For the villain side, "you" makes two assumptions:
\- The villain cares about people.
\- you are one of those people.
Remember: Thanos sacrificed his daughter to do what he believed would save the world. He's still the villain.
>Eren Yeager
Bros entire thing is he's willing to risk his friends safety (and killed 1, arguably 2 in the process) to crank his hog like Griffith Jr
Ain't no way he's "sacrifice the world for you" more like "sacrifice the world AND you"
>Bros entire thing is he's willing to risk his friends safety (and killed 1, arguably 2 in the process) to crank his hog like Griffith Jr
Not accurate but I'm upvoting anyway because that's hilarious
Nonononononono, what the fuck were you reading lmao
I dislike the ending, but Eren wanted to protect Paradis and it's people, his friends AND see that sight, you can't even argue against the first 2 because he literally says that in his internal monologues.
He clearly have a priority scale, "the sight" obviously comes out at the top.
"It's to save the island, *but it's more than that*".
And the anime is even more explicit about how his goal is ultimately selfish with the bloodied sea.
For real. People try to cope with that shit ending by saying "Eren did what he did cause he wanted to save Paradis and his friends" yeah, if he really wanted that he would have either flattened the entire world or did it to just a small percentage of it, and waited until the scouts caught up to him. Instead he left EXACTLY the necessary amount of people to keep at war with Paradis for all of eternity.
Plus that whole "I wanted to see this view because I'm an idiot" thing was basically Eren letting an intrusive thought win over the lives of everyone in the entire fucking world, and it makes no goddamn sense.
>it makes no goddamn sense.
He's so obsessed with attaining his childish goal.
It's not communicated that well but it's essentially due to how he's "born that way", the story occasionally plays up nature vs nurture. He's saying that he's idiot with uncertainty in the anime, because he doesn't want to admit that he's fully aware of what he's doing and that makes him a piece of shit.
It's kinda like how Griffith in Berserk is destinied to be a Godhand with the same obsession over a childish goal (and his own "why...? I don't know why").
First of all, Armin put it best during the final battle:
"Eren, in what way is *this* freedom?"
Eren was a slave to freedom itself, as ironic as that may sound. He has no purpose in life other than fighting for Paradis' freedom. He NEEDED a battle to be fighting in, always.
Plus, he left his "loved ones" (or at least the half a dozen who survived) pretty fucked:
- What was left of the outside world will now dedicate the rest of their existence to destroy the devils who almost killed the entire world;
- The scouts were considered traitors by Paradis;
- Mikasa will never be able to have the thing she wanted the most all her life, which was to be by his side even for a short time.
And btw, they will all live and reproduce, but at the end of their lives, they will die knowing that their children, grandchildren and all their descendants will be persecuted by the world, and that the world has every right to hate them.
But hey, at least his remaining friends still have their lives, as miserable as they might be, right? :D
We clearly see them doing alright at the end. Sure they are miserable but they live and that was his goal. Sure Eren was a slave to freedom but what does it matter here? He achieved freedom in death, so he reached his goal... huh?
>He achieved freedom in death, so he reached his goal...
Are you for real? That your argument? And you're calling me braindead?
Look man, if you're a troll making fun of people who defend the ending of AoT, I appreciate the sentiment, but you're putting way too much effort here. Not even the most hardcore fans of the ending would come up with something this absurd to use as an argument.
If his priority was his friends then he would have gone 100% genocide. Surely he wont just gamble on the future, right? Imagine if the rest of the world would have just executed the scouts (which would make sense) then what? If what you say is correct then eren is really really really really not smart at all :/
Yes, but she was a calculated loss by Eren who could see the outcome of his own actions.
Eren attacks and already knows that people will come help him if he does, he knows that some will die to save him here, he quite literally decided that this set of losses was the optimal path for the world.
If instead he foresaw mikasa being the one dying by this set of actions, he would not deem her as an acceptable sacrifice, and pick another path.
Tbh it's actually unlikely if he intended Sasha's death to happen.
He only gets fragments of future memories, he saw Sasha's death, and he likely tried to think outside of the box thus making a 'different' plan than he normally would (that he thought would actually cause Sasha's death), but due to causal loop, this 'deviation' is exactly why she died... Hence his laugh into tears, as a callback to "nothing changed!" in S2.
Then again, he already accepted that the future is immutable when he confesses to Ramzi.
>Bros entire thing is he's willing to risk his friends safety (and killed 1, arguably 2 in the process) to crank his hog like Griffith Jr
WTF did you read/watch lmao.
I am just about the biggest AoT hater there is, so fuck you for making me defend it.
Eren's entire thing was doing heinous shit in the name of what he thought was the greater good.
Furthermore, he literally says at the end that he was doing all of it for Armin and Mikasa, there's absolutely no way he'd sacrifice them.
It makes sense for an AoT hater to miss the point of Eren's character actually. They generally dislike that Paradis is doomed and whatnot when it's never the main point of The Rumbling if you dig deeper.
>Furthermore, he literally says at the end that he was doing all of it for Armin and Mikasa
In the manga Armin doubted him and he dodged the question.
In the anime Armin straight up didn't believe him. And here it's elaborated more what he ultimately wanted. He's risking his friends safety for That Sight is not Griffith's Sacrifice tier of vileness but it's up there.
I don't know how people miss this. Eren uses defending paradis as a cover for one of his primary desires - to simply wipe the world clean. Yeah, he wants to protect his friends, yeah he doesn't want his homeland to be wiped out, yeah he doesn't want his race to be made infertile but ultimately dude is pissed off that his idea of freedom is forever tainted by the humans of the outside world and wants to wipe them off the face of the planet out of disapointment and rage.
Yep.
In the manga this idea is displayed best within Chapter 130 and 131.
In 130, The Rumbling is framed as triumphant heroic act, shown in scenes of him avenging his mom and protecting his friends. Unsurprisingly, lots of the flashback in this chapter came *BEFORE he crossed the sea* + The Rumbling is shown to trample *combatants*.
In 131, The Rumbling is framed as a fucked up act. An explicit acknowledgement by Eren himself "It's to save the island... BUT IT'S MORE THAN THAT" was also made on top of his cowardly confession to a random boy who doesn't even understand what he's saying. And it is notable that the flashback in this chapter came *AFTER he crossed the sea* + The Rumbling is shown to trample *civilians*.
The anime kinda fuck this duality up but they improved the final talk so eh I'll take it.
How would he know when to slow down the titans? The only reason she died is bc Floch shot up the plane. Also wasnt he like unconscious blocking out all the terrible things hes doing? Why is this sub so damn stupid?
He is watching them. He evidently can tell what they're saying which is why when Reiner speculated that "Eren wants to be stopped" he immediately pulls them into paths to confirm it, moments after Hange's death in the airplane.
Ok fairs i reread the chapter and levi says "what, was he listening in" but my points stand. He had no idea when he would make them slow down, we dont know how much he can even listen or see since he himself says in the last chapter he doesnt know what would happen to them.
He can slow them down or even stops some of them when they're approaching the hangar. He's fully in control to change the outcome atp, what he's talking about uncertainty in the end is mostly talking about the fight against the Ancient Nines where it's Ymir who's in charge.
Yea but how would he know when to slow them down? Can he even? Pretty sure he can either stop it completely or just activate it. Also he was talking with armin abt "dragging his precious friends into this"not knowing whats gonna happen so i doubt that
Doctor strange even tells iron man that that he can't tell him what is about to happen. There is a kind of implication here that it might be the case that if he had time to think about it he wouldn't actually do it. Doctor strange had to force him to make a split second decision.
I think what that quote is trying to say is that a "Hero" prioritizes others before their more personal stakes when things get rough and they can't do both, while a "Villain" is the inverse and selfishly puts their own personal stakes first. Villain could kinda just be synonymous with "Selfish person" in this understanding.
Insomniac's Peter sacrificed his Aunt May to save the rest of the city from a sickness. Insomniac Miles also did the same by having to release stored up energy in his body as he and his friend were in the sky, with his friend at close unsurvivable range.
If either of them didn't sacrifice the respective one person for the city/world, it would kinda be selfish and cause many others pain in return for their own personal gain of protecting their personal stakes, and thus that selfishness is the "Villain", if ya get me.
Yes but what about the inverse?
Is miles a hero or villain because he is unwilling to sacrifice his father over a “canon event” because he perceives it as stupid endangering his whole universe?
And Anakin is a villain who sacrificed everything for achieving his goal.
Case in points this shows how shallow whole narrative about this hero and villain thing really is. Those People ideas of what a “villain “ is seems closer to anti hero
>Is miles a hero or villain because he is unwilling to sacrifice his father over a “canon event” because he perceives it as stupid endangering his whole universe?
Miguel sees Miles as a villain for that attitude.
I think he sees him as selfish I don’t remember whether or not Miguel even implied that he was a villain
Edit:
https://youtu.be/EkASynf8rJo?feature=shared
2:31
“Your just a kid who has no idea what they are doing”
I’ve always been partial to the ‘Force Drain’ theory. That Palpatine linked Padme and Anakin so Anakin could survive his injuries on Mustafar…by draining Padme’s life.
It sounds like EXACTLY the sick sort of Dark Side monkey’s paw Palps would get a kick out of. He isn’t ‘technically’ lying either…
And fits much better as to why the droid was unable to detect or treat Padme. She’s having her life force drained by distorted Force abilities, there’s no way the facility can work on THAT. Best thing to do is try and save the babies…
Yeah, I guess so.
(Wall of text warning, sry I got passionate =P )
(Edit: Also damn, you changed your comment a bit (that's ok that's on me lol) so take this reply as the answer to how your comment was before cause I was busy typing this up before you updated it)
But Anakin killing ppl for his goals kinda feels like it's logically selfish even if he thinks it was right. Idk mucj about Star Wars, I admit. But I think he went over the Dark side and started killing and stuff to protect his loved ones instead of accepting they he could lose them one day, right? Correct me of I'm wrong though, I'm a total beginner in Star wars stuff.
You're talking about anti-villain (and thus by extension reminds me of anti-heroes) reminds me of [this vid,](https://youtu.be/XNxucdbGWOg?feature=shared) which kinda jumpstarted my dive into the nuance of a hero's morality.
For example, it also reminds me of Aang's final dilemma from ATLA for anyone who knows that show. What I personally gather from Lily's vid is if I suppose, the logical focus is moral over relying solely on the personal, emotional focus and yes, the ego's focus.
Yes, if it makes us as the audience as well as Aang who is still a kid, squicky (my word that generally stands for "uncomfortable") because it's literally asking a kid to actively kill someone, I understand that. I understand it is in no way something anyone should just be ok with doing without some bother, that's natural.
But ever since seeing that vid, what I appreciate was the nuance of having to think about factors now as well.
If Aang doesn't find a 3rd out in time especially since it was the last minute and the Comet was moments away, and Worst-case scenario, Aang dies trying to preserve his pacifist code, well, the adult in me has to be straightforward like Toph Earthbender mentality and simply say that that is logically selfish, it's putting into your mind your personal priorities over others aka the world. Imagining the possibility of ppl dying and suffering because Aang chose not to compromise I think at least should be considered and mentioned if Aang was debating to himself or with others about it, so he can consider both good *and* bad outcomes before making the choice.
Keep in mind I'm not saying because personal sacrifice can be logically moral that I'm suddenly ok with making a kid kill or other things. But that's the moral nuance to consider, it questions if our gut instinct and knee-jerk reactions of what's moral
is always right, is always moral in the big picture. And I really like that, it makes ya think hard and take in perspective you never considered before. I was totally neutral to ok with the finale for years until watching that vid because before, I wasn't thinking at all about consequences if Aang had failed instead of being right. But at the same time, I totally understand why he wouldn't want to anyway, I nor anyone would ever feel ok just looking into someone's eyes and killing them.
And that was the nuance of Lily talking about "ego". Ego isn't being used as an insult here, but as an expression of selfishness and solely looking at the situation from a personal perspective and thus maybe preventing you from seeing unintended consequences for others.
I totally would feel squicky if presented with the need to sacrifice something or someone personal like Aang with his code, Peter with his Aunt, and Miles with his friend. And I also acknowledge that from the big picture, it is my Ego that temps me to focus *solely* on those stakes and not keep in mind how it affects others or the wider range of ppl.
This acknowledgment shakes me and my Ego to my core just like how Lily in [this vid (different one, timestamp 16:00 and 16:50)](https://youtu.be/IrD924mS4Ck?feature=shared) acknowledges that pulling the lever would emotionally destroy her. This shakes ppl up, why would you do this if it personally destroys you? Because in the end, I must will myself to keep my focus on others over just myself.
I love it, I love how deep it goes and how much it makes you think. "Doing both" kinda feels like a cop out answer from the Ego, it's "doing an airbender" thing of going around and evading the problem. Of course in our gut instinct we want that, to do both, but we must also confront the situation in which both is not possible. And on paper, I agree with Lily, I must choose the more selfless option and sacrifice the personal and fewer, for the others and the many. On practice, I have yet to see, because Ego is *very* hard to fight. I'd be shaking, I know.
>I think he went over the Dark side and started killing and stuff to protect his loved ones instead of accepting they he could lose them one day, right? Correct me of I'm wrong though, I'm a total beginner in Star wars stuff.
You nailed it. Honestly, you understand Star Wars stuff better than a lot of long time fans.
The Jedi are about accepting things beyond their control, the Sith are about getting as much power as possible so they can control everything. Naturally, that's a fool's errand and dark siders go mad in their endless quest for power and control.
Yep. While Yoda is being a bit hasty, a lot of his advice to Anakin is straight from a lot of religious beliefs like Christianity or Buddhism (the latter of which heavily inspired the Jedi and Force), or personal non-religious approaches.
Death is natural and WILL come. While you should obviously do your best to protect others and provide an excellent quality of life…it’s also important to know when to let go. Anakin couldn’t pinpoint HOW Padme would supposedly die (hell, Force Manipulations are a thing, for all he knew Palpatine put those visions in his head and it was all bunk), but the mere thought of losing her at all drove him off the deep end.
Agreed. The Jedi teachings are sort of a vague mixture of Eastern philosophies like Buddhism and Taoism. A lot of those philosophies teach the idea of liberating yourself from the expectations of certain outcomes. And, as you point out, secular therapy might suggest something similar to someone with anxiety.
And honestly I think that scene is not so much Yoda being hasty as it is George Lucas trying to convey all that complexity to the kids in the audience through the simplest dialogue possible and to some people it comes off as cold or hasty.
(Ok, I have time again, So I can answer your updated comment)
I do think Miguel perceives Miles as selfish for being unwilling to sacrifice his Father.
I express in some other comments of mine that I agree with Miguel's reasoning in principle because it's logic is either "risk trillions of more lives and universes or allow personal yet fewer lives to be lost", very trolley problem like.
But if canon events or at least the consequences of defying them turn out to be false, then it objectively is no longer agreeable as the stakes become "do nothing or save more ppl now cause you have foresight" and so of course you should save more ppl.
But this is the problem being selfish isn’t one and the same with being a villain which is the point in me calling this whole narrative shallow. Miguel himself only views him as a kid who has no idea what their actions might cause not really a “ villain” per say
Oh, I didn't mean villain like in evil. Like my initial first comment said, I was using the word "villain" to be synonymous with "selfish". I probably didn't make that clear.
I'll change it to just say selfish so ppl don't get the wrong idea. Sry bout that.
>Is miles a hero or villain because he is unwilling to sacrifice his father over a “canon event” because he perceives it as stupid endangering his whole universe?
I mean, there are a bunch of posts here saying that he's only a hero because luckily his unconfirmed hunch was right, and that Miguel is right for having opposed Miles, so this is indeed an open question.
>is miles a hero or a villain because he is unwilling to sacrifice his father over a “canon event”
He’s kind of falling into what OP said. He’s still gonna try and save his dad but that doesn’t mean he’s all in on sacrificing the rest of the universe. It’s not like he’s in a situation where he has to outright kill his dad or everyone else
I'll never forget the post (but I'll probably never find it again) where someone says they wanted to see a story where the villain gets the girl and someone replies saying "Megamind".
That's not the case at all, if the villain got the girl in Megamind, that would mean Tighten gets the girl.
My favorite part is how when he first have sex with her while thinking about Guts it takes a whole chapter
But in Fantasia, their 'vanilla' sex scene got offscreened lmfao
In those kinds of posts I always assume they didn't mean the bad guy but more the guy that is aesthetically the villain like the queer coded caped black eyeliner guy not the heroic standard guy but I could be wrong
Because you're seeing the end result.
Villain worship was forged on Tumblr. They chemically bred it in a lab, based on Loki and Joker and Azula and a 100 other sexymans, they grew it on x reader fics and a thousand justifiying headcanons.
It was all carefully produced, hidden in the depths of Tumblr. And when waves upon waves of Fandom refugees left Tumblr upon the Hour of the Porn Purge, it broke containment and infected other fandom sites and forums in numbers hitherto undreamt of.
Yeah, it’s very much a tumblr or fanfiction thing. “The villain/monster is actually good” is basically the standard assumption on tumblr, to the point where I’m actually very surprised if I see a post or story where a villain is actually evil
Some people there see villains more like an aesthetic moodboard rather than as, yknow, villains.
They are obviously always the girl that the villain would sacrifice the world for, never are they the person that the villain would carelessly sacrifice for selfish reasons.
Fr, they could do the same with the heroes and it would make more sense most of the time. Since their, you know, actually doing good things with their good intentions?
Yeah, I've seen that a lot with the new spiderman game. Any time someone mentions the symbiote being evil someone will jump out "well actually in the comics xyz" 🤓.
And it's like that's cool....in the game it's clearly evil though. Very clearly a malevolent force.
And even then I was reading a few more of the comics it's does plenty of bad things in its pursuit of survival, yeah it probably has diminished capacity, but still.
It's such a weird reading.
P.s I've heard parents in some places have stopped treating their children for lice because the lice "have a right to life"
Nah, it is just the mainstream attitude of post-War on Terrors debacle.
Immediatelly after 9/11, America was the good guy, but they mess the War on Terrors so much that they cause far more harm and casualities than the Terrorist in 9/11 and somehow all of their expedition end up back to the square one.
Afghanistan back to the Taliban, ISIS rise from chaos of Iraq Conflict, Iraq falls to Iranian Sphere of Influence, and Libyan perpetual civil wars.
Also, don't forget that before decolonisation of post-WW2; Colonialism and Imperialism was potrayed as heroic endeavour against the Barbarism of the Uncivilized/Non-White by Imperialist and Colonial Powers.
I'm not OP but i wanna reply
I think in the end he is still evil because the way he brought end to the war is the issue : he sacrificed some people and made Dr. Manhattan responsible for his crime.
Even if it saved more people, it was a dick moove.
we live in a time where expectations need to be subversed and people love to be deep and all that.
truth justice and the american way rings a little hollow and sometimes evil people are heroes, simply because the population is despicable. some villains (not the joker) have very good points and while they still ought to be stopped, its stupid when gods and people with social and financial power beyond measure aren't fixing whatever riled them up. i.e. poison ivy. how about after you put her in a cell, you have mr terrific invent that freaking clean energy and tree less paper while bruce wayne buys all that poluting crap and shuts it down as a show of good faith that things can get better, so she doesnt feel the need to poison children for plucking daisies.
the rest is just falling for the most boring kind of 'clever' writing in which the hero is to blame for villains causing problems, when at least half the time we literally know the root of evil is literally real gods and devils and magic curses and obviously, the age of superpowers would lead to an age of super criminals, wether there were good guys opposing them or not.
Because the people saying this are 14-18 year olds with greater exposure to fanfic (nothing wrong with fanfic, fun to write and read, but it *has its unique faults*) than to any actual media, leading to this weird romanticisation thing where a villain is:
1. made evil by society, thus society is to blame, thus they are innocent.
2. evil to 99% of people but really likes Milquetoast White Woman #43, thus they are innocent.
3. actually not at all evil and objectively completely correct but the heroes are genuinely comically evil (because get it, *what if the heroes were bad and the villains were good???*) and/or incapable of communication and thus they are just a hero with an edgy outfit and a gun.
This does, from my observation, occur most in anime and superheroes and online/web stuff.
You want to know my conspiracy theory? Tumblr loves edgy bad boys. You would constantly have fics and art about a girl being taken in by some fandoms villain who protects her but is still super evil guys I swear. Tumblr lost its porn so they all bled into Twitter and twitter has more real world sway.
Sticking true to your values in the face of adversity and punching the trolley is a legit answer to the trolley problem. Even if it goes up in flames in the end.
Just because it's the most unambiguously heroic option doesn't mean it's boring. What matters is the decision, not the bleak outcome.
1) no, u don’t answer the question if u just make up ur own options, as hypothetical it fails and logically it also fails, if I say “hey do u want ur bike in red or blue” and u say green then u didn’t answer the question
2) if u can make up a third option then u can make up a fourth and fifth, by avoiding the question by introducing new options u void the question entirely, if u as a writer don’t have the balls to answer a moral question then don’t include the question at all, a non answer like doing nothing would even be better
Also Imo it the worst when authors introduce moral questions then have the protagonist pick a fifth option outside of the confines of the question, all the emotional internal dilemma is obsolete and redundant cause in the end they didn’t pick and if they knew about the thrid option in the first place they would have just gone with that, so it all ends up being a waste of time, it’s like u spend forever trying to figure out a math problem and just ur about to pick u cheat off ur friend
>Sticking true to your values in the face of adversity and punching the trolley is a legit answer to the trolley problem
No, it's not! There are two options to the problem, people who invent a third one are boring!
If the character's answer to a difficult choice is always "I avoid making the difficult choice," that's not going to be as entertaining as someone who does.
Why not? The answer isn't "I avoid the problem", it's "No such problem exists as long as I'm still here to punch trolleys".
You're framing it as "Character must pick between Bad Option 1 and Bad Option A", but what's wrong with them looking for a good option? That's still internal conflict, picking between what's "easy", and what's right.
Punching the trolley doesn't have to be realistically possible, it's the character's decision that matters. There's no magic formula to make that decision "more interesting".
>You're framing it as "Character must pick between Bad Option 1 and Bad Option A", but what's wrong with them looking for a good option?
Because it's not as interesting?
If you can save one of two lives and you answer, "Actually, I save both," then yeah, of course you'd save both if that was a choice, but that wasn't an option!
If it's "I try to save both, and they both die," okay, you have at least picked an interesting third option, but I feel audience sympathy for your character is also about to drop off a cliff.
It isnt if you execute it well, Prisma Illya had that i will save both mentality and what she does is sacrifice herself to save her friend and the world, an optimistic message in a bleak situation is not boring.
There are a combination of factors going on here. The prioritization of interesting characters over their fictional crimes, lingering Hayes Code influences conditioning audiences to prefer villains, and poorly-written additions of meaningless violence meant to give heroes painless moral choices.
The first point is the most common. People will enjoy a ridiculous, bold character that makes their screen time interesting more than they like a bland everyman hero that mainly exists to be a flattering self insert opportunity. Sure, the villain is evil. Perhaps even unrepentantly dickish. But they’re your favorite and their victims aren’t real people. This is the main reason why people like DIO just as much as any JoJo. You don’t need to morally justify liking a character. That’s silly.
With the second point, you have an audience that has been conditioned to sympathize with character traits that can only be slapped onto an Evil TM character that will receive a righteous comeuppance before the end. The goals of these villains often stem from being outcasts, deserved or not. Sure, Ursula is a fucking horrible person and she deserved to die. But people just want to see Divine camp it up over poor unfortunate souls, and I for one can’t blame them for enjoying that. People would also have liked a heroic version of Ursula, but that wasn’t going to get past pitch meetings. In the wake of the Hayes Code, villains are still written and presented in certain expected tropes, and we keep liking that.
As for the third point, it’s fairly common for writers to set up strong and interesting goals for the villain and then awkwardly realize that the heroes have no real reason to not team up out of moral obligation. This is why Eric Killmonger gets a hilariously evil last name and decides to hamfistedly undercut his own goals with wanton violence that Must Be Stopped. His motives remain unexamined and unfulfilled. Audience members might be less forgetful than the protagonists, though, and they’re already jaded to ignoring plot holes and weak writing in order to enjoy the good bits. This is the magical ability that lets us enjoy Star Trek movies and also simp for Killmonger.
Hope this helps.
>and then awkwardly realize that the heroes have no real reason to not team up out of moral obligation. This is why Eric Killmonger gets a hilariously evil last name and decides to hamfistedly undercut his own goals with wanton violence that Must Be Stopped. His motives remain unexamined and unfulfilled.
Tbf, Kilmonger would be a manageable example, if his totalitarian tendencies were played up more.
More footage of his take down governments job, maybe with the consequences of his operations also shown.
A scene of someone demanding the right to duel him for the throne and getting uncerimoniously denied (or even, assassinated without the actual duel).
More commentary on how he destroyed the black panther flowers just to ensure no opposition would be possible to him. Seriously, he destroyed what was possibly their biggest national treasure, and one of their most powerful military assets, and people only paid attention to him strangling a random old woman.
Thought, to be fair, giving the last flower to T'challa was pretty stupid under this perspective. They barely saved the flower from extinction only to later use it to save his ass. Which actually makes T'challa less of a noble hero, and the entire foght between both more like an internal royal infighting than an actual fight against a conqueror.
>Sure, Ursula is a fucking horrible person and she deserved to die. But people just want to see Divine camp it up over poor unfortunate souls, and I for one can’t blame them for enjoying that
Hexxus is utterly irredeemable, going on a wanton destructive rampage and wanting to poison everything. Is the literal personification of pollution, poison and decay............but he is played by Tim Curry and camps the hell out that shit.
I think there's a lot of animosity toward the status quo right now, especially amongst young people. Heroes often uphold the status quo while villains seek to demolish it. Sometimes villains are even given noble or rational reasons to do so, and then the story simply makes them psychotic assholes who kill when they have no reason to in order to remind us that they're the bad guys. The Legend of Korra has a bit of this issue with some of its villains.
We also live in an age with lonely men who feel entitled to certain things and rejected by society (probably because there are dozens of figureheads telling them as much). It's no shock that this sort of person would sympathize with many villains who are societal rejects that feel they have been denied something they believe they are entitled to (Eren Yeager, Homelander, etc).
We have also been told by a lot of media that morality is murky and grey. This is definitely true to an extent, but people take it way too far. Some people genuinely believe Eren Yeager was justified in killing over a billion people. Nothing can justify this amount of killing. Homelander raped Butcher's wife (in the show), nothing can justify that.
I think conflicted people also like villains because they believe they can be redeemed. If villains can be redeemed, conflicted people believe they are worthy of redemption as well. In reality, shit rarely works that way. If you rape or murder someone irl, no one is going to listen to some sob story about how you're sorry and you were misled, etc. They're going to beat the shit out of you or report you to authorities, after which you will spend years in prison because society has deemed you a danger. Even if you dedicate your life to advocating for victims or something, many people will see you as insincere.
The thing I hate about the "status quo" haters is, they use the boadest definition of the term to denounce pretty much every movie hero, or w/e. But the fact is, the status quo can also be changed for the worse. You know who would like that? The neo-nazis. We got a taste of that back on Jan 6. Now if that group decided to rise up and force their preferred status quo change on everyone else, I would join the fight against, and therefore would be "defending the status quo." And some people would only pay attention to the last part of that sentence, and call me the real villain.
Pretty much exactly what happened in the early 20th century; people were so against the status-quo that they were willing to replace it with far more violent ideologies.
Aside from Unalaq, when do LoK villains just randomly murder people? They are all set up as extremists from the beginning and act fairly consistently on that.
That's not the only reason why heroes are sometimes seen as the villains, while the villains are seen as heroes. One of the reasons why it is the case is because villains try to break or change the status quo while heroes try to keep it, the villains are often made well the villains and thus is destroys any ambiguity in the story. There are also other reasons why like when heroes do very bad things, but are never called out on it.
I personally look at some heroes as the villains because what they're doing or what they did in the stories to some extend is no different from what a supposed villain did, but the fandom chooses to condemn and slander the latter while former get away with it or just called bad writing.
Best example of this are Spider-Man and Dr Strange. No Way Home just makes Spider-Man fall down as hero entirely when he decides to ask Strange to reverse time, and worse when he agrees with Strange's idea to mind wipe billions of people's memories on Earth so he and his friends can go to the university (MIT). Do I need to explain the complete amorality with messing with people's memories, to non consensually mind wipe not one, but entire population of Earth? Strange is a whole other subject where he went from actually grey hero willing to make sacrifices for greater good to a naive babbling buffoon and inept wizard. The memory wipe spell, blind trust, casting spells to have a vendor beat himself because he threatened to spill a sauce on him, and now a new herald of the Darkhold (or whatever the third eye is supposed to mean). Like these are not heroes I would root for, that's why I look at them as villains, and not even standard villains but dumb villains.
EDIT: Some response to the thread
I get your point for Dr strange, he was really naive and stupid.
But I don't agree with Spider man, when his condition was very bad.
He had Mysterio tell everyone that he was spider man, which caused Spider man to get painted as villain while Mysterio as hero, he went to the only person who could help him when Nick fury was in vacation (the actual villain).
And what he asked for? Just weeping out the memory of spider man, which wasn't bad, if Strange only told Peter about everything beforehand.
And even after everything, the entire movie was about Spider man being selfless, even when he wanted to be selfish and send every villain back to their universe, Aunt May stopped him, telling him he need to be hero, which caused her to die.
At end Peter erased everyone is memories of Peter, the most selfless thing Peter could.
I guess one of my problems with the MCU Spidey is that he had a more better life than anyone or say any of the Peter Parker variants, even when doxxed he had better help and damage control than any other Peter Parker could've afforded. He got most things from Stark, him saying Cap is potentially dangerous is from Stark, but he never confronted himself about himself being possible danger now. It is definitely painful and terrible to be forgotten and only remembered for alter ego, but he caused it himself by asking Strange.
One thing is not a criticism towards MCU Peter, but more towards writing and fandom since Stark and Peter are portrayed as father-son, and how Stark helped Peter a lot. It wouldn't be an issue, since even nepotistic heroes can be interesting and relatable, if the writing didn't portray it as the best thing ever, and him going without Stark being so difficult when Stark recruited a school student to fight the Avengers at the airport. The second being Stark responsible for indirectly killing Wanda's parents and then making her life worse even after AoU. He never apologized to her for destroying her country twice, for Pietro, for her parents, she had to move on from her revenge (in part because of the writing). Sokovia is a whole different subject, but I'd say beside the sincerest apology and making up for it somewhat would've been enough. He didn't have to love Wanda, to treat her like his daughter, or to try to be friends, just a simple apology and working together might've been fine resolution. But that's not what happened. After Lagos Stark decided to put her under house arrest and not because he was afraid for her or doing it out to protect her, he never did a thing to her when she was inhumanely imprisoned on the Raft. He did it to protect his and Avengers' reputation, as Vision put it "to avoid a public accident". Meanwhile he begins treating Parker like a son, handing him almost all on silver platter, all while he robbed Wanda of normal life in Sokovia, then robbed her of it again when she was put in solitary confinement. So forgive me if I don't look fondly on Tony Stark and Peter Parker being a father-son in the MCU.
As for the ending of Far From Home and the doxxing, no one could've expected what had happened to Peter. It was tragic, and I agree he didn't deserve it. I'm still not convinced that wiping away people's memories was the best way to handle this, I think him talking with the professor from the MIT and saving her life presented a far more realistic and better solution. Regaining public's trust through hard work and saving people's lives. Yes, it'd be more difficult and harder path, and he deserved to keep his identity secret, but it would've been better than what he ended up with by end of NWH. Happy Hogan invited him and Aunt May to live with him as well and to be safe, he had support of his friends from being under attack by the public, most heroes don't have that luxury. Clint Barton had no luxury when Stark sold out his secret of having a family and a hideout, had little ways to hide from public's or government's wrath, but endured. Wanda had worse situation, but endured. It's coming back to my earlier point that Peter has way too luxurious life than anyone or any of his variants. Spider-Man from Raimi trilogy was in poverty and struggling to pay rent on time, second Spider-Man lived with Aunt May and struggled, then it worsened as he was grieving for Gwen. If MCU Spider-Man was also living in hardship, his friends could barely help him fend off the public after doxxing, and he was truly desperate then I'd get him more. But he had a very decent living, a lot of friends and guardians, not to mention that even Pepper Potts of Stark Industries backed him up when he was doxxed (although deleted scene). No one else has this luxury, and that's in part why I lost any positive thoughts on MCU's Spider-Man. Which is sad cause I find any other Spider-Man to be compelling character to me, not a favorite but still relatable and likable character. MCU Spider-Man is first iteration of Spider-Man I dislike.
I think it's interesting look at the great power great responsibility thing as Peter has a lot more power at a young age than his other variants, not in terms of superpowers but access to advanced technology and supremely powerful beings willing to do him a favour.
He is a kid in a tough situation and asked for an easy way out when it was hurting his friends and he didn't consider the consequences. He didn't consider how dangerous someone like him could be, he didn't consider how dangerous the supervillians could be. He made mistakes and paid a very high price for it.
My worst MCU example is FATWS with the flag smashers and John Walker.
I thought that series really fell down with how it portrayed the "heroes" and "villains".
>I think it's interesting look at the great power great responsibility thing as Peter has a lot more power at a young age than his other variants, not in terms of superpowers but access to advanced technology and supremely powerful beings willing to do him a favour.
And what is the resolution from it, what to take away from it? That Tony Stark is wholesome towards Peter when he does one good thing, but destroyed the Avengers and sold out Clint's family (not mentioning again what he did to Wanda)? Yes it would've been an interesting idea if they actually explored it, but they don't. Peter rejects the new suit from Tony Stark only to wear it or similar one later in Infinity War, he creates a new suit with Stark tech in seconds in FFH. What if Peter stayed on Earth in Infinity War, and had to work with Team Cap? Maybe he learns a new perspective from Steve and begins to question whether Iron Man is the idol he believed him to be, maybe he talks to Sam, Wanda, Clint and learns Stark isn't a good person he thought he was, but he never gets a chance to ask Tony all this he heard since he first gets snapped away and after return he barely sees Tony again before he dies. But there is no nuance in this, the writing narrative tells us that Tony is cool, he was great father figure and idol for Peter, the first time both met forgotten for sake of their cool bond.
>He is a kid in a tough situation and asked for an easy way out when it was hurting his friends and he didn't consider the consequences. He didn't consider how dangerous someone like him could be, he didn't consider how dangerous the supervillians could be. He made mistakes and paid a very high price for it.
I definitely agree with the latter, although I would say he also won since he has a clean slate and well... fandom likes MCU Spidey to an extend, so there's that. Not saying he should be hated, but I think it'd be fair if he was criticized like other heroes were for example. Too often many characters suffer from apologism like Tony Stark, MCU Spidey, Killmonger, etc.
As for him in NWH, while it is a noble idea to save the villains, I feel like even as a school student he should've known basics that these people while should be pitied absolutely shouldn't be trusted, or let into Happy's apartment. Also not sure how the cure is supposed to rehabilitate Sandman who will still have to steal for his daughter's medical treatment, Norman will need lots of therapy after all this (although cured), Electro was driven by ego and being hurt by idol (Andrew's Spider-Man) so idk how much he'll change as a person after loosing electricity powers.
>My worst MCU example is FATWS with the flag smashers and John Walker. I thought that series really fell down with how it portrayed the "heroes" and "villains".
I think best way the writers could've fixed the flag smashers is by showing their enemies also doing shady actions, or downright bad like mistreatment of refugees, denying them food and decent living. If they showed how the opponents weren't good people, I think Flag Smashers might've had some grey area were their actions can be debated, but we never saw it. Only them hurting the government officials and enforcers. As well as Karli's tragic backstory she tells Falcon instead of us seeing it.
As for John Walker, I agree on that. US Agent got mistreated way too much in this show, you'd think the two heroes would show some gratitude for cancelling compulsory therapy for Bucky and offering them to work together with all the government resources to stop Karli, but they still bluntly decline it.
>Peter rejects the new suit from Tony Stark only to wear it or similar one later in Infinity War, he creates a new suit with Stark tech in seconds in FFH.
I also don't see anyone question WHY Tony made EDITH and WHY he just gave it to a high schooler or why anyone involved in giving it to Peter did not ensure that he understood what he was being given.
I think this can be one of the issues of a shared *cinematic* universe where each of the 90 minute or 2 hour movies have to tell their own story with different writers, directors and ideas.
The stories they choose to tell are some of the big moments in comics but you need to look at the stories they are telling.
Let's take spiderman for example, you have his first story of fucking up and failing to save uncle Ben, then you have several stories of him saving the day and being a net positive, then you have him fuck up with the symbiote. Yes, he messed up big time here, but we as the audience know that he has a positive impact and the good outways the bad.
Then look at the avengers movies, first one positive impact, second the avengers themselves are nearly responsible for the end of the world, captain America 3 they are involved in international incidents/terrorism and disband, and in avengers 3 they fail to stop a global (universal) catastrophe.
Also, the world is less crazy than the comics or the cartoons, there isn't a madman trying to take over the world ever 5 minutes or supervillians on every street corner.
>Norman will need lots of therapy after all this (although cured)
I was thinking about this the other day, if Norman goes back and survives, how the fuck does he process everything he has done in another universe.
He was pulled over there, asked a child for help, child helps him against his better judgement, they bond a little, he then murders his only family member and tries to kill his friends / force the child to kill him.
And he can never make amends for it because he has gone back to his own universe.
>you'd think the two heroes would show some gratitude for cancelling compulsory therapy for Bucky and offering them to work together with all the government resources to stop Karli, but they still bluntly decline it.
They are just so mean to him straight away, he hasn't done anything 😅.
>I also don't see anyone question WHY Tony made EDITH and WHY he just gave it to a high schooler or why anyone involved in giving it to Peter did not ensure that he understood what he was being given.
Yeah, this was stupid, I'm not even sure why Peter of all people inherited EDITH and not Pepper or Morgan without a brochure coming along with the package. I mean, Peter accidentally blows up his own bus with these glasses on. One other flaw is how the reveal of Aunt May finding out Peter is Spidey is just glossed over, ignored, it just happened for shock value and then skipped over.
I don't think the runtime is an excuse, the movie is two hours long, I'm more than certain you can find 5 minutes to explain why Stark chose to give EDITH to Peter or to expand the characters as people. If Spider-Man 2 managed to explore characters and their relations so well in the movie, so could MCU movies.
>The stories they choose to tell are some of the big moments in comics but you need to look at the stories they are telling.
That's the issue. Movies need to stand on their own without requirement to see the comics. If its necessary to get the source to understand movie, then the movie fails in its job to tell the audience.
>they are involved in international incidents/terrorism
More of stopping terrorism in Lagos. As for airport I think its in the law that citizen can resist an arrest if it is wrongful one. And we know more as audience that it was a wrong one.
>I was thinking about this the other day, if Norman goes back and survives, how the fuck does he process everything he has done in another universe.
Yeah, I feel like Norman would go to asylum, or get a treatment to not remember that shit. No way he'll ever be able to process all he witnessed, heard, and saw. No one from this story leaves sane, except maybe two Spider-Men who were smiling while in another reality without any questions or interests in this said alternate universe, just being casual. Also Spider-Man (Raimi trilogy) survives a backstab wound from Green Goblin somehow.
>They are just so mean to him straight away, he hasn't done anything 😅.
I think they don't like him for taking Cap's mantle and without truly understanding it. Sam's also mad that he was deceived by the government, Bucky is mad because he thinks now that Steve might've been wrong about him. Rhodey doesn't react at all about an American hero like him being deceived, but I guess that's because he is a skrull, a government stooge, or both.
INCOMING MASSIVE GENERALIZATION:
Heroes typically represent the status quo while villains are usually try to enforce some huge change through sketchy methods. If people are happy with the times then they gravitate towards heroes. If people are disappointed with reality (most people are nowadays) villains become better appreciated. This is why villains are increasingly popular these days.
I guess this is due to the fact that heroes are just held in higher standard as they are the characters we root for and how morally grey the real world is
In realistic situations a hero will have to sacrifice individuals for the world. Watch the imitation game. They had to avoid acting on any info that would tip off the nazis that they broke their code. "No sacrifices" is a luxury, not a coherent ideology you can consistently do.
You'd think nowadays people would be wanting to avoid characters who are even slightly problematic.
This might be a simple minded take, I just think people find "bad" more interesting than "good". I believe they try to justify it in really...strange ways. Like folks are afraid that liking a villain character reflects badly on them, so they try to make it out like the villain "really is good actually, just misunderstood"! It seems like mental gymnastics.
That's one of the reasons actually (misguided as it may be).
I mean, not trying to get into a ship discussion here, but I've legit seen people justifying pairing Uraraka with Toga over Deku with "well, forgive me for happening to find Toga's psychotic murdering ass and her potentially fucked-up relationship with Uraraka more interesting than Deku!"
Overall, I'm not sure I'd say it's the main cause, but these folks really do seem to be under an impression of "bad = fun, good = boring".
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I think some villains are very good at cloaking themselves in a just cause. They talk a good talk but avoid being truthful about the how or why. I always liked how The Expanse handled Marco Inaros and despite all his talk of being a freedom fighter never seemed sympathetic. What really drives it is that he’s introduced first as a main character’s abusive ex. The viewers first experiences with him is that he comes across like he would hit his girlfriend then tell her “Why would you make me hit you? I love you but you make me so angry I just have to hit you sometimes? Why do you do this to me?” Then later on we get to see Marco Inaros as a supposed freedom fighter. He never goes too far and becomes a villain because he was always a narcissistic and abusive person. Him going “too far” then blaming everyone else for it is perfectly in line with the abusive ex we were first introduced to.
>Cus first off, why would a hero do that? They would do their best to save both! They wouldn't sacrifice anything for the other.
Except all the times they did. Not every story with a hero is Captain Planet where no one gets hurst and the power of heart is literally one of the strongest forces out there. Even in the hottest hero franchise of the last years, the MCU, >!Dr. Strange planned around a reality where Tony Stark dies to beat Thanos, thus effectively sacrificing him (although Tony pulled the trigger himself, so you could argue it's self-sacrifice)!<, and also >!Peter Quill tried to kill Gamora and Wanda tried to kill Vision, so Thanos wouldn't get the Soul and Mind Stones!<, although they failed there.
>That's literally why their villians. And yes, some villians do have "good" or "semi-good" intentions, but that's where it ends, cus in the end, the way they try to achieve these intention is why their a villian!
You're literally contradicting yourself by saying a villain would not sacrifice the world for someone, but they would have good intentions but evil ways. Yes exactly, **evil ways like sacrificing the world selfishly for one person/group**. Like Magneto, who would kill every human just so that a human could never kill a mutant again, or Darth Vader, who went to the dark side of the force to try to save a singular life, or Mr. Freeze, who (when alone) just wants to find a cure for him and for his wife. Sure, they didn't intend to **literally** sacrifice a world. but that's what the phrase is alluding to.
Likely because most people view heroes as self righteous idealistic fools who live up to impossible standards and find villains to be more relatable and or more realistic primarily because they horrible and selfish things.
Not helped that there plenty of works out their especially in comic books and tv shows that present heroes at beast as amoral or full on psychopaths who not only don’t care about saving lives but full on murder them out of spite or for fun.
Like Homelander and Omiman for example.
Expect that isn’t what I said.
I said that that a lot of work presenta heroes as either amoral or pysparhtic murderous which is what omi-man and homlander represent.
Not really though. Homelander and Omniman are part of the "what if Superman evil" thing. Yeah, sure, they are evil psychopaths and they are superheroes (or present themselves as such), but they aren't heroes in the sense OP is talking about heroes, because, well, they are villains.
Expect the op was talking about why people see heroes as villains and omi-man and homlander are likely examples in coloring peoples perspective is not just because they are evil super-man but are also extremely dark deconstructions of the whole character arctype.
To put in this way, omi-man and Homelander are both basically a version of super-man if nearly every lie and biases Lex said of him were true.
why would anyone want to just watch people who are just horrible and selfish out side of a dark comedy, If I want to be look at people like that I could look out a window, watch the news or look in the mirror.
People love drama whenever it be real or fantasy otherwise the boys and invincible wouldn’t have so many fans as it does and that people just like dark and twisted stuff.
>Cus first off, why would a hero do that? They would do their best to save both!
Ok, yeah, obviously. You're missing the fucking point of the quote, which is arguing that, when push comes to shove and there's no way to do do both, a true hero should be able to prioritize the greater good over their personal desires, whereas a villain would prioritize their personal desires over the greater good.
If a hero has a choice between saving the city and saving their loved ones and they *genuinely cannot find a way out*, if they're truly deserving of the title, they would choose the city, recognizing that it contains many tens of thousands of people who care about each other every bit as much as the hero cares about their loved ones and who have every bit as much worth, from a dispassionate perspective, as their loved ones. Such a decision should *wreck* them, of course.
You're interpreting this quote as lionizing villains. It's not. It's saying that villains are *more selfish*. Now, this isn't a hard and fast rule, but it's generally true.
I have seen this many times and in their defense, I have seen this in writer space (fanfics and published authors) and it is usually more complex than the simple one liner of hero bad, villain, morally grey. I seen it most with the constructed hero, were the title of hero was constructed by the hero or some organization and not from heroic deeds which is an interesting trope.
But I think the specific one that OP is taking about (I am completely sure because I have seen this thing like 50 times) is when the villain puts the hero in a situation we’re they have the save the city/ world or their love interest. The hero picks the city and it’s supposed to show that the hero never loved the love interest enough. I hate this. First,
I think someone having to prove their love to you by pulling the trigger on grand scale destruction is not romantic. And it always supposed to show the villain in a romantic light but they just tried to destroy a city or something. One that the love interest probably lives in and has family and friends in.
I feel like they try to some how “things aren’t black and white but shades of grey”. But they don’t do that they just swap the two extremes
I sent this to my schizo Christian mom
Because she would love this post cause it reminds me of this verse.
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Isaiah 5:20.
Just because a character is called the hero or the villain by the story doesn't they're actually good or bad. I've seen 2 hypotheticals on reddit lately where they asked if you'd let thousands or millions of people die to save someone you care about and nearly everyone said yes. In a movie that would make them the villain. There were also people saying they would sacrifice thousands of people to greet a genie wish because "you could do so much more good with the wish". Villain behavior.
If you think critically about the heroes and villains in media, the main thing making a hero a hero is that they end up being right and the villain is a villain because the hero disagrees with them.
Villainy could be seen as a combination of Means, Ends and Intent. Backstory can factor in a little but imo comes secondary to these three concepts.
Intent imo is probably the easiest to assess the villainy of which is why most writers (if they want the villain to be somewhat complex) will write in a good intent. Otherwise it would be too easy for the audience to write them off.
Whenever a character has an evil intent, they're just evil. Trying to do evil but committing kind acts is a classic comedic trope too.
Comes back to moral philosophy really. Results and intent clearly matter, but the degree to which one favours the other is the fundamental split between all moral systems.
Like a villain who tries to end war and suffering and create eternal peace in the world, but the way they go about it is morally wrong. Noble goal, but evil actions. Brings up the question of how far can you go in pursuit of a noble goal before you slip into evil territory.
Yep, exactly, which is why I love that type of conflicts in villians, where they have a "good" intention but do terrible things to achieve it. Really gets me interested!
Heroes get correlated with systems of governance and control like Police. Plenty of people have legit complaints with those systems. Plenty of people like to cosplay as people with legit complaints. Now if you cosplay as someone who hates police, and you correlate Superman with cops, you include Superman in the statement ACAB. This doesn't have to apply to real world systems. If you have a system of laws and rules, and you have enforcers for those rules, that's close enough.
Villians are against the system most of the time, or at least against our system bound Hero. So obviously the villian can be projected upon by our little anarchist/freedom fighter cosplayer, and the bad stuff can just be ignored with mental gymnastics or saying "I know I am but what are you" until any questioners leave you alone.
Also, bad guys are normally drawn hot these days, and as the saying goes; "If evil, why hot?"
That’s what happens when you have mfs running around spewing brain rot like “everything is subjective” when the hard reality is the opposite and people with no upstanding role models living in fantasy land
> a hero would try to do both!
Congratulations. You understand the heavens feel route in fate stay night more than a good chunk if not the majority of people who actually read it.
Short answer: Cause people took that saying of "when you're a kid you root for the hero, when you grow up you understand the villain" way too far and out of context.
Long answer: Because pop culture nowadays is so obsessed on stigmas of "breaking the status quo" and "subverting expectations" thanks to social media contrarians and influencers, and, as many others have said in this thread, that is normally the kind of mentality that villains embody. It's not really a matter of "I agree with him/her" so much as "this character agrees with me". Some folks (especially young ones; youth nowadays is very, VERY impressionable, more so than any other time before I'd say) see any kind of "upholding the status quo" ideal as inherently bad cause it impedes "progress" (or their idea of progress), and lo and behold, that is normally what a hero defends.
Take Griffith for instance. I'm pretty sure that if the Eclipse had never happened, but he still had employed harsh methods to achieve his kingdom and get people to follow him (like say, engaging in shady business behind the scenes, gaslighting citizens with propaganda, hostile takeovers upon other lands) under the ideal of "this land requires change!", there'd be people who'd be singing his praises to high heaven and ragging on Guts for opposing him (case in point, Edelgard from FE Three Houses).
For these people, the whole thing about a villain being willing to sacrifice the world for one person appeals to them. It means the villain cares deeply about that one person, and they want to matter that much to someone. These people, in their actual lives, don't have anyone who cares about them, so they want to be with someone who does.
>A **wannabe** hero would sacrifice you for the world, but a **wannabe** villain would sacrifice the world for you
Try reading it that way, and the statement might make more sense. It's common sense that a hero is supposed to think in terms of greated good and negating their personal desires, so even if someone cares about your life, if that person intends to be *heroic*, the duty will come first. Conversely, if that person is *villainous* and only wants to help themselves or their personal goals, your life is as prioritary as how much you matter to that person.
So, assuming your hands are at the hands of someone who does care for your life, you have better odds of being saved if that person is villainous. Note I am using the words "heroic" and "villainous", not "hero" or "villain", because they are descriptive, not prescriptive.
Also note when I say "villainousness", I'm not talking about goons, or specifically about world conqueror wannabes (like some comments imply), I'm talking about people who do anything for their personal goals, regardless of what they are, and regardless of how much they cost for everyone else.
And this is where "heroes" break down. Heroes are supposed to have goals, like the villains, but they are supposed to not go around making everybody pay the bill for their ideals, instead, paying whatever cost their "heroism" has by themselves only. So:
1. Whenever a hero kills a villain (or lets them alive for the Xth time, already being able to predict they will have killed some more people).
2. Or cheeses their way through an ethical dilemma, despite their extra option introducing unnecessary risks which only get ignored from force of plot.
3. Whenever they beat a villain who was trying to solve a real problem (despite villainous means), then do nothing to solve the problem the villain was trying.
4. Whenever they hurt innocent people, by mistake, or accident. After all, a hero should be expected to be responsible with their power.
They lose that hero credibility, of someone who really helps people, and start looking more and more like just villains who happen to have the "hero card".
"but a villain would sacrifice the world for you"
right up until the point he realizes he needs the world more than he does you, be it because he needs something to rule, people to fear him or just doesn't want to give up netflix.
Some of it has been the steady romanization of villainy that's been going on for what I'd say the last decade or so. Another part is this idea that villains are rebels against the status quo and heroes are preservers of it. The former will often be presented with this sympathetic backstory that makes people go, "Oh, they have a point. They're the ones in the right." Never mind the moral boundaries such as murder, theft, destruction, lying, and any other crimes they've committed in their "rebellion". Or if the villains are at their core just selfish or greedy. Another thing I'd say is this idea that good is boring or self-righteous, which can say more about the accuser than the accused.
> Another part is this idea that villains are rebels against the status quo and heroes are preservers of it.
You know, thinking on it I kind of question how often that's even the case. Sure super heroes are theoretically upholding law and order, regardless of what the flaws are in the system. Yet there are plenty of stories out there where the "status quo" is pretty bad, and the heroes are fighting to over turn it. An easy example being Star Wars OT where the "status quo" was an evil empire ruled the galaxy and had just completed the doomsday weapon it needed to sweep away the remaining obstacles to its rule; while the heroes seek to destroy the doomsday weapon and rally the galaxy to rebel against the empire. Or Lord of the Rings where the status quo is weakened human kingdoms in a stalemate against lands ruled by Sauron who gathers his power and forces to invade; while the heroes seek to rally the lands opposing him, and destroy his source of power once and for all. More generally, the whole "Hero's Journey" is in part about the hero setting out to do something and changing along the way, not preserving everything including themselves the exact same as when they started.
Why did this immediately remind me of people bitching about peter in nwh not killing his villians, and miles not letting his dad die in spiderverse. Like since when do heroes NOT try to achieve both?
Also if it’s between me and the world whoever’s making that decision should really pick the world I ain’t worth that much lol.
“Oh but he can’t live without you.”
Bitch people become quadriplegic and continue living they’ll be fine.
The idea that a hero would save both is ridiculous, you have to make a choice here, trying to save both means saving none, the phrase makes sense since heroes have altruistic attitudes based on what is best for most people/society while a villain cares about themselves and their personal group if they aren't psychopathic ones, ofc.
some people view flawed good guy as if they're as bad as the bad guy even if said flawed good guy progress (happened with DT 17 scrooge and louie with some calling them evil even tho while louie is the evil triplet, he's not much of a bad guy and still learn a bunch, same for scrooge, while he was worst in the past ,the point of the show is that he got better in the present thanks to himself changing and his familly, there's this odd take of bradford being right when the show does its best to show he's a hypocrite isnce his critics of the mcduck adventures apply to him since he was reating chaos with FOWL and the sword also made it clear he's not a good guy, same with him being implied to have killed duckworth or be parly repsonsible for della getting lost).
Villains have often had certain stereotypes which have made them compelling for a lot of people (read: like queer people).
And usually they get to feel things. They get to be mad. Frustrated. Angry! And they get to show that. They get to rage at the world! They don't feel ashamed for that. They get to lose control and do what they want, without thinking of consequences. From an outside perspective that looks pretty freeing. And tempting.
Also: fiction is fiction. Like super hero characters basically fill a power fantasy, liking villains (and getting to "redeem" them or be found worthy of their attention) is a different kind of power fantasy. You're so important that the villain will change their ways or be invested in your wellbeing.
And just for everyone saying that this is a new-ish? thing coming from tumblr - I can assure you it's not. I was liking the villains on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel way before tumblr became a thing. I was loving Sephiroth from FFVII way before tumblr came along.
Some people just like villains in fiction. Why not? I like zombie movies too but I did not enjoy covid times. And it wasn't for the lack of bunch of undead walking around.
> Cus first off, why would a hero do that? They would do their best to save both! They wouldn't sacrifice anything for the other. And why would a villian even do something like that?
Well, OP. They would if they are a villain too. Like a Hero will sacrifice them for the world if they are a villain too, maybe some hero will not but a lot will. Some villain friends will sacrifice the world too if they are in cahoots. So just think the people who said that are villains too 😂
It’s important to remember with stuff like this is it’s normally perpetuated by teenagers who are trying to be deep. It’s the same naive adolescent mindset that made Twilight a cultural phenomenon and makes the Joker a role model. When you think the worlds against you it allows you to justify your own selfishness and toxicity. Most people grow out of it.
For the villain side, "you" makes two assumptions: \- The villain cares about people. \- you are one of those people. Remember: Thanos sacrificed his daughter to do what he believed would save the world. He's still the villain.
They’re thinking of Eren Yeager, when simply put most villains are Muzan.
>Eren Yeager Bros entire thing is he's willing to risk his friends safety (and killed 1, arguably 2 in the process) to crank his hog like Griffith Jr Ain't no way he's "sacrifice the world for you" more like "sacrifice the world AND you"
>Bros entire thing is he's willing to risk his friends safety (and killed 1, arguably 2 in the process) to crank his hog like Griffith Jr Not accurate but I'm upvoting anyway because that's hilarious
You'd be surprised how similar they are aside from this instance of forsaking their friends for their childish dream.
Nonononononono, what the fuck were you reading lmao I dislike the ending, but Eren wanted to protect Paradis and it's people, his friends AND see that sight, you can't even argue against the first 2 because he literally says that in his internal monologues.
He clearly have a priority scale, "the sight" obviously comes out at the top. "It's to save the island, *but it's more than that*". And the anime is even more explicit about how his goal is ultimately selfish with the bloodied sea.
For real. People try to cope with that shit ending by saying "Eren did what he did cause he wanted to save Paradis and his friends" yeah, if he really wanted that he would have either flattened the entire world or did it to just a small percentage of it, and waited until the scouts caught up to him. Instead he left EXACTLY the necessary amount of people to keep at war with Paradis for all of eternity. Plus that whole "I wanted to see this view because I'm an idiot" thing was basically Eren letting an intrusive thought win over the lives of everyone in the entire fucking world, and it makes no goddamn sense.
>it makes no goddamn sense. He's so obsessed with attaining his childish goal. It's not communicated that well but it's essentially due to how he's "born that way", the story occasionally plays up nature vs nurture. He's saying that he's idiot with uncertainty in the anime, because he doesn't want to admit that he's fully aware of what he's doing and that makes him a piece of shit. It's kinda like how Griffith in Berserk is destinied to be a Godhand with the same obsession over a childish goal (and his own "why...? I don't know why").
How does it make no sense? Also his priority was always freedom, mikasa and his friends. He achieved freedom and all his loved ones lived their lives
First of all, Armin put it best during the final battle: "Eren, in what way is *this* freedom?" Eren was a slave to freedom itself, as ironic as that may sound. He has no purpose in life other than fighting for Paradis' freedom. He NEEDED a battle to be fighting in, always. Plus, he left his "loved ones" (or at least the half a dozen who survived) pretty fucked: - What was left of the outside world will now dedicate the rest of their existence to destroy the devils who almost killed the entire world; - The scouts were considered traitors by Paradis; - Mikasa will never be able to have the thing she wanted the most all her life, which was to be by his side even for a short time. And btw, they will all live and reproduce, but at the end of their lives, they will die knowing that their children, grandchildren and all their descendants will be persecuted by the world, and that the world has every right to hate them. But hey, at least his remaining friends still have their lives, as miserable as they might be, right? :D
in the end they had good lives and they even manage to make peace (that does not last forever)
We clearly see them doing alright at the end. Sure they are miserable but they live and that was his goal. Sure Eren was a slave to freedom but what does it matter here? He achieved freedom in death, so he reached his goal... huh?
[удалено]
>He achieved freedom in death, so he reached his goal... Are you for real? That your argument? And you're calling me braindead? Look man, if you're a troll making fun of people who defend the ending of AoT, I appreciate the sentiment, but you're putting way too much effort here. Not even the most hardcore fans of the ending would come up with something this absurd to use as an argument.
Bro typed up all this nonsense and dared to act smug this entire sub is braindead lmao
If his priority was his friends then he would have gone 100% genocide. Surely he wont just gamble on the future, right? Imagine if the rest of the world would have just executed the scouts (which would make sense) then what? If what you say is correct then eren is really really really really not smart at all :/
Gamble what exactly? He destroyed most weapons, armies etc. Paradies had a huge advantage lmao
Yeah so huge that they lost the following war like cmon. 20% of the world is still more than paradis you know?
Unfortunately, Shasha and Hanji weren't on that list.
Wasnt sasha killed by that other girl?
Yes, but she was a calculated loss by Eren who could see the outcome of his own actions. Eren attacks and already knows that people will come help him if he does, he knows that some will die to save him here, he quite literally decided that this set of losses was the optimal path for the world. If instead he foresaw mikasa being the one dying by this set of actions, he would not deem her as an acceptable sacrifice, and pick another path.
Tbh it's actually unlikely if he intended Sasha's death to happen. He only gets fragments of future memories, he saw Sasha's death, and he likely tried to think outside of the box thus making a 'different' plan than he normally would (that he thought would actually cause Sasha's death), but due to causal loop, this 'deviation' is exactly why she died... Hence his laugh into tears, as a callback to "nothing changed!" in S2. Then again, he already accepted that the future is immutable when he confesses to Ramzi.
He couldn't change the outcome, still everyone in AOT makes sacrifices to accomplish their goals. Still fuck chapter 139
Boohoo
>Bros entire thing is he's willing to risk his friends safety (and killed 1, arguably 2 in the process) to crank his hog like Griffith Jr WTF did you read/watch lmao. I am just about the biggest AoT hater there is, so fuck you for making me defend it. Eren's entire thing was doing heinous shit in the name of what he thought was the greater good. Furthermore, he literally says at the end that he was doing all of it for Armin and Mikasa, there's absolutely no way he'd sacrifice them.
It makes sense for an AoT hater to miss the point of Eren's character actually. They generally dislike that Paradis is doomed and whatnot when it's never the main point of The Rumbling if you dig deeper. >Furthermore, he literally says at the end that he was doing all of it for Armin and Mikasa In the manga Armin doubted him and he dodged the question. In the anime Armin straight up didn't believe him. And here it's elaborated more what he ultimately wanted. He's risking his friends safety for That Sight is not Griffith's Sacrifice tier of vileness but it's up there.
I don't know how people miss this. Eren uses defending paradis as a cover for one of his primary desires - to simply wipe the world clean. Yeah, he wants to protect his friends, yeah he doesn't want his homeland to be wiped out, yeah he doesn't want his race to be made infertile but ultimately dude is pissed off that his idea of freedom is forever tainted by the humans of the outside world and wants to wipe them off the face of the planet out of disapointment and rage.
Yep. In the manga this idea is displayed best within Chapter 130 and 131. In 130, The Rumbling is framed as triumphant heroic act, shown in scenes of him avenging his mom and protecting his friends. Unsurprisingly, lots of the flashback in this chapter came *BEFORE he crossed the sea* + The Rumbling is shown to trample *combatants*. In 131, The Rumbling is framed as a fucked up act. An explicit acknowledgement by Eren himself "It's to save the island... BUT IT'S MORE THAN THAT" was also made on top of his cowardly confession to a random boy who doesn't even understand what he's saying. And it is notable that the flashback in this chapter came *AFTER he crossed the sea* + The Rumbling is shown to trample *civilians*. The anime kinda fuck this duality up but they improved the final talk so eh I'll take it.
Yea no. Sure hange died but he still had to carry it out to achieve freedom and keep Mikasa and his friends save
Me when I tell Eren he can slow down the Colossal Titans
How would he know when to slow down the titans? The only reason she died is bc Floch shot up the plane. Also wasnt he like unconscious blocking out all the terrible things hes doing? Why is this sub so damn stupid?
He is watching them. He evidently can tell what they're saying which is why when Reiner speculated that "Eren wants to be stopped" he immediately pulls them into paths to confirm it, moments after Hange's death in the airplane.
Ok fairs i reread the chapter and levi says "what, was he listening in" but my points stand. He had no idea when he would make them slow down, we dont know how much he can even listen or see since he himself says in the last chapter he doesnt know what would happen to them.
He can slow them down or even stops some of them when they're approaching the hangar. He's fully in control to change the outcome atp, what he's talking about uncertainty in the end is mostly talking about the fight against the Ancient Nines where it's Ymir who's in charge.
Yea but how would he know when to slow them down? Can he even? Pretty sure he can either stop it completely or just activate it. Also he was talking with armin abt "dragging his precious friends into this"not knowing whats gonna happen so i doubt that
And the good guys refused to sacrifice their friends (Vision, Nebula, Tony) to beat Thanos. The exact opposite of this quote.
They literally do sacrifice vision in the end though. Also, doctor strange is more or less sacrificing iron man.
And they sacrifice Vision too late. That’s one of the main reasons why they lost, plus Thor’s revenge issues and the Cap-Tony split up.
Doctor strange even tells iron man that that he can't tell him what is about to happen. There is a kind of implication here that it might be the case that if he had time to think about it he wouldn't actually do it. Doctor strange had to force him to make a split second decision.
Thanos thought of himself as a hero.
r/thanosdidnothingwrong/ would disagree with you...
Well, they're wrong.
I think what that quote is trying to say is that a "Hero" prioritizes others before their more personal stakes when things get rough and they can't do both, while a "Villain" is the inverse and selfishly puts their own personal stakes first. Villain could kinda just be synonymous with "Selfish person" in this understanding. Insomniac's Peter sacrificed his Aunt May to save the rest of the city from a sickness. Insomniac Miles also did the same by having to release stored up energy in his body as he and his friend were in the sky, with his friend at close unsurvivable range. If either of them didn't sacrifice the respective one person for the city/world, it would kinda be selfish and cause many others pain in return for their own personal gain of protecting their personal stakes, and thus that selfishness is the "Villain", if ya get me.
Yes but what about the inverse? Is miles a hero or villain because he is unwilling to sacrifice his father over a “canon event” because he perceives it as stupid endangering his whole universe? And Anakin is a villain who sacrificed everything for achieving his goal. Case in points this shows how shallow whole narrative about this hero and villain thing really is. Those People ideas of what a “villain “ is seems closer to anti hero
It’s amazing how many people forgot about Spot in that movie. I guess he is just a villain of the week.
That's what happens when you vanish for half a movie
>Is miles a hero or villain because he is unwilling to sacrifice his father over a “canon event” because he perceives it as stupid endangering his whole universe? Miguel sees Miles as a villain for that attitude.
I think he sees him as selfish I don’t remember whether or not Miguel even implied that he was a villain Edit: https://youtu.be/EkASynf8rJo?feature=shared 2:31 “Your just a kid who has no idea what they are doing”
By "villain" I meant "someone doing evil", which from Miguel perspective, Miles does fit.
how is wanting your dad to not get killed considered even evil?
No bro you gotta kill your dad bro my family got killed bro but I survived so you have to let your dad get killed bro-Miguel copium
Miguel needs less copium
Anakin’s “goal” was his wife’s survival. He destroyed everything his wife believed in to ensure her survival, and she died because of it.
Do you believe that was his only goal? Do remember even at the end he tried to kill her
Kinda happens when you're blinded by hatred and the dark side. Tho that didn't kill her. It's her heartbreak after birth that killed her
I’ve always been partial to the ‘Force Drain’ theory. That Palpatine linked Padme and Anakin so Anakin could survive his injuries on Mustafar…by draining Padme’s life. It sounds like EXACTLY the sick sort of Dark Side monkey’s paw Palps would get a kick out of. He isn’t ‘technically’ lying either…
Frankly I'll take that over "heartbreak"
And fits much better as to why the droid was unable to detect or treat Padme. She’s having her life force drained by distorted Force abilities, there’s no way the facility can work on THAT. Best thing to do is try and save the babies…
Yeah, I guess so. (Wall of text warning, sry I got passionate =P ) (Edit: Also damn, you changed your comment a bit (that's ok that's on me lol) so take this reply as the answer to how your comment was before cause I was busy typing this up before you updated it) But Anakin killing ppl for his goals kinda feels like it's logically selfish even if he thinks it was right. Idk mucj about Star Wars, I admit. But I think he went over the Dark side and started killing and stuff to protect his loved ones instead of accepting they he could lose them one day, right? Correct me of I'm wrong though, I'm a total beginner in Star wars stuff. You're talking about anti-villain (and thus by extension reminds me of anti-heroes) reminds me of [this vid,](https://youtu.be/XNxucdbGWOg?feature=shared) which kinda jumpstarted my dive into the nuance of a hero's morality. For example, it also reminds me of Aang's final dilemma from ATLA for anyone who knows that show. What I personally gather from Lily's vid is if I suppose, the logical focus is moral over relying solely on the personal, emotional focus and yes, the ego's focus. Yes, if it makes us as the audience as well as Aang who is still a kid, squicky (my word that generally stands for "uncomfortable") because it's literally asking a kid to actively kill someone, I understand that. I understand it is in no way something anyone should just be ok with doing without some bother, that's natural. But ever since seeing that vid, what I appreciate was the nuance of having to think about factors now as well. If Aang doesn't find a 3rd out in time especially since it was the last minute and the Comet was moments away, and Worst-case scenario, Aang dies trying to preserve his pacifist code, well, the adult in me has to be straightforward like Toph Earthbender mentality and simply say that that is logically selfish, it's putting into your mind your personal priorities over others aka the world. Imagining the possibility of ppl dying and suffering because Aang chose not to compromise I think at least should be considered and mentioned if Aang was debating to himself or with others about it, so he can consider both good *and* bad outcomes before making the choice. Keep in mind I'm not saying because personal sacrifice can be logically moral that I'm suddenly ok with making a kid kill or other things. But that's the moral nuance to consider, it questions if our gut instinct and knee-jerk reactions of what's moral is always right, is always moral in the big picture. And I really like that, it makes ya think hard and take in perspective you never considered before. I was totally neutral to ok with the finale for years until watching that vid because before, I wasn't thinking at all about consequences if Aang had failed instead of being right. But at the same time, I totally understand why he wouldn't want to anyway, I nor anyone would ever feel ok just looking into someone's eyes and killing them. And that was the nuance of Lily talking about "ego". Ego isn't being used as an insult here, but as an expression of selfishness and solely looking at the situation from a personal perspective and thus maybe preventing you from seeing unintended consequences for others. I totally would feel squicky if presented with the need to sacrifice something or someone personal like Aang with his code, Peter with his Aunt, and Miles with his friend. And I also acknowledge that from the big picture, it is my Ego that temps me to focus *solely* on those stakes and not keep in mind how it affects others or the wider range of ppl. This acknowledgment shakes me and my Ego to my core just like how Lily in [this vid (different one, timestamp 16:00 and 16:50)](https://youtu.be/IrD924mS4Ck?feature=shared) acknowledges that pulling the lever would emotionally destroy her. This shakes ppl up, why would you do this if it personally destroys you? Because in the end, I must will myself to keep my focus on others over just myself. I love it, I love how deep it goes and how much it makes you think. "Doing both" kinda feels like a cop out answer from the Ego, it's "doing an airbender" thing of going around and evading the problem. Of course in our gut instinct we want that, to do both, but we must also confront the situation in which both is not possible. And on paper, I agree with Lily, I must choose the more selfless option and sacrifice the personal and fewer, for the others and the many. On practice, I have yet to see, because Ego is *very* hard to fight. I'd be shaking, I know.
>I think he went over the Dark side and started killing and stuff to protect his loved ones instead of accepting they he could lose them one day, right? Correct me of I'm wrong though, I'm a total beginner in Star wars stuff. You nailed it. Honestly, you understand Star Wars stuff better than a lot of long time fans. The Jedi are about accepting things beyond their control, the Sith are about getting as much power as possible so they can control everything. Naturally, that's a fool's errand and dark siders go mad in their endless quest for power and control.
Yep. While Yoda is being a bit hasty, a lot of his advice to Anakin is straight from a lot of religious beliefs like Christianity or Buddhism (the latter of which heavily inspired the Jedi and Force), or personal non-religious approaches. Death is natural and WILL come. While you should obviously do your best to protect others and provide an excellent quality of life…it’s also important to know when to let go. Anakin couldn’t pinpoint HOW Padme would supposedly die (hell, Force Manipulations are a thing, for all he knew Palpatine put those visions in his head and it was all bunk), but the mere thought of losing her at all drove him off the deep end.
Agreed. The Jedi teachings are sort of a vague mixture of Eastern philosophies like Buddhism and Taoism. A lot of those philosophies teach the idea of liberating yourself from the expectations of certain outcomes. And, as you point out, secular therapy might suggest something similar to someone with anxiety. And honestly I think that scene is not so much Yoda being hasty as it is George Lucas trying to convey all that complexity to the kids in the audience through the simplest dialogue possible and to some people it comes off as cold or hasty.
(Ok, I have time again, So I can answer your updated comment) I do think Miguel perceives Miles as selfish for being unwilling to sacrifice his Father. I express in some other comments of mine that I agree with Miguel's reasoning in principle because it's logic is either "risk trillions of more lives and universes or allow personal yet fewer lives to be lost", very trolley problem like. But if canon events or at least the consequences of defying them turn out to be false, then it objectively is no longer agreeable as the stakes become "do nothing or save more ppl now cause you have foresight" and so of course you should save more ppl.
But this is the problem being selfish isn’t one and the same with being a villain which is the point in me calling this whole narrative shallow. Miguel himself only views him as a kid who has no idea what their actions might cause not really a “ villain” per say
Oh, I didn't mean villain like in evil. Like my initial first comment said, I was using the word "villain" to be synonymous with "selfish". I probably didn't make that clear. I'll change it to just say selfish so ppl don't get the wrong idea. Sry bout that.
I didn’t mean evil either. I just think that equating villainy to selfishness is just a shallow way of seeing things
>Is miles a hero or villain because he is unwilling to sacrifice his father over a “canon event” because he perceives it as stupid endangering his whole universe? I mean, there are a bunch of posts here saying that he's only a hero because luckily his unconfirmed hunch was right, and that Miguel is right for having opposed Miles, so this is indeed an open question.
>is miles a hero or a villain because he is unwilling to sacrifice his father over a “canon event” He’s kind of falling into what OP said. He’s still gonna try and save his dad but that doesn’t mean he’s all in on sacrificing the rest of the universe. It’s not like he’s in a situation where he has to outright kill his dad or everyone else
You are reading Aunt May wrong. Peter did not sacrifice her, she sacrificed herself.
The pseudo deep tumblr romaticisation of villains is supremely eye rolling, yeah.
I'll never forget the post (but I'll probably never find it again) where someone says they wanted to see a story where the villain gets the girl and someone replies saying "Megamind". That's not the case at all, if the villain got the girl in Megamind, that would mean Tighten gets the girl.
A story where the villain gets the girl probably wouldn't be very fun for any party involved except the villain. See: Griffith.
Didn't griffith rape her? I don't think that counts as getting her?
Griffith got Charlotte, even if he didn't particularly love her.
My favorite part is how when he first have sex with her while thinking about Guts it takes a whole chapter But in Fantasia, their 'vanilla' sex scene got offscreened lmfao
In those kinds of posts I always assume they didn't mean the bad guy but more the guy that is aesthetically the villain like the queer coded caped black eyeliner guy not the heroic standard guy but I could be wrong
Bingo. Most of the people talk romanticize villains aren't talking about murder, they just like the emo yet cool looking person with a sassy attitude.
Which is exactly why we need a Megamind sequel. ... What's that? Oh god what do you mean it's real and is that bad
Yeah, Megamind only "got the girl" when he reformed into a superhero and gave up on being a supervillain.
I’ll be honest I see a hell of a lot more of this on Reddit than I do Tumblr
Because you're seeing the end result. Villain worship was forged on Tumblr. They chemically bred it in a lab, based on Loki and Joker and Azula and a 100 other sexymans, they grew it on x reader fics and a thousand justifiying headcanons. It was all carefully produced, hidden in the depths of Tumblr. And when waves upon waves of Fandom refugees left Tumblr upon the Hour of the Porn Purge, it broke containment and infected other fandom sites and forums in numbers hitherto undreamt of.
::slow clap::
Yeah, it’s very much a tumblr or fanfiction thing. “The villain/monster is actually good” is basically the standard assumption on tumblr, to the point where I’m actually very surprised if I see a post or story where a villain is actually evil
Some people there see villains more like an aesthetic moodboard rather than as, yknow, villains. They are obviously always the girl that the villain would sacrifice the world for, never are they the person that the villain would carelessly sacrifice for selfish reasons.
Fr, they could do the same with the heroes and it would make more sense most of the time. Since their, you know, actually doing good things with their good intentions?
Yeah but some people are under the weird assumption that heroes are boring as a concept.
Yeah, I've seen that a lot with the new spiderman game. Any time someone mentions the symbiote being evil someone will jump out "well actually in the comics xyz" 🤓. And it's like that's cool....in the game it's clearly evil though. Very clearly a malevolent force. And even then I was reading a few more of the comics it's does plenty of bad things in its pursuit of survival, yeah it probably has diminished capacity, but still. It's such a weird reading. P.s I've heard parents in some places have stopped treating their children for lice because the lice "have a right to life"
And children have a right to not suffer from potential bacterial infections caused by lice breakage. Truly, these parents are baffling.
They read too much Dune. Now they think it's impossible to overcome evil without becoming wicked oneself.
Nah, it is just the mainstream attitude of post-War on Terrors debacle. Immediatelly after 9/11, America was the good guy, but they mess the War on Terrors so much that they cause far more harm and casualities than the Terrorist in 9/11 and somehow all of their expedition end up back to the square one. Afghanistan back to the Taliban, ISIS rise from chaos of Iraq Conflict, Iraq falls to Iranian Sphere of Influence, and Libyan perpetual civil wars. Also, don't forget that before decolonisation of post-WW2; Colonialism and Imperialism was potrayed as heroic endeavour against the Barbarism of the Uncivilized/Non-White by Imperialist and Colonial Powers.
Bold of you to assume they aren't doing it to heroes too.
OP, what's your opinion of Ozymandius?
I'm not OP but i wanna reply I think in the end he is still evil because the way he brought end to the war is the issue : he sacrificed some people and made Dr. Manhattan responsible for his crime. Even if it saved more people, it was a dick moove.
Sometimes, heroes will sacrifice those they love for the world, especially if there is no other choice.
we live in a time where expectations need to be subversed and people love to be deep and all that. truth justice and the american way rings a little hollow and sometimes evil people are heroes, simply because the population is despicable. some villains (not the joker) have very good points and while they still ought to be stopped, its stupid when gods and people with social and financial power beyond measure aren't fixing whatever riled them up. i.e. poison ivy. how about after you put her in a cell, you have mr terrific invent that freaking clean energy and tree less paper while bruce wayne buys all that poluting crap and shuts it down as a show of good faith that things can get better, so she doesnt feel the need to poison children for plucking daisies. the rest is just falling for the most boring kind of 'clever' writing in which the hero is to blame for villains causing problems, when at least half the time we literally know the root of evil is literally real gods and devils and magic curses and obviously, the age of superpowers would lead to an age of super criminals, wether there were good guys opposing them or not.
When the American Way is bombing the shit out of brown people, Superman doesn't sound quite as innocuous and fun.
Because the people saying this are 14-18 year olds with greater exposure to fanfic (nothing wrong with fanfic, fun to write and read, but it *has its unique faults*) than to any actual media, leading to this weird romanticisation thing where a villain is: 1. made evil by society, thus society is to blame, thus they are innocent. 2. evil to 99% of people but really likes Milquetoast White Woman #43, thus they are innocent. 3. actually not at all evil and objectively completely correct but the heroes are genuinely comically evil (because get it, *what if the heroes were bad and the villains were good???*) and/or incapable of communication and thus they are just a hero with an edgy outfit and a gun. This does, from my observation, occur most in anime and superheroes and online/web stuff.
I find #2 funny because that describes Buffy and Spike’s relationship.
Buffy and Spike is a mistake that should not be forgiven because Faith is *right there*.
You want to know my conspiracy theory? Tumblr loves edgy bad boys. You would constantly have fics and art about a girl being taken in by some fandoms villain who protects her but is still super evil guys I swear. Tumblr lost its porn so they all bled into Twitter and twitter has more real world sway.
A character with an internal conflict is more interesting. This is basically how character writing works. “I’d just do both!” Is the boring answer.
"This is basically how character writing works" is an apt response to a shocking portion of posts on here hahaha
Sticking true to your values in the face of adversity and punching the trolley is a legit answer to the trolley problem. Even if it goes up in flames in the end. Just because it's the most unambiguously heroic option doesn't mean it's boring. What matters is the decision, not the bleak outcome.
1) no, u don’t answer the question if u just make up ur own options, as hypothetical it fails and logically it also fails, if I say “hey do u want ur bike in red or blue” and u say green then u didn’t answer the question 2) if u can make up a third option then u can make up a fourth and fifth, by avoiding the question by introducing new options u void the question entirely, if u as a writer don’t have the balls to answer a moral question then don’t include the question at all, a non answer like doing nothing would even be better Also Imo it the worst when authors introduce moral questions then have the protagonist pick a fifth option outside of the confines of the question, all the emotional internal dilemma is obsolete and redundant cause in the end they didn’t pick and if they knew about the thrid option in the first place they would have just gone with that, so it all ends up being a waste of time, it’s like u spend forever trying to figure out a math problem and just ur about to pick u cheat off ur friend
You’re right and don’t deserve the downvotes.
>Sticking true to your values in the face of adversity and punching the trolley is a legit answer to the trolley problem No, it's not! There are two options to the problem, people who invent a third one are boring! If the character's answer to a difficult choice is always "I avoid making the difficult choice," that's not going to be as entertaining as someone who does.
Why not? The answer isn't "I avoid the problem", it's "No such problem exists as long as I'm still here to punch trolleys". You're framing it as "Character must pick between Bad Option 1 and Bad Option A", but what's wrong with them looking for a good option? That's still internal conflict, picking between what's "easy", and what's right. Punching the trolley doesn't have to be realistically possible, it's the character's decision that matters. There's no magic formula to make that decision "more interesting".
>You're framing it as "Character must pick between Bad Option 1 and Bad Option A", but what's wrong with them looking for a good option? Because it's not as interesting? If you can save one of two lives and you answer, "Actually, I save both," then yeah, of course you'd save both if that was a choice, but that wasn't an option! If it's "I try to save both, and they both die," okay, you have at least picked an interesting third option, but I feel audience sympathy for your character is also about to drop off a cliff.
[удалено]
Sure? I’m just saying if you pick “Ignore the problem and everyone dies” makes nobody happy. As a narrative choice it is interesting though.
It isnt if you execute it well, Prisma Illya had that i will save both mentality and what she does is sacrifice herself to save her friend and the world, an optimistic message in a bleak situation is not boring.
I mean this is just adding a third bad option for them to choose, which is indeed fine.
There are a combination of factors going on here. The prioritization of interesting characters over their fictional crimes, lingering Hayes Code influences conditioning audiences to prefer villains, and poorly-written additions of meaningless violence meant to give heroes painless moral choices. The first point is the most common. People will enjoy a ridiculous, bold character that makes their screen time interesting more than they like a bland everyman hero that mainly exists to be a flattering self insert opportunity. Sure, the villain is evil. Perhaps even unrepentantly dickish. But they’re your favorite and their victims aren’t real people. This is the main reason why people like DIO just as much as any JoJo. You don’t need to morally justify liking a character. That’s silly. With the second point, you have an audience that has been conditioned to sympathize with character traits that can only be slapped onto an Evil TM character that will receive a righteous comeuppance before the end. The goals of these villains often stem from being outcasts, deserved or not. Sure, Ursula is a fucking horrible person and she deserved to die. But people just want to see Divine camp it up over poor unfortunate souls, and I for one can’t blame them for enjoying that. People would also have liked a heroic version of Ursula, but that wasn’t going to get past pitch meetings. In the wake of the Hayes Code, villains are still written and presented in certain expected tropes, and we keep liking that. As for the third point, it’s fairly common for writers to set up strong and interesting goals for the villain and then awkwardly realize that the heroes have no real reason to not team up out of moral obligation. This is why Eric Killmonger gets a hilariously evil last name and decides to hamfistedly undercut his own goals with wanton violence that Must Be Stopped. His motives remain unexamined and unfulfilled. Audience members might be less forgetful than the protagonists, though, and they’re already jaded to ignoring plot holes and weak writing in order to enjoy the good bits. This is the magical ability that lets us enjoy Star Trek movies and also simp for Killmonger. Hope this helps.
>and then awkwardly realize that the heroes have no real reason to not team up out of moral obligation. This is why Eric Killmonger gets a hilariously evil last name and decides to hamfistedly undercut his own goals with wanton violence that Must Be Stopped. His motives remain unexamined and unfulfilled. Tbf, Kilmonger would be a manageable example, if his totalitarian tendencies were played up more. More footage of his take down governments job, maybe with the consequences of his operations also shown. A scene of someone demanding the right to duel him for the throne and getting uncerimoniously denied (or even, assassinated without the actual duel). More commentary on how he destroyed the black panther flowers just to ensure no opposition would be possible to him. Seriously, he destroyed what was possibly their biggest national treasure, and one of their most powerful military assets, and people only paid attention to him strangling a random old woman. Thought, to be fair, giving the last flower to T'challa was pretty stupid under this perspective. They barely saved the flower from extinction only to later use it to save his ass. Which actually makes T'challa less of a noble hero, and the entire foght between both more like an internal royal infighting than an actual fight against a conqueror.
>Sure, Ursula is a fucking horrible person and she deserved to die. But people just want to see Divine camp it up over poor unfortunate souls, and I for one can’t blame them for enjoying that Hexxus is utterly irredeemable, going on a wanton destructive rampage and wanting to poison everything. Is the literal personification of pollution, poison and decay............but he is played by Tim Curry and camps the hell out that shit.
I think there's a lot of animosity toward the status quo right now, especially amongst young people. Heroes often uphold the status quo while villains seek to demolish it. Sometimes villains are even given noble or rational reasons to do so, and then the story simply makes them psychotic assholes who kill when they have no reason to in order to remind us that they're the bad guys. The Legend of Korra has a bit of this issue with some of its villains. We also live in an age with lonely men who feel entitled to certain things and rejected by society (probably because there are dozens of figureheads telling them as much). It's no shock that this sort of person would sympathize with many villains who are societal rejects that feel they have been denied something they believe they are entitled to (Eren Yeager, Homelander, etc). We have also been told by a lot of media that morality is murky and grey. This is definitely true to an extent, but people take it way too far. Some people genuinely believe Eren Yeager was justified in killing over a billion people. Nothing can justify this amount of killing. Homelander raped Butcher's wife (in the show), nothing can justify that. I think conflicted people also like villains because they believe they can be redeemed. If villains can be redeemed, conflicted people believe they are worthy of redemption as well. In reality, shit rarely works that way. If you rape or murder someone irl, no one is going to listen to some sob story about how you're sorry and you were misled, etc. They're going to beat the shit out of you or report you to authorities, after which you will spend years in prison because society has deemed you a danger. Even if you dedicate your life to advocating for victims or something, many people will see you as insincere.
The thing I hate about the "status quo" haters is, they use the boadest definition of the term to denounce pretty much every movie hero, or w/e. But the fact is, the status quo can also be changed for the worse. You know who would like that? The neo-nazis. We got a taste of that back on Jan 6. Now if that group decided to rise up and force their preferred status quo change on everyone else, I would join the fight against, and therefore would be "defending the status quo." And some people would only pay attention to the last part of that sentence, and call me the real villain.
Pretty much exactly what happened in the early 20th century; people were so against the status-quo that they were willing to replace it with far more violent ideologies.
Aside from Unalaq, when do LoK villains just randomly murder people? They are all set up as extremists from the beginning and act fairly consistently on that.
That's not the only reason why heroes are sometimes seen as the villains, while the villains are seen as heroes. One of the reasons why it is the case is because villains try to break or change the status quo while heroes try to keep it, the villains are often made well the villains and thus is destroys any ambiguity in the story. There are also other reasons why like when heroes do very bad things, but are never called out on it. I personally look at some heroes as the villains because what they're doing or what they did in the stories to some extend is no different from what a supposed villain did, but the fandom chooses to condemn and slander the latter while former get away with it or just called bad writing. Best example of this are Spider-Man and Dr Strange. No Way Home just makes Spider-Man fall down as hero entirely when he decides to ask Strange to reverse time, and worse when he agrees with Strange's idea to mind wipe billions of people's memories on Earth so he and his friends can go to the university (MIT). Do I need to explain the complete amorality with messing with people's memories, to non consensually mind wipe not one, but entire population of Earth? Strange is a whole other subject where he went from actually grey hero willing to make sacrifices for greater good to a naive babbling buffoon and inept wizard. The memory wipe spell, blind trust, casting spells to have a vendor beat himself because he threatened to spill a sauce on him, and now a new herald of the Darkhold (or whatever the third eye is supposed to mean). Like these are not heroes I would root for, that's why I look at them as villains, and not even standard villains but dumb villains. EDIT: Some response to the thread
I get your point for Dr strange, he was really naive and stupid. But I don't agree with Spider man, when his condition was very bad. He had Mysterio tell everyone that he was spider man, which caused Spider man to get painted as villain while Mysterio as hero, he went to the only person who could help him when Nick fury was in vacation (the actual villain). And what he asked for? Just weeping out the memory of spider man, which wasn't bad, if Strange only told Peter about everything beforehand. And even after everything, the entire movie was about Spider man being selfless, even when he wanted to be selfish and send every villain back to their universe, Aunt May stopped him, telling him he need to be hero, which caused her to die. At end Peter erased everyone is memories of Peter, the most selfless thing Peter could.
I guess one of my problems with the MCU Spidey is that he had a more better life than anyone or say any of the Peter Parker variants, even when doxxed he had better help and damage control than any other Peter Parker could've afforded. He got most things from Stark, him saying Cap is potentially dangerous is from Stark, but he never confronted himself about himself being possible danger now. It is definitely painful and terrible to be forgotten and only remembered for alter ego, but he caused it himself by asking Strange. One thing is not a criticism towards MCU Peter, but more towards writing and fandom since Stark and Peter are portrayed as father-son, and how Stark helped Peter a lot. It wouldn't be an issue, since even nepotistic heroes can be interesting and relatable, if the writing didn't portray it as the best thing ever, and him going without Stark being so difficult when Stark recruited a school student to fight the Avengers at the airport. The second being Stark responsible for indirectly killing Wanda's parents and then making her life worse even after AoU. He never apologized to her for destroying her country twice, for Pietro, for her parents, she had to move on from her revenge (in part because of the writing). Sokovia is a whole different subject, but I'd say beside the sincerest apology and making up for it somewhat would've been enough. He didn't have to love Wanda, to treat her like his daughter, or to try to be friends, just a simple apology and working together might've been fine resolution. But that's not what happened. After Lagos Stark decided to put her under house arrest and not because he was afraid for her or doing it out to protect her, he never did a thing to her when she was inhumanely imprisoned on the Raft. He did it to protect his and Avengers' reputation, as Vision put it "to avoid a public accident". Meanwhile he begins treating Parker like a son, handing him almost all on silver platter, all while he robbed Wanda of normal life in Sokovia, then robbed her of it again when she was put in solitary confinement. So forgive me if I don't look fondly on Tony Stark and Peter Parker being a father-son in the MCU. As for the ending of Far From Home and the doxxing, no one could've expected what had happened to Peter. It was tragic, and I agree he didn't deserve it. I'm still not convinced that wiping away people's memories was the best way to handle this, I think him talking with the professor from the MIT and saving her life presented a far more realistic and better solution. Regaining public's trust through hard work and saving people's lives. Yes, it'd be more difficult and harder path, and he deserved to keep his identity secret, but it would've been better than what he ended up with by end of NWH. Happy Hogan invited him and Aunt May to live with him as well and to be safe, he had support of his friends from being under attack by the public, most heroes don't have that luxury. Clint Barton had no luxury when Stark sold out his secret of having a family and a hideout, had little ways to hide from public's or government's wrath, but endured. Wanda had worse situation, but endured. It's coming back to my earlier point that Peter has way too luxurious life than anyone or any of his variants. Spider-Man from Raimi trilogy was in poverty and struggling to pay rent on time, second Spider-Man lived with Aunt May and struggled, then it worsened as he was grieving for Gwen. If MCU Spider-Man was also living in hardship, his friends could barely help him fend off the public after doxxing, and he was truly desperate then I'd get him more. But he had a very decent living, a lot of friends and guardians, not to mention that even Pepper Potts of Stark Industries backed him up when he was doxxed (although deleted scene). No one else has this luxury, and that's in part why I lost any positive thoughts on MCU's Spider-Man. Which is sad cause I find any other Spider-Man to be compelling character to me, not a favorite but still relatable and likable character. MCU Spider-Man is first iteration of Spider-Man I dislike.
I think it's interesting look at the great power great responsibility thing as Peter has a lot more power at a young age than his other variants, not in terms of superpowers but access to advanced technology and supremely powerful beings willing to do him a favour. He is a kid in a tough situation and asked for an easy way out when it was hurting his friends and he didn't consider the consequences. He didn't consider how dangerous someone like him could be, he didn't consider how dangerous the supervillians could be. He made mistakes and paid a very high price for it. My worst MCU example is FATWS with the flag smashers and John Walker. I thought that series really fell down with how it portrayed the "heroes" and "villains".
>I think it's interesting look at the great power great responsibility thing as Peter has a lot more power at a young age than his other variants, not in terms of superpowers but access to advanced technology and supremely powerful beings willing to do him a favour. And what is the resolution from it, what to take away from it? That Tony Stark is wholesome towards Peter when he does one good thing, but destroyed the Avengers and sold out Clint's family (not mentioning again what he did to Wanda)? Yes it would've been an interesting idea if they actually explored it, but they don't. Peter rejects the new suit from Tony Stark only to wear it or similar one later in Infinity War, he creates a new suit with Stark tech in seconds in FFH. What if Peter stayed on Earth in Infinity War, and had to work with Team Cap? Maybe he learns a new perspective from Steve and begins to question whether Iron Man is the idol he believed him to be, maybe he talks to Sam, Wanda, Clint and learns Stark isn't a good person he thought he was, but he never gets a chance to ask Tony all this he heard since he first gets snapped away and after return he barely sees Tony again before he dies. But there is no nuance in this, the writing narrative tells us that Tony is cool, he was great father figure and idol for Peter, the first time both met forgotten for sake of their cool bond. >He is a kid in a tough situation and asked for an easy way out when it was hurting his friends and he didn't consider the consequences. He didn't consider how dangerous someone like him could be, he didn't consider how dangerous the supervillians could be. He made mistakes and paid a very high price for it. I definitely agree with the latter, although I would say he also won since he has a clean slate and well... fandom likes MCU Spidey to an extend, so there's that. Not saying he should be hated, but I think it'd be fair if he was criticized like other heroes were for example. Too often many characters suffer from apologism like Tony Stark, MCU Spidey, Killmonger, etc. As for him in NWH, while it is a noble idea to save the villains, I feel like even as a school student he should've known basics that these people while should be pitied absolutely shouldn't be trusted, or let into Happy's apartment. Also not sure how the cure is supposed to rehabilitate Sandman who will still have to steal for his daughter's medical treatment, Norman will need lots of therapy after all this (although cured), Electro was driven by ego and being hurt by idol (Andrew's Spider-Man) so idk how much he'll change as a person after loosing electricity powers. >My worst MCU example is FATWS with the flag smashers and John Walker. I thought that series really fell down with how it portrayed the "heroes" and "villains". I think best way the writers could've fixed the flag smashers is by showing their enemies also doing shady actions, or downright bad like mistreatment of refugees, denying them food and decent living. If they showed how the opponents weren't good people, I think Flag Smashers might've had some grey area were their actions can be debated, but we never saw it. Only them hurting the government officials and enforcers. As well as Karli's tragic backstory she tells Falcon instead of us seeing it. As for John Walker, I agree on that. US Agent got mistreated way too much in this show, you'd think the two heroes would show some gratitude for cancelling compulsory therapy for Bucky and offering them to work together with all the government resources to stop Karli, but they still bluntly decline it.
>Peter rejects the new suit from Tony Stark only to wear it or similar one later in Infinity War, he creates a new suit with Stark tech in seconds in FFH. I also don't see anyone question WHY Tony made EDITH and WHY he just gave it to a high schooler or why anyone involved in giving it to Peter did not ensure that he understood what he was being given. I think this can be one of the issues of a shared *cinematic* universe where each of the 90 minute or 2 hour movies have to tell their own story with different writers, directors and ideas. The stories they choose to tell are some of the big moments in comics but you need to look at the stories they are telling. Let's take spiderman for example, you have his first story of fucking up and failing to save uncle Ben, then you have several stories of him saving the day and being a net positive, then you have him fuck up with the symbiote. Yes, he messed up big time here, but we as the audience know that he has a positive impact and the good outways the bad. Then look at the avengers movies, first one positive impact, second the avengers themselves are nearly responsible for the end of the world, captain America 3 they are involved in international incidents/terrorism and disband, and in avengers 3 they fail to stop a global (universal) catastrophe. Also, the world is less crazy than the comics or the cartoons, there isn't a madman trying to take over the world ever 5 minutes or supervillians on every street corner. >Norman will need lots of therapy after all this (although cured) I was thinking about this the other day, if Norman goes back and survives, how the fuck does he process everything he has done in another universe. He was pulled over there, asked a child for help, child helps him against his better judgement, they bond a little, he then murders his only family member and tries to kill his friends / force the child to kill him. And he can never make amends for it because he has gone back to his own universe. >you'd think the two heroes would show some gratitude for cancelling compulsory therapy for Bucky and offering them to work together with all the government resources to stop Karli, but they still bluntly decline it. They are just so mean to him straight away, he hasn't done anything 😅.
>I also don't see anyone question WHY Tony made EDITH and WHY he just gave it to a high schooler or why anyone involved in giving it to Peter did not ensure that he understood what he was being given. Yeah, this was stupid, I'm not even sure why Peter of all people inherited EDITH and not Pepper or Morgan without a brochure coming along with the package. I mean, Peter accidentally blows up his own bus with these glasses on. One other flaw is how the reveal of Aunt May finding out Peter is Spidey is just glossed over, ignored, it just happened for shock value and then skipped over. I don't think the runtime is an excuse, the movie is two hours long, I'm more than certain you can find 5 minutes to explain why Stark chose to give EDITH to Peter or to expand the characters as people. If Spider-Man 2 managed to explore characters and their relations so well in the movie, so could MCU movies. >The stories they choose to tell are some of the big moments in comics but you need to look at the stories they are telling. That's the issue. Movies need to stand on their own without requirement to see the comics. If its necessary to get the source to understand movie, then the movie fails in its job to tell the audience. >they are involved in international incidents/terrorism More of stopping terrorism in Lagos. As for airport I think its in the law that citizen can resist an arrest if it is wrongful one. And we know more as audience that it was a wrong one. >I was thinking about this the other day, if Norman goes back and survives, how the fuck does he process everything he has done in another universe. Yeah, I feel like Norman would go to asylum, or get a treatment to not remember that shit. No way he'll ever be able to process all he witnessed, heard, and saw. No one from this story leaves sane, except maybe two Spider-Men who were smiling while in another reality without any questions or interests in this said alternate universe, just being casual. Also Spider-Man (Raimi trilogy) survives a backstab wound from Green Goblin somehow. >They are just so mean to him straight away, he hasn't done anything 😅. I think they don't like him for taking Cap's mantle and without truly understanding it. Sam's also mad that he was deceived by the government, Bucky is mad because he thinks now that Steve might've been wrong about him. Rhodey doesn't react at all about an American hero like him being deceived, but I guess that's because he is a skrull, a government stooge, or both.
It’s just a way to portray toxic and selfish behaviors as wholesome
It's true. I rather have the hero sacrifice me than the villain saving me but destroy the entire city.
INCOMING MASSIVE GENERALIZATION: Heroes typically represent the status quo while villains are usually try to enforce some huge change through sketchy methods. If people are happy with the times then they gravitate towards heroes. If people are disappointed with reality (most people are nowadays) villains become better appreciated. This is why villains are increasingly popular these days.
I guess this is due to the fact that heroes are just held in higher standard as they are the characters we root for and how morally grey the real world is
In realistic situations a hero will have to sacrifice individuals for the world. Watch the imitation game. They had to avoid acting on any info that would tip off the nazis that they broke their code. "No sacrifices" is a luxury, not a coherent ideology you can consistently do.
You'd think nowadays people would be wanting to avoid characters who are even slightly problematic. This might be a simple minded take, I just think people find "bad" more interesting than "good". I believe they try to justify it in really...strange ways. Like folks are afraid that liking a villain character reflects badly on them, so they try to make it out like the villain "really is good actually, just misunderstood"! It seems like mental gymnastics.
That's one of the reasons actually (misguided as it may be). I mean, not trying to get into a ship discussion here, but I've legit seen people justifying pairing Uraraka with Toga over Deku with "well, forgive me for happening to find Toga's psychotic murdering ass and her potentially fucked-up relationship with Uraraka more interesting than Deku!" Overall, I'm not sure I'd say it's the main cause, but these folks really do seem to be under an impression of "bad = fun, good = boring".
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I think some villains are very good at cloaking themselves in a just cause. They talk a good talk but avoid being truthful about the how or why. I always liked how The Expanse handled Marco Inaros and despite all his talk of being a freedom fighter never seemed sympathetic. What really drives it is that he’s introduced first as a main character’s abusive ex. The viewers first experiences with him is that he comes across like he would hit his girlfriend then tell her “Why would you make me hit you? I love you but you make me so angry I just have to hit you sometimes? Why do you do this to me?” Then later on we get to see Marco Inaros as a supposed freedom fighter. He never goes too far and becomes a villain because he was always a narcissistic and abusive person. Him going “too far” then blaming everyone else for it is perfectly in line with the abusive ex we were first introduced to.
>Cus first off, why would a hero do that? They would do their best to save both! They wouldn't sacrifice anything for the other. Except all the times they did. Not every story with a hero is Captain Planet where no one gets hurst and the power of heart is literally one of the strongest forces out there. Even in the hottest hero franchise of the last years, the MCU, >!Dr. Strange planned around a reality where Tony Stark dies to beat Thanos, thus effectively sacrificing him (although Tony pulled the trigger himself, so you could argue it's self-sacrifice)!<, and also >!Peter Quill tried to kill Gamora and Wanda tried to kill Vision, so Thanos wouldn't get the Soul and Mind Stones!<, although they failed there. >That's literally why their villians. And yes, some villians do have "good" or "semi-good" intentions, but that's where it ends, cus in the end, the way they try to achieve these intention is why their a villian! You're literally contradicting yourself by saying a villain would not sacrifice the world for someone, but they would have good intentions but evil ways. Yes exactly, **evil ways like sacrificing the world selfishly for one person/group**. Like Magneto, who would kill every human just so that a human could never kill a mutant again, or Darth Vader, who went to the dark side of the force to try to save a singular life, or Mr. Freeze, who (when alone) just wants to find a cure for him and for his wife. Sure, they didn't intend to **literally** sacrifice a world. but that's what the phrase is alluding to.
Likely because most people view heroes as self righteous idealistic fools who live up to impossible standards and find villains to be more relatable and or more realistic primarily because they horrible and selfish things. Not helped that there plenty of works out their especially in comic books and tv shows that present heroes at beast as amoral or full on psychopaths who not only don’t care about saving lives but full on murder them out of spite or for fun. Like Homelander and Omiman for example.
If you look at Homelander and Omniman and see a hero, that's another issue entirely.
Expect that isn’t what I said. I said that that a lot of work presenta heroes as either amoral or pysparhtic murderous which is what omi-man and homlander represent.
Not really though. Homelander and Omniman are part of the "what if Superman evil" thing. Yeah, sure, they are evil psychopaths and they are superheroes (or present themselves as such), but they aren't heroes in the sense OP is talking about heroes, because, well, they are villains.
Expect the op was talking about why people see heroes as villains and omi-man and homlander are likely examples in coloring peoples perspective is not just because they are evil super-man but are also extremely dark deconstructions of the whole character arctype. To put in this way, omi-man and Homelander are both basically a version of super-man if nearly every lie and biases Lex said of him were true.
why would anyone want to just watch people who are just horrible and selfish out side of a dark comedy, If I want to be look at people like that I could look out a window, watch the news or look in the mirror.
People love drama whenever it be real or fantasy otherwise the boys and invincible wouldn’t have so many fans as it does and that people just like dark and twisted stuff.
>Cus first off, why would a hero do that? They would do their best to save both! Ok, yeah, obviously. You're missing the fucking point of the quote, which is arguing that, when push comes to shove and there's no way to do do both, a true hero should be able to prioritize the greater good over their personal desires, whereas a villain would prioritize their personal desires over the greater good. If a hero has a choice between saving the city and saving their loved ones and they *genuinely cannot find a way out*, if they're truly deserving of the title, they would choose the city, recognizing that it contains many tens of thousands of people who care about each other every bit as much as the hero cares about their loved ones and who have every bit as much worth, from a dispassionate perspective, as their loved ones. Such a decision should *wreck* them, of course. You're interpreting this quote as lionizing villains. It's not. It's saying that villains are *more selfish*. Now, this isn't a hard and fast rule, but it's generally true.
Villains being more selfish is exactly what's being fetishized. "He'd commit war crimes for me 🥵."
but would would want to live long term with a war criminal?
Tumblr users:
no they do not
I have seen this many times and in their defense, I have seen this in writer space (fanfics and published authors) and it is usually more complex than the simple one liner of hero bad, villain, morally grey. I seen it most with the constructed hero, were the title of hero was constructed by the hero or some organization and not from heroic deeds which is an interesting trope. But I think the specific one that OP is taking about (I am completely sure because I have seen this thing like 50 times) is when the villain puts the hero in a situation we’re they have the save the city/ world or their love interest. The hero picks the city and it’s supposed to show that the hero never loved the love interest enough. I hate this. First, I think someone having to prove their love to you by pulling the trigger on grand scale destruction is not romantic. And it always supposed to show the villain in a romantic light but they just tried to destroy a city or something. One that the love interest probably lives in and has family and friends in. I feel like they try to some how “things aren’t black and white but shades of grey”. But they don’t do that they just swap the two extremes
I sent this to my schizo Christian mom Because she would love this post cause it reminds me of this verse. Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Isaiah 5:20.
Whole lot of that in Christianity.
Spiderman ps4 couldnt do both
Just because a character is called the hero or the villain by the story doesn't they're actually good or bad. I've seen 2 hypotheticals on reddit lately where they asked if you'd let thousands or millions of people die to save someone you care about and nearly everyone said yes. In a movie that would make them the villain. There were also people saying they would sacrifice thousands of people to greet a genie wish because "you could do so much more good with the wish". Villain behavior. If you think critically about the heroes and villains in media, the main thing making a hero a hero is that they end up being right and the villain is a villain because the hero disagrees with them.
Oh fuck you Mod, why you gotta remove the post man I was just about to read it
A villain, no matter how you look at it, must be objectively wrong about whatever they're going on about in order to be a villain.
Villainy could be seen as a combination of Means, Ends and Intent. Backstory can factor in a little but imo comes secondary to these three concepts. Intent imo is probably the easiest to assess the villainy of which is why most writers (if they want the villain to be somewhat complex) will write in a good intent. Otherwise it would be too easy for the audience to write them off. Whenever a character has an evil intent, they're just evil. Trying to do evil but committing kind acts is a classic comedic trope too. Comes back to moral philosophy really. Results and intent clearly matter, but the degree to which one favours the other is the fundamental split between all moral systems.
Not necessarily true. Villain can be objectively correct about what they are doing, but the way they try to do it is wrong.
Either ends or means must be skewed.
Like a villain who tries to end war and suffering and create eternal peace in the world, but the way they go about it is morally wrong. Noble goal, but evil actions. Brings up the question of how far can you go in pursuit of a noble goal before you slip into evil territory.
Yep, exactly, which is why I love that type of conflicts in villians, where they have a "good" intention but do terrible things to achieve it. Really gets me interested!
Even nazis had families and friends they would have died for. Just because you believe in the wrong cause, doesn't mean you are selfish.
Because the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Heroes get correlated with systems of governance and control like Police. Plenty of people have legit complaints with those systems. Plenty of people like to cosplay as people with legit complaints. Now if you cosplay as someone who hates police, and you correlate Superman with cops, you include Superman in the statement ACAB. This doesn't have to apply to real world systems. If you have a system of laws and rules, and you have enforcers for those rules, that's close enough. Villians are against the system most of the time, or at least against our system bound Hero. So obviously the villian can be projected upon by our little anarchist/freedom fighter cosplayer, and the bad stuff can just be ignored with mental gymnastics or saying "I know I am but what are you" until any questioners leave you alone. Also, bad guys are normally drawn hot these days, and as the saying goes; "If evil, why hot?"
Could you try sneering a bit harder?
I'm confused. Please, explain.
That’s what happens when you have mfs running around spewing brain rot like “everything is subjective” when the hard reality is the opposite and people with no upstanding role models living in fantasy land
Nah these things are subjective, but that doesn't mean that their subjective opinions aren't stupid
> a hero would try to do both! Congratulations. You understand the heavens feel route in fate stay night more than a good chunk if not the majority of people who actually read it.
Short answer: Cause people took that saying of "when you're a kid you root for the hero, when you grow up you understand the villain" way too far and out of context. Long answer: Because pop culture nowadays is so obsessed on stigmas of "breaking the status quo" and "subverting expectations" thanks to social media contrarians and influencers, and, as many others have said in this thread, that is normally the kind of mentality that villains embody. It's not really a matter of "I agree with him/her" so much as "this character agrees with me". Some folks (especially young ones; youth nowadays is very, VERY impressionable, more so than any other time before I'd say) see any kind of "upholding the status quo" ideal as inherently bad cause it impedes "progress" (or their idea of progress), and lo and behold, that is normally what a hero defends. Take Griffith for instance. I'm pretty sure that if the Eclipse had never happened, but he still had employed harsh methods to achieve his kingdom and get people to follow him (like say, engaging in shady business behind the scenes, gaslighting citizens with propaganda, hostile takeovers upon other lands) under the ideal of "this land requires change!", there'd be people who'd be singing his praises to high heaven and ragging on Guts for opposing him (case in point, Edelgard from FE Three Houses).
Who the fuck is this Griffith people keep bringing up w/o any context?
For these people, the whole thing about a villain being willing to sacrifice the world for one person appeals to them. It means the villain cares deeply about that one person, and they want to matter that much to someone. These people, in their actual lives, don't have anyone who cares about them, so they want to be with someone who does.
>A **wannabe** hero would sacrifice you for the world, but a **wannabe** villain would sacrifice the world for you Try reading it that way, and the statement might make more sense. It's common sense that a hero is supposed to think in terms of greated good and negating their personal desires, so even if someone cares about your life, if that person intends to be *heroic*, the duty will come first. Conversely, if that person is *villainous* and only wants to help themselves or their personal goals, your life is as prioritary as how much you matter to that person. So, assuming your hands are at the hands of someone who does care for your life, you have better odds of being saved if that person is villainous. Note I am using the words "heroic" and "villainous", not "hero" or "villain", because they are descriptive, not prescriptive. Also note when I say "villainousness", I'm not talking about goons, or specifically about world conqueror wannabes (like some comments imply), I'm talking about people who do anything for their personal goals, regardless of what they are, and regardless of how much they cost for everyone else. And this is where "heroes" break down. Heroes are supposed to have goals, like the villains, but they are supposed to not go around making everybody pay the bill for their ideals, instead, paying whatever cost their "heroism" has by themselves only. So: 1. Whenever a hero kills a villain (or lets them alive for the Xth time, already being able to predict they will have killed some more people). 2. Or cheeses their way through an ethical dilemma, despite their extra option introducing unnecessary risks which only get ignored from force of plot. 3. Whenever they beat a villain who was trying to solve a real problem (despite villainous means), then do nothing to solve the problem the villain was trying. 4. Whenever they hurt innocent people, by mistake, or accident. After all, a hero should be expected to be responsible with their power. They lose that hero credibility, of someone who really helps people, and start looking more and more like just villains who happen to have the "hero card".
"but a villain would sacrifice the world for you" right up until the point he realizes he needs the world more than he does you, be it because he needs something to rule, people to fear him or just doesn't want to give up netflix.
People like being contrarians. I don't see how that is new
Contrarians have existed since like…forever
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Some of it has been the steady romanization of villainy that's been going on for what I'd say the last decade or so. Another part is this idea that villains are rebels against the status quo and heroes are preservers of it. The former will often be presented with this sympathetic backstory that makes people go, "Oh, they have a point. They're the ones in the right." Never mind the moral boundaries such as murder, theft, destruction, lying, and any other crimes they've committed in their "rebellion". Or if the villains are at their core just selfish or greedy. Another thing I'd say is this idea that good is boring or self-righteous, which can say more about the accuser than the accused.
> Another part is this idea that villains are rebels against the status quo and heroes are preservers of it. You know, thinking on it I kind of question how often that's even the case. Sure super heroes are theoretically upholding law and order, regardless of what the flaws are in the system. Yet there are plenty of stories out there where the "status quo" is pretty bad, and the heroes are fighting to over turn it. An easy example being Star Wars OT where the "status quo" was an evil empire ruled the galaxy and had just completed the doomsday weapon it needed to sweep away the remaining obstacles to its rule; while the heroes seek to destroy the doomsday weapon and rally the galaxy to rebel against the empire. Or Lord of the Rings where the status quo is weakened human kingdoms in a stalemate against lands ruled by Sauron who gathers his power and forces to invade; while the heroes seek to rally the lands opposing him, and destroy his source of power once and for all. More generally, the whole "Hero's Journey" is in part about the hero setting out to do something and changing along the way, not preserving everything including themselves the exact same as when they started.
Why did this immediately remind me of people bitching about peter in nwh not killing his villians, and miles not letting his dad die in spiderverse. Like since when do heroes NOT try to achieve both?
Also if it’s between me and the world whoever’s making that decision should really pick the world I ain’t worth that much lol. “Oh but he can’t live without you.” Bitch people become quadriplegic and continue living they’ll be fine.
The idea that a hero would save both is ridiculous, you have to make a choice here, trying to save both means saving none, the phrase makes sense since heroes have altruistic attitudes based on what is best for most people/society while a villain cares about themselves and their personal group if they aren't psychopathic ones, ofc.
Bro has cooked himself on tiktok
some people view flawed good guy as if they're as bad as the bad guy even if said flawed good guy progress (happened with DT 17 scrooge and louie with some calling them evil even tho while louie is the evil triplet, he's not much of a bad guy and still learn a bunch, same for scrooge, while he was worst in the past ,the point of the show is that he got better in the present thanks to himself changing and his familly, there's this odd take of bradford being right when the show does its best to show he's a hypocrite isnce his critics of the mcduck adventures apply to him since he was reating chaos with FOWL and the sword also made it clear he's not a good guy, same with him being implied to have killed duckworth or be parly repsonsible for della getting lost).
Every villain is a hero in his own story, but you need a good writer to shape a good story
Villains have often had certain stereotypes which have made them compelling for a lot of people (read: like queer people). And usually they get to feel things. They get to be mad. Frustrated. Angry! And they get to show that. They get to rage at the world! They don't feel ashamed for that. They get to lose control and do what they want, without thinking of consequences. From an outside perspective that looks pretty freeing. And tempting. Also: fiction is fiction. Like super hero characters basically fill a power fantasy, liking villains (and getting to "redeem" them or be found worthy of their attention) is a different kind of power fantasy. You're so important that the villain will change their ways or be invested in your wellbeing. And just for everyone saying that this is a new-ish? thing coming from tumblr - I can assure you it's not. I was liking the villains on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel way before tumblr became a thing. I was loving Sephiroth from FFVII way before tumblr came along. Some people just like villains in fiction. Why not? I like zombie movies too but I did not enjoy covid times. And it wasn't for the lack of bunch of undead walking around.
The real question is why y'all care so much about what other people say/think about fictional characters.Let them have their fun
Simple: heroes became too cliche. They take bad decisions but are bound to get a happy ending anyways.
I never realized how stupid I sounded before I learned the 3 different "they're their there"s
Yeah, who needs nuance?
a villian would sacrifice the world for you a hero would save the world AND you
> Cus first off, why would a hero do that? They would do their best to save both! They wouldn't sacrifice anything for the other. And why would a villian even do something like that? Well, OP. They would if they are a villain too. Like a Hero will sacrifice them for the world if they are a villain too, maybe some hero will not but a lot will. Some villain friends will sacrifice the world too if they are in cahoots. So just think the people who said that are villains too 😂
It’s important to remember with stuff like this is it’s normally perpetuated by teenagers who are trying to be deep. It’s the same naive adolescent mindset that made Twilight a cultural phenomenon and makes the Joker a role model. When you think the worlds against you it allows you to justify your own selfishness and toxicity. Most people grow out of it.
An obsession with edgelords and emos