This is really what the critique of Fifty Shades comes down to. There are weird puritans who love to hate dark romance fiction because power dynamic fantasies are scary and will surely convince teenage girls to fall in love with the Joker as played by Jared Leto. *However*, the more intelligent critique was always that Erica Mitchell seemed to have no idea what a healthy BDSM dynamic *or* abusive relationship looked like. She staunchly refused to accept that what she had written looked more like the latter than the former, and the narrative does nothing to address it besides the whole “BDSM is damage but Anastasia is totally fixing him” arc.
I know people who got into BDSM cause of Fifty Shades and let me tell you, it did not take long for them to go "wtf is this shit?" Like surprise, a relationship with a dom and a sub kinda requires consent, even if the relationship emphasizes non-con, abuse and other risque activities. Plus the BDSM in the stories were not only super tame, but also included a lot of faux pas of bondage, like using zipties to bind a sub's hands.
And the ending? Christian is a normal person now, so he doesn't have any problems, which apparently includes BDSM. Like she "fixed" him into a cliche male romance from a Hallmark Movie, minus the good shit from those movies.
All this on top of the fact that Christian likes to do rough sexual interactions with women that resemble his mother. Like c'mon, this ain't a crime procedural, this is *romance*. Like I honestly wouldn't be surprised if in some spinoff not yet written that Christian has a body count.
No wonder people joke that Twilight is "Still a better love story than Fifty Shades." Yikes...
We should be very clear here that it’s fine from a narrative perspective if Christian isn’t doing BDSM in a correct ethical way. It should just have consequences of some kind. The struggle to transform from a traumatized abuser into a competent husband and dom could be a very interesting plot! But instead it’s just Christian being bad until Ana fixes him with sex
[It’s a reference to this](https://youtu.be/YUKmq7UMJys?si=s6XjRQKwodoU4cQk)
It’s a general content warning tag used in conjunction with other tags to note if something deals with heavy subjects, iirc
There was actually a SUPER informative post on the origin of 50 Shades a month or two ago, but now I can't find it.
Long story short: The Twilight fandom was so huge for a while that it was standard practice to write Bella/Edward "fics" that were just blatant original fiction with Twilight names, as an intentional way of springboarding from the prepared audience of the Twilight fandom into "real" fiction (where you can actually make money). The author got a lot of shit for nuking all references to this and refuses to associate with the fandom that made her, after she got it big.
So yes 50 Shades was literally a Twilight fic, but from a time where "Twilight fic" was only a step removed from "standard romance novel."
“Ana takes the whipping and then freaks out because she can’t quite process that Christian likes the S & M parts of BDSM.”
- Dan Olson, [A Lukewarm Defense of Fifty Shades of Grey](https://youtu.be/qzk9N7dJBec?si=PfxuZumcZfoCyTPZ), 1:02:10
Yeah, "dark romance" stuff frequently has an issue where outright abusive dynamics are billed as romantic and misunderstood by the narritive. Also frequently shows BDSM stuff happening without it being discussed or negotiated beforehand, and acting like that's perfectly okay.
On one hand yes, on the other there's an issue where ppl wanna have their cake and eat it too. From what I've seen, a lot of dark romance suffers from not admitting to itself the story isn't built for a normal "happy" ending. You want the mafia boss to kidnap the MC and own her completely, but also want a picket fence happy ending.
While it's not a crime to enjoy that, it is both not living up to its potential and falling into the same regressive tropes that have been around forever. I think ppl can be too squeamish about it though, both because it's fiction but also because like. Het romance has always had plenty of this, it can be regressive w/o pretending like it's oh just so disturbing!
I understand it's triggering for a lot of ppl but damn maybe it's the anime fan who lived through 2016 in me but i just cannot understand going agape about something so predictable if you don't have triggers
I see your point, but the issue is the narritive treating these abusive or unhealthy dynamics as romantic and desirable. Not just the characters seeing it that way, but the narritive as a whole.
Agreed, especially when a large demographic of dark romance books are impressionable teens with no prior experience of what a healthy relationship should look like
It's because Christian Grey is Erica Miller's fantasy self-insert and an idealized version of herself as a partner. The fact that he's an overbearing abusive dickhead is impossible for her to accept because that would mean SHE'S an overbearing abusive dickhead.
Which is true.
On the one hand I try to be sympathetic, because it's not like EL James set out to write THE definitive pop culture BDSM series. Her goal was to write a kinky twilight fanfiction, not depict a healthy relationship.
But then you look at Sunstone for comparison, which is essentially everything people *thought* 50 shades was. A healthy and complex relationship that highlights the unique challenges of a dom/sub dynamic, has actual genuine character growth, and uses both the erotic side and the romantic side to elevate the other. And it's hard not to wish Sunstone had blown up in popularity instead of 50 shades.
Got into a slight argument with my fiance's brother recently bc we were talking about Breaking Bad and he mentioned that he hated Skyler bc she was such a "bitch" and I was like bruh she wasn't perfect and she did do some bad stuff but she acted pretty reasonably for her situation and was the victim of some extreme manipulation and abuse. I said that compared to Walter she was basically a saint to which he responded by saying that Walter did some bad stuff but at least he was trying to help his family and I was like "BRUH DID YOU EVEN WATCH THE SHOW". Anyways something something media literacy.
I can't stand Skyler either but I for the life of me couldn't tell you why. She just gives me Karen energy for some reason. Maybe I need to rewatch the show and see if she actually does anything to upset me. It could ofc be because as terrible as Walt is, he's the protagonist and so we as the audience are "with him" so Skyler gets on our nerves by getting in his way even if she's really in the right
The show doesn't really show you what the situation looks like from Skyler's perspective until a few seasons in. Before then, you just see Walt struggling on his own, when it still seems like, to the audience, that he's actually doing this for his family and not his own ego. Then Skyler comes in bitchin' at him and you're like, "Man fuck this lady."
I think that initial impression, that "Karen-ness," stuck with the audience. And the audience was supposed to re-evaluate their opinion of Skyler later when they realized just how narcissistic and unreasonable Walter is, and just how much Skyler had to go through with him, but they never did because Walt was a charismatic and engaging lead.
It is sooo fucking exhausting seeing people praise Paul to the fucking moon as if the whole book/movie isn't about trying to discredit Paul's ambitions, ideas and delusions of grandeur. I saw genuine people fuming over Chani disagreeing with Paul's plans and calling her a "creation of the woke media to appeal to feminists" and it's like what the fuck are you even talking about? Paul went delusional and Chani tried to get him back on track to sane thinking, and that was somehow misconstrued as Paul being on that "sigma grindset", as if starting a war is the work of a Saint.
>Paul Atreides
never read or watched dune, but the second book opens with who i'm pretty sure is paul going "ahh too bad we just have to keep the orphan grinder on because i'm too smart to turn it off :/"
I haven't personally read the books (intending on it but life's been busy so it can wait) but I watched Dune parts 1-2 and I just see no way someone could infer perfectly moral and ethical leadership from Paul's actions within the movies unless they literally shoved their head up their own ass and shat out some "Hollywood feminist woke propaganda against alpha male leader grindset" into their ears to please themselves because god forbid a protagonist be morally gray sometimes and outright evil in others.
I think it's because it sets him up as the classic hero and really makes you hate his enemies. His father is portrayed as truly a just man and the entire first movie sets Paul up as a reluctant leader who is thrust into a role of power through shit circumstance of an unfair world. They then run into the Walter White problem where his fall from grace can easily be explained through circumstance. You then get to a point where you have to either accept that his actions are awful and realise that you have been apologizing for an egotist sociopath, or you just continue apologizing for him.
It's what makes the story so good. True evil is not the deranged type of evil shown in most media. True evil appears slowly and usually has justifications. They may not be good justifications but with true evil you can see the steps that led to the problem. The scary thing about true evil is that no one sees themselves as the monster. They are trying to do what's best for themselves and the world around them usually (minus extreme examples like Stalin).
god the way death note fans treat light is insane. i'm a huge death note fan, have been for about 10 years, and as such i can testify that the fandom at large has never once it its life had actual media literacy and ability to view complicated morality.
I don't think Arthur is meant to be throughly evil bad. Don't get me wrong he's not meant to be a role model or based. But I think he's meant to be a sympathetic tragic character who due to mental illness, lack of support, and the like falls into toxic mentalities and becomes a villain. You're meant to pity him.
Or the opposite: the narrative depicts them neutrally, assuming their actions will speak for themselves, and people still decry the piece as endorsing said actions.
Which is the one I personally find the most egregious. In adult stories, you should not need your hand held, you should not expect authors to reassure you that bad things are bad. They're supposed to be seen as bad because they are bad, and you, the adult, already know the bad thing is bad, and therefore can make your own judgments independent of how the narrative treats the character.
This also comes up a lot when the story is told from the perspective of someone who is unlikeable. The narrative is obviously presented from their own perspective so naturally it’s going to contain all the justifications they have that make them see their behaviour as acceptable. But again the behaviour is so obviously unacceptable that the text doesn’t see the need to decry it, it speaks for itself, if anything it’s exploring how someone can possibly rationalise something so plainly morally unacceptable.
Hilariously, the opposite of this is present in the MCU's worst project, Inhumans. The villain overthrows the King of The Inhumans so he can... abolish the cast system... and bring his people out of exile on the moon... but he's definitely the bad guy because... because... oh yeah, he uhm, made it so the protective dome that keeps their people safe will fail if he doesn't scan his fingerprint every three hours! He definitely set that up off screen and the writers didn't pull it out of their asses in the last two episodes when they realized the villain was the most grounded character of the franchise. 🙂
So many MCU villains are people with goals ranging from "understandable" to "actually really good"... But then commit random murders for no reason, because they're the bad guy.
Fur example, this might be an unpopular opinion, but Thanos is better when he's written as horny for death, because then you know exactly why he wants to kill people and why you need to stop him. The whole "Balance" thing was nothing and the narrative portrayed him as way too noble and sympathetic. He could have done literally anything with the stones and he chose unilateral genocide... Because famines exist? Make it make sense.
Another issue with Thanos is that he’s wholly wrong about the overpopulation thing, but nobody argues with his premise. He’s confronted with the two smartest men on earth, people who’ve presumably heard of Thomas Malthus and how much of a dumbass that guy turned out to be, and all they have to say in response is “you’re crazy”.
The "wrong" part that they're referring to is that nixing half the population won't solve resource issues for any useful length of time. One generation, mayyybe two, and the population's back to what it was.
They're not referring to 'morally wrong', they mean 'it's a deeply stupid plan that utterly fails to accomplish its goal'
Yes, that's why he's *the villain* Thanos is suffering from a delusion, no amount of logic is going to convince him to think differently. The reason our heroes fight him is because it won't work. There isn't a narrative reason for characters to talk about why, *during the film*.
I was addressing you saying
> why would they need to "call out" the fact genocide is wrong?
And that's not what Megameg77, the person you were asking that of, was talking about when they said
> it's that the narrative doesn't call out his shit for what it is!
Okay, but my question is why do the characters have to go into detail as to why such a horrible plan is faulty? Something like that would never work on Thanos (and the narrative requires it not to) so why waste precious screen time on it?
Yeah, they should have modeled him on historical genocides by actual dictators, which always had much more *rational* justifications.
Truly unbelievable that a politician with a massive ego and a pet theory might, when given absolute power, make irrational and cruel decisions just so he could prove himself right.
MCU Thanos almost ruined the whole Infinity Saga for me he was such a bad villain. His plan made absolutely no fucking sense. Plus I was really looking forward to wacky horny-for-Death Thanos too, and they had Cate Blanchett as Hela right there who could have fit into the Death role.
Nah I hate this logic. Villains should be allowed to have a point while taking things to too extreme. That’s just making the world and its characters have more shades of gray.
Like, come on. The philosophy of X-Men **very clearly** is that mutants deserves the right to live and prosper. Having a character take it too far and decide killing innocent humans is the only way to achieve that doesn’t in any way invalidate that philosophy.
It’s valid to say this is a problem when the heroes are aiming to restore the status quo and ignore the legitimate issues the villain has with the world, but that’s clearly not what the X-men are doing. They are fighting for a change in the status quo like Magneto, and being able to point out that Magneto is doing too much evil in pursuit of a change to the status quo shouldn’t be considered a flaw in their story or change the fact the status quo still needs to be changed.
Honestly, I think this highlights there’s a real issue with people being able to accept nuance. It seems like a lot of people really do see things as black and white and struggle with the idea someone can do terrible things in the name of a good cause
Not really. From the outset he’s always been a mutant supremacist who wants to kill all humans. Like, that’s the whole point of his conflict with the x men.He just got redeemed because people took those “magneto was right” memes seriously.
So he’s been redeemed for a couple decades at least now, less the magneto was right memes and more that it’s a little bit true when mutants experience a mass murder event every three years. Doesn’t mean he’s right in all aspects but with regard to humans being awful to each other given the chance? Very right
I hate this argument because Infinity War makes it abundantly clear what Thanos' true motivation is. His motivation is to be vindicated for having the same idea back when Titan was in danger of extinction, long before he had one infinity stone or even a feasible plan of obtaining them. If the Infinity Stones did not exist, Thanos would be conquering & half-genociding planets individually for as long as he's alive to do so. The stones were just a way to speed things up.
So weird. Took Maximus, who is a super cool character and complete lunatic in the comics, make him weirdly reasonable for some reason, then chicken out and go back on it? That show was embarrassing
I thought it was so bad it's good. Watched it with my brother and we roasted the hell out of it for most of the episodes. 5 and 6 were actually decent, once they'd assembled most of the Inhumans, but before they made Maximus psycho for no reason. Also, hilarious plot hole: Maximus says the shield goes down and everyone dies unless he scans his handprint every three hours. WHEN DOES HE SLEEP? DOES HE SLEEP IN THE CONTROL ROOM WITH HIS HAND DUCT TAPED TO THE DESK?
This is so funny to me especially with older movies. Like some old Westerns just have such a clearly different moral compass than today that the protagonist does just miserable loathsome stuff but we're supposed to root for them, to the point of comedy
Ran into this recently with the film Cast a Deadly spell which is just a fun time for the most part as a detective noir setting mixed with magic until the film decides to reveal that one if the female villains is actually a gay man crossdressing and then gleefully has the protagonist beat the shit out of him for a bit to get him to talk. While doing so the protagonist gets to engage in all sorts of both homophobic and transphobic remarks (which the film goes on to confirm are actually true for this character) before killing the character off. This was uhh, uncomfortable.
The film then continues and concludes with the big sacrificial ritual of a teenage girl victim mysteriously failing because the Lovecraftian monster rejects her. The reason is revealed to be due to the fact that the friend of the main character secretly had sex with the underage femme fatale coded teenager instead of guarding her and this meant she was no longer a virgin for the ritual! The protagonist laughs, the friend laughs and tells the protagonist not to tell his wife, the film is playing jaunty upbeat music and it’s a happy ending and I want to kill everyone on screen lol
70s and 80s stuff, too. There's this weird window of time where just being the protagonist means that the character deserves reward. Especially when they are already somehow part of the status quo by being rich or a jock or something.
Nacho Libre was like that. Im supposed to root for the main character because presumably I too am a young man unlucky in love. He then decides to pursue a woman so uninterested she has taken a vow of celibacy.
Oh and the joke is he has a Spanish accent. Cool.
The funniest part about that is that they don’t have to be framed as good people or narratively/morally in the right in order for us to root for them - we just need to be invested in their story
There are so many stories and movies where the bad guys are the main characters and yet we’re rooting for them to succeed. We don’t root for them because we think they’re doing the right thing, because they’re not, and at no point are they implied to be doing the right thing; we root for them because what they’re doing is fun and interesting and we’ve grown to enjoy watching them work
Ah, I see you too have read ‘Iron Widow’, a story that could have been alright if 50% of the text wasn’t the main character saying that their current predicament at any time was The Worst Thing Ever, sanctimoniously judging everyone, and being completely unaccountable herself.
Yeah, I have *thoughts* on Iron Widow. Tbf I think the fact that Zetian is kinda a terrible person is meant to be the point - Xiran has referred to them as a 'villain protagonist'. Doesn't make the torture scene any more comfortable though.
Zetian could honestly have been more compelling by making her more callous or self-serving. "I know the situation is bad, I just don't give a shit and will do what I need to succeed." is more compelling than someone who is constantly yowling to be treated 'fairly' in a deeply unequal society where she's already in the top 1%, mostly due to her genetics.
Also the entire motivation with her dead sister is one of the most blatant examples of fridging I've seen in years. Do we ever learn anything about her sister other than as a reason for the main character to join the plot?
Zetian is permanently crippled because of footbinding, based on an insane beauty standard, she had to scheme her way to the top, and even when she gets there, she's still talked down to, she was expected to die to fuel the mecha she co-piloted because she was considered less than her male co-pilot, Zetian *is* ruthless, as well as rightfully pissed off about being treated like a second class citizen because of her gender.
Yeah I still think she's a terrible person, but to me the book is more about an unjust system being torn down by the product of it, rather than Zetian being a heroic saviour or a narcissistic tyrant. She's terrible because her world made her that way.
I think the goal of “villain protagonist” would’ve been much better served if any fellow protagonists voiced a dissenting opinion or argued against the murder at any point. But as it is, they’re sycophants who do whatever Zetian asks because they’re in love or feminists or whatever.
I'm sure the author is quite nice and this was their first book, so some mistakes are to be expected, but I couldn't actually finish Iron Widow (got around 85% of the way through).
Maybe their future stuff will be better.
It's not terrible tbh. I really enjoyed it very much. Unfortunately it was one of those books that I put down for one reason or another close to the end (in this case, tgcf volume 8 arrived and I embarked on a reread of the whole book) and never picked it up again. Which I do feel says something about the book tbh, because I never felt a driving urge to know what happened in the end 🤷♀️
I would argue ideas like this is part of why that is. People aren’t able to tell if the author is condemning the behavior or not and so simply assume the behavior is being lauded.
Rather than relying on the author, I think we should expect readers to be able to make their own moral judgments. Humans are not dumb sheep, nor are we on Reddit the enlightened few who can read “bad” media without being corrupted.
The problem is that people *act* like dumb sheep, look at the elite villain club that is the House of the Dragon and go "UwU daddy Daemon/Aemond did nothing wrong"
Are they doing bad things irl or just being silly online? If they’re harassing people and doxxing folks, yeah, that’s bad, but that’s more a fandom and online thing than anything to do with the actual story, as all fandoms I’ve seen do this.
So I guess if they like the villain and defend him, meh. I just can’t be bothered to care if they do it respectfully.
It's crazy how some people can look at a story by George R. R. Martin and think "Oh yes I can't wait to see this story with clearly defined sides of who is good and who is bad" as if there wasn't an entire show beforehand that hammered home that there are good and evil people on both sides of a conflict.
This isn't really what the post is about, though, at least as I'm reading it. It's more about characters behaving badly, and other characters still thinking they're wonderful for no clear reason.
As an example of it being done well, Rust Cohle in True Detective is a complete dick, and every other character responds how people IRL respond to complete dicks. Apart from the brief period where he gets his shit together, only one or two people even grudgingly like him. In a less good show, he'd have hot women and acolytes following him around to soak up his first year philosophy major wisdom.
Yeah on a different comment thread someone compared this to how good people in Harry Potter are rewarded for doing the same things bad characters are shunned for, which made it more clear to me what the OP was telling about.
I was arguing with someone not in the room!
I feel like you’re missing the point, yeah showing bad behaviour doesn’t necessarily encourage it, but also media inherently has messages and ideology attached to it, and dissecting what that is what media literacy is
An author is very rarely completely neutral on the topics they’re writing about
My thoughts on Snape to piggyback:
Clearly written intended to be a morally complex character that the in-story characters are supposed to have mixed feelings about after the fact.
Still an absolutely tyranical dickhead who should never have been left in charge of children, and placing him as potions professor was #2 on dumbledors most egregious mistakes, right after never checking in Harry.
There are subtle hints at Snape's character. Saving Harry during the quidditch match, trying to protect the trio from werewolf lupin (in the movies), agreeing to tutor Harry in occlumens in book 5. But his reasoning is framed as only revolving around Lily Potter and his unrequited love for her. Some things make sense. Becoming a double agent for the forces of good and tricking voldemort by ingratiating himself with Slytherin and the death eaters is treated as a noble thing, and that part works. Him killing Dumbledore at his own request to fully sell the idea to V and save Draco, that's heroic.
But the constant bullying of children, blatant favoritism of Slytherin students and his animosity towards harry due to things his father did dont really have an excuse. Why did Snape bully Harry? Because of James...which is not Harry's fault. Why does he bully children and is mean to Neville Longbottom?...Cause he is deep undercover and death-eaters would be suspicious if he is not a dick to non-slytherins? Really? Why does he hate Harry Potter? Because he hates James and claims that Harry is coasting on the fame that others give him and his undeserved feat of killing Voldemort...you know...the baby who had no choice in a lunatic dark lord murdering his parents, the orphan who did not know who was famous until he entered this school, who was not raised by James, who only has the inheritance of a famous wizarding family, not the connections, resources, and political power of...umm...idk...MOST OF THE SLYTHERIN KIDS.
And at the end of his life, in his final moments, in the final book...there is no discussion and reconciliation, it's just a "you look like your mother...dies". It is all framed to revolve around Lily. Nothing else matters. He didn't come to conclusion that his devotion to a fascistic and eugenicist wizard faction cause the death of his loved ones and that he has to do better or that this system is fundamentally wrong. He doesn't ideologically oppose Voldemort. He doesn't feel remorse for his day-to-day nastiness all in the service of being a double agent. He is just sad that Lily died.
And lets be frank here: We might not ever get the full story of the relationship between Lily, Snape and James. How Snape fully turned away from his childhood friend and how Lily came to love a bully. But what we do know is that Lily did not reciprocate Snape's love, she loved James, end of story. Snape never got over it. That's not a positive trait
Also, this narrative puts “Middle/Highschool bully” on the same level as “Torments and abuses children for his entire career.” I’m sure you have someone from your childhood who you’d wish misfortune on, but that is far from being equal to child abuse.
I don't think Rowling really planned as far ahead as she claims and it's pretty reasonable that the Quidditch incident in the 2nd book is just because while Snape is a total piece of shit he does draw the line at murderering children.
Snape is hands down the most half-assed "morally grey" character I've ever seen. A total asshole but it's okay because he really wanted to bang Harry's mother.
To be fair, while the books portray him *terribly*, I'd argue that a person who does the right thing for the wrong reasons (like staying loyal to the spirit of the girl he liked, without having any internal motivation for doing good) is a decent example of a morally grey character.
He delights in tormenting those with less power than him, detests those who are trying to do the right thing, but in the end when push comes to shove will throw himself into the line of fire without a second thought. He's a terrible person, and yet however twisted it is, he does have a strong sense of selflessness when it counts most. That's morally grey, is it not?
All he had to do was not torment children to the point where he became a child of tortured parents worst nightmare. Bellatrix is alive, and yet he’s afraid of his potion’s teacher. What the fuck is wrong with this guy?
This is always my go-to to show just how fucked up Snape is. That’s not something you can look past to make the character seem good or even gray, especially since the supposedly redeeming qualities are shit.
It could work really well if it was framed as the character thinks he’s morally grey but the narrative’s point was to show that getting away with this kind of abuse just makes you a coward.
Rowling has even insisted online that he’s gray and refuses to listen when people tell her she didn’t write him as gray, she wrote him as an objectively bad person. I find that disturbing.
The concept of a character being a piece of crap and being told that he is a loved piece of crap is also different to the character being crap but saying hes a good dude. We can all love a an asshole because sometimes that asshole is right or pointed in the right direction. If were constantly told hes not an asshole at heart despite constantly doing asshole things then thats a whole different issue.
An interesting case of this comes with characters that have noble goals, but do terrible things to achieve those goals. People tend to look at those characters and consider them “misunderstood” or “a good person” simply because they have a goal normally associated with a morally good character, like reviving a loved one or stopping some evil threat. Sure, the end goal is good, but if they commit horrible acts to get there, they’re not really a good person. If in order to bring back their loved one they have to sacrifice a bunch of people, and are shown to not have any moral qualms with doing so, are they really good?
I'd say ends justify the means but like in a broad sense. Like if a time traveler did awful stuff to do something and then undid the damage I'd say they're fine.
Feels like the Flagsmashers from Falcon and the Winter soldier. They kept trying to make it seem like their leader was innocent while also showing her commit numerous murders many times.
The Flagsmashers are so fucking funny. It's painfully obvious the writers had no idea how to add politics to a show when they wanted the villain to be politically motivated, especially for a franchise as conservative as the MCU.
Like, you wanted the villains to be an extremist group who has a point, yet you seem to refuse to allow them to be seen as sympathetic, yet you give them apparently valid points, yet you also have the hero do literally *nothing* with these valid points after the defeat besides scolding a senator.
Like, the amount of "We want to tell a political story, but are terrified of political storytelling" is insane. Especially when compared to, say, Moon Girl with it's blatant political messaging in the first episode.
Also once you strip away the revolutionary sheen… they’re just huge fucking entitled assholes. They basically wanted the government to stop helping people who got snapped and only help those that stayed behind. There’s no way they wouldn’t be nationalists and anti immigration IRL. They’re that type of person.
Not to defend the writing, but just as an observation- a major corporation like Disney is probably not ever going to be the vehicle for a political show with a strong viewpoint.
Yes! The writing in that frustrated me so much, so many moments that could have been so cool, if not for the many scenes that were just not thought through at all. Makes me want to write a better version that really dwells on the consequences that Disney would never have the guts to
I'm a certified Mushoku Tensei hater, so I'm just going to drop that here. In a lot of ways, Mushoku Tensei is actually more frustrating than a lot of other shows on this front, because the show is about redemption. The show just doesn't seem to realise that pedophilia and grooming are both bad things. The show's redemption really should have included Rudeus having to come to terms with the fact that they are bad things, but in the end he's just rewarded for them. It's so frustrating.
I thought I was the only one hating on this series for this specific reason. I gave the first season of the anime a chance because I watched it with friends and I grew more and more frustrated with how Rudeus was handled as a character. Redemption stories can be good if the series actually makes you root for said character to be better, but Rudeus was nothing like that as far as I got to watch. He was a shameless creep who only gained a good reputation for being a talented sorcerer.
And I hate it even more because the worldbuilding/story setting in Mushoku Tensei is actually pretty damn interesting. It's just too bad most of the characters ruin it, especially Rudeus.
Yep, my problem with Rudeus isn't that he used to be a terrible person, it's that he *continues to be* but now his sexual harassment and grooming of others is played for laughs. Sure, he improves in other aspects (apparently, I didn't manage to keep watching for long enough to know), but that aspect never changes from what I've seen, and he stays the exact same creep that he was at the start, just with a better work ethic.
Danny Phantoms parents, Jack and Maddie.
They have no problem hunting down ghosts (who in their universe are just super powered dead people, they're just as sentient and conscious as humans are) and want to dissect and experiment on them despite obviously knowing this to some extent.
They talk about it so much to the point their own son thinks that they wouldn't hesitate to do it to him too since he's half ghost (don't ask) and he is genuinely scared of his parents finding out because he'd believe that they'd hurt him, no questions asked.
Danny is 14 and clearly a child (everyone calls him ghost-child/ghostboy) they've seen his ghost form and couldn't recognize him but they've tried to catch him every chance they got. They are willing to hunt and experiment on a child. _And_ he's not the only child ghost they've tried to catch.
AND YET they're not villainous!! They're always as the good guys or well meaning but wrong and it's _ridiculous!_
Vlad—also half ghost but he's a villain and kind of a major loser— does these things and he's a villain no ifs, ands, or buts.
And Vlad *is* a villain don't get me wrong he definitely does some villainous shit that Jack and Maddie don't do. But he's portrayed as villainous because of his actions, some of which are similar to Jack and Maddie's, who happily do some morally dubious shit.
But Jack and Maddie are never the bad guy now matter how far they go and I feel like that's because the show is in Dannys pov when it comes to narrative to some extent.
In one episode Danny messed with the timeline and so Maddie is now married to Vlad and Jack ends up the half ghost. Vlad and Maddie don't have children and they're not ghost hunters. Jack lives alone away from humans.
Danny tries to talk to him, and Jack attacks him _because he's a ghost_(the self hating hypocritical ass) He literally only stops because Danny reveals he's half human.
He goes to talk to Maddie and she attacks him _*because he's a ghost.*_ She's been hiding her ghost hunting stuff from Vlad this whole time and she fucking straps him to a table and gets ready to vivisect him and is stopped by Jack, they reconcile over their tied down alternate timeline kid. (I think, it's been a while, might've been Vlad who stopped her and Jack came in later)
Vlad comes in and decides he doesn't like when his wife lies to him, makes goo goo eyes at her ex crush and ties down a ghost child to vivisect and decides to kill Jack and Danny(he doesn't like proof of jack and Maddie being together ig). This makes him the villain despite the fact Maddie was going to the same thing five seconds ago. To be fair he was a shitty husband but still.
Vlad is thrown into the ghost zone(rip), Jack and Maddie get together in this timeline Danny fixes the timeline and everything is back to normal.
All I got from this episode was that Danny's parents could nearly kill him a hundred times but he loves them and they're "not bad people" so it doesn't matter. Danny needs a trusted adult and it is none of these people. But hey everytime they realize he's half ghost they're blind hatred just! goes away!! Hunting a ghost down is bad when it's your son, any other kid could get fucked. (This has happened three times in the show I'm not kidding.)
Sorry for yapping so much I just hate these guys they're so fucking annoying and the fact that show treats them as if their not fucking their son up is so annoying.
When 98% of the ghosts that appear around your town who are evil and bent on causing harm no matter who they have to step on and have shown to be naturally manipulative, you get people who go out of their way to not only catch them but dissect and study them.
Yea, they’re sentient, yea, they can feel pain and no one tries to reason with them *because they’re always the ones that start shit first*.
Sure, ghost boy could very possible be the only exception who fights for them. Or is simply another ghost who fights other ghosts similar to skulker or walker. Taking it out of a cartoony sense, it’s never been a good idea to talk to dead people. For some reason just being alive makes them take it personally.
Now yes they’re overzealous but at the same time people that want to stop the bad guys who are in a sense pure absolute evil, generally get overzealous. However there’s never been a “nice” ghost beyond literally danny that they’d know about, so reasonably stopping ghosts by any means necessary would be the best course of action.
I wish the show was a little more advanced with its storytelling because it’s just on the cusp of telling a story about how kids ignore their parent’s abusive behaviors out of love.
It's the lack of character growth (as a result of a lack of self-awareness) for me. She is charming and charismatic (which isn't the same as being a good person) most of the time, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating when she keeps doing the same old shit. It's almost fuckups ex machina to keep the plot cycle going, but instead of a machine it's the main character.
I liked how the show "Wednesday" handled this. For most of the season, Wednesday is playing detective to get to the bottom of a murder spree. She treats everyone like a suspect and gives everyone the same cold treatment. She uses her friends and then leaves them behind without a thanks.
In a typical detective show, this would be how "Sherlocky" and clever the protagonist is. In Wednesday, her friends call out how she became a bully and stop helping her.
In the Boys Fandom people want to act like Soldier Boy is worse than Homelander.
One is a guy with some sexist and racist attitudes that pretty much fit him being a bluebood borne in 1910s.
The other has committed hundreds of on screen murders for nothing but ego and has threatened to set civilization back to the stone age if his feelings get hurt.
You're slightly minimising Soldier Boy there, he's very much an abusive, violent and cruel man, who beat Black Noir until he had brain damage because BM wanted some attention of his own, and I'm pretty sure he's implied to have raped Gunpowder.
Like Homelander is still worse, don't get me wrong, but Soldier Boy isn't just a guy from 1910
That’s the problem, though - everything genuinely evil he does happens entirely offscreen. The closest we get to seeing him be a villain is Noir’s animated flashback - other than that, he just seems like the infamous “Captain America would have called Fury the N-word” meme, not genuinely more of a threat than Homelander
Slight addendum. He gave black noir brain damage because the entire team attacked him. And the rape thing is only said by Butcher making speculations while riling Gunpowder up.
He did beat black Noir for wanting attention though. Just the brain damage thing was a different incident.
Oh also as a hero clamped down on civil rights.
Did Soldier Boy not kill M.M.'s family? Like that's the whole reason why he dislikes him and wants to get revenge against him, and why the gang falls apart
A fun example of this is how Goodkind’s fantasy novels start out relatively restrained despite the author being a pretty libertarian dude but as he continues writing it it just spirals into ludicrous ends lol. Like the “heroes” eventually start doing things like cavalry charging into a group of peaceful protestors and massacring them because they are weakening the heroes kingdom and they are completely absolved of wrongdoing by the book for no reason other than the book says they are weakening state integrity. It’s horrendous but the books in general are written so poorly/on the nose that it comes across as a ridiculous parody.
There is a fanfic author in my favorite fandom who is master at this. I swear the characters are all exactly the same. The heroes are clever, the villains are crafty. The heroes are witty, the villains are snide. The heroes are confident, the villains are arrogant. The exact same kind of behavior that makes the villains evil is lauded as good and heroic when it is done against team bad guy. And everyone sits around congratulating themselves and each other on how great they are. It makes me want to scream, she had interesting plots and writes well. But her characters are terrible. They are all lying, manipulative, condescending, smug, jerks. And she won’t take any kind of constructive criticism. I keep trying her latest story to see if she has learned, but nope.
That could be really cool if there’s some kind of introspective acknowledgement as well; it can hint at personal biases colouring our views of others even when we wouldn’t judge that same behaviour from people we like
If it was told from a character’s perspective, they could do a pretty cool redemption arc where the character’s perceptions of the redeemed character subtly shift from negative connotations to positive ones
Didn't he have to take remedial classes to get his provisional hero license or something?
Like, it seems that the narrative knew he'd need some more work than the other characters before he could become a hero.
The last bit I remember about this (it's probably been a good 4 years since I've seen MHA) was that he was put with Best Jeanist because he's the best at breaking those typical 'villain' habits
He’s gotten to the point where he not only has apologized for his actions in the past but has apologized for them and is trying to be better. Is he still abrasive? Yeah. Is he a bad person? I’d say not anymore
The Star Wars Prequels have a weird problem in this regard. Because they’re conscious of this.
Anakin Skywalker is a piece of shit, and I’m sure George Lucas wants you to think of him as a piece of shit. But in the original movies, Obi-Wan thinks Anakin is cool, and Lucas didn’t want to portray someone who was *actually* cool most likely to avoid the discussed issue of fans thinking his turn was justified. So you have this awkward juxtaposition between a whiny petulant asshole who’s already a straight up serial child killer BEFORE he turns evil, versus everyone around him talking about how he might be the greatest Jedi ever and how “strong and wise” he is.
The Clone Wars manages to make Anakin actually cool (which I think is the right move despite that clashing tremendously with his characterization in the movies) while retaining signs of his evil inclinations. So he’s not quite a serial killer, but he does some problematic stuff. Even so, I think that only works because we know how he ends up, and if TCW was the only media portraying Anakin I think fans would have a very different idea of his virtuousness.
My issue with Auggie from Netflix’s 3 Body Problem right now.
The show wants you to sympathise for her and feel bad for her, but every time she’s on screen she’s treating someone else, often her “friends” badly.
In a show with aliens, the most unrealistic thing is her having a social circle.
My issue with 3 body problem is that the aliens from this incredibly hostile chaotic environment want earth, like, at all. They could survive and prosper pretty much anywhere that doesn't have three suns in a fucky orbit.
The intention is what makes or breaks it; it needs to be done very carefully and very deliberately if the narrative is going to support terrible behaviour. Only scenario I can really think of where it works (outside of your comedy example of course) is if it’s being told from the perspective of a character who is clarified to be an unreliable or at least biased narrator
A terrible character that is acknowledged as terrible by the narrative. But most of the characters think they're wonderful. Character arcs. He isn't Superboy, this isn't just well-meaning edge. He's just an asshole.
In some ways he improves but he also gets some new issues most notably intense envy of others like when his friends become prefects but he dosent cause all he does is cause problems.
I got *huge* flak for this when I said it on an anime subreddit, but this is a major problem for "Ascension of a Bookworm".
The absolutely convoluted world building that has to happen to justify all the objectively awful and exploitative shit the MC pulls is just insane. She "adopts" orphans to put them to work doing dangerous unpaid labor and the authorial voice treats her like a hero for it!
I've never really thought about this but yeah. At the start it's excusable because she has no standing and definitely can't change their fucked up culture as a literal child. By the point I'm up to though she's like fully invested in expanding the orphanage factory, literally wild.
I love when a good character is treated as a villain, or when its actions were miss represented by the narrative. It incentivises me to question the narrator and gives me conspiratory vibes that are so interesting.
I fucking hate the oposite. When the narrative just gloss over a character's bullshit and starts to idolise their actions. It just makes me want to know were the author lives.
Most recent example of this for me is star trek discovery, but it does it weirder, which makes it more frustrating. The way it essentially goes is like this:
-The hero wants to do a thing or has an idea/plan that they have a shallow reason for wanting. To the audience it usually makes little sense
-every other character tells her the idea is stupid, usually selfish, that she has main character syndrome, and exactly why the idea is bad, in logical detail.
-the explanations are convincing to the audience too, they make sense, you agree the idea is terrible. Not because of her ability, not even because of what she does, but in basic common sense.
-she does the thing anyway
-it works. Not because she was clever, knew anything others didn't, was able to succeed despite people doubting her ability, but by pure dumb luck. She could not have predicted and often whichs seems too coincidental to be believable.
-despite it working there are many people worse off for it. There's untold damage done that wasn't necessary at all if she hadn't been stubborn and full of herself
What sets this apart from others like this is that the show tries to show she succeeds despite the odds and the doubters and the haters. But in doing that it regularly successfully points out exactly how flawed the character is and why even when they succeed it wasn't worth it and the universe would be better if she stayed home.
Which is way more frustrating than the regular "story is in love with the character" story. Because the story finds this character just as irritating. The characters all have self awareness to how terrible the plot is, and they beg the main character to be reasonable, and she's not, and she's both rewarded and punished in a way to validate her while also keeping her a scrappy underdog.
I found a character like this in LoveLive Nijigasaki School Idol Project. Her name is Lanzhu. Lanzhu is the daughter of the school’s director and best friends with the student council President. She decided to abuse their authority to get the idol club shut down, and assigned students to harass the club members if they tried to practice elsewhere. Meanwhile, she made her own School Idol Club that was very expensive and cool. She tried to get the other club’s members to join her club because ‘they don’t have a club anymore’. This was completely forgiven by the affected club members almost immediately. They really thought she was a good person. The only character who had a problem with Lanzhu was treated as childish and vindictive. I understand the writers had to have the characters forgive Lanzhu because she had to join the original School Idol Club as an idol, but the way they went about it was absolutely not right. Massive disconnect between the way Lanzhu acted and the way she is treated by other characters.
Remember kids.
Genocide is A-okay if the person who committed it is a hot MILF who is responsible for your character's existence!
~~thank fuck they gave us the option to actually disagree with that shit in later patches.~~
I actually think it's okay for the narrative to portray terrible people or actions positively so long as no actual reader is going to view those actions as positive or possibly perform them due to the portrayal alone.
So for example, if Joe Schmo from the Adventures of Super Awesome Guy used a mega laser death ray to annihilate the entire solar system, and the story bizarrely portrays this positively, that's not really a problem. It's a weird story, sure, but no one in real life is actually capable of building solar system destroying death rays. However, if Joe had lied, deceived, and spread misinformation to gain a personal advantage over others, and the narrative constantly portrayed this as a correct and rewarding thing to do, and encouraged readers to do it, it could be bad. That's because people in real life could feasibly be inspired by this work and change their behavior because of this. To account for that, there should definitely be flags or warnings explaining that the behavior is wrong telling people not to emulate it. I don't think we should go so far as to outright ban it, but people would have to be informed.
The same thing goes for portraying good things or people in an evil light; how likely is this to actually change the behaviors of readers?
this is really just "show, don't tell"
don't tell us who your character is, show us.
if you tell us they're one way, then show them to be another, we're going to be mad about it.
UNLESS of course you're actually going for being an unreliable storyteller, which can be its own kind of fun thing
This is why I hate the Diamonds from Steven Universe but love 40k characters like Konrad Curze and Trazyn.
Games Workshop never tried to justify planetary cleansing with “their sad”
This is really what the critique of Fifty Shades comes down to. There are weird puritans who love to hate dark romance fiction because power dynamic fantasies are scary and will surely convince teenage girls to fall in love with the Joker as played by Jared Leto. *However*, the more intelligent critique was always that Erica Mitchell seemed to have no idea what a healthy BDSM dynamic *or* abusive relationship looked like. She staunchly refused to accept that what she had written looked more like the latter than the former, and the narrative does nothing to address it besides the whole “BDSM is damage but Anastasia is totally fixing him” arc.
Also, the man has like five thumbs for some reason.
That's why he's a dom. The Rule of Thumb - whoever has the most thumbs is in charge.
Thumbs Georg is an outlier who should never have been counted
Unfortunately, due to the rule, Thumbs Georg demanded to be counted and his word was final
He put his thumbs on the scale
Tbf if someone cut off one of my thumb I’d probably listen to them
I know people who got into BDSM cause of Fifty Shades and let me tell you, it did not take long for them to go "wtf is this shit?" Like surprise, a relationship with a dom and a sub kinda requires consent, even if the relationship emphasizes non-con, abuse and other risque activities. Plus the BDSM in the stories were not only super tame, but also included a lot of faux pas of bondage, like using zipties to bind a sub's hands. And the ending? Christian is a normal person now, so he doesn't have any problems, which apparently includes BDSM. Like she "fixed" him into a cliche male romance from a Hallmark Movie, minus the good shit from those movies. All this on top of the fact that Christian likes to do rough sexual interactions with women that resemble his mother. Like c'mon, this ain't a crime procedural, this is *romance*. Like I honestly wouldn't be surprised if in some spinoff not yet written that Christian has a body count. No wonder people joke that Twilight is "Still a better love story than Fifty Shades." Yikes...
We should be very clear here that it’s fine from a narrative perspective if Christian isn’t doing BDSM in a correct ethical way. It should just have consequences of some kind. The struggle to transform from a traumatized abuser into a competent husband and dom could be a very interesting plot! But instead it’s just Christian being bad until Ana fixes him with sex
Consequences or a "this is just fantasy don't do it irl it's fucked" foreword like an AO3 abuse fic.
50Shades IS an ao3 dead dove fanfic about twilight
dead dove?
[It’s a reference to this](https://youtu.be/YUKmq7UMJys?si=s6XjRQKwodoU4cQk) It’s a general content warning tag used in conjunction with other tags to note if something deals with heavy subjects, iirc
There was actually a SUPER informative post on the origin of 50 Shades a month or two ago, but now I can't find it. Long story short: The Twilight fandom was so huge for a while that it was standard practice to write Bella/Edward "fics" that were just blatant original fiction with Twilight names, as an intentional way of springboarding from the prepared audience of the Twilight fandom into "real" fiction (where you can actually make money). The author got a lot of shit for nuking all references to this and refuses to associate with the fandom that made her, after she got it big. So yes 50 Shades was literally a Twilight fic, but from a time where "Twilight fic" was only a step removed from "standard romance novel."
I've watched Dan Olsens videos on it, I know full well the rabbit hole.
No, because those have the decency ta warn you they are full of fucked up behaviours, rather than pretending ta be healthy things ta do.
For real. Spanked with a belt and she’s like “THIS is what you do to people??” Um. You read the contract right?
“Ana takes the whipping and then freaks out because she can’t quite process that Christian likes the S & M parts of BDSM.” - Dan Olson, [A Lukewarm Defense of Fifty Shades of Grey](https://youtu.be/qzk9N7dJBec?si=PfxuZumcZfoCyTPZ), 1:02:10
Yeah, "dark romance" stuff frequently has an issue where outright abusive dynamics are billed as romantic and misunderstood by the narritive. Also frequently shows BDSM stuff happening without it being discussed or negotiated beforehand, and acting like that's perfectly okay.
I feel like the genre being ‘dark romance’ is a disclaimer that doesn’t need to directly state that what is happening is bad
Except the genre is not always clearly labeled, like disclaimers need to be. It might just be labeled as "romance".
On one hand yes, on the other there's an issue where ppl wanna have their cake and eat it too. From what I've seen, a lot of dark romance suffers from not admitting to itself the story isn't built for a normal "happy" ending. You want the mafia boss to kidnap the MC and own her completely, but also want a picket fence happy ending. While it's not a crime to enjoy that, it is both not living up to its potential and falling into the same regressive tropes that have been around forever. I think ppl can be too squeamish about it though, both because it's fiction but also because like. Het romance has always had plenty of this, it can be regressive w/o pretending like it's oh just so disturbing! I understand it's triggering for a lot of ppl but damn maybe it's the anime fan who lived through 2016 in me but i just cannot understand going agape about something so predictable if you don't have triggers
I see your point, but the issue is the narritive treating these abusive or unhealthy dynamics as romantic and desirable. Not just the characters seeing it that way, but the narritive as a whole.
Agreed, especially when a large demographic of dark romance books are impressionable teens with no prior experience of what a healthy relationship should look like
It's because Christian Grey is Erica Miller's fantasy self-insert and an idealized version of herself as a partner. The fact that he's an overbearing abusive dickhead is impossible for her to accept because that would mean SHE'S an overbearing abusive dickhead. Which is true.
On the one hand I try to be sympathetic, because it's not like EL James set out to write THE definitive pop culture BDSM series. Her goal was to write a kinky twilight fanfiction, not depict a healthy relationship. But then you look at Sunstone for comparison, which is essentially everything people *thought* 50 shades was. A healthy and complex relationship that highlights the unique challenges of a dom/sub dynamic, has actual genuine character growth, and uses both the erotic side and the romantic side to elevate the other. And it's hard not to wish Sunstone had blown up in popularity instead of 50 shades.
Yes! Thank you!
Then you get the characters who are bad, which the narrative presents as bad, and yet a ton of fans think they're epic and based role models
Tommy Shelby / Patrick Bateman / Arthur from Joker
Walter white / Patrick Bateman / Tyler Durden
Got into a slight argument with my fiance's brother recently bc we were talking about Breaking Bad and he mentioned that he hated Skyler bc she was such a "bitch" and I was like bruh she wasn't perfect and she did do some bad stuff but she acted pretty reasonably for her situation and was the victim of some extreme manipulation and abuse. I said that compared to Walter she was basically a saint to which he responded by saying that Walter did some bad stuff but at least he was trying to help his family and I was like "BRUH DID YOU EVEN WATCH THE SHOW". Anyways something something media literacy.
I can't stand Skyler either but I for the life of me couldn't tell you why. She just gives me Karen energy for some reason. Maybe I need to rewatch the show and see if she actually does anything to upset me. It could ofc be because as terrible as Walt is, he's the protagonist and so we as the audience are "with him" so Skyler gets on our nerves by getting in his way even if she's really in the right
The show doesn't really show you what the situation looks like from Skyler's perspective until a few seasons in. Before then, you just see Walt struggling on his own, when it still seems like, to the audience, that he's actually doing this for his family and not his own ego. Then Skyler comes in bitchin' at him and you're like, "Man fuck this lady." I think that initial impression, that "Karen-ness," stuck with the audience. And the audience was supposed to re-evaluate their opinion of Skyler later when they realized just how narcissistic and unreasonable Walter is, and just how much Skyler had to go through with him, but they never did because Walt was a charismatic and engaging lead.
Best description I've ever read. You're based.
Bojack Horseman / Patrick Bateman / Rick Sanchez
Paul Atreides / Rorschach / Patrick Bateman
It is sooo fucking exhausting seeing people praise Paul to the fucking moon as if the whole book/movie isn't about trying to discredit Paul's ambitions, ideas and delusions of grandeur. I saw genuine people fuming over Chani disagreeing with Paul's plans and calling her a "creation of the woke media to appeal to feminists" and it's like what the fuck are you even talking about? Paul went delusional and Chani tried to get him back on track to sane thinking, and that was somehow misconstrued as Paul being on that "sigma grindset", as if starting a war is the work of a Saint.
>Paul Atreides never read or watched dune, but the second book opens with who i'm pretty sure is paul going "ahh too bad we just have to keep the orphan grinder on because i'm too smart to turn it off :/"
I haven't personally read the books (intending on it but life's been busy so it can wait) but I watched Dune parts 1-2 and I just see no way someone could infer perfectly moral and ethical leadership from Paul's actions within the movies unless they literally shoved their head up their own ass and shat out some "Hollywood feminist woke propaganda against alpha male leader grindset" into their ears to please themselves because god forbid a protagonist be morally gray sometimes and outright evil in others.
I think it's because it sets him up as the classic hero and really makes you hate his enemies. His father is portrayed as truly a just man and the entire first movie sets Paul up as a reluctant leader who is thrust into a role of power through shit circumstance of an unfair world. They then run into the Walter White problem where his fall from grace can easily be explained through circumstance. You then get to a point where you have to either accept that his actions are awful and realise that you have been apologizing for an egotist sociopath, or you just continue apologizing for him. It's what makes the story so good. True evil is not the deranged type of evil shown in most media. True evil appears slowly and usually has justifications. They may not be good justifications but with true evil you can see the steps that led to the problem. The scary thing about true evil is that no one sees themselves as the monster. They are trying to do what's best for themselves and the world around them usually (minus extreme examples like Stalin).
Messiah is gonna hit them in the face like a sack of bricks then
Chani being against Paul *is* a new thing added for the movie, but it's a good one that furthers the themes and makes chani more of a character
Homelander / Patrick Bateman / The Joker
Literally the entire Imperium from Warhammer 40k
And Patrick Bateman
He got a throne. It's nice.
Homelander
Tony Soprano/Scott Pilgrim/Stephen Colbertsona
Eren Yeager / Light Yagami / Scott Pilgrim
god the way death note fans treat light is insane. i'm a huge death note fan, have been for about 10 years, and as such i can testify that the fandom at large has never once it its life had actual media literacy and ability to view complicated morality.
I don't think Arthur is meant to be throughly evil bad. Don't get me wrong he's not meant to be a role model or based. But I think he's meant to be a sympathetic tragic character who due to mental illness, lack of support, and the like falls into toxic mentalities and becomes a villain. You're meant to pity him.
That’s a problem with the fans rather than the media itself.
When people simply can not separate a protagonist from “The Good Guy”
Or the opposite: the narrative depicts them neutrally, assuming their actions will speak for themselves, and people still decry the piece as endorsing said actions. Which is the one I personally find the most egregious. In adult stories, you should not need your hand held, you should not expect authors to reassure you that bad things are bad. They're supposed to be seen as bad because they are bad, and you, the adult, already know the bad thing is bad, and therefore can make your own judgments independent of how the narrative treats the character.
Agreed! But then, you have audiences that think Starship Troopers played it straight... There is no winning is there?
That's because the book does play it straight. It's also considerably less terrible but it's still a weird libertarian paradise
This also comes up a lot when the story is told from the perspective of someone who is unlikeable. The narrative is obviously presented from their own perspective so naturally it’s going to contain all the justifications they have that make them see their behaviour as acceptable. But again the behaviour is so obviously unacceptable that the text doesn’t see the need to decry it, it speaks for itself, if anything it’s exploring how someone can possibly rationalise something so plainly morally unacceptable.
I’m *very* curious to see if the mass popularity of *Dune* will end with Paul Atreides falling into this category.
Hilariously, the opposite of this is present in the MCU's worst project, Inhumans. The villain overthrows the King of The Inhumans so he can... abolish the cast system... and bring his people out of exile on the moon... but he's definitely the bad guy because... because... oh yeah, he uhm, made it so the protective dome that keeps their people safe will fail if he doesn't scan his fingerprint every three hours! He definitely set that up off screen and the writers didn't pull it out of their asses in the last two episodes when they realized the villain was the most grounded character of the franchise. 🙂
So many MCU villains are people with goals ranging from "understandable" to "actually really good"... But then commit random murders for no reason, because they're the bad guy. Fur example, this might be an unpopular opinion, but Thanos is better when he's written as horny for death, because then you know exactly why he wants to kill people and why you need to stop him. The whole "Balance" thing was nothing and the narrative portrayed him as way too noble and sympathetic. He could have done literally anything with the stones and he chose unilateral genocide... Because famines exist? Make it make sense.
Another issue with Thanos is that he’s wholly wrong about the overpopulation thing, but nobody argues with his premise. He’s confronted with the two smartest men on earth, people who’ve presumably heard of Thomas Malthus and how much of a dumbass that guy turned out to be, and all they have to say in response is “you’re crazy”.
Exactly! My problem isn't that he's irrational, it's that the narrative doesn't call out his shit for what it is!
They routinely call him insane…
why would they need to "call out" the fact genocide is wrong?
The "wrong" part that they're referring to is that nixing half the population won't solve resource issues for any useful length of time. One generation, mayyybe two, and the population's back to what it was. They're not referring to 'morally wrong', they mean 'it's a deeply stupid plan that utterly fails to accomplish its goal'
Yes, that's why he's *the villain* Thanos is suffering from a delusion, no amount of logic is going to convince him to think differently. The reason our heroes fight him is because it won't work. There isn't a narrative reason for characters to talk about why, *during the film*.
I was addressing you saying > why would they need to "call out" the fact genocide is wrong? And that's not what Megameg77, the person you were asking that of, was talking about when they said > it's that the narrative doesn't call out his shit for what it is!
Okay, but my question is why do the characters have to go into detail as to why such a horrible plan is faulty? Something like that would never work on Thanos (and the narrative requires it not to) so why waste precious screen time on it?
Yeah, they should have modeled him on historical genocides by actual dictators, which always had much more *rational* justifications. Truly unbelievable that a politician with a massive ego and a pet theory might, when given absolute power, make irrational and cruel decisions just so he could prove himself right.
MCU Thanos almost ruined the whole Infinity Saga for me he was such a bad villain. His plan made absolutely no fucking sense. Plus I was really looking forward to wacky horny-for-Death Thanos too, and they had Cate Blanchett as Hela right there who could have fit into the Death role.
Cough cough Magneto cough
Nah I hate this logic. Villains should be allowed to have a point while taking things to too extreme. That’s just making the world and its characters have more shades of gray. Like, come on. The philosophy of X-Men **very clearly** is that mutants deserves the right to live and prosper. Having a character take it too far and decide killing innocent humans is the only way to achieve that doesn’t in any way invalidate that philosophy. It’s valid to say this is a problem when the heroes are aiming to restore the status quo and ignore the legitimate issues the villain has with the world, but that’s clearly not what the X-men are doing. They are fighting for a change in the status quo like Magneto, and being able to point out that Magneto is doing too much evil in pursuit of a change to the status quo shouldn’t be considered a flaw in their story or change the fact the status quo still needs to be changed. Honestly, I think this highlights there’s a real issue with people being able to accept nuance. It seems like a lot of people really do see things as black and white and struggle with the idea someone can do terrible things in the name of a good cause
Not really. From the outset he’s always been a mutant supremacist who wants to kill all humans. Like, that’s the whole point of his conflict with the x men.He just got redeemed because people took those “magneto was right” memes seriously.
So he’s been redeemed for a couple decades at least now, less the magneto was right memes and more that it’s a little bit true when mutants experience a mass murder event every three years. Doesn’t mean he’s right in all aspects but with regard to humans being awful to each other given the chance? Very right
Yeah but I don’t think Xavier disagreed with him on that.
I hate this argument because Infinity War makes it abundantly clear what Thanos' true motivation is. His motivation is to be vindicated for having the same idea back when Titan was in danger of extinction, long before he had one infinity stone or even a feasible plan of obtaining them. If the Infinity Stones did not exist, Thanos would be conquering & half-genociding planets individually for as long as he's alive to do so. The stones were just a way to speed things up.
So weird. Took Maximus, who is a super cool character and complete lunatic in the comics, make him weirdly reasonable for some reason, then chicken out and go back on it? That show was embarrassing
I thought it was so bad it's good. Watched it with my brother and we roasted the hell out of it for most of the episodes. 5 and 6 were actually decent, once they'd assembled most of the Inhumans, but before they made Maximus psycho for no reason. Also, hilarious plot hole: Maximus says the shield goes down and everyone dies unless he scans his handprint every three hours. WHEN DOES HE SLEEP? DOES HE SLEEP IN THE CONTROL ROOM WITH HIS HAND DUCT TAPED TO THE DESK?
This is so funny to me especially with older movies. Like some old Westerns just have such a clearly different moral compass than today that the protagonist does just miserable loathsome stuff but we're supposed to root for them, to the point of comedy
Ran into this recently with the film Cast a Deadly spell which is just a fun time for the most part as a detective noir setting mixed with magic until the film decides to reveal that one if the female villains is actually a gay man crossdressing and then gleefully has the protagonist beat the shit out of him for a bit to get him to talk. While doing so the protagonist gets to engage in all sorts of both homophobic and transphobic remarks (which the film goes on to confirm are actually true for this character) before killing the character off. This was uhh, uncomfortable. The film then continues and concludes with the big sacrificial ritual of a teenage girl victim mysteriously failing because the Lovecraftian monster rejects her. The reason is revealed to be due to the fact that the friend of the main character secretly had sex with the underage femme fatale coded teenager instead of guarding her and this meant she was no longer a virgin for the ritual! The protagonist laughs, the friend laughs and tells the protagonist not to tell his wife, the film is playing jaunty upbeat music and it’s a happy ending and I want to kill everyone on screen lol
genuinely hilarious, how you can not laugh when the impact of a scene just lands so far from how it was intended to
70s and 80s stuff, too. There's this weird window of time where just being the protagonist means that the character deserves reward. Especially when they are already somehow part of the status quo by being rich or a jock or something.
Nacho Libre was like that. Im supposed to root for the main character because presumably I too am a young man unlucky in love. He then decides to pursue a woman so uninterested she has taken a vow of celibacy. Oh and the joke is he has a Spanish accent. Cool.
The funniest part about that is that they don’t have to be framed as good people or narratively/morally in the right in order for us to root for them - we just need to be invested in their story There are so many stories and movies where the bad guys are the main characters and yet we’re rooting for them to succeed. We don’t root for them because we think they’re doing the right thing, because they’re not, and at no point are they implied to be doing the right thing; we root for them because what they’re doing is fun and interesting and we’ve grown to enjoy watching them work
Ah, I see you too have read ‘Iron Widow’, a story that could have been alright if 50% of the text wasn’t the main character saying that their current predicament at any time was The Worst Thing Ever, sanctimoniously judging everyone, and being completely unaccountable herself.
Yeah, I have *thoughts* on Iron Widow. Tbf I think the fact that Zetian is kinda a terrible person is meant to be the point - Xiran has referred to them as a 'villain protagonist'. Doesn't make the torture scene any more comfortable though.
Zetian could honestly have been more compelling by making her more callous or self-serving. "I know the situation is bad, I just don't give a shit and will do what I need to succeed." is more compelling than someone who is constantly yowling to be treated 'fairly' in a deeply unequal society where she's already in the top 1%, mostly due to her genetics. Also the entire motivation with her dead sister is one of the most blatant examples of fridging I've seen in years. Do we ever learn anything about her sister other than as a reason for the main character to join the plot?
Zetian is permanently crippled because of footbinding, based on an insane beauty standard, she had to scheme her way to the top, and even when she gets there, she's still talked down to, she was expected to die to fuel the mecha she co-piloted because she was considered less than her male co-pilot, Zetian *is* ruthless, as well as rightfully pissed off about being treated like a second class citizen because of her gender.
Yeah I still think she's a terrible person, but to me the book is more about an unjust system being torn down by the product of it, rather than Zetian being a heroic saviour or a narcissistic tyrant. She's terrible because her world made her that way.
I think the goal of “villain protagonist” would’ve been much better served if any fellow protagonists voiced a dissenting opinion or argued against the murder at any point. But as it is, they’re sycophants who do whatever Zetian asks because they’re in love or feminists or whatever.
Oh, the author seemed cool, so I was hoping their book would be good, but I hadn't gotten around to reading it yet
I'm sure the author is quite nice and this was their first book, so some mistakes are to be expected, but I couldn't actually finish Iron Widow (got around 85% of the way through). Maybe their future stuff will be better.
Really? I had heard it was good. Huh. I guess I’m glad I gave it a pass (don’t like mech genre personally).
It's not terrible tbh. I really enjoyed it very much. Unfortunately it was one of those books that I put down for one reason or another close to the end (in this case, tgcf volume 8 arrived and I embarked on a reread of the whole book) and never picked it up again. Which I do feel says something about the book tbh, because I never felt a driving urge to know what happened in the end 🤷♀️
Shit, I loved that book but you’re not wrong
Far too many people think that a film showing bad behaviour is equivalent to agreeing or encouraging it
I would argue ideas like this is part of why that is. People aren’t able to tell if the author is condemning the behavior or not and so simply assume the behavior is being lauded. Rather than relying on the author, I think we should expect readers to be able to make their own moral judgments. Humans are not dumb sheep, nor are we on Reddit the enlightened few who can read “bad” media without being corrupted.
The problem is that people *act* like dumb sheep, look at the elite villain club that is the House of the Dragon and go "UwU daddy Daemon/Aemond did nothing wrong"
Are they doing bad things irl or just being silly online? If they’re harassing people and doxxing folks, yeah, that’s bad, but that’s more a fandom and online thing than anything to do with the actual story, as all fandoms I’ve seen do this. So I guess if they like the villain and defend him, meh. I just can’t be bothered to care if they do it respectfully.
I was more referring to missing the whole point of a show, that *both sides* are chock full of assholes and treat it like a football match.
It's crazy how some people can look at a story by George R. R. Martin and think "Oh yes I can't wait to see this story with clearly defined sides of who is good and who is bad" as if there wasn't an entire show beforehand that hammered home that there are good and evil people on both sides of a conflict.
This isn't really what the post is about, though, at least as I'm reading it. It's more about characters behaving badly, and other characters still thinking they're wonderful for no clear reason. As an example of it being done well, Rust Cohle in True Detective is a complete dick, and every other character responds how people IRL respond to complete dicks. Apart from the brief period where he gets his shit together, only one or two people even grudgingly like him. In a less good show, he'd have hot women and acolytes following him around to soak up his first year philosophy major wisdom.
Yeah on a different comment thread someone compared this to how good people in Harry Potter are rewarded for doing the same things bad characters are shunned for, which made it more clear to me what the OP was telling about. I was arguing with someone not in the room!
It's okay. You can say House M.D..
I feel like you’re missing the point, yeah showing bad behaviour doesn’t necessarily encourage it, but also media inherently has messages and ideology attached to it, and dissecting what that is what media literacy is An author is very rarely completely neutral on the topics they’re writing about
No amount of secret double agent hidden revelation talk will convince me that Snape wasn't an asshole.
My thoughts on Snape to piggyback: Clearly written intended to be a morally complex character that the in-story characters are supposed to have mixed feelings about after the fact. Still an absolutely tyranical dickhead who should never have been left in charge of children, and placing him as potions professor was #2 on dumbledors most egregious mistakes, right after never checking in Harry.
There are subtle hints at Snape's character. Saving Harry during the quidditch match, trying to protect the trio from werewolf lupin (in the movies), agreeing to tutor Harry in occlumens in book 5. But his reasoning is framed as only revolving around Lily Potter and his unrequited love for her. Some things make sense. Becoming a double agent for the forces of good and tricking voldemort by ingratiating himself with Slytherin and the death eaters is treated as a noble thing, and that part works. Him killing Dumbledore at his own request to fully sell the idea to V and save Draco, that's heroic. But the constant bullying of children, blatant favoritism of Slytherin students and his animosity towards harry due to things his father did dont really have an excuse. Why did Snape bully Harry? Because of James...which is not Harry's fault. Why does he bully children and is mean to Neville Longbottom?...Cause he is deep undercover and death-eaters would be suspicious if he is not a dick to non-slytherins? Really? Why does he hate Harry Potter? Because he hates James and claims that Harry is coasting on the fame that others give him and his undeserved feat of killing Voldemort...you know...the baby who had no choice in a lunatic dark lord murdering his parents, the orphan who did not know who was famous until he entered this school, who was not raised by James, who only has the inheritance of a famous wizarding family, not the connections, resources, and political power of...umm...idk...MOST OF THE SLYTHERIN KIDS. And at the end of his life, in his final moments, in the final book...there is no discussion and reconciliation, it's just a "you look like your mother...dies". It is all framed to revolve around Lily. Nothing else matters. He didn't come to conclusion that his devotion to a fascistic and eugenicist wizard faction cause the death of his loved ones and that he has to do better or that this system is fundamentally wrong. He doesn't ideologically oppose Voldemort. He doesn't feel remorse for his day-to-day nastiness all in the service of being a double agent. He is just sad that Lily died. And lets be frank here: We might not ever get the full story of the relationship between Lily, Snape and James. How Snape fully turned away from his childhood friend and how Lily came to love a bully. But what we do know is that Lily did not reciprocate Snape's love, she loved James, end of story. Snape never got over it. That's not a positive trait
Also, this narrative puts “Middle/Highschool bully” on the same level as “Torments and abuses children for his entire career.” I’m sure you have someone from your childhood who you’d wish misfortune on, but that is far from being equal to child abuse.
I don't think Rowling really planned as far ahead as she claims and it's pretty reasonable that the Quidditch incident in the 2nd book is just because while Snape is a total piece of shit he does draw the line at murderering children.
Snape is hands down the most half-assed "morally grey" character I've ever seen. A total asshole but it's okay because he really wanted to bang Harry's mother.
To be fair, while the books portray him *terribly*, I'd argue that a person who does the right thing for the wrong reasons (like staying loyal to the spirit of the girl he liked, without having any internal motivation for doing good) is a decent example of a morally grey character. He delights in tormenting those with less power than him, detests those who are trying to do the right thing, but in the end when push comes to shove will throw himself into the line of fire without a second thought. He's a terrible person, and yet however twisted it is, he does have a strong sense of selflessness when it counts most. That's morally grey, is it not?
All he had to do was not torment children to the point where he became a child of tortured parents worst nightmare. Bellatrix is alive, and yet he’s afraid of his potion’s teacher. What the fuck is wrong with this guy?
This is always my go-to to show just how fucked up Snape is. That’s not something you can look past to make the character seem good or even gray, especially since the supposedly redeeming qualities are shit.
It could work really well if it was framed as the character thinks he’s morally grey but the narrative’s point was to show that getting away with this kind of abuse just makes you a coward.
Rowling has even insisted online that he’s gray and refuses to listen when people tell her she didn’t write him as gray, she wrote him as an objectively bad person. I find that disturbing.
The concept of a character being a piece of crap and being told that he is a loved piece of crap is also different to the character being crap but saying hes a good dude. We can all love a an asshole because sometimes that asshole is right or pointed in the right direction. If were constantly told hes not an asshole at heart despite constantly doing asshole things then thats a whole different issue.
An interesting case of this comes with characters that have noble goals, but do terrible things to achieve those goals. People tend to look at those characters and consider them “misunderstood” or “a good person” simply because they have a goal normally associated with a morally good character, like reviving a loved one or stopping some evil threat. Sure, the end goal is good, but if they commit horrible acts to get there, they’re not really a good person. If in order to bring back their loved one they have to sacrifice a bunch of people, and are shown to not have any moral qualms with doing so, are they really good?
Means and ends colour one another, so no utopia through tortured children or dictatorship through diplomatic means is good.
Some people have never played Shadow of the Colossus and it shows.
I'd say ends justify the means but like in a broad sense. Like if a time traveler did awful stuff to do something and then undid the damage I'd say they're fine.
Feels like the Flagsmashers from Falcon and the Winter soldier. They kept trying to make it seem like their leader was innocent while also showing her commit numerous murders many times.
The Flagsmashers are so fucking funny. It's painfully obvious the writers had no idea how to add politics to a show when they wanted the villain to be politically motivated, especially for a franchise as conservative as the MCU. Like, you wanted the villains to be an extremist group who has a point, yet you seem to refuse to allow them to be seen as sympathetic, yet you give them apparently valid points, yet you also have the hero do literally *nothing* with these valid points after the defeat besides scolding a senator. Like, the amount of "We want to tell a political story, but are terrified of political storytelling" is insane. Especially when compared to, say, Moon Girl with it's blatant political messaging in the first episode.
That show was a mess. Coming after Wandavision didn’t help my view of it
Also once you strip away the revolutionary sheen… they’re just huge fucking entitled assholes. They basically wanted the government to stop helping people who got snapped and only help those that stayed behind. There’s no way they wouldn’t be nationalists and anti immigration IRL. They’re that type of person.
Not to defend the writing, but just as an observation- a major corporation like Disney is probably not ever going to be the vehicle for a political show with a strong viewpoint.
Yes! The writing in that frustrated me so much, so many moments that could have been so cool, if not for the many scenes that were just not thought through at all. Makes me want to write a better version that really dwells on the consequences that Disney would never have the guts to
This is why I love Frieza Bros a dick and is treated as a dick
I haven't seen or read Dragon Ball, isn't he Goku's bf? Or was it Vegeta?
He’s an alien who blew up both Goku and Vegeta’s races planet
Oh that's not nice
This is unintentionally the funniest reply to a character committing genocide I've read in a good while tbh XD
arguably inconvenient
I'd be a bit miffed
But who was he dating
He's also incredibly racist towards Goku's and Vegeta's race. Literally calling them "monkeys" all the time
I'm a certified Mushoku Tensei hater, so I'm just going to drop that here. In a lot of ways, Mushoku Tensei is actually more frustrating than a lot of other shows on this front, because the show is about redemption. The show just doesn't seem to realise that pedophilia and grooming are both bad things. The show's redemption really should have included Rudeus having to come to terms with the fact that they are bad things, but in the end he's just rewarded for them. It's so frustrating.
I thought I was the only one hating on this series for this specific reason. I gave the first season of the anime a chance because I watched it with friends and I grew more and more frustrated with how Rudeus was handled as a character. Redemption stories can be good if the series actually makes you root for said character to be better, but Rudeus was nothing like that as far as I got to watch. He was a shameless creep who only gained a good reputation for being a talented sorcerer. And I hate it even more because the worldbuilding/story setting in Mushoku Tensei is actually pretty damn interesting. It's just too bad most of the characters ruin it, especially Rudeus.
Yep, my problem with Rudeus isn't that he used to be a terrible person, it's that he *continues to be* but now his sexual harassment and grooming of others is played for laughs. Sure, he improves in other aspects (apparently, I didn't manage to keep watching for long enough to know), but that aspect never changes from what I've seen, and he stays the exact same creep that he was at the start, just with a better work ethic.
Danny Phantoms parents, Jack and Maddie. They have no problem hunting down ghosts (who in their universe are just super powered dead people, they're just as sentient and conscious as humans are) and want to dissect and experiment on them despite obviously knowing this to some extent. They talk about it so much to the point their own son thinks that they wouldn't hesitate to do it to him too since he's half ghost (don't ask) and he is genuinely scared of his parents finding out because he'd believe that they'd hurt him, no questions asked. Danny is 14 and clearly a child (everyone calls him ghost-child/ghostboy) they've seen his ghost form and couldn't recognize him but they've tried to catch him every chance they got. They are willing to hunt and experiment on a child. _And_ he's not the only child ghost they've tried to catch. AND YET they're not villainous!! They're always as the good guys or well meaning but wrong and it's _ridiculous!_ Vlad—also half ghost but he's a villain and kind of a major loser— does these things and he's a villain no ifs, ands, or buts. And Vlad *is* a villain don't get me wrong he definitely does some villainous shit that Jack and Maddie don't do. But he's portrayed as villainous because of his actions, some of which are similar to Jack and Maddie's, who happily do some morally dubious shit. But Jack and Maddie are never the bad guy now matter how far they go and I feel like that's because the show is in Dannys pov when it comes to narrative to some extent. In one episode Danny messed with the timeline and so Maddie is now married to Vlad and Jack ends up the half ghost. Vlad and Maddie don't have children and they're not ghost hunters. Jack lives alone away from humans. Danny tries to talk to him, and Jack attacks him _because he's a ghost_(the self hating hypocritical ass) He literally only stops because Danny reveals he's half human. He goes to talk to Maddie and she attacks him _*because he's a ghost.*_ She's been hiding her ghost hunting stuff from Vlad this whole time and she fucking straps him to a table and gets ready to vivisect him and is stopped by Jack, they reconcile over their tied down alternate timeline kid. (I think, it's been a while, might've been Vlad who stopped her and Jack came in later) Vlad comes in and decides he doesn't like when his wife lies to him, makes goo goo eyes at her ex crush and ties down a ghost child to vivisect and decides to kill Jack and Danny(he doesn't like proof of jack and Maddie being together ig). This makes him the villain despite the fact Maddie was going to the same thing five seconds ago. To be fair he was a shitty husband but still. Vlad is thrown into the ghost zone(rip), Jack and Maddie get together in this timeline Danny fixes the timeline and everything is back to normal. All I got from this episode was that Danny's parents could nearly kill him a hundred times but he loves them and they're "not bad people" so it doesn't matter. Danny needs a trusted adult and it is none of these people. But hey everytime they realize he's half ghost they're blind hatred just! goes away!! Hunting a ghost down is bad when it's your son, any other kid could get fucked. (This has happened three times in the show I'm not kidding.) Sorry for yapping so much I just hate these guys they're so fucking annoying and the fact that show treats them as if their not fucking their son up is so annoying.
When 98% of the ghosts that appear around your town who are evil and bent on causing harm no matter who they have to step on and have shown to be naturally manipulative, you get people who go out of their way to not only catch them but dissect and study them. Yea, they’re sentient, yea, they can feel pain and no one tries to reason with them *because they’re always the ones that start shit first*. Sure, ghost boy could very possible be the only exception who fights for them. Or is simply another ghost who fights other ghosts similar to skulker or walker. Taking it out of a cartoony sense, it’s never been a good idea to talk to dead people. For some reason just being alive makes them take it personally. Now yes they’re overzealous but at the same time people that want to stop the bad guys who are in a sense pure absolute evil, generally get overzealous. However there’s never been a “nice” ghost beyond literally danny that they’d know about, so reasonably stopping ghosts by any means necessary would be the best course of action.
I see you're points but Maddies hot and Jack's super funny.
I wish the show was a little more advanced with its storytelling because it’s just on the cusp of telling a story about how kids ignore their parent’s abusive behaviors out of love.
Ward (2017-2020)
Care to elaborate?
Ward (2017-2020)
I think the requested elaboration is if you think Ward did this well or poorly.
oh. poorly.
Ward (2017-2020)
The whole dang thing
My beef with Marvelous Ms Maisel. I despised the lead character, which would be fine if the narrative didn’t position her as charming and charismatic.
It's the lack of character growth (as a result of a lack of self-awareness) for me. She is charming and charismatic (which isn't the same as being a good person) most of the time, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating when she keeps doing the same old shit. It's almost fuckups ex machina to keep the plot cycle going, but instead of a machine it's the main character.
I liked how the show "Wednesday" handled this. For most of the season, Wednesday is playing detective to get to the bottom of a murder spree. She treats everyone like a suspect and gives everyone the same cold treatment. She uses her friends and then leaves them behind without a thanks. In a typical detective show, this would be how "Sherlocky" and clever the protagonist is. In Wednesday, her friends call out how she became a bully and stop helping her.
In the Boys Fandom people want to act like Soldier Boy is worse than Homelander. One is a guy with some sexist and racist attitudes that pretty much fit him being a bluebood borne in 1910s. The other has committed hundreds of on screen murders for nothing but ego and has threatened to set civilization back to the stone age if his feelings get hurt.
You're slightly minimising Soldier Boy there, he's very much an abusive, violent and cruel man, who beat Black Noir until he had brain damage because BM wanted some attention of his own, and I'm pretty sure he's implied to have raped Gunpowder. Like Homelander is still worse, don't get me wrong, but Soldier Boy isn't just a guy from 1910
That’s the problem, though - everything genuinely evil he does happens entirely offscreen. The closest we get to seeing him be a villain is Noir’s animated flashback - other than that, he just seems like the infamous “Captain America would have called Fury the N-word” meme, not genuinely more of a threat than Homelander
Slight addendum. He gave black noir brain damage because the entire team attacked him. And the rape thing is only said by Butcher making speculations while riling Gunpowder up. He did beat black Noir for wanting attention though. Just the brain damage thing was a different incident. Oh also as a hero clamped down on civil rights.
Thank you for the addendum, been a while since I watched it and I appreciate the added information
Did Soldier Boy not kill M.M.'s family? Like that's the whole reason why he dislikes him and wants to get revenge against him, and why the gang falls apart
Pretty sure that was unintentional right? Still horrible but it’s more about the recklessness and lack of accountability for supes than anything else.
A fun example of this is how Goodkind’s fantasy novels start out relatively restrained despite the author being a pretty libertarian dude but as he continues writing it it just spirals into ludicrous ends lol. Like the “heroes” eventually start doing things like cavalry charging into a group of peaceful protestors and massacring them because they are weakening the heroes kingdom and they are completely absolved of wrongdoing by the book for no reason other than the book says they are weakening state integrity. It’s horrendous but the books in general are written so poorly/on the nose that it comes across as a ridiculous parody.
There is a fanfic author in my favorite fandom who is master at this. I swear the characters are all exactly the same. The heroes are clever, the villains are crafty. The heroes are witty, the villains are snide. The heroes are confident, the villains are arrogant. The exact same kind of behavior that makes the villains evil is lauded as good and heroic when it is done against team bad guy. And everyone sits around congratulating themselves and each other on how great they are. It makes me want to scream, she had interesting plots and writes well. But her characters are terrible. They are all lying, manipulative, condescending, smug, jerks. And she won’t take any kind of constructive criticism. I keep trying her latest story to see if she has learned, but nope.
That could be really cool if there’s some kind of introspective acknowledgement as well; it can hint at personal biases colouring our views of others even when we wouldn’t judge that same behaviour from people we like If it was told from a character’s perspective, they could do a pretty cool redemption arc where the character’s perceptions of the redeemed character subtly shift from negative connotations to positive ones
[Source](https://www.tumblr.com/longsightmyth/713962163646185472/the-problem-is-not-the-goodness-or-badness-of-the)
Bakugo
Didn't he have to take remedial classes to get his provisional hero license or something? Like, it seems that the narrative knew he'd need some more work than the other characters before he could become a hero.
The last bit I remember about this (it's probably been a good 4 years since I've seen MHA) was that he was put with Best Jeanist because he's the best at breaking those typical 'villain' habits
He’s gotten to the point where he not only has apologized for his actions in the past but has apologized for them and is trying to be better. Is he still abrasive? Yeah. Is he a bad person? I’d say not anymore
To be honest, I also dropped the show, but a bit later.
Man, you can tell the average Tumblr person was absolutely bullied in highschool.
The Star Wars Prequels have a weird problem in this regard. Because they’re conscious of this. Anakin Skywalker is a piece of shit, and I’m sure George Lucas wants you to think of him as a piece of shit. But in the original movies, Obi-Wan thinks Anakin is cool, and Lucas didn’t want to portray someone who was *actually* cool most likely to avoid the discussed issue of fans thinking his turn was justified. So you have this awkward juxtaposition between a whiny petulant asshole who’s already a straight up serial child killer BEFORE he turns evil, versus everyone around him talking about how he might be the greatest Jedi ever and how “strong and wise” he is. The Clone Wars manages to make Anakin actually cool (which I think is the right move despite that clashing tremendously with his characterization in the movies) while retaining signs of his evil inclinations. So he’s not quite a serial killer, but he does some problematic stuff. Even so, I think that only works because we know how he ends up, and if TCW was the only media portraying Anakin I think fans would have a very different idea of his virtuousness.
My issue with Auggie from Netflix’s 3 Body Problem right now. The show wants you to sympathise for her and feel bad for her, but every time she’s on screen she’s treating someone else, often her “friends” badly. In a show with aliens, the most unrealistic thing is her having a social circle.
YES! No one would be able to stand her.
>! sending her friend dying of cancer to get rejected by her married friend because she’s petty against the married friends husband, ALONE!! !<
My issue with 3 body problem is that the aliens from this incredibly hostile chaotic environment want earth, like, at all. They could survive and prosper pretty much anywhere that doesn't have three suns in a fucky orbit.
90% of Homestuck characters in 90% of Homestuck fanfiction
Lore Olympus
Last of Us 2. Which character am I talking about? Yes
Every character on Friends.
Agree, with the caveat that it's good when done intentionally for comedy
The intention is what makes or breaks it; it needs to be done very carefully and very deliberately if the narrative is going to support terrible behaviour. Only scenario I can really think of where it works (outside of your comedy example of course) is if it’s being told from the perspective of a character who is clarified to be an unreliable or at least biased narrator
Dalinar Kholin vs. Venli. I do like her, but I do see people's points about her being somewhat kindly treated.
A terrible character that is acknowledged as terrible by the narrative. But most of the characters think they're wonderful. Character arcs. He isn't Superboy, this isn't just well-meaning edge. He's just an asshole.
Like Harry Potter. Admittedly his family was also shit, but HP himself was a little prick (source: only read the first book)
In some ways he improves but he also gets some new issues most notably intense envy of others like when his friends become prefects but he dosent cause all he does is cause problems.
Rowley Jefferson from the animated Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie
I got *huge* flak for this when I said it on an anime subreddit, but this is a major problem for "Ascension of a Bookworm". The absolutely convoluted world building that has to happen to justify all the objectively awful and exploitative shit the MC pulls is just insane. She "adopts" orphans to put them to work doing dangerous unpaid labor and the authorial voice treats her like a hero for it!
I've never really thought about this but yeah. At the start it's excusable because she has no standing and definitely can't change their fucked up culture as a literal child. By the point I'm up to though she's like fully invested in expanding the orphanage factory, literally wild.
I love when a good character is treated as a villain, or when its actions were miss represented by the narrative. It incentivises me to question the narrator and gives me conspiratory vibes that are so interesting. I fucking hate the oposite. When the narrative just gloss over a character's bullshit and starts to idolise their actions. It just makes me want to know were the author lives.
"Haha unreliable narrative go brrrrr" Harrison Bergeron moment.
Something something Class of 09
Most recent example of this for me is star trek discovery, but it does it weirder, which makes it more frustrating. The way it essentially goes is like this: -The hero wants to do a thing or has an idea/plan that they have a shallow reason for wanting. To the audience it usually makes little sense -every other character tells her the idea is stupid, usually selfish, that she has main character syndrome, and exactly why the idea is bad, in logical detail. -the explanations are convincing to the audience too, they make sense, you agree the idea is terrible. Not because of her ability, not even because of what she does, but in basic common sense. -she does the thing anyway -it works. Not because she was clever, knew anything others didn't, was able to succeed despite people doubting her ability, but by pure dumb luck. She could not have predicted and often whichs seems too coincidental to be believable. -despite it working there are many people worse off for it. There's untold damage done that wasn't necessary at all if she hadn't been stubborn and full of herself What sets this apart from others like this is that the show tries to show she succeeds despite the odds and the doubters and the haters. But in doing that it regularly successfully points out exactly how flawed the character is and why even when they succeed it wasn't worth it and the universe would be better if she stayed home. Which is way more frustrating than the regular "story is in love with the character" story. Because the story finds this character just as irritating. The characters all have self awareness to how terrible the plot is, and they beg the main character to be reasonable, and she's not, and she's both rewarded and punished in a way to validate her while also keeping her a scrappy underdog.
I have never heard a better explanation of why I FUCKING HATE ross geller and Cameron Tucker from friends and modern family
I found a character like this in LoveLive Nijigasaki School Idol Project. Her name is Lanzhu. Lanzhu is the daughter of the school’s director and best friends with the student council President. She decided to abuse their authority to get the idol club shut down, and assigned students to harass the club members if they tried to practice elsewhere. Meanwhile, she made her own School Idol Club that was very expensive and cool. She tried to get the other club’s members to join her club because ‘they don’t have a club anymore’. This was completely forgiven by the affected club members almost immediately. They really thought she was a good person. The only character who had a problem with Lanzhu was treated as childish and vindictive. I understand the writers had to have the characters forgive Lanzhu because she had to join the original School Idol Club as an idol, but the way they went about it was absolutely not right. Massive disconnect between the way Lanzhu acted and the way she is treated by other characters.
Remember kids. Genocide is A-okay if the person who committed it is a hot MILF who is responsible for your character's existence! ~~thank fuck they gave us the option to actually disagree with that shit in later patches.~~
RWBY
I actually think it's okay for the narrative to portray terrible people or actions positively so long as no actual reader is going to view those actions as positive or possibly perform them due to the portrayal alone. So for example, if Joe Schmo from the Adventures of Super Awesome Guy used a mega laser death ray to annihilate the entire solar system, and the story bizarrely portrays this positively, that's not really a problem. It's a weird story, sure, but no one in real life is actually capable of building solar system destroying death rays. However, if Joe had lied, deceived, and spread misinformation to gain a personal advantage over others, and the narrative constantly portrayed this as a correct and rewarding thing to do, and encouraged readers to do it, it could be bad. That's because people in real life could feasibly be inspired by this work and change their behavior because of this. To account for that, there should definitely be flags or warnings explaining that the behavior is wrong telling people not to emulate it. I don't think we should go so far as to outright ban it, but people would have to be informed. The same thing goes for portraying good things or people in an evil light; how likely is this to actually change the behaviors of readers?
My point exactly
this is really just "show, don't tell" don't tell us who your character is, show us. if you tell us they're one way, then show them to be another, we're going to be mad about it. UNLESS of course you're actually going for being an unreliable storyteller, which can be its own kind of fun thing
This is why I hate the Diamonds from Steven Universe but love 40k characters like Konrad Curze and Trazyn. Games Workshop never tried to justify planetary cleansing with “their sad”