[ SECRET POST #2518 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2518 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 060 secrets from Secret Submission Post #360.
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

Because that would mean humanizing the villains in their own lives

[nyxelestia]

The thing about these characters in people are in part absorbing the character (seeing/hearing), and part interpreting - through the lens of their own experiences. Tangled hit close to home for many people because Goethel reminded them of their mothers or other manipulative maternal figures in their lives. Breaking Bad hit close to home because we can actually see the progression from a good guy into a bad guy, something which many people have had to see in their own lives and which is much closer to their reality than just seeing the 'end product'.

Whenever we engage in media, we don't just absorb, we interpret. We project our own experiences onto the story and the characters. And for a lot of people, that means projecting people they know and who hurt them onto the villains of the story.

When someone hurts us, we do not want to think of them as being complex human beings with their own emotions and motivations. We do not want to acknowledge that there is a capacity for good and evil in everyone. We don't want think of them as good people gone bad, we want to think of them as people who were bad from the start and just pretending to be good all along - it lessens the blow of betrayal. We it's easier to assume someone is filled with nothing but malice, than to see that they have malice and compassion and realize the former won out over the latter. It's easier to think of yourself as a hero, a victim, or a bystander in contrast to a real life villain than to see that everyone is the main character of their own story.

And honestly, it's easier to think some people "just are" evil and some people "just are" good, because the alternative is to realize that every awful thing you hate about someone? You can do it too, and you can become what you hate.

Especially when you're dealing with a path of villainy that has a history of victims turning around and become perpetrators, such as drugs and abuse.

Re: Because that would mean humanizing the villains in their own lives

[(Anonymous)]

Okay, you win an internet Pulitzer.

Re: Because that would mean humanizing the villains in their own lives

[nyxelestia]

Thank you. :)

Re: Because that would mean humanizing the villains in their own lives

[(Anonymous)]

For some reason, your comment really made me smile today, and I needed that smile. :)

Re: Because that would mean humanizing the villains in their own lives

[nyxelestia]

Glad to make you smile, Anon. :)

Re: Because that would mean humanizing the villains in their own lives

[(Anonymous)]

Actually I find it a lot harder to accept that some people are 'just good' or 'just evil'; I don't realy believe in good and evil and frankly I find the whole idea irritating. It makes far more sense to me that beings of such a complicated make-up are complex in their abilities to use or choose not to use practical reason. But to each their own, I suppose.

Re: Because that would mean humanizing the villains in their own lives

[nyxelestia]

*shrugs* Not everyone digs the simplistic villain characterization, including myself. I'm just trying to explain why it is so many others do. :)

Re: Because that would mean humanizing the villains in their own lives

[charming_stranger]

Well said.

Re: Because that would mean humanizing the villains in their own lives

[purpleseas]

Beautifully said.

Re: Because that would mean humanizing the villains in their own lives

[making_excuses]

I get what you are saying and as usual you handle difficult subjects with tact and all that, but I will have to slightly disagree with you.

For me personally and some of the people around me that also have had bad shit happen to us, we prefer to think of the people as more than just the bad things. think of them as people who are also good, who did love us or didn't want to hurt us. Over the alternative which is to think that they are completely evil and wanted to do all the bad things they did.

I don't think I managed to explain it that well, if you are interested in a slightly better explanation I wrote a comment a bit further down in this thread

Re: Because that would mean humanizing the villains in their own lives

[nyxelestia]

Okay, reading your other thread and this one, I think perhaps what you are trying to say is that you prefer complex villains because it makes them "human" (proverbially, depending on fandom), and you prefer that because the alternative is to think/realize that there are true monsters hiding amongst us.

Am I anywhere close?

Anyway, I'm not trying to say this explanation applies to everyone. I'm just trying to explain why it is some people would prefer a simple characterization of their villains.

Re: Because that would mean humanizing the villains in their own lives

[making_excuses]

Kinda, but not really. I know there is monsters living among us, I just don't think those monsters are only evil.

I don't really like villains at all, I don't go for the bad guy craze that is happening, I don't like it when everything bad they do get completely ignored because they are pretty or interesting, or even complex.

I just don't believe that anyone can have one character trait, I don't believe that bad people only do bad or that good people only do good. Nor do I think that someone good should be forgiven for doing something bad, just because they are good. Or alternatively the other way around I don't think that someone doing mainly bad things doing something good automatically removes all the bad things they did.

I do understand where you are coming from, and not everyone thinks the same about anything, and I would assume the majority is on "your" side of this discussion.

I am not doing a good job of describing this at all... Sorry about that, I just wanted to show an alternative way of thinking about the issue, not to say that you are wrong

[ADDENDUM] Because that would mean humanizing the villains in their own lives

[nyxelestia]

So, one thing I probably should have mentioned in-comment is that I don't think this explanation applies to everyone. I just think this is one possible explanation for why some people might like simple caricatures for villains instead of complex characterizations.

I'm generally not fond of simple villains, myself. I like the idea that there is a bit of good in even the worst of people, even if that comes at the cost of a bit of bad in even the best of people - I find security in that concept.

I am just trying to explain why some people might be discomforted by that idea, and would prefer to think that some people are just monsters beyond redemption.

Re: Because that would mean humanizing the villains in their own lives

[(Anonymous)]

*slow clap*

Re: Because that would mean humanizing the villains in their own lives

[sparklywalls]

I really enjoyed this comment as an explanation as to why people like the simple view. Personally, I enjoy the "grey area" interpretation of villainy but want to say something about this statement...

"because the alternative is to realize that every awful thing you hate about someone? You can do it too, and you can become what you hate."

I think some of our fascination with villains comes not only from this, but also the fact that there's a small (dark) part of us all that may worry that if circumstances were different or if we could get away with it (as a pretend world allows you to get away with a LOT) then we are capable of acting the same way...and not necessarily seeing anything wrong with it. Some villains try to justify their actions either to themselves, the hero, or the audience and sometimes it's hard not to go "actually, I sort of see their point"

Another thing that really weirds me out sometimes is that villains get categorised as "love to hate" - well isn't that a strange thing? You know they're meant to be hated but you love them? In real life a lot of fictional villains would definitely be universally loathed but fiction gives us this safety net where it's ok to enjoy them because it's not real...and sometimes I find that hard to deal with because of how the real world is...I don't think it makes me a bad person as I'd never agree with them in reality, but I've had arguments with other people over the years who don't understand why I enjoy "bad" characters as they think it means I want "bad" to win.

Re: Because that would mean humanizing the villains in their own lives

[(Anonymous)]

...I'm not exactly sure that's what 'love to hate' means. At the very least, it's not what I mean when I use the phrase. The balance between 'love to hate' and just full-on hate can be precarious at times, but it's nowhere near love in any circumstance.

Re: Because that would mean humanizing the villains in their own lives

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think that's exactly what people mean when they say "love to hate". I think of "love to hate" as being more of an enjoyment of hating the character, knowing you're supposed to hate the character, and sharing that hatred with others. In a weird way, it's a sort of bonding moment for different people to unite against a particular villain. You love to hate someone like Bellatrix Lestrange from Harry Potter - yes, she's compelling in a certain way, but she's also totally insane and destructive and hurts the 'good' characters. Thus, you enjoy the moments the heroes dominate her and you have a little emotional moment of celebration when she's finally killed by a beloved character on the 'good' side. Of course there are some fans who might find a way to actually love this character, and try to defend her behavior based on the poor behavior of certain other characters. But the majority of people see her as an inarguably villainnous character and enjoy watching her downfall. I'm sure there are a million other examples, like Charles Whitmore from LOST, Darth Vader (at least, before the prequel movies) or even someone like Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. You are introduced to them as a character you should hate, they give you more and more reasons to hate them - on many different social levels - and then you get to see them fall. The fall is the thing you wait for that whole time, the reward at the end of the story, and that's why you love to hate them... you're just waiting for the satisfaction of seeing that arrogance, selfishness and sadism destroyed.

Re: Because that would mean humanizing the villains in their own lives

[(Anonymous)]

This is a very well-thought-out response, and I do agree with you. I would be remiss in my own conscience if I did not point out that, although rare (estimated to be in the 1 - 5% category of all human beings), science is rapidly catching up with brain imaging and psychological profiling of those who actually are evil, the psychopaths. Which has nothing to do with your point, I realize you are referring to the general population who are not psychopaths.

IME, whether they are the way they are due to faulty wiring or messed-up genetics, psychopaths really are evil, with no redeeming values whatsoever. Because every act they do (no exceptions) is to gain something for themselves; they are incapable of empathizing with other people, to the point where they see us as nothing more than either tools (to be used) or obstacles (to be eliminated) on their paths through life.

Re: Because that would mean humanizing the villains in their own lives

[nyxelestia]

Interestingly enough on brain imaging of psychopaths...

http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2013/11/the-neuroscientist-who-discovered-he-was-a-psychopath/

That seems to indicate that the people we traditionally think of as "psychopaths" are arguably a product of their environment as well as their DNA. The question then becomes, what is a psychopath? What does that word even mean? Does it just mean someone neurologically inclined towards violence, arrogance, and narcissism? Or does it mean someone who has crossed some line into being a serial killer, at which point - is there a difference between psychopathic serial killers and non-psychopathic serial killers, and if so, what is it?

(Sorry to hijack your thread/post, it's just a topic that intrigues me on many levels).

Re: Because that would mean humanizing the villains in their own lives

[(Anonymous)]

I haven't seen Breaking Bad, but I think Walt and Gothel would be much easier to relate to. Both of them are reacting to the fear of dying (if I'm not mistaken about Walt) and are going to extremes to do so. Hannibal isn't under immediate threat, and it's pretty difficult to read his motivations, whether you consider Hannibal Rising to be canon (in NBC canon) or not.

But yes, it's an excellent point, and one that I wish would be made more often in movies for children and adults.

Re: Because that would mean humanizing the villains in their own lives

[(Anonymous)]

And this has actualfax scientific basis in what we call attribution theory. It's pretty much expected that at least in modern Western society, if we see someone we identify in the "Them" camp, we think that whatever negative traits we perceive in them is due to their natural behavior or proclivities toward whatever they do. In this case, we identify the villains as being villainous because at heart they are just Bad People.

If when we think about ourselves, or people we identify in the "Us" camp, we think of them doing bad things or being involved in bad situations as something beyond their control, and is something that "happened to them" rather than something "they participated in them".

For a real life example of this having happened, think of Patty Hearst, which was the case study I did for attribution theory. At the time, lots of the media and the public thought Patty Hearst did all that crazy stuff after she was kidnapped because she was just prone toward being a criminal, and there must have been something in her all along to allow her to do it. Never mind that she was kidnapped and in order to stay alive, she did what her kidnappers told her to do.

So yeah. Well observed.

Re: Because that would mean humanizing the villains in their own lives

[nyxelestia]

That's pretty much the other side of the reason why some people prefer the idea of simplistic villains.

As long as they are caricatures, then it's easy to divide the characters into "Them vs Us". The moment they become complex, humanized, and have linear or rational motivations with some element of validity to them outside of pure greed, then the line becomes blurred - and suddenly, either you have to accept that the villains are a result of their circumstances as much as you are, or you are as much the owner of your choices as they are.

A lot of people really hate having to see the world that way...so they don't.

Re: Because that would mean humanizing the villains in their own lives

[elialshadowpine]

In my case, Gothel didn't remind me of my mom. She reminded me of my dad. Right down to her villain song being literal quotes that my Dad has said before. I enjoyed the movie but really broke down after watching it because... yeah.

For me, I can see the complexity with Gothel, because I see it in my own dad. Dad... I truly believe does care for me, but he has some seriously fucked up attitudes and beliefs, but there was definitely a daughter-as-possession aspect, and I can see the same with Gothel. It's made it very difficult to watch, and the threads in which people have basically defended Gothel's abuse have been really difficult for me (I wasn't locked in a tower, but I was homeschooled, very sheltered, and allowed to see people my own age maybe every six months after a certain point... the ONLY reason I got out was because I had unfiltered internet access, met friends, and got the fuck out of dodge as soon as I turned 18. Otherwise I have no doubt my dad would have done everything he could to keep me there).

Re: Because that would mean humanizing the villains in their own lives

[jazmin_firewing.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry that happened to you, and I'm glad you were able to get out safely. Thank you for sharing your story.

Re: Because that would mean humanizing the villains in their own lives

[nyxelestia]

I'm so sorry to hear you went through all that, anon. *hugs* I'm glad you got out of there. :)

And yeah, I think the fact Goethel represents so many horrific parenting attitudes and values has made her a far more viscerally terrifying antagonist than some of Disney-history's worst villains. It's always the villains who manifest 'real world' attributes that hit us in the gut the most.