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Suzerain of Sheol Suzerain of Sheol is offline
Desolation Denizen
Default   #31  
Quote:
Originally Posted by CycloneKira View Post
27. "Bwa-ha-ha" villains. I'm sick and tired of them. There are way too many of them, they're cliche, don't you think? Why can't there be different kinds of villains? Why not the "unwilling" kind or "festered mind" kind? Those aren't so bad, are they?
I think it's more that the concept of "villains" in general has become stale. They're the artifact of a simpler, more archetypal type of storytelling that our postmodern sensibilities have largely moved past, as a society. It is absolutely possible for a story to have an antagonist without that antagonist falling into some sort of exaggerated caricature of a human being for the sake of making them easily-identifiable as the "bad guy". Readers deserve a little more credit than that, we can understand complex personal motivations. (Almost) no one in real life is "evil"; people who do terrible things have desires and beliefs that lead them to feel that they should or must hurt others in order to achieve their goals. While a worldview like that isn't something most readers will respect or agree with, it's one that can be understood, which turns the "villain" from a two-dimensional plot device into an actual person that the reader can experience on a human level. In my view, that makes for far more compelling fiction.

...surprised I never gave that particular rant before in this thread. Oh well.

29. "Relatable" Characters

I think I may be in the minority on this one, but I do not understand the need to be able to identify or empathize with a protagonist or any other character in a work of fiction. Maybe there's something wrong with my concept of escapism, but I'm generally not thinking about myself at all when I'm reading. Whether *I* personally would like a character in fiction is an absurdly meaningless proposition to me. I care if they're interesting to read about, that's pretty much it.

As an aside, audience-proxy characters need to go die in a fire. I'll flounder about in new fictional worlds all on my own, thank you; I don't need a doltish dunce of a protagonist asking idiotic questions at every turn for me to figure things out. Give me characters who've actually lived in the world they inhabit, kthxbai.
Cold silence has a tendency
to atrophy any sense of compassion
between supposed lovers.
Between supposed brothers.
Old Posted 01-19-2015, 04:07 PM Reply With Quote