Backstories: Narrated to a Character or just the Audience?

[ButterflyEmpress]

In one of the comics I'm working on, the main character explains her situation to her new acquaintance, but lies to him (and herself) about certain parts since she has no hope of things changing and wants to feel less bad about it. I'm starting to feel that it might be confusing to the audience and possibly make her new friend look like an ass for not recognizing she needs help.
I was thinking instead to have her narrate alone to herself, i.e. audience (maybe expressing regret of what she did) and give her new acquaintance a censored abridged version when he debuts.

I've seen shows tell the audience someone's backstory or lore, whether it's to a character who already knows or the main character's inner thoughts. I wonder do people find that sort of thing lazy regardless of execution or do they not care

[BoomerZ]

This really depends on the point of view you are using in the story. My first story is 3rd person, so you see no one's inner thoughts. The reader only saw and heard what was said out loud. So the flashbacks were in the point of view of the teller. It was also a comics so it was more an intro by the narrator then just the reader reading it. My second comics was first person limited so you only saw her point of view and inner thoughts. Everyone else only came out when they spoke. Your flashbacks have to match this. And be very careful with an "unreliable narrator". Most audiences are trusting you to show it how it was and it will take some work for them to understand it's not what really happened. As for the audience caring, that comes down to does the flashback/background story add something to the story. An example is Star Wars. The more they explained Han Solo's background, the more the audiences hated it. Your imagination will never be as good as the audiences headcannon to fill in the stories. The mysterious killer is cool because he is mysterious. Leave things unexplained.

[ButterflyEmpress]

I think it's 1st person limited. The point of the flashback is to explain why she's in her current situation and how she really feels about it. So I guess it's more of an origin story than a flashback. She’s not intended to be mysterious so I don't think showing her origin would be an issue.

I'm concerned with whether people care of how that sort of thing is told. I watched a fantasy anime "May I have one final request" that has moments where Scarlett would go over some aspects of the world when she's alone with her thoughts, basically explaining the world to the audience as there’s no fish-out-of-water character. Hazbin Hotel also has Vox explaining his backstory to no one in a musical number. I don’t know if people find it silly for a character to do that or if I'm just over thinking it.

[lizardlullabye]

The character can be narrating one thing while the comic shown to audience is another thing?

Similar to this chapter (chapter 3) from Batman: Wayne's Family Adventure (found on webtoons). The narration is technically true, but the events are not quite the same unless you are familiar.

EDIT #1 - Removed webtoon link

This post has been revised since it was previously flagged by multiple members as inappropriate, such as the community feels that it was offensive, abusive, or a violation of our community guidelines (https://forums.tapas.io/guidelines) and hidden by the forums. I think I failed the guideline that "you may not post anything digital that belongs to someone else without permission" since I posted a link to a comic I did not make, thus the webtoon link has been removed. Hopefully, this remedies the violation.

However if the violation was something else, I don't know what it might be.

[ButterflyEmpress]

Yeah that what I was initially going for, but I feel that since my story is serious, I might not go with the unreliable narrator angle. Plus I don't have much confidence that I won't confuse my audience

I'm not sure why your comment was flagged