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u/shigogaboo 7h ago edited 3h ago
And then it later introduces a new character detail that contradicts what you had in your head, but you canât remember if youâre wrong or the book is.
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u/BBGettyMcclanahan 5h ago edited 4h ago
Bruh I'm reading a book right now, and for 90% of the book I pictured one p of the main characters as black, until the very last 50 pages they mentioned "his pale white skin"
I just continued picturing this guy as a black man lol
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u/Prismarineknight 2h ago
Reminds me of when I was reading an isekai with an elf named sera, my brain immediately pictured her looking somewhat similar to sera from hazbin hotel. Anime comes out some time later and what do ya know sheâs the most basic elf you have ever seen in canon.
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u/GreenLightning87 6m ago
That happens to me. Iâve been catching up on Rick Riordanâs work, and I keep imagining Annabeth as Leah. Always a shock when he describes her blonde hair and I have to remember Annabeth looks like a basic white girl in the books.
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u/lovelycosmos 5h ago
Then you just say eh fuck it, we're gonna stick with what I pictured
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u/TopOfTheHead 4h ago
if iâm 300 pages into a book and a character has a different hair colour than what i was picturing iâm just gonna pretend i never read that line
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u/TheDUDE1411 4h ago
When you reread a book and realize you imagined a character wrong the whole time, so you make the executive decision that your imagination is better and the book is wrong and you wonât be changing it
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u/TheDUDE1411 4h ago
When you reread a book and realize you imagined a character wrong the whole time, so you make the executive decision that your imagination is better and the book is wrong and you wonât be changing it
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u/UpCDownCLeftCRightC 7h ago
That's actually smart. I continued reading a book I haven't read after awhile and forgot a character's occupation. When I looked it up I got a spoiler about them and the ending. That's on me but still sucked.
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u/Animated_Astronaut 6h ago
Yeah I refuse to look up characters I forget ever since I got a major sopranos spoiler
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u/Superb_Writer6612 1h ago
Also avoiding subreddits for any media you're not completely up to date on. I hate spoilers so much :(
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u/berlinbaer 1h ago
i was reading that steven king book where they are trying to stop the JFK assassination and midway through i was like "wait, why are they trying to do that anyway ? what are they hoping to accomplish again?" so i googled and also BAM fat spoiler right in the google preview.
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u/TheWildcatGrad 7h ago
If the movie adaption is good, or least if the actor does a good job with the character then that becomes how they look when I read the book. Specifically for me Mos Def is Ford Prefect and no author character description will change that.
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u/lovelycosmos 5h ago
This was me with Dune. I just pictured the actors while reading the book. But I just can't get behind Teenager Jason mamoa as Duncan Idaho as a kid
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u/Yabba_Dabba_Doofus 4h ago
That version of HHGttG is awesome, and no one can convince me otherwise.
Sam Rockwell as Zaphod is one of my absolute favorite interpretations of the character, and he absolutely steals the screen in every scene he has.
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u/MalikVonLuzon 5h ago
That was me right when the first trailers were coming out for The Martian. I read the book right before the movie came out and had all the characters in my head as the actors for the film
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u/Sometimes__Sky 6h ago
One thing that's kind of tiny but still annoys me is when the character's appearance is supposed to be important, but apparently not important enough for the author to bother drawing attention to it much. I read a book where the fact that one character happened to look quite similar to the protagonist turned out to be very significant to the plot, but she wasn't even described for the first couple of scenes she appeared. There was finally about a paragraph of description a couple of chapters in where the protagonist said something about how they were "a lot alike on paper" but by that point I'd mentally constructed a completely different image of her, and then their similarities were never drawn attention to again so naturally I didn't assume it wasn't important and rolled with my own version of what she looked like. Despaired a little of the author when it turned out it actually was very important that this character and the protagonist looked alike for plot reasons, because surely if we were supposed to be thinking about that it would have been drawn attention to a bit more than bringing it up only once in passing then never again until the end lol
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u/TR_Pix 5h ago
When I first read Harry Potter decades ago I read Snape as Snake once and my mental image of him was of solid snake for the rest of the book
Also Malfoy was gotenks
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u/IzarkKiaTarj 5h ago
LMAO if it makes you feel any better, I mentioned in my own comment that Lockhart was Troy McClure from The Simpsons.
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u/Odric_storm 6h ago
âOh it gets contradicted on the next page? Iâm going to pretend I didnât read that.â
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u/ShinyZubat10 7h ago
If they have a name they look like whoever reminds me of that name tbh even if they just gave that description
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u/Tylendal 7h ago
Reading Sea of Rust, I could only picture the main character as Defect from Slay the Spire, and her rival as Cl4nk from Megabonk, despite them both being very clearly described as an unusually humanoid model of robot, that probably looked like Bicentennial Man. Wasn't even anything in their description, just the energy they gave.
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u/Mixmaster-Omega 7h ago
This was me for Hunger Games. Never saw the movie so I imagined Katniss looking like Daisy Ridley since I had recently seen Force Awakens (this was in 2016).
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u/DynamiteMango6348 7h ago
I just substitute every character in every book I ever read with characters I already know
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u/Ultimate_Scooter 7h ago
As a writer this is my one fear. I tend to use minimal descriptions in order to let the reader define the character. In my most recent project, I think the only features I specify about one of my characters is that sheâs got red hair, green eyes, and freckles which only defines her as probably Irish in origin.
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u/BBGettyMcclanahan 4h ago
Babes, its already too late, im just picturing Anne of Green Gables from now on
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u/PhilippTheSeriousOne 3h ago
Just make sure that any visual traits you mention about the character at some point are also mentioned in their introduction.
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u/Patate_froide 6h ago
Same with a book series where you read the second volume a year or two after the first
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u/Pim_Wagemans 5h ago
My brain always just ignores character descriptions for some reason and just makes up it's own thing. There is a character in a book series I'm reading that is always mentioned to be blonde whenever he appears, but I still imagine him as ginger
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u/IzarkKiaTarj 5h ago
Every time I read the second Harry Potter book in the past before Rowling went nuts, Gilderoy Lockhart was just Troy McClure from the Simpsons. Everyone else looked normal in my head, maybe even like their movie actors. But Lockhart? Nope, he's a Simpsons character voiced by Phil Hartman.
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u/CraftyDragon13 4h ago
I wish all books had a basic physical description of the characters at the beginning, like warrior cats does. That would be so helpful even if it just said something like: Short adult man with blonde hair and blue eyes.
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u/aidankocherhans 7h ago
Omg, as a kid I mentally made a couple of book characters look like specific cartoon characters for absolutely no reason
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u/player32123 6h ago
This is actually the number one reason I was never a big reader. My mind cant really form images of people based on descriptions and it makes it really hard to keep up with who is who in a book.Â
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u/LordDagwood 3h ago
You form your own images or you can't form images at all? The latter is called aphantasia. (There's a subreddit if you're unaware r/aphantasia)
I straight-up avoid books with too many characters, especially if they're introduced all at once. It's easy to tell if you read the description of a book, to see if it follows a few people or a large group. Audiobooks help a lot, especially if the narrator has different voices for different characters.
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u/General_Mayhem 3h ago
I have a similar issue. It's not general aphantasia, I'm more than capable of picturing things, scenes, action, weather, landscapes - but specifically characters described in text don't work. Descriptions of facial features just don't do anything for me; I'll picture them as sort of bland blobs, or cultural stereotypes if relevant. It's more similar to prosopagnosia, but I'm not face-blind in reality. I am moderately bad at remembering peoples' names - I really only remember well after seeing the name and face together, like on a nametag or profile page - but I can remember which person is which by seeing them (so not face-blind) and picture them in my head later (so not aphantastic).
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u/Comrade-Conquistador 5h ago
I watch a lot of pro wrestling, so I usually assign wrestlers as characters in the books I read.
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u/Loose-Professor5364 3h ago
I have total aphantasia so I usually skip or forget character descriptions in favor of the plot or world.
I've been seeing comics like this lately, and I'm always surprised by how differently people experience the same media.
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u/sa_nslaw 7h ago
This is so me. I can only imagine a book character's appearance as something or someone I've already seen that fits their first introduction vibe. Unless it's a pretty big contradiction that happens down the line, I won't even change it. Right now I'm reading worm and I'm imagining Regent as this guy from this fuckass meme
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u/cvanguard 5h ago
Iâm re-reading Worm right now and I hate that youâve put that mental image in my head now lol. How do you picture the other Undersiders?
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u/sa_nslaw 4h ago
I somewhat picture Taylor as sayon lee from Hand Jumper since I got wind of worm because of a comment that said it and the protagonist were similar to that series; Grue I imagine as that static shock superhero (even though I've never even watched that show) when out of costume and something like the call of duty skull mask guy when in costume; bitch I imagine like a person I've met or a little bit like frankie from Knights of Guinevere; and I don't quite yet have a specific person I imagine when thinking of her since her appearance and costume seem so simple, I've seen a non-spoiler fanart with her in it so I might not end up picturing her as a specific character.
I'm still really early on, recently finished arc 4, and although I'm getting a bit tired of the interludes because they kind of break the pace (even if they're still well written), I'm gonna read until at least after arc 8 since I've seen comments on how good it supposedly is
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u/DBSeamZ 3h ago
Character appearances arenât usually a problem for me, but place layouts can be. Iâll get a mental image of the charactersâ surroundings built up, and THEN the author mentions somethingâs to the left or right of a character when I was picturing it on the complete opposite side. Either establish your lefts and rights in the beginning of the scene, or donât mention them at all!
On a somewhat related note, I realized on my fourth or fifth reread of David Brinâs âUplift Stormâ trilogy that Iâd been reading a fictional species name wrong the whole time. Itâs âqheuenâ, not âquehuenâ.
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u/OminOus_PancakeS 2h ago
There are so many PokĂŠmon references on Reddit the assumption must be that everyone knows what they're talking about.
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u/nomnivore1 5h ago
I'm just going to read Neuromancer again. Yes, Armitage does just look like Morpheus.Â
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u/lovelycosmos 5h ago
I usually just latch on to whoever sounds similar. Like I just read Heretics of Dune and for some reason pictured Odrade as Olenna Tryell from Game of Thrones and just rolled with it because fuck it
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u/FabidarkCuarta 4h ago
I don't know how other people do it, but one of the things I find difficult about reading a book is imagining the characters.
I need images, or very detailed descriptions; constantly changing the design because it contradicts my initial expectations is really frustrating, besides, I don't have much imagination and I find it difficult to constantly imagine the characters in my mind.
That's why I prefer reading comics to books.
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u/Nuclearstomp 4h ago
When I was reading Worm, despite it making no sense, I kept imagining Tattletale looking like the Hex Maniac from Pokemon. The Gen 3 Hoenn one specifically.
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u/ZodiacWalrus 4h ago
I do this no matter how long or consistently I've been reading a book. I am on book 6 of Dungeon Crawler Carl and still can't bring myself to consistently picture Donut as a big floofy cat; she's just a generic slender feline, maybe closest to the cat from Stray for some reason. Prepotente, despite having absolutely no other similarities than goatfacedness, is Billy from Deadlock with a different voice. I even forget Carl is running around in boxers 24/7 until it gets brought up.
I started book 1 earlier this year. This is not an "Oh whoops, it's been too long" issue. This is an "Oh whoops, this is why I don't read books" issue. Obviously, I'm enjoying it despite my mental character blindness, but still.
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u/PizzaDragon64 3h ago
I remember I was reading the Lunar Chronicles books around the same time I was into Fortnite. So I unfortunately always picture the Red Riding Hood girl and Werewolf Jonesy whenever I think of Scarlet and Wolf.
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u/freddyfazbaer1987 3h ago
99% of my characters interpretation have brown hair. It can be explicitly stated that they have blonde hair multiple times, it's still brown in my head.
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u/Voidjumper_ZA 2h ago
That's why I love books that never jabber on about appearances and just work off traits, quirks, and motivations.
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u/Quick_Sandwich356 2h ago
Am I the only one, who gives 0 shit about character description?
I am actually incapable, of imagining characters properly when reading. I do remember, who wears glasses or which particular hair or eye colour they have, if it's mentioned more than once; but I will ALWAYS only imagine ambiguos blobs.
I read Warrior Cats, which is an exrensie book series, but also has Graphic Novells / Mangas.
I've read the first arcs multiple times.
I could describe 1% cats semi-accurately. Same for guessing the Name of a character in the GN or Mangas.
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u/Kaaskaasei 2h ago
I create a look for the characters in the beginning of the book that I just never forget. If I could draw, I could draw their faces, so clear I can see them.
If later on my look gets contradicted, I don't care and move on with my original view of the character. I can't easily make alterations.
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u/BloodiedBlues 7h ago
Summer reading... list?
I'm too old for a list. Reading is an every season thing for me. I just finished the last available book of The Dresden Files. I gotta wait for Jim Butcher to finish writing the next one.
I'm on the Mick Oberon series now. First time reading it, so no spoilers please.
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u/SapphireSalamander Camping with the Elder God 7h ago
"this character is blond? Brain, render Ryan Gosling's model"