I was thinking about a kind of character I see from time to time. This person is a Loki-type trickster, going around and causing mischief for their own amusement. This character basically exists to inconvenience other people's lives (and laugh about it). In modern terms, this person is a dick. But what makes this character different from regular dicks is their submission to fairness.
The fair dick is a troublemaker first and foremost. But despite the lunacy of their ideas, there is a certain sense they see in their pranks. And if you can appeal to their logic, they may be hoist by their own petard.
For example, a dick might eat a cookie that was sitting out and, if somebody gets upset because it was their cookie, the dick would say "you snooze, you lose." However, if the dick is a fair one, then when the same thing happens with the roles reversed, they would be told "you snooze, you lose" and accept that they opened the flood gate in the mean time.
I like the fair dick because it's a good way to create controversy, but it tends to avoid the unending cycle of retribution that usually comes from it. A fair dick accepts that they're being a dick and knows that sooner or later, they will be the recipient of equal levels of dickishness.
They can just as easily be allies, enemies, or neutral whackjobs. Truly, it is a diverse and compelling character.
About Me
- Kevin Bahler
- I am a writer. A writer is one who writes. By the same logic, I am also a thinker, an observer, and a puzzle solver. I am a graduate from the State University of New York at Cortland with a degree in Professional Writing. The idea of the program is that one studies all three aspects of writing as a whole: Creative Writing, Technical Writing, and Rhetoric. The knowledge I have gained in those subjects is put to use in every aspect of my life. The worst thing a person can be is boring. I am most interested in people who can pique my interests. An example is people who can correctly use the word 'pique'.
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