I've been thinking a lot lately about how the people you know and interact with can define you. Those closest to you are like mirrors into your true personality. You can hold up your own picture to the world, but the way you treat other people -- especially the people you treat the worst -- is one of the truest reflections into your soul.
This can work very powerfully in fiction. One of the most striking examples I can think of is from the animated series
Avatar the Last Airbender (which I watched mostly). One of the main villains of the show, Firelord Ozai, isn't actually physically revealed until season 3. But we know what he's like, because we see him in his outcast son, Zuko. Sure, the accounts of Ozai vary depending on who's talking about him. Some are trying to defeat him, and some, like Zuko, are trying to please him. But even though Zuko thinks his father is an honorable man, the burn on Zuko's face shows us who Ozai really is, irrespective of what anyone says about him.
Or take the Harry Potter series. The main antagonist, Voldemort, isn't actually seen or spoken to until the end of the first book. And yet we know what he's like even before we officially meet him. We see it, not in him, but in all the people whose lives he's ruined. We see it in the fear everyone displays towards him, not even daring to speak his name. We see it in the joy everyone shares when they think he's gone. We see what he is like every time the book mentions the scar on Harry's forehead. It's a mark of Voldemort's character.
Often the mark isn't physical, like in
Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth thinks poorly of Mr. Darcy until she tours his house, meets his servants, and meets his sister. He seemed aloof from afar but when she finds out how he treats those closest to him she is challenged to reform her opinion. Mrs. Bennet is a silly, fickle woman, and her daughter Lydia (and her subsequent elopement) is the deepest reflection into both her character and the character of Mr. Bennet, Lydia's father.
The use of mirrors in fiction is something very subtle and very effective, and that is, of course, because it's true in life. We are all both mirrors (of other people) and the ones being mirrored.
Take a look at the person you treat worst in your life. And don't lie -- you know there is someone. Don't start thinking about
someone else who is treating someone you know bad, or even someone who is treating
you bad. Who are you, personally, acting horribly towards, and what does that say about you? Are you starting to rationalize your treatment of that person -
well, they deserve it?
It's for their own good?
Your treatment of that person says something about you. Are you hateful and malicious toward them? You know what that says. Are you rude and patronizing? You know what that says. Do you continually give them the cold shoulder? In all of these examples, you know what that would say about a villain in a story. And yet often we ignore what that says about us.
The best stories are the kind we take to heart and apply to our own lives. The more I think about mirroring the more I'm inclined to work harder, both at understanding how to use this tool in my stories, and in understanding how I've been using it in my own life.
Do you have any other examples of mirror characters in fiction? Or any examples of this happening in your life?