Prince Andrew and Facebook

I adored Prince Andrew from the beginning of the novel. I don't know what it was about him, maybe his striking good looks (in my brain), but I always loved him and I would defend him to the end, even when he did less than honorable things. That's part of the reason I was drawn to pick him as my character for the Facebook project. I wanted to explore how he would interact with others through this detached form of communication where expressing opinions and feelings is more common. It was interesting, trying to strike a balance between Andrew's portrayal in the book, as a generally hard lining man, with some emotional tendencies, and the potential Andrew, opened up by the anonymity and free speech that the internet, and platforms such as Facebook allow. I ultimately decided to follow the book and how Tolstoy portrayed Andrew, but added in some rash emotion here and there, as well as some more modern speech. I had him post a quote about glory, but also unearthed some probable feelings he had after Natasha denied him, through some fan fiction.

Ultimately, I wanted to create a modernized picture of Prince Andrew. Many people who I consider generally logical will post ridiculously emotional things on Facebook, because they feel they can be more open. This is why Andrew would occasionally declare his love for Natasha, or something along those lines. However, I did try to maintain some degree of Andrew's coldness and level of overall rationality. He criticizes overly emotion or private posts by other characters, as well as warns people of how to properly interact with his father. I particularly enjoyed interacting with Marya, because as Andrew left for battle the first time, we saw their love for each other, so it was great to be able to interact with her and show some level of care and understanding for her and her situation.

Overall this was an extremely fun project to finish out the semester and to help me reflect on one of my favorite characters in the novel.