Here’s what bothers me: the devotion to the Good Guys, and the adulation of the Good Guys, coupled with the refusal to sympathize or empathize with the Bad Guys.
It’s the thing I dislike about that one gif- the one that’s that guy going “Cool motive- still murder”.
I don’t think that anyone is obliged to emotionally care about or empathize with anyone else.
But I think that that’s not what’s happening here.
It seems like people notice that they are feeling sympathetic/empathetic towards Kylo Ren, then they specifically decide that he isn’t worthy of being sympathetic/empathetic towards because he’s a bad guy. That’s… a poor decision based on faulty ideas.
You don’t avoid evil or counter evil by Othering the bad guys. There is potential for evil within everyone, and there is too potential for good. Those who do evil things deserve to be cared for; and naturally arising feelings of care or relation or empathy shouldn’t be ignored.
Deliberately ignoring resonances with the Bad Guys prevents you from (1) exploring your own potential for darkness, managing it, determining whether it is truly evil, and drawing strength from it and (2) accurately viewing them as a full and actual person rather than as a standup strawman.
So much of it feels performative: I hate Kylo Ren and think he doesn’t “deserve” to be empathized with and therefore I’m a good person! I don’t feel connected to him in any way and would never make that kind of mistake!
That’s great. Really great. I’m glad that you’re perfect.
I’ve seen this before.
There’s a much bigger danger here then missing out on some fun media experience: not understanding how people do bad things, and worse, considering yourself someone who categorically cannot do bad things, is a set-up for doing bad things yourself.
Fiction, with the possibility of exploring characters who are labeled as “the bad guy” who still have understandable motives, are sympathetic, maybe even have Tragic Backstories of their own, helps us learn how to avoid repeating these mistakes, how to tell good ideas from ideas that in retrospect, will be “it seemed like a good idea at the time” ideas.
And yes, performance and purity are absolutely part of this.
Kylo Ren really is a great example for how sci fi/fantasy writers should tailor their worlds to fit the times, so it could resonate with the actual audience reading them. There would be no point in making a Hitler villain anymore, because we’re not afraid of Hitler, we’re afraid of the 25-year-old malcontented white boy who fondles Hitler memorabilia while sulking in his room.
Somebody pointed out to me that the First Order aren’t coded as Nazis, they’re coded as neo-Nazis, which is worse, because these are people who looked at horrific historical atrocities with the benefit of hindsight and went, ‘Yes, that’s exactly what we should do again, but this time more’
People complaining that Starkiller Base is a rip-off of the Death Star and that Kylo Ren is a whiny emo fanboy don’t realize that this is exactly the point
Loki is the Philosopher King 