You might be confusing folks liking good versus evil stories as being "hung up" on them? Honestly, I'm not even sure what you mean by hung up on them? I certainly enjoy them. As to hero versus villain being "worn" or "cliche," that's not my experience. I can't imagine ever tiring of it.
Yeah, me either. I think the last five movies I saw were Avengers, Incredibles 2, Ant Man 2, Star Wars, and The Predator. All that stuff was enjoyable, and a lot of it for the same reasons. The last books I read were zombie dystopia vs. the corporation (great book), supernatural romance vs. evil god, and fantasy romance vs. evil king. The last book I wrote was fantasy adventure romance vs. evil god and king. It never gets old.
Reading the comments gives me an idea, what if the "bad guy" is just that. Absolutely evil, has nothing that is good. How would that person exist in society, is it even possible. Trying to write a story let's say from that persons point of view, hmmmmm.
Ah, I see. You just don't enjoy it, and that's fine. My point is that many people do, and it still can be (in my opinion) a good story telling tool when implemented correctly. (Edit: This isn't to say I only enjoy stories that are black and white like that, as I do enjoy stories with more depth very much, I just think there's a place for them )
The world is full of psychopathic sadists with good cognitive empathy, who can fake normal emotions and who enjoy receiving rewards for constructive behavior, but find ways to indulge when they can. If they get a position of authority like cop or president, watch out.
See Dong Zhuo, the infamous tyrant of 2nd century China. Or less evil but still evil, Hou Jing of a couple centuries later. Both are supremely evil individuals with only their own pleasures and desires as goals, both are responsible for many deaths (mostly indirectly, admittedly), both are almost stereotypical "So what?! I've got the bigger sword, buddy!" types and both had dramatic falls. Dong Zhuo was killed by his "adoptive son" (i.e. it was a political move) Lu Bu because Lu Bu was convinced to kill Dong Zhuo by the nobler Han Minister Wang Yun and Yun's adoptive daughter, Diaochan (a legendary beauty who was instrumental in pitting the tyrant Dong Zhuo and the ultimate warrior Lu Bu against each other). There are some fictional add-ons to the story (like Diaochan herself, no one knows her real name or where she came from. What's known is that a beauty working for Dong Zhuo had taken Lu Bu's eye and Dong Zhuo started to resent him) but the bulk of it is historically accurate. Heck, Dong Zhuo literally skinned the bodies of his enemies and used them as bed-spreads--and he even managed to force a court at a banquet to eat a meal that had bits of a human being as well as blood in it! Cartman style. He is, to some degree, the real life Cartman (of South Park).
I think you're making the mistake of conflating stories that simply have heroes or villains with ones that are about "good guys vs. bad guys". They're not the same thing.
To be fair though Lu Bu betrayed pretty much everyone eventually. The only reason he didn't end up betraying himself was that everyone else got sick of his shit and ganged up on him.
Yeah but he was SUCH a BADASS!! I mean, he literally slung up his own wife over his shoulder and climbed with her out of his castle because it was directly under attacked and was saved by the awesome Gao Shun who identified the mutineers by their accent. Ultimately though, rather honorably, he surrendered himself (in contrast to the fiction of him being turned over--in reality a large number of his men were actually quite loyal). I wonder if the loyalty of his men was at all related to how Badass Lu Bu was; like maybe they stuck with him just because he was so unusually ballsy and daring. Like, given one mortal life, better spend it with a wild card like Lu Bu than someone more predictable. Or maybe biased historians downplayed more heroic aspects about him in favor of his more brutish aspects--who knows, right? Either way, I appreciate the story quite a bit since it's not only awesome but real!
Oh, for sure. He's certainly my favourite character from the Three Kingdoms period! One of those rare examples of someone who you can't make more awesome when writing about him ... because he already reached maximum awesome in life anyway.
As far as good and evil, I understand that that can be subjective. Such as Hitler thought of himself as a good guy. And most history's "villains" have consider themselves good guys. Except Ivan the Terrible, that guy knew who he was and what he was about. I have a few characters who are inspired by him, along with a few others. Except for one example, where one of the main bad guys says there are a bad guy, and proudly boasts about being an evil son of a bitch, though later on some actions of his contradict this. Most of my story is focused on the characters, and don't really point a finger and say that's a bad guy. Though it is Though it is implied sometimes. in some cases the hero in the villain are doing the same thing. IE Conquest, with the hero even beating the villain to the punch. I've had Heroes do some pretty shity things, and villains do some pretty noble things. I also had one hero, who plays the villain to accomplish his goals. Like in my current WIP, the villains plan to take over a certain region, so the Heroes beat them to the punch and do it first. This happens is another story as well.
Heck in the same time period, Cao Cao, when trying to reclaim Pu Yang, burned the gate his soldiers entered as a way of signaling "No retreat" and was soon apprehended by some of Lu Bu's horsemen (who didn't know he was Cao Cao), and so Cao Cao pointed to some fleeing guy as Cao Cao and then darted off like the ballsiest daredevil ever. Although Cao Cao is a lot more rational/successful, he's still got his moments of mad ballsiness! I love the Three Kingdoms period just because it has so many characters (who happen to be real, even) in it!
IMO good and evil are archetypes that reach deep into the unconscious mind. There for they have incredible power over the mind. But they are more then mental constructs. Look at the atrocities the communists and fascistes commited in the last century. Hundreds of millions of people where killed by there own governments. The struggle between good and evil have played a powerful role in my own life. I’m a drug addict in recovery. Meth and heroin are objectively evil, and sobriety is objectively good. I am extremely impressed and attracted by a well written good vs. evil story. Because that is the life I have lived and witnessed,
Although I think having protagonists and antagonists are necessary to have a conflict in a story and get the plot moving. I know that lines are blurred heavily in reality. I'd like to take this time to reference a book that really hammers in this notion that heroes and villains aren't that clear cut. In the book "Watchmen" by Alan Moore one of the "superheroes" in the main team of protagonists our story follows , Ozymandias, is revealed at the end to be the antagonist of the book kept secret to the reader until the last chapter. Notice how I say he is an antagonist as in he is the one who is blocking the goals of the main characters or the main protagonists who want to stop the antagonist, who in this book is Ozymandias. In the climax of the Watchmen book, Ozy teleports a colossal titan sized, man-made sea creature onto New York City, killing millions without even being alive. Planet Earth mistakes this dead special effects prop as an alien invader, ending world conflicts indefinitely to unite towards a common threat. Maybe after the fall of the soviet union this book may have stopped being taken seriously, but if you've looked outside the window in the past few years Moore couldn't of been more on the nose. The only thing that could stop us from killing each other is an alien invasion. Ozy may seem like a cheat, but let's compare him to the comedian, a government assassin who assassinated JFK in this universe and attempted to rape one of the original members of the superhero team and just shrugged it off by trying to lie to himself that "me and her are cool now", the comedian even killed a pregnant woman who was going to have his son in Vietnam during his time there when he and super powered Dr. Manhattan were working as junkyard dogs for the US interests, he was a decorated solider who believed in nothing. He saw life as having no meaning and was ready for it to burn over, he died alone murdered by Ozy, since murder is illegal that's one more for Ozy's pile. Ozy may be the antagonist of the story because he kills members and ex members of the superhero team or our main characters/protagonists, but when you compare the two the lines get blurry. Ozy saved humanity from itself, and the comedian once tried to flirt with the daughter of the women he attempted to rape in broad daylight, in front of the victum. The main characters aren't always "more moral" than the antagonist. Oh and there's also the insane homeless Rorschach who just brutally murders people because in his eyes criminals have no rights and there's no time for due process and the law when the apocalypse is at your door. Rorschach is insane and a murderer, but how you decide if he's a protagonist or antagonist depends on your view of criminals , severity of crimes or your view on the law and justice systems. If you or a loved one is someone who was wronged or killed by the police, you may view Rorschach differently than most viewers, which is fitting because his face is a moving Rorschach test.
Good points here. I'd like to add that I think the idea that heroes and villains can be quite a blurred line only adds to why you should have heroes and villains. A story with superficially clear heroes and villains, but who are morally complicated works better than a story with just a bunch of random morally complex characters interacting. A story needs the structure. But also, I think it's more interesting to present conflicting controversial dynamics than merely present mixed characters. It's more realistic too. It's not that there are no sides- people pick sides all the time- it's just that every side presents itself as the right one and it's often not very easy to just pick the right one.
I've got to agree with @deadrats here. With regard to my own story, I'd much rather people would talk about MC1 and MC2 than label them 'Hero' or 'Villain', because they are neither. Even 'protagonist' and 'antagonist' are labels for a general attitude that I feel uncomfortable with. These labels imply a level of commitment to good or evil which my characters simply don't have. They are just people, fumbling through life and trying not to mess it up (which of course they do, and there's the story).
Right here, you fall into a pretty common misconception. Protagonist/antagonist has absolutely nothing to do with morality; those roles are about story focus. You can have a criminal (like Frank Abagnale in Catch Me If You Can) or bloody tyrant (Macbeth in Macbeth) as the central focus, making them the protagonist. A detective or rival claimant may stand against them; that opposition makes the detective or the rival an antagonist, but not necessarily a villain. Hero, anti-hero, anti-villain, and villain are moral judgements. You can pair them with protagonist/antagonist in any combination. Hero protag/villain antag is simply the most common. Turning to the Watchmen example, Rorschach gets a ton of focus. That makes him a protagonist by definition, alongside Nite Owl II, Silk Spectre II, and Dr. Manhattan. Ozymandias ends up as the antagonist. But Moore leaves the moral judgements of these characters up to the audience. Like I said earlier in this thread, even in morally murky settings like that of Watchmen, you can still find some clear cut heroes and villains. You just might have to look to the margins.
I agree with this. A portion of the stories I read or movies I watch include a hero(who is always good and is always right) versus a villain(who is always evil and always wrong). You of course love the hero who is close to perfect and you hate the villain who is far from it. The hero will obviously win at the end though he has to overcome obstacles and the villain will lose but until then, provide the obstacles that get in the way of the hero. I think that these type of stories would be more enjoyable if you made both the "hero" and the "villain" of the story not have such a gap between good and evil and instead give each motives for what they are doing and do not have one side considered good and the other evil. A good example is the works of "Studio Ghibli". This Japanese animation studio creates stories where there really is no villain and even if they are a "villain" to the MC then Ghibli will make it to wear the "villain" is likeable. When it comes to discussing stories on a forum though, I understand that it is easier to call your characters heroes and villains instead of explaining what is against what or who is against who.
I don't think these characters are not villains. They are just more sympathetic villains. They don't have to be an antivillain to be significantly sympathetic, antivillains are just the most sympathetic. Just as a hero doesn't have to be an antihero to have flaws, antiheroes are just the most flawed.
Interesting topic. It seems lately the idea of the "anti hero" has become really popular in movies and books. I think people are very open and willing to explore morality within the construct of any sort of story or media. However, in this you need to be careful. These terms describe the function and purpose of a character in a story. They don't really have anything to do with morality or "good or evil." It is possible for these "functions" to sway between character roles but if so it should be for a good story reason or else your story could end up confusing your reader/viewer.
Which is a good thing I think. Heroes without serious flaws are boring and unrealistic and anti-heroes do have plenty of flaws to work with. It can be annoying in that the character is portrayed as a forced anti-hero, either having flaws that don't really naturally fit the character or having a whole 'dark and gritty' vibe to try to make the character more interesting without actually putting some thought into the details. But I really don't mind seeing these characters being made if it comes with proper interesting characters. I want to see stories where I have to think at least a little bit about the morality of it. It doesn't have to be, and shouldn't always be, that I have difficulty telling which is the right side, but I should have with some of the decisions made, at least a little bit.
Gotta disagree on the boring claim. Many of my favorite characters in the action-adventure genre are nearly flawless. Despite that I still admire their bravery, integrity, and perseverence. And I enjoy seeing them overcome extraordinary conflicts.
I agree with you 100%, for me it's just easier to write "bad guy" and "villain" than to explain who the MCs enemy is each time.
If you mean the first Avengers, Loki isn't a clear cut villain, especially later in the franchise. He clearly at least cares about his brother. In Incredibles 2, Screenslaver is trying to make the point that we are no longer expressing true sentiment, just gathering it from tech, and that people shouldn't put so much trust in idols (the heroes). In Ant Man 2, Ghost's motive is trying to end her own eternal pain. That doesn't seem too villainous to me. If you mean the rich guy who I forgot the name of, he's just a corrupt businessman, which exist in real life, and real people are always developed. In Star Wars, whichever you're talking about, the villain is a government trying to maintain control over their territory. They are the closest to a true villain in really good movies I've seen, but they're really fighting a war with people who, from their perspective, are clearly terrorists. I've never seen the Predator, but isn't he like, a trophy hunter? To his people what he's doing is the same as a hunting trip, since they're suppose to be so much smarter than us. This one might be wrong, I've never seen the film. If you look close no well made villain is 100% evil, because no one is 100% anything.
