Storytelling: Daria Morgendorffer

I decided that I'd make a change of pace from writing about fan fiction for a while -- there's still that last episode of the "Last Summer" series which I'll get to on the Greek Kalends -- and instead examine the "storytelling engine" of Daria.

I'll borrow the definition of "storytelling engine" from John Seavey:

So what elements make up a storytelling engine? The basic concept of the series, for starters; Doctor Who, to use a series we won't be looking at later on, has as its concept "a mysterious stranger has a time and space machine." Then from there, you layer on the main character, with his motivations and backstory ("an endlessly curious not-quite-human trickster, on the run from his own people who see helping people as a crime"), the supporting cast ("a young woman with more curiousity and guts than common sense"), the setting ("the inside of the time machine", "modern-day London", "a variety of alien planets", "various Earth historical locales"), the antagonists ("a variety of evil aliens who seek to enslave or destroy people"), and the tone ("light-hearted adventure, with occasional forays into horror.") Each of these, ideally, does something to help the writer come up with a story or move it along, and each of them could be changed in ways that help or hinder the writer. (For example, if the Doctor was "a heavy reader with no interests beyond enlarging his vast library", the series would probably have to work much harder to get him involved in events.)

We'll start our examination with the main character, a young lady known as Daria Morgendorffer....

(* * *)

If you have no idea as to how to write Daria, you should at least keep the following in mind. Daria, of course, is the primary character and has a set of attributes which make it very easy to write stories about her. It's also a set of attributes which made Season Five sort of a wash.

1. Cynicism. Why not go directly to the definition? The definition according to Wikipedia is "the opinion of one who maintains that self-interest is the primary motive of human behavior, and are disinclined to rely upon sincerity, human virtue, or altruism as motivations."

The word "cynic" sums up Daria to a T. Daria is always looking the gift horse in the mouth. Her first reaction to a new situation is guarded suspicion, and given the machinations of both her mother and of her teachers, Daria is rarely proved wrong. There's always a hidden motive in the mix, and that motive is invariably self-serving or non-altruistic. Most of the Season One and Two episodes focus on the self-serving motives of either her mother or the school, and Daria's attempts to evade the heavy hand of authority.

Daria's primary weapon is sarcasm, which is used to belittle the stated aspirations of those in authority. Most of Daria's comments during an episode will be sarcastic to one degree or another, sometimes open and other times veiled. Usually when the sarcasm is open, her opponents are so slow-witted that they don't pick up on it; this keeps Daria from being beaten to a pulp by an enraged victim.

2. Distrust of authority. This follows logically from the above. Authority in Daria's world is proven to be an enemy. Sometimes, as in the case of Ms. Li, authority doesn't even bother to keep its word or be anything but heavy-handed and oppressive. (Ms. Li frequently blurts out her true motivations, which have little to do with education and more to do with self-aggrandisement.) Her parents, as an authority, either don't understand her or don't try to.

Many Daria stories are about the abuse of authority and evasion of it. Daria is forced to sell candy in "Cafe Disaffecto", forced to go on a paintballing trip in "The Daria Hunter", forced out into the woods in "The Teachings of Don Jake". You can always expect authority to drag Daria somewhere she doesn't want to go, and as a teenager, she has little recourse but to do what authority wants. However, Daria has no respect for authority, and will immediately try to turn the tables against her captors.

3. Intelligence. One can't wield sarcasm effectively without some brainpower, and Daria is not lacking in brainpower. One can't communicate one's low opinion of human nature unless one has some perspective. Daria is very smart. There was a tendency in early fan fiction to make her omnicompetent, but that weakened the stories instead of strengthened them. Either Daria would be so smart that the authorities couldn't lay a hand on her, or the authorities would have to reach Nazi-like levels of oppression to give her a fight.

You can always picture Daria reading a book, and not one by John Grisham. Daria's appetite has few limits, and Daria is not the standard "intellectual". Her tastes range from John Garnder to Sick Sad World (the later probably reinforcing her cynical views). Whatever Daria reads has to be challenging at some level, and Daria probably knows a great deal of "forbidden lore" -- in "Fair Enough", Daria relates some facts about King Edward II that few people knew until "Braveheart" came along.

4. Emotionally guarded. Daria has learned one thing in her fifteen years on earth -- people are untrustworthy bastards. Combined with Daria's reputation as a "brain", Daria has very few friends and doesn't seem to want any. Brittany, Jodie and Mack are friendly in their own ways, but Daria does not reach out to them on a deeper level. She has one until-death-separates-us friend, Jane, into whom Daria pours all of her energy.

Daria doesn't like hugs, or kisses. She doesn't trust guys enough to have any interest in romance, not one publically expressed anyway. She finds her crushes on Trent embarrassing, and doesn't have the "emotional language" to express deep emotions, which threaten her philosophy that people are not decent or honorable. Even her first romantic relationship -- one with Tom -- was one in which Daria seemed to keep Tom at arm's length.

(* * *)

If you can remember the above four aspects, you can pretty much write Daria. As long as authority is oppressive and people can't be trusted, there's always something for Daria to fight against.

One of the problems of Season Five was that Daria's relationship with Tom challenged many of the above aspects of Daria. She could no longer be cynical about Tom, or mistrust him, since he was her boyfriend. Since Tom's intelligence had to match Daria's -- how could intelligent Daria go out with a dumb guy -- the writers sometimes felt that the best way to make Tom smart was to make Daria stupid. Her inability to deal with her emotions led her to act in atypical ways, as in "Sappy Anniversary" where Daria is angry at Tom for forgetting their "six-month" anniversary (of all things) and won't tell him why. The only thing the writers got right was Tom slowly wearing down Daria's mistrust in Season Four. I suspect a real Daria romance will be one of those David and Maddie type of relationships, a long period of mutual mistrust culminating in an Jane-like closeless with her future partner.

Of course, when you are as suspicious as Daria is, it's hard to get Daria into a story that isn't "Helen/Ms. Li is acting like a bitch". Enter Jane Lane.