Mild gripe: Not every villain is the hero of their own story.

[guardians_song]

I know people love to say this. But it's not true. It fundamentally projects a worldview of believing that one's actions are justified and that the morality of one's actions and intentions is the most important thing, which... um... Hello? This is an age in which we know about sociopaths, right?

Sociopaths know their actions are wrong. That's why they go to such extents to cover them up. They just don't give a damn. They lack that sense of moral concern that so troubles most people. Yes, they think that most people are suckers. That doesn't mean they don't understand what a 'good' person is, they just choose not to be one. Yes, they're the "heroes" of their own stories, in that they have pathetically exaggerated delusions of their own exalted status, but not in the sense that most of us think of as 'heroes'. Designated Protagonists might be a better phrase.

Likewise, yes, some people do know - or think - they're doing wrong and choose to continue on anyway. The drug addict who wants to stop, yet can't resist taking another hit - that's one. The person on a diet who can't resist 'indulging' a few dozen times too often - that's another. The person who wants access to restricted material, and isn't adverse to fudging details of their age to get it - that's yet another. On the side of thinking there's wrongdoing, there's also the closeted fundamentalist who struggles with his or her "deviant urges", the severely depressed person eaten alive by guilt for 'wasting others' time and resources' (*sigh* Can't say I'm over that so much as I'm managing to be less of a waste...), the rebel convinced that he or she must be a horrible person for going against what is supposed to be The Moral Way To Think, yet persisting anyway...

It's ridiculously oversimplifying to say everyone is the hero of their own story. And it has no place in 'enlightened' discussions of literature and characterization. *climbs off of soapbox*

Comments

[sarajayechan]

Cori Falls, right? D: I also had a friend who considered Trabant and Alvis from FE4 heroes despite their horrific actions through the course of the story. (Alvis had the makings of someone heroic at the beginning but then he chose the dark path to save his own necl, and Trabant's well-intentioned extremism was unforgivable no matter how heroic he saw himself as).

[guardians_song]

Nah, actually someone snarking a bad book (in the context of the book's sociopathic Mary-Sue protagonist):

Let me just say here: every good villain is essentially the hero of their own story. They don't view their actions as terrible even if it's horrifying and evil to others. They believe that what they're doing is right and that it'll make things better. These are the villains we love to hate and sometimes even cheer to succeed for the sheer magnitude of their evilness.

And then she goes on to note that this applies very well to the author's ever-so-noble self-insert - so she's actually CRITICIZING the character rather than praising it, but it's STILL nonsense. And it does irk me, because assuming that every villainous person views their own actions as right and benevolent is a dangerous mistake to make, especially when the message leaks down to those wide-eyed and naive souls with a save-everybody complex. D:

I'll agree that almost all villainous people, in real life and in fiction, SAY they're justified and that they're doing it for a greater good, but there's an UNSPEAKABLE difference between somebody SAYING that such-and-such is their motive and somebody actually HAVING that as their motive. D:

[sarajayechan]

Aah. D: Yeah, that's a pretty messed-up way of thinking. Sometimes the villain IS the hero of their own story (Astro Boy vs Pluto, Micaiah's Dawn Brigade vs Greil Mercenaries in part 3 of Radiant Dawn). But not always. Sometimes a villain is just a freaking villain and a huge douche no matter how justified they think their actions are.

[guardians_song]

"Sometimes a villain is just a freaking villain and a huge douche no matter how justified they think their actions are."
And sometimes, they don't think their actions are justified at all. *sigh* I really don't like the aren't-we-SO-three-dimensional pretentiousness in fandom these days. The other extreme is also bad, but the sheer rigidity is getting to me.

[violent_cat]

It's possible I'll write something wrong, but maybe people who say that, justifying the villains, are actually justifying themselves... Because many people adore such characters, so they try to explain their behaviour, AND then they don't have to admit they like 'that evil sociopath' - they could just say the 'hero' stuff.

[guardians_song]

As I said in the comment to Sarajayechan above, that wasn't what was going on in this case - but I agree that your explanation is what's going on a good chunk of the time. It's just that it seems to have caught on in fandom in general as a piece of writing dogma, when it's... blatantly not true. :\

[violent_cat]

As I said in the comment to Sarajayechan above, that wasn't what was going on in this case
Ah, that's why I thought I might be off the topic. Apparently I was too tired to read carefully, but - at least - aware of that ;D

Anyway, thank you for the explanation and the quotation. Now, that I understand your point, I can tell you that I agree.

There are examples of villains claiming that there is nothing wrong in what they're doing. Some of them may really believe it, but I think those are mostly people with serious problems with their perception. (I believe Annie from "Misery" is a decent example, though sometimes she seems aware that her deeds are, well, evil.)
Actually, Dumbledore's words kind of apply to your point. He says he was feeling guilty about his plans, trying to justify them with all that "For the Greater Good" thing, even though he knew those were merely empty words. They didn't convince him, but could convince other people, and that's what villains often have to do, if only to survive.

[harp]

Fandom as a whole would do well to stay away from terms like "everybody" and "nobody" and "always/never". The terms are way too loaded. But generalization is Fandom's favorite Drama Schmama tool and extremes are what fandom deals in, so will they ever learn?

Not when defending their favorite characters. (Potter Fandom, I'm looking at you).

[redwoodalchan]

Yeah, this is basically the problem in a nutshell. It often seems like everyone in fandom is just too short-sighted to see any way of looking at things but their own.

[harp]

And when that short-sightedness is combined with Tumblr? Now that's scary.

No, seriously, I'm not trying to make a joke or use that overused phrase in a light way. Tumblr is seriously dangerous for fandom in that way. The lack of adequate communication means (comments don't how up in an inbox in your mail) the ease of anonymity, the dashboard that changes every ten seconds, all of that is

1. promoting a short attention span (changes every ten seconds) which in turn
2. Encourages direct brain-to-keyboard output with no thought, and...
3. there are no consequences for this because in twenty seconds and one refresh, your dashboard will be new. So there's only blurting things out, not thinking, who cares, it'll be old news soon and also
4. Even if someone is hurt by what you say, their feelings and responses are as easy to ignore as pressing "ignore user" meaning they'll never show up on your dash ever again.

So they're saying all of these things with conviction and finality and flat out short sightedness ("Based on these things going on right now and my feelings, I declare that you ARE this, always WILL be this, and this is how things are ALWAYS AND FOREVER EVER.") and all of it with the emotional maturity of a brain damaged person (literally; the cerebral cortex isn't even fully formed in humans until age 25 at least)... and to think, all of this is taking place with regards to extremely subjective things like "I like this ship" and "I don't like what this character did."

It's really like giving a drunk driver the keys to a truck full of fertilizer. "Here, go nuts and have fun, we trust your better judgement!" At least on LJ, people communicated because their words were wore or less permanently public.

[guardians_song]

In all fairness, Tumblr works if you have a SMALL Tumblrs-followed list. Then the dash doesn't update constantly, you may actually know the people, and you can keep track of reblogs from them.

But, being cynical, I'd actually add a few more points to your list:

5. The tags make it possible to fanwar/troll/flame with unprecedented ease simply by mis-tagging your posts with a rival ship/topic/etc. - no one has to go to the trouble of heading over to the enemy camp to strafe them with bullshit, they can just fire off ICBMs and rejoice at the ranting flooding the tag.
5a. The tags are NOT MODERATED, making it possible for even the most vicious flamewars to go on as long as both participants are standing.
6. The tags also make it easy for SJWers to call in troll raids on heretics. Or for anyone to call in troll raids, really, so long as enough people are bored and/or ticked off.
7. So we already have a situation where Fandom Wank is almost redundant because every hour brings a new potential wank. We now add on the reblog feature, which makes it possible to signal boost wanks all over the site and thus drag in as much of the fandom as possible. And this is often reinforced with No True Scotsman pressure to join the wank, so instead of "Don't Feed The Trolls", it's "Welcome to the Official Troll Salad Bar, Open 24/7, All You Can Eat All The Time".

Honestly, all that surprises me is that Tumblr isn't MORE insane. I am literally not sure what you could do to create a more wank-prone site. Set up elections for Tumblr President?

At least on LJ, people communicated because their words were wore or less permanently public.
To be fair, anon memes can go impressively batshit, and there was always the occasional person who had a massive flaming meltdown in the middle of a packed comm. But that was the LJ exception, not the Tumblr rule.

[harp]

Tumblr works if you have a SMALL Tumblrs-followed list
Yeeeeah... good luck with getting one of those. I don't even go on Tumblr every day and my following list is about... *checks* 604 blogs?! Jesus...! I get into moods when I remember "Oh, I like this thing!" and then I start looking for blogs featuring that thing (oceans, nautical things, Goth girls, Cthulhu, Steampunk, Cosplay, Lesbanims, funny stuff, real life gore/injury/suicide which I follow and reblog because I'm gonna have to get used to looking at pictures of mutilated bodies). What's even more strange is that I have 138 followers, even though I say right on my front page "I'm not gonna do anything but reblog stuff and not even that often so I'm not going to be offended or even notice if you don't follow me back." It's not like LJ where you're reblogging your thoughts. Tumblr's my personal "OOh, that's pretty, I'mma save that picture to draw later or something" thing. A scrap book.

Oh my Dawg I've heard about the flamewars tagging. It is the most blatant form of infantile, spiteful whining I have ever heard of. I mean, the most blatant "Wah wah, someone likes something I don't like and I'm MAD, WAH" form of a temper tantrum that ever existed. They aren't going to see the person's reaction, firstly. Second, what do they expect, someone to see it while searching their ship and renounce X/Y forever? Doing things like that amounts to nothing more than "I want these people to feel bad". If they would just stop and think for one second... idiots!

The tags also make it easy for SJWers to call in troll raids on heretics.
What's this now? Example? I'm having trouble understanding it from the SJW part.

And this is often reinforced with No True Scotsman pressure to join the wank, so instead of "Don't Feed The Trolls", it's "Welcome to the Official Troll Salad Bar, Open 24/7, All You Can Eat All The Time".
That sure is true. If I saw more of a point to it, I'd be trolling Tumblrites a heckofalot more, especially the SjW's. I'd be defending white cismen all the time, then posting videos of myself, all "As you can see, I'm not a white cisman, so how about you shut up your ugly white paleface and go cry in your Big Macs LOL U MAD?"

Honestly, all that surprises me is that Tumblr isn't MORE insane.
Again, maybe this is one of the times where there is only so much awful the universe can take before it folds in on itself! All these problems arise from the short-sighted and the inability to think past the current emotion. But then, they are so short sighted that they cannot sustain a thought or argument for too long, so in about thirty minutes, they'll move on to the next emotion. ... Wow, that is scary. Picture it, I mean really. Picture someone with a scary-ass ragevage, head thrown back, pounding nasty words into the keyboard, then folding their arms and glaring, then moving their mouse to the refresh button, clicking it, the light change on their face indicating that the page has re-loaded, and then them going "OH MY GAWD ADSKAWGUTPNTVSFBW SHERLOCK IS SO HOT ALL MY FEELS!!!" That's really frightening.

=/ It's fun to rant about this with you, even though I know in my heart that we all did stupid-ass things as kids and that we're just damned lucky that there was no internet around we didn't have perpetual internet connections on our own private laptops because...



To be fair, anon memes can go impressively batshit
Why do people go Anon?
Because they don't want what they're saying to be associated with their journal name and thus with them. Going anon means this, plus you not getting notified when someone does reply to you. Tumblr is a perpetual anon meme.

This is not to say that I don't like Tumblr, by the way. I realize what a Tumblr-hater I sound like, but I'm not, I swear. The users are the problem, not the site.

(Ok, I better do my Goddamned embalming homework that's due tomorrow or else my teacher will breathe fire at me -.- God I dont wanna do it... I will get to your other comments tomorrow...)

[guardians_song]

"(Potter Fandom, I'm looking at you)."
Ha, this x1000. The Star Wars Expanded Universe fandom got pretty nutty for a while, due to the various tie-in authors actually taking sides in the ship wars (!!!), but nothing can beat HP.
(Fire Emblem TRIES to be as nutty, due to Choose Your Own Pairing mechanics, but they simply don't have enough fans to tip it over. And SPN seems to be more about trying to prove that brocest and/or angelfucking are TOTALLY CANON GAIZ than about brawling over ships these days... though it helps that the codependent brothers and the angel are the only ones with guaranteed lifespans.)

Of course, "when mocking their least-favorite characters" works, too. (Twilight Anti-Fandom...)

[harp]

Of course, "when mocking their least-favorite characters" works, too. (Twilight Anti-Fandom...)

You just made me realize something truly weird- when it comes to Twilight, no matter what side you're on, you're arm-in-arm with your fellows on that side.

I've brought this up once or twice and had Potterheads try to tell me "Noooo, Team Dead-weird and Team Pedowolf h8 each other 4lyfe!" but that never went as far or as hateful as it did in the Potterfandom, and they never had the million factions that Potter did (Snapestans, Maurauder-stans, Slytherinfen, Potter Haters, Critics who still loved, and oh-so-many-shippers-Shippers-Shipping) all throwing their hatred at each other.

With Twatlight, the fans of it stuck together absolutely and the haters are in 100% agreement that there is nothing good about it. And everyone stays in their own camp (the fans sticking to their own, knowing they will never penetrate the iron-clad hatred fortress, the haters staying in their mansions, knowing they will never be able to reverse the brain damage of the fans). And we're content to mock and our mocking makes them stick together and love and cherish one-another.

As someone on my LJ said, that's the only thing I will ever admire about that fandom. They ruly love each other. Which is the height of irony, considering there has never been a more piss-poor, messed up, ass-backwards, doing-it-wrong representation of love since Jim Jones poured a cup of flavor-aid and said "I made this for you because I love you".

[guardians_song]

The thing is that the Teams are bizarrely civil about believing that their opponents are Interrogating The Text From The Wrong Perspective. The Jacobers DID go feral after Breaking Dawn, to tell from their official comm, but they were very mellow about the other FANS - sure, they believed that Edward shippers had a shallow reading of the text, were young and inexperienced, or were just incomprehensible, but they didn't jump to deeming those shippers PERSONALLY shallow, immature, and stupid. And the Edwarders seemed just to wave the Jacobers aside and not even think about them unless they accidentally came into contact.

It wasn't that they were buddies, but they had a civilized ceasefire. And the Jacob fans, even though they became pseudo-antis after BD, always reserved their vitriol for the AUTHOR and the TEXT while not starting fights with their fellow fans.

I don't have much of an idea why, either. Maybe the sheer force of hatred from the true-antis made the majority of the fans all band together in 'Even if we can't defend this seriously, we're having fun, and that's the important thing, right?'. I've also noticed that the Twifans really don't revere the Venom Cock Holy Canon as Potterfen do (or, heck, even as the ANTIS do), so that drains away a lot of the Potterwank. 'You don't like Carlisle in canon? Okay, but what about in my All-Human AU where he's domming Edward while Jacob has a threesome with Emmett and Rosalie?'

Either way, it's interesting to watch.

[redwoodalchan]

Wow. It amazes me that the Twilight fandom might actually be LESS nutty than the Harry Potter fandom.

[guardians_song]

Mind, I only track the Bella/Jacob comm*, so the Edward-fangirl section is undoubtedly nuttier. But even that section is sure to be less wanky, since they're at least all on the same side.

*Incidentally, if you want to see genuine fan reactions to Breaking Dawn:
http://sortofbeautiful.livejournal.com/595145.html (The reaction to THE IMPRINT)

http://sortofbeautiful.livejournal.com/702820.html
http://sortofbeautiful.livejournal.com/1704362.html#comments

TL;DR:
THE SPOILERS ARE 100% TRUE!

Cry with me please!