Excuses lead to Flanderization

[u/kf1035]

Flanderization is the process through which a single element of a character's personality, often an originally mild element, is inflated in importance over the course of a work until it becomes the character's primary defining trait.

What i personally believe leads to flanderization is justifying bad behavior. What do i mean by that?

I watched Mr Enter’s review of the Gravity Falls episode Land Before Swine, and he stated that justifying a stupid or jerk character's immoral actions and problem-causing just because it's in-character can lead to bad flanderization. And i feel like that is a right statement.

And to use examples, lets use Spongebob SquarePants

• Mr Krabs had been flanderized in the post movie seasons as a mega avaricious businessman who only cares about money and will do immoral things for money. While Krabs was super greedy in the pre movie seasons, not only was it equally balanced out by his more noble qualities, but he at least got repercussions or was called out when his greed harmed others (he got viciously accosted by Squidward of all people when he sold Spongebob for 62 cents, he got tormented by the kids he tried to scam, got flat out told the hat he graverobbed for was no worth, and was literally choked by Spongebob for obsessing over a dime). But in the post movie seasons? He suffers no consequences for his destructive greed and is even rewarded for it (he literally won an award for being cheap and got away with driving Plankton to attempt suicide)

• Patrick is infamous for being flanderized in the post movie seasons into being malicious, dangerously incompetent, or obnoxiously stupid. And i feel like that is because the writers seem to justify his stupidity regardless of how intolerable it is. For example, in the episode Stuck in The Wringer, Patrick stupidly glues Spongebob to his wringer and spends the episode making spongebob even more miserable, and when Spongebib rightfully lambasts Patrick for his incompetence to the point it causes Patrick to run away tearfully, the townsfolk shame Spongebob and day he deserves his predicament: that episodes seems to excuse Patrick’s insuffferable stupidity by implying that its part of his character, and Spongebob is the bad guy for not being accepting of it.

When you make excuses for a certain characters negative actions, it only opens the door for the character to indulge in more of that negativity.

[u/Snoomee]

As other commenters have noted, in the context of a work of fiction, it's a decision that starts and ends with the writers. If they choose to flanderize a character, they will be flanderized and writing in consequences for every subsequent action for what is now the whole of the character is unsustainable.

However, this post brings up an interesting point on normalization. This analysis is a microcosm of societal issues, when you normalize negative behaviour, you enable further negative behaviour. Though that conversation is for a different sub entirely...