[ SECRET POST #2827 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2827 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 044 secrets from Secret Submission Post #404.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 1 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

01. http://i.imgur.com/ji7BZlM.png

[(Anonymous)]

I get you.

[(Anonymous)]

"Why can't a fictional character being annoying be a good reason for me to love the villain killing them off?"

It can.

But there's a big difference between enjoying something and approving of it, imo. "I enjoyed it" means that you liked it, regardless of whether it was good or bad. "I approve of that" sounds like you think this is a generally appropriate action to take, or one that people *should* take, in that situation whenever or wherever it comes up.

[dancing_clown]

Two things.
1. I think that's an awful lot of hair-splitting between "I approve of" and "I enjoy that."

2. It's pretty shitty to judge someone on your (the general your) worst interpretation on what someone *must have* meant.

[(Anonymous)]

But, yet again, that's not what people mean when they say you shouldn't approve of the villain's actions. Obviously if you're a fan of a villainous character you probably find the crap they do hella satisfying to watch, from an entertainment standpoint. What people expect is for you not to say, "I enjoyed the hell out of that and I think he was justified in doing so," and then go all apologist on the character on something.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, its like I near pissed myself in the cinema when the Joker did his pencil trick, I thought it was so fucking funny I couldn't bear it. But for Christ's sake, are you that dumb that you think I'd laugh at that in real life?

[iceyred]

I feel your pain. It sounds like those people are feebly trying for moral superiority. "I love that character but I totes don't approve of his murdering those people in a fit of rage." Like, damn, I would hope not.

[(Anonymous)]

i suspect it might have more to do with not wanting to be lumped in with fans who woobify villains.

everybody was awful to loki, even thor! they all had it coming! they ran into his helmet ten times!

[(Anonymous)]

... whuh? Have these people never actually read a book or seen a movie? There's unlikable characters you like pretty much everywhere.

My only thought is they're thinking of fans who actually do approve of characters' actions in disturbing ways. Like someone I knew who said Voldemort didn't really hate muggles "the way Hitler didn't really hate Jewish people." Yeah. I'm not kidding. That person, however, was not typical of most fans.

[(Anonymous)]

Honestly never thought of it this way.

[(Anonymous)]

Basically, it's an anti-woobification measure and nothing more. Sometimes people go a little overboard but if you don't woobify, then don't worry, it isn't about you. Tons of people love watching villains do their thing and fully admit to it.

[grausam]

it's probably because many of us "live" so much in and with fandom, invest time, built relationships, seek approval etc that we apply the same moral code for it. out of conviction or out of social "obligation" and peer pressure, like "real" moral codes.

your perspective is probably rather normal for people who take their entertainment casually.

[feotakahari]

I guess I can see this for black comedies and such, where you're not really supposed to empathize with the characters. But if a story asks you to root for some characters and take pleasure in their successes, that seems like it would be a package deal.

To put that another way, if there are characters you love, why can't there also be characters you hate?

[nayance]

Morals aren't universal, nor are they static; context is everything. Hence why I much prefer discussions of what a characters motivation is over whether they'd win the noble peace prize.

/unashamedly loves morally grey characters and plots for this reason

[(Anonymous)]

Because when you say you approve of a character's actions, a lot of people will assume that means 'I believe those actions were justified' and not 'I think those actions fit the story and were hella satisfying to watch'.

Part of engagement with a story for a lot of people is reacting to characters as if they were real people. It's why things like believable characterisation and emotional resonance matter. Usually, a story is considered better the closer its characters feel to real people, because that's what many people engage with. It's also not a stretch for people to engage with the morality/ethicality of a character's actions as if they were real world actions. A lot of stories are constructed specifically for people to do that. Fiction has always been used to explore real-world ethics and morality, and even if a story isn't trying particularly hard to do that, it usually has it's own internal morality along similar lines. For a character to be designated the 'villain', after all, implies that the story considers their actions wrong, and engaging with the story at least invites you to consider why that is.

Discussing characters isn't quite the same as discussing other elements of a narrative. Characters are designed to appear and act like people, to be reacted to like people, to be discussed like people. So a lot of the time, the assumption is that you are reacting to them as people, rather than as story elements. Saying that you approve of a character's actions is going to hit that interpretation first, which in the case of a villain is going to lead to a lot of funny reactions, especially when there ARE people in fandom who genuinely do seem to both be reacting to villains as people and approving of their actions in that context.

Hence the need for clarification that you do not approve of said actions in a non-fictional context, just in this fictional one where nobody real is getting hurt.

[world_eater]

Don't worry, for one I do look at fiction that way.

Hell, look at my fandom. Watching people do fucked up shit and enjoy it is our MO.

[herpymcderp]

Ladies and gentlemen of f!s, may I present to you: a person who has never heard of the holy bible.

Methinks someone missed the class on "Poe's Law"

[intrigueing]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

"Poe's law, in broader form, states: Without a blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of extremism or fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing."


I admire your faith in humanity's common sense, OP, but it just doesn't work out that way.

[(Anonymous)]

This. It's like when people get absurdly mad at you when you say that you want a character to die. I'm not saying I want a real person to die. I'm saying that I want a fictional character to get the fuck out of a canon I otherwise enjoy, and dying is usually the best way to ensure they'll stop being around and annoying me. But apparently that makes me a horrible person who wishes death on actual people because I don't like them.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, like for me it's very different than reality. I know "bad past aren't excuses" and the same old, same old that gets trotted out daily but you know what? In a fictional perspective, I am going to feel sympathy for say, a villain or anti-hero or just a plain old jerkbag who was abused as a child over a villain with no backstory. And honestly, some of the rigid policing on how to like characters make me more defensive of them.

[cbrachyrhynchos]

Sometimes, an over the top and gory revenge play is just an over the top and gory revenge play.

(Unless it is Greek, then it might be religion.)

It seems weird to me that we need to justify horror and revenge plays, or those elements when they appear in other genres. Nobody seems to be under the illusion that either Tolkien or Gaiman think that ripping the arms off of enemies for honor, glory, and gold is a jolly good idea to do as a party trick.

[(Anonymous)]

This is part of the problem with the woobification of characters.

There's a difference between liking a villainous character because he or she is a villain, and excusing the character's actions because, on some subconscious level, you have to remake the character into 'one of the good guys' in order to accept that you like that character.

I like Marvel's Loki - have for decades since the first 'Thor' movie was released - and I like that character *because* he is the one who shakes things up. For most of those decades, he was a villain, and he did some terrible, terrible shit. Over the past few years, he's been on a different journey through several story arcs where he isn't the same villain as he was. He's still done some shitty things, but he's also made some different choices that may or may not lead him to the redemption part of him craves. Do I approve of the actions he sometimes takes? No. But I find his motivations more interesting than most of the characters in Marvel's Asgard, because of that complexity. His struggle to have the freedom of choice to become something other than the villain - thereby escaping the role he's "supposed" to play - is infinitely more interesting to me than the exploits of the Warriors Three, for example.

But even though he's trying hard to change, he's still an asshole who does some shitty things. I accept that, and I enjoy that part of his character, because I have also done some shitty things. And even if those actions were done for the right reasons, the actions were still shitty.

To put it another way in another fandom, Severus Snape was an asshole. He was an asshole as a teenager, and he became a bitter, twisted, adult who never emotionally progressed beyond his emo phase. He did some terribly courageous things in an effort to right the wrongs of his past, but those actions don't erase the past, nor do they have to. He did what he had to do for reasons of his own - and he was still an asshole when he died. Knowing his motivations didn't change that. But that's okay. Asshole as he was, he was still the most interesting character in the books to me, and without him, I wouldn't have bothered finishing 'Philosopher's Stone.'

Well-written antagonists provide the foil for the heroes. I enjoy their struggles more than the protagonist's because I'm more interested in seeing or reading about flawed characters who do the wrong things for the right reasons than I am in seeing heroes achieve their moments of apotheosis. A hero is only as good as the villain he struggles against, because that villain is the hero's Shadow, just as the hero is what the villain could become if only they could see the forest for the trees.

They're two sides of the same coin.

So no, OP, you don't have to apologize for liking villains. Fandom gonna judge, whatever you like.

[(Anonymous)]

Some of the comments here ... like, oh no, you're so judgemental for having a personal dislike of murder/gore/other things that make you personally uncomfortable in a fictional setting? Seriously. If you're free to like it, other people are free to dislike it.

[duaedesigns]

I like this.

Because there's a huge difference between "I approve of murdering children"

And

"I cheered harder than the entire Superbowl Stadium when Joffrey died"

And I am sure most people would admit that horror movies would be a great deal less... well.. scary without the possibility that someone's going to get hurt or killed. It's a requirement in the genre!

And sometimes I think people tend to be more interested in villains because a lot of villain tropes are victim who strikes back and goes too far, and a lot of hero tropes are redeemed bully who starts beating up the correct targets.

[(Anonymous)]

Are you one of the #IStandWithGrantWard people?