Tag: villain sympathizing

queenofattolia:

thefeelofavideogame:

tumblr’s inability to discern between an ‘understandable villain’ and a ‘sympathetic villain’ and inability to discern either of those from ‘the creator endorsing the actions of the villain’ is well and truly exhausting

#writer: i have placed this antagonist here within the story in order to highlight#how their approach to life is destructive and yet–on a much smaller scale–tempting for most people#let’s explore together the sins all flesh is heir to#tumblr: you just SUPPORT VILLAINY THAT’S WHAT YOU DO YOU MONSTER

Tumblr: depicting something is the same as endorsing it unless it’s literally twirling a black waxed mustache. And even then it’s iffy.

isaacsapphire:

burning-harvest:

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.

joons:

“i like this villain!”

oh no, you don’t! you haven’t filled out the appropriate forms! you need better credentials. first fill out the following*:

do you admit–publicly, loudly, and continually–that you do not: 

✔ condone 

✔  accept   ✔  understand

any of the villain’s immoral behavior, and that you do not:

✔  enjoy 

✔  tolerate 

✔  see any value whatsoever in 

reading about actions that deviate from Current Puritan Norms, regardless of their merits as devices of narrative tension, character believability, and explorations of morality and empathy in a literary work?

X __________________

*you may waive signing this form if you can answer yes to the following question:

do you like the villain because you’re coping with a traumatic experience? if so, please describe your experience in as much detail as possible and publish the form for public viewing.

now you can say you like a villain on your blog! 

…so, basically, the words “I like this villain” are meaningless.

feynites:

Winning the villain over to your side is a power fantasy.

Like, a really big one, too.

Social emphasis has it that men should value strength,
aggression, and violence, and women should value kindness, empathy, and
community. But really, anyone who has
learned to prefer social success to might/aggression is going to favour a
strategy where you can make your enemies into allies of some kind, over one
where you just kill them. As a display of dominance, killing is overly
simplistic. And it’s also hard to ignore the reality that luck usually has more
to do with most fights than actual strength.

So, many people vastly prefer stories where the villains don’t
die, but instead, get won over by the hero. It’s also a much more prevalent
power fantasy among women than it is among men, because women are often taught
that violence on our parts is inherently distasteful and ignoble. If you can’t defeat your enemies by putting a
bullet in their heads, then what could
be more satisfying than convincing that enemy to come and fight other people on
your behalf instead?

This is a major component to why villains end up as popular
shipping material. I honestly don’t think it’s the ‘bad boy’ impulse, or some
branch of misogyny, or at least, not in a majority of cases. It’s a total and
sincere power fantasy. Someone going ‘all I care about is myself and all I want
to do is DESTROY THE WORLD MWAHAHAHA’ meeting you and then being like ‘oh no
wait I also want to please you and spend time with you and I want that so much
that I will now give up those other things’ implies an intoxicating level of
charisma.

Of course, like most power fantasies, it pays to tread
carefully with it. Because real life rarely accommodates such things, and as
with some muscle-bound hero easily lifting a house over his head, being able to
take a wholly selfish being and convert them into a devoted companion is… unlikely to happen outside of fiction.
For a lot of reasons.

However, I bring it up because I am C O N S T A N T L Y
seeing the compulsion to ship characters with villains misattributed to A)
agreeing with the villains, B) some form of self-hatred, C) a noble impulse
towards compassion and understanding, or D) sheer stupidity, and really… it’s
just another power fantasy. Wonder Woman punches a tank. Tony Stark buys an
entire island. Storm calls down a lightning strike. Batman outwits all his clever foes. And some seemingly random,
ordinary human woman convinces Lex Luthor to chill out and stop trying to kill
Superman. It’s all power, displayed
in fantastical proportions.

(Which isn’t to say that you have to like it or think that
every such relationship is good and healthy, gods no, but once you realize that
everyone’s just pretending to be the Superman of relationships, it’s easier to just go ‘oh that’s what you’re after’ and… y’know… fret less.)