[ SECRET POST #4333 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4333 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 15 secrets from Secret Submission Post #620.
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

[(Anonymous)]

So, how can someone redeem fantasy Hitler?

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not sure that's the right question to ask. Because you could probably come up with some answer - part of the basic idea of fantasy as a genre is that you can build these elaborate, hypothetical, magical scenarios. The considerations and limitations of the real world don't apply to invented hypothetical scenarios.

The real question for me is, should you do that. What's the point of going to all that work and inventing those scenarios. Where does that get you. Why would you do that, especially as it couldn't possibly have any real effect on our actual thoughts on Hitler, who would remain just as evil. A writer could in principle try to come up with something, but they shouldn't, and to the extent that they do, they're not good writers. Even though, yes, it's fiction, there's still a purpose, a point, to writing fiction and making the choices you make in doing that.

And the same is true for fictional characters to the extent that they're representations of real world evil or meant to evoke it or meant t be morally serious or what have you. Obviously, writing a reedemed Voldemort isn't a political action with real world relevance the way that redeeming Hitler could easily be. But it would still detract from the moral seriousness and villainous nature of Voldemort and the series as a whole. It would change the series in a pretty fundamental way.

[(Anonymous)]

Anon. Do you ever. Ever. Get tired of moralizing?

[(Anonymous)]

DA. They aren't moralising. They are explaining how fiction works. Not sure why this is hard for you to grasp.

[(Anonymous)]

The real question for me is, should you do that.

[(Anonymous)]

And yet they went on to add Where does that get you. Why would you do that, especially as it couldn't possibly have any real effect on our actual thoughts on Hitler, who would remain just as evil.

I feel their point is not so much 'Oh no don't do that because it's bad' but more of 'Why bother?'

Evil exists and some stories require them to exist. (Not to mention stuffy people from traditional publishing houses turning their noses at a story about redeeming fictional Hitler because 'it's only written for shock value'.)

[(Anonymous)]

I think you're going to have a hard time talking about redeeming characters without mentioning morality.

For reference, because I can see how I might not have made the point clear, a lot of this is about what works for fiction, not what's morally acceptable. There's nothing morally wrong with writing a story that redeems Voldemort, or even artistically wrong. But it would fundamentally change the nature of the story to do so. That's not intrinsically a bad thing! It's just a change that you might or might not want to make (and also, a lot of it depends on the specific context of the characters, story, etc, etc, etc, yadda yadda yadda). So I hope that clarifies where I'm coming from a little more.

Also, don't be a fucking prick.

[ayebydan]

I'm going to break this to you softly.

Hitler is real.

Fictional characters are not.

Comparing them is ridiculous.

[(Anonymous)]

DA

Absolutely agree. Just say Voldemort FFS.

[(Anonymous)]

But there are degrees here. Fictional characters often do reference things in the real world. If you have an elf in a fantasy novel named Badolf Bitler the Elf Hitler, the writing's kind of on the wall, you know? And then you have degrees where the comparison gets more and more distant, and less and less explicit, and that changes how you answer the question.

But it's still a useful comparison to make sometimes, and I think asking whether a fantasy expy of Hitler could be redeemed might be one of those times - it's useful to figure out where people draw the line and what we're talking about here. And that's the question AYRT actually asked. It's a valid question.

[(Anonymous)]

I’m none of the anons in this thread, but writing a redeemed actual-Hitler seems easy to plot out—just have him go to art school instead of into politics, or get killed saving an army buddy in WWI, or something.

But as people elsewhere in the thread pointed out, at that point, if you changed his name he wouldn’t be all that recognisable as Hitler. To redeem actual Hitler from advocating for and ordering the slaughter of millions of innocent people via fiction is probably never gonna happen. Sure, some people might read an epic six book saga about reanimated Hitler’s journey of atonement and come out of it thinking he’d been redeemed, but at that point you’d still be talking about one version of fictional Hitler and a small subset of the people who read those books.

[(Anonymous)]

Blizzard managed twice already.