April Maclean: “People just think that nice means fragile. That, somehow, if I’m allowed to see what the real world’s like, then I’ll break, but I’m tougher than they think.”
Jackie Maclean: “I know how tough you are. And you’re not nice. You’re kind. There’s a difference. Kind is better. Way better.”
April: “Yeah, cause that’s what people think when they want a prom date: ‘Oh, I wonder who’s kind.’” --from Class, “For Tonight We Might Die”
When I watched this scene in the pilot episode of Class, I wanted to cheer. I had never heard someone speak so accurately to this facet of my personality. My fears about not fitting in have always centered not on being disliked but being overlooked—on being “nice” but never interesting enough to hang out with. As the season went on, every episode there was another April moment that made me cheer. She wasn’t just nice or sweet; she was strong and selfless and brave and even angry. She was complex. And she resented being pigeonholed into the box of “nice,” at one point shouting, “Will everyone please stop telling me what I’m like?!”
(Side note: Class is a phenomenal new show that few people know about and is unfortunately on the verge of cancellation; I’ll probably write a separate article on it at some point. If you love sci-fi with diverse, well-written characters, and serious themes, I highly recommend it.)
I’m a huge Harry Potter fan, and I’m a proud Hufflepuff (although that’s a bit of an oxymoron). I’m compassionate, selfless, honest, and hardworking. J.K. Rowling has said that “everyone should want to be in Hufflepuff,” but generally, my house is the butt of everyone’s jokes. The leftovers. The stoner house. Hagrid himself says, “Everyone thinks Hufflepuff are a lot of duffers.” Often, when fans are sorting other fictional characters, they’ll only put someone in Hufflepuff when they can’t think of anywhere else to put them. Apparently, kindness isn’t enough of a defining trait. Nice characters are just that, nice. Not bad. Just nice. Forgettable background characters with uncompelling stories. This is changing, though, and not just on Class.
After seven years of Gryffindors, Hufflepuff have finally taken center stage in the Potterverse with Newt Scamander. I love Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and especially love Newt; there was no question whom I’d cosplay as at C2E2 this year. Newt is unassuming, socially awkward, and, most importantly, has a huge heart. (Spoilers ahead.) He cares deeply for his creatures and, when his case is confiscated by MACUSA, begs for them not to be hurt. He’s equally caring for the human companions he’s only just met. In the end, his strategy to defeat the “monster” of Credence is not to fire spells but to talk to and reassure him. Newt is not daring or witty or popular, but he still gets to be the hero of a five-part fantasy series.
Multiple online critics have pointed out how refreshing this is, especially in a male lead. And yet, as one of these critics shows, plenty of reviewers from major publications didn’t think Newt was enough of an action hero. They said he’s “not a very engaging lead” and “a character in search of a coherent personality,” and he lacks “depth” and “soul.” Slate wrote that it was unfortunate that Eddie Redmayne had to “tamp down his charisma so thoroughly.” The New Republic’s review exemplified the quandary of the nice character by writing, “He is so good-hearted, simple, and nondescript that it’s sort of crazy that he’s going to be the centerpiece of four or five films.” Yes, it is sort of crazy. And that’s why I love it.
Replace “he” with “she” and “four or five films” with “smash hit musical,” and that quote could be talking Eliza in Hamilton. The powerful finale of Hamilton is sung not by the brash, fast-talking Hamilton but by the soft-spoken, caring Eliza, who shyly mentions her proudest accomplishment: the orphanage she founded.
In Hamilton: The Revolution, Hamilton biographer Ron Chernow says of writing Eliza, “It’s difficult to make pure goodness compelling.” Ultimately, Lin-Manuel Miranda succeeded by showing she wasn’t all goodness. One of my favorite Hamilton songs is “Burn” because it portrays that even the kindest people have a limit—and when they reach that limit, you better watch out. My friends act shocked when I get angry about something; I think they forget I’m capable of anger. I love having that reminder in “Burn.” In that song and the show as a whole, Eliza’s personality goes beyond simply “sweet.”
Which brings me back to April Maclean. She’s shown to have as much darkness within her as anyone else; her optimism is a defense mechanism against a chaotic world. When one character asks why she’s always “so goddamn sensible,” she replies, “The world isn’t sensible. I decided a long time ago I could either let that break me into pieces or make sure that it never got the chance. You just think that I’m nice or sensible, but really it’s war. I’m always at war.” The show has many moments when April reaches her breaking point. What defines her is that, as the same character points out in a later episode, she chooses not to act on it. Because kindness is not a default setting. It is a choice, and a hard-fought one at that. What could be more heroic than that?
