fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3581 ]

[ SECRET POST #3581 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3581 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 47 secrets from Secret Submission Post #512.
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.

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06. http://i.imgur.com/2xS70vY.png

It is alright to like problematic people! I mean I think Dumbledore and Obi-Wan were asses, but I liked the characters and I respect what they meant to their wards (Harry and Luke) even if they could have handled the situations in their lives a lot better. They did their best, but were as fallible as any other human.

Lol, Obi-Wan, an ass? I don't think so. He was a man doing everything he could with a situation he never wanted in the first place. And he wasn't an asshole to Anakin about it. If he had been, they would never have been the close friends they ended up being.

Yeah, but he was a little less than forthcoming with the truth. Luke, Darth Vader killed your father is a little different from Luke, Darth Vader is your father.

I understand not telling Luke that way back when he first met him on Tatooine. However, when Luke's planning to run off to Cloud City, it does seem a bit remiss of Yoda and Ben to keep that info from him.

Remiss, sure, but not assholish. Obi-Wan has always been the one who has tried to look out for them in the best way he knows how. He's not perfect, but he tries. That's not being an asshole. Yoda I would place into the asshole category more due to his continuing certain traditions and dogmas that he should know better doesn't work. He has 900 years behind him, not some measly...50 or so.

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(Anonymous) - 2016-10-24 13:39 (UTC) - Expand

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otakugal15 - 2016-10-25 16:22 (UTC) - Expand

That's less an assholish character trait and more "they decided that Vader was Luke's father after that movie" though.

Yeah, but Obi's "from a certain point of view" explanation puts it firmly into dick move territory. There are at least half a dozen ways they could have written around that and they picked the one that makes Obi Wan look like a weasel.

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otakugal15 - 2016-10-25 16:26 (UTC) - Expand

I actually prefer complicated mentor figures to boring, one-dimensional ones. It makes them more interesting.

Agreed. Having them have those facets that turn them into the "not so perfect" leader is what I love.

See also why I actually (incoming Transformers fandom blasphemy) like Age of Extinction's version of Optimus.

I dislike them as people a lot of the time, but I honestly kinda really enjoy them as characters because they add a dimension of mystery to the story.

I think it's just sort of the general way fandom is though. Everything has to be black and white. When in reality it's more

A + B is greater than or less than C + B

Where A is how 'bad' you feel the action is
B is everything else involving the character/situation.
and C is how 'justified' you think the action is. And those are all really REALLY subjective.

So add to the fact most of the fans of MLP and SU (and to an extent, HP) are FAR more likely to empathize with the mentored rather than the mentor and you get someone who's going to pile on the points to A and subtract them from C for everything.

Where as when you're older you're more likely to believe that sometimes people in charge screw up because they're people, not because they hate kids and bathe nightly in the tears of their suffering.

Also I think something that people fail to understand about more nuanced characters is that they're acting from their own perspectives and experiences. As the viewer, we see further back. We see perspectives from many different characters and points in time. Of course having all that extra knowledge, we can form better opinions.

Exactly. I think it also ties into the human tendency to assume if you don't know why someone does something, it's something bad and it's something personal.

Like if the checkout person is cold to you at the store, if asked why they think she's not being friendly most people will go "They're a jerk." or "They must not like me." and not "They must be having a really bad day, I hope things improve for them."

So Character does something that you as a viewer don't like, it's easy to take it personally and decide they're a jerk?

I mean look at the Dumbledore discussion, isn't it just as likely that Dumbledore didn't recognize the Dursley's behavior as abusive? I mean bring up any article on spanking causing worse school performance and people will come screaming out of the woodwork that their parents loved them and their parents spanked them so there is NO WAY spanking could possibly be harmful to anyone. Or when Tangled was popular and we had all the Tangled secrets and discussion with people arguing wholeheartedly that Mother Gothel's behavior was healthy normal loving behavior for a mother. You can't really look at that and know 100% for sure that Dumbledore saw the Dursley's behavior as monstrous and still just dropped Harry off with them without giving a single shit (or with hoping that an abused child would be more easily manipulated for his own ends)

I suspect you would find very few people who would argue that keeping a child in an unfinished cupboard full of spiders in a multi-storey house is perfectly acceptable. There is a decent argument for Dumbledore not paying attention to the situation because he thought Petunia wouldn't abuse her own nephew. Saying he wouldn't realize that treating Harry like a Dickensian orphan was abusive just makes him sound crazy.

My dislike of Dumbledore has nothing to do with his lack of revealing all his plans. It has everything to do with him leaving a baby on a doorstep in November knowing he'd be taken in an raised in an abusive household. So, fuck Dumbledore. He never did learn to see past Grindlewald's Greater Good, he just changed the angle of approach.

I actually still like Dumbledore in spite of this. Not that I agree with his methods, I just like the role he plays in the overall story. I feel the same about Snape and Umbridge.

I agree 100% about the Greater Good approach, though.

Weren't the Dursleys the only ones who could protect Potter because of Lily's protection spell and how they were his blood relatives?

Yes, but that doesn't excuse completely removing yourself from the child's life and saying "Well, at least the abusive assholes will keep the Death Eaters at bay."

Like, here's a thought. Dumbledore checks in (or sends someone suitably intimidating, like Minerva) with the Dursleys on a yearly basis to make sure they're not literally abusing their nephew. It probably wouldn't have even taken much effort -- as much as the Dursleys prized being perfectly normal, the threat of having Child Protection investigate their household would probably have been enough to at least score Harry an actual bedroom and clothing that fit.

The only problem with this line of thinking is that I think that in the most benign interpretation of Dumbledore, I really think he failed to consider that the Dursleys could ever be all that bad.

But I agree he should have set up a better way of keeping an eye on Harry's early years than just one squib living nearby.

it's shit viewing/reading comprehension is what it is. At least in Rose's case. I think there's a lot more text for that interpretation of Dumbledore, considering there are 7 books/years of canon and it's unlikely we'll ever get more information about his motivations.

I'm confused. How exactly is Rose Quartz bad? Not being honest about what happened to Bismuth = evil? Yes, certainly none of the people who think Rose is bad have lied ever.

I'm confused too but it's a thing. I saw a tumblr post about how Steven's vision of Rose in mindful education was foreshadowing Rose being the villain. Rose being even slightly complicated is too much nuance for some people to handle.

jfc, it was clearly supposed to represent Steven's fear of being a disappointment to his mother.

It started before canon started showing that the other characters were viewing Rose through rose-coloured glasses.

Ironically, the first time I saw it was a blog defending Pearl from the same sort of fanon derailment.

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