[three characters looking awfully bland] The protagonists:
- Annoying goody two shoes leader who’s a paragon of virtue
- Nerdy scientist with no backstory who keeps doing poor puns
- Super bland dude who’s an obvious self insert for the writer
- People die because they’re “good” and refuse to break the rules
- They win battles through plot armor and the power of friendship
[a cool looking grizzled character smokes a cigar in a spaceship interior, a foot up on the controls, while a spaceship blasts a mega laser outside in space] The super evil antagonist:
- Played by the most charismatic actor available on the market
- Keeps doing the coolest looking things (but you must hate it)
- Has the coolest secret lair and his henchmen love him
- Is named Adolf McMurder and genocides with a smile
- Says an awesome one liner before murdering an orphan
[a nerdy dude in flannel points at a storyboard of the two previous images] The naive screenwriter:
- At least this time he’s not writing women, phew
- Has too much trust in his audience’s media literacy - About to give the super evil antagonist yet another zingy one liner
- Surely if we show him killing an orphan the audience will hate him
- Right, guys?… Right??…
One thing that annoys me is when the “bad” guy not only has all the style and charisma, but also starts making too much sense and ends up completely in the right, but they can’t let them win because that would change the sacred status quo. So they gotta make them do something really fucked up so everyone can see that they’re supposed to be the bad guy, even if the thing they do is random, out of character, and/or has nothing to do with the entirely valid point they’re making. Like what they want is basic civil rights, but they also murder orphans. So the good guys gotta stop their nefarious plan to give everyone basic civil rights.
this is kinda the vibe I got from the Star Wars prequels. like how tf does Anakin go to “well the sith could stop people from dying, and the jedis are kinda corrupt” to “let’s kill random children!” in literally one scene with almost no convincing?? It seems like they think because he appreciates the sith’s stated goal he’ll do something obviously evil for them because “thinking that the people we want to be evil aren’t evil == evil”. The only way I can explain that bit away is if the sith guy did some sort of evil mind control thing in his moment of shock after accidentally hurting that jedi. IDK i know there are much more direct examples of what you’re saying (like what hbomberguy was talking about in that rwby video) and this connection is kinda loose I just want to rant about that scene because I feel like I don’t often hear people specifically talking about how little sense that bit makes…
Throw the Robert Pattinson Batman movie on the pile for this one too.
Marvel is particularly good at that. Both Killmonger from Black Panther and the Flag Smashers from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier come to mind.
And Vulture from the first Spider-Man
It’s real life GOP logic - progressives try to expand rights for LGBTQ individuals? Must be because they’re demonic baby eaters
This is basically how some versions of Transformers go; the motivation given for decepticons is revolting against tyranny they’ve been slaved under, which basically makes Megatron actually fight for civil rights. This turns autobots into supporters of the opressive rule to keep the inequal status quo. And then you’re supposed to root for them as the good guys
Magneto
As a reminder, Prof X and Magneto were literally styled after MLKjr and Malcom X.
I’m somehow perfectly fine with Magneto. If we treat comic books as media mostly for adolescent boys, I don’t have any gripes about a character that exists to explore the idea of “the ends justify the means.”
Something something Legend of Korra’s first villain?
that’s because LoK is just bad writing
The exact one that came to my mind. It’s wild that the totally legitimate movement just died overnight because their leader was revealed to be a bender. I know they mentioned the government reforms to appease non benders, and realistically the show just wanted to move on, but it definitely still sticks out to me over a decade later
Now there’s a gay slur I’ve not heard in a while!
Still, that tracks, plenty of good ideas or movements through our history have died because people found out the guy leading them was gay.
Yes, and they solved the inequality overnight and nobody spoke of it ever again.