When have you Rooted For the Empire?

It's extremely rare in my experience to see a Designated Hero who is actually worse than the villains they're up against. Usually at most they're both so awful (or perhaps merely flawed) that picking a side is kind of pointless.

Though honestly, that really wasn't my main point. I just thought it was kind of funny.

The only one I can think of is Kratos. Zeus is portrayed as mostly amoral and selfish, but he keeps the world spinning.

On-topic, does it count as "rooting for the empire" if you read more nuance into a character than they were probably meant to have? For example, it's unlikely that the title character of Henry Portrait Of A Serial Killer was meant to come across anything as other than simply The Sociopath, but there were a few scenes in there that made him look a little more complex to me, even if I never felt sympathy for him.

edited 5th Dec '14 12:02:00 AM by Robotnik

That's alternate character interpretation, which can spin into outright support if the original storytelling flaws are big enough.

Quite so, now that I re-check the maps - I still think they didn't use to label us "minor affiliates". And I did mention fighting off the Turks for liberation - only one of these states has endured that, on a large scale at least.

Anyway, the point was how the way writers try and make antagonists unlikable is not always convincing, while protagonists are usually those the audience is meant to side with, causing backlash when it doesn't. It's like how plenty of "comedies" such as Bio-Dome or some of the SNL fare have to make the romantic rival or villain an over the top asshole, in order for the abrasive emotionally unstable man-child of a hero to look good in comparison. In such cases, rather than root for the supposedly lesser evil, I'm more likely to suspect narrative bias - because such stories come close to how real life immature jerks picture those they see as enemies, if not society in general - and I instinctively suspect the "real" rival is much better than given credit for.

Similarly, as the last real life conflicts to ever portray themselves as holy saints fighting demonic barbarians were the crusades, war stories with that kind of moral slant easily come off as farcical. I'd readily cheer for a self-acknowledged bastard fighting a worse one - hence I usually give badass anti-heroes a free pass - but otherwise it feels too much like an army recruitment film or wartime cartoon.

edited 5th Dec '14 12:21:33 AM by indiana404

damn it, it go for a few days and speak a lot. let me catch you:

Rob: latter painzing is more a "eat my cake and have it too" excersive, when people are fans of a chararter for very shallow reasons(usually becuase the chararter is hot/awsome/badass) and try to make excuses for them while retaing they usual interaction or too put it more simple "look them, he is so handsome/badass, he cant be bad!"

this is why anti-heroes are love my much: they dont have to deal with good is dumb or the typical self rightous chararterization typical hero have to face but at the same time they just need a couple of good pet the moment dog or angst backstory to put him in misunderstodd territory, not only they are good guys, they are COOL good guys.

Also is weird how boys and girl do the latter pants: women usually focus in atractive chararter by overplaying his sad moment or freudian excuse(if they have one) to the point the chararter are just trouble but cute guys who are not evil just misundertood

Boys on the other hand just point how badassery as a perfectr excuse for everything, consider how much people throw "emo" to every chararter who is emocional(an let not star with the whole hisnji ikari mess) while praising jerkass chararter like Vegeta or Kratos becuase their badassery

Indiana404: rooting for the empire can happen for 3 things:

coolness: evil is cool,sexy, have power and better toys, when you have armys with you, super weapon like the death star and freaking dearth vader...yeah I can see what happen, of course this usually happen in a very superficial level is more "the bad guys are impresive"

spite: the avatar case, when people just hate the good chararter and want them dead, in this case becuase the na`vi looks more elf mary suetopia who look pityfully to the human who cant be like them....until they can, nobody deny queadrich is a stupid villian but he is badass and the other are anoying, is a case of enemy mine

Designed: when the villian or the hero are like that because the plot said so, or when you have a grey villian who have many valid point but thorw away for their action, this have some base in reallity(we have well intentional extremist dosent it?) this can give us good chararter but other times just give us a hero who still wins the day by punch him without adress their points

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"

That's pretty much exactly the sort of argument I'm thinking of when I say that this thread is glossing over the less positive reasons for Rooting for the Empire. I have no doubt that does apply to some people in some cases, but, well... let's say we have someone named Bob who roots for the Empire in Star Wars because he thinks Darth Vader looks cooler than the protagonists. That doesn't necessarily mean Bob is an imbecile, and it almost certainly doesn't mean that he would eagerly follow a real-life fascist regime if they dressed well enough (as some of the more hyperbolic complaints about this reaction would have it).

But at the same time it's pretty silly to claim that Bob's being motivated by a rejection of the overly-simplistic Hollywood portrayal of the Empire as all bad and the Rebel Alliance as all good, even at a subconscious level. His reaction is literally as superficial as you can get. And I just think it's either obtuse or disingenuous of this thread to make out Rooting for the Empire as this almost-noble refusal to buy into of unrealistic, caricatured conflicts, when a lot of the time it's because the audience just doesn't really care.

edited 5th Dec '14 12:37:25 AM by nrjxll

Apparently it does, since either way it wants to see more of the villains in question, which implies they'd either get to do more atrocities, or be reformed into anti-heroes with barely any penalty.

Focusing on coolness, I have to wonder - given how frequently it occurs that general audiences think Evil Is Cool, does anyone get the feeling some of the more narrow-minded writers inadvertently try to push the idea that cool is evil?

Take, for instance, how many sci-fi flicks, from Star Wars to The Terminator and especially Avatar, have it be that the technologically superior and better equipped side is the villainous one, so that people wouldn't support it. Thing is, based on this detail alone, why wouldn't they? Cheap heroic underdog plot device aside, there's nothing morally inferior in being better geared for war than the other guy, and it's something people kinda sorta root for on instinct alone... because those ancients who weren't, usually didn't get to pass on their instincts.

Similarly, soldiers on every side of WWII put scary skulls on their uniforms and shark teeth on their planes, while The Terminator sequels readily demonstrated that even remorseless implacable killing machines aren't so bad so long as they work for you. It's like what Rambo said - to survive war, you become war. For that matter, Rambo himself is an example of how a jaded and broken veteran, personifying all the damage war does to a man, became the poster-boy for badass anti-heroes in general. Even when rooting for the bad guy is firmly planted in misaimed fandom, what do you do when the writers themselves cave in and try to make it work?

edited 5th Dec '14 2:48:45 AM by indiana404

Don't know much about that. But only one of those countries borders Greece anyway, I was just nitpicking.

Despite being a guy myself, I find the first one far less problematic. It's misguided but at least it's an attempt at understanding. The latter one is simply a Might Makes Right juvenile power fantasy, showcasing a disturbing set of skewed priorities we teach boys.

Ironically, considering the altogether self-destructive idea of what is passed for "badass" nowadays, I find such portrayals and idolizing them to be fiction's own contribution to natural selection. To contrast, it's actually quite telling in video games how, among the myriad of grizzled space marines and buff bruisers, the two most emblematic player characters are a quiet bespectacled theoretical physicist, and a pudgy Italian plumber. After all, what's really more badass - the screaming warrior who puts all he's got into killing a Hydra through twitchy quick-time events... or the calm, collected nerd that merely flips a switch, turns a valve or two, and blasts it with a rocket engine?

With that in mind, Loki hits two for two - he not only gets sympathy, but his personal fighting style is much more appealing to those of us who find little grace in your garden variety flying bricks.

I think this all the time, and not just about the narrow-minded writers. It probably doesn't help that I grew up in the greater LA area and simply couldn't ignore what Hollywood was up to...

The truth is that most "artistic/hip/liberal" writers there really don't like/get/understand why the good guys are so good. Actually, it's more like things/values/beliefs that made the good guys good are now viewed as things more associated with villains. Moral relativism is king and there's no right or wrong (in theory at least). There's also a lot of anti-Westernism going around and values the West used to champion (even if the values themselves did have a point) are definitely viewed as being Acceptable Targets.

So yeah... I almost expect now for villainous characters to come across as just as sympathetic (if not more sympathetic) then the heroes do. After all, most heroes champion Western values and we all know what those values led to right?

I actually agree with anyone that roots for the Inheritance Cycle's Empire. I prefer the Varden (eradicating a despot that can commit greater crimes than what he's already done is a noble cause, and Galbatorix really did deserve to be executed for his crimes anyway) but seriously, it's the Varden's fault the land was in conflict in the first place. Though considering Galbatorix was planning on committing genocide, it's easy to hate him. Still, wouldn't a lot more people have been saved if the Varden wasn't trying to usurp the king? Also, Skyrim, though I haven't played it much; the Aldmeri Dominion is hated for a good reason, but the Stormcloak rebels could have waited until the Dominion was ousted to secede from the Imperial Legion. If they had combined to drive out the Thalmor, everything would have been so much easier, in my opinion.

Sorry, but MY RAMA is NOT BORDERLINE. Thank you.

Skyrim's civil war is more of a grey and gray case on purpose though. Rooting for the empire in this case would mean rooting for the dominion.

But it's simply stupid by the Stormcloaks. Seceding from the empire will only help the dominion. Which in turn means the Nords will fall under the Dominion as well and have even less religious freedoms than under the empire. The reason the empire forbids the worship of their god in the first place is the dominion forcing the empire to do that.

"Trying to push the idea that cool is evil"? Wow. I have nothing to say about that except that, try as I might, I simply can't see things from your perspective. That was just the argument that made me give up.

I think it's understandable that people wouldn't like Shinji.◊

Indeed. I mean, it's one thing if my side says it - opposition to foreign cultural influence is par for the course in politics, and there's a perennial joke down here about how "oil is discovered in country X, NATO sends peacekeepers to usher in democracy". But on the whole, I never grokked Hollywood-style counter-culture, even if I agree with some of its points.

Speaking of which, I wonder if the non-US tropers here cheer for countrymen villains. Doctor Doom and most Red Scare baddies are my crooks of choice, with a nod to some Yellow Peril masterminds for old times' sake - I was actually somewhat disappointed by how the new Iron Man films had it that it's always an evil American CEO who backed the whole thing up, especially in the Mandarin's case. For all their government's restrictive market requirements, I don't think Chinese audiences would have minded seeing the original, not to mention his alien dragon best friend.

edited 5th Dec '14 12:07:33 PM by indiana404

It's also racist in its own way. Of course a non-westerner can't be the mastermind, it has to be a westerner in charge.

and Yep. This really bugs me. It's one thing to admit that a country/culture isn't as great/bad as it's traditionally portrayed. It's another to completely flip the tables so that now the country/culture that used to be able to do no wrong now can't do anything right and vice versa.

Hmm...

Smash Bros., legend of Zelda, almost every mario game with bowser...

yeah, those villains are certainly badass!

Shin Megami Tensei... YVHV and the Law's side victory.

Have you forgotten the face of your father, troper?

is the side efect of repretation until you have enought chararters of one minority you can have a decent villian, this of course limit the oportunity of good asian,black,etc villians which is a shame

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"

And now the new FF movie Doctor Doom is apparently being retooled as an anti-social programmer named Domashev, who uses "Doom" as his online nickname. All Hail Blogger Doom!

Seriously, how do you mess that up? How do you turn a modern cybernetic Dracula who's all but become the premier villain of the entire Marvel Universe, into a run-of-the-mill self-aggrandizing neckbeard whose very name means "house man" in the languages it's meant to invoke? At least Julian McMahon's electrified Lex Luthor wannabe had some style.

I really hope this is some sort of pre-release trolling. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure fans indeed won't be rooting for the bad guy in that film... what with not bothering to watch it and all.

edited 15th Dec '14 1:09:22 AM by indiana404

That could well be the point. It's not like the filmmakers want people rooting for Doom. And personally I'm inclined to grant more leeway to re-imagining a character like this, as opposed to cases of derailing an existing villain who's become too popular.

Perhaps. But still, just like with turning Lex Luthor into a bumbling real-estate swindler or the Mandarin into a washed up decoy, having pathetic villains doesn't really make your heroes more impressive, let alone provide for a better overall story. So far, the best received comic book adaptations were the ones where the villains were either as complex as the heroes, like Magneto and eventually Loki, or could challenge them on all fronts, like the Joker. As Syndrome and the Equalists demonstrated, making villains out of the untalented and disenfranchised is actually more likely to garner support, even if they don't fit the usual badass characteristics frequently mentioned here. But then again, the very nature of being badass is in overcoming adversity, and that's pretty much a given when you're the underdog...

... and there goes another point in humanity's favor as compared to the Na'vi, since we apparently amount to unnaturally tenacious survivors from a planet with decidedly vicious evolutionary patterns, to contrast with Pandora's pampering parenthood. If there really is a superior species in that franchise, it ain't the blue cat-monkeys, that's for sure.

"Uncool" does not equal "nonthreatening".

Perhaps not, but it does somewhat preclude the epic fights action films are known for, or the character confrontations drama relies on. It's more the stuff of light comedies and heavy author tracts... which are frequently just as hilarious in their own way.

edited 16th Dec '14 12:28:24 AM by indiana404

indiana404: because its one of that point they filmaker have to change, look how the joker in dark knight is a terrorist(or really he is prettending to be one) so they have to change things

and cool MEANS threating, is a very simple rule in fiction that to be badass, you have to act and look that way, that is why Shinji is a wimp even after all the stuff he does in a regular basis, that is why people is so harsh with shonen heros nowdays

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"

Let's just say some changes work, others not so much. The Joker was a good match, since the guy's always been a wild card anyway, and a lot of his usual tricks do amount to anarchistic terrorism. The core concept was pretty well kept. But there's also Bane, who yet again merely played second fiddle to someone else instead of being the mastermind by himself, not to mention also getting white-washed from a menacing Monster-Luchador, to... Darth Connery. As for Doom, you gotta admit it's a big step down from a sorcerous dictator to a CSI-dropout keyboard jockey.

I never found Shinji to be a wimp, though maybe that's because I watched the subbed version - the dubs make him sound whinier than the situation would entail. I mean, being guilt-tripped into lethal battles with nightmarish monsters, while experiencing the pain from any damage your mech takes - what's not to complain about that? For that matter, I found it rather intriguing that most of the kids' supposedly psychological issues were really their actual problems. Shinji and Asuka really were considered only useful for their piloting skills, Rei really was an easily replaceable husk with an artificial personality, and the rest, well, the less said the better.

In general though, whenever an intended villain gets inexplicably popular, I take it as the fandom seeing some actual potential the writers themselves missed. Consequently, I appreciate authors running with that, like Timothy Zahn who further developed Thrawn into a much grayer character than the initial ruthless if capable commander, or even Lucas himself who apparently doesn't mind endorsing his own private army - it helps that the story of the films' main character was ultimately one of downfall and redemption - no wonder the Empire itself gets the same treatment, up to becoming the trope namer for such matters altogether.

edited 17th Dec '14 6:12:50 AM by indiana404