Stock Characters

One might think that as an advanced civilization we would have outgrown stock characters.  After all, we know much more about physiology, psychology, and philosophy than our ancestors, so we can be much subtler in our characterization.  Yet somehow these characters keep showing themselves again and again in various manifestations.

One recent appearance of stock characters resulted in a delightful show known as Firefly.  It was cancelled of course, like most good shows, such as the children's show Magic School Bus where I gained a surprising amount of scientific knowledge, but I digress.

I bring up Firefly not to laud its merits, nor to condemn its flaws.  Rather I bring up the show because of its wonderful variety of stock characters.

Also, those stock characters have played a significant part in assisting science, the medical profession particularly.  I cannot give you the precise details, but I have it on good authority that a certain Eastern medical doctor uses the characters from Firefly as a metaphor for the various organs of the human body.  For each of these characters—just as each of the organs in the body—serve a specific role.

So perhaps we stock characters may be of more use than one would ever imagine....