#ppl don't necessarily... like to feel conflicted abt good vs evil in media. this is why sometimes Just Evil Villains succeed so well

[equalseleventhirds]

also (w359 spoilers ahead), marcus cutter is a stand-out villain bcos like, u kno that writing advice that goes 'everyone feels justified in their actions so u have to make a Justification for your villain doing evil', but ppl keep doing those villains wrong (i have Thoughts on why but that's another post)

cutter, like, we understand his motivations. we know he was wronged in his youth! we can see some sympathy there! and we can see his goal is what he genuinely thinks of as a Better Humanity.

and yet we are not pulled into 'well he's right he's just Using The Wrong Methods'. we can also see how what he believes is wrong, even tho he's twisted it around to think it's right. we can see where a lot of his goals are mostly about making things better for himself, even as he pushes a line of 'for progress! moving forward!' along with those self-interested goals. and, vitally, he's not up against heroes who are trying to ~keep the status quo~ or w/e, or go sadly 'well because of your Methods we cannot accept your Very Good Goal'

he's a very good example of a villain with a reason, a plausible reason, an at times sympathetic reason, but with whom we do not side, and who also gets to be campy and evil and fun.

#w359blogging #i think one of the major failings of ppl taking the 'give villains a justification' advice and doing it wrong #is that they assume 'justified' means 'sympathetic' but like. VERY sympathetic. #unfortunately if a villain is TOO sympathetic we the audience... stop liking the heroes #ppl don't necessarily... like to feel conflicted abt good vs evil in media. this is why sometimes Just Evil Villains succeed so well #bcos the 'give villains a justification' thing is about adding realism to your writing #but sometimes audiences don't want realism. they want to feel GOOD when the villain is taken down. #(not all the time. some ppl like the conflict. but also some media is so damn bad at doing a Properly Conflicted Thing #like? black panther? did great on 'good motive bad methods' bcos the good motive was CONTINUED by the good guys #other media... says 'good motive bad methods' and dismisses the motive entirely bcos of the methods #no one can ever take up that cause again without being tarred by the same brush (is the message of the story) #and that's uhhhhhh rly shitty writing and also NOT a good way to feel conflicted abt the heroes & villains for the audience #bcos either they must hate the villain's good motivation or they have to like. question the heroes. .......anyway.) #this is all to say! cutter's a fantastic balance between 'understandable motivations' and 'just genuinely evil u can root for him to fail' #like you UNDERSTAND him but you don't AGREE with him. he's got the realism without that ethical quandary. #it's not the same approach to an understandable villain as black panther but it is a good one for a different message #....................i said these thoughts were another post. they are instead tags. sorry about that.