/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.2412668]

Why are people afraid of using "truly evil" villains nowadays? Why are heroes scorned?

Is there any book, fiction or otherwise, that discusses this trend? Perhaps, a "Defense of heroes and villains"? Or maybe a genuinely virtuous hero having to face an unnecessarily cruel world?

Or we can just discuss this in this thread.

[Anonymous No.2412671]

Jew conspiracy so that no one is depicted as worse than Hitler.

[Anonymous No.2412670]

>>2412668

People think a truly heroic or truly evil character is cliched and unrealistic so they like to change it up. Ironically those people usually end up creating cliched anti-heroes or anti-villains.

[Anonymous No.2412673]

Heroes and villains change with the times. And now we have The Media to make these people for us.....heroes like the Steve Jobs iCon and villains like (pick your middle east jerk) or (pick your Occupy or Tea Party.

When we read or go to the movies we want to be entertained, not challenged or truly scared. Seems like most villains these days just turn out to be misunderstood, Like Anakin or Golem or that guy from Lost who we all hated for a while.

[Anonymous No.2412675]

postmodernism tells us its bad

(along with everything else)

[Anonymous No.2412685]

It's because of many things. Politics are more transparent, information is more easy to reach, knowledge first, emotion later, etc. For those things, the values in fiction were changed, people don't relate to mythical archetypical characters like before because they are dettached from this notion of the world.

They search for something more balanced and open in that sense. The strings with reality need to be tight, because our strings with myths were untied. It's still there, but it ends up showing itself in tangencial ways, like making a hero or a villain out of real people or ideologies. In fiction, if you can't explain it through a logical path from reality, people think it's "useless", they will have endless discussions on eagles to Mordor and things like that.

If before, fiction and reality were intersecting in our head, today that happends too but in a different way. No one believes in Star Wars like people once believed in religious stories, they will say it's just something that they really really really like, but in the end, what happends? They cosplay and consume all there is to consume, they talk about the characters as if they were real or even close to them.

pic is me and my future daughter, I can feel it...

[Anonymous No.2412693]

Well it really depends on what we choose to label as 'bad' because when you look at things from another perspective you see that they could have every reason to do what they did. And isn't that what growing up is all about? Learning to see the world through other's eyes.

[Anonymous No.2412701]

>>2412693

So much this. I keep hearing "people hate evil villians because it's the in thing to do" - This is not how it works. Black and white morality is a very frail concept, and in a modern, educated and digitalized world it's getting harder and harder to pass as anything but "simplified for children".

[Anonymous No.2412738]

>>2412701
1984 is "Simplified for children"?

>modern, educated and digitalized world

I like how you couldn't even spell digitized. Modern and educated indeed, I welcome the coming day when plebs like you return to knowing their place.

[Anonymous No.2412740]

>>2412685
That dad is sad because he missed out on years of sexual abuse.
Or he's sad because he knows people will now know there was years of sexual abuse.

[Anonymous No.2412749]

>>2412685
>pic is me and my future daughter, I can feel it...

You're not a kike. At least, I hope so.
>>2412740
He's sad because he's a kike and his kike daughter isn't as easily indoctrinated. At least she will(hopefully) not be breeding.

[Anonymous No.2412771]

It's nice for a human villain to have a little complexity I suppose but people shouldn't treat it like it's mandatory.

Also, things have gotten too far when monsters or demons like Sauron can't be good villains anymore because they're pure evil.

[Anonymous No.2412878]

I don't know. Would a new well written story with a true villain and hero set be refreshing and interesting to you? Or would you quickly become bored?

[Anonymous No.2412890]

>>2412771
probably bored. Unless the villains do something incredibly evil or manipulative.

[Anonymous No.2413078]

>>2412878
I would be highly interested. I've grown bored with "Rule breaking" antiheroes and villains that seem far more cliche than those they purport to break.
>>2412890
I'd also be interested in a hero doing something incredibly virtuous.

[Anonymous No.2413152]

>>2412685
>politics
>more transparent
lol

[Anonymous No.2413399]

There were never any truly evil villains in good books throughout history. They make for shitty books.

[Anonymous No.2413424]

>>2413152
Or with the illusion of transparency. But no monarchies, less and less dictators, politicians falling because of rumors, that's the kind of thing I'm talking about.

[Anonymous No.2413442]

Because "truly evil" has evolved from something that causes genuine fear into something that people dress as for Halloween.

The last bastion of "truly evil" characters are in the form of religious or mythological categories because those are really the only places that they make sense in. "Truly evil" characters are the way they are because they are fulfilling a cosmic role, an opposition to a protagonist.

The reason that fails to grab people in the modern day is because people these days are far more likely to recognize the similarities between races, religions, people, and genders than ever before. If you tell us that a person is "truly evil," we will immediately question the statement. What makes him more evil than anyone else? Who is delivering this proclamation? Why should we believe him?

tl;dr, "Truly evil" exists in mythological form only. People don't want stories about stereotyped antagonists, they want stories about people.

[Anonymous No.2413445]

truly evil is really fucking hard to find congruent in reality, inasmuch as often evil people are not ever wholly evil. people who thing someone can be all bad are delusional

[Anonymous No.2414002]

Most people are too afraid to write/read about a character who is truly evil and most people wouldn't even recognize and hero.

[Anonymous No.2414033]

>Why are people afraid of using "truly evil" villains nowadays?

Because of Liberalism. Lefties blame evil behavior on bad social economics, poor upbringing, cultural differences, and other stupid crap.

Psychological projection is a significant factor. Many people in real life are morally and ethically flawed, and they hate seeing themselves painted as being purely evil so they enjoy reading/watching characters that are as morally corrupt as themselves.

Morally ambiguous characters have permeated almost every aspect of media, so much that it's become boring and cliched. The fiction that do have purely evil characters were made intentionally to be cartoony and non-serious.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GreyAndGrayMorality

[Anonymous No.2414044]

The bad guy in The Algebraist (Iain M Banks) is about as evil as you can get.
I mean, someone who cuts off the head of his enemy and keeps it alive and self-healing just so that he can continue to punch it is pretty evil.

[Anonymous No.2414046]

WTF do yup mean by truly evil?

Like you haven't been seeing james bond villains as much. Writers are afraid of using them?

[Anonymous No.2414058]

>>2414044
Yeah, that sounds totally evil and not totally gay.

[Anonymous No.2414065]

because for some damn reason the villian needs to be an anti-hero with an ability to relate and understandable reason for being a dick.

[Anonymous No.2414069]

>>2414058
So go thou forth and write a truly evil, non-gay villain, bro. No homo.

[Anonymous No.2414074]

>>2414069
A physically imposing gangsta called Lil Al who likes to dress in a red checkered dress and army boots and hosts tea parties for his associates, like the Mad Hatter. He would say things like "I said ALL CHANGE, you mutherfucka" and call people things like "Mr Snuffkins".

[Anonymous No.2414075]

>>2414065
>relatable reasons for being a dick.

I don't want to seem rude, but I've always thought of it as, how in real life there aren't really that many people you could say are deadset villains. Every person has molded their ideals based on events and experiences they have endured, and are therefore reacting based on their environment and past. The person has the best of intentions, but not the best ways to actually fulfill them. There's an entire background blinding most people into believing they aren't doing what would be perceived as unfortunate.

[Anonymous No.2414076]

Everything is cliched. I want someone to just string together random sentences and sell that for a book. I would read that in an instant.

[Anonymous No.2414078]

>>2414076
It's been done

[Anonymous No.2414087]

I want to look at a book that contains no copy of a symbol that is in most books. I could start with a 4chan post.
La Disparation / A Void. Moar such books, plz.

[Anonymous No.2414593]

>>2413442
>The reason that fails to grab people in the modern day is because people these days are far more likely to recognize the similarities between races, religions, people, and genders than ever before.

Not OP, but what similarities? All I see in today's society is an increased awareness that races and religions are extremely far apart from each other. Sounds like you've been drinking the leftist kool-aid a bit too much.

>>2414033
Hell yes.

>>2414075
What about the Jews? Bobby Kotick, for example, has explicitly talked about taking the fun out of video games and making it into pure profit.