Conflict vs. Chaos: What's the Difference?
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I have always been drawn to tragic heroes, conflicted characters, angsty characters and characters that appear to be bad, but have the potential to be good.
Some characters spring to mind: Severus Snape, Henry Bolet from the game Nancy Drew #17: Legend of the Crystal Skull, Hamlet, Dr. Jonathan Willaway from The Fantastic Journey.
Even my own creative writing was more often full of angst, anger and sadness. I always thought that it meant that I liked conflict. I know conflict is what drives a story, so I thought nothing more of it.
Until now.
Is it chaos I've always been drawn to or both conflict and chaos?
Conflict
From a story stand-point, there are internal and external conflicts. As you probably know, an internal conflict is when a character struggles with opposing thoughts and emotions. As a Libra, I identify with this and love characters who have an internal struggle.
According to Dave Snowden, the author of this article, any form of learning creates an internal conflict because you must negotiate between what you already know and what new information you are receiving. You will analyze its nature to see how it challenges and/or matches the information, beliefs and world view you carry. There is generative conflict and destructive conflict. Snowden believes that conflict must not be avoided because healthy relationships need generative conflict in order to become stronger. (I said as much regarding rejection and how we need it to become stronger in my previous blog post.)
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Generative conflict can help someone broaden their understanding by bringing about new information that challenges their viewpoint. If they are open to receive and contemplate the new information, then they can investigate to fully understand the new information and finally decide whether or not they accept it and change their mind.
An external struggle is where outside forces affect the character and are beyond their control. They act as obstacles between the character and their goals. Outside forces can be the weather or someone behind the scenes pulling stings to sabotage the protagonist. I generally don't like this, but it can sometimes make for deliciously agonizing viewing and reading. It also adds mystery.
While I discussed external and internal conflict, external conflict has various subcategories. Here's a complete list (that contains spoilers):
- Character vs. Self: In the play Hamlet, Hamlet struggles with himself to decide what to do about his uncle, who Hamlet finds out killed his father to marry his mother and take the throne.
- Character vs. Character: In the movie The Princess Bride, Wesley and his friends fight against Prince Humperdinck and his goons to free Buttercup.
- Character vs. Nature: In the book The Terror, two crews from Britain set sail to find the Northwest Passage and are in conflict with the sea, the ice and the weather.
- Character vs. Supernatural: In the movie The Adjustment Bureau, Matt Damon's character is in conflict with a government-like organization that wants him to follow a certain map of his destiny that Damon doesn't want to follow. This movie shows an unbalanced playing field that Damon seeks to rectify.
- Character vs. Technology: In the movie I, Robot, Will Smith's character is in constant conflict with the robots that have been made part of everyday life.
- Character vs. Society: In the movie Teen Wolf, Michael J. Fox's character is in conflict with the staff and student body of his high school because they don't accept him as a werewolf.
Chaos
Chaos is described as disorder and confusion.
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Chaos can act as a remedy to boredom because Life can be quite boring: business meetings, serving customers, making meals. But flip the switch and a chaotic life is too much as well. Chaos is dramatic, but when the drama has passed, you can feel restlessness and withdrawal. I think music, whether it has a chaotic sound or not, can act as an injection of chaos that we all need and crave on a daily basis, whether it's a piece from Chopin or a face-melting song by Disturbed.
Growing up through the 2000s, I despair of the movie industry. Movies just keep getting dark and darker by adding more extreme scenes to bump up the volume of chaos. More often than not, I find it to be unnecessary.
Did you know that you can be addicted to chaos? People can have this when they run their own business. They feel a sense of pride that they don't have any free time or they feel as though they can't step away for even a little bit. There may be other factors involved, of course, but it's good to know if you are addicted to chaos.
Others can try to capture the feeling of chaos and drama by triggering their body's stress response. Shouting, throwing things, and always needing to be the center of attention are some possible indications that a person is addicted to chaos.
Where Does Insanity Come In?
Now, I'm not addicted to chaos. But it got me thinking if insanity is somehow related to chaos, like a cousin, perhaps? I've always been fascinated and terrified of psychological thrillers, several of which featured the great Roddy McDowall. I guess because I'm more about order and anything having to do with the mind that I'm envious of insanity. It is usually about not being constrained by norms and is a sort of freedom. When I need to unclutter my mind or need inspiration, I turn to David Bowie's "The Enemy is Fragile" because it has the sound of insanity, in my opinion.
Now with both chaos and conflict defined, I know that I have never been one to cause chaos. I love a good mystery. I love trying to solve the mystery before the end to prove to myself that I could make the right connections. I also like the euphoria of discovery. I like finding Easter eggs and recognizing when someone includes a tribute to someone or something else in their work. As a child, I accepted a large amount of what people said. The thought of asking questions hardly ever formed in my mind, and I was often left to feel stupid, like something was wrong with me. But as I grew up and read, I learned to question things, even things that were already supposedly set in stone.
So now, I seek to order chaos by explaining it and connecting it. It has to make sense and be logical. It has, at times, made me like a dog with a bone where I may end up beating a dead horse and annoying the hell out of people (oops).
But on the other hand...
A small part of me likes when things are left ambiguous and to the reader's interpretation. It depends what, of course. Death is one of the biggest unknowns and, while I am an atheist and afraid of dying before finishing my novel series, I know that there is another plane of existence. I had an encounter with a ghost and while my mind struggled to process their existence in the moment, I am comforted to know for certain that they do exist and that there is something after death.
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But I digress...
From my assessment of conflict, chaos and insanity, I have determined that I am drawn to all three but crave certain aspects of each. True to my astrological sign, I like a balance of each in combination with my need to order and classify.
Comments
Anyway, lovely read to start my day.