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alias_sqbrSo. We have a 'villain' character who has done objectively terrible things. In a rigid good-vs-evil dichotomy, they would generally be classified as evil.
And we have a fic where this 'villain' is now the sympathetic protagonist, possibly involving some sort of redemption arc or AU.
There are some villains I just can't read such fic about, but in this case I am open to the idea.
My preference is for the fic to not have a rigid good-vs-evil dichotomy, and instead either see pretty much everyone as having the potential to be good, or cheerfully wallow in shades of grey. There can be some glossing over of the villain's sharper edges, but for the most part I want the moral framework to be consistent with the events of canon, just one which has space for sympathy towards characters as "bad" as the protagonist.
But a great many fics just create a new moral framework with it's own rigid good-vs-evil dichotomy, and set things up so the 'villain' is now on the side of Good, and other canon characters are on the side of evil, even though their actions in canon aren't significantly worse than the villain's.
Which is perfectly valid as an approach, but unless I think canon is wrong about the villain doing bad things, I will not enjoy this kind of narrative at all.
Note that this is about fanfic based on an existing canon. My feelings on original works which turn bad guys into good guys etc are broadly similar, but harder to sum up.
I used to think my problem with these stories was that they were being unfair. Because often they are! The new moral framework often excuses the villain for doing appalling things, yet demonises the new 'bad guys' for much more minor 'badness'. Often, these new 'bad guys' are the villain's canonical victims, since if they're bad then the villain having hurt them seems ok. Instead of acknowledging that these victims have a right to be angry, the narrative portrays them as mean for hurting the poor villain with their 'cruel' and 'whiny' expressions of pain and anger.
Like the other day I read a fic where a character was yelled at by all the other characters for being so cruel as to not want to invite someone to a social event she was running just because he'd recently violently colonised her country.
And I have given up on reading Snape-centric fic because pretty much all of it demonises Lily.
I don't think people are bad for writing this kind of fic, I can see the appeal intellectually, but it has never felt surprising to me that I dislike it.
But yesterday I read a fic which wasn't super unfair, yet still bothered me. It was sympathetic to villain A and set up a moral framework where he shouldn't have murdered two innocent people for fun, and should atone for it, but was still a good person because he felt bad about it, and was capable of unselfish love and kindness. But villain B was a bad person because he murdered people for fun all the time, and never cared about anyone's feelings but his own ever.
And like...that is a canonical difference between those characters, and a consistent moral framework. I'm not a fan of good=capable of love, and some of A's flaws got glossed over. But overall, that's not super unreasonable, as "moral frameworks where it's ok to have murdered people for fun" go.
And I didn't like it! I was fine with A as sympathetic hero, but found myself feeling weirdly defensive of villain B, who is an objectively appalling person I have never been inclined to care about. In fact knowing he has fans has always slightly baffled me, because he's so awful! I have no problem with him being treated like a bad guy in canon or most other kinds of fic.
But when I was in the headspace of being sympathetic enough to villain A for him to be the hero, I was automatically also in a headspace to be somewhat sympathetic to villain B. A might not be generally prone to murdering innocent people just for fun, but is very prone to many other sorts of murder, as well as lying, back-stabbing, etc. He is portrayed as a villain in canon for a reason! And B, for all his awfulness, does have some flickers of sympathetic motivations and actions which aren't entirely unlike A's. The fic liking A more than B was fine, but I found it jarring every time it drew a bright clean line between them.
At the same time, I intellectually understand the appeal of A being told "evil exists, it looks like B, and you are good instead of evil because you are better than that". It just doesn't do much for me.
Thinking about it, I can enjoy stories which still have a good vs evil dichotomy, but have just shifted it so that most characters, including the 'villain', are good. The ones still classified as evil are genuinely much worse than the 'villain', and those in the grey area between are treated with some compassion.
If I'm reading a story with a canon villain being seen as Good, I want an emphasis on compassion and seeing the good in everyone. The narrative and villain should acknowledge the people they hurt, and that they would be justified in being angry/disliking the villain, but I want everyone to end up on moderately good terms. I can roll with a moderate amount of OOC glossing over of the villain's flaws, but only if the narrative is just as generous to everyone else. Steven Universe and She-ra and the Princesses of Power are both canons which take this kind of approach to characters formerly portrayed as villains.
I can also enjoy more morally ambiguous stories with an edge of darkness/dark humour which acknowledge that the villain is still kind of an asshole, but they should be self aware about their moral ambiguity and not act like the villain is Good in a simplistic way. Portal 2 does this for example with the villain of Portal 1, but it doesn't pretend she isn't still murderously terrible, and the new villain for Portal 2 is kinda sympathetic in his own likably terrible way.
So yeah! It feels good to have figured this out, even if it probably won't make finding villain-as-hero stories I like all that much easier.
And we have a fic where this 'villain' is now the sympathetic protagonist, possibly involving some sort of redemption arc or AU.
There are some villains I just can't read such fic about, but in this case I am open to the idea.
My preference is for the fic to not have a rigid good-vs-evil dichotomy, and instead either see pretty much everyone as having the potential to be good, or cheerfully wallow in shades of grey. There can be some glossing over of the villain's sharper edges, but for the most part I want the moral framework to be consistent with the events of canon, just one which has space for sympathy towards characters as "bad" as the protagonist.
But a great many fics just create a new moral framework with it's own rigid good-vs-evil dichotomy, and set things up so the 'villain' is now on the side of Good, and other canon characters are on the side of evil, even though their actions in canon aren't significantly worse than the villain's.
Which is perfectly valid as an approach, but unless I think canon is wrong about the villain doing bad things, I will not enjoy this kind of narrative at all.
Note that this is about fanfic based on an existing canon. My feelings on original works which turn bad guys into good guys etc are broadly similar, but harder to sum up.
I used to think my problem with these stories was that they were being unfair. Because often they are! The new moral framework often excuses the villain for doing appalling things, yet demonises the new 'bad guys' for much more minor 'badness'. Often, these new 'bad guys' are the villain's canonical victims, since if they're bad then the villain having hurt them seems ok. Instead of acknowledging that these victims have a right to be angry, the narrative portrays them as mean for hurting the poor villain with their 'cruel' and 'whiny' expressions of pain and anger.
Like the other day I read a fic where a character was yelled at by all the other characters for being so cruel as to not want to invite someone to a social event she was running just because he'd recently violently colonised her country.
And I have given up on reading Snape-centric fic because pretty much all of it demonises Lily.
I don't think people are bad for writing this kind of fic, I can see the appeal intellectually, but it has never felt surprising to me that I dislike it.
But yesterday I read a fic which wasn't super unfair, yet still bothered me. It was sympathetic to villain A and set up a moral framework where he shouldn't have murdered two innocent people for fun, and should atone for it, but was still a good person because he felt bad about it, and was capable of unselfish love and kindness. But villain B was a bad person because he murdered people for fun all the time, and never cared about anyone's feelings but his own ever.
And like...that is a canonical difference between those characters, and a consistent moral framework. I'm not a fan of good=capable of love, and some of A's flaws got glossed over. But overall, that's not super unreasonable, as "moral frameworks where it's ok to have murdered people for fun" go.
And I didn't like it! I was fine with A as sympathetic hero, but found myself feeling weirdly defensive of villain B, who is an objectively appalling person I have never been inclined to care about. In fact knowing he has fans has always slightly baffled me, because he's so awful! I have no problem with him being treated like a bad guy in canon or most other kinds of fic.
But when I was in the headspace of being sympathetic enough to villain A for him to be the hero, I was automatically also in a headspace to be somewhat sympathetic to villain B. A might not be generally prone to murdering innocent people just for fun, but is very prone to many other sorts of murder, as well as lying, back-stabbing, etc. He is portrayed as a villain in canon for a reason! And B, for all his awfulness, does have some flickers of sympathetic motivations and actions which aren't entirely unlike A's. The fic liking A more than B was fine, but I found it jarring every time it drew a bright clean line between them.
At the same time, I intellectually understand the appeal of A being told "evil exists, it looks like B, and you are good instead of evil because you are better than that". It just doesn't do much for me.
Thinking about it, I can enjoy stories which still have a good vs evil dichotomy, but have just shifted it so that most characters, including the 'villain', are good. The ones still classified as evil are genuinely much worse than the 'villain', and those in the grey area between are treated with some compassion.
If I'm reading a story with a canon villain being seen as Good, I want an emphasis on compassion and seeing the good in everyone. The narrative and villain should acknowledge the people they hurt, and that they would be justified in being angry/disliking the villain, but I want everyone to end up on moderately good terms. I can roll with a moderate amount of OOC glossing over of the villain's flaws, but only if the narrative is just as generous to everyone else. Steven Universe and She-ra and the Princesses of Power are both canons which take this kind of approach to characters formerly portrayed as villains.
I can also enjoy more morally ambiguous stories with an edge of darkness/dark humour which acknowledge that the villain is still kind of an asshole, but they should be self aware about their moral ambiguity and not act like the villain is Good in a simplistic way. Portal 2 does this for example with the villain of Portal 1, but it doesn't pretend she isn't still murderously terrible, and the new villain for Portal 2 is kinda sympathetic in his own likably terrible way.
So yeah! It feels good to have figured this out, even if it probably won't make finding villain-as-hero stories I like all that much easier.
