McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Writing villains
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Aminar on August 16, 2012, 12:54:26 PM ---Right and wrong aren't that hard to see in a narrative.
--- End quote ---
If you mean that the moral polarity of good and evil espoused by a work of fiction is usually pretty straightforward to derive from the text, fair enough in many cases; if you want to argue good and evil as being self-evident, I'll part ways with you there. (Harry Dresden and Mr. Spock are both generally taken to be heroes, but they have radically different positions on the notion of the greatest good of the greatest number, for example.) It may well be a consequence of growing up in an environment where both my perceived politics/ethnicity and my perceived sexuality were things which some people around me were willing to be very negative on based on their zealously held takes on good and evil, up to and including risk of serious violence, but if you give me a text that suggests good and evil are obvious to all right-thinking people, I will find it untrustworthy and repellent.
--- Quote --- And the point of fiction is to escape like the point of candy is to taste good. If those things make you feel guilty you might want to look at why. Neither of those things is wrong when it doesn't hinder your ability to manage life.
--- End quote ---
I'm with Professor Tolkien when he said that the word for people who object to escapism is jailers, but I'm rejecting the notion of a black-and-white setting where good and evil are clearly laid out as one there's any appeal for me in escaping to; in that kind of setting, I always feel I'd be one of the people hanging from a lamp-post for not buying into the relevant notion of good.
I'd much rather escape to a rich and complicated banquet with lots of different and interesting food than to a heaped pile of refined sugar.
--- Quote --- Enjoy life. It isn't incredibly long and most of it isn't fun.
--- End quote ---
If that's the case for you, you have my sympathies. I've been able to get to a point where rather a lot of mine is, and not by doing anything that seems impossibly difficult for many other people to do.
--- Quote ---Besides which, everybody could use some good old fashioned heroic altruism beat into their brains.
--- End quote ---
Applying a statement like that to people who have no self-confidence already and who are full of self-loathing because of constantly being held to impossible standards, for example, is a fairly straightforward way for a simple take on good to generate suffering as a byproduct in ways that work for me as evil. That's not one I intend to write much about myself, because I'm rather too close to it personally, but it's a useful source of conflict in a story somewhat more sophisticated than merely light versus dark.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: OZ on August 16, 2012, 02:32:13 PM ---I oversimplified. You put it in much better terms. I agree completely.
--- End quote ---
Thank you.
Thinking about it, there are any number of stories in which a heroic day-saving victory though self-sacrifice counts as a win; and I can buy that as an element, but a world where every single death is glorious self-sacrifice than wins something worthwhile isn't going to be one I can believe in enough to take any comfort in.
OZ:
(click to show/hide)Triumph of good is also logically suspect - 'good' and 'evil' labels are more properly applied when consequences are known (or when the victors write history) - so during-the-fact cheering of a 'good' hero to me smells of bureaucratic artifice and causality violation both.
First of all I would say again that some of this is just about personal taste. I don't expect everyone to like or dislike the same things that I do. Having said that, I do have somewhat specific tastes. I have to like the hero and I have to buy into the hero's value system at least for the duration of the story. That does not always mean that they have to have the same value system that I do. I loved the TV series Dexter (at least the early seasons) and like the hero. I can buy into his value system in the show even though it is very far from mine. On the other hand there was a book that was highly recommended by some of the people on this site. (I'm not going to say the name or author because I'm not trying to be insulting or cast stones.) The book was well written with a good magical system and a fast paced story. The hero, however, was whining and ineffective and showed mercy to the most vile people while killing innocent people without a second thought. I hated the book. Most who read it apparently loved it. I just couldn't like the hero and for me that ruins the book.
I should add that the same is not always true for short stories. I have read masterfully done short stories where I didn't like the main character and didn't agree with his or her value system. I guess I can only handle that sort of thing in small doses.
Oops. Used the spoiler instead of the quote function
Aminar:
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on August 16, 2012, 02:45:49 PM ---If you mean that the moral polarity of good and evil espoused by a work of fiction is usually pretty straightforward to derive from the text, fair enough in many cases; if you want to argue good and evil as being self-evident, I'll part ways with you there. (Harry Dresden and Mr. Spock are both generally taken to be heroes, but they have radically different positions on the notion of the greatest good of the greatest number, for example.) It may well be a consequence of growing up in an environment where both my perceived politics/ethnicity and my perceived sexuality were things which some people around me were willing to be very negative on based on their zealously held takes on good and evil, up to and including risk of serious violence, but if you give me a text that suggests good and evil are obvious to all right-thinking people, I will find it untrustworthy and repellent.
I'm with Professor Tolkien when he said that the word for people who object to escapism is jailers, but I'm rejecting the notion of a black-and-white setting where good and evil are clearly laid out as one there's any appeal for me in escaping to; in that kind of setting, I always feel I'd be one of the people hanging from a lamp-post for not buying into the relevant notion of good.
I'd much rather escape to a rich and complicated banquet with lots of different and interesting food than to a heaped pile of refined sugar.
If that's the case for you, you have my sympathies. I've been able to get to a point where rather a lot of mine is, and not by doing anything that seems impossibly difficult for many other people to do.
Applying a statement like that to people who have no self-confidence already and who are full of self-loathing because of constantly being held to impossible standards, for example, is a fairly straightforward way for a simple take on good to generate suffering as a byproduct in ways that work for me as evil. That's not one I intend to write much about myself, because I'm rather too close to it personally, but it's a useful source of conflict in a story somewhat more sophisticated than merely light versus dark.
--- End quote ---
No, I'm saying that right and wrong are different from good and evil. RIght and wrong are self evident in literature. Good and evil are totally different.
I would say they exist on an axis based on the effect of an action.
Take action A. Save a mans life. It's the right thing.
Later on you find out that by saving his life you allowed him to go on and continue being a serial killer. The result of your action was evil despite it being the right thing. The axis is pretty self evident from there(and I'm using an extreme example to highlight how I see things.)
Heroes typically do the right thing. Villains can too.
Now-My definition of a hero vs a villain.
Hero: Someone who foregoes, to an extent, their personal desires to help others lives improve(or maintain).
Villain: Somebody that purposefully puts their personal desires before the good of others frequently and without care.
Insanity throws a few wrenches in here, ones I am exploring via my current project.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Aminar on August 16, 2012, 05:41:31 PM ---No, I'm saying that right and wrong are different from good and evil. RIght and wrong are self evident in literature. Good and evil are totally different.
I would say they exist on an axis based on the effect of an action.
Take action A. Save a mans life. It's the right thing.
Later on you find out that by saving his life you allowed him to go on and continue being a serial killer. The result of your action was evil despite it being the right thing. The axis is pretty self evident from there(and I'm using an extreme example to highlight how I see things.)
--- End quote ---
OK. From my perspective that kind of objective use of right and wrong as terminology is every bit as uncomfortable as good and evil, and to save the life of a serial killer such that he continues killing is not by any means defensible as doing the right thing; some of my writing is exploring that, because I am tired of characters who make judgements based on what appears immediately right and wrong before their noses without considering the longer-term consequences.
--- Quote ---Hero: Someone who foregoes, to an extent, their personal desires to help others lives improve(or maintain).
Villain: Somebody that purposefully puts their personal desires before the good of others frequently and without care.
--- End quote ---
Would depend a lot to me on what the personal desires are, and how accurately the good of others is seen. I mean, where would you count a character whose personal primary motivation is To Be A Good Person, and who goes around helping other people out of the purely selfish desire to count as someone good ? (Not hypocritically or to be perceived as good in the community, but to be able to honestly see themselves as sincerely and genuinely good ?)
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