Heero: Emotionless or Not?

[aynessa]

OK. So. LinkWorshipper and I were discussing this on DA, but I thought I'd drag the debate in here as well. :3 Since we both agreed, fufufufu.

I've noticed in a lot of fanfictions and doujinshis for Gundam Wing, that Heero is depicted as this emotionless robot who can't express happiness or anger or anything. Some have even gone so far as to postulate that he has a chip stuck in his brain that keeps him from feeling any emotion.

I have to ask. WHERE THE HELL DID THIS COME FROM?!

In the first 15 episodes alone, I have seen Heero laugh, get depressed/sulk, get angry (at himself and others), feel guilt (his quest to all the Noventas for retribution), and even smile. How is that not showing emotion?

I realize that in the English dub, Mark Hildreth does this stupid monotone for Heero as if he is a robot, but the Japanese Heero (read: the ORIGINAL one...) shows far more emotion in his voice acting - actually, he displays more emotion than Wufei!!!!

So....I ask: what do you think? Do you think Heero is an emotionless person, who had all the emotion trained out of him to be the "Perfect Soldier?" Or do you side with me and LinkWorshipper, and say that he actually DOES have emotions, only he's just a naturally serious person?

[twilistarr]

I think he is just a serious person frankly. I guess most people just hear "Perfect Soldier" and assume that he must be emotionless because in some opinions emotions are the bane of rational thinking's existence.

But your right it does seem kind of weird he is portrayed as he is, maybe its an out for someone who isn't sure how to properly portray him? Eliminate emotion all together?

[halogazer]

You see, that's the problem with dubs. The way a voice actor portrays a character really has an impact, especially if you're like me and haven't seen the Japanese version. I remember one of his quotes: "The only way to live a good life is to act on your emotions." I think he said that to Trowa, as a matter of fact, after he came out of his little coma thing after blowing himself up. Heero was brought up in a rather staid atmosphere, so while he is certainly a serious person, I wouldn't say he's emotionless. If he were, he wouldn't be affected by Relena in any way. He would have killed her from the get-go rather than go with his instincts, which even he didn't understand at the time, and continually protect her. He acknowledges his mistakes and seeks to rectify them, as you pointed out, aynessa, when he looked for all the Noventas to apologize for what he did to the marshal. As soon as Wufei showed up at New Edwards and told them that he had fallen (well, they all did) for Treize's trap, Heero sunk into this stupor for a short time. He wouldn't have done anything like that, or tried to stop the missiles from going off at the base, if he felt any contempt.

Heero is indeed a rather emotional person, but sometimes just doesn't show it as much as Quatre, or even Duo, might. It's why I like Heero's character so much; even though he was bred to be the Perfect Soldier, he is, in no way, perfect. He's just as human as everyone else.

[windwraith]

Generally i agree with H-gazer. Personally i am a fan of mark hildreth. he was one of the first voice actors i recognized on various shows from my childhood and as an actor his portrayal of finger in the odyssey when he was like 13 years old and siroc in youngblades as a 20-something made both shows rate my 'must watch' list. Also it must be noted He is not that bad as a singer song writer either. In interviews he has said he was told to portray heero as emotionless so that is what he did.

now for the character...I think heero is extreamly good at compartmentalization. when he is in what so many fan-fic's discribe as 'mission mode' there isn't room for distraction, and his training very likely did consider emotion a distraction in that context. the series seemed to imply that if dekim barton did have jay retrain him heero wouldn't have emotions so regardless of whether that training was carried out after the puppy incident heero would have been very cautious about expressing how he felt about anything. the dicotomy of heero saying follow your emotions, while seeming so very stoic is one of the reasons his character appeals to me so much. even jay discribes hero as a very sensitive boy and who would know better?

so yes, heero does have emotions, he follows them...he just doesn't let them control him and when he accepts the mission he generally puts them into a box where they won't get in the way till the mission is complete. i think his character progresses during the series from a place where his training dominates and the mission is everything then interacting with others he learns that he doesn't have to be 'on duty' all the time he can grieve, regret, compete with Duo, play with the dogs on the beach ect...i think thaat is the whole point he is trying to get across to quatre there on the beach, it is ok to be human, even during war. and i think that is a decision he wrestled with quite a bit before coming to that concusion.

Also, I find it interesting that the first person to be described as 'the perfect soldier' was trowa not heero. and as discribed in the other thread, Nanashi's emotional répertoire is a bit stunted. Still, i do like the AU's where Heero is more robotic and has to learn to be human...like Data from startreck next gen or spock, characters like that provide great oppurtunities to explore the human condition. so no i don't think showing heero in that light is a cop-out for people who don't know how to write him, is is just exploring a different possibility, or a different facet of his personality.

[zethsaire]

So, trying not to reiterate what everyone else has said...I agree with both sides. No, I'm not just saying that to be annoying. I agree with Link and Aynessa in that the Heero portrayed in fanfiction is not really the Heero from the series. And wraith, I did notice that Trowa was the one called a perfect soldier, which is interesting to me. As far as the series goes, Trowa shows the least emotion of them all; he doesn't smile or laugh, (except when he has amnesia) he doesn't get angry. He's always just got that dead expression on his face. Heero definitely has anger on his side; he might not be as explosive as Wufei, but he gets pissed fairly often. And sulks, and get depressed. Though his laughs are usually very creepy and almost psychotic.

However, there are a few fanfics that I like that show Heero as emotionally stunted and compartmentalized, where he feels the emotions, but has a very difficult time expressing them. And even a few where he literally doesn't have any at first, having them completely trained out, and then slowly learns how to feel them again. I think that if it's done right, Heero can be a great way to explore some of the more interesting social problems people can have. But I do think that Trowa is more appropriate to this kind of exploration.

[windwraith]

My problem with trowa in that roll is he doesn't have the same innocence/naivety about the world at large and how people normaly relate to each other that heero has. heero gives every impression of having been sheltered from the real world so he comes at things as an outsider would as if he's spent most of his lif inside a snowglobe while trowa has lived through some of the worst humsnity has to offer seen the awful reality of war and been damaged by it. he knows too much he is jaded so it doesn't effect him to any great degree. so with him it becomes more a matter of winning his trust then finding a way to breach the walls he has built around himself, peeling away the scilence to get at the person within, then systematically drawing him out of his shell. Where as with heero it is more about the wonder of experiancing things for the first time and the frustration of trying to figure out what is going on when those around you don't come with subtitles. fearing rejection, hiding weakness and not wanting to be patronized or pitied because of the life he has led, because he doesn't really understand either and that only confuses him more and makes him feel more out of place... at least that is my take...

[aynessa]

GAH. I am so sorry for deserting this thread, especially when I got such amazing responses! <3 (Love you guys~) I had my identity stolen, so.... >.< Needless to say, this week has been rather busy.

Oh my, where to start?

I agree with the whole compartmentalization ability of Heero's (and wow that word is hard to spell), he does have that whole "mission mode" thing he does where he tries to get everything done swiftly and precisely and ignore all the things that get in the way. Although he does show times where he lets emotion get in the way and change his decisions in the middle of his mission (such as the mission where he intended to kill Duo after he'd been captured, to keep from having any information spilled, and then he decided to rescue Duo instead).

I have always personally liked Jei's portrayal of Heero in fanfic land - he's serious but has a wide range of emotions even though he doesn't show them the way Duo might.

As for Trowa, he does seem rather distanced from emotion, but I think that stems more from an "I just don't give a damn, because I don't plan to live very long" point of view. He seemed to grow out of it little by little as the series progressed, IMO. :3

[nakitsura]

So how do we know this actually you? IMPOSTER!!

Wow, I have been outta the loop for a while.

I agree with you and Link and everyone else who agrees, that Heero does in fact have emotions, and I feel he does display them frequently throughout the series. Comparing him to Duo is like apples to oranges though, as Duo is portrayed as a brash, loud, obnoxious American.
(this is not a commentary on Americans, it was a description of the stereotype. We all know country stereotypes do not apply to the population as a whole, eh.)
Even in the dub Heero displays strong emotions that are very carefully leashed. He is like a duck. I'm not being facetious, it's a good analogy. The surface is smooth and calm, but under the water he is churning up a storm to stay in place.
Personally, I despise the fanfiction stereotypes that force Heero in to the robot mold, Duo in to the idiot mold, Quatre into the tea-swillin'-nancy mold, etc., as much as I hate when fanfics pointlessly throw random Japanese in. If you're going to write fanfiction, be a fan of the genre, respect the original characters. The ones where Heero starts out emotionally stunted and grows from there are sometimes tolerable for me when they allow that he has the emotions, he is just socially maladjusted. Which is perfectly understandable if he has never really had much opportunity to be a child.

Trowa on the other hand is quite closed off, but I see that as a reserved nature that protects him from being hurt again by others, due to his rather horrific upbringing. It's also what allows him to blend in and infiltrate the enemy so well.

[halogazer]

nakitsura: I HATE the random Japanese in fanfics! Ugh! That kills me! I have to resist leaving negative feedback that would likely get in me in trouble. It just totally takes away from the reading experience, especially when you're like, "WTF are they saying?" And I agree with the stereotype dealio when it comes to fanfics as well. Sadly enough, I haven't found very many good stories out there that portray the boys to the root of their personalities. Sigh.

And I agree with aynessa on Trowa; throughout the whole series, he always considered that his mission would be his last. He never seemed to think he would come out alive, and then when he did, he was just kinda like, "Oh, look at that. I'm not dead."

[nakitsura]

@halo I know, I think that's the root of my bad habit of not leaving feedback, which has also killed my feedback skills. I used to be really good at saying something was pretty awful but there was room for improvement without making people cry.
Also, FF.net won 't let me leave a logged in review for some bizarre reason.

I agree that Trowa has a very fatalistic approach to life. Somewhat of a well, I'm going to die sometime, probably soon, no use concerning myself with that.

[windwraith]

I know a lot od stories that simply feed steriotypes get pretty anoying and 2 dimentional but i have read a few stories that play around with the steriotypes as a prelude to revealing them for what they are and surpassing them. its like showing duo as the idiot so that it comes as a greater suprise when he comes up withthe ultimate plan that absolutely saves the day or when everyone is complaining about Duo's unceasing pranks then it is revealed that WuFei was the one who put the blue dye in quatre's shampoo. it hits you out of left field because you were expecting something different. if used properly playing with the readers pre concieved notions can add depth to a story it is just that a lot of writers don't take that extra step. and sometimes readers might give up before the great turn around i mean one of my stories i used the 'heero come kill me' line and a lot of people PM'd about 'oh great another insane relina fic' when it wasn't that way at all, they just needed to hold out for one more chapter to find out what was really going on.

And as for using words in other languages, i don't mind if it is appropriate and if there is a translation, ether in the text, or at the end of the chapter, heero can call Duo baka because he is japaneese...quatre shouldn't...unless he is deliberately mimicking heero and that is appearant in the context of the story. again it is playing with the steriotypes...

WuFei and the word 'onna' isn't as easily explained, He should be speaking chinese, google translations says that should be N¨·r¨¦n! (ha you can't even cut and paste it here) i certainly don't have enough knowledge of the language to know if its correct or not but there are resourses avalible online to help it is just that people don't take the time to use them.

flavour text can be a wonderful thing if you've ever watched firefly or serenity and read anything about the chinese curses they use are fantastic...definately not something anyone with no understanding of the language could come up with. Since i exemplify the average american monolingual various of my stories have necessitated googling 'mandarin phrases' french slang' 'german curses' I have used a latin phraise book, an anglosaxon reader and even managed a section of one chapter in a pretty close approximation of etruscan. The biggest complaint i've recieved is whether i should put the translations in the body of the text or at the end of the chapter and to me, that is mostly a styalistic choice. I take into consideration whose POV the chapter is written from and whether they would understand what was being said, if they are speaking their native language i would write it in english, if they are listning to a language other than their own but have some understanding of it i woul put the translation immediately following because they would have to think about it a little before puzzling it out, if it was a language they didn't know I'd put the translation at the end because i didn't want the reader as lost as the character is. Sound strange? i don't know but it works for me.

I feel if the writer uses a bit of thought and at least make an attempt accuracy or explain why a character is multilingual or whatever, I don't mind. Of course my friend generally substitutes frack (from battlestar galactica) frell (from farscape) or smeg (red dwarf) for general curses and that is kinda funny too, it takes all kinds

[aynessa]

LOL, they stole my real life identity, not my GW fan passwords. :3 And thankfully that's mostly taken care of now anyway. (phew!)

Oh my, I <3 you guys. Such lovely responses to this thread! ;D

Yeah, I'm not fond of the fandom stereotypes, especially the ones where Duo has a separate personality that "takes over" and he doesn't really remember much....wth, I say?!

I understand a fair amount of Japanese, so it doesn't bother me too terribly much when authors put Japanese words or phrases in their stories, but there is a fine line between a little and way too much. Even though GW was originally a Japanese show, technically everyone would be speaking a common language so that the ESUN and the colonies could both converse properly - Heero was the only one of Japanese descent, and seeing as his first memories are of assassinating people, somehow I doubt he really remembers much of his native tongue. Though I could be wrong.

And Wufei + onna = RAGE. >=O

Oh! And before I forget, despite everything I just said up above, I actually really adored this fic: insaneidiot.livejournal.com/12417.html?view=813441 It's from Duo's point of view, and Heero is attempting to give Duo a little bit of cultural shock. I DARE you not to laugh at the "tacos" line. (ps, it's a 1x2)

*GASP* Halo, you haven't found any fics that portray the boys properly!?!? GO HERE NAO -> Fleeting Fancies Fanworks Recs <- Whoever this person is, the best fanfictions I ever read almost all came from this site. I stumbled upon Maldoror, Jei, Sunhawk, and several other prominent GW authors from that site, and I loved every fic. <3 The owner of Fleeting Fancies feels the same way all of us do in regards to the stereotypes and random Japanese. :3

Windwraith, I simply *must* know what fic that was where Wufei put blue dye in Quatre's shampoo. Because that just sounds effing hilarious. LOL. And wow, it seems like you put a lot of thought and research into your fics! I fully agree with your comments about different languages in fics. ^^

_{Phew, did I manage to reply to everything?}

[nakitsura]

*is still suspicious*

I don't have any issue with the ones that take the stereotype and smash it or add layers to it. It's just the ones that are so lacking in their own creativity that they seem to refuse to look any deeper into the behaviours and motivations of their character.
And with the language issue, a character saying something in a native language is not a problem. Random swearwords and greetings in non-native languages are not a problem. I swear in 8 different languages and tend to go multilingual with my yeses, noes, and greetings. It's when you get pillow talk where Duo starts randomly spouting Japanese that I despise so. Or conversations being carried out in half guidebook Japanese and half English for no clear reason.

To clarify, I hate bad writing.

I don't necessarily agree with all fanfic writers characterizations, even those that I love dearly. But because they write them well, I can accept the Heero is a robot right now and continue reading to see what he becomes as the story progresses. I like curveballs, they keep me interested.

[aynessa]

Well now, I think all of us hate bad writing. xD

And I can stomach some of the stereotypes, as long as there is originality...like you said. Jei wrote a fic called "Axiomatic" where Heero's thought processes were very computerized, and he didn't really get most human things - I was apprehensive at first, but I fell in love with the story after seeing Heero's growth as the story progresses. You can see him learning and growing with each chapter, and so it was worth it to me to sit through that.

And while we're talking about bad writing....I hate the fics with random pointless cursing. "I'm the f*ing God of f*ing Death! I'm gonna f*ing kill you!"........sorry, no, I can't read that without chortling in sheer disbelief and moving on.

[nakitsura]

Ooooh... I love Axiomatic. It took a bit to get into but man it's good.

I don't know, judging from the amount out there and the amount of favourable comments they seem to get, I wonder... Plus, you know, Harlequin romance perpetually reinforces my belief that people like pointless, horrible, predictable crap.