[ SECRET POST #3328 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3328 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 069 secrets from Secret Submission Post #476.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[darkmanifest]

My experience has been the opposite, some villains could drop screaming orphans into a meat grinder for laughs and people will fall over themselves exclaiming how it's really the precious woobie who is the victim in all this. They confuse "sympathetic but deeply fucked up" with "did nothing wrong". Or maybe fandom has begun to swing towards the opposite extreme since the Loki heydays, I dunno.

[(Anonymous)]

My experience has been just that - behavior from both sides has made it very difficult to discuss such characters without being called out as an apologist, even if you state that the character's actions were wrong and unjustified.

There are some people who say that sympathetic villains are misunderstood woobies, and others who say that they're utter monsters with no sympathetic qualities whatsoever. There's a gray area, though, as you pointed out - you can discuss a villain as a complex and even sympathetic character while understanding that their actions are wrong.

[darkmanifest]

That gray area is my favorite, and yet so tricky to find. It's hard to separate character discussion from personal preference, especially when discussion is always trying to make it personal, like your ideas of fictional characters somehow make you a questionable person.

[(Anonymous)]

It has swung to the opposite extreme, mainly by people still bitter about the Loki heydays and bringing their baggage to other fandoms.

Just like SU fandom becoming shitty to prevent the next bronies -those who get so overzealous in keeping a fandom from being "shitty" wind up being worse.

[darkmanifest]

It suppose it says something that Googling "SU universe" gets me pages of links of how that fandom has set up camp in hell.

[cactuspaws]

+1

Especially if they think the villain is "ttly hot".

[darkmanifest]

Yep, attractiveness (particularly being a hot dude) is usually, though not always, a huge factor.

[(Anonymous)]

I'll take an apologist over those self-righteous assholes.

Villain apologist are a loud and silly minority, and at least they don't try to guilty trip anyone for daring to have a different opinion, nor they accuse other people of being abusers/pedos/whatever.

[darkmanifest]

There's the apologists who treat you like a victim blamer because you don't think a character's sad history excuses monstrous acts. But I admit a villain's popularity usually has to reach exceptional proportions before the fans feel secure enough to do that, whereas self-righteous judgment is a lot easier to achieve.

[(Anonymous)]

I've seen a ton of the opposite. Like people saying you shouldn't even discuss villain origin stories because that's victim blaming.

Like Riddler in TAS, he gets his work stolen and it makes the corporate boss rich while he gets nothing, and he gets taunted for it "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" and snaps, uses his intellect to go after the corporate boss and becomes a villain.

That's a story of evil begets evil. It's not 'victim blaming'. It was wrong for the thief to steal Nygma's work, it was wrong for Riddler to seek revenge, the two aren't mutually exclusive.

If anything there seems to be a huge trend of only having a victim be sympathetic if they're a 'proper victim' if they're quiet and sad and want help. A lot of the idea that 'good people' are 'good victims' does a great deal to hurt real life victims when they don't act like 'good victims' and get angry, or lash out in pain. No, they shouldn't be excused for their actions and part of helping them should be protecting others from them. But this trend of trying to turn anyone who does anything remotely bad into a one dimensional blank slate and ignoring the past is a very harmful real life mentality. You can see it in the success rates of punishments that focus on rehabilitation and those that are purely to punish out of a sadistic sense of justice.

Is Jean Valjean a criminal forever and to be forever defined by stealing a loaf of bread? Or is the fact he was doing it to feed his starving family worth bringing into the discussion? Is he Jean Valjean or is he 24601?

[(Anonymous)]

I also see arguments that villains, no matter how sympathetic they may be, shouldn't be redeemed, and general writing off of characters as irredeemable when their narrative arc has just started (i.e, Peridot from Steven Universe).

I agree that redemption arcs can be handled poorly, but saying that characters can't redeem themselves at all and that bad or damaged people are doomed to be bad or damaged forever is a very harsh and extreme stance to take.

[darkmanifest]

That's definitely a lot different from the "this mass murderer with the sad eyes did nothing wrong" type of chuckleheads that I deal with in my main fandom right now, but I have no problem believing other fandoms have swung so hard in the opposite direction...the whole "your fave is problematic ergo you're a terrible person if you still like them" shit isn't cool, either. I do think it's worth pointing out (due to the example you chose) that not all crimes are created equal. No, Valwhoever shouldn't have stealing bread for his kids define him. But the dude who sold his kids into slavery for a loaf of bread probably shouldn't have that tidbit about him forgotten any time soon, if only to keep him from running an orphanage one day...