[ SECRET POST #2283 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2283 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 032 secrets from Secret Submission Post #326.
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

[intrigueing]

It's a cyclical trope for sure. First, people got uncomfortable with villains with too much moral ambiguity, so they made stricter guidelines for acceptable character portrayal, then they got sick of all the cardboard lulzy villains with no motivation that cropped up, so they made villains more deep and complex, and now the Complex Villain with a Meaningful Tragic Backstory is so predictable it's becoming irritating too. To which I say: shake things up and try something new, we can always shake them up all over again once we get sick of them.

[(Anonymous)]

We need more villains who are just boring and grey, instead of being either lulzy and demonic or sympathetic with tragic backstory.

[intrigueing]

But those are...well....boring.

Of course, you can be interesting and grey, but it's hard to do unless your writing is really good.

[cadremage]

Before I EXPOUND on my FEELINGS, I shall ask...are you being sarcastic?

[(Anonymous)]

A little bit, maybe, but mostly not?

I mean, it sounds ridiculous on the face of it, but I do think characters like that can be really, really interesting and I think it would be cool to have more of them and there's a lot of cool things you can do with them, and I think they're worth examining.

But please expound on your feelings either way! Let it all loose.

[cadremage]

Ah, well, thank you for the explanation! I appreciate your perspective.

To me, there's not much of a point to a boring and grey villain, as he or she doesn't pose much of a threat. There's little risk that they'll convince others to go along with their plot, and there's little that they'll do to thwart the heroes. And consequently, there's little to latch onto as a viewer or reader.

I have a feeling that you view the terms differently, however, so I'd be interested to hear more (actually, I'm already starting to envision different scenarios, so that's super cool).

[(Anonymous)]

Well, I think you can have a villain who's boring who's still powerful - that is, the villain's ability to affect the characters is a different thing from their motivation and personality. I think it could be interesting to have a villain who isn't motivated by any strong feelings, either sympathetic ones or simply evil ones. Who simply views what he's doing as necessary but without any real passion about it. Or who simply hasn't thought about it that much, who just accepts the idea that the protagonists are wrong or that he needs to do whatever they need to do or need to oppose - maybe he's just a functionary following orders, maybe he's just not someone who thinks about things much. Maybe they don't need to convince anyone else because they're in an environment in which everyone more or less agrees with the villain already.

And I think you can write a story where any of those characters are interesting and their relationship with the main characters is interesting, and I think that kind of evil is, in a way, interesting in itself. It would be interesting to examine a character who does something really evil without really thinking about it. There's certainly historic precedent about it.

[(Anonymous)]

The fist thing that came to mind was the Auditors, from the Discworld series. They are literally the definition of boring, and they want to get rid of humanity because humanity is too exciting. It's like being menaced by tax accountants and it's excellent.

But yeah, I think I see where you're coming from. Villains who don't chew the scenery. Villains who don't have huge dramatic evil plots. Villains who just quietly make everyone else's lives a little bit worse.

[intrigueing]

IMO, those sound like boring people, but not boring characters. They sound quite exciting as characters through their very boring-ness. Kind of like how some of the most hilarious characters in comedies are hilarious because they're such unfunny stoic people.

[(Anonymous)]

Exactically! I thought that was what anon #1 was referring to, boring people rather than boring characters.

(Although the Auditors aren't exactly people. Or even separate entities. It's complicated. And a little confusing. Especially when it comes to pronouns.)

[aubry]

'Complex villains' irritate me because of the common assumption that their complexity somehow negates their villainy.

Every kind of character is potentially complex. Even Bitchy PTA Mom #2 who just got zapped by the death ray would be complex if we gave her narrative space. Because humans are complex - there is no such thing as an uninteresting person if you had the wherewithal to dwell on their motivations.

But draw attention to a few layers to the guy committing brutal mass murder of random extras, and suddenly the complexity is meant to be more important than the harm he's doing. No! Readjust your narrative gyroscope, movie.

[dancing_clown]

Complex villains' irritate me because of the common assumption that their complexity somehow negates their villainy.

I always hear people say this "common assumption" is a thing, but it's so very rare that I ever actually see this happening. I'm starting to think it's just an excuse for people who are butthurt over not having enough cardboard evil villains to satisfy a simplistic outlook on fiction.

[aubry]

Are you talking to me, or just passive aggressiving in my general vicinity?

Because I'm not sure if we're working from a different data set of villains, or if I was unclear. But every one of your following assumptions is unsupported and, frankly, incredibly rude if you're responding specifically to me.

[(Anonymous)]

They didn't make any assumptions in that comment.

They stated their observation and the opinion they formed due to the observation(hence the "I think").

[(Anonymous)]

Why are you jumping down this person's throat?

They expressed an opinion that is as valid as anyone else's opinion.

[(Anonymous)]

something tells me there's some history there between the two named commenters.

[world_eater]

Probably because they indirectly called them butthurt.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm starting to think it's just an excuse for people who are butthurt over not having enough cardboard evil villains to satisfy a simplistic outlook on fiction.

IAWTC

[(Anonymous)]

Just to address one point: I don't think characters who are simply evil - characters for whom the explanation for their evil is basically that they have an evil will - are necessarily simplistic, one-dimensional, or uninteresting. I don't think that kind of evil necessary equates to "cardboard evil". And I certainly don't agree with the proposition that people who like that kind of evil do so because they have a "simplistic outlook on fiction".

I mean, real talk here, it kind of comes across here like you're implying that being interested in characters who are evil in this way means that a person has bad taste or is too dumb to get anything more complex. In other words, the impression I get is that you think I'm stupid because I can appreciate characters who are just evil.

[dancing_clown]

That is not what I was implying and I'm sorry if it came off that way.

[(Anonymous)]

Good, because it really, really did.

[(Anonymous)]

On the other hand, some of us are getting sick and tired of the implication some people make that we are woobifying villians by wanting some complexity or back story to villains, or want things "too deeeeeeep," as if there is something wrong with that.

[dancing_clown]

Thiiiiiiis.

[cadremage]

I think the distinction to be made is whether that assumption is coming from the filmmaker or from the fans. As we all know, fans can run wild with...well, just about anything; make an otherwise cardboard villain and just hint at his motivations, and suddenly you've got horrifying levels of woobification. But that doesn't mean the movie got it wrong.

[aubry]

Definitely a distinction worth making. And I was trying to keep my thoughts focussed on source material rather than fandom because - well, fandom. They'll woobify Ramsay Bolton for shiggles - it's a whole different paradigm.

But I do think you get it in movies and TV shows too. Where they try to add a layer of complexity by offering a point of sympathy with the villain, but then end up destabilizing their protaganists' moral compass by letting the original designated antagonist have too much of their own say. Fine in a story that was always intended to take the antagonist's side. But more irritating where it ends up throwing everything into a distracting moral relativism.