Character Consistency

[Cicada 5]

So at times, a common criticism I'll see in a story is that a character will be "inconsistent" when they react in a way that was different from before. Some times I can sort of see what this means but other times it ignores how different circumstances can affect people's reactions. For instance, I recall people complained about the titular character of Luke Cage being too inconsistent in season 2 but the situations in that season (the issues with his father, his relationship troubles) weren't there in the first season.

So what I want to ask the other posters here is, what is character consistency to you?

 

[Squilookle]

I've never seen Luke Cage, but I know a decent chunk about character consistency.

In fiction, we expect a character to behave in a way that makes sense with how we have already seen them behaving so far. If they're established as cowardly, we expect them to chicken out, if they lie a lot, we expect them to keep doing so, landing themselves in more trouble.

But drama is conflict, and a satisfying character has to change for a story to be satisfying (unless it's a fool triumphant story, in which case the character doesn't change, just everyone around them does).

I think most people's problem with character consistency (or congruency) comes when a story tries to change a character too quickly or without proper context. If our cowardly character starts a new season saving people left and right, we feel cheated because there's a whole lot of change they must have gone through to get there that we didn't get to see.

A good writing rule of thumb is that characters reveal their truest selves when placed under pressure. So if a character is talking about all these brave deeds they did, only for a sudden emergency to show that they're actually a coward, this isn't inconsistent, it just reveals true character.

Obviously you can have characters behave in contradictory ways to show that they are multi-dimensional characters, but since every line of dialogue, every single action in a work of fiction must either advance the plot or reveal character (or both), sometimes a writer ends up squeezing something in there that is inconsistent with the way a character is already established.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Traits and beliefs that a character will generally stay true to unless some major event happens to drastically change their outlook.

If they do start behaving differently, it helps if another character calls them on it, giving an opening for them to justify it. I think the most common background for this type of accusation would be a show's ending where all the villainous characters who don't die suddenly gain a conscience, allowing for a happy ending. However, if we see them experience various things that might make them realize that they are in the wrong, then that's progression, not inconsistency.