Deconstructing Badass: Harder than it sounds?

There had been many attempts to decosntruct or at least show the flaws of this ideal or wish fulfillment but so far it had the opposite effect. Unfortunately, even I am not free from this. This trope deosn't seem like it can be deconstructed, no matter what happens the character ends up doing the most badass things known to man aand soem characters are more badass than others. How can use this trope in a meta manner to show why it may not be as awesome as it sounds?

What have you already tried?

Deconstructomg wishfullfullment is easy...you just need reality.

Bolt deconstructed Bad Ass nicely. All his badassery was a lie. You could try making a Bad Ass being not so badassd in a realistic setting.

For example a movie Badass that is only cool and unrealistic in a movie land and then gets dragged in the real world were he actually needs to be in danger and learn skills( hard way ) to survive

edited 8th Jun '11 9:52:50 PM by FallenLegend

You don't want to copy something that already exists, do you? D:

edited 8th Jun '11 9:58:00 PM by OrangeAipom

Well not really but I try to make things original or something close to it.

It depends on what you consider a badass.

If you just mean "that one guy who happens to be real strong and does shit himself" then I don't know.

If you mean the cool, stoic and non-hesitant sort, then you could always just have allies get scared of him for seeming like a sociopath.

One step that I have taken is to demonstrate just how utterly alone someone like this would be. Even among soldiers, there is always someone else to speak to, but for someone who is literally among the best, there is almost no one else with whom to share the experiences they have suffered. Similarly, this inward turning, while leading to a great dedication, also prevents them from having meaningful relationships. Just a point to start from.

Didn't MGS 2 do a pretty good job with Raiden?

Another point is probably just the type of mindset that would allow him to be so badass. By which I mean borderline sociopathy, indifference, disregard for life etc. There's also the associated mental traumas, and the fact that the cool and collected facade he puts up is usually just that. A fake front to mask his real feelings and opinions so he can do his work. I've thought quite a bit on this subject. Deconstructing the stereotypical badass is something which I very much want to do myself.

Huh, I thought it was something pretty easy:

Ask yourself; what did the character sacrifice for his badassery?

For example, if you are going for realism, your average badass will spend so much time training that he wouldn't have much time to do anything, not socializing and all. Also, if he's a normal human, being in a situation that requires him to badass will naturally put a lot of mental and physical burden on him and eventually, he will wear himself out.

GAP: I meant that Fallen Legend was suggesting that you plagiarize a Disney movie.

I'm not sure what kind of badass you're talking about, but the idea comes to mind of a character who tries to solve problems like a violent action hero and just ends up getting in jail because he/she punched someone for being insulting (or even just getting in the way by accident) and expects people to cheer for him/her because "I just showed how tough I am, RARR!!" and is all shocked when few are impressed by such a violent act. Or the badass character has issues with people who aren't as tough as he/she is and sees everything in terms of the What Measure Is A Non Bad Ass trope and abuses people thinking it'll "toughen them up" and "show them what life is really like." As other people have mentioned, a deconstruction could easily show how much of a lack of empathy such a character would have. Or just show the real-life consequences of acting like a violent action hero in non-action hero situations. Like a Fish out of Water situation where the badass doesn't realize he/she isn't on the battlefield anymore.

Unfortunately, such a character would probably have a misaimed fandom, even if he/she was presented as a Complete Monster type of violent thug, simply because some people like to see violent scenes and might get upset that the "badass" was punished for being violent. Although a way to alleviate this would be to focus more on the suffering of the victims. You could even startle the audience by having it start out like a typical action movie where the hero mows down faceless mooks but then the story cuts to the suffering of those "mooks" and their families, thus deconstructing the "What Measure Is a Mook?" as well.

Another idea is that the badassery of the character comes from an inability to feel pain, which is a real condition that would mean that the character isn't able to tell when there's something wrong with his/her body and thus doesn't get medical treatment. Or someone who can feel pain but refuses to get treatment because they think "I can endure it, I'm tough" which just ends up making things worse.

Would likely be a depressing story, unless it ended up inverting the Took A Level In Bad Ass trope by having the psychotic badass become a better person by learning NOT to view life as a violent action movie and to stop being so "badass." There's a reason "badass" has "bad" in it, and such a story could show why.

edited 9th Jun '11 12:32:42 PM by Rainbow

Honestly, the best deconstruction of badassery I've seen so far is Kamina from Gurren Lagann, people in-universe see him as the ultimate badass who won't give up no matter what (his latest fights even take it to the point that characters honestly believe he'll die), but he himself admited that he's not nearly as badass as he pretends to be, and that he only acts like that to inspire the real badasses (Simon, specially) to do their stuff.

Also, the blow that killed him wasn't even aimed at him, and his rival doesn't even believe he died because he though he was inmortal.

You could had fooled me. TTGL is nothing but badass.

edited 9th Jun '11 3:17:54 PM by GAP

That... doesn't really sound like a deconstruction.

The problem, in my opinion, with trying to deconstruct baddassery is that it's such a broad concept. A badass can be a hero or a villain. They may be badass in their setting but a complete wuss in another. Someone who thinks BobaFett is the badass of our times may see Marv as a glorified mook.

If I remember right, Rorschach was supposed to be a deconstruction of a badass, and people still love him.

I really mean it, Kamina on the surface is nothing but manly, awesome and invincible, but we're also shown how hard was it for him to keep his facade up, and he died very easily (yes, he does some crazy stuff before dying, but at that point he was already doomed).

But yeah, as Seamus said, deconstructing badass only makes the character even more badass so I guess you really can't.

Once there was this dude. He did whatever he pleased. You could say that, in a sense, he was enlightened.

He killed himself.

That was boring.

I think to really deconstruct a bad ass they have to fail, badly and the best way to do that would be to have them die, but it would have to be an embarrassing death that shows how pointless all of the sacrifices they made are. If they spend all their time training and become emotionally distant and sociopathic then they should be killed by a team of soldiers, hit men etc. who have lives outside of their jobs and are easily able to dispatch the bad ass in a humiliating way. Not exactly subtle but then badasses aren't so you'll have to fight fire with fire, or nerve gas.

The Other Guys did it quite easily, and quite effectively.

Bolt deconstructed Bad Ass nicely. All his badassery was a lie. You could try making a Bad Ass being not so badassd in a realistic setting.

For example a movie Badass that is only cool and unrealistic in a movie land and then gets dragged in the real world were he actually needs to be in danger and learn skills( hard way ) to survive

That is not a decontruction but rather a subversion/aversion.

edited 10th Jun '11 2:13:21 AM by KSonik

Bolt subverts it but it sort plays it straight in the end.

Necroposting,because I find this topic to be really interesting,as well as relevant to one of my protagonists' character arc.

In a meta sense,a pretty good deconstruction of a Badass would be it's extreme; the God-Mode Sue

We all love when a characters competently defeat foes and overcome obstacles in the coolest way possible,but if the Badass can do anything they want without breaking a sweat,then it shows how quickly such a badass gets old.

Also,Saitama's a good deconstruction.

So is Alan Moore's [[Watchmen]]. In order to deconstruct something, some aspect of that concept has to fail to fulfill the traditional expectations- in other words examining the implications of the concept leads to unexpected conclusions that nullify or nearly nullify the trope. Deconstructing the concept of "Badass" in fiction should lead to the audience questioning the desirablility of being badass, and if they don't then I would say the effort at deconstruction didn't work.

Of course, part of the problem is that "Badass" isn't really a concept at all, it's a feeling, an emotion. You can deconstruct situations that are typically associated with particular emotions (like horror stories) but deconstructing a feeling itself is impossible. You can't get people to stop experiencing "badassery", that's wired into the brain, you can only get them to question the situations or people we typically associate with being badass. Is being able to beat up bad guys really badass? Is questioning one's values and life choices, if one then simply goes ahead and keeps on doing basically the same thing (as heroic angst is typically depicted) really "badass"?

If you want to depict the deconstruction of "Badass", then create a character that everyone considers badass in the beginning, but as the story develops either the protagonist, or some other character, or the readers themselves, eventually conclude that what the character is doing isnt really badass at all.

The angle I'd probably go for is to draw attention to how violence wears a person down. That which doesn't kill you, sometimes makes you weaker.

Your average action hero is likely going to be half-deaf (from all the gunfire) and suffer from at least mild PTSD (how severe depends a lot on the person). They're also likely to be physically worn down, due to constant over-exertion.