Implications of reader sympathy for "unholy abominations"

This was most directly inspired by Morphic, a Pokemon fanfic involving half-human half-Pokemon characters, but it also comes from X Men, Phantom Brave, and just about any story that uses All of the Other Reindeer or Dark Is Not Evil. Again and again, we see one or more factions appear that think the protagonists are inhuman abominations. Typically, these factions grow to significant proportions. But I've only encountered one real-life individual who considered the X-Men abominations. In fact, sympathy for such characters as underdogs is so widespread that even major Hollywood movies, which typically do their best not to alienate anyone, portray the "kill that which is different" mindset as misguided at best and evil at worst. What implications does this have, and how might this be utilized by real-life minorities (which admittedly tend to be less "kewl" than fictional ones)?

Edit: Apparently, I didn't phrase that well. I'll retry that below.

edited 25th May '11 10:42:33 PM by feotakahari

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

^ Could you please rephrase that? I have no clue what you're trying to say.

If I'm asking for advice on a story idea, don't tell me it can't be done.

^There are stories/fics which try to make readers sympathetic for non-human people oppressed by humans. Who in turn react by thinking all Humans Are Bastards and that they should kill them all.

For example, story tries to make you feel sympathy for mutants in X Men like this: They are oppressed by humanity and mutants react to that by wanting kill all humans.

Unless I understood OP wrong and this isn't about the supposed sympathetic groups doing unsympathetic things

He's saying that stories never portray the oppression of minorities as a good thing, and in fact that audience is naturally inclined to root for the underdog. Thus, something something about real-life prejudice.

I feel this way at times OP. I'm one of those folks who feel that social ostrasization to discourage certain behavior is a positive thing.

Oh, okay.*read the OP again* Yeah, I misunderstood it xD

Let's retry this: to what degree does the thought "the X-Men are okay even though they're different" prevent the thought "black people are scary because they're different," and is it possible to utilize this for tolerance?

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

I disagree. Social ostracism is incredibly cruel, and I can't think of anything that is social ostracized where there isn't a much better way of dealing with it.

Back to the topic, with X-Men, I was in support of the Mutant Registration Act guys. Sure, some mutants may not want it known that they're mutants, but that really doesn't hold weight compared to the issue of police needing to know that the guy they're apprehending can throw fireballs at them. I could see not letting every ordinary joe have access to the mutant registry, but they definitely needed to have one, same as we need a registry of who owns a gun.

If I'm asking for advice on a story idea, don't tell me it can't be done.

^ But you weren't saying "The X-Men need to die or be forcibly depowered to prevent them from killing off humanity." (For the record, the film critic Mick LaSalle did say that in his review of X3, but everyone else seemed to think he was crazy.)

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

Some of them should've been forcibly depowered, if that could be done safely. If I was a judge in that world, I'd gladly approve for Magneto to be forcibly depowered.

If I'm asking for advice on a story idea, don't tell me it can't be done.

Many of them are definitely too dangerous to be kept alive. Others not so much, many can be beneficial to the world as it stands.

I don't think those are likely to even be real thoughts that people have. The X-Men are protagonists in a story. That makes a big difference. We can see them talk amongst themselves and read their thought balloons. We can get to know them as 3-dimensional characters. We relate to them. We see them at their worst and their best, whereas for the most part, we only see the humans who fear and hate them at their worst. If we weren't readers, but actual people living in the Marvel Universe, we wouldn't know about Wolverine's softer side; we'd just know he's a surly-looking guy in a mask with claws. That's the position real people are in when it comes to members of unfamiliar groups. Anyone can believe "different doesn't mean bad" on an intellectual level, but that doesn't make the unknown any less scary.

the film Bladerunner makes a good contrast it's source material Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep. In the film the replicants are dangerous but portrayed as semi sympathetic underdogs. The book on the other hand they are a lot more brutal, it's even a plot point that replicants are not only devoid of any human empathy but are actually incapable of it.

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