Character Theory Change of body = Change of mind?

[BomBoi]

I was part of a role-playing group for about a year now, which has reached it's conclusion around December. Throughout the long-term role-play, one of my friend's has had a single character go from different physical changes, ranging from growing an extra pair of arms and becoming something completely different from his original self. As time progressed, his character made many drastic decisions, that completely altered the goals/feelings of the character itself and every character involved with his. None of us questioned him for his decisions, nor did we ever feel it was out of character. Despite that, it was clear that his character had reached many different mindsets, and it occurred to me that it might've been because of these massive bodily changes. The idea that a change in someone's physical appearance and functions would also change that same person's mind or personality interests me. Does this work in all cases?

 

[rae2nerdy]

I think there are too many variables to give a definitive answer one way or another.

The best answer I can give you is that a character should never change without a reason. So if for instance your character undergoes some kind of life altering experience ( good or bad ) than yes that could have an effect on their core personality. However you have to make it fit with your character and the circumstance of the roleplay.

If your character is someone who has a very specific reaction to stress/change than it's going to be harder to change that reaction than if they're someone who is a little more malleable in how they handle stress.

So yeah I would say it depends entirely on the character and the circumstance surrounding the loss/gaining of limbs and whether that would spur a change in personality.

 

[BomBoi]

I think there are too many variables to give a definitive answer one way or another.

The best answer I can give you is that a character should never change without a reason. So if for instance your character undergoes some kind of life altering experience ( good or bad ) than yes that could have an effect on their core personality. However you have to make it fit with your character and the circumstance of the roleplay.

If your character is someone who has a very specific reaction to stress/change than it's going to be harder to change that reaction than if they're someone who is a little more malleable in how they handle stress.

So yeah I would say it depends entirely on the character and the circumstance surrounding the loss/gaining of limbs and whether that would spur a change in personality.

Thank you for the input! This really helps me out in many ways because I almost forgot to add the factor of Willingness/Acceptance.

 

[memphis]

So yeah I would say it depends entirely on the character and the circumstance surrounding the loss/gaining of limbs and whether that would spur a change in personality.

I pretty much agree with this. It really depends on the personality of the character, the circumstances of the loss or gain of limbs, and the outlook the character has on life. Just as there are some people who could react to a missing limb by being more grateful for life in general, there are others that would react more negatively and choose to only see their limitations rather than everything they were still able to do. It's all very dependent on the character and their personality. Regardless, any sort of physical alteration can have an impact on anyone.

I find the science behind this sort of stuff is also very interesting, and generally supports the theory that personality can be changed with physical alteration! I once read an interesting article about the impact vision recovery had on those who were previously blind. All patients who recover from blindness experience agnosia, the inability to process sensory information, to some extent. For people who have only ever felt, heard, tasted something, it is very confusing and difficult to visually process it, and then make a correlation between the senses. For example, there was a thought experiment along the lines of this: a man had regained his sight after being severely visually impaired his entire life. A cube and sphere were placed in front of him. The man, having only ever felt the objects, was unable to discern one from the other from his previous memories of feeling them. For someone who has a certain idea in their head of what something is like, only to have their worldview completely distorted by the loss or gain of a sense, life can be very confusing and frustrating. There is actually a very high rate of depression and even suicide amongst people who recover from blindness for this very reason.

I think that this can be likened to losing or gaining a limb, because in both scenarios you are altering how someone previous perceived the world around them. That is bound to have some sort of impact on them and their personality; the significance of that impact, is more dependent on the character and the circumstances.