The Quiet Greaser: Steve

[latch22]

"He didn't need to look at me the way he did right then. I wasn't going to ask if I could come. I'd never tell Soda, because he really likes Steve a lot, but sometimes I can't stand Steve Randle. I mean it. Sometimes I hate him."

The lines that sealed Steve's fate as the Ebenezer Scrooge of The Outsiders. And who really liked that guy? If you don't like a character, or if they don't interest you, then you generally don't use them. For a lot of people, a character doesn't appeal to them if they don't seem really out there. When it comes to Steve you really have to dig deeper and a lot of people don't seem to be up to that. They're dwelling on the surface.

[st.elmo-lover]

I LOVE STEVE. And I wish there was more out there about him. I try to write him as a main character in ALL my fics. Because she is shunted a lot. He does really have great potential even though in the book he seems to have a major attitude problem. But that makes him even better.

(And the fact that Tom Cruise played him in the movie doesn't hurt at all )

But I don't know why people don't like him. I think he could make a great character if someone wrote him a certain way. I wish Hinton would write more about him....

[latch22]

Steve let himself be close to someone from a young age. Dallas didn't.

[latch22]

bigtownavenue said:

Steve has always (I assume) lived in this small town

You made some good points. I just wanted to point out that Tulsa isn't a small town...

[Keira]

Tulsa is nowhere near small. It's about 20 miles across, if not more (and we know as much from the book itself). Perhaps the neighborhood could be considered it's own "small town", but not Tulsa itself, lol.

[BlindedxxFalcon]

Well, yeah, I could see that, too.

[latch22]

Well, no it isn't. But I didn't really mean Tulsa as a whole, if that makes any sense. I meant more along the lines of what Johnny said. He had never been out of their neighborhood until he and Pony went to Windrixville. I've always imagined the same would be true for Steve as well. So I sort of picture this as just a tiny suburb of Tulsa, hence the small town idea I have in my head.

I know that Tulsa is large, but I'm guilty of privately thinking the same thing sometimes, lol. It works out better in my mind, even if the violence fits better with an urban image.

And that's true. I've never been to Tulsa, but I'm pretty well sure it's definitely not comparable to New York City. It is a smaller scale.

And Mars... that back story is fabulous, in a sad way. I can really picture that and it makes a lot of sense.

Cheers!

[fairlane]

I agree that a lot of people probably don't initially look beyond Ponyboys comments on Steve and his dislike of him.
Steve does have a lot more positive things in his life than Dally does, he is in school still, he works, he's talented (with cars) he has a girlfriend. He seems to channel his negative energy a bit better.
His dad fights with him and kicks him out yet gives him money to make up for it the next day, so there must be some feelings involved there. I think it could be a pretty interesting relationship to look it.

[st.elmo-lover]

I think what was explained earlier really hit it. What makes Steve such a good character is the rage he holds inside. But yet the fact that he has a girl and a job suggests that he still has a life and still has feelings. There's not mention of Steve or Evie ever straying from the relasionship (that I know of) which means there had to something keeping them together.

Which leaves me to believe that Steve DOES still feel. Even though rage is a huge part of his life and he is a hot head, he is still bothered by his father yelling at him. He still cares and on some level thinks he'll never be good enough. And the fact that that bother's him makes him more human then Dallas. I've always thought Dallas was more of the type to not care what people think about him and he gets yelled out he'll beat the shit out of you. He won't CARE if he's not good enough because he's cold!

Besides that, there has to be something that draws the 'most of the time bubbly but still outragious' Sodapop towards him, yeah? It's just that none of these things are explained so his character leaves a lot of open possibilities for back stories and such.

That and from the mention of Steve's love for cars, drag racing, fighting, and his hot head temper, always drew me towards his character. Did it ever say anything that Dallas liked? I can't remember. I'll have to look that up, lol. Anyway, I just always like Steve because of what I DID know about him.

[zevie]

I don't think Dallas was completely without feeling, since he dissolves after Johnny dies. I think he was encouraged to hide and stifle his feelings a lot more from the environment he was in than Steve - as in, you show any weakness, you die. It'd be why he's similar to Tim, I think - feelings equal weakness and you can't have a weak gang-leader. Steve still had Soda growing up at least, and maybe Two-Bit or Darry to open up to (ish) and who would openly state that they care about him. (I mean all this in the dryest way possible - they are still guys in the sixties, lol.) I like the thought about him having a good early childhood - I think Johnny might have those memories too, and the possibility of that ever coming back keeps him from running off and becoming like Dallas, who likely has no illusions about ever having a good family life.

I really like that backstory about Dally, mars. I bounced back and forth between thinking he just grew up in New York, lost the mom and moved down to Tulsa where his dad was from, and thinking he just went from foster home to foster home until he ran away to be with his dad, where at least he'd have some freedom if not any care. At one point I had him adopted, but it didn't make sense. Backstories are fun, lol. But, I like yours a lot better, mars.

I don't remember any mention of what Dally liked, lol. Food for thought definitely...

Interesting fact: New York was actually bigger, population-wise, in 1960 than it is now. It's now a good 400,000 smaller. Weird. Tulsa's like, the size of Halifax now, apparently, lol. It was like, 260,000 (the fiftieth largest city in the USA) back then. A major city, but not a huge one, population-wise, at least.

[Tensleep]

I personally really like Steve because I grew up with a group of Steve's - if that makes sense.

He's this character balancing between all two different lives. On one side he gets beat and mind f*cked at home by his old man. This is one of the reasons he's so angry because he can't reason the gilt out if it keeps happening. But he has a life outside the home where he's got this support system of friends and a girlfriend who obviously care for him, but what can they do? I mean, you tell someone with authority and either they're just going to hand out a warning that ends up with more abuse or they remove Steve from the situation and his whole world flips upside down. So you have to sit there and watch him go through all this and you really understand the anger.

Sorry, just an inner musing that got out of control there. Basically, I find Steve intriguing because everything points to him growing up to be his old man. But he has his friends and they're his saving grace, you know? It makes him this character with so many possibilities. I'm really surprised there isn't more Steve out there.

Oh, and for the Tulsa seems like a little town bit, that has a lot to do with Territory. For example, my world for the longest time was between 17th Ave and 54th st. SE east to westward, but north to south it was the river and the edge of the golf course. You didn't really stray much from it and it really gives what parts you do wander through this small town feeling. With the Socs on the west (south) side and the more professional gangs to the north (east) side of the city with small gangs between...well, I can see what Johnny hadn't ever been out of the neighborhood. It just caused a hell of a lot less trouble to stay put.

And I've babbled enough!

See ya in the funny papers!!!

Tens

[theonceler]

I love Steve. It's true not a lot is said of him in the book, but what S.E. does say really builds a good character. I doubt Ponyboy had a clear view of Steve. I mean, obviously if he's the Greek god's best friend then he must have his good points. Steve is probably just one of those kinds of people who, unknowingly, sort of gives off an air of Idontlikeyou. So that's what Pony sees, and if that's what Pony sees that's what most Outsiders readers see. And Steve's dislike of Pony tagging along is completely understandable...the difference between 14 and 17 is pretty big, and Steve probably feels a tad jealous of Pony when Soda asks him to come along, because Soda is already Pony's brother, but he's Steve's best friend. Not Ponyboy's. Speaking from Steve's POV when I say that. And Steve seems like an emotional guy, but he keeps it inside, which causes his underlying anger.

And i'm done.

[TehNetteSpeaks]

In the book we see that Steve has a lot of built-up rage that he let's out in fights, and I'd like to think that maybe he feels a little bad about being mean to Pony.

I never thought wow, Steve's a jerk. I went to thinking what could've made him that way, because he does still have the ability to feel and despite what he lets on to other people- he feels alot. (Sidenote- someone once told me that showing emotion makes you weak, and I believed them. I hid my emotions away as a child and ended up in counseling in middle school. ;D)

Another thing I'd like to think is that fixing cars for him makes him feel better about himself after he argues with his dad- where I'm sure his Dad will tell him off for running around with hoods and wasting his life away, etc. So working at the DX is like an outlet for him to prove to himself (and his Dad) that he's not worthless and that he's good at something.

[Des]

-smiles-

Nice, TNS. Steve is one of the hardest characters for me to write because of the scarce info about him in the book, but I agree with you about him feeling bad for giving Pony a hard time.


And welcome to WSOTTA, by the way.

[zickachik73]

It seems to me that the most obvious of answers probably holds truest - we write Outsiders fanfiction because we fell in love with it at some time, some age. And we fell in love with it from Pony's point of view - his pain, his thoughts, his reactions and writing.

And, as has been noted, Pony and Steve mixed kind of like oil and water at best.

However, there are good steve fics out there. I think those are written by people who get beyond the basic information we're given and get in the head of Pony, understand that he's a kid, and see beyond what he says to why he says what he says.

And also, they might be the bad boy lovers.


If we could all do this, which I'll readily admit that I have a hard time doing, we'd all write great Steve, Dallas, Curly, and Tim fics. The psych-minor side of me likes to think about these things, why people are the way they are and why Pony sees them as he does, but the writer has a hard time translating that into decent fiction so instead of a full story queue, I have a full recycle bin.