10-03-2014, 02:31 AM
Sheldon's a writer's dream; unfortunately, these sorts of characters are often very hard to do properly. I use them in my texts primarily when I want to challenge myself, and they are one and all my favorites, but I do find that I get very tired after writing them, as it takes me so long to get them just right. I'd say that the first order of business when doing anything as complex as Sheldon Cooper is to pin down his idiosyncrasies and little quirks, and then constantly reference back to that established list. Bazinga is fun and the three knocks, as well (both added later on, note), but for instance, what's with the accent? It used to be that he would fall back into twanging only when he was upset, now he does it all the time. That's just not paying attention the what the character was envisioned as, since, in this particular case, I always thought that the fact he spoke without an accent represented his need to distance himself from his origins and to showcase his own level of intellect.
OCD is a serious mental illness that needs to be dealt with in a precise and knowledgeable manner, not just throwing in repetitive behavior willy-nilly. Smoothing off the edges of Sheldon in this regard would have, for me, required dealing with the reason for the OCD, rather than just the symptoms. What Amy's doing is harassment, in my opinion. Sheldon's not someone's lab experiment, and no good will ever come of forcing him to change without overcoming the core of the problem. And, yes, I agree that it's quite boring, this 'growing up' storyline, when most of their laughs are derived from the behavior in the first place.
The same goes for Raj's selective mutism. If they really wanted that dealt with properly, they should have found him someone who understood it as a mental illness and worked with him to gradually overcome it. Admittedly, I haven't watched that part, but I read that it was along the lines of 'girl broke up with him, poof, he can talk to women now'. As for his life, aside from the two storylines of him losing his visa and his parents pressuring him to get married to an Indian girl, I don't even know that anything ever happens to him, which is sad, because he could be a great character, and the actor has the chops for it. Howard, I feel, now needs a backbone, to stand up to his mother as well as Bernadette. Him as a gigolo sounds right up his alley, and quite fun to see, too
OCD is a serious mental illness that needs to be dealt with in a precise and knowledgeable manner, not just throwing in repetitive behavior willy-nilly. Smoothing off the edges of Sheldon in this regard would have, for me, required dealing with the reason for the OCD, rather than just the symptoms. What Amy's doing is harassment, in my opinion. Sheldon's not someone's lab experiment, and no good will ever come of forcing him to change without overcoming the core of the problem. And, yes, I agree that it's quite boring, this 'growing up' storyline, when most of their laughs are derived from the behavior in the first place.
The same goes for Raj's selective mutism. If they really wanted that dealt with properly, they should have found him someone who understood it as a mental illness and worked with him to gradually overcome it. Admittedly, I haven't watched that part, but I read that it was along the lines of 'girl broke up with him, poof, he can talk to women now'. As for his life, aside from the two storylines of him losing his visa and his parents pressuring him to get married to an Indian girl, I don't even know that anything ever happens to him, which is sad, because he could be a great character, and the actor has the chops for it. Howard, I feel, now needs a backbone, to stand up to his mother as well as Bernadette. Him as a gigolo sounds right up his alley, and quite fun to see, too
A story is not finished until it is read, and the readers finish it through their life experiences, prejudices, world-views and thoughts. Any writer who has to explain their story is no writer at all.