The Room with No Windows

Henroy: “So… nice place you got here. Um… very nice.”

Ileesi: “You mockin’ me, kid?”

Henroy: “No, no! I just… well… Where are the windows? How is it there’s light in here if there’re no lamps or candles and no windows to let in the sunlight?”

Ileesi: “It’s magically lit, of course. This room is magic.”

Henroy: “It is?”

Iseeli: “Nah. Really, there’s no decent explanation, the author just forgot to put in a window.”

Henroy: “Wait a sec… wasn’t your name ‘Ileesi’ a minute ago?”

Iseeli: “It was, but the author decided ‘Ileesi’ is stupid and changed my name to ‘Iseeli’, which really isn’t much better, so expect it to change again soon.”

Henroy: “If she didn’t like the name ‘Ileesi’, then why not just go back to the beginning and change it so the audience doesn’t have to face any confusion? And how on earth could she forget windows? There are probably windows in the room where she’s typing this!”

Iseeli: “Because she’s lazy.”

Henroy: “Oh. That’s… depressing.”

Iseeli: “Besides, if she only spells my name ‘I-L-E-E-S-I’ once or twice, then the audience will probably just assume that it’s a typo and they’ll just point out the typo, if that, and think nothing more of it.”

Henroy: “... Oh.”

Iseli: “What’s depressing?”

Henroy: “Is that a typo?”

Iseli: “What, my name minus an ‘e’? If it is, it’s a typo made twice in a row. Anyway, what?”

Henroy: “What do you mean, ‘what’?”

Iseli: “I mean, before, you said, ‘That’s depressing.’ What’s depressing?”

Henroy: “Well, the only reason we’re here is because some girl, our author, decided to write down some dialogue with some guy named ‘Henroy’ and some girl whose name changes on a whim. So, if our author’s too lazy to correct your name throughout an entire story, won’t she be too lazy to create interesting, properly developed characters? And if that’s true, doesn’t that mean that we’re uninteresting, undeveloped characters and always will be—or, at the very least, will be so until our author shapes up?”

Iseli: “It’s not like it’s our fault.”

Henroy: “No, it isn’t, but we get blamed for it, anyway. What do critics say when they read a story with poorly developed characters? They say, ‘the characters do not develop enough throughout the story’, or ‘so-and-so character made every scene he appeared in dull, no matter what else happened in that scene.’ It’s never, ‘the author was too lazy to develop the characters,’ or ‘poor so-and-so had great potential to be an interesting, likable character, but the author messed it up.’

Iselli: “Well, we’re fictional. Critics don’t care to be politically correct for us; they only care to be politically correct for the author.”

Henroy: “I know. It’s just frustrating. Especially when your name keeps changing like it just did—again.”

Iselli: “Yeah, I can’t argue with you there.”

Henroy: “I hope God isn’t lazy.”

Iselli: “God? Lazy? That sounds blasphemous. And the author’s a Christian, too—or one of those freaking sub-religions under Christianity that believes in God and Jesus and what-not. Anyway, the heck did that come from, Henroy?”

Henroy: “Well, it’s just, God created people, right? Real people. Well, real people can be authors, and they can create fictional people. And a fictional person is poorly developed if the author is lazy. So doesn’t that mean that if God is lazy, then real people are poorly developed? And if that’s the case, then everything about critics and everyone saying ‘so-and-so character is poorly developed’—well, what do they know, really, since they may well be poorly developed themselves?”

Iselli: “Kid. Shut up.”

Henroy: “But—”

Iselli: “Look, does it really matter? I mean, yeah, maybe everyone is poorly developed, but so what? I mean, if that’s how everyone is, then there’s a completely different standard. I mean, just now, our author changed around that sentence back there, making me say a statement instead of a question, so that there’s a contrast between the two of us—you, kinda naïve, asking questions about the world, wondering and speculating—and me, telling stuff how it is, answering your questions and all that. So, okay, our author might be too lazy to settle on a name or give us windows, but she’s working enough to give us personalities, putting a pattern in our way of talking. That’s something.”

Henroy: “I guess…”

Isellie: “Hey, whatever. Maybe our author isn’t lazy. Maybe she’s doing stuff for a reason.”

Henroy: “You’ve got that ‘e’ back, only it’s on the end of your name now. Does that mean the author’s trying to make some kind of obscure statement that only real people can figure out, but we, as fictional characters, can never comprehend?”

Isellie: “Maybe. Or maybe she’s just trying to annoy us.”

Henroy: “Oh…”

Isellie: “Well, not everything in the world has some deep meaning attached to it.”

Henroy: “Do you think God does stuff just to annoy real people, like our author’s trying to annoy us?”

Isellie: “Our author is hardly God. Heck, she’s not even particularly nice. God’s supposed to be nice, so I don’t think He’d do stuff just to annoy His creations.”

Henroy: “I guess so. I mean, if you say so.”

Isellie: “Whatever. Anyway, there’s no point in speculating over whether or not we’re poorly developed or real people are poorly developed or whatever. If that’s how we’re made, that’s how we’re made, and there isn’t a thing in the world we can do to change it around or to even know how things stand. There’s no real point philosophizing about it all, so all we can do is our best, poorly developed or not.”

Henroy: “How can we even decide what we do?”

Isellie: “I don’t think we can, when it comes down to it. I mean, we’re stuck in a room with no windows, and we didn’t come here because we wanted to, and we can’t get out unless the author wants us to. We’re saying what she wants us to say. She can control our thoughts, even, if she wanted.”

Henroy: “So what does that leave for us? What’s the point?”

Isellie: “Who knows? Me, I think the point’s somewhere where the real people can’t see. They live in a world that moves forward, but us, we’re not just forward; we’re backward and sideways. We live a hundred realities. Our past can change; hey, my name may still be ‘Ileesi’ in the beginning now, but somewhen every name here might change to ‘Isellie’ like it is now. If that happens, you and me, the fictional people will remember, even if we never talk about it in the narrative. But the real people? The only one who’ll know that I was ‘Ileesi’ once upon a time is the author, and even she might forget someday. So, hey, in a way, I feel kinda sorry for the real people. For us, everything is easy and set and certain, and if something goes wrong, it’s not on us. Sure the critics will say what they like, but what do we care? It’s the author that made the mistake, not us. If a character dies, if I were to kill you right now—there’s no hard feelings between us, because the author’s the one who decided. For real people, God doesn’t decide things for them—nah! He wanted His characters decide for themselves. I don’t know how he did it, giving them their own free will—but, hey, he did it. But instead of making ’em do stuff, He sets guidelines for them. Of course, people are stupid and half-blind, real or fictional. So if real people make mistakes, it’s their fault, they can’t blame anyone else. Someone’ll look at this story and say, ‘What a piece of crap’, and throw it away before they get to the second page, and they’ll say the author’s a poor writer.”

Henroy: “Yeah, but… it goes the other way, right? If someone likes the author’s writing, the author will get credit, won’t they?”

Isellie: “Yeah, they do, that much is true. But I guess that’s what makes being a real person worth being real: they may get the blame for what they do, but they get praise for stuff as well. Us fictional people? Yeah, they’ll like us if we’re good. They’ll love us, even. But they won’t ever mention us without mentioning the author, and if someone says they love a fictional character, you can bet your left hand they’ll love the author’s writing. No one in their right mind loves a character without first loving its maker. After all, without the maker, there’s no character to love.”

Henroy: “If that’s true, then how can people love each other but not God?”

Isellie: “Well, like I said: people are stupid and half-blind. Besides, I’ll bet there never was a true love between two people who didn’t love God, too. Anything else, it’s just pretend love. But hey, what do I know? I’m just a fictional character, and as far as real people are concerned, I’m only as wise as my author, and my author’s probably as stupid and half-blind as the rest of them.”

Henroy: “That’s still depressing, though.”

Isellie: “Well, heck—I guess it is, isn’t it?”