fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3365 ]

[ SECRET POST #3365 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3365 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 070 secrets from Secret Submission Post #481.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - posted twice ].
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15. https://40.media.tumblr.com/773117da70e89d8437f5556e03a00043/tumblr_o49wm8d1Uz1v72w1mo1_1280.png

Draco with Leather Pants isn't about sympathizing with or liking villains, even complex ones. It's about writing or thinking about them in such a way that, because you like them or sympathize with them, you minimize or make excuses for the villainous shit they did, and exclusively focus on them being sexy and rad.

I mean I'm sure there are still plenty of people using it stupidly. But I do think that's an important distinction.

It is a fine line, though, and the term today is often used for things that really don't actually cross it. People are accused of this for even just liking villains or trying to understand their motivations.

yeah, it's another concept that just gets turned into a lame shorthand, not unlike how 'white knight' has morphed into near-uselessness.

Much like "Mary Sue" while the term did have a good original meaning, when most people are using a word/term incorrectly than are using it correctly then it either shifts meanings or becomes useless. You may as well argue that gay is another term for female prostitute and everyone nowadays is using it wrong to mean homosexual.

Agreed with anon who already replied that Draco in Leather Pants is more about woobifying than seeing nuance, but I also agree that people have a hard time seeing nuance in heroes too. I detest Ron-bashing and "Ron as a Death Eater" makes me mad.

In general people really like to see things in black and white. People who refuse to see any good in villains and people who totally woobifying them are committing the same error (unless the villain really is totally evil, or turns out to be not actually a villain, but you can also woobify heroes IMO by refusing to recognize their flaws, which is sort of the opposite of the Ron is a Death Eater thing...)

I agree with this, but I also think that, especially with heroes, everyone has faults that bother them more than others. So it is possible to acknowledge that a character is actually a hero but at the same time thinking that a particular flaw of theirs is worse than canon may see it or others may interpret it.

And also, people get accused of woobifying just for showing positive traits that a villain might have and not saying "this person is evil" every other sentence.

Oh, well yeah, people are allowed to have favorites! There's a difference between saying "I don't like protagonist X because they do this and I'm not ok with it" and saying "protagonist X is actually evil and if you disagree you are objectively wrong and stupid".

I feel like tumblr fandom has a problem with nuance just in general.

(no subject)

philstar22 - 2016-03-22 00:03 (UTC) - Expand

Transcript plz.

I think the term Draco in Leather Pants is overused. It's come to mean openly sympathizing with or relating to any villain or antagonist, no matter how complex, trying to understand their motives and psychology, or wanting them to be redeemed, with the implication that it's a Bad Thing. I can understand this in the case of blatantly irredeemable characters who revel in their evil like Smaug, Handsome Jack, and the Joker, but other characters are open to more nuanced interpretations and analysis as backed up by canon, just not wishful thinking from fans.

Along the same lines, there's a difference between Ron the Death Eater and pointing out places where protagonists legitimately failed or wronged other characters, handled situations poorly, or caused harm through inaction while still being good people. Good people can and do make serious mistakes, sometimes damaging other characters and sometimes with severe and long-lasting consequences. This is true in fiction as it is in real life. Heroes shouldn't be demonized, but they should be allowed to screw up and be called out when they do.

Tl;dr: The real world isn't black and white, and fiction isn't always that way, either. Complicated characters, both heroes and villains, are complicated. Tropes are not a substitute for a solid argument.

---

Sorry if I messed up anything, I am a fast and inaccurate typist.

Re: Transcript

blitzwing - 2016-03-22 00:22 (UTC) - Expand

I think a big problem is that people often presume that someone the heroes or protagonists don't like is automatically bad or evil.

Take FF7 for instance. Rufus Shinra is listed on the Draco in Leather Pants section of YMMV.

But what does he do that's actually evil? Sure he made a speech about ruling through fear but when we see him interact with his soldiers, he's praising them and they seem to like him. Unlike Heidegger, who beats up his employees.

He wasn't involved in dropping the plate. He didn't hire Scarlet or Hojo or Heidegger (though given the crisis that occurred when he was president, I don't think we can blame him too much).

What does he actually do that's evil?

And yet, on the contrary, he does a lot of good - destroying Sapphire Weapon, trying to stop Meteor with the Huge Materia, defending midgar from the WEAPONS, and risking his life to do so.

He does try to execute Tifa and Barret. But they DID blow up reactors that killed innocent people (and Barret himself admits it was wrong). And he let everyone else (Cid, Red XIII, etc.) go since they weren't involved.

You didn't mention any specific examples for the overuse aspect, but I promise you that Draco In Leather Pants is absolutely a phenomenon that happens. I used to run across it a lot in anime or jrpg fandoms, where a proportion of the fan(girl)s would go batshit and start railing at the Plucky Kid Heroes. Usually because they found the villains more attractive (and/or the villains had more slashy potential, often with each other). My favourite examples include fandoms that insisted that the Plucky Kid Hero was actually the villain. Because he was killing the villains. You know, the guys that were unrepentantly trying to destroy the world/kill everyone/etc., etc. (And I say this as a slash fangirl who often ends up wanting to beat the Plucky Kid Hero over the head with his weapon of choice for being annoying. But he's still not the villain, JFC.)

I mean, I won't argue that there probably are people that will accuse you of invoking the trope just for pointing out that a villain has nuance, maybe even some legitimate motivation, and may not actually be Entirely, Irredeemably Evil, layered in a coating of Bonus Bastardy (in the colloquial sense) with a crunchy centre of PURE EEEEVILL. But for every person that will debate (or at least acknowledge) the shades of gray between HOLY WHITE and EVIL DARKNESS, I wonder how many people are cooing over the villain and treating him like a precious cinnamon roll?

With a few exceptions, the HP books are almost cartoonishly black and white, though. Makes sense the fandom would be as well.

Thanks for the tl;dr.

Let's not pretend that Draco in Leather Pants isn't a thing though.

My fandom has a female Draco with fans who earnestly argue that it was totally okay for her to murder numerous children because she is queen, and therefore, those children's lives belonged to her anyway.

Is the term overused? Probably. But it's fucking gross when it isn't.

Gross? LOL

Regina?

If you're talking about OUAT and Regina, all the big three villains--Hook, Rumpelstiltskin, and Regina--have portions of their fanbases that woobify the shit out of them. But then, I'm one of those people that gave up on OUAT because the show's morality was fucked across the board. Pretty much all the main cast have done reprehensible shit that never gets mentioned again unless it's plot convenient, heroes included at this point. There're still characters I like, but the show frames the same actions as good, bad, or indifferent based on the needs of the plot for that particular episode, not on how horrifying the shit characters are pulling is.

(no subject)

philstar22 - 2016-03-22 01:22 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2016-03-22 05:28 (UTC) - Expand

Late, but I love how everyone just instantly knows who you're talking about, lol. +4 for you nonny.

As a person who tends to find villains for more interesting and complex than heroes, I agree with this secret. I don't woobify villains, I recognise the terrible deeds that they have done. Nor do I 'Ron the Deatheater' heroes.

However, there is the point that, from the villains perspective, the heroes are the ones who are the villains (for example, Loki absolutely thinks that he's doing what is right and that Thor and The Avengers are wrong).

I'm not sure that Loki's a valid example here, anon. Depending on which version you're thinking of, anyhow. More than one version of Loki has been known gleefully start slinging his powers around just for shits and giggles. And most of the times I've seen Loki - classic comic and movie versions both - he doesn't actually think he's in the right. Like, at all. Aside from maybe a "victory makes right" sort of definition. Otherwise, many version of him tend to thoroughly enjoy being a villain.

I'll agree to your main point, though. Most of the villains who have A Cause will absolutely believe that they are in the right, and anyone who opposes them is Wrong. Be it because they don't appreciate what the villain is trying to accomplish, or too weak to do what's necessary, not good enough to be part of the villain's brave new world, etc., etc. Villains like that tend to be interesting, sometimes terrifying, but never one-dimensional. (When written/acted correctly, anyhow.)

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2016-03-22 00:41 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2016-03-22 00:56 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2016-03-23 07:05 (UTC) - Expand

Loki is also utterly bugfuck insane at pretty much any point after the heritage reveal in Thor, and is an amoral asshole even before that.

He's not really a good example of "from a certain point of view".

Lokifag pls go

I'm honestly wondering if I drunk-made this secret and don't remember it. This covers a lot of things I've been chewing over for a couple of years dealing with and working on fic in the Loki fandom.

Tropes are interesting categorically, and they have a place as a tool for deconstructing and examining the structure of a work, but yeah, like all shorthand tools, they're not a substitute for a deeper conversation on the fuzzier issues.

OP, are you also posting on failfandomanon by any chance? Because there's a strikingly similar discussion going on over there.

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