[ SECRET POST #5175 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5175 ⌋

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


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 57 secrets from Secret Submission Post #741.
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)]

Yeah, the thing I enjoy about villains is the whole "anyone can become a villain in the right circumstances" and it's weird to me how much flak one gets on twitter for having the tiiiiniest bit of sympathy for them.

[(Anonymous)]

I feel sorry for the people who believe that humans come in two easily distinguishable forms - good and evil. They're in for a big unpleasant surprise.

[philstar22]

There's different kinds of villainy, though, just like there are different levels of evil in the world. We're all capable of a certain level of evil. But we aren't all going to go out and start a genocide (we might participate in one unknowingly or we're raised that way, but actively being excited to start one is a different matter). That's why there are different kinds of villains in different kinds of genres. You have the ones that gradually go that way or are that way because it is what they've always known and are more like normal people. Then you have the big powerful ones who crave power and have power and are very, very evil. You're more likely to find that type in scifi/fantasy type things. But there are some real world examples in people like Hitler, Trump, etc.

Look at ATLA. You have Sozin and Ozai, two big, over the top powerful villains who are pretty evil. Although Sozin gets their gradually while Ozai was raised in it. Then you have Zuko who is only that way because he was raised in it, but because he gets some better teaching from Iroh, he eventually wakes up and gets out. And you have Azula who is raised in it and isn't able to overcome her upbringing. Those two are the more ordinary people villains. So you can have both in the same fandom.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, one of the things that keeps drawing me back to my old fandom, I couldn't even put into words until recently, but there are no "good people" in it. The good guy is not a good guy. The obvious bad guy is not a bad guy but he's definitely also not a good guy. None of the minor characters is a good person (except maybe the little kid), and even the eventual final boss has some good intentions among the egotistical ones.

Any one of these characters could be "the villain" to someone else, and none of them are actually entirely evil. ...Well okay, one of them is a total scumbag without a hint of honor or decency, but everyone else is a mixed bag. ;)

[(Anonymous)]

RA

What show is this?

[(Anonymous)]

Not a show, a video game. PS1 action RPG called Vagrant Story which I talk way too much about for it being a dead fandom because it is my very favorite :P

[(Anonymous)]

Though I think you only really get flak if there's a hint that a) you find the villain attractive (Joker, Loki) or b) identify with them (Azula, Loki again). People who stan the really straightforward evil villains like Sauron or Hela don't seem to get as much flak.

[philstar22]

You'd be surprised. Sauron fandom on Tumblr does get flack sometimes from people offended that every single post isn't "evil, evil, evil, and more evil" all the time. I guess people assume that if you talk about a character's story or origin's at all or any characterization outside of evil at all, that's the same thing as woobifying them the way characters like Loki get.

[(Anonymous)]

Redemption arcs are great but I also really like corruption arcs. When the hero or anti-hero gets their own inner villain potential brought out and developed by a relationship with a baddie.

Hannigram is kind of this, and I think writers who give a lot of backstory to Sauron's seduction by Melkor also develop this theme.

[philstar22]

This is exactly what makes Sauron so fascinating to me. He goes from a good maia to an evil but intelligent maia who plans and scenes and is able to pretend to be good and corrupt others and then post-Numenor goes full-on what is his former master was without any of the subtlety he used to be able to pull off and then without the Ring he's just a shell who only manages to win things because Third Age people just aren't as good as those who came before.

It takes him longer, but by the end he's just as corrupted as Melkor was. Melkor was stuck in a badly injured body that wouldn't heal. Sauron gets stuck in an ugly body he can't use for trickery and then just plain loses his body altogether once the Ring is destroyed. He really does end up being a mirror of Melkor even though in a lot of ways they were very different.

[(Anonymous)]

Exactly. What was his "gateway drug"? Was it love and loyalty to Melkor? It very well might have been, in the beginning. Creating a cult in his honor is kind of touching, really. There's a suggestion, I think in HoME that Sauron was offered at least one opportunity to return to the Valar's good graces, but refused. How does this compare to other Maiar who did follow Melkor for a while and then renounced him, like Ossë?

[philstar22]

There's also the fact that he's the one that Melkor puts in charge when he's imprisoned in Mandos the first time. He's Melkor's Lieutenant. And there's a line about Sauron having a hand in all Melkor's works. So there's a level trust there and of power sharing that isn't there with anyone else. All Melkor's other servants are just servants for the most part, and serve him out of fear and because he's actually used his power to physically change them to serve his needs (balrogs were maia actually reshaped by him, in at least one version orcs were once elves). So what is it about Sauron that makes him different, that made Melkor see him as someone to share his work with, to share power with?

[(Anonymous)]

It's all so interesting! Unlike a lot of Melkor's other creatures, Sauron had versatility and creativity, and Melkor didn't twist those qualities out of him. He wasn't an equal of course, but he wasn't a mere minion either. Exactly, there's collaboration there and even a form of trust.

(Sauron absolutely loved getting ear-skritches in wolf form, that is an unshakeable headcanon.)

[(Anonymous)]

My hopes for the Amazon series aren't high quality-wise, but if we get a fraction of this kind of material about Sauron (who was canonically hot before Númenor) I'll be happy.