fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2293 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2293 ⌋

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

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

When people like characters that are unpopular or do shitty things:

I HATE IT when they try to minimize those things. Like "it's okay that this character is abusive towards this character because look at it from their perspective and how shitty their own circumstances were" or "yeah this guy killed a lot of people but he has a tragic past" or whatever

IT'S OKAY TO LIKE VILLAINS AND UNPOPULAR CHARACTERS WITHOUT DISMISSING THE HORRIBLE SHIT THEY DO geez

I agree, but I'm not sure why you lumped unpopular characters in with villains? Unpopular characters aren't all characters that have done shitty things.

I guess I was thinking about people like Catelyn Stark (who I like!) who make bad decisions that lead to unfortunate consequences for other people. I mean, people who are unpopular with a lot of the fanbase for understandable reasons.

I DON'T WANT TO TURN THIS INTO A GAME OF THRONES THREAD even though that was what I was thinking of, I just wanted to speak generally about fandom

Ahhh, that makes sense! I was just a bit confused by the word choice, since unpopular characters is a pretty broad category.

Yeah sorry I couldn't come up with a word for "people who aren't villains who make mistakes/hurt people whether intentional or not" on the fly

There really should be a term for that. Fandom comes up with enough terms for other random things, so you'd think there'd be something.

da

I think "morally gray" might've worked, too.

But yeah, I feel this way about everything from characters to media itself - dismissing the flaws and problems of the subject makes me really wary of the fan's own moral compass. Like, if they're so quick to justify and forgive these problems just because they know the characters/context/narrative importance/whatever, how quick are they going to be to justify and forgive their own or a loved one's shitty behavior? Sometimes people do shitty things, and it's perfectly okay to still like those people, but recognize that what they've done is shitty.

I think "morally gray" might've worked, too.

Well, you can be a "good" character and still do stupid stuff that makes you unlikeable

As someone who likes villains I take issue with this too, especially because an attitude I come across a lot in fandom these days is, "How can you like them???? They're horrible!!!!!?????"

Yes they are, but they're also interesting, and fictional. SO I would never like them in reality but if they make my favorite show/movie/book a lot better? Hell yeah I'm going to like them.

Also semi OT but it brought this to mind, I hate when people can't tell the difference between character behaviors the writers wanted you to support and character behaviors writers didn't want you to support. Like people want to point out all these problems they have with what a character did and they act like it's bad writing but it was really obvious the writers WANTED you to dislike what the character was doing.

what if you're just in it for the porn

Sometimes I think people genuinely disagree with other fans interpretations of what character X did wrong, though. And then agreeing that they're not perfect can get elided into ceding ground that they were responsible for something for which you do not agree they were responsible.

Yeah, I ran into this issue recently. It's like, okay, I get it, you like this character and think they had Logical Reasoning for the awful shit they got up to, you make some good points, but seriously, no matter what their potentially good intentions, this character's behavior was one of the main reasons things got as bad as they did in the story. Stop trying to make them out as some kind of tragic misunderstood genius surrounded by fools who Just Didn't Get It.

Yes, argh. A number of the characters I love are pretty terrible people, and I feel caught between the people who say "this character is horrible and you're horrible for liking them!!!!" and the ones who say, "noooo they're my sweet precious baby and they never really did anything THAT bad!!". I like them partially BECAUSE they're horrible. I don't have to want to be their friend to like them as a character.

I think this view isn't all that uncommon though, it's just that the people on the extremes are loud.

I agree. Everyone does shitty things, even your faves.

[ SECRET POST #2293 ]

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