fongiel24 wrote...
People may not be two-dimensional cardboard cutouts, but the image they present to the world (intentionally or unintentionally) can be. Also, not every villain in real life has complicated goals. Some people really are just assh*les. Others have values and goals so different from the accepted norms of Western society that we can't even understand them (think Osama and al-Qaeda or Hitler and the N*zis). If we were capable of being perfectly objective, these kinds of people actually might have very complex motivations but given our limited perspective, they are "evil for evil's sake" because we are incapable of rationalizing their actions in the way they can. I would prefer that Miranda's father be put into this category.
The rules of fiction and a reader's interpretation of them are different from the kinds of allowances we give in real life that it doesn't make for a good comparison. When presented with a cardboard villian in a fictional work, do you really think "maybe he's really complex, but he doesn't choose to show so we don't know"? The usual tendency is to say yes, it was the intention to make this character a one-pony trick, or it was just bloody sloppy writing. A reader's depth of information is entirely dependent on the how much the writer choose to tell or show, and there shouldn't be a need for the reader to rationalise and/or extrapolate beyond what is given to attempt to understand a character. That we can and do so in forums like this is a bonus, but obvious things a writer wants conveyed to the audience shouldn't require such mental acrobatics.
That aside, I'm more concerned over how the portrayal of Miranda's father would affect the characterisation of Miranda. It's been firmly established that her father left an idelible mark on her and contributed to her insecurities, something so deeply ingrained that she still can't get over it. To portray her father as a one-dimensional villian would trivialise that entire struggle. If he's so flat-out bad and inhumane (or as you put it, we're unable to understand his motivations) then it would be far easier to brush off his actions as the machinations of a mad man. Yes, she would still have to live with the fact that she is genetically engineered, but why would her sense of self-worth be so deeply affected? In other words, why would she put so much weight in the regard or non-regard of someone like that? You can argue that childhood trauma is something that cannot be easily dismissed, but that again goes back to my point that we shouldn't need to rationalise or extrapolate beyond what is given to justify the already-established depths of Miranda's psychological struggle.
I didn't actually find Saren complex at all. The indoctrination angle made me wonder if he was just a misguided hero, but after reading Revelation, he turned out to be a pretty flat character. I really wasn't impressed. TIM is a complex character that was fairly well-written, but that's precisely why I wouldn't want Miranda's father to be like him. He would just end up being TIM Jr.
I highly doubt that Miranda's father, if the topic should be explored, will come close to TIM's characterisation depth. What I'm looking for is a nudge towards that direction; anything but one-dimensional. TIM stands out as an example because there are so few characters as fleshed-out in the first place. More would enrich the ME universe, not detract from it. Also, TIM and Miranda's father already have different agendas. TIM's long-term goal is the advancement of humanity, whereas Miranda's father's, as she describes it, is more meglomaniacal in nature. That's already one step towards character banality for Miranda's father which I hope doesn't go further.
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