#Villain discourse

[midgardianqueenreturns]

The annoying thing about “ugh why can’t we have more irredeemable and unsympathetic villains, all villains get redeemed or are sympathetic these days” discourse is…most stories that have redeemed or sympathetic villains also have at least one irredeemable villain with 0 sympathetic qualities. Name a redeemed villain and I can often also name another villain from the same story as them who doesn’t get redeemed. For every Darth Vader there’s a Palpatine. You say “not all villains can be Zukos some of them should be Ozais” but miss who the obvious Ozais already are in favor of calling for the Zukos to also be Ozais.

[theweeklydiscourse]

I really never get it, like why are people so averse at redemption arcs and foaming at the mouth about how the villain has to be "evil and irredeemable"? Like god forbid someone realizes the harm they did to others and decide to atone for it? Inst it what we all want, people taking acountabillty? I genuinely don't get it.

It’s rooted in a very carceral and specifically Western view of justice and morality. Once you start watching non-Western media, you start to see the varieties of morality and justice that leave room for redemption and change. It’s also the reaction to a perceived increase of redemption narratives and the humanization of villains in media. A timeless scenario where people see a single example of a thing and then make broad generalizations based off of it. The thing that people aren’t understanding is that redemption is nearly always subversive, and pure evil is the status quo for fictional villains. People advocate for the return of pure evil villains as if they’re doing something avant garde and going against the grain. But in reality, they are blind to the fact that the overwhelming majority of villains are never redeemed.

They don’t like accountability from villains because it conflicts with their desire for righteous violence. Accountability would conflict with the narrative that a villain is pure evil. In their minds, any violent act can be purified if the recipient of it is pure evil. That way, people can revel in violence and cruelty without giving it too much consideration. Because of this, many people have difficulty even conceiving a scenario where an evil character can viably and successfully try to change their ways. They can’t imagine an ending where a bad person can live long enough to atone and become a better person. That doesn’t satisfy them, it doesn’t offer them the catharsis they think they want.

[lyledebeast]

New Thoughts on Visual Representations of Violence in The Patriot

As I was reading through reviews to plan a lesson on evaluating sources for my students, I kept seeing descriptions of The Patriot's extreme violence (which is wild looking back from 2024!) and of Tavington's excessive cruelty. And it occurred to me that anyone who had not seen the film would probably expect those two things to be connected, and they would be resoundingly incorrect.

The most striking example of Tavington's violence is, of course, the burning of Pembroke Church. The scene is visually arresting, but for very different reasons than we might expect seeing Tavington's superior officer describe his tactics as "brutal" and learning the populace has named him "the butcher." In one a wide shot of the interior, fading sunlight is shining through the windows, illuminating the congregation, all of them in cool tones so that the one bit of color that catches the eye is the back of Tavington's red jacket as he addresses them from his horse. It looks like an 18th century painting. It looks like it could be a shot from Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lydon (1975). The same goes for the wide shot with the church going up in flames as the British dragoons and regulars look on. What is absent from this scene is actual visualization of violence. Once Wilkins lights the church and smoke begins pouring underneath the doors, the interior shots become very tight, focusing on the terrified faces of women and men. We never see them again. The scene inside the church ends before anyone can so much as cough, and John Williams' score rises in the external shots to drown out the screams of those trapped inside. The next visual reference we have to the Pembroke congregation is freshly dug graves with neat little white crosses.

Tavington's other kills are similarly crisp and clean. He kills both Thomas and Gabriel Martin with wounds through the torso, from a shot and saber respectively, and while they do not appear to be in the bloom of health when they die in their father's arms, nor are their deaths remotely messy. For reference, Wade is wounded through the torso in Stephen Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan from two years earlier, and his dying produces buckets of blood. In one scene featured only the extended cut, we are meant to believe Tavington and Bordon have tortured a man to death without either of them getting stained by so much as a drop of blood.

Meanwhile, Benjamin Martin is also evoking a classic of 70s cinema in a scene I will henceforth only describe as The South Carolina Tomahawk Massacre. When I went to Amazon Prime to pick up where I left off on my last viewing, I got to see this scene completely unprepared. And I was reminded that it is visually horrifying, audibly gut-wrenching, and goes on for longer than most kills in slasher movies. Most of the shots in this scene are close-ups of Gibson's blood-splattered face as he grunts with exertion and finally screams, redoubling his efforts. There is a score in this scene, but the thwack of the tomahawk going into the British soldier's back again and again cuts straight through it. There are also some PoV shots from Martin's sons' perspectives, but every time I see this scene I'm grateful that there's no Martin PoV shot. That would show a degree of bodily destruction I could never unsee.

Frankly, I'm at a loss as to why this is. Why is the villain's violence so sanitized it would be at home in one of Disney's darker offerings while the apparent hero takes a literal blood bath half an hour into the run time? Who is this audience that can stomach cannon balls tearing off men's heads and legs but not the charred corpse of a woman or child? Is there something rugged and manly about Martin getting soaked in blood like Carrie at the prom and something effete about Tavington's distaste for excess in his violence?

You tell me! There are more ways to take this than I could write about out or probably even imagine. Reblogs and replies are equally appreciated, as are DMs. I want to read someone else's thoughts for a change!

[let-us-cultivate-our-garden]

"you can only like the villain if you acknowledge that they're terrible in canon 😊 ✌️"

Wrong. that's my special little princess right there [is the most wretched, most vile creature you've ever seen].

they've done nothing wrong [has done everything wrong, usually with glee].

they're perfect [they're perfect].

[mswyrr]

"Why can't you just let characters be evil!"

I do, though. I "let" plenty of characters just be evil by ignoring them because I find them boring as shit. The villains/antagonists I'm into are the ones whose stories touch on the terrifying and hopeful human capacity for change - both the descent into corruption and the path to redemption.

If I'm not talking about a villain in a story I like, it's because I'm "letting" them be evil just fine. There's nothing to talk about with them for me. Nothing powerful there for me. I just don't care.

[princeescaluswords]

LET VILLAINS BE VILLAINS.

By all means, humanize your favorite villain! Expand upon their tragic backstory. Develop relationships that show their capacity for connection: romantic, platonic, or metaphysical. Design intricate redemption arcs that erase or erode the consequences for their actions. Go for it! Have a blast!

Some of the best fandom content I've see revolves around these very activities. I've always agreed with Oscar Wilde, "You can always judge a man by the quality of his enemies." I may like heroes more, but that doesn't mean I want their opponents to be two-dimensional.

But I feel it's very important -- ethical even -- that while you are busy humanizing your favorite villain, you are careful not to dehumanize the other people in his story. Don't dehumanize his victims into people that somehow deserved it or into people that barely existed, extras that set the scene and have no value to the story. Don't dehumanize his opponent, the hero, by turning the hero's flaws into retroactive justifications for brutality and violence.

(Note, I'm using those particularly gendered pronouns on purpose. I can't recall when I've ever seen a defense of a non-male villain -- or even a non-white villain for that matter -- which relied on turning his victims or his opponents into cardboard cutouts.)

Look at this way. If you celebate your villain by arguing that the people he betrayed, mutilated or murdered deserved it, or if you scorn his opponents by claiming they're White Knights who are just opposing your favorite villain for the applause or that their belief systems are fundamentally and/or irrevocably flawed, you've actually scuttled your own purpose. A villain who only hurts those who deserve it isn't actually a villain. Why do you like them then?

[brettdoesdiscourse]

Every time people write a villain couple as normal people (in a way that isn't specified that they are NOT villains anymore), a devil loses its horns. I don't WANT the villains to be normal people, I WANT the villains to be EVIL.

[kanohivolitakk]

It's so frustrating when people take a villain who is all but explictly stated to be a trauma survivor in canon and treat them as if they were a onedimensionally evil dictator who actually didn't give a shit about the stuff theyre VERY CLEARLY SHOWN TO GIVE A SHIT ABOUT.

TBF its kinda canons fault for doing the same thing too but it feels the fandom is doing far worse at this point by removing everything that made the character interesting in the first place abd pretending theyre just a generic big bad. And this is a character whose most interesting traits are mostly implied so its frustrating.

[virtual202]

One the other hand though, I love it when a story shows more. A good redemption arc and a good failed redemption arc always gets me. Or a forgiveness arc with no redemption— whooo, that’d be a difficult one to write and prolly would turn toxic. Character diversity is important to me, because I don’t feel like the world is a happy go sappy place where you can succeed just because you tried. Better than not trying at all, of course, but still. Give me the juice, give me:

— A character who was the worst kind of guy who worked his way up to the hearts of people and changed for the better.

— A character who archived betterment with no one at their side, supporting them. No one but themselves, someone who saw their reflection and went: “this won’t do”, not because others taught em to, but simply because they saw.

— Someone who started at the bottom of morality, trying desperately to climb out of that black pit just to get thrown into it again and again and never quite make it until their end because no one was at their side.

— Someone who tried just as hard, yet still could not make it even though they had the support and forgiveness of many.

And give me,

— Perfectly normal, fine guy who aspired to be better— and maybe he made it, maybe not. Maybe he turned into a monster, maybe he became a savior.

— The Angel, the innocent, the good and kind who spiraled into the depths of hell, even though people tried again and again to rescue them.

— Or the fallen angel because they had no one when they needed someone the most, even though they were kind and always tried their best.

Or maybe, they just never intended, nor were supposed to change.

I am almost 100% certain that there are more. I just didn’t think of them yet.

Note: I used ‘he/him’ in some due to ref. To ‘guy’ but ofc it doesn’t have to be a ‘he’)

“some people don’t deserve redemption” redemption isn’t something that’s deserved, it’s something someone does. it’s making the choice to change the way you live your life, to be better, to do good things instead of bad things and try to make up for the bad things. and everyone can and should do that, at any time, no matter what they’ve done. we can’t change the past, but we can choose what kind of person to be now and in the future. we have the responsibility to do so. it is so completely not about “deserving.”

[midgardianqueenreturns]

“Not every villain needs a redemption arc!”

Correct. However, who on earth is calling for ALL villains to be redeemed? Even the most pro-redemption folks can name villains they don’t think should be redeemed. Just because someone wants a redemption arc for a villain you don’t think needs it doesn’t mean they apply that to ALL villains. This argument is nothing but a disingenuous strawman.

[lyledebeast]

One aspect of Gladiator that has stuck with me since my rewatch earlier this month and through subsequent discussions with @malicious-compliance-esq is how well the opposition of the hero and villain works. Part of the reason, ironically, is how much they have in common. Maximus and Commodus are not only both Roman men. they are both sons of Marcus Aurelius, which allows comparison from multiple points of view within the story: Marcus himself, Lucilla, and the Roman people collectively. Commodus references the list of Roman Virtues his father wrote to him about, confessing that he has none of them. Marcus agrees, describing Commodus as "not a moral man" and telling Maximus, "You are the son I should have had." Lucilla tells Maximus that she is terrified every hour of what Commodus will do to her and her son and that "The only time I ever felt safe was with you." The more Maximus defies Commodus as a gladiator, the more the people love him. Their proximity is used to highlight their opposing traits, making for clear, clean, simple, effective storytelling.

The Patriot's opposition of Benjamin Martin and William Tavington is far murkier. One reason is the jingoism that lies in the film's framing of difference in terms of binary opposition. The British and American Patriot characters are on opposing sides in a war but are more alike than different. They share the same language, religion, even military customs as we see when Martin attempts to school Tavington on the rules of war. Martin is himself a former officer of a Colonial British regiment. A slightly more effective, but still questionable binary the film sets up is gentleman/rustic. Cornwallis extolls the virtues of "gentleman in command" to both lead and restrain their men and is mortified at the end of the film to find himself defeated by an army of "peasants." Martin, however, manages to be both at the same time. He is equally comfortable in a rowdy tavern and an assembly of South Carolina landowners, or even a meeting with a British general: a man for all seasons. When Gabriel has reservations about the men his father has recruited, Martin says. "They're exactly the sort of men we need. They've fought this kind of war before." He is not referring to their uncouth appearance and manners but the ferocity and unconventional approach to warfare that made them effective guerilla fighters. Who else has these traits?

Though Cornwallis describes Tavington as coming from an esteemed family, his fellow officers clearly do not recognize him as a peer. We see this when he arrives at a gathering with blood on his cravat from the battle the British just won and they look at him like he forgot to wear pink on Wednesday. Cornwallis reprimands him for executing surrendering enemy soldiers, the same thing Martin forbids his men from doing (also after it's too late to stop them). While Martin being neither gentleman nor rustic but somehow both at once wins him the respect of both sides, the traits Tavington shares in common with rustics make him a pariah among gentlemen, but this is less a difference between the two men than between British and Patriot values. That Martin and Tavington both collapse this binary means not only are they more alike than different, but they have more in common with each other than either one has with anyone on his own side.

No one in the film can comment on this similarity because no one has enough proximity to Martin and Tavington to notice it. The focus of the few scenes they share is on a third binary the film attempts to construct: child killer/father. Again, these things are not opposites. For one, the two are not mutually exclusive. Whether through intent, accident, or negligence, fathers are regularly responsible for the deaths of their own children. The opposite of a child killer would be a child protector. Does Martin fit the bill? Well, let's see. In the scenes immediately following Tavington's murder of his son Thomas, he abandons his youngest children in a field by his burning house, orders his next youngest sons to shoot British officers, and when the son he did all this to free is used as a human shield, Martin throws a tomahawk at his head to take out his captor. The only scene where Martin may be said to protect his children comes when he lures the Green Dragoons away from the burning plantation. However, the dragoons are only there in the first place because Martin blew his cover at Fort Carolina to save his captured men. The majority of Martin's children survive his negligence, but those of his men are not so lucky. He has no qualms about both making them targets of British aggression and eliminating their main source of protection from that aggression by recruiting their fathers. So much for "I am a parent; I can't afford principles."

Gladiator's comparison of Maximus and Commodus is effective because they are judged by the same standard: Maximus meets, even exceeds it, while Commodus does not. The Patriot, however, applies very different standards to strikingly similar characters. All of Tavington's reprehensible choices are made with an end goal of British victory, yet neither he nor anyone else can imagine a future for him in England in which those choices are not harshly condemned. Meanwhile, Martin's past war crimes and more recent abandonment/endangerment of his children are presented asforgivable, even laudable, because of the results he achieves. "The honor is in the ends, not the means," or something like that.

[brettdoesdiscourse]

This was commented on a clip from Pearl. It's almost as though she was meant to be a villain in that movie. Like, how do yall watch movies about villains and then "not like" when the character acts villainous? Like, you might just not enjoy movies centered around the villain.

[clearancecreedwatersurvival]

Okay I take it back the actual funniest thing about how many people performatively hate on scum villain because they think it’s bad and trashy and irredeemable and Problematic is that they are unwittingly re-enacting an almost perfect impression of the main character, a young terminally online guy who hate read a trashy porn novel and got in so many internet fights about how bad and irredeemable and garbage it was that he died choking on his rage and was transported to suffer the role of expendable backstory villain in the world of this trashy porn novel he hated so much.

And that’s fucking hilarious.

[astrowarr]

every life series season has a villain, but not in the way you might think. it's always a symbol of some kind. it's not a person, but a concept, an ideal, an overarching force. that is, in every season except wild life

third life had circumstance. everything was new and hard to grasp, and no one knew what to do. the villain of third life was the world itself; think of the animal extinction, for example.

last life had brutality. both physically and mentally. it was rife with betrayal and isolation; reds had to abandon teams, and the boogeyman mechanic's paranoia forced everyone apart.

double life had love. love, and the fate it tangled itself in. it was a complex villain, but love killed them again and again, and rewarded the single person who didn't give in to it.

limited life had time. the passage of time itself was the enemy and everything was driven by that. they clawed their way to every last second, and time ate them all in the end.

secret life had the secret keeper. unyielding, unrelenting, unmoving, all-knowing. when the secret keeper forced them to do awful things, no one disobeyed, but hated it all the same.

wild life has grian. grian is representative of every wild card the world plays. he runs the command, and stops it at the end of the day. he is transparent about that. he accepts bribes for information, and unabashedly uses his knowledge to his advantage. he is Other. the players treat him the exact way they did the secret keeper; he's not a player like them this season, he's a symbol, and one of every awful thing that's happened to them at that

which is to say, wild life's villain is a symbol and an overarching force. it's just, for the first time, simultaneously a person, too. everyone else is realizing that too and are pointing their blades at grian, slowly but surely. it is SO fascinating

[sqbr]

ID: Screenshots of tweets. tash @sapphicshulkie: everyone wants what he had… but they're not good enough writers. Pictures of Zuko in book 1 scowling and in book 3 smiling. If Beale Street Could Twerk @camerouninema: The thing is Zuko spent 50 episodes earning his redemption and they made sure he learned very harshly the consequences of his actions and he was deeply deeply sorry. Most villain redemptions are… not that

Ohhh interesting. I partly disagree but this has clarified something for me.

Like the stuff about fleshing the character out properly, having them not be TOO monstrous, having things happen which make them look sympathetic etc, sure. All that definitely works together to make Zuko more likable to me.

But I'm less sure about him being a semi-protagonist from so early. And it hadn't occurred to me that some people just Cannot connect with antagonists who are not initially framed as (semi-)protagonists, and so to them it's bad writing to not do this. For me, having a character come out of left field as a protagonist is a feature not a bug.

Yes, the writer has to do the work to make a former villain sympathetic and fleshed out and also consistent with their previous characterisation. Which is hard if they were written as a one dimensional "I just like murdering babies and being evil"-type villain, and fails if the author's too lazy to do the work. But when it works, I love this kind of story, because it upends the very idea of what a protagonist is, and who gets to be sympathetic.

Like imagine if Book 1 happened exactly the same but all the Zuko-as-semi-protagonist scenes were taken out. In Book 2 he becomes a semi protagonist and starts getting more sympathetic and we maybe had flashbacks to the cut book 1 scenes, and then everything continues on the same to his redemption. Obviously there'd be some pacing etc issues since the story wasn't designed that way, but I think something like that, planned from the start, would be a perfectly valid and interesting approach to redeeming him. I feel like I'd personally like it about the same: he'd take longer to feel like a fleshed out character, but I'd love the perspective flip.

I get the feeling some people would like him a LOT less that way. Even though he's the same character, doing the same things, and in the end is fleshed out to the same degree, he would ping them as less likeable and, for some people, more morally bad. But other people would like him more that way. And I think if ATLA had been designed from the start to play out that way, that would not have been bad writing. Just good in a slightly different way, suited to the tastes of a somewhat different group of people.

Now in my opinion only giving the audience any of his perspective JUST as he joins the Gaang in book 3 would have been bad writing, because the audience would have no sense of who he is beyond being an antagonist, so the switch would be jarring. But I think some people would still have really enjoyed it!

Like some people are inherently more sympathetic to non-protagonists. Not just villains but sidekicks, mentors etc. Sometimes the narrative fleshes such characters out and makes them sympathetic etc, but they are still marked as Not The Hero/Centre Of The Story (I'm not sure that's the best description, but something like that). And being marked this way can make us like that character more, not less. Changing these marks as a story progresses is not inherently bad writing! It can be really good, and feel really satisfying! Not changing it isn't bad, but it's not the only kind of good writing that exists.

Thinking about Villain Discourse this way clarifies some things for me. Like the way some people also just inherently dislike narratives which ever make a villain a perspective character even if they're not redeemed or treated as justified, because I guess for them perspective character = protagonist = you're expected to like them. And in the other direction, some people are even more into upending Who Gets To Be The Hero than I am and so will tend to sympathise with anyone the narrative frames as Pure Evil Noone Should Care About, even ones who have crossed my personal moral event horizon, or to like sidekicks more than the protagonist even when the to me the sidekick feels too one dimensional to click with, etc. And obviously Sidekick Likers are not always Villain Likers and vice versa. I just personally happen to like both for similar reasons.

It's fine to be influenced by how characters are framed and prefer narratives which suit your preferences. But I wish people were better at drawing a line between "suits my preferences", "inherently good writing", and "inherently morally superior character".

When Zuko apologized to uncle Iroh in the tent cause he was so ashamed of his actions and what he’d done to the only person who unconditionally believed in his ability to do good >>>>>

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

hey considering the parallels between seawatt and evbo (very gay) and the old man and the parkour villain do you think the old man and the parkour villain had toxic yaoi going on too