Forum:Additional characters

This forum is to broaden the discussions located here and here into a working policy, or change one I'm unaware of, on what constitutes an additional character on a performers page. While both parties from the first discussion agree that a loss of memory or a memory wipe are not grounds for a additional character, the disagreement is if a outside force removing your free will is, this would include Locutus of Borg, the ENT characters controlled by Organians in, and Riker as Odan. The second discussion, while a few months old, was about if a memory wipe constituted an additional character, IE: Kurn to Rodek, Kathryn Janeway to Katrine, Worf to Duchamps and so forth (there are differences in the examples given for both, hence, this forum). - Archduk3:talk 02:20, October 24, 2009 (UTC)
 * My view is that if the physical body is the same then it's not a new character. &mdash; Morder (talk) 02:36, October 24, 2009 (UTC)
 * I should rephrase to state it's not an additional appearance. &mdash; Morder (talk) 02:38, October 24, 2009 (UTC)
 * I think I finally figured out exactly how to explain myself. Rodek (as an example) is not an additional appearance because it is simply the character of Kurn playing an additional character. This is what additional appearances are for - not whenever the actor had slightly different makeup or went undercover. &mdash; Morder (talk) 02:50, October 24, 2009 (UTC)

I consider Kurn/Rodek to be the exception in the cases due to memory-(insert plot point here) what-have-you, as Seven of Nine and Hugh are also exceptions to the outside control cases. Kurn chose to become Rodek instead of just killing himself, since Worf wouldn't kill him, hence, Kurn is Rodek since it was his choice. Just as Seven and Hugh grew-up as Borg, and therefor didn't have a "true" personality, so as Borg they weren't another character, since they grew from that point naturally. - Archduk3:talk 03:11, October 24, 2009 (UTC)
 * This is why it is based on the actor and not the in-universe character. You have different views for different characters based on different criteria. If you look at it from the performance angle the actor's character is playing a new character then it removes any interpretation. &mdash; Morder (talk) 03:17, October 24, 2009 (UTC)

IMO, Julian Bashir as Patrick Merriweather or Paris as Captain Proton is a character playing a new character; Kurn and Rodek are played differently by the same actor, since the actor needs to portray them as different, so from the Real World point of view I would say that Kurn and Rodek are different. It gets more confusing if you look at it from Picard/Locutus: IMO Locutus is separate from Picard, but afterwards, Picard is not separate from Locutus. I hope that made sense, cause IMO that makes Picard and Locutus just as different as Kurn and Rodek, or Kirk and Kirok, or Janeway and Katrine, and so forth. From a In Universe POV, that would be all the rambling above. - Archduk3:talk 03:47, October 24, 2009 (UTC)

Side-note: The criteria wasn't changing, just the story, which is the criteria. - Archduk3:talk 03:50, October 24, 2009 (UTC)
 * Eh, I'm not changing my mind since we're talking about appearances and not characters. &mdash; Morder (talk) 03:51, October 24, 2009 (UTC)

The most common section heading for the content in question seems to be "Additional characters" (Stewart, Dorn, McFadden, Sirtis, Spiner, Wheaton, Nichols, Takei), not "Additional appearances" (Shatner, Frakes, Nimoy, Kelley, Koenig) with Doohan and Barrett using "voice" for their other roles. That's only TOS, TAS and TNG, but it seems the issue being discussed should be the wording of the section. - Archduk3:talk 04:06, October 24, 2009 (UTC)
 * Well the point was to show when they had appearances on the show that weren't their default character. Changing the way they act doesn't change the fact that it's still the same character. Case in point Brent Spiner would have like 20 different characters when they're all Data because he acted differently in each one or everytime a crewmember played holodeck fantasy they'd be listed because they act differently when they're playing a holodeck character. So holodeck recreations other aliens pretending to be a character or alternate universe characters - those are all different appearances by the actor in a new, or different instances of a character and not the same character with a different memory. Storylines that alter a character do not change the fact that the character is still the same just portrayed slightly differently. Take for instance Seska - She's changed because she's now a cardassian or maybe Kes in whatever episode that was where she with bat crazy against voyager or Edington is now a maquis. And yes, it looks like Additional characters and appearances have been intermingled and should be consistent across pages. The simple idea was to show appearances by actors when they weren't in their normal role. Character changes are part of their normal role regardless of how it happens. &mdash; Morder (talk) 04:17, October 24, 2009 (UTC)

Ok, bare with me. The definition of character, and appearance. Additional characters are a different character in the story: Mirror Universe characters, aliens controlling or pretending to be the character and so forth. Additional appearances are the same character, just differently. Using bashir as the example, any holo-bashirs would be additional characters, as in it is not "the" Bashir we know. Bashir playing in the holodeck as Patrick Merriweather would be an additional appearances, IE: Paris as Proton and Data as Carlos (Dixon Hill). So why not list both under different sections? Picard and Locutus, Kirk and Kirok, Kurn and Rodek, are all the same character, so Locutus, Kirok, and Rodek would be listed under appearances, while the Picard impostor, android Kirk, and the many masks of Data would be under characters. The easy question to ask to find out which is which is "can these two meet." Picard can't meet Locutus, since he is Locutus, hence, appearance. Data could meet someone else as Masaka, and all the rest, so character. - Archduk3:talk 05:03, October 24, 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, why the need for both lists when appearances is the only one that really matters? &mdash; Morder (talk) 05:13, October 24, 2009 (UTC)

Don't you mean characters, since you wanted to remove additional appearances as defined above. - Archduk3:talk 05:19, October 24, 2009 (UTC)
 * I never wanted to remove appearances since appearances are only different when the actor plays a different character, Kurn/Rodek, Picard/Locutus = one appearance - each one is a separate character which I think is pointless to catalog as different characters inhabiting the same body is not an additional appearance. &mdash; Morder (talk) 05:40, October 24, 2009 (UTC)
 * That came out slightly wrong. Basically I think we should only catalog an appearance and not a character since there can be multiple characters per appearance. &mdash; Morder (talk) 05:43, October 24, 2009 (UTC)

I'm under the impression the section is to show other characters/roles portrayed or voiced by the same person. I'm afraid we're just on opposite sides on this one. Also, the English language sucks, as there is far too much overlap between these words (character/appearance/role). - Archduk3:talk 06:14, October 24, 2009 (UTC)
 * Well that's why I removed Locutus - he's not an additional appearance by Stewart since it's just Picard albeit a borg. :) &mdash; Morder (talk) 06:16, October 24, 2009 (UTC)

...and the reason I reverted the removal was because I think the Avery Brooks section should be the standard - as in it shows every role he played. At this point we need more input from the community. I can't believe more people aren't on, what do they think this is, the middle of the night?! - Archduk3:talk 06:24, October 24, 2009 (UTC)
 * And you shouldn't have reverted it (I didn't notice you had otherwise I would have reverted back) because the standard is what was already decided. You also need to follow policy since it's currently under discussion and was properly noted on the talk page and thus shouldn't be reverted until the discussion is over. &mdash; Morder (talk) 06:32, October 24, 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm putting myself on hold from further replies until others weigh in on this issue but as it currently stands the standard is to only have additional appearances by an actor rather than individual characters as decided by several users. &mdash; Morder (talk) 06:37, October 24, 2009 (UTC)

Had I seen it was added to the talk page before reverting it, I wouldn't have (which is why I mentioned it on your talk page). I don't think I can be blamed for not being aware there was a standard though, since the Rodek discussion was from my second and third week on the site (which explains why I wasn't all over this then); and a really big film was released at about the same time. - Archduk3:talk 07:02, October 24, 2009 (UTC)


 * I think the question that should be asked instead is "do we become more informative by doing it that way?" And, in my opinion, we most often don't. For example, the Kurn article states that this guy eventually assumed a new identity as Rodek, while the Rodek article states that this is just a persona of Kurn. It basically is one and the same physical entity, just separated to two pages because the in-universe "character" (NOTE: probably a different definition than what you used above) is a different one - and also because we want both titles to lead to some article ;).
 * That means that a user that wants to know which actor played the role of Kurn will find his way, as will the user wanting to know who played the role of Rodek. Someone who reads the actor article and wants to find out more about the role will be directed to the characters main article, and eventually find the other one as sort of an addendum. Adding the minor character of Rodek to the list on the actor page would be fan-wanky and even misleading, because a visitor might assume that this is a completely different person played by the same actor - not the same with some brainsurgery applied. -- Cid Highwind 09:55, October 24, 2009 (UTC)


 * I think that appearances should be based on physicality, not psychology. This leaves less room for judgement calls.  I could accept that there might be some limited execptions, as with everything, but IMO that should be the general rule. I assume we are talking about just the appearances section in actors' articles, and not the wholsesale merging of articles(which I do not agree with)--31dot 10:43, October 24, 2009 (UTC)

First off, there needs to be a consensus on the proper term here, as it will frame what information the section in question is displaying. Appearance, Character, Role

I'm voting for Role, as it is the term that clearly defines what every page except Tony Todd's currently shows, "a part played by an actor/actress". This is what I thought this section was for. As for why not the other terms, if we're listing Appearances, that would be every single time the actor is on screen, since that's what the word means, plain and simple. As for Character, Kurn and Rodek are different characters in the story, because they have a completely different character, even though they really are the same character (Isn't English fun?). Using character could also mean every time someone has a different emotion we would need to list it, just way too much wiggle room. So after all that, I'll reply to Cid first, since I believe there is a double standard in what he said. Todd's page already isn't consistent with (most of) the other actors pages, since it doesn't list Kurn as his "main" character. Kurn clearly is, since all his other roles where one shots. Every actors page lists (or should, hopefully after this) their main character (for those that have one), and then lists Additional roles. I think if Todd's page was laid out like this, the chance of someone confusing Rodek for a separate character would be minor (or at least sort lived). As you said, both pages direct to each other, so anyone who sees Rodek on his page and thinks, "I didn't know he played another Klingon" would know Rodek is Kurn after reading the page, which is only three sentences (and there is nothing stopping us from mentioning that Rodek is Kurn right under the picture on Todd's page). They should both be listed for the same reason we haven't merged Rodek into the Kurn article, because we acknowledge that they were different characters in-universe, I.e. they were different roles in the real world for the actor to play.

Now for 31dot. If we're going to base this on "physicality, not psychology", the physical actor appeared as all their characters, regardless of what psychological state the character was in :). I of course know what you really mean, but that leaves most of the listings for the actors as a list of holographic characters, see Jeri Ryan, LeVar Burton, etc., which we should soon have elsewhere anyway (assuming that the merge discussion on Doppelgänger can ever be decided). I actually think the holograms shouldn't be listed, as there are the same role as the main character, even though in-universe they aren't the "real" ones.

As a community, we are meticulous in adding and listing material; we have an article on Hawaiian shirts, and then on top of it, another article on just one particular Hawaiian shirt (which is awesome by the way) because we are very thorough in this thing that we do. I fail to see why we're going to cut a corner on the actors page. We would be short changing most of them by placing a in-universe concept on what roles we list; and really be short changing Brent Spiner and Jeri Ryan for their ability to switch between characters on screen at the drop of a hat. If the section in question is about listing the roles each actor has played, we need to list them all, or not at all. - Archduk3:talk 07:41, October 25, 2009 (UTC)

Side-note: Kurn/Rodek really is the worst example to be basing this discussion on. The Spiner characters in, or Riker in would be a better choice. - Archduk3:talk 08:07, October 25, 2009 (UTC)


 * Re:they were different roles in the real world - this is, in my opinion, wrong. Rodek is not a different "role" that was played by Todd - the part he played was "Kurn, after brainwashing". Similarly Odan is not a different role for Frakes, he just played "Riker, temporarily influenced by another intelligence". Which, let's face it, happens so often throughout Trek that it wouldn't even be funny to list them all. ;)
 * I think having a list of "additional characters" is useful if those characters are independent of each other (see Vaughn Armstrong, for example) - if they aren't, not so much. -- Cid Highwind 09:00, October 25, 2009 (UTC)

Role would still be a better choice for the wording, since what you're saying is that it's Frakes in the "role" of Riker as Odan. As for something taking over someones body, the fact that it happens so many times is the very reason why we should be listing them. I'm not saying there needs to be a picture each time (which is a bit unnecessary), since a simple list would do. I think listing every brain dead hologram isn't even funny, especially with pictures; even though everyone loves the hair in. Here's a mock up of what the section for Frakes could look like. The holograms were removed because every doppelgänger hologram is going to be listed elsewhere. - Archduk3:talk 17:20, October 25, 2009 (UTC)
 * I say we just keep it the way it currently is. There's no real need for change since additional appearances outside their normal appearance are already covered and minor changes to a character during the course of a storyline don't ultimately change that character. &mdash; Morder (talk) 22:17, October 25, 2009 (UTC)