If I want a character to be liked then they need to act that way but also, that if they doing something morally bad, then it cannot be so bad that it is irredeemable, for the audience will not forgive, I know I would struggle to. I wrote a character that had a significant moral failing and I feel that he was given the opportunity to repent and right his wrong, but I suppose I may not know if it was enough until that story is published and you all let me know if you forgave him or not. Perhaps one day I will read a blog just like mine complaining about his character, then I might know what it feels like to be on the other side of this criticism.