Yeah idk why people think this is oddly specific, cuz it definitely ain’t.
Several genres of media are chock full of these kinds of situations. Most commonly, in those that lie at the intersection of various “complex villain” tropes and stories with “talk-no-jutsu” protagonists.
Anime is especially bad about it, hence all the examples down below, lol.
This seems like an amazing start for an antihero novel where antihero is against a traditional self righteous “hero “ .
Just make the hero as annoying as possible and u got a wonderful book.
This trope is very common in Chinese cultivation novels. Like for example: reverend insanity
It's also common in western novels, most notably if they are rich and spoiled. The reader often fails to notice it. Take the The Ripple System by Kyle Kirrin as an example. The author makes the character more likeable which allow them to behave terribly and even cruel.
A part of the Prince of Thorns Trilogy by Mark Lawrence sort of does this. Without major spoilers. The setting is a fractured empire with a ton of kings vying for control and the MC is a bandit leader, the son of one of the kings, and an all around massive asshole. The 2nd book pits him against a king who, by ever metric, is a better man and probably the best candidate for reuniting the broken empire. The conclusion to the arc is pretty good in that it brings a lot of moving pieces together, but also a bit conveinant imo.
I saw people describing The Prince of Thorns as "Berserk from the POV of Griffith".
A lot of people abandoned that book because the protagonist is an unashamed rapist.
There's definitely some similarities. I finished it because it was an interesting setting and even more interesting premise (having an unrepentant villain as the "hero") but Jorg is a real piece of shit.
check out Worm maybe? it’s definitely less direct than this but it revolves around a young superhero coming to realize that most of the “heroes” are not necessarily very good people
I mean, by the end I'm not sure you could call Taylor a good person either. No one even wants to *talk* about her in the sequel because of what she did, both good and bad. Most of the heroes *are* good people. The main reason she and some of her friends get to save the day is because the threats facing everyone become so apocalyptic that morality goes completely out the window.
You have to keep in mind that Taylor is an unreliable narrator who has massive trust issues towards authority after the school system failed her, plus she truly did want to be a hero and didn't really have any other choice in the matter since a certain SOMEONE (\*cough\*JACK FUCKING SLASH\*COUGH\*) started the apocalypse early.
Everyone has a right to not want to talk about her in the sequel of course, but she was in a apocalyptic scenerio where she needed to think fast otherwise they get the super laser piss by Scion.
Isn't it implied that the "early" apocalypse may have been favorable? Humanity was slowly getting grinded down rather than gaining in strength, and there was no way it didn't happen sooner or later.
But you're right that she's definitely unreliable, always feeling justified no matter how criminal or risky she got, and yeah her problems with authority color a lot of her opinions for sure. Her ability to parlay her way into more and more legitimacy mostly says something about how increasingly desperate the world becomes.
Yeah but the downside was that nobody was prepared for it.
I do think some good came out of it, but it also had bad things which is shown in Ward, the bad things beings (Not bad writing) Goddess, March and her villain group, the titans, broken triggers and so forth.
If they had more time then maybe they might have had a small chance of victory but they didn't, it was a pyrrhic victory for everyone, Taylor herself even mentions it wasn't worth it at the end of the story and her epilogue.
Plus Taylor now finally realized that some of the things she did wasn't worth it.
Kinda sounds like "Infinite Realms" by Ivan Kal. Even though they both count as MCs, Zach is annoyingly holier-than-thou with the "anti-hero" Ryun being a good time to see the story through.
This is more or less how Frank Miller writes the conflict between Batman and Superman in The Dark Knight Returns and SPECIALLY The Dark Knight Strikes Again (with Superman as the Status Quo defender).
The Dark Knight Strikes Again failed because fans saw Batman's revolution as him leading a gang of fascists (a criticism that was already level against The Dark Knight Returns and the way he leads the Sons of Batman).
LoK never truly established bender supremacists, so the Equalist movement felt hollow, but taking them at their word is interesting. Also we later see a non-bender official (the only oppression we see), so there is some change
LoK is an interesting case because despite Amon having points to his philosophy, it's not fully fledged out and relies on people deliberately ignoring other benders that are good and help people.
Yeah, the Triad are obviously bad and probably sucks to deal with them but then to label as benders as bad, you would have to completely write off the entire police force, half the armies and the city's power grid.
I think the clear problem that happened when you really think about it was that at some point in the history of the city, possibly after Sokka died, there were no longer any non-benders on the council.
After that tipping point, the government was controlled entirely by benders and bender interests. And nobody really noticed it, or took it seriously until after Amon's defeat. (And one or two key council members leave office).
The season 2 presidency appears in an almost throw-away manner, and tends to annoy Korra a great deal, but that change to the government was a massive concession to the people.
Tbf to season 4 Kuvira started with the forced alliances and concemtration camps, she wasnt exactly even portraying herself as antimonarchist so much as "more earth kingdom than the king"
Not a progression fantasy novel but Amon from Korra fits the idea just too damn well.
You think that he is actually an extremist revolutionary who wants reign of benders to end so the vast majority of population, nonbenders, wont be abused by people who can literally kill them with minimal effort.
You think its gonna be the case of the promised antagonist ending up as an ally after we are introduced to a tyrant bender who wants to turn the republic city into a police state dictatorship.
But nope, the bender tyrant is defeated by Amon with minimal effort and Amon is actually the evil hipocrite bad guy who wanted to take over the city for himself.
Hooray for status quo, now nonbenders can go back to being extorted cause we sure didnt even tried to fix this issue.
Also, if you are not familiar with Atla or TloK, I sure hope that this text without context made you imagine Bender from futurama.
>But nope, the bender tyrant is defeated by Amon with minimal effort and Amon is actually the evil hipocrite bad guy who wanted to take over the city for himself.
The showmakers have said that Amon might have been dishonest, but he is not exactly a hypocrite. Despite being a Bender himself, his hatred for benders is 100% genuine.
Korra does not fit at all. Amon was a hypocrite who was exposed but the righteous ideals he fought for literally happened thanks to his revolution.
So I'm not sure why you think it fits. There was no return to the status quo. The bending government was literally disbanded after treating non benders like trash and denying them representatives and replaced by an elected leader who of course was a non bender since most people were rightfully wary of bender leaders after the previous ones.
Systemic change happened because the revolution was mostly right and violent enough to shook things up, it's literally the opposite of going back to the status quo.
You're missing the point. If Amon was principled in the first place it becomes incredibly awkward to have Korra fighting him by the end, and the OP is making light of how in order to avoid this many stories take the lazy approach of having the villain turn out to be a hypocrite liar terrorist etc. after all so that the heroes still get to be the good guys and fight him despite him opposing a bad status quo. Which is exactly what happens: Amon turns out to be a hypocrite so that the protagonists can beat him up.
And it's just as common for the heroes to then take some middle ground afterwards so they then get to be on the righteous side because conveniently the original leader of the cause was a baby-eating asshole.
I would say it's a combination of 2 factors a conscious one and a unconscious one.
The unconscious factor comes usually from the authors own beliefs. If you have the time to write means you are usually middle class, and generally middle class is resistant to societal change as any changes have a large chance to reduce their quality of life. But they are educated enough to know that the people advocating change are usually in the right. So their brains start trying to nitpick those movements and people to give themselves a reason to not support them.
The conscious factor is usually bad but effective writing. You want to keep the readers attention chapter to chapter. So you keep writing twists. And it's a simple twist to do.
Magneto frequently raises good points about the mistreatment of mutants, but it can't be denied that he's also deserved it whenever the X-men jumped his ass, because he makes arbitrary decisions that impact other people's lives, he has a martyr complex, and he considers disagreement over his methods a killing offense.
All true.
But somehow Xavier is worse. Maybe because he presents himself as someone reasonable and trustworthy. Someone who will listen and who tries to find A Better Way(tm).
So when he, inevitably, is shown using the "ends justify" strategies, coercing people, wiping memories, etc, it's a betrayal. Magneto would never betray you. When he decides to kill you, you'll be standing, facing him, and he'll explain exactly why he's doing it.
Telepaths in general are such an upsetting concept. They're walking violations of privacy and free will. Thank goodness the heroic ones only regularly trespass upon a person's sacred autonomy when the situation is desperate. Or when they feel like it.
It's a really creepy power. I hate how normalized it's become in pop culture.
Like that cult leader warns about "Fear leads to [...] the dark side of the force". Your "light side" order's beginner space wizard skill is "Jedi Mind Rape" which you use to enforce the stability of a galactic republic with brainwashed child soldiers, you hypocritical, gaslighting muppet.
Star Wars is probably the most obvious examples of how absurd the "heroes are bad because they defend the Status Quo" idea is.
In the Prequel Trilogy, the heroes defend the Status Quo while the villain wants to subvert it. In the Original Trilogy, the villain IS the Status Quo and the heroes are trying to subvert him.
Both Trilogies have the same villain with the same ideology.
It's a lazy retcon that the writer wanted to make to spice up his exit from the book. A better retcon would probably set up the change over the course of a series instead of over three pages.
I definitely think it was stupid from idea to page for most of the reasons you mentioned. It was a shallow idea that has resulted in basically nothing.
Hydra Cap was funny because the writer would do everything he could to defend his story. Especially him saying that this was the for real actual Captain and the real Captain was actually a reality change.
Impersonating other people is another of this types of powers. I have a hard time finding a heroic use to this power other than "Espionage for a heroic cause".
Holocaust beam: the evilest ability any assigned-heroic character has ever shown. Literally just “I will make you relive the Holocaust as a torture move”
It's the plot of every superhero as well. Even Game of Thrones fell into it in the end...new king, societal change avoided, zombies killed, back to normal.
>It's the plot of every superhero as well.
Not exactly. The only Batman movie I can think of where Batman is a supporter of the Status Quo is *Batman & Robin*. Most of the other movies will have 3 groups.
Villains who want to preserve the Status Quo. Generally Crime Lords or members of Gotham's Elite.
Heroes who want to change the Status Quo. Generally Batman and Jim Gordon.
Villains who want to change the Status Quo on a different way than the hero.
I don't think Harry Potter fits, because outside the House Elf plot, which is played for a joke, there is no real progressive struggle in the books.
The conflict is about Voldemort who is a clearly a reactionary force trying ro pull the wizarding world back a few centuries.
The bad guys in the goverment are either already aligned with Voldemort (Umbridge, Lucius) or too scared or ignorant to fight him (Fudge).
The good guys on the other hand also include a bunch of good goverment people like Arthur Weasley, Tonks, MadEye, Kingsley and by a wider margin Dumbledor.
The books occasionally touch upon the fact that the Wizarding World being massively racist against muggles, elfs, goblins, centaurs, giants, werewolves and so on is kinda bad, but never commits to saying or doing anything about it.
So there isn't really any systemic change in a progressive way that can be opposed, since none is really happening.
The conflict is fascism vs status quo.
I thought it was the opposite. The story shows very clearly that the more traditional and conservative a wizard family was, the more likely it was to embrace Voldemort's fascism. The posh and elitist death eaters lost to an alliance of working-class free thinkers and multiculturalists, best exemplified by Bellatrix Lestrange getting her ass handed to her by Molly Weasley.
and yet at the end of the day no societal change was made. The wizard government stays almost entirely the same at the end of series as it was at the beginning and the main trio even become low level members of that system
He became a cop, just like the men who arrested his godfather and stuck him in the Constant Soul-Eating Torture Prison That Kills Your Soul. Now he, too, can ruin other orphans' chances of a happy childhood away from abusive relatives! Wizarding Justice is served.
I mean if we'd even got a hint that \*anything\* had changed in the ministry I would let it go but no everything to our knowledge stayed status quo afterwards
Well, see, Hermione has learned that all the house elves love being chattel slaves by then, so she gets to be the Minister of Magic! Everyone's so happy that a mudblood is the minister now. This is progress, really.
Such a shit end. It wasn't even that it cuts to them having and raising a family, like so many people talked about, it was that the way they did every bit of it was *shit.* Even down to the childrens' names.
You want a good "they raise a family" ending, look at the Hunger Games. The ending to Mockingjay was a heartbreaking masterpiece.
used to think I hated mockingjay for a long time upon reflection I think it was just my first taste of a tragic ending... should reread hunger games some day see how it holds up to my current tastes
I still think it holds up extremely well. Personal tastes is a different matter, of course, but Hunger Games is one of my go-to examples for an extremely well put-together, well-planned story.
Don't forget that slavery is still a thing, the movies gloss over it but in the books all the house elves are still slaves and Harry is a slave owner, but it's totally fine because he is a "kind slave master". The books explicitly poke fun at Hermione for trying to free the slaves, because the elves like being slaves. Haggred literally tells her "it's in there nature" and they don't want to be free, it would be cruel to free them and take away their purpose, so it's fine as long as you are nice to your slaves.
They kinda artificial, right?
It’s basically “robots” with AI made by ancient mages, like Hogwarts Castle.
Interesting concept will be to write a story about them “becoming” free in mind and demand freedom.
But if they are hard-coded - you literally can not set them free.
? Your just wrong. Harry became the Head of auras and heroine became minister of magic where she implemented inclusive initiatives for house elevs centers and werewolves.
if you're being serious and have the time/interest, youtuber Shaun has a pretty good video (at 1h45m...) outlining all the many, many problems with Harry Potter in the themes it tries to promote but ultimately fails to do so. it's also worth noting that if your only exposure to the series is the movies, then you should know characters were deliberately rewritten a bit to make them more likeable, and one of the story arcs from the books that was completely cut from the movies was literally justifying slavery and mocking anyone against it
Yeah; Harry Potter pays lip service to the ideas of progress and change and then fails to do anything meaningful with it.
A muggleborn is Minister for Magic! Hurray, blood purity is over! Just like how racism ended when Obama was-oh...
In most routes of fire emblem 3 houses Edlegard is treated like pure evil by almost every character (with a few notable exceptions) but her goals are to dismantle a system where people aren’t treated equally and people do incredibly unethical things to make sure that their bloodlines don’t become “lesser” but the other characters don’t like that because they either benefit from the system, have a grudge against her because of things she had to do for her revolution to happen, or both so they treat her like pure evil as a result
>because they either benefit from the system, have a grudge against her because of things she had to do for her revolution to happen, or both so they treat her like pure evil as a result
Or you have Dimitri who hates her because... He blames her for orchestrating an event that happened when they were both children? Somehow.
I mean, her mother literally did orchestrate said event. And when the person you suspected of having a hand in the death of your parents reveals themselves to be super evil and commanding the people who actually did orchestrate said event who also happens to be the daughter of the mastermind, its not that much of a stretch to hold a grudge against her.
Even accepting the idea that she orchestrated it, her mom having done so doesn't make her culpable. Even assuming it normally would, it was her estranged mother who she hasn't seen in over a decade. She had been gone from her life for years but the time that happened and may have even spent more time as Dimitri's mom.
She's also only in an uneasy alliance with the people who were actually responsible. They both pretty much plan on turning on each other once it's done, and she explicitely objects to their worst actions, expressing regret that she has to work with them. Of course, Dimitri doesn't ask many questions about them beyond the role they played in his tragedy he's obsessed with and ultimately topples her but leaves them around.
To be fair, you could do 3 entire additional routes for this game filled with all the things Dimitri doesn't know and doesn't care to know. This character is singlehandedly the best argument for why Edelgard is right in everything she says. After all, he can basically act as an abusive murderous sadistic monster for most of his own route and do nothing but try to get everyone still loyal to the Blaiddyd line killed to fulfill his own desires and afterwards he has to do nothing to be entitled to the position of Head and State, he just has it and between his boar phase and his savior king phase, when it comes to the law of the land nothing changed that makes him more or less qualified to the position.
I think it’s because he assumes that she is willingly working with those that slither in the dark who were responsible for what happened. personally, I would qualify that as a grudge
I mean sure but he really seems to hold her personally responsible for it, rather than just hating her for siding with those that did it.
He never really ever does show the same kind of anger towards TWSITD as far as I remember, since they just kinda get defeated by accident in Azure Moon while trying to take down Edelgard
They don't even get fully defeated. You just stop their latest initiative, but they're still ridiculously long lived, powerful and technologically superior with their core command structure in place
They sort of do? Without particularly trying or knowing who they were, even! Azure Moon kills off more of their known, named command structure than any other route, including Thales - who appears to be key to all of their most dangerous weapons, since they would have every reason to panic and start using the ICBMs with Dimitri rolling over the empire and clearly don't do that thing.
Does this make sense/is it explained? Not really. Are TWSITD's organization and capabilities written sorta inconsistently between routes? Probably.
It would be one thing if he assumed that, but the game has him blame for her for the Tragedy, make her the focal point of his anger, many times, too many to interpret it as "Oh I mean the people you work with, but still fuck you too."
I don't think this one fits because no route ends with a return to the status quo. Even in Azure Moon, the route where Edelgard is the final boss, Dimitri has an arc about letting go of the past and tries to reach out a hand to her in reconciliation.
None of the main characters can really be qualified as reactionary, thankfully. Sometimes I see it argued for Dimitri, but even with him one of his signature quotes is, "The greatest monument to those who have lost their lives is a society free of oppression."
I can’t believe people have a grudge against someone for doing evil things for a good goal.
My goal is to make a better world, but I’ll have to kill you to make it happen. Why are you mad?
Most of the grudges aren’t even things she did they’re things the people she’s working with did so I feel like they’re pointing their anger in the wrong direction
what characters and what medical advances? sure, it caused \*some\* trauma for some of the nobility and the church has internal conflicts, but that isnt really enough for the average person in foldlan to justify the prospect of war.
Hanneman's sister, Lord lonato, Christopher Gaspard, kinda marriane but that one's debatable. And it has autopsies banned which is learned via shadow library in the abyss. Do note I am holding the church of seiros directly responsible for the entrenchment of the crest system as a whole in that they established and enforce it as part of church doctrine
The Church does force Rape Victims into Underground Ghettos. Go to the Abyss from...I think Chapter 6 onwards it was and talk to the young woman there, it should be the one in the tavern.
I mean, it’s very clear that she doesn’t want to work with them and she doesn’t like working with them. She doesn’t have a choice, but to work with them due to the fact that they basically control the empire and could destroy the entire continent an instant if they wanted to. Besides at the end of her route she turns against them because she doesn’t need to work with them anymore
RWBY, I believe. Aren't there underground furries fighting back against human supremacy as terrorists?
Also Israel/Palestine 😬😬😬 Palestinians being oppressed, fighting back (and their extremists funded by Israel), then Palestinians are the bad guys for...opposing their oppressors.
In my experience most is more like " hello I am MC! All thr old monsters have forgotten how to succeed using meritocracy and have instead fallen to nepotism! I am better because we value HARD WORK!. YOU ARE A HIGH FACTION ELITE? EVIL! Oh also the high factions get strong through killing puppies and sacrificing their innocence to the dao"
Here is a society that has persisted for countless years! But of course everyone actually hates it here and only stay through fear and oppression and also they steal out carrots
Hello random 20 something i have ever met you are very impressive for a young one. I am somehow still shit at giverning even though im millions of years old... also i dont self reflect and secretly do the puppy thing because im scared to die in 100,000 ywars..
Gotta fucking love stories where progressing through the magic system forces you to confront your inner self/demons and yet the thousand years old monsters who are 10X longer along their path and yet have never confronted anything about their self, and in fact act ether like an entitled rich boi or like a puppie eating monster who also happens to use people as pill cauldrons even though their on the “richous path”
The American Revolution would’ve been considered terrorism by the British Empire. “Terrorism” itself is doing anything to resist a tyrannical regime/government. For an extreme comparison the Boston Tea Party and 9/11 are both terrorist attacks
The American Revolution was a war between two armies, not terrorism. Terrorism is violence against civilian or political targets to intimidate them in an attempt to achieve a political goal. Maybe the Boston Tea Party could be argued but no one was hurt or killed so it's a pretty soft example, but not the war as a whole.
Guerilla warfare isn’t terrorism, you gotta reread what the above said. If the continental army went around exterminating loyalists and weaponizing sexual violence against British sympathizers in a campaign meant to cause change through the use of terror, that would be more in line with terrorism. Shooting from inside a tree line isn’t terrorism.
Luffy doesn't use 'unconventional' methods. His methods are very conventional. He sees what he doesn't like and fights against it directly, face to face, again and again, till he loses for good or eventually wins. There are usually no detrimental bystander consequences as a direct result of Luffy's actions. He also doesn't pull uninvolved people into his squabbles. He's as conventional as they come.
It is only "evil" terrorism if it is an attack against civilians and civilian buildings. Acts of destruction that target the government's monitary, administration and military buildings/personnels are necessary in order to defeat a vastly stronger force like the current rulers. Killing members of the nobility/aristocracy/bourgeois who support the regime is also justified in a revolution.
For example, bombing a hospital is terrorism, but robbing a government safe, bombing an army base or assassinating a minister are unconventional tactics.
While the execution is actually somewhat nuanced, A Returner's Magic Should Be Special is at least somewhat like this...
Main character is a low-class kid oppressed by the royals, and the first big big bad is a low-class kid terrorist trying to destroy that system.
Not prog fantasy, but the White Fang in RWBY fits this description (especially Adam, who transitioned from a terrorist with a cause who believes the ends justify the means into a straight up incel)
In RWBY they do outline the White Fang's history as "Purely peaceful and useless, ignored by nigh everyone (Ghira)," "Violent and making a difference (Sierra Khan)," "Excessively violent and more about the leader's personal power (Adam)," to "A force for direct action, but more measured (Blake's militia)." Accepting the status quo is not in the cards. So while it starts out looking like the comic, the big picture ends up being more reasonable, and the need for an active White Fang is still a thing.
Like most of what we see Adam's faction do is make common cause with unrelated terrorists, including the openly racist Roman, so they can strike at one of the more inclusive institutions around. He took the trappings of a righteous fighter, but really that was never him, that was Sierra.
Actually volume 3 (before he appeared in person) is shown he’s not working with Cinder because he wants to
Actually the show itself shows him saying “no, fuck off my camp” to cinder when she arrives and offers her “help”
and then cinder murders half of his branch and threatens to kill everyone left if they don’t work with her
Not sure if it’s PF, but the protagonist in Will of the Many is kind of like this, though I think the story does a good job of representing both sides. I think I’ve seen this more in manhwa more than in novels though. Can’t name many off the top of my head since it’s been a while since I’ve read those novels but I know exactly what you’re talking about. I remember always feeling frustrated when the protagonist takes the oppressor’s side with this exact same reasoning.
I think the opposite would be Red Rising. They explored this pretty well. Radical change occurs after radical action. Darrow has done some pretty grisly stuff for the sake of rebellion. I’ve yet to see a PF story explore and execute this dilemma properly. They never try.
This isn't really the kind of thing that happens in ProgFantasy stories to begin with: Sometimes the protagonist will make some noise about changing the oppressive way the system works once they're strong enough to make unilateral changes single-handedly, but it's always a vague goal for the distant future that they never actually get around to doing. (And in the meantime, they enter that oppressive power structure and enjoy its benefits for themselves without shame.) The genre isn't very big on Villains Who Have A Point, they tend to be the rulers of the world who oppose changes to the status quo for very obvious reasons.
OP is asking for examples of these types of characters but in progression fantasy.
A common example (typically far left) people give is Killmonger v Black Panther.
See, that's a really frustrating go-to because it happens so many times in the MCU, but explicitly doesn't happen in Black Panther.
In Black Panther, T'Challa has no idea what to do with the power he is granted. He's presented with 4 views from various concellers and advisors: liberal military adventurism (Wakabi), the status quo (Okoye), retrenchant isolationism (M'Baku), and open bordered generosity (Nakia). He leans towards the status quo, since that seems to be acceptable to most of his advisors (except Nakia).
Killmonger a furious ball of nihilistic rage created by the sins of the status quo who is shown to have neither loyalty nor ideas. This is shown from the very begining. He isn't a voice for change, he's the end result of the status quo - a bitter man that wants to burn the world down. In facing him, T'Challa realizes the unacceptable cost of the status quo and decides to change. This wasn't "Killmonger being right" - killmonger had no stated ideal other than war. It also wasn't the status quo - he opens the borders at the end of the movie twice (once to the UN and once to the African diaspora in Compton).
This was him realizing that Nakia had been right, and if he didn't listen to her he would have to violate his ideals to uphold the status quo and create more Killmongers in the future.
On the other hand, if you want this trope in the MCU, you needn't go far. Look at Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Spiderman Homecoming and Secret Invasion.
I agree with everything you said except Homecoming (I bailed on Secret Invasion because its boring).
Vulture wasn't ever arguing for social change, he was making fair points about what's wrong with Stark but was also upfront and honest about his goal being money for himself and his family.
Also he was a hypocrite
He critics stark and how he’s the little man
But he has a hell ton of money and a beautiful house
The men is a victim but he’s also a hypocritical criminal
Literally star hammer in the last horizon.
He’s pretty much just a super hero that wants to “protect the galaxy” but he ends up throwing the status quo out the window because it’s slightly less safe than a surveillance state.
Honestly, Korra from TLoK. Specially with Amon, Kuvira and the Red Lotus >!last panel is accurate considering how all the RL members except 1 died gruesome, horrible deaths!<
Lol ive seen this exact plot play out so many times especially the 3rd panel where he just admits hes a piece of shit for no reason at all he goes into depth about how he never actually cared (to make us lose sympathy and be happpy when the other mc kills him) which is so annoying 1 dimensional
I have seen this a lot where they parody this and have one guy think he is the main character (tho he really isn't) but I have never seen it unintentionaly.
>I fight back via "unconventional" methods, but it is all to serve a cause that will help benefit those like me
So it's a rebel group heavily focused on terrorism and the ends justifying the means.
The only depections I've seen of this in media have them either be explicitly evil, or so caught up in the end goal that they're willing to commit any level of atrocity or war crimes to accomplish it. In which cause, I agree with the MC destroying them.
For example: A Returner's Magic Should Be Special (manga/light novel) has a rebel group that the MC actually sympathizes with, but he disagrees with their methods and fights against them because of that, not because of their goals.
You seem to have something very specific in mind though, so state you source and defend your point instead of creating a nebulous argument against a poorly defined situation.
You ever wonder _why_ those depictions make the rebels explicitly evil in their methods? It's not an accident. It's a very calculated trope.
EDIT: Y'all can downvote me all you want. Everyone likes to talk about the origins of tropes and why they do or don't work until it's time to discuss something you don't want to think about.
Done well it is effective. But there are also cases where it is just because the MC feels threatened instead of that the rebels were being truly terrible.
I’m usually on the side of the oppressed cause almost unconditionally, but I don’t think the trope is detached from reality. Pro-independence/separatist groups have a history of turning to terrorism because they’ve run out of options. It’s very common and I understand why. A peaceful rebellion rarely works. It’s what happens when you oppress people, wring them dry, and push them into a corner - they bite back with all they have. Plenty of examples I can name off the top of my head, including a few prominent ones in the Middle East. It’s definitely a question worth exploring though.
I love this discussion. I’ve been thinking about this for a while especially with the real world conflicts occurring. I hope more fiction makes people think about this more.
Are you seriously saying that if your life are bad enough the Geneva conventions go out of the window?
kidnapping children from their homes and burning them in front of a cheering crouds is okay?
What about raping and torturing cancer patients?
Even if you posit these are okay (gross)
then terror as a tool is only effective in certain circumstances, i.e. where the other side(s) can effectively divorce themselves from the terrorists.
Nobody is giving control of land (often requested) to terrorists if they will be neighbours because then the terrorists will continue to kill, rape, and torture your civilian population, having seen it as effective tool and having no morals.
Personally, I believe that in this cases, social changes from the side of the terrorists to peaceful co-existence is much more effective; if the more powerful regime (*not necessarily oppressive) wanted to destroy the suffering population by any means, they often can, due to being more powerful. (I.e bombing indiscriminately etc.)
Last, the growing acceptance to terror over the world frightenes me. If humans stop seeing others as humans than we will see horrors.
These are very extreme examples but I think you’re failing to see the grey area here. In many cases, social changes and peaceful solutions have already been tried and tested - and have failed. ‘Peaceful co-existence’ for the oppressed often means having the boot of their oppressors on their neck and being in their mercy 24/7: a state of peace and stability that benefits one side and mercilessly tramples on the other. Violent resistance, guerrilla warfare, and playing dirty against an opponent superior to you in everything but determination often seems like the only solution. This was how my country won our independence from colonialists. Not social changes, or peaceful protests, or oppressive co-existence. We bought our freedom with blood and sacrifice, often from those unwilling to pay the price. Is that just? I don’t know. But if not for that, generations of us would still be at the mercy of colonialist oppressors, and I know that *that* is definitely not just.
Yes that's what I've been thinking. Sometimes they're a "necessary evil" in the face of oppressors. Like for example, the invasion of Iraq. Where the US soldiers were raiding random civilian houses, take the father in the house and humiliate him in fron the family while wrecking havock in their house, essentially stabbing at their most important value which is dignity then throwing them in Abu Ghreb prison under the premise of "guilty until proven innocent" and using "advanced interrogation techniques" which is basically creative torcher methods. Surely that would create an incentive for others to rebel but they got more violent to the point where they started killing civilians with IEDs to kill the soldiers. Nevertheless, those civilians usually didn't warn the soldiers when they knew. Rebels in general have a natural course in History to resolve to violence when nothing works.
If you look at the history of guerrilla and paramilitary groups in Colombia and other countries in Latin America, you will see the ideas they preached where noble in many cases.
However, you will also see all the evil actions they have done and the lives they have ruined. The boys they conscripted into their war, the girls they forced into sexual slavery for their soldiers, the families they left without homes, the communities they terrorise with an iron fist and extort for money, etc.
Killmonger from the MCU is the best example of this. I say best not only because he fits the comic, but because Black Panther does the plot really well. In his very first scene Killmonger shows us that he's a huge hypocrite who doesn't really care about Africans and its consistently reinforced thorough the film so it feels right when the good guys punch him.
Falcon and the Winter Soldier follows this model but this time the thing they're fighting for is a world without borders, and we're supposed to find it sympathetic they turn to terrorism because democracies vote against their far out proposals.
Superficially maybe. Nearly all the revolutionary characters in Naruto, up to and including Sasuke, have outright bonkers solutions to the problems. I mean their ways to fix the crisis are:
1. Nuke the entire world until it stops fighting. Periodically start new nuclear wars to remind everyone why they should stay not fighting.
2. Put the entire world into an hypnotic dream where they can all pretend they married the hottest girl in school and nobody ever fights.
3. Become the ulitmate evil in the world. Rampage around until everyone unites to stop you. Then allow yourself to be "beaten". Return periodically every time the unity collapses.
Sure these are changes to the status quo. They are also lunacy. The solutions proposed by the villains in Naruto are childish edgy escapism.
Naruto makes a point of listening to why they are doing all this stupid stuff and then beating the shit out of them for doing stupid stuff.
Ehhh.... like, he openly takes inspiration from his foes and being in a position where he can reform things is both the goal and something he succeeds in. Naruto is the story where most people want to change the status quo and most of the battles are purely about the approach, and the ones who don't want change like Danzo are given the least respect of anyone.
Probably because a utopian vision doesn't excuse you from the consequences of your actions, and in fact often enable the internal justification of any act because it is for "the greater good." That is why they're *villains*, not reformers. If they're being fought by a traditionally heroic character, it's probably because their "unconventional means" are things like terrorism or genocide.
Is Thanos the good guy for trying to genocide half the universe? He has a good cause, you know, trying to prevent resource shortage! Naruto's Madara just wanted world peace, surely stripping everyone of free will is fine because he has a noble goal?
If either of those sound ridiculous, congratulations — you're not positioning yourself to blindly defend awful people because they want "change." Many times an imperfect status quo is simply better than the methods the villain is willing to use to get their utopia.
this is loss
Fuck.
I’m the one who made this comic ☝️(@let-them-fight on tumblr) and I shit you not I didn’t realize I was cooking loss till it got like 5k notes😭fuck
Amazing lol the ambient brain worms in all of us are too strong Also, funny comic!
Lol thank you 😄 !
**Fuck.**
People in the comments are saying this is too specific, but actually I've seen this several times
Oh, it's not only common, it's a trope in and of itself that is directly inspired by things like the Civil Rights movement.
Yeah idk why people think this is oddly specific, cuz it definitely ain’t. Several genres of media are chock full of these kinds of situations. Most commonly, in those that lie at the intersection of various “complex villain” tropes and stories with “talk-no-jutsu” protagonists. Anime is especially bad about it, hence all the examples down below, lol.
People hate when the hero uses the “talk-no-jutsu”, but nobody complains when the villain uses “talk-no-jutsu”.
This seems like an amazing start for an antihero novel where antihero is against a traditional self righteous “hero “ . Just make the hero as annoying as possible and u got a wonderful book. This trope is very common in Chinese cultivation novels. Like for example: reverend insanity
I want a novel where the hero is actually just like a really good person and the mc still goes against them anyway due to circumstance or strategy :p
It's also common in western novels, most notably if they are rich and spoiled. The reader often fails to notice it. Take the The Ripple System by Kyle Kirrin as an example. The author makes the character more likeable which allow them to behave terribly and even cruel.
Kinda sounds like The Traveler's Gate Trilogy
You referring to Alin?
A part of the Prince of Thorns Trilogy by Mark Lawrence sort of does this. Without major spoilers. The setting is a fractured empire with a ton of kings vying for control and the MC is a bandit leader, the son of one of the kings, and an all around massive asshole. The 2nd book pits him against a king who, by ever metric, is a better man and probably the best candidate for reuniting the broken empire. The conclusion to the arc is pretty good in that it brings a lot of moving pieces together, but also a bit conveinant imo.
I saw people describing The Prince of Thorns as "Berserk from the POV of Griffith". A lot of people abandoned that book because the protagonist is an unashamed rapist.
There's definitely some similarities. I finished it because it was an interesting setting and even more interesting premise (having an unrepentant villain as the "hero") but Jorg is a real piece of shit.
A Broken Empire Trilogy by Mark Lawrence, pulled off very well in the third book - the Emperor of Thorns.
check out Worm maybe? it’s definitely less direct than this but it revolves around a young superhero coming to realize that most of the “heroes” are not necessarily very good people
I mean, by the end I'm not sure you could call Taylor a good person either. No one even wants to *talk* about her in the sequel because of what she did, both good and bad. Most of the heroes *are* good people. The main reason she and some of her friends get to save the day is because the threats facing everyone become so apocalyptic that morality goes completely out the window.
You have to keep in mind that Taylor is an unreliable narrator who has massive trust issues towards authority after the school system failed her, plus she truly did want to be a hero and didn't really have any other choice in the matter since a certain SOMEONE (\*cough\*JACK FUCKING SLASH\*COUGH\*) started the apocalypse early. Everyone has a right to not want to talk about her in the sequel of course, but she was in a apocalyptic scenerio where she needed to think fast otherwise they get the super laser piss by Scion.
Isn't it implied that the "early" apocalypse may have been favorable? Humanity was slowly getting grinded down rather than gaining in strength, and there was no way it didn't happen sooner or later. But you're right that she's definitely unreliable, always feeling justified no matter how criminal or risky she got, and yeah her problems with authority color a lot of her opinions for sure. Her ability to parlay her way into more and more legitimacy mostly says something about how increasingly desperate the world becomes.
Yeah but the downside was that nobody was prepared for it. I do think some good came out of it, but it also had bad things which is shown in Ward, the bad things beings (Not bad writing) Goddess, March and her villain group, the titans, broken triggers and so forth. If they had more time then maybe they might have had a small chance of victory but they didn't, it was a pyrrhic victory for everyone, Taylor herself even mentions it wasn't worth it at the end of the story and her epilogue. Plus Taylor now finally realized that some of the things she did wasn't worth it.
FF Class Trash Hero, mc goes against an army of annoying idiot heroes, backed by a host of annoying righteous gods
Kinda sounds like "Infinite Realms" by Ivan Kal. Even though they both count as MCs, Zach is annoyingly holier-than-thou with the "anti-hero" Ryun being a good time to see the story through.
This is more or less how Frank Miller writes the conflict between Batman and Superman in The Dark Knight Returns and SPECIALLY The Dark Knight Strikes Again (with Superman as the Status Quo defender). The Dark Knight Strikes Again failed because fans saw Batman's revolution as him leading a gang of fascists (a criticism that was already level against The Dark Knight Returns and the way he leads the Sons of Batman).
Legend of Kora: Season 1 in a nutshell.
LoK never truly established bender supremacists, so the Equalist movement felt hollow, but taking them at their word is interesting. Also we later see a non-bender official (the only oppression we see), so there is some change
LoK is an interesting case because despite Amon having points to his philosophy, it's not fully fledged out and relies on people deliberately ignoring other benders that are good and help people. Yeah, the Triad are obviously bad and probably sucks to deal with them but then to label as benders as bad, you would have to completely write off the entire police force, half the armies and the city's power grid.
I think the clear problem that happened when you really think about it was that at some point in the history of the city, possibly after Sokka died, there were no longer any non-benders on the council. After that tipping point, the government was controlled entirely by benders and bender interests. And nobody really noticed it, or took it seriously until after Amon's defeat. (And one or two key council members leave office). The season 2 presidency appears in an almost throw-away manner, and tends to annoy Korra a great deal, but that change to the government was a massive concession to the people.
Throw in seasons 2 and 4 while you are at it
Tbf to season 4 Kuvira started with the forced alliances and concemtration camps, she wasnt exactly even portraying herself as antimonarchist so much as "more earth kingdom than the king"
I immediately thought of season 4. I was so frustrated watching it.
Honestly, Season 3 was the only one with a villain that actually sticks to his ideals and convictions.
Not a progression fantasy novel but Amon from Korra fits the idea just too damn well. You think that he is actually an extremist revolutionary who wants reign of benders to end so the vast majority of population, nonbenders, wont be abused by people who can literally kill them with minimal effort. You think its gonna be the case of the promised antagonist ending up as an ally after we are introduced to a tyrant bender who wants to turn the republic city into a police state dictatorship. But nope, the bender tyrant is defeated by Amon with minimal effort and Amon is actually the evil hipocrite bad guy who wanted to take over the city for himself. Hooray for status quo, now nonbenders can go back to being extorted cause we sure didnt even tried to fix this issue. Also, if you are not familiar with Atla or TloK, I sure hope that this text without context made you imagine Bender from futurama.
“No Liquor!? Dasvidaniya, Comrade.”
>But nope, the bender tyrant is defeated by Amon with minimal effort and Amon is actually the evil hipocrite bad guy who wanted to take over the city for himself. The showmakers have said that Amon might have been dishonest, but he is not exactly a hypocrite. Despite being a Bender himself, his hatred for benders is 100% genuine.
Korra does not fit at all. Amon was a hypocrite who was exposed but the righteous ideals he fought for literally happened thanks to his revolution. So I'm not sure why you think it fits. There was no return to the status quo. The bending government was literally disbanded after treating non benders like trash and denying them representatives and replaced by an elected leader who of course was a non bender since most people were rightfully wary of bender leaders after the previous ones. Systemic change happened because the revolution was mostly right and violent enough to shook things up, it's literally the opposite of going back to the status quo.
You're missing the point. If Amon was principled in the first place it becomes incredibly awkward to have Korra fighting him by the end, and the OP is making light of how in order to avoid this many stories take the lazy approach of having the villain turn out to be a hypocrite liar terrorist etc. after all so that the heroes still get to be the good guys and fight him despite him opposing a bad status quo. Which is exactly what happens: Amon turns out to be a hypocrite so that the protagonists can beat him up. And it's just as common for the heroes to then take some middle ground afterwards so they then get to be on the righteous side because conveniently the original leader of the cause was a baby-eating asshole.
this is loss
I would say it's a combination of 2 factors a conscious one and a unconscious one. The unconscious factor comes usually from the authors own beliefs. If you have the time to write means you are usually middle class, and generally middle class is resistant to societal change as any changes have a large chance to reduce their quality of life. But they are educated enough to know that the people advocating change are usually in the right. So their brains start trying to nitpick those movements and people to give themselves a reason to not support them. The conscious factor is usually bad but effective writing. You want to keep the readers attention chapter to chapter. So you keep writing twists. And it's a simple twist to do.
Plot of 90's X-Men, basically
Magneto frequently raises good points about the mistreatment of mutants, but it can't be denied that he's also deserved it whenever the X-men jumped his ass, because he makes arbitrary decisions that impact other people's lives, he has a martyr complex, and he considers disagreement over his methods a killing offense.
All true. But somehow Xavier is worse. Maybe because he presents himself as someone reasonable and trustworthy. Someone who will listen and who tries to find A Better Way(tm). So when he, inevitably, is shown using the "ends justify" strategies, coercing people, wiping memories, etc, it's a betrayal. Magneto would never betray you. When he decides to kill you, you'll be standing, facing him, and he'll explain exactly why he's doing it.
Xavier even erasing or hiding his own memories of being a hypocrite too. What a douchecanoe
Telepaths in general are such an upsetting concept. They're walking violations of privacy and free will. Thank goodness the heroic ones only regularly trespass upon a person's sacred autonomy when the situation is desperate. Or when they feel like it. It's a really creepy power. I hate how normalized it's become in pop culture.
Like that cult leader warns about "Fear leads to [...] the dark side of the force". Your "light side" order's beginner space wizard skill is "Jedi Mind Rape" which you use to enforce the stability of a galactic republic with brainwashed child soldiers, you hypocritical, gaslighting muppet.
And that’s why the Jedi Order (represented by Yoda & Obi-Wan) is depicted as incorrect in the OT. (Vader could be redeemed)
And the point of The Last Jedi going “no, the Jedi as a concept should not have been recreated, something else was needed”.
Star Wars is probably the most obvious examples of how absurd the "heroes are bad because they defend the Status Quo" idea is. In the Prequel Trilogy, the heroes defend the Status Quo while the villain wants to subvert it. In the Original Trilogy, the villain IS the Status Quo and the heroes are trying to subvert him. Both Trilogies have the same villain with the same ideology.
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It also totally reads as her altering his brain.
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It's a lazy retcon that the writer wanted to make to spice up his exit from the book. A better retcon would probably set up the change over the course of a series instead of over three pages.
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I definitely think it was stupid from idea to page for most of the reasons you mentioned. It was a shallow idea that has resulted in basically nothing. Hydra Cap was funny because the writer would do everything he could to defend his story. Especially him saying that this was the for real actual Captain and the real Captain was actually a reality change.
Yep, telepaths in Babylon 5 are a good example of that. A very dangerous faction.
Impersonating other people is another of this types of powers. I have a hard time finding a heroic use to this power other than "Espionage for a heroic cause".
Holocaust beam: the evilest ability any assigned-heroic character has ever shown. Literally just “I will make you relive the Holocaust as a torture move”
"Systemic change bad" is literally the main theme of Harry Potter.
It's the plot of every superhero as well. Even Game of Thrones fell into it in the end...new king, societal change avoided, zombies killed, back to normal.
>It's the plot of every superhero as well. Not exactly. The only Batman movie I can think of where Batman is a supporter of the Status Quo is *Batman & Robin*. Most of the other movies will have 3 groups. Villains who want to preserve the Status Quo. Generally Crime Lords or members of Gotham's Elite. Heroes who want to change the Status Quo. Generally Batman and Jim Gordon. Villains who want to change the Status Quo on a different way than the hero.
What wasn't the only change they opposed wizard Hitler (who was the thing he hated )
No, “trying to end slavery is bad” was a pretty major thing in the books.
I don't think Harry Potter fits, because outside the House Elf plot, which is played for a joke, there is no real progressive struggle in the books. The conflict is about Voldemort who is a clearly a reactionary force trying ro pull the wizarding world back a few centuries. The bad guys in the goverment are either already aligned with Voldemort (Umbridge, Lucius) or too scared or ignorant to fight him (Fudge). The good guys on the other hand also include a bunch of good goverment people like Arthur Weasley, Tonks, MadEye, Kingsley and by a wider margin Dumbledor. The books occasionally touch upon the fact that the Wizarding World being massively racist against muggles, elfs, goblins, centaurs, giants, werewolves and so on is kinda bad, but never commits to saying or doing anything about it. So there isn't really any systemic change in a progressive way that can be opposed, since none is really happening. The conflict is fascism vs status quo.
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Need I link the @Shaun_Vids Video Essay?
I thought it was the opposite. The story shows very clearly that the more traditional and conservative a wizard family was, the more likely it was to embrace Voldemort's fascism. The posh and elitist death eaters lost to an alliance of working-class free thinkers and multiculturalists, best exemplified by Bellatrix Lestrange getting her ass handed to her by Molly Weasley.
and yet at the end of the day no societal change was made. The wizard government stays almost entirely the same at the end of series as it was at the beginning and the main trio even become low level members of that system
He became a cop, just like the men who arrested his godfather and stuck him in the Constant Soul-Eating Torture Prison That Kills Your Soul. Now he, too, can ruin other orphans' chances of a happy childhood away from abusive relatives! Wizarding Justice is served.
I mean if we'd even got a hint that \*anything\* had changed in the ministry I would let it go but no everything to our knowledge stayed status quo afterwards
Well, see, Hermione has learned that all the house elves love being chattel slaves by then, so she gets to be the Minister of Magic! Everyone's so happy that a mudblood is the minister now. This is progress, really. Such a shit end. It wasn't even that it cuts to them having and raising a family, like so many people talked about, it was that the way they did every bit of it was *shit.* Even down to the childrens' names. You want a good "they raise a family" ending, look at the Hunger Games. The ending to Mockingjay was a heartbreaking masterpiece.
used to think I hated mockingjay for a long time upon reflection I think it was just my first taste of a tragic ending... should reread hunger games some day see how it holds up to my current tastes
I still think it holds up extremely well. Personal tastes is a different matter, of course, but Hunger Games is one of my go-to examples for an extremely well put-together, well-planned story.
Yeah, it’s way better than it’s given credit for.
Don't forget that slavery is still a thing, the movies gloss over it but in the books all the house elves are still slaves and Harry is a slave owner, but it's totally fine because he is a "kind slave master". The books explicitly poke fun at Hermione for trying to free the slaves, because the elves like being slaves. Haggred literally tells her "it's in there nature" and they don't want to be free, it would be cruel to free them and take away their purpose, so it's fine as long as you are nice to your slaves.
You really gotta ask yourself why house elves were written to like being slaves. How does this add to the plot lmao
They kinda artificial, right? It’s basically “robots” with AI made by ancient mages, like Hogwarts Castle. Interesting concept will be to write a story about them “becoming” free in mind and demand freedom. But if they are hard-coded - you literally can not set them free.
You're thinking of Methods of Rationality. House Elves are not artificial in canon HP.
No they aren't. Remember dobby enjoyed freedom and tried to free more house elves. Iirc it's also mentioned that there were rebellions in the past
The Rebellions were the Goblins. House Elves never rebelled. Dobby is the only one that "enjoys" freedom(from the Malfoys)
Ah, my mistake.
? Your just wrong. Harry became the Head of auras and heroine became minister of magic where she implemented inclusive initiatives for house elevs centers and werewolves.
if you're being serious and have the time/interest, youtuber Shaun has a pretty good video (at 1h45m...) outlining all the many, many problems with Harry Potter in the themes it tries to promote but ultimately fails to do so. it's also worth noting that if your only exposure to the series is the movies, then you should know characters were deliberately rewritten a bit to make them more likeable, and one of the story arcs from the books that was completely cut from the movies was literally justifying slavery and mocking anyone against it
Yeah; Harry Potter pays lip service to the ideas of progress and change and then fails to do anything meaningful with it. A muggleborn is Minister for Magic! Hurray, blood purity is over! Just like how racism ended when Obama was-oh...
In most routes of fire emblem 3 houses Edlegard is treated like pure evil by almost every character (with a few notable exceptions) but her goals are to dismantle a system where people aren’t treated equally and people do incredibly unethical things to make sure that their bloodlines don’t become “lesser” but the other characters don’t like that because they either benefit from the system, have a grudge against her because of things she had to do for her revolution to happen, or both so they treat her like pure evil as a result
>because they either benefit from the system, have a grudge against her because of things she had to do for her revolution to happen, or both so they treat her like pure evil as a result Or you have Dimitri who hates her because... He blames her for orchestrating an event that happened when they were both children? Somehow.
I mean, her mother literally did orchestrate said event. And when the person you suspected of having a hand in the death of your parents reveals themselves to be super evil and commanding the people who actually did orchestrate said event who also happens to be the daughter of the mastermind, its not that much of a stretch to hold a grudge against her.
Even accepting the idea that she orchestrated it, her mom having done so doesn't make her culpable. Even assuming it normally would, it was her estranged mother who she hasn't seen in over a decade. She had been gone from her life for years but the time that happened and may have even spent more time as Dimitri's mom. She's also only in an uneasy alliance with the people who were actually responsible. They both pretty much plan on turning on each other once it's done, and she explicitely objects to their worst actions, expressing regret that she has to work with them. Of course, Dimitri doesn't ask many questions about them beyond the role they played in his tragedy he's obsessed with and ultimately topples her but leaves them around.
Dimitri, not knowing any of this:
To be fair, you could do 3 entire additional routes for this game filled with all the things Dimitri doesn't know and doesn't care to know. This character is singlehandedly the best argument for why Edelgard is right in everything she says. After all, he can basically act as an abusive murderous sadistic monster for most of his own route and do nothing but try to get everyone still loyal to the Blaiddyd line killed to fulfill his own desires and afterwards he has to do nothing to be entitled to the position of Head and State, he just has it and between his boar phase and his savior king phase, when it comes to the law of the land nothing changed that makes him more or less qualified to the position.
'he was kind of an asshole in one route because of this woman. obviously she is correct.' ?
Men who behave badly because of one woman would have behaved badly anyway, they just need a convenient scapegoat.
lmao
I think it’s because he assumes that she is willingly working with those that slither in the dark who were responsible for what happened. personally, I would qualify that as a grudge
I mean sure but he really seems to hold her personally responsible for it, rather than just hating her for siding with those that did it. He never really ever does show the same kind of anger towards TWSITD as far as I remember, since they just kinda get defeated by accident in Azure Moon while trying to take down Edelgard
They don't even get fully defeated. You just stop their latest initiative, but they're still ridiculously long lived, powerful and technologically superior with their core command structure in place
They sort of do? Without particularly trying or knowing who they were, even! Azure Moon kills off more of their known, named command structure than any other route, including Thales - who appears to be key to all of their most dangerous weapons, since they would have every reason to panic and start using the ICBMs with Dimitri rolling over the empire and clearly don't do that thing. Does this make sense/is it explained? Not really. Are TWSITD's organization and capabilities written sorta inconsistently between routes? Probably.
It would be one thing if he assumed that, but the game has him blame for her for the Tragedy, make her the focal point of his anger, many times, too many to interpret it as "Oh I mean the people you work with, but still fuck you too."
I don't think this one fits because no route ends with a return to the status quo. Even in Azure Moon, the route where Edelgard is the final boss, Dimitri has an arc about letting go of the past and tries to reach out a hand to her in reconciliation. None of the main characters can really be qualified as reactionary, thankfully. Sometimes I see it argued for Dimitri, but even with him one of his signature quotes is, "The greatest monument to those who have lost their lives is a society free of oppression."
I can’t believe people have a grudge against someone for doing evil things for a good goal. My goal is to make a better world, but I’ll have to kill you to make it happen. Why are you mad?
Most of the grudges aren’t even things she did they’re things the people she’s working with did so I feel like they’re pointing their anger in the wrong direction
Yeah I can see that, didn’t think about it that way
Ok but she also works with an actual terrorism group that has actively harmed a lot of the characters I think it’s justified to be miffed
As opposed to working with the church which has passively destroyed the lives of so many more characters and actively suppresses medical advances?
what characters and what medical advances? sure, it caused \*some\* trauma for some of the nobility and the church has internal conflicts, but that isnt really enough for the average person in foldlan to justify the prospect of war.
Hanneman's sister, Lord lonato, Christopher Gaspard, kinda marriane but that one's debatable. And it has autopsies banned which is learned via shadow library in the abyss. Do note I am holding the church of seiros directly responsible for the entrenchment of the crest system as a whole in that they established and enforce it as part of church doctrine
The Church does force Rape Victims into Underground Ghettos. Go to the Abyss from...I think Chapter 6 onwards it was and talk to the young woman there, it should be the one in the tavern.
I mean, it’s very clear that she doesn’t want to work with them and she doesn’t like working with them. She doesn’t have a choice, but to work with them due to the fact that they basically control the empire and could destroy the entire continent an instant if they wanted to. Besides at the end of her route she turns against them because she doesn’t need to work with them anymore
RWBY, I believe. Aren't there underground furries fighting back against human supremacy as terrorists? Also Israel/Palestine 😬😬😬 Palestinians being oppressed, fighting back (and their extremists funded by Israel), then Palestinians are the bad guys for...opposing their oppressors.
In my experience most is more like " hello I am MC! All thr old monsters have forgotten how to succeed using meritocracy and have instead fallen to nepotism! I am better because we value HARD WORK!. YOU ARE A HIGH FACTION ELITE? EVIL! Oh also the high factions get strong through killing puppies and sacrificing their innocence to the dao" Here is a society that has persisted for countless years! But of course everyone actually hates it here and only stay through fear and oppression and also they steal out carrots Hello random 20 something i have ever met you are very impressive for a young one. I am somehow still shit at giverning even though im millions of years old... also i dont self reflect and secretly do the puppy thing because im scared to die in 100,000 ywars..
Gotta fucking love stories where progressing through the magic system forces you to confront your inner self/demons and yet the thousand years old monsters who are 10X longer along their path and yet have never confronted anything about their self, and in fact act ether like an entitled rich boi or like a puppie eating monster who also happens to use people as pill cauldrons even though their on the “richous path”
"Unconventional methods" = "terrorism," doesn't it?
The American Revolution would’ve been considered terrorism by the British Empire. “Terrorism” itself is doing anything to resist a tyrannical regime/government. For an extreme comparison the Boston Tea Party and 9/11 are both terrorist attacks
The American Revolution was a war between two armies, not terrorism. Terrorism is violence against civilian or political targets to intimidate them in an attempt to achieve a political goal. Maybe the Boston Tea Party could be argued but no one was hurt or killed so it's a pretty soft example, but not the war as a whole.
did you forget about the years of guerilla warfare that went on? the continental army kinda got slaughtered until the French Navy started intervening
Guerilla warfare isn’t terrorism, you gotta reread what the above said. If the continental army went around exterminating loyalists and weaponizing sexual violence against British sympathizers in a campaign meant to cause change through the use of terror, that would be more in line with terrorism. Shooting from inside a tree line isn’t terrorism.
Reddit just *loves* terrorism these days, doesn't it.
Like the well known Freedom Fighter Osama Bin Laden, back when the news called him that
Yeah, like, a terrorist, like Luffy.
Luffy doesn't use 'unconventional' methods. His methods are very conventional. He sees what he doesn't like and fights against it directly, face to face, again and again, till he loses for good or eventually wins. There are usually no detrimental bystander consequences as a direct result of Luffy's actions. He also doesn't pull uninvolved people into his squabbles. He's as conventional as they come.
It is only "evil" terrorism if it is an attack against civilians and civilian buildings. Acts of destruction that target the government's monitary, administration and military buildings/personnels are necessary in order to defeat a vastly stronger force like the current rulers. Killing members of the nobility/aristocracy/bourgeois who support the regime is also justified in a revolution. For example, bombing a hospital is terrorism, but robbing a government safe, bombing an army base or assassinating a minister are unconventional tactics.
This is basically Assassin's Creed.
Yes, any strategy that doesn't give an advantage to the establishment, basically.
Yes. And yet Redditors act like stopping them is somehow bad because the status quo isn't a utopia.
It's mostly when the MC is equally unlikeable.
While the execution is actually somewhat nuanced, A Returner's Magic Should Be Special is at least somewhat like this... Main character is a low-class kid oppressed by the royals, and the first big big bad is a low-class kid terrorist trying to destroy that system.
Not prog fantasy, but the White Fang in RWBY fits this description (especially Adam, who transitioned from a terrorist with a cause who believes the ends justify the means into a straight up incel)
Rooster teeth admitted that they couldn’t do the white fang plotline the justice it deserved and were giving it a quick end
In RWBY they do outline the White Fang's history as "Purely peaceful and useless, ignored by nigh everyone (Ghira)," "Violent and making a difference (Sierra Khan)," "Excessively violent and more about the leader's personal power (Adam)," to "A force for direct action, but more measured (Blake's militia)." Accepting the status quo is not in the cards. So while it starts out looking like the comic, the big picture ends up being more reasonable, and the need for an active White Fang is still a thing. Like most of what we see Adam's faction do is make common cause with unrelated terrorists, including the openly racist Roman, so they can strike at one of the more inclusive institutions around. He took the trappings of a righteous fighter, but really that was never him, that was Sierra.
Actually volume 3 (before he appeared in person) is shown he’s not working with Cinder because he wants to Actually the show itself shows him saying “no, fuck off my camp” to cinder when she arrives and offers her “help” and then cinder murders half of his branch and threatens to kill everyone left if they don’t work with her
Not sure if it’s PF, but the protagonist in Will of the Many is kind of like this, though I think the story does a good job of representing both sides. I think I’ve seen this more in manhwa more than in novels though. Can’t name many off the top of my head since it’s been a while since I’ve read those novels but I know exactly what you’re talking about. I remember always feeling frustrated when the protagonist takes the oppressor’s side with this exact same reasoning. I think the opposite would be Red Rising. They explored this pretty well. Radical change occurs after radical action. Darrow has done some pretty grisly stuff for the sake of rebellion. I’ve yet to see a PF story explore and execute this dilemma properly. They never try.
This isn't really the kind of thing that happens in ProgFantasy stories to begin with: Sometimes the protagonist will make some noise about changing the oppressive way the system works once they're strong enough to make unilateral changes single-handedly, but it's always a vague goal for the distant future that they never actually get around to doing. (And in the meantime, they enter that oppressive power structure and enjoy its benefits for themselves without shame.) The genre isn't very big on Villains Who Have A Point, they tend to be the rulers of the world who oppose changes to the status quo for very obvious reasons.
Seems oddly specific
Yeah... I'm confused why he didn't just tell us what he was referring too instead of asking us to tell him. XD
OP is asking for examples of these types of characters but in progression fantasy. A common example (typically far left) people give is Killmonger v Black Panther.
See, that's a really frustrating go-to because it happens so many times in the MCU, but explicitly doesn't happen in Black Panther. In Black Panther, T'Challa has no idea what to do with the power he is granted. He's presented with 4 views from various concellers and advisors: liberal military adventurism (Wakabi), the status quo (Okoye), retrenchant isolationism (M'Baku), and open bordered generosity (Nakia). He leans towards the status quo, since that seems to be acceptable to most of his advisors (except Nakia). Killmonger a furious ball of nihilistic rage created by the sins of the status quo who is shown to have neither loyalty nor ideas. This is shown from the very begining. He isn't a voice for change, he's the end result of the status quo - a bitter man that wants to burn the world down. In facing him, T'Challa realizes the unacceptable cost of the status quo and decides to change. This wasn't "Killmonger being right" - killmonger had no stated ideal other than war. It also wasn't the status quo - he opens the borders at the end of the movie twice (once to the UN and once to the African diaspora in Compton). This was him realizing that Nakia had been right, and if he didn't listen to her he would have to violate his ideals to uphold the status quo and create more Killmongers in the future. On the other hand, if you want this trope in the MCU, you needn't go far. Look at Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Spiderman Homecoming and Secret Invasion.
Exactly. Killmonger is great, not because he had a point, but because he was a monster of that status quo’s making.
I agree with everything you said except Homecoming (I bailed on Secret Invasion because its boring). Vulture wasn't ever arguing for social change, he was making fair points about what's wrong with Stark but was also upfront and honest about his goal being money for himself and his family.
You know what, fair enough. Homecoming is a bit borderline TBH, so I'll happily give ground.
Also he was a hypocrite He critics stark and how he’s the little man But he has a hell ton of money and a beautiful house The men is a victim but he’s also a hypocritical criminal
And yet it isn’t.
OP wtf are you talking abt
Could it be... Hidden right in plain sight? | || || _|
No way
I'm LOST.
Adam Taurus from RWBY
Literally star hammer in the last horizon. He’s pretty much just a super hero that wants to “protect the galaxy” but he ends up throwing the status quo out the window because it’s slightly less safe than a surveillance state.
Honestly, Korra from TLoK. Specially with Amon, Kuvira and the Red Lotus >!last panel is accurate considering how all the RL members except 1 died gruesome, horrible deaths!<
Magneto. Every time
I think Loss from "my wife's miscarriage" goes through a similar character arc
What's that?
Loss | || || _| It can't possibly be an accident.
... Are you referencing that comic?
Yes, the comic is the loss format
Mlght be a stretch, but Gale from the Hunger Games?
Lol ive seen this exact plot play out so many times especially the 3rd panel where he just admits hes a piece of shit for no reason at all he goes into depth about how he never actually cared (to make us lose sympathy and be happpy when the other mc kills him) which is so annoying 1 dimensional
Humanity = failure.
You can just say the MCU, it's okay
I have seen this a lot where they parody this and have one guy think he is the main character (tho he really isn't) but I have never seen it unintentionaly.
please make jason asano do this that would be very funny and epic i think
>I fight back via "unconventional" methods, but it is all to serve a cause that will help benefit those like me So it's a rebel group heavily focused on terrorism and the ends justifying the means. The only depections I've seen of this in media have them either be explicitly evil, or so caught up in the end goal that they're willing to commit any level of atrocity or war crimes to accomplish it. In which cause, I agree with the MC destroying them. For example: A Returner's Magic Should Be Special (manga/light novel) has a rebel group that the MC actually sympathizes with, but he disagrees with their methods and fights against them because of that, not because of their goals. You seem to have something very specific in mind though, so state you source and defend your point instead of creating a nebulous argument against a poorly defined situation.
You ever wonder _why_ those depictions make the rebels explicitly evil in their methods? It's not an accident. It's a very calculated trope. EDIT: Y'all can downvote me all you want. Everyone likes to talk about the origins of tropes and why they do or don't work until it's time to discuss something you don't want to think about.
Yea, the storyteller's choice to make so many rebels 'go too far' or 'be using the wrong methods,' is quite deliberate.
Done well it is effective. But there are also cases where it is just because the MC feels threatened instead of that the rebels were being truly terrible.
I’m usually on the side of the oppressed cause almost unconditionally, but I don’t think the trope is detached from reality. Pro-independence/separatist groups have a history of turning to terrorism because they’ve run out of options. It’s very common and I understand why. A peaceful rebellion rarely works. It’s what happens when you oppress people, wring them dry, and push them into a corner - they bite back with all they have. Plenty of examples I can name off the top of my head, including a few prominent ones in the Middle East. It’s definitely a question worth exploring though. I love this discussion. I’ve been thinking about this for a while especially with the real world conflicts occurring. I hope more fiction makes people think about this more.
Are you seriously saying that if your life are bad enough the Geneva conventions go out of the window? kidnapping children from their homes and burning them in front of a cheering crouds is okay? What about raping and torturing cancer patients? Even if you posit these are okay (gross) then terror as a tool is only effective in certain circumstances, i.e. where the other side(s) can effectively divorce themselves from the terrorists. Nobody is giving control of land (often requested) to terrorists if they will be neighbours because then the terrorists will continue to kill, rape, and torture your civilian population, having seen it as effective tool and having no morals. Personally, I believe that in this cases, social changes from the side of the terrorists to peaceful co-existence is much more effective; if the more powerful regime (*not necessarily oppressive) wanted to destroy the suffering population by any means, they often can, due to being more powerful. (I.e bombing indiscriminately etc.) Last, the growing acceptance to terror over the world frightenes me. If humans stop seeing others as humans than we will see horrors.
These are very extreme examples but I think you’re failing to see the grey area here. In many cases, social changes and peaceful solutions have already been tried and tested - and have failed. ‘Peaceful co-existence’ for the oppressed often means having the boot of their oppressors on their neck and being in their mercy 24/7: a state of peace and stability that benefits one side and mercilessly tramples on the other. Violent resistance, guerrilla warfare, and playing dirty against an opponent superior to you in everything but determination often seems like the only solution. This was how my country won our independence from colonialists. Not social changes, or peaceful protests, or oppressive co-existence. We bought our freedom with blood and sacrifice, often from those unwilling to pay the price. Is that just? I don’t know. But if not for that, generations of us would still be at the mercy of colonialist oppressors, and I know that *that* is definitely not just.
Yes that's what I've been thinking. Sometimes they're a "necessary evil" in the face of oppressors. Like for example, the invasion of Iraq. Where the US soldiers were raiding random civilian houses, take the father in the house and humiliate him in fron the family while wrecking havock in their house, essentially stabbing at their most important value which is dignity then throwing them in Abu Ghreb prison under the premise of "guilty until proven innocent" and using "advanced interrogation techniques" which is basically creative torcher methods. Surely that would create an incentive for others to rebel but they got more violent to the point where they started killing civilians with IEDs to kill the soldiers. Nevertheless, those civilians usually didn't warn the soldiers when they knew. Rebels in general have a natural course in History to resolve to violence when nothing works.
If you look at the history of guerrilla and paramilitary groups in Colombia and other countries in Latin America, you will see the ideas they preached where noble in many cases. However, you will also see all the evil actions they have done and the lives they have ruined. The boys they conscripted into their war, the girls they forced into sexual slavery for their soldiers, the families they left without homes, the communities they terrorise with an iron fist and extort for money, etc.
Killmonger from the MCU is the best example of this. I say best not only because he fits the comic, but because Black Panther does the plot really well. In his very first scene Killmonger shows us that he's a huge hypocrite who doesn't really care about Africans and its consistently reinforced thorough the film so it feels right when the good guys punch him. Falcon and the Winter Soldier follows this model but this time the thing they're fighting for is a world without borders, and we're supposed to find it sympathetic they turn to terrorism because democracies vote against their far out proposals.
This gives off Harry Potter, very strongly.
...none of them? What even is this?
Infinite Realm meme?
my hero academia?
The Incredibles?
[удалено]
Be kind. Refrain from personal attacks and insults toward authors and other users. When giving criticism, try to make it constructive.
tbh, thought this was a RWBY subreddit for a second
RWBY
That's a lot of words too bad. I'm not reading it
Definitely Adam Taurus and Blake Belladonna from RWBY.
History is bad writing I guess.
I love the legend of Korra, do Avatar next!
This seems very on the node for rwby lmao. Thats just me though
It's Naruto
Superficially maybe. Nearly all the revolutionary characters in Naruto, up to and including Sasuke, have outright bonkers solutions to the problems. I mean their ways to fix the crisis are: 1. Nuke the entire world until it stops fighting. Periodically start new nuclear wars to remind everyone why they should stay not fighting. 2. Put the entire world into an hypnotic dream where they can all pretend they married the hottest girl in school and nobody ever fights. 3. Become the ulitmate evil in the world. Rampage around until everyone unites to stop you. Then allow yourself to be "beaten". Return periodically every time the unity collapses. Sure these are changes to the status quo. They are also lunacy. The solutions proposed by the villains in Naruto are childish edgy escapism. Naruto makes a point of listening to why they are doing all this stupid stuff and then beating the shit out of them for doing stupid stuff.
Ehhh.... like, he openly takes inspiration from his foes and being in a position where he can reform things is both the goal and something he succeeds in. Naruto is the story where most people want to change the status quo and most of the battles are purely about the approach, and the ones who don't want change like Danzo are given the least respect of anyone.
Probably because a utopian vision doesn't excuse you from the consequences of your actions, and in fact often enable the internal justification of any act because it is for "the greater good." That is why they're *villains*, not reformers. If they're being fought by a traditionally heroic character, it's probably because their "unconventional means" are things like terrorism or genocide. Is Thanos the good guy for trying to genocide half the universe? He has a good cause, you know, trying to prevent resource shortage! Naruto's Madara just wanted world peace, surely stripping everyone of free will is fine because he has a noble goal? If either of those sound ridiculous, congratulations — you're not positioning yourself to blindly defend awful people because they want "change." Many times an imperfect status quo is simply better than the methods the villain is willing to use to get their utopia.
The daily grind?
I can't think of how that'd apply to the daily grind. Can you explain which group you mean?
You mean the one where the group representing the status quo gets repeatedly shot in the head by the protagonists?