About: Flowers for Algernon Syndrome   Sponge Permalink

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Characters are known by their personalities. They are who they are. In a Flowers for Algernon story a character either: * gains something that is perceived in general as good (intelligence, for example), or * loses something that is perceived in general as bad (stupidity or bossy behavior, as examples). However, by the end of the episode, the character is back to normal, sometimes because the character's "normality" is required to solve a problem. At other time as a bow to Status Quo Is God. The polar opposite of Brought Down to Normal and Can't Stay Normal.

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  • Flowers for Algernon Syndrome
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  • Characters are known by their personalities. They are who they are. In a Flowers for Algernon story a character either: * gains something that is perceived in general as good (intelligence, for example), or * loses something that is perceived in general as bad (stupidity or bossy behavior, as examples). However, by the end of the episode, the character is back to normal, sometimes because the character's "normality" is required to solve a problem. At other time as a bow to Status Quo Is God. The polar opposite of Brought Down to Normal and Can't Stay Normal.
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abstract
  • Characters are known by their personalities. They are who they are. In a Flowers for Algernon story a character either: * gains something that is perceived in general as good (intelligence, for example), or * loses something that is perceived in general as bad (stupidity or bossy behavior, as examples). However, by the end of the episode, the character is back to normal, sometimes because the character's "normality" is required to solve a problem. At other time as a bow to Status Quo Is God. Named for the book (expanded from a short story) Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. In the book, the main character, a cognitively disabled man named Charlie, undergoes medical treatment that boosts his intelligence. In fact, Charlie eventually goes to superhuman intelligence, learning multiple languages and becoming smarter than those who performed the operation. However, he finds that as a genius he is accepted little more by society than when he was retarded, and that in fact he was happier when he was disabled (though despite all this, he never regrets taking part in the experiment). His intelligence gradually fades, however, and he ends up no different (and possibly a little worse) than he started. Pretty much every television episode built on this trope will riff on the title, either "Flowers for X" or "NAM WIH SILY MISPELING", in reference to CHARLY, the best known Film of the Book. Done badly, this is a warped or family unfriendly message that being smart or even above average will make you unhappy and insufferable, and the only way to have friends and be acceptable is to be at (or below) their own level. Ignorance is bliss, knowledge is misery. Note that how bad the Aesop is depends on how much willing the characters are to go back to their former selves and how much the return was based on their own actions. It's done badly fairly often. Done well, this is about accepting who you are and making the most of what you have instead of relying on artificial enhancements. The polar opposite of Brought Down to Normal and Can't Stay Normal. See also We Want Our Jerk Back, Compressed Abstinence and Loss of Identity. Compare Pygmalion Snapback. Examples of Flowers for Algernon Syndrome include:
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