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Pushing Good People too far...
catstarsto
Posts: 1,137 Arc User
in Off Topic
Ive noticed a growing trend of giving villains rein to not only dominate, but also push heroes over the edge, even the boy scout good guy types to their limits.
Do you think this will eventually erase the dividing line until there are only anti-heroes and fan favorite villains who win?
I ask because It seems like what is evil is now good to our culture, and what was good is now evil to our culture these days...
Do you think this will eventually erase the dividing line until there are only anti-heroes and fan favorite villains who win?
I ask because It seems like what is evil is now good to our culture, and what was good is now evil to our culture these days...
Courage is doing what is right even when it isn't popular or safe. Honor is retaining the dignity and virtue in one's self, so it can light the way for others in the darkest of times. Compassion is showing patience and mercy towards others, even when it isn't returned or deserved. A hero is defined by these 3 words, they set him apart from others as a beacon of hope and excellence.
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Exploring morality does not lead to society becoming evil. It should be questioned too, since ideas being old or common doesn't automatically qualify them as being good. I mean let's face it the entire idea of "good and evil" is childish and steeped in poorly thought out rationalizations that generally boil down to "what I think and what I do is good, and anything that's too different is evil". I would argue that the fantasy of the "pure good hero who never falters" is much less healthy than something that actually tries to inject some reality into a character. Works that explore the idea that "our heroes are their monsters" help to try to break selfish and one-sided views of the world. Black and white are only the ends of the spectrum, and it's unhealthy to avoid the entire rest of that area between them - it also helps if you start seeing it as a range of colors rather than just how far from one end or the other something is.
The only people who are scared of morality being questioned are the ones that know their morality is on shaky ground to begin with - or who are just outright deceitful and are merely pretending to have a certain morality in order to maintain access to some benefit. Perhaps people whose morality, that they thought was universal and objective, has been getting the crap beat out of it for well over a decade now. You would think people like that would at some point realize that maybe they need to reevaluate and evolve, but it seems many of them are content to simply double down and pray that some day they'll be proven to have been magically right all along.
tl;dr - no, I don't think edgy characters in movies and video games are going to turn us all evil. Also good and evil are subjective.
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Being a fan of an evil, villainous character doesn't mean that the person actually aspires to be what that character is. It isn't an indication that the person actually believes in that evil character's motivation and sees the character as some sort of role model whose evil intentions are to be admired.
Someone who dresses up as a Chaos Space Marine from WH40K isn't aspiring to be an evil person like the character he's dressed up to be. That's not what cosplay is about. If that's something that's being suggested as to how pop culture is steering us to be bad people rather than good, that's an incredibly silly and myopic observation to make. The good, the bad, the struggle to define both in our societies around the world have a lot more to do with political environments, social environments and economic elements past and present, and not simply due to the influence of pop culture.
But truthfully, i feel like my initial question asks, will we have our villains be the triumphant ones now? Will there be sadness and corruption (Ming/Luthor/Borg) winning, and never another Flash Gordon, Superman or Captain Proton for those Trek fans out there.
Courage is doing what is right even when it isn't popular or safe. Honor is retaining the dignity and virtue in one's self, so it can light the way for others in the darkest of times. Compassion is showing patience and mercy towards others, even when it isn't returned or deserved. A hero is defined by these 3 words, they set him apart from others as a beacon of hope and excellence.
If we're going to use the Marvel / DC movies as a referrence, the villains in those movies have always ended up losing. The heroes always end up winning. The villains not winning also is due to marketing reasons. The heroes have to win because its what the audience wants; to see their awesome kick-**** superheroes be awesome and win the day.
When it comes to the comic books, the villain winning is written specifically for the kind of narrative involved for the hero's story. More often than not it's used to show how the hero overcomes great adversity and how he or she learns from the defeat to bounce back while becoming a better hero.
If I had to use an example, Iron Man was pushed over the edge towards the end of the Marvel Civil War movie solely because of the story's narrative. Iron Man and Captain America fighting and leading to the fracturing of the Avengers was exactly what the main villain wanted and achieved. In a sense the villain won, but the ending showed that it wasn't set in stone. There was closure and reconciliation between Iron Man and Captain America. Also during the whole movie Iron Man was an antagonist, even though he didn't turn into a villain. He was still a superhero. The film's narrative just had to do with a subject of morality which is pretty grey in the story's context, and not just about good vs evil.
The good guys being pushed over the edge doesn't necessarily mean that they will become anti-heroes and the villains suddenly becoming more dominant in these stories. Being pushed over the edge simply just shows that the hero is flawed, and opens up opportunities for character development.
Courage is doing what is right even when it isn't popular or safe. Honor is retaining the dignity and virtue in one's self, so it can light the way for others in the darkest of times. Compassion is showing patience and mercy towards others, even when it isn't returned or deserved. A hero is defined by these 3 words, they set him apart from others as a beacon of hope and excellence.
Also, you said "it seems like what was evil is now good in society". Where the heck do you live that it is now socially acceptable to torture and murder people whenever you like? I don't remember a part of the united states where they legalized and then encouraged theft, so you clearly don't live here. I mean sure I agree with you that lately it seems like we've given our government over to those naughty rich people who just want to suck up everyone's money and exploit the common person for their own gain, but doing that still isn't viewed as "good". I mean sure maybe it used to be considered "good" to persecute homosexuals and now that's no longer considered good, but it'd be hard to make a case that that's not an improvement.
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The Punisher isnt a hero, hes anti-hero as mentioned above.
Courage is doing what is right even when it isn't popular or safe. Honor is retaining the dignity and virtue in one's self, so it can light the way for others in the darkest of times. Compassion is showing patience and mercy towards others, even when it isn't returned or deserved. A hero is defined by these 3 words, they set him apart from others as a beacon of hope and excellence.
I'm happy is the male hero "gets the guy", though.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
I think testing morality against law is a great subject for storytelling. None of the good guys became bad guys in civil war, they are all good guys that fell on the "right" or "wrong" side of a new law. Thinking a law is unjust does not make make you a villain. The law is put together by people, and no people are perfect.
In storytelling, heroes are really only as entertaining as their bad guys. If the villains are dull and uninteresting, then the hero facing them is usually not going to be entertaining or in any way feel impressive. For instance, stories that revolve around all-powerful protagonists bore me to death because you have to come up with ridiculous ways to challenge them. It usually comes out stupid. "Ultimate badass" characters are the worst. Save that for the villains, because if the hero defeats that villain, it'll be impressive.
My favorite villain of all time is Handsome Jack from Borderlands 2. He had personality, was completely obnoxious, and knew how to push the players' buttons. He's the guy you love to hate, and when you finally defeat him, it's completely cathartic. He's entertaining but at the end of the day, still a villain and still deserving of justice. One of the best parts is that in his mind, he's the hero and thinks of the players as the villains. You're thrown into grey areas during the game, and he's always there to point out when you've done something he thinks is villainous.
So it's important to give character to the bad guys, make them as likeable and interesting as the good guys, but that doesn't mean most people are cheering on the bad guys and want to be evil themselves. I think people who admire the bad guys admire them for what they bring to a story and how they prop up the heroes.
But even without a romance, a darker story has become this generations fix, and when intrigued by an evil person being able to stop the hero or causing the innocents from his plans suffering and evil come to pass, it would tell a lot about a persons deepest desires. I know its been brought up about alternate forms of morality, but deep down no one likes bad things to happen to themselves ether, there is a reason for it traditionally being called right and wrong. No one wants to be collateral damage in someones plot, or be stolen from or even have your closest friends lie to you, etc.
Plus what was once a demonic nightmare villain "the vampire" became the romantic hero...infact vampire movies are so over done now much like zombie movies, they become tedious to even think about (can no one invent a new monster?) O.o ...unless you are one of the many fans who want to be a vampire. I even worked with a guy who said he was willing to drink blood if he could have the powers. Now before someone counters with "whats wrong with drinking blood?" Think about that for a minute! And the fact it would involve murder!!
Courage is doing what is right even when it isn't popular or safe. Honor is retaining the dignity and virtue in one's self, so it can light the way for others in the darkest of times. Compassion is showing patience and mercy towards others, even when it isn't returned or deserved. A hero is defined by these 3 words, they set him apart from others as a beacon of hope and excellence.
Courage is doing what is right even when it isn't popular or safe. Honor is retaining the dignity and virtue in one's self, so it can light the way for others in the darkest of times. Compassion is showing patience and mercy towards others, even when it isn't returned or deserved. A hero is defined by these 3 words, they set him apart from others as a beacon of hope and excellence.
Thing is, sure, Cole's a Raider, and expects you to turn around and start leading raids across the Commonwealth - but he and the old Overboss, when they first encountered Nuka-World, found three rival gangs killing each other all over the park. They brought an end to the violence, with Cole working to revive it as a trading post. It took all his diplomatic skills to keep a lid on the place, but from [i]his[/i] perspective, he was a bloody hero, bringing order to at least a small part of the chaos the world had become. (And if you agree with him, you can even become a proper Raider Overboss, destroying all those settlements you built up. Of course, that permanently burns all your bridges with the Minutemen - Preston can forgive your working with the Brotherhood, the Railroad, or even the Institute, but Raiders are too far for him - but the option is there...)
Similarly, in both the movie and comics versions of Civil War, Tony Stark honestly thought he was on the side of the angels the whole time. In the movies, he'd seen what could happen with supers just wandering around assuming their might gave them the right to enforce what they thought the world should be; in the comics, the spread of both the X-gene and Inhuman Terrigenesis, coupled with Reed Richards' development of a "science" of psychohistory, led Stark and others to the conclusion that certain elements of superpowered society must be redirected or imprisoned for the good of all. (The problem, as with Asimov's psychohistory, is that it breaks down at the individual level and over the short term, so it failed to predict Norman Osborn seizing power with his Dark Avengers, or Spider-Man switching sides after he actually saw the prison in the Negative Zone.)
Steve Rogers, on the other hand, had personal experience with the hell that can be wrought with the finest of intentions; you start off saying you're only trying to control the criminal element, and the next thing you know people are being herded into camps and getting numbers tattooed on them. He wasn't about to stand by and watch that happen. (That's also part of what tore the Fantastic Four apart, in the comics story; Johnny thought Reed had a point, Sue feared he'd gone too far, and Ben, being Jewish, had the same concerns Rogers did.)
You'll note that in the end, Stark was led to understand the error his fear/overweening hubris had led to, and the situation was (at least in part) undone.
As for the Superman movies referenced in pictures, the important thing to remember there is that Zach Snyder was chosen for both Man of Steel and Dawn of Justice based on his success with Watchmen. Problem there was, Watchmen is supposed to be a dark dystopia in which the presence of costumed "heroes" only makes things worse, and that apparently really resonated with Snyder on a personal level. So he tried to do the same thing with Superman, and WB went along with it because it worked so well with Nolan and the Bat-films. They didn't understand what it is that's made the Big Blue Boy Scout so appealing for so very long - that no matter how bad things get, as long as he still has any hope at all, he won't fall into that trap. (In various "what-if" stories, the only thing that's made him lose his solid Midwestern-farm-boy morality was the loss of Lois.) Supes isn't a "dark, gritty, realistic" hero - he's the impossible Superman, who avoids being the Ubermensch only because he doesn't assume his superior physical power makes him intrinsically "better" than the humans that surround him. And that's the part Snyder didn't get. (Heck, even in Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, Superman was only reluctantly working with the government, and genuinely sorrowed over having to fight his old friend Bruce at the end. He tried very hard to convince Bruce to either stand down or work with the feds, and was forced to stop only because he was called away from his discussion with his friend by the launch of an EMP-warhead-laden missile.)
So no, this "trend" (comprising all of two WB movies) doesn't mean there's an "end" to heroism in popular entertainment. Heck, if you don't believe me, go check out your local comics shop. Bypass the indie comics, which can often feature antiheroes or even antivillains because the creators are trying to tell a story truly different from what's come before; go look at the major publishers, especially DC. Do you see stories in which Superman brutalizes people? Stories in which Batman eviscerates villains just because he can? Stories with the Justice League fighting to keep a given government official in power? No, you don't. Because we still want to see the heroes being, well, heroic. (And recognizing it when they're not - for all Biff's protestations above, Frank Castle has never pretended he's a hero. He just sees himself as doing what he believes is necessary.)
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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I'll grant that I'm not super familiar with the character, so I could be wrong, but most of what I've seen of him, his intentions are good but his methodology is questionable depending on where in the spectrum of morality you sit in.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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I personally can't get with characters that are bad or evil in any way, and though his methods might lean towards brutal, his morality is on the side of good. If it wasn't for that I probably wouldn't have enjoyed his series on Netflix.
PS - you can get blood out of someone without killing them. The Red Cross does it all the time.
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- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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#1: "Anti-hero" is the same as "villain". Anti- means the opposite of. "Anti-heroes" are created by weak-minded people who are obsessed with fictional revenge. (FICTIONAL revenge, not real revenge, I'm not saying whoever created the Punisher will kill people.) The Punisher isn't a hero--he's a weakling. He kills for the same reason the bad guys do; he's not man enough not to.
#2: Super heroes have to have high standards of morality. If they don't they're just people with powers, if not villains (power corrupts, you know). Morality is what would keep them from being deluded bad guys. If you don't mind that as part of the story, it's your choice. I personally find 'heroes' that are excessively flawed to be extremely boring and unlikable. However, struggling with questions of right and wrong (as in Civil War) can be very interesting if written well.
The Punisher became a villain to get revenge under the disguise of justice....much like all vigilantes (Magnum Force)
Courage is doing what is right even when it isn't popular or safe. Honor is retaining the dignity and virtue in one's self, so it can light the way for others in the darkest of times. Compassion is showing patience and mercy towards others, even when it isn't returned or deserved. A hero is defined by these 3 words, they set him apart from others as a beacon of hope and excellence.
As for Luthor, he's a xenophobe - he distrusts all metas, and outright hates and fears aliens with powers. In his view, Superman is an insidious invader, tricking people into lowering their suspicions and defenses in preparation for the inevitable day when he turns on humanity and seizes control (Luthor can't conceive of anyone with powers not wanting to take over the world).
Captain America, on the other hand, doesn't "compete" - he simply is. And aside from that yearlong thing where the Cosmic Cube created an alternate-timeline evil Cap, he's upheld in-universe as the epitome of what everyone should strive to be. Other supers in Marvel fall over each other fanboying over Cap. He's still cleaning up his public image after that Hydra-Cap debacle, but he's doing pretty well on that.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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The thing about Captain America is an extremely good point. It really had a play in the comics version of Civil War.
Luthor is a selfish egomaniac. Anyone who outshines him in any way turns him upside down. That, along with what you said, makes him a classic villain.
I quit buying comics years ago, so your knowledge of bad Cap(s) is a bit beyond my expertise.
When the Green Goblin dropped Gwen Stacey off the bridge in the comics, Spider-Man was unable to save her. He swore revenge and went after Goblin, but at the moment he could have killed him, his moral limits stopped him. Goblin had no such limits and tried to direct his glider to stab Spider-Man from behind, hitting himself in the process.
I wonder how that would have been handled by modern writers, many of whom don't understand the point of super heroes.
Then again, later writers made the Goblin a Wolverine rip-off who survived his "death" due to a healing factor. Never a bit of closure in the comics.
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I do agree with what you're saying about the avoiding mistakes and abuse. Definitely more civilized that way, though it may not feel that way to the victim's family in the short term.
I'm assuming the "central false assumption" is a reference to comic book criminals, many of whom are by design easy to identify. But even in the comics that's not always cut-and-dry. The Kingpin (Spider-Man's most enduring foe) was once called a common criminal by another bad guy, and immediately mentioned he'd never been convicted of anything.
This can be a complex issue, and we may be getting a little too far off topic. Later, guys.
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We identify with these feelings very well and that's why we relate so much to the motivations of the "manly" vigilante type protagonists hunting down vile criminals and killing them.
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We didn't always have laws, police, or judges. People had to make do, and they did. To this day, there are places where mobs will stone one of their own to death for theft.
The reason we have laws, is so that good people don't have to commit murder.
If we look at history, it seems that the weaker the influence of law enforcement was the more shooting was going on.
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couldnt resist...
When you indulge in your passions and are not restrained from such, then you can create a monster out of yourself...the sith for example! Lust-hate-greed-violence-spite if you embrace one the others will soon follow. I realize everyone thinks me a fool for always promoting love and hugs, but what ever you feed inside of you is what will become strong, and if you feed your evil too much you may become a morlock.
Ill just put this here: =^.^=
Courage is doing what is right even when it isn't popular or safe. Honor is retaining the dignity and virtue in one's self, so it can light the way for others in the darkest of times. Compassion is showing patience and mercy towards others, even when it isn't returned or deserved. A hero is defined by these 3 words, they set him apart from others as a beacon of hope and excellence.
Marvel wise Ironman, Thor, Hulk and Hawkeye are not boy scouts either. They are quite happy to off a bad guy and sleep well at night no issues.
Its mostly just DC's Batman that has the lame **** no kill rule. That idiot should have killed the Joker years ago.
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They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
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- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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When you dont like someone...they can do no right. Every good thing someone ever did is none existent and everything they perceive as negative is highlighted and often exaggerated. But I guess this explains why spinny is so motivate in his mission.
Sometimes being there with hugs is all a hero needs to do.
While I will never be a hero or most likely anything of significance for the history books, I still do my best to contribute what I can. In game I love to be the (support role) healing what damages you, curing what debuffs you, lifting you back to your feet when you fall, and lightening the mood with humor especially when the fight doesnt seem to be going well....I do this in real life to, since I cant be a hero, maybe I can inspire others to be one instead, so the work of a hero still gets done. ^_^
This was part of why I posted, I was wondering why they had increased putting the hero through more Kobayashi Maru style situations. Do we tear down our heroes because we cant reach the pedestal we put them up on, and begin to resent them...or have we begun to love our villains more because our own inner grief has caused us to want to act upon our own inner darkness and dispare instead of conquire it??
Courage is doing what is right even when it isn't popular or safe. Honor is retaining the dignity and virtue in one's self, so it can light the way for others in the darkest of times. Compassion is showing patience and mercy towards others, even when it isn't returned or deserved. A hero is defined by these 3 words, they set him apart from others as a beacon of hope and excellence.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
And who are these other villains that Superman supposedly makes a habit of killing? Lex Luthor is not only alive, he's still running a massive multinational corporation (and frequently bankrupting it on his harebrained "get Superman" schemes, as one comic lampshaded). Mr. Mxyzptlk probably doesn't even understand death, much less experience it. Darkseid was eventually killed not by Superman, but by a fusion of the Flash and the Black Racer - but he got better. Brainiac is still running around absorbing and destroying worlds, last I heard (and why hasn't the Green Lantern Corps put a stop to this?). Heck, even the Elite were tricked into thinking he'd killed them, as an object lesson into why their nihilist version of "heroics" was a bad idea.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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