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-   -   Villains: Forces and Meanies. (https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=360556)

Ice December 30th, 2015 1:09 PM

Villains: Forces and Meanies.
 
Every story is build upon change. The evolution from one status quo to the other. What makes this a story worth telling is an antagonist, a force working against the main character, adapting the change, or trying to stop it. Or sometimes even creating it.

Antagonists can both be forces and people. You're main character that is floating on a little raft can both be going up against the tides as an antagonist, or against a wild hyena that landed in his boat. Literally everything can be a stories antagonist, as long as it works against the goals of the main character. Be it a drunk parent, depression, or an evil spellslinger.

What kind of antagonists do you like to use in your stories?

Ice January 3rd, 2016 8:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bardothren (Post 9056325)
Well, let's see... I like an antagonist that has a relate-able interest, one that could, in a different light, be seen as a heroic figure. I also like them to have the same level of complexity as my main characters. In life, there are no heroes and villains, just different philosophies clashing against each other, and I try to reflect that through the way I craft my villains. My villains can show compassion, pity, and remorse, and they struggle with their own emotional issues. At least, that's what I aim for. Whether or not I achieve this is largely up to how much thought and effort I put into the writing, along with whether or not I'm skilled enough to pull off what I attempt.

I definitely do not agree that real life doesn't have villains. It's something I see come up a lot when people are talking writing, that a good villain is the hero of their own story, but I disagree. Bad people can recognize themselves as bad people. A lot of villainous plots in stories I see boil down to "The end justifies the means", in which the villain tries to achieve something good through something bad, and the hero of you own story mentality seems to cement that cliche even more. A good complex character has redeeming factors, and characteristics that make them less good people, but they can definitely just be bad or good without being morally grey.

Ice January 3rd, 2016 10:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bardothren (Post 9061700)
I'm going to counter your argument. The definition of hero and villain depends entirely on your perspective, and our perspective is molded by our experiences. In order to see the truth behind villainy and heroism, we have to divorce ourselves from the values our society taught us. Is charity good? Some would see it as a selfless sacrifice while others would view it as contributing to the problem of poverty. What about killing others? Is it a monstrous act that destroys something of infinite value, is it a way to increase the value of the remaining humans and thus benefit them, or is it a way of cleansing the earth and preserving it for future generations? I'll demonstrate what I mean through an edited history.

This is the story of a man that brought his people out of the worst financial recession in human history. In a time when it took wheelbarrows of money to buy a loaf of bread, a time when the country as a whole was humiliated by the rest of the world, this man stepped forward and proposed a way to end the recession and restore honor to his country. And it worked. The economy was revitalized, and the country reclaimed the land stolen from them. It is through purging the world of those not worthy of living in it that Adolf Hitler saved us, the worthy Aryans.


Perspective defines our heroes and villains, including Adolf Hitler. Had he won, do you think history would see him as a villain? Of course not, and that's because we write our own history. The same goes for our own stories. And sure, you can write someone's who's vilified based on the values of our society, but I prefer villains who challenge this perspective and force us to view our morals from a different angle.

While I do agree with you here, it only handles the villains with another perspective on morality. If a person does not live by this other view of society, this doesn't go up. An example may be a drug dealer who sells cocaine as heroin just to make more money, or a charity worker who launders the money to buy a new car. They're not the villains that see their actions as right, they handle from greed or other harmful intentions. They may have redeeming factors, but they're probably not a hero in any story.

Ice January 4th, 2016 6:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bardothren (Post 9061749)
Not a hero, yes, but that isn't the main point of my argument. My argument is no realistic villain is inherently bad. Let's take your drug dealer as an example. While most would see his greed as reprehensible, the Protestant Ethic, an idea by which god shows his approval of one's actions through the accumulation of wealth, would judge him as a virtuous man. You could also argue that he weeds out the mentally impure and easily tempted from society, and separates money from those who don't deserve it.

Adopting a narrow-minded focus of "that person is bad" limits our understanding of the world and the people around us. There's always a way to rationalize a person's actions, and a particularly clever villain will be able to make those arguments and make the reader question their own perspective, whereas a cliche "evil for evil's sake" villain won't offer any depth to your story.

This isn't to say that no one should use purely evil villains. Look at the Joker, or Sauron, or Lord Voldemort, all compelling villains that lack rationalization, and yet they're compelling villains within their narrative. The better question when writing a villain is this: what am I trying to accomplish by using this character? For the Joker, it's to provide the perfect chaotic foil to Batman's logic. For Sauron, it's to cement the fantasy world together and to drive the plot forward, as is Lord Voldemort. Such villains are perfect for certain stories, whether they're meant to entertain or to provide a thrill, but for something deeper and thought-invoking, such a villain won't have any impact.

The point isn't to only use one type of villain. The point is to know which villain is best for your story.

Wait, what am I doing? That wasn't the original point of the argument. ****, I got sidetracked. Oh well. I'm sure the original argument got resolved in there somewhere.

Yes, but the point is that the character itself must adhere to the viewpoint that makes them not evil in that optic. The actions being excusable or righteous in some optics does not make them morally challenging if the villain themself doesn't see it from that optic. In real life bad deeds are done constantly, without those people having reasonable moral arguments for them. Let's put up an example for a story about a girl that gets cheated on by her boyfriend. You could try and add a layer and have the boyfriend have a vision in which cheating is completely fine, but in most cases that's not the mindset. The same goes for the drug dealer. While there are optics that allow his actions to maybe be excused (although the Protestant Pre-destination ethic really isn't one), the drug dealer might not do it out of that viewpoint, but just out of selfishness and greed. These characters also aren't evil for evil's sake, but are evil for personal, non-moral, reasons that drive them. Villains can be deep and create interesting stories without questioning morality for sure.

I completely agree with the rest of your argument, haha. Lord of the Rings for example, isn't a story about the villain itself, it's about the struggle the heroes go through to achieve their goal.

Ice January 4th, 2016 8:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bardothren (Post 9062744)
Since we're continuing this argument, the protestant ethic I referred to doesn't involve predestination. I refer to the Protestant Work ethic. As for defining villainy, the question we're struggling with is how to define the villain. Is it ourselves that define the right and wrong of our actions, or the society? The problem with addressing this definition is society shapes who we are. We exist entirely within society, so its morals and values are reflected in us, and thus, it blinds us to other possibilities. No person is truly villainous in the absence of a society to judge them, and with society's values being arbitrary and depending on the opinions of its constituents, one can readily argue against its values. This doesn't mean that there aren't villains that see themselves as villains; however, from the perspective of a story, what doesn't matter is the villain's personal opinion, but the reader's. The reader judges the morality of your characters. You can very well create a character that our society would view as a villain; however you should keep in mind that anyone with a different perspective reading your work would see your characters in an entirely different light. Take for example the mindset of pre-Civil rights south. Their society viewed blacks as villainous figures in stories and refused to accept works that painted them in a heroic light, yet fifty years later, the mindset has taken a complete reversal.

Something tells me neither of us are going to win this argument. :|

While we indeed can't define villain outside of societal norms, stories get written inside these societal norms. I can't really argue with your arguments here on a philosophical basis, but I think it's important to put stories inside certain framings when they're being created. I think the original statement of the debate is getting lost, which is about the villains themselves and their self-perception, not about societal standards, which I'm not really in the place to argue about, haha. I think villains can definitely be written realistically without consciously trying to create a moral question. The drug dealer from the earlier examples is most likely not a villain used in a story about moral dilemma, and commentary on societal norms and making us rethink the morality of selling heroin as cocaine and killing people in the process. Because we ourselves completely live our lives in a society, our characters most likely do to, meaning they think in the societal values of that time. I do see your point tho, and agree with it to some extend.

Ice January 5th, 2016 12:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnnyMustang (Post 9062957)
Hey! I agree with Bard, he said pretty much what i would've said. I also like a villain who even makes you, question your point of view, and the example of Hitler was perfect. I'm only gonna answer to Ice's first counter-argument.



This is totally subjective, history has shown us that morals and ethics are shaped according to our needs and demands, while a couple of centuries ago, killing wasn't as morally wrong as it is now, i believe at some point we will go back to this belief when the survival of the strongest becames necessary again. (I sure hope not)

Although, i disagree with the example of the joker. The joker is a sociopath, and sociopaths makes their own line of codes and they do feel bad when they broke their own code. I believe the joker is a perfect example of the diversity of morals code amongst villains.

That's why I said can, haha. Plenty of villains that see their own actions as righteous. But with modern values, people that don't adhere to that certainly can recognize so. I think Bardo hit the nail on the head with his last comment. It's really about personal preference, and what type of story one aims to tell.

Yeah, the joker is really interesting, because I feel like he walks between these two mindsets. He has his own perspective on the world, in which he does the right thing, and it makes him a deeper character, but I don't think his philosphy is something that the writers try to sell to the reader. He certainly recognizes his own deeds as evil, he's just completely unbothered by it. He's both the villain and the hero in his own story, having this twisted perspective, but not trying to get the reader in on it. He might try to make you understand, but he doesn't care about making you agree.


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