# Does Anyone Else Hate Sympathetic Villains?



## Mindfire (Jun 25, 2013)

Let me explain. Anyone here read Order of the Stick? Anyone? Anyone? Well it's a fantasy webcomic. Fairly popular. Google for more information. Anyway, one of the villains is a goblin named Redcloak. He's a complex character with a sympathetic backstory 



Spoiler: Redcloak's backstory



(long story short, his family and friends were slaughtered by paladins because, you know, smiting evil and all that, which gave him an undying hatred for the forces of good in general and paladins in particular)


 and an odd sense of nobility and honor. And I hate him. I absolutely hate this character. He's very popular among fans apparently. But I just can't stop hating him. And the more and more the author tries to make this character sympathetic and likable, the more I keep wanting him to die a horrible, painful death. 

Am I missing something here? Because a lot of the fan discourse is all like "oh, how sad his family got killed by paladins" and "sure he's done bad things, but the good guys started it" and "is he _really_ evil? what _is_ evil anyway?" And meanwhile here I am slamming my head into the desk and shouting "Yes! Yes he really is evil!" You have to understand, the webcomic is based (loosely) on D&D rules. I haven't actually played D&D, but I know enough to know that the morality system is more or less black and white. (See: the alignment system.) If your alignment is (one of the varying flavors of) evil, then you're evil. No philosophical discussion to be had. That's simply the nature of the setting. Morality is simplified for gaming purposes. 

Why is this relevant? Because goblins are aligned evil. (Neutral evil I think?) And Redcloak is also evil aligned, a fact in which he revels. So when you tell me that his family was killed by paladins, I don't care. Because by definition, they are evil. It's like asking me to feel sorry for the orcs in Lord of the Rings. It's not gonna happen. Ever. Racial morality as a concept is problematic in the real world, but this is a fictional creature in a fictional setting with rules designed for gaming purposes (and sometimes fudged by the webcomic for the sake of humor). So real-world moral quandaries don't enter into it. When you tell me that a group of paladins killed an entire goblin village, my reaction is not going to be "Oh, poor goblins," but rather "Go team Paladins! On to the next goblin village!"

Does anyone else see where I'm coming from here? Or am I just a heartless bastard?

To clarify, I'm not saying I hate sympathetic villains in general. (Misleading titles for shock value! Huzzah!) This is actually the first time I've had a reaction this strong against a "sympathetic" antagonist. Maybe there's just something about this character in particular that annoys me. Or maybe I'm just grumpy because the bad guys have been winning for so many comics lately. (From where I stand anyway. I'm only up to #546 out of 895.)


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## Philip Overby (Jun 25, 2013)

I remember watching He-Man when I was a kid and liking the Merman character. I don't know why I liked him. It had something to do with him sometimes helping Skeletor and sometimes helping He-Man. I don't know why that appealed to me. I guess I liked that Merman did what was best for Merman. He was manipulated by both sides really.

In the case of this Redcloak character, perhaps it's an instance of the readers and writer suggesting that it's a matter of perspective if a character is good or evil. If a character is getting any sort of positive reaction, then I think the writer is doing their job. And from what I gathered Order of the Stick is a comedic parody so it's not really intended to be serious.

In this case I'd say, yeah, feel free to hate him. But if other readers like him, then more power to them.

I don't so much mind sympathetic villains as long as they are not cast as the main villain. I usually like to have a villain I can love to hate.


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## Feo Takahari (Jun 25, 2013)

Mindfire said:


> Why is this relevant? Because goblins are aligned evil. (Neutral evil I think?) And Redcloak is also evil aligned, a fact in which he revels. So when you tell me that his family was killed by paladins, I don't care. Because by definition, they are evil. It's like asking me to feel sorry for the orcs in Lord of the Rings. It's not gonna happen. Ever. Racial morality as a concept is problematic in the real world, but this is a fictional creature in a fictional setting with rules designed for gaming purposes (and sometimes fudged by the webcomic for the sake of humor). So real-world moral quandaries don't enter into it. When you tell me that a group of paladins killed an entire goblin village, my reaction is not going to be "Oh, poor goblins," but rather "Go team Paladins! On to the next goblin village!"
> 
> Does anyone else see where I'm coming from here? Or am I just a heartless bastard?



There are three ways to respond to this. 

1): The rule for goblins is "_usually_ evil," and even "always" (for demons) isn't really always. According to _The Book of Exalted Deeds_, it's an alignment violation for good-aligned characters to kill children just because they're from a traditionally evil race--free will must be accounted for.

2): If your setting has magical principles that cause a hard lump of cheese to register identically to a piece of granite for casting purposes, that doesn't mean the cheese is actually granite, that means your magic is weird. The way "evil" is defined in _Dungeons and Dragons_ is so bizarre (and so contradictory between editions) that you can't really compare it to "evil" in the real world--you might as well throw out the terminology, and say that D&D contains a never-ending conflict between "smeeb" and "fwump."

3): Why shouldn't good pity evil? If they both hate each other and want each other to die, there's no longer a distinction between the two.

Edit: I keep trying to think of a better way to phrase point 2. (It's very dear to my heart, since I wrote an entire story about its implications, but I've never found a good way to quickly sum it up.) Let's try this on for size:

Imagine a universe where, when you stack one rock on top of another rock, a third rock suddenly appears on top of both of them. In this case, one plus one equals three. But the appearance of the third rock doesn't change the underlying reality that one plus one equaled two before the third appeared. I think morality is the same way--your universe can only determine how it turns out, not what it really is.


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## Chilari (Jun 25, 2013)

I don't really mind. Evil villains, sympathetic villains - if the writer has done a good job, I can go with it. I don't like seeing "evil for the sake of evil" characters, but I'm fine with it if there's a valid in-universe reason for the evil (infected with necromany or other evil magic, embodiment of evil in the form of a demon, doesn't have a soul etc). And I'm fine with human villains who value their own ambition above morality, or believe that the order they are creating is for the greater good, etc, and thus do evil. I don't like the cackling "ooh aren't I evil?" type though.

As for sympathetic villains, as long as the author knows what they're doing and doesn't try to use wangst in there, I'm fine with it. Different perspectives is fine. Conflicting goals between the protagonist and antagonist is fine. Different moral priorities is fine. "I'm bad because I was abused as a child/ the good guy everyone thinks is a hero killed my parents/ life is unfair wah wah wah" is lazy writing.

Actually I think Brandon Sanderson did really well with the villain of Mistborn: The Final Empire.


Spoiler: Mistborn



There are excerpts purportedly written by the Emperor before he saved the world and set the Empire up, and he's a really sympathetic character who questions his role and examines his moral position, whereas the emperor that the protagonists live under is controlling and demonstrably evil. One wonders how this man got from the man in the diary to the one the characters see; but actually, what happened was that the hero who was meant to save the world was usurped at the last minute by the guy who was guiding him - and this guy became emperor; the mentions the hero character makes in his diary of this individual show he is intolerant, hateful and unpleasant, and it is implied that the power really went to his head. The evil emperor isn't the sympathetic character hinted at at all, he was bad to begin with and became worse.


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## Devor (Jun 25, 2013)

I like Redcloak.  But I would hate those conversations.  How do you find someone sympathetic when he's trying to kill everyone?



Spoiler: Redcloak is a hypocrite



And, I mean, he was for a while killing all his own hobgoblin hordes out of racism, just because they were hobgoblins and not goblins.  He realized this and stopped, but a bunch were already dead first.  Doesn't that make him a hypocrite?

Also, his evil plan goes well beyond killing the paladins.  He wants to move the gate and give his gobliny god absolute power.  That sounds very . . . paladin-like fanatic, to me.



Tarquin, on the other hand, is an absolute bad-ass.  No sympathy there, but he is very _cool_.  He's the more recent OOTS villain, and anybody who doesn't know his deal needs to go read it and find out.


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## wordwalker (Jun 25, 2013)

Sometimes sympathy's just badly written, or at least something that didn't click for you considering how D&D usually works. (I know, "D&D goblins butchered by paladins" implies "--after the goblins had wiped out three villages and were closing in on a fourth," because that's what those goblins do, and trying to raise real sympathy for that one moment is silly. But, OOTS...)

It's always a risk when writers stray from black and white rules; we like these subversions because they aren't easy to balance right. But for every vicious but relatable villain, someone comes up with an emo clown you wish would get back to his bloody business; for every flawed hero there's a whiner the universe keeps trying to enable.

(And for every Darth Vader, there's an Anakin Skywalker? )


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## Mindfire (Jun 25, 2013)

Feo Takahari said:


> There are three ways to respond to this.
> 
> 1): The rule for goblins is "_usually_ evil," and even "always" (for demons) isn't really always. According to _The Book of Exalted Deeds_, it's an alignment violation for good-aligned characters to kill children just because they're from a traditionally evil race--free will must be accounted for.
> 
> ...



So what you're saying is that D&D actually operates on some flavor of Blue and Orange morality?

And in case it wasn't clear, it's not sympathetic villains in general I have a problem with (as I said the title is misleading). Just Redcloak in particular seems to irritate me and I don't quite know why. But I keep hoping that eventually he dies in agony and this Gobbotopia of his will be razed to the ground.


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## Telcontar (Jun 25, 2013)

The alignment system has never made much sense  and is possibly my most hated aspect of the D&D system. 

It is especially problematic when you come to a story like Order of the Stick (massive OotS fan myself, by the way). Burlew (the creator) needs to present most of his characters as multi-dimensional, and the alignment system is not built to allow for such things. It is meant to _decrease_ character complexity by classifying good and evil in a simple way.

Thus, Redcloak is only "evil" in that his D&D alignment is evil. If you classify his actions as _actually_ morally evil, then you pretty much have to classify the actions of the Sapphire Guard in much the same way. This is perhaps a function of Burlew's goblins being much less "evil" in nature than I usually imagine orcs and goblins being (for instance, in Tolkien). They seem largely content to live and let live, save that adventuring parties keep coming by and slaughtering them en masse for XP. This subverts the idea of the alignment system and basically makes calling goblins "evil" in Burlew's world akin to bigotry (labeling them as something in order to justify their mistreatment), rather than an actual moral evaluation.

I love Redcloak (for oh-so-many reasons!), and by extension I definitely sympathize with the plight of goblins as a whole.


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## Steerpike (Jun 25, 2013)

Seems like a bizarre level of emotional reaction to have to the character, to be honest.


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## Guru Coyote (Jun 25, 2013)

Hmmm, well... isn't it the job of a villain that you hate them? So in that sense, Redcloak seems to have done his job well with Mindfire 

Musing on what might cause the irritation - not having read any of the comic: Maybe it's the idea of a character gaining sympathy (understanding), while he is not actually trying to 'change his evil ways'?


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jun 25, 2013)

I don't know, as I've never seen this particular work. However, I typically love sympathetic villains, especially those who may challenge concepts of good and evil by painting the picture from other points of view.


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## Steerpike (Jun 25, 2013)

Another thing to keep in mind is that OOTS serves in large part to satirize the rules of D&D. That's what makes it funny and effective with the target audience (e.g. mostly gamers). So I'm not sure that it makes sense to criticize it for ostensibly adopting a rule of D&D (alignment system, for example) and then to play havoc with it by having the character not comply.


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## Fantasy Writer (Jun 25, 2013)

Characters must be true to their story goals.  If the story goal is to amass skulls of little girls, then they must do that.  They can obsess about how they don't like killing little girls.  But, they do kill little girls.  So, from that perspective, they're not likable.  But today's morality is changing.  Bad people aren't bad because they do bad things.  They're bad because society did bad things to them.  Therefore, they must be treated just like anybody else.  We, after all, can't be judgmental.   That is what I despise.


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## Fantasy Writer (Jun 25, 2013)

Interesting you mention perspective.  I'm certain that if you interviewed history's great killers they'd have a sympathetic perspective on their actions.  It would be the rare man who said, "Yep, I killed, I tortured and I liked it.  I did it because I liked it."  They'd say, "well, they had it coming.  They laughed at me.  They made me feel bad."  It would be interesting to interview Hitler and Stalin, two of history's real-baddies.  Hitler: I did what I did for the German people.  Stalin: People don't ask me these questions.  Do you understand what I'm saying?  (Menacing eyebrow raise.)


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## Mythopoet (Jun 25, 2013)

I hate the tendency of people in general to try to find ways to justify the evil actions of characters. I like a really well done sympathetic villain, but for me that involves never excusing evil actions.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jun 25, 2013)

Those are examples on the extremes. Yes, in some ways, even those sociopaths probably felt their actions were justified. There is a decent amount of historical evidence which supports that assumption. However, it's an over-simplification to look at the extremes of any case and argue a point.

In real, everyday life, I've rarely met people that don't feel their beliefs & actions are justified. Often those beliefs and actions DO have sources and valid reasons. This doesn't mean anyone has to condone someone's actions because underlying circumstances are present. Far from it!  Though, that doesn't mean you can't understand those circumstances either.This is where perspective comes into play.

Like it or not, good/evil, criminal/just, terrorist/freedom fighter... Our personal understandings evolve from perspective. Characters and their motivations, written with this in mind, can be powerful.


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## Mindfire (Jun 25, 2013)

Telcontar said:


> The alignment system has never made much sense  and is possibly my most hated aspect of the D&D system.
> 
> It is especially problematic when you come to a story like Order of the Stick (massive OotS fan myself, by the way). Burlew (the creator) needs to present most of his characters as multi-dimensional, and the alignment system is not built to allow for such things. It is meant to _decrease_ character complexity by classifying good and evil in a simple way.
> 
> ...



Ahhh. It all makes a bit more sense now. Though I still feel sorry for all the Azurites who lost their homes and loved ones.



Steerpike said:


> Seems like a bizarre level of emotional reaction to have to the character, to be honest.



Tell me about it. I never knew a webcomic could provoke such a reaction from me of all people. I'm usually a pretty stoic fellow.


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## Steerpike (Jun 25, 2013)

Mindfire said:


> Tell me about it. I never knew a webcomic could provoke such a reaction from me of all people. I'm usually a pretty stoic fellow.



You're getting soft in your old age, dude


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## Mindfire (Jun 25, 2013)

Steerpike said:


> You're getting soft in your old age, dude



I hope not. I'm only 20.


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## ThinkerX (Jun 25, 2013)

Hmmm...

Not really familiar with this 'Order of the Stick'...but this thread did bring up past memories of books read and game based discussions.

Things like 'Lord Toade', a minor character in the first 'Dragonlance' series way back when.  Toede was a cowardly, bullying, incompetent hobgoblin chieftan who managed to get himseld killed in short order.  Then (in a sequel of sorts) a couple of infernal characters brought Toede back to life on a bet and told him to 'be noble'.  Three or four resurrections later, he'd become...almost decent.

Another item was some of the events and discussions of the last AD&D campaigns I participated in.  Specifically, how the behaviour of the player characters after a while became much the same as the evil monsters we battled.  A couple of times the never ending quest for treasure, experience points, and levels resulted in the party members calculating the benefits from 'killing our own.'  (This from supposedly good aligned characters, no less!)

Then there was my ... personal quest to create a race that could justifiably be considered 'evil' - and not just through some arbitrary declaration, either (which appears to be the case with the gobliniods in AD&D.)  That resulted in the creation of the goblins and hobgoblins of my world, and to an extent, the Rachasa.  The goblins and hobgoblins are ...almost biologically trapped... into an aggresive society where murder is acceptable behaviour, thus making them 'evil'. On this board, the best example of my hobgoblins is Hock-Nar: he see's nothing wrong with killing, yet is bound by the honor code and ethics of his people.


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## Chessie (Jun 25, 2013)

I like two sides to everything, so its nice to have a deeper perspective on that villain. I guess what does annoy me is when there's a whole sob story to why the villain has turned evil.


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## Sheriff Woody (Jun 26, 2013)

I like villains that aren't necessarily "sympathetic", but rather, "understandable". 

If I can see from that person's point of view how they would benefit from their course of antagonistic action, awesome. But a bad guy/girl who's bad for the sake of being bad can get pretty boring. 

I don't need a reason to like them; I need a reason to understand why they are doing what they're doing and how their victory would pay dividends.


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## Mindfire (Jun 26, 2013)

UPDATE: I still find Vaarsuvius a compelling and sympathetic character even after the Faustian Pact thing. I guess this pretty much makes it official. I don't hate all sympathetic villains (which is what V pretty much is now), just Redcloak for some reason. This despite the fact that what V did was far worse than anything Redcloak has ever done.


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## A. E. Lowan (Jun 26, 2013)

Mindfire said:


> UPDATE: I still find Vaarsuvius a compelling and sympathetic character even after the Faustian Pact thing. I guess this pretty much makes it official. I don't hate all sympathetic villains (which is what V pretty much is now), just Redcloak for some reason. This despite the fact that what V did was far worse than anything Redcloak has ever done.



Is Vaarsuvius a goblin?  Maaaybe it's just sympathetic goblin villains you hate?


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## Feo Takahari (Jun 26, 2013)

Alternately, we get a lot of rhetoric from Redcloak trying to justify why he does what he does (which was getting increasingly feeble at the time I stopped reading.) It's pointed out from the very beginning that Vaarsuvius is making a stupid, stupid decision, and it's possible he's more sympathetic by virtue of less authorial pressure to find him sympathetic.

(OOTS is weird about its villains, which is part of why I stopped reading. Every time a villain other than Redcloak or Belkar seems like he might be complex and interesting, the author either plainly shows that said villain is doing something horribly wrong, or gives one of the heroes a monologue about how bad and horrible the villain is. Yet Redcloak is allowed to maintain an ambiguous status for hundreds of strips, and Belkar was showing vague signs of character development at the time I stopped reading.)


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## Mindfire (Jun 26, 2013)

A. E. Lowan said:


> Is Vaarsuvius a goblin?  Maaaybe it's just sympathetic goblin villains you hate?



No, Vaarsuvius is an elf. In a desperate attempt to save his family he 



Spoiler: Vaarsuvius's actions



made a deal with three demons (technically a demon, a daemon, and a devil) in order to temporarily gain ultimate magical power at the cost of damning his soul to hell (temporarily). He then used this power to not only destroy the dragon threatening his family, but also used a magic curse that instantly killed every single being related to that dragon on the face of the earth. Essentially genocide. (The spell he cast was actually called Familicide.) The dragon itself and most of its relatives were evil, since they were black dragons, but I've read a bit ahead in the wiki and it turns out that the spell not only affected the dragons, but anyone with dragon blood, including some "dragonborn" humans (to use the Elder Scrolls term). In the evil scale, extincting an entire species ranks a bit higher than sacking a city.


 And despite the fact that Redcloak's deeds pale in comparison to this, I still hate him while sympathizing somewhat with Vaarsuvius.


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## Fantasy Writer (Jun 27, 2013)

Sheriff Woody said:


> I like villains that aren't necessarily "sympathetic", but rather, "understandable".
> 
> If I can see from that person's point of view how they would benefit from their course of antagonistic action, awesome. But a bad guy/girl who's bad for the sake of being bad can get pretty boring.
> 
> I don't need a reason to like them; I need a reason to understand why they are doing what they're doing and how their victory would pay dividends.



Excellent thoughts.  I had a difficult time writing my first villains.  For one thing, they weren't human.  With a human the writer can delve into the villain's mind and show his actions and thoughts.  But with a machine, how do you portray evil?  I gave him a cartoonish cloak, a desk made from skulls and had him smash them regularly in a fit of anger.  (Bad in every sense, yes?  Never published it, btw.)  Perhaps the original poster's problem with sympathetic villains has to do with getting in their heads.  When you flesh out the character you simply have to touch on what's going on there.  So, to make them human, you give them hemorrhoids and arthritis, and concerns about their relationships.  "Oh, Helen is so going to hate cleaning the blood off my doublet again."  That sword injury he picked up from the hero in book one is just giving him a huge pain in this damp cave.  So, inadvertently, you have made the villain sympathetic by portraying him as human.    

I've come to the conclusion that the most evil, unsympathetic monsters are human.  Dr. Hannibal Lector in "Silence of the Lambs."  "I love the French.  They taste like chicken."  On the other hand, Veeger, the deep space probe in Star Trek, was not evil or sympathetic.  It just was.  Likewise, every 1950's monster was completely unsympathetic.  Giant ants?  Even the 50 foot woman was not sympathetic.  (Where did she get that A times 10 to the 8th size bra?)  But, other than the fact she was jealous and jilted, we never got into her head and jealousy hardly makes one sympathetic.


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## A. E. Lowan (Jun 27, 2013)

Fantasy Writer said:


> I've come to the conclusion that the most evil, unsympathetic monsters are human.  Dr. Hannibal Lector in "Silence of the Lambs."  "I love the French.  They taste like chicken."  On the other hand, Veeger, the deep space probe in Star Trek, was not evil or sympathetic.  It just was.  Likewise, every 1950's monster was completely unsympathetic.  Giant ants?  Even the 50 foot woman was not sympathetic.  (Where did she get that A times 10 to the 8th size bra?)  But, other than the fact she was jealous and jilted, we never got into her head and jealousy hardly makes one sympathetic.



Spinning this around a little, Thomas Harris' portray of Hannibal Lector in _Hannibal_ is very sympathetic.  He is still monstrous and unapologetic about it, but you come to understand more the reasons why he does what he does.  As far as sympathetic villains go, Hannibal is a shining example - though it is hard to call him a villain, as he is actually not an antagonist in either book.  His characterization does not change one jot from book to book - just the reader's perception of him.


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## Mindfire (Jun 27, 2013)

Incidentally, I also like Tarquin. He's pretty cool in a Darth Vader sort of way. Still dislike Redcloak though.


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## Ankari (Jun 27, 2013)

I started reading Order of the Stick because of this thread. So far, I'm 100 comics in. I love it! I particularly liked the goblin teenager strip.

Thanks!


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## Mindfire (Jun 27, 2013)

Ankari said:


> I started reading Order of the Stick because of this thread. So far, I'm 100 comics in. I love it! I particularly liked the goblin teenager strip.
> 
> Thanks!



Haha you're welcome, though I warn you, it's somewhat addictive.


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## Queshire (Jun 27, 2013)

Now, I've just skimmed this thread, so please excuse me if I repeat things that have already been said.

To answer the question posed by the thread title, no, no I do not hate sympathetic villains. Some of the most memorable series I've read have had sympathetic villains or in one particular recent cases, two sides who were both good but with mutually exclusive goals.

As for OOTS, I'd say one of the larger themes through out its run is "What do Alignments really mean?" and it isn't limited to just Redcloak. There's Belkar, the goblin teens early on, Miko, Shojo, the Monster in the Darkness, Malack, just a bunch of them. With just nine alignments, there's so many view points and ways to go about following their alignment. If you removed that, if you just went by the text book interpretation of the alignment, well it'd be a poorer story for it.

Honestly, for now at least, I can't help but think that the age of black and white conflict is over, and.... I don't see the problem with that.


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## Mindfire (Jun 28, 2013)

Queshire said:


> Honestly, for now at least, I can't help but think that the age of black and white conflict is over, and.... I don't see the problem with that.



I wouldn't say over. These things come in waves. A belief in objective right and wrong is not something that will just disappear, after all. Nor should it, I think. And it bears mentioning that some, dare I say most, of pop culture's most impactful and memorable narratives feature what is essentially a black and white conflict.


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## Zero Angel (Jun 28, 2013)

I think you do lose something to the humor if you don't have the D&D background. 

Although nowadays racial alignments are much more wishy-washy (to the point that they're now just "the alignment of a typical creature of this race"), there was a time when they were inviolate in the text. I think Drizzt changed some of this along with all the people that wanted to play the evil races without being evil. I haven't read OOTS in years, but my memory of it was a joke/commentary about this old system...maybe a joke that went on wayyyy too long. 

Is OOTS the one where the dwarf thinks all trees are plotting to attack?


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## Steerpike (Jun 28, 2013)

I think OOTS came about during the 3e era, well after Drizz't, who came either right at the end of 1e or the beginning of 2e, maybe ten years prior.


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## Devor (Jun 28, 2013)

Mindfire said:


> UPDATE: I still find Vaarsuvius a compelling and sympathetic character even after the Faustian Pact thing. I guess this pretty much makes it official. I don't hate all sympathetic villains (which is what V pretty much is now), just Redcloak for some reason. This despite the fact that what V did was far worse than anything Redcloak has ever done.



I love Vaarsuvius, and I suppose we're about to find out how much of a villain the character really is.  I think that's a great example of a genuinely sympathetic villain.

But I think most of the time I hate when the narrative suggests I'm supposed to feel sympathy for a villain based on .... what?  Broken rationalizations for why they're pushing children out windows or executing the puppeteers?  I think there's a difference between a villain having "their own perspective" and a villain whose perspective actually becomes justifiable.

Vaarsuvius was desperate, made a bad choice, and continues to pay the consequences.  I can sympathize with that.  But Redcloak manipulates everybody around him, and is every bit as hypocritical as his view of the people he slaughters.  Having a reason and a development makes him a good character.  But I've got no sympathy for him at all.


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## Mindfire (Jun 28, 2013)

Devor said:


> I love Vaarsuvius, and I suppose we're about to find out how much of a villain the character really is.  I think that's a great example of a genuinely sympathetic villain.
> 
> But I think most of the time I hate when the narrative suggests I'm supposed to feel sympathy for a villain based on .... what?  Broken rationalizations for why they're pushing children out windows or executing the puppeteers?  I think there's a difference between a villain having "their own perspective" and a villain whose perspective actually becomes justifiable.
> 
> Vaarsuvius was desperate, made a bad choice, and continues to pay the consequences.  I can sympathize with that.  But Redcloak manipulates everybody around him, and is every bit as hypocritical as his view of the people he slaughters.  Having a reason and a development makes him a good character.  But I've got no sympathy for him at all.



I think what irks me about Redcloak is that the author is, in a sense, "trying too hard." Like he's ramming it down your throat that Redcloak is _supposed_ to be sympathetic and you're _supposed_ to like him. _Or else._ Whereas with Vaarsuvius and Tarquin, much less effort was spent on pushing the audience to like them. Vaarsuvius is more or less back to being a good guy now even though his actions still have major consequences. But Tarquin is thoroughly evil (though a bit... nicer than most villains I guess) but I find him likable. Redcloak... meh.


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## Zero Angel (Jun 28, 2013)

Steerpike said:


> I think OOTS came about during the 3e era, well after Drizz't, who came either right at the end of 1e or the beginning of 2e, maybe ten years prior.


You're right, but they reference a lot of things from the previous editions and I feel the writer writes for D&D fans, not just 3e D&D. 

Can anyone listen to the song DnD by semisonic without thinking of Dungeons and Dragons? Semisonic - DND Lyrics - YouTube


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## A. E. Lowan (Jun 29, 2013)

While we're being a little musical, here is Richard from the WoW inspired comic LFG.  Hilariously, unapologetically evil, Richard is actually a protagonist, but I think he belongs in our little debate if only to provide mirth.


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## Mindfire (Jun 29, 2013)

Heh. It would be interesting to see Richard interact with Belkar. Or Xykon.


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## Androxine Vortex (Jun 29, 2013)

I do not like villains who are evil for no reason. Typically, a villain starts out as good or in some cases neutral. Something happens to them or something begins to change their way of thinking that makes them lose their pathway. I like it when villains have a slow decline into their "evil" ways. Like a quote from my Dawn of War II game, "Small steps corrupt."

Maybe the villain is more of a politician? I can see a room full of politicians trying to win the favor of each other so even though they may not be "evil" they will have deceit in their nature and selfishness about their actions and motives. Maybe the villain just chooses to ignore their sense of morality? Maybe they go about plundering towns, not carring for the lives they destroy but instead focus and crave on their greed to reap their rewards. 

Even though a lot of people say that there is a gray line between good and evil and that there really isn't good or evil, there is. It might be difficult to understand but there clearly is. That's why it's our job as a writter to invent a villain who doesn't see it that way, who might believe themself to be good. Or maybe they know what they are doing is bad but they do it anyway for some sort of gain. We have to find a way to justify their actions, at least in their mentality. 

Someone mentioned pity. Think about Gollum. He is evil, not by his own fault, but it's safe to say he has darkness within him. Bilbo knew Gollum was going to kill him and eat him and yet, he spared him because he saw a tortured creature wallowing in the darkness, and he took pity on him. I think Gollum is a fantastic sympathetic villain because at times you love him, and others you hate him. 

I've been reading the Silmarilion lately (possible spoilers!!!)

and I really like how Melkor (Morgoth) became evil. He started out as a holy being who was created to sing beautiful music. And it was beautiful but he wanted to glorify his part of the "theme" so he often went away from his brothers and sisters (into the void) and thought of ways to make his own glory. I like this because Tolkien made a point that when he was alone in the void, and because he began to think thoughts alone, his new thoughts were not like his brethren who all took equal share in the "theme" and "thought" together as one. I don't know why but I think this is really cool concept, that since he departed away from what he was supposed to be doing and everyone knew how to act accordingly and all had the same mentality, since he went away from them and thought new thoughts of his own(selfishness) he basically had a new mentality, a new way of thinking, thoughts that were different from his brethren. 

There's all kinds of ways to make villains, but in regards to your problem with sympathetic ones, and all ones in general, it depends for me on the specific villain and reasoning behind his/her ways. I do get annoyed if someone goes out and kills a lot of people and people say, "well, he was bullied as a child." Is this a believable concept? yes, it is, it happens every day in our real world socirty, sadly. But looking at it from a fictional viewpoint, it can be boring because i think we are so used to it by this point. But as I said there are ways to make good sympathetic villains, you just have to make them stand out, that's all.


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## Rkcapps (Oct 31, 2017)

Apart from everyone's discussions, I'd just like to say, how cool would it be as an author to elicit the intensity of your reaction to Redcloak. To evoke such emotion in a reader, whether good or bad, must be our goal, yes? I wonder if the author wrote hoping for just your kind of reaction?


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## Gurkhal (Nov 2, 2017)

I always loved and love symphatic villains. Nothing is more boring to me than a black hat as the antagonist. I know that I've ditched otherwise good books due to this reason alone.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Nov 3, 2017)

Thread back from the dead! 

Anyway, am I alone in feeling that villains should always be somewhat sympathetic? For me, if you can't relate to a character on any level, that character isn't really a character. Even if I don't sympathize with the villain necessarily, I want to see their motivations as being basically human and understand why they do what they do. I also want to be able to understand why the villain sees himself as the hero (as I think villains do.) 

I can occasionally love unsympathetic villains if they're just egregiously sadistic and psychopathic in an interesting way and/or have some form of Blue and Orange Morality. Otherwise they bore me. For instance, Lord Voldemort...giving him basically sociopathic tendencies even from childhood killed it for me, and if the thing about Voldemort not being able to love due to being conceived under the effects of a love potion is true, he doesn't even qualify as a character in my view. Making an antagonist "evil by nature" seems to me rather lazy. You're basically ducking out of giving your character a reason for what they do. Personally, I don't like it.


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## TheCrystallineEntity (Nov 3, 2017)

^Maybe J K Rowling was worried about rabid fans going on about how 'Tom' is not a villain and not to blame for his actions'?


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## TheKillerBs (Nov 3, 2017)

TheCrystallineEntity said:


> ^Maybe J K Rowling was worried about rabid fans going on about how 'Tom' is not a villain and not to blame for his actions'?


Well, having read the amount of HP fanfiction that I have, if that was her motivation it certainly did not reach everyone. But really, Voldemort is who he is because Harry Potter is a children's book series at heart. Yes, the latter books were a bit more mature as the readers grew a bit more mature but it started as a children's book series and the characters basically remained as children's book characters. That's why they're all one-dimensional. Except Ron.


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## TheCrystallineEntity (Nov 3, 2017)

I wouldn't call Dumbledore one dimensional.


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## Devor (Nov 3, 2017)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> I also want to be able to understand why the villain sees himself as the hero (as I think villains do.)



. . . . you know, I don't think that's true at all. I mean, who really thinks of themselves as heroes?


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## Steerpike (Nov 3, 2017)

TheCrystallineEntity said:


> I wouldn't call Dumbledore one dimensional.



Nor does “children’s book” mean “one-dimensional,” unless you just haven’t read many good children’s books.


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## TheCrystallineEntity (Nov 3, 2017)

^^Good point. Maybe instead: that most people think of themselves as unarguably right in their actions and beliefs?


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## Devor (Nov 3, 2017)

TheCrystallineEntity said:


> ^^Good point. Maybe instead: that most people think of themselves as unarguably right in their actions and beliefs?



I'm not sure how that's different . . . . do you feel that way about yourself?  I sure don't.


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## FifthView (Nov 3, 2017)

I see the villain-thinks-himself-the-hero-of-his-own-story as merely a description of how villains see themselves as striving for a desirable and worthy goal. A task has fallen to them. They are the only ones who can do it. They have a right to try and succeed. Everyone opposing them is in the wrong, a villain, an unworthy would-be changer-of-the-world,  That sort of thing.


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## TheCrystallineEntity (Nov 3, 2017)

^That's kind of what I meant in my last post.


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## FifthView (Nov 3, 2017)

Devor said:


> I'm not sure how that's different . . . . do you feel that way about yourself? I sure don't.



Oh sure you do. When you are arguing a point in a debate like this, you wouldn't bother if you didn't think you had a special insight, something only you could deliver in this one, specific instance, and had a right to press your point.  Heh.

We all do this, I think, in one way or another.


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## FifthView (Nov 3, 2017)

Which is only to say that you might, indeed, be the hero. Or the villain. Who knows?


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## Devor (Nov 3, 2017)

FifthView said:


> I see the villain-thinks-himself-the-hero-of-his-own-story as merely a description of how villains see themselves as striving for a desirable and worthy goal. A task has fallen to them. They are the only ones who can do it. They have a right to try and succeed. Everyone opposing them is in the wrong, a villain, an unworthy would-be changer-of-the-world,  That sort of thing.



I know a lot of people who readily admit (with varying degrees of severity) that they are selfish and don't give a damn. Why should that be unrealistic?


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## FifthView (Nov 3, 2017)

Devor, I don't see how the one comment relates to the other, so I can't formulate an answer.

I'll...take a stab at it? I don't think that seeing oneself as being selfish and admitting it is somehow _not_ seeing oneself as the hero. The quality of selfishness might be seen as a heroic quality. A _right_ quality to have, in that case.

I don't know what realism has to do with the question, however...?


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## Steerpike (Nov 3, 2017)

FifthView said:


> I see the villain-thinks-himself-the-hero-of-his-own-story as merely a description of how villains see themselves as striving for a desirable and worthy goal. A task has fallen to them. They are the only ones who can do it. They have a right to try and succeed. Everyone opposing them is in the wrong, a villain, an unworthy would-be changer-of-the-world,  That sort of thing.



Ever read Banewreaker, by Jacqueline Carey? It’s a LotR style fantasy except from the point of view of the “dark lord” who considers himself to be in the right (and may well be right). It is an interesting book (first of two).


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## FifthView (Nov 3, 2017)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> Anyway, am I alone in feeling that villains should always be somewhat sympathetic? For me, if you can't relate to a character on any level, that character isn't really a character. Even if I don't sympathize with the villain necessarily, I want to see their motivations as being basically human and understand why they do what they do. I also want to be able to understand why the villain sees himself as the hero (as I think villains do.)



I can understand this. Nothing wrong with that. But it's not how I feel about the villain-sees-himself-as-the-hero-of-his-own-story. (So much hyphenation! But it does all seem to need to be put together that way....)

I like using that when I'm designing villains, but I don't think that a villain's view of himself automatically makes him sympathetic, nor that it must. Sometimes a wrong view actually makes him less sympathetic. For instance, in the case of some extremist views about race, or pathological megalomania.. I can know a villain's logic and despise him for it even more.

Sometimes, I can despise a villain greatly but still think the whole situation's tragic, unfortunate. But, it is what it is.


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## FifthView (Nov 3, 2017)

Steerpike said:


> Ever read Banewreaker, by Jacqueline Carey? It’s a LotR style fantasy except from the point of view of the “dark lord” who considers himself to be in the right (and may well be right). It is an interesting book (first of two).


 
Nope, haven't read it. Sometimes I like that mystery of trying to decide what I think and feel about such characters, so that sounds interesting.


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## TheCrystallineEntity (Nov 3, 2017)

^Indeed. I'll be readily looking for it. Perspective flips often intrigue me.


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## Steerpike (Nov 3, 2017)

Here's a review of Banewreaker. The reviewer is correct in that the beginning, where she's getting into the backstory of the gods and how we got to where we are now, is a bit dry. The reviewer is also correct, in my view, that the book ends up being well worth it. 

(the review does have some spoilers, in my view, in terms of general plot)

SF REVIEWS.NET: Banewreaker / Jacqueline Carey ☆☆☆½


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## Steerpike (Nov 3, 2017)

To get to the original topic of this thread--no, I don't hate sympathetic villains. I also don't hate villains who are just evil for the sake of being evil. Each has its place, depending on the type of story being written. I feel a good writer can handle either approach well.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Nov 3, 2017)

TheKillerBs said:


> Well, having read the amount of HP fanfiction that I have, if that was her motivation it certainly did not reach everyone. But really, Voldemort is who he is because Harry Potter is a children's book series at heart. Yes, the latter books were a bit more mature as the readers grew a bit more mature but it started as a children's book series and the characters basically remained as children's book characters. That's why they're all one-dimensional. Except Ron.


 
Sincere question: Have you read the books yourself? 

Whenever I see people characterize children's books as cardboard and simplistic due to being childrens books, I die a little inside.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Nov 3, 2017)

TheCrystallineEntity said:


> ^Maybe J K Rowling was worried about rabid fans going on about how 'Tom' is not a villain and not to blame for his actions'?


 ^like what's happened with Snape and Draco, you mean? But I think that's more because they were played by attractive actors in the movies...


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## TheCrystallineEntity (Nov 3, 2017)

^Yeah, exactly. Oh, good point. I didn't think about that.


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## TheKillerBs (Nov 3, 2017)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> ^like what's happened with Snape and Draco, you mean? But I think that's more because they were played by attractive actors in the movies...


Snape was not a villain. A terrible teacher, a jealous berk, an unlikable dillyweed, yes. Villain, no. I'd say he even falls into the line of hero more than anti-hero. Snape was pretty complex, actually. Probably the other exception, together with Ron. But for the most part, the characters of Harry Potter do not have much depth. Dumbledore falls deep (heh) within that category.


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## Steerpike (Nov 3, 2017)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> Sincere question: Have you read the books yourself?
> 
> Whenever I see people characterize children's books as cardboard and simplistic due to being childrens books, I die a little inside.



I don’t die inside, I just assume they’re speaking from ignorance. And since I’m right, I grow livelier inside


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## psychotick (Nov 4, 2017)

Hi,

My thought - and not on the Order of the Stick since I've never even heard of it before - is that I want my characters to make sense. I don't have a problem with my villains being evil simply because that's who they are. We have sociopaths in the real world and it can be argued for eternity whether they are born or made that way. And I don't have a problem with villains that are victims etc. Again it happens in real life. The abused become the abusers. And one of the best of these is Steerpike from Peake's brilliantly twisted works. 

I also don't have a problem with people being born evil. I've written some of these characters. But if I do I will always have an explanation for it - such as born with the ability to control others absolutely. As they say, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Anyone born with such a gift unless it was extremely limited, would be destined to an evil path.

If I have problems with villains it's for one of two reasons. The first is that they have to for som unutterably stupid reason, show everyone how evil they are. I watched the first couple of epps of the reboot of The Tomorrow People and hated it for that reason. The bad guy / uncle kept killing people for no reason save obviously to show the audience what a bad man he was. (I hated the show for other reasons too, to be fair.)

The other problem that comes up sometimes is when villains don't make sense. When they do things contrary to their nature. Magneto from X-men is one of these. He has a clear goal, defined objectives - mutant rights etc - and then when things go wrong as they usually do, always seems to violate them.

Cheers, Greg.


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## TheCrystallineEntity (Nov 4, 2017)

I'm a big fan of the Order of the Stick, and I don't have much sympathy for Redcloak, potentially because I've never actually read Start of Darkness. I more or less view him as I view nearly every other major character: as someone interesting.


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## Peat (Nov 5, 2017)

I don't have a problem with sympathetic villains.

But I do have a problem with authors hitting me over the head with their version of things. And I think some of Burlew's pokes at the alignment system are just that. Some are spot on, thought provoking satires of one of the oddest parts of the D&D system in fairness. But not all. And I think Redcloak is the main tool for both, accounting for both his widespread popularity with readers and OP's reaction. I'm not overly fond of Redcloak myself either for similar-ish reasons. He's a cool villain with some great moments, but he's still a guy who uses violence and deceit to get everything he wants. Still a villain.

I do kinda wish that not every villain had to be sympathetic and explained. I know everything happens for a reason, but not every cause needs to be examined.


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## Scribble (Nov 7, 2017)

Philip Overby said:


> I remember watching He-Man when I was a kid and liking the Merman character. I don't know why I liked him. It had something to do with him sometimes helping Skeletor and sometimes helping He-Man. I don't know why that appealed to me. I guess I liked that Merman did what was best for Merman. He was manipulated by both sides really.
> 
> In the case of this Redcloak character, perhaps it's an instance of the readers and writer suggesting that it's a matter of perspective if a character is good or evil. If a character is getting any sort of positive reaction, then I think the writer is doing their job. And from what I gathered Order of the Stick is a comedic parody so it's not really intended to be serious.
> 
> ...



I agree about Merman. Here's more He-Man theory for discussion: Grayskull is a skull-faced house and Skeletor is a skull-faced guy. What if that was his house and these jokers stole it? What if the whole premise of He-Man is that He-Man and his pals stole Skeletor's skull house, and all he's doing is trying to get it back while this holier-than-thou, over-powered prince in a Speedo (and his whiny cat) are simply being a pain in his royal Eternia? If you re-watched He-Man with this idea in your head, it would make a lot more sense.

Why is the villain doing all this - because "evil"? I enjoy Game of Thrones, Orange Is The New Black specifically because everyone has a story, BUT the downside is that you can't hate the character who was previously the antagonist. It is impossible to hate them. Why am I rooting for Jamie Lannister that child-killing, ********?

I agree that in heroic fantasy you want your character to want to kill the dark lord. These days gray fantasy has taken the lead. My favorite villains have me understanding their motivation and the very best ones have me "wiggling" on the edge of sympathy. but ultimately putting me on the side of the protagonist.

I think a sympathetic villain is a challenge for the writer to ensure we are rooting for the hero else the end victory can feel a little flat - in a heroic fantasy.


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## psychotick (Nov 7, 2017)

Hi Scribble,

I disagree slightly with your idea that in grimdark where all the guys have stories / reasons for being who they are, we can't still hate the villains. I can still loathe and despise them and want them to come to a sticky end. That's not the danger of grimdark in my view. The actual danger is you might not be able to support the hero. GOT has come perilously close to this with every "good guy" either killed off or contaminated in some way and I don't really want any of them to win. I'm fairly much at the stage of shouting "A plague on both your houses" and going elsewhere.

Cheers, Greg.


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## Scribble (Nov 7, 2017)

psychotick said:


> Hi Scribble,
> 
> I disagree slightly with your idea that in grimdark where all the guys have stories / reasons for being who they are, we can't still hate the villains. I can still loathe and despise them and want them to come to a sticky end. That's not the danger of grimdark in my view. The actual danger is you might not be able to support the hero. GOT has come perilously close to this with every "good guy" either killed off or contaminated in some way and I don't really want any of them to win. I'm fairly much at the stage of shouting "A plague on both your houses" and going elsewhere.
> 
> Cheers, Greg.


I didn't mean to say we can't hate the villains, I was trying to point out a difference between being sympathetic - that is, having a feeling of rooting for the villain versus simply understanding their motivation as being something other than "a will to evil". The genius of GOT is close to Breaking Bad's genius, where we slowly descend into an ambivalent sympathy with the protagonist. So yes, your point is right on, that it can become difficult to identify with the protagonist if they seem too "dirty" by their past actions.

Woody Allen example. I personally still think Woody Allen's _work_ is comedy genius and can enjoy it - even if I think Woody is not someone who's relationship choices I would recommend. I can understand he is a complex person, a mixture of impulses - some constructive, some destructive, some selfish, some altruistic, and ultimately subject to the judgement of the world mostly because he is a public figure.  Some people feel an impulse to distance themselves from anyone who has done something socially reprehensible, and if that happens with your own character, that can _seem_ bad, but maybe that isn't your audience.

*Game Of Thrones SPOILER/Rant*
Despite the challenge of the grayness or grimdarkness? of GOT, the last season's departure had me less than satisfied. We have "good people" and "evil people" now. Dany is good, John Snow was always good, everyone is good, except for the evil people. When they killed off Littlefinger so stupidly, I just about lost interest. The special sauce in GOT, for me, has always been the realistically motivated characters. I hope they can reel it back in and avoid the Good Guys Win Because They Are Good ending.


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## Chessie2 (Nov 7, 2017)

I agree with Dragon about villains needing to be sympathetic. I've heard advice before on how writers shouldn't make villains TOO likeable because they'll take away from the hero and to that I say: "*^#*&*!" 

Anyway, this discussion has really made me mull over things with the protagonist in my WIP. Call me stupid, but I've always preferred villains who were slimy and sneaky and all around bad. Like the villains in the Batman comics of earlier days. They had back stories just harsh enough to justify their shitty behavior but whacked enough to make the reader understand why he was crazy. I love bad guys like this.

The antagonist in my current story is somewhat like that. I do need to make his motives a bit more clear in the beginning (since I pants, character motivations become more clear to me past chapter 5 or so). About the only thing making him sympathetic is the way other people (the heroes) treat him. He's ridiculed. Mocked. Talked down to. Treated as if he were stupid. There's some other things bubbling underneath the surface for him but this thread is a good reminder readers want a real human being as the antagonist, not a dark lord without a story.


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## Gurkhal (Nov 8, 2017)

psychotick said:


> Hi Scribble,
> 
> I disagree slightly with your idea that in grimdark where all the guys have stories / reasons for being who they are, we can't still hate the villains. I can still loathe and despise them and want them to come to a sticky end. That's not the danger of grimdark in my view. The actual danger is you might not be able to support the hero. GOT has come perilously close to this with every "good guy" either killed off or contaminated in some way and I don't really want any of them to win. I'm fairly much at the stage of shouting "A plague on both your houses" and going elsewhere.
> 
> Cheers, Greg.



That's an interesting perspective which runs very differently from my own. Personally I love the GOT/Asoiaf because of the reasons that you name. I actually feel freer in reading GRRM's works because I don't feel like the author is forcing me to support one side or set of characters. Its more like: 

"This is the situation and now you can like or dislike whatever characters that applies to you in a positive or negative way. I'm not going to force it down your throat. You decide for yourself who are your heroes and why."

And also personally I have no need for characters to hate or want them ill. I'm more interested in the interaction between characters and learning about them than to pass judgement, or see the author pass judgement on them. Grey characters are what I like and the more black-and-white the conflict is and the more the author is trying force his vision on me, the less interested I am.


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## Scribble (Nov 8, 2017)

I like the space to come to my own understanding of the events, the motivations, the situational factors, and ultimately of the choices made. We live in a world that tends to judge and condemn people based on one choice, one pivotal moment. I have lived for a long time and have done good and terrible things, some of the good I've done might be seen as terrible by another, less so the terrible things, but the experience of them led me to be a better kind of person, as I see it. The "sum of me" is not drawn from one column or another, if summing the deeds of a person makes any sense outside of some fantastical omniscient Accountant keeping track of things. When I encounter characters in stories with no room for any of this, they feel, to me at least, like the characters lacking real humanness. I can surely enjoy more two dimensional characters in the right setting, for fun or entertainment. Every novel is not The Grapes of Wrath or The Brothers Karamazov, we are talking about entertainment fiction. James Bond is a professional murderer, possibly a psychopath, but he's still fun to read and he is the protagonist. We happily put our tuxedo on and start shooting "bad guys" along with him. So, obviously, this isn't absolute, but I'm just trying to get at what it is about GRRM's characters specifically in contrast to the Orcs/Thugs/Aliens=Evil scenario we see so often in our favorite genre.


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## Peat (Nov 9, 2017)

Am I the only one who's always found SoIaF to be pretty clear-cut on its good guys and its bad guys? The bad guys are well fleshed out and humanised, but they're still straight-up selfish users. The good guys are far from perfect paragons, but they're still clearly the people who care and try to be good. There's a handful of people genuinely travelling between the two but I'd say they're a minority, and a few faked shots aside, everyone set up as a protagonist in book 1 remains one and vice-versa.

At least, that's how I see it.


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## Gurkhal (Nov 9, 2017)

Peat said:


> Am I the only one who's always found SoIaF to be pretty clear-cut on its good guys and its bad guys? The bad guys are well fleshed out and humanised, but they're still straight-up selfish users. The good guys are far from perfect paragons, but they're still clearly the people who care and try to be good. There's a handful of people genuinely travelling between the two but I'd say they're a minority, and a few faked shots aside, everyone set up as a protagonist in book 1 remains one and vice-versa.
> 
> At least, that's how I see it.



I don't think that you are alone but its a perspective that I really don't share.


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## skip.knox (Nov 9, 2017)

Gurkhal said:


> "This is the situation and now you can like or dislike whatever characters that applies to you in a positive or negative way. I'm not going to force it down your throat. You decide for yourself who are your heroes and why."



I did find characters I liked and disliked. He killed them all, leaving me with characters I didn't care much about one way or the other. If I want realism, I'll put down books and go outside. I want a good story. GRRM gave me one. Then he shattered it into (for me) meaningless pieces.


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## skip.knox (Nov 9, 2017)

The title of this thread inspires me to flip it around.

Does anyone hate unsympathetic heroes?

Pretty much the same conversation will take place. For myself, just make them interesting, hero and villain both. Sympathy is less important.


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## Gurkhal (Nov 9, 2017)

skip.knox said:


> I did find characters I liked and disliked. He killed them all, leaving me with characters I didn't care much about one way or the other. If I want realism, I'll put down books and go outside. I want a good story. GRRM gave me one. Then he shattered it into (for me) meaningless pieces.



I'm sorry to hear that. I hope you'll be able to connect with some of the new introductions if you decide to stay for the next book when/if it comes out.



skip.knox said:


> The title of this thread inspires me to flip it around.
> 
> Does anyone hate unsympathetic heroes?
> 
> Pretty much the same conversation will take place. For myself, just make them interesting, hero and villain both. Sympathy is less important.



I agree entirely with you. Having interesting characters is far, far more important than them being sympathic to me. Now being unsympathetic is not a virtue, but being morally upstanding and boring me to tears is not the kind of character I want to read about.


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## Steerpike (Nov 9, 2017)

skip.knox said:


> Pretty much the same conversation will take place. For myself, just make them interesting, hero and villain both. Sympathy is less important.



Yes. It is hard to find books where the author doesn't try to create at least some sympathy for the "hero," but I'm perfectly fine with that if the book is good and holds my interest.


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## Peat (Nov 9, 2017)

skip.knox said:


> The title of this thread inspires me to flip it around.
> 
> Does anyone hate unsympathetic heroes?
> 
> Pretty much the same conversation will take place. For myself, just make them interesting, hero and villain both. Sympathy is less important.



Depends how unsympathetic we're talking and what sort of nature they have. I love Glokta, who is arguably quite unsympathetic because he goes around torturing people, but loathe Jezal because he's a self-important mediocrity of a human being with no self awareness. But then Glokta is funny, which is always sympathetic, while Jezal is mainly whiny, which isn't.

Also, for what its worth, I'm pretty close to taking the same stance as you on SoIaF and Martin killing the interesting characters.


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## TheKillerBs (Nov 10, 2017)

skip.knox said:


> The title of this thread inspires me to flip it around.
> 
> Does anyone hate unsympathetic heroes?
> 
> Pretty much the same conversation will take place. For myself, just make them interesting, hero and villain both. Sympathy is less important.


I do hate unsympathetic protagonists. I need a reason to care about them otherwise I tend to lose interest in stories very quickly.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Nov 10, 2017)

I feel like we're confusing the ability to sympathize with a character and the ability to approve of their actions. 

You can sympathize even with a completely wretched character. In fact, I feel like a mark of good writing is the ability to create sympathy with characters whose actions the reader couldn't condone or even stomach. Even if I find a character repulsive, i feel like it's important to understand, even to a very limited degree, why they are the way they are. At least understand their actions. I like to be made uncomfortable by how much i sympathize with a character who's evil. Their actions are evil, but i understand. I see the mirror of their wrath/anger/fear/whatever motivates them in myself. That, to me, is the best kind of antagonist. 

"Unsympathetic character" is almost an oxymoron to me, honestly. I feel like the reader should be able to sympathize with most (developed) characters on some level. That's what makes a character a character and not a limp raw chicken breast.  If the antagonists aren't sympathetic, do they have any depth? 

Thus, I'd say that an unsympathetic hero is...well, difficult to conceive of, first of all. I almost don't think an unsympathetic main character can work. 

The MC of my WIP is prickly, selfish, morally ambiguous, and not really able to be called a "hero." She's self-serving. She's a murderer and has no problem screwing over people who trust her to get her own way. But is she unsympathetic? Hell no. She's hurt and conflicted, wrestling with identity and what she is meant to become. She puts up walls against everyone because she's afraid to open. She's terrified of weakness. I don't expect my readers to be able to morally justify her actions. She murders a fifteen year old. But I hope that they will sympathize with her, even if they hate themselves for it.


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## TheKillerBs (Nov 10, 2017)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> I feel like we're confusing the ability to sympathize with a character and the ability to approve of their actions.
> 
> You can sympathize even with a completely wretched character. In fact, I feel like a mark of good writing is the ability to create sympathy with characters whose actions the reader couldn't condone or even stomach. Even if I find a character repulsive, i feel like it's important to understand, even to a very limited degree, why they are the way they are. At least understand their actions. I like to be made uncomfortable by how much i sympathize with a character who's evil. Their actions are evil, but i understand. I see the mirror of their wrath/anger/fear/whatever motivates them in myself. That, to me, is the best kind of antagonist.


Can you? I don't know. There are some actions that, no matter how well-written and motivated the character is, are unjustifiable to me. Where the character has basically lost all chance of redemption and now I'm just hoping for them to receive their just desserts. This kind of character is completely unsympathetic, or even antisympathetic.



> "Unsympathetic character" is almost an oxymoron to me, honestly. I feel like the reader should be able to sympathize with most (developed) characters on some level. That's what makes a character a character and not a limp raw chicken breast.  If the antagonists aren't sympathetic, do they have any depth?
> 
> Thus, I'd say that an unsympathetic hero is...well, difficult to conceive of, first of all. I almost don't think an unsympathetic main character can work.


Despite my disagreement on the earlier point and the greater point of your post, I have to say there is something here. Most of the protagonists I find unsympathetic isn't because they're amoral or evil, but because they're just boring and I can't bring myself to care about them.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Nov 10, 2017)

TheKillerBs said:


> Can you? I don't know. There are some actions that, no matter how well-written and motivated the character is, are unjustifiable to me. Where the character has basically lost all chance of redemption and now I'm just hoping for them to receive their just desserts. This kind of character is completely unsympathetic, or even antisympathetic.
> 
> 
> Despite my disagreement on the earlier point and the greater point of your post, I have to say there is something here. Most of the protagonists I find unsympathetic isn't because they're amoral or evil, but because they're just boring and I can't bring myself to care about them.



True, there are some villains that are too reprehensible to be sympathized with on any level, I suppose...but I tend not to prefer those kind.


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## TheCrystallineEntity (Nov 10, 2017)

Me being me, I can pretty much sympathize with villains [or heroes] that other people despise, to some extent. [Shinji from Neon Genesis, infamously...]


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