When have you Rooted For the Empire?

Just going to point out that in The Incredibles, nobody says anything, positive or negative, about Buddy Pine/Syndrome using technology to be able to do the things supers do. The issue people have with him is that he's getting in the police's way of actually aprehending a criminal (pre-timeskip) and trying to destroy a town so that he can pretend to be a superhero (post-timeskip). Even then nobody really views him as a villain until Mr. Incredible finds out he's killed a bunch of people (the other supers) and is trying to destroy a town. What people have a problem with is not Syndrome synthesizing super-powers, it's him killing a bunch of (innocent) people for no other reason then to promote himself that is the issue at stake. He could easily be a "normal" super who doesn't rely on technology and the outcome of the movie would be exactly the same. If there isn't anything worth rooting for in the Empire unless stuff is read into a work that wasn't there in the first place, then I don't the Empire in question qualifies for this trope.

For that matter I think the villainous part with Syndrome's whole "everyone must be super" speech is that he is in effect stating that he'll make weapons of mass destruction (that anti-gravity weapon could wreak some serious havoc) prolify throughout the world. It's more or less the same reason as Obadiah Stane's goal "amoral arms dealer".

"All you Fascists bound to lose."

Thing is, if we consider superpowers to be equivalent to WMD's, then the rest of the film preaches for them to only be available to random born winners - not exactly Tony Stark privatizing world peace either. Similarly, Syndrome's desire to play hero despite public disapproval is ultimately mirroring Bob's own superpowered mid-life crisis; not to mention the latter projecting onto Dash by encouraging his speedster troublemaking, explicitly as a way to show off rather than help anyone.

That's the film's double standard - that those with genetic powers should be able to use them however they please without reproach, while everyone else is at fault for either putting them down, or trying to even the playing field. Even the Mole-Man expy at the end is literally a technologically-enabled underclassman lashing out at the highborn... and declaring war on peace and happiness, so that we know he's a bad guy.

In general, I do find it peculiar how other non-franchise films approaching the superhero mythos - Skyhigh for example - also conflate superpowers with superheroics, which was never an element of the genre proper. There are some overreaching status anxiety undertones in such stories, whereas regular superhero tales actually rate pretty high on egalitarianism between nigh-invincible bruisers and non-powered costumed vigilantes. Same as when comparing the mix-and-match crews of any random fantasy adventure tale, with the so-classist-it's-not-even-funny antics of the Harry Potter cast.

Suffice to say, using supernatural elements to express social anxieties is a hit-and-miss venture, frequently resulting in unconvincing heroes and unintentionally sympathetic villains. Not to mention how, as @Psi001 said, having the villains as the supernaturally deprived underdogs is an all but surefire way to grant them popular support, no matter how many puppies they kick in the meantime.

edited 18th Jan '15 3:57:23 PM by indiana404

No, the difference between Syndrome and Mr. Incredible is made simple the moment Mr.Incredible looks at Syndrome and tells him (paraphrased) "So you killed real supers so you could pretend to be one!?". Syndrome spent the better part of his life as a ruthless weapons dealer who slaughters completely innocent superheroes just to perfect his own weapon and to play superhero. Let me re-state that, Syndrome mercilessly killed dozens of paragons of virtue so he could pretend to be one and for no other reason. He eenacted The Purge on men and women who spent their entire lifetimes trying to protect human race so he could fake being one and latter profit from their deaths.

Compare that to Mr. Incredible who wants to revive his Glory Days out of nostalgia but at the same time, he's just trying to help people. He's not causing harm to anyone (in fact one of his "escapades" results in him saving a few dozen people from a fiery death) and is not a Fake Ultimate Hero, he's the genuine article who wants to help people and restore his former glory. His motivations are partly self-serving, but he's nothing short of a paragon of virtue besides that. Syndrome meanwhile, doesn't do a single altruist thing in the entire film and kills innocents by the dozens (and probable thousands if his scheme with the Omnidroid had gone correctly).

It's not even about the genetics of the film. You could infer it because the movie lacks a Badass Normal, but that's not what it is about whatsoever. Supers are born with their powers, they can't do anything about it, and pretending to be normal is just dumbing down their potential. Since they have superpowers, why not use them for good? Hell this is precisely the issue with Syndrome.

And you're seeing what you want to see when it comes to the mole man, to be quite frank. The movie never addresses if he is human or not (in fact he's pretty Ambiguously Human), if he lacks superpowers, if he's attacking out of spite or out of a sense of conquest. How can he even be a underclassman if he lives several feet below the surface? He's not even part of human society from what the movie implies, much less belong to any class. The character himself certainly makes no reference to class, just a Badass Boast regarding his existance in the underground.

The Incredibles is a case where it's really hard to say you root for the Empire without completely mischaracterizing the events of the plot, to be honest. Same goes for Star Wars. You could talk about subtext but frankly it's not there in the case of the Incredibles.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."

You're completely missing the point that the origin of super powers in The Incredibles isn't a point of conflict. There's no point in reading in a "natural superpowers vs. artificial superpowers" conflict into the film as the origins of the supers powers isn't specified in the first place. Who knows? Maybe some supers' powers were artificial, maybe some of theirs weren't. The movie never gives out any supers' origin stories. Heck, you could make all the other super's powers artificial and the plot of the movie wouldn't be any different.

Superpowers are never said to be the equivalent of WMD's in the film. This shouldn't even be brought in as an argument.

Um, no, that's nowhere in the movie. The theme of the movie is that someone shouldn't fake being a hero by creating the crisis that they save a city from. The origins of their power don't even come into it.

And we know the Mole-Man is technologically-enabled how??? All we see is some guy tearing up a parking lot from below and saying that he wants to cause needless chaos in a city. Sometimes a villain intent on chaos is Exactly What It Says on the Tin.

Probably because audiences in general are a lot more aware of how the general laws of physics used to work, so some type of explanation of why people are doing superhuman feats is needed. Not to mention that most people wouldn't go out and chase random criminals without some type of major backup. Superpowers kinda covers all that nicely. Wish-Fulfillment probably also plays a part as well...

I'm all for having complex, realistic villains and heroes. However, having to add in conflicts that are never specified in a work in order to make a villain more relatable/sympathetic then they are in the original work gives me the same feeling as Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory.

Edit: ed

edited 18th Jan '15 4:18:51 PM by ObsidianFire

And that's why the trope itself is a YMMV, with most of the discussion here not being about whether it should happen for any given work, but why, ultimately, it still does. Since Brad Bird's next project applied the same concept of under-appreciated supernatural specialness to cooking, of all things, I'd say it deserves more focus in The Incredibles, as well as the implications stemming from it given the superhero genre's own trappings. Even Skyhigh had the same type of initially mistreated gadgeteer villain, only with the class division cause for it being explicit - and thankfully abandoned in the end. If The Incredibles' upcoming sequel does present gadgeteers or badass normal heroes, then I'd be happy to reconsider my current conclusions. However, if it sticks to unexplained inherent supers, while the villain is yet another high-tech cyborg like the Underminer plainly was, I wouldn't be surprised if they end up more popular than the ostensible heroes.

I'm now kinda interested in why you keep going back to a "natural vs. artificial" conflict for the reason you like Rooting for the Empire... 'cause to me that looks a lot like assigning meaning to things that the author didn't...

edited 18th Jan '15 4:56:50 PM by ObsidianFire

Well, being more of an Enlightenment supporter, I'm always puzzled by how Western action flicks frequently use science and technology as antagonistic tools, as opposed to, say, anime's more even-handed portrayal. It's funny how a giant robot is almost always an evil aggressor in superhero comics, but more often than not the symbol of good in Japanese pop-culture. Kinda like dragons.

And, like in my initial statement from a page ago, it's not so much natural vs. artificial, but more how supernatural plot-drivers tend to bug me, particularly when they remain unexplained. Unless it's borderline alien magic, technology carries the implication of obeying some universal law or other, rather than being a black box in both source and application. I like fictional worlds with some kind of internal consistency, and maybe just a little bit of respect for actual science - particularly whenever genes are treated as arbitrary hard dividers, rather than very complex and highly flexible biological factors. With that in mind, I give kudos to Generator Rex for using nanotechnology rather than genetics for its X-Men expies, and for being one of the more prominent shows of recent times as far as science heroes are concerned.

That's not right though. What's happening here is you're imposing your view over what the work actually tells us. Again, the Underminer has goddamn rat teeth and we are never even hinted that he's not a super. Hell there even is a good representative of technology in the form of Edna Mode, who is something of a Gadgeteer Genius whose aid proves to be invaluable to the main heroes. So it isn't anti-tech at all, but rather anti "psychopath who pretends to be a superhero at a countless human life cost".

"All you Fascists bound to lose."

speaking of anti tech. why do intellectual villians get more flak than the anti intellectual heroes?

"We are just like Irregular Data. And that applies to you too, Ri CO. And as for you, Player... your job is to correct Irregular Data."

Part of it is Rooting For The Underdog, and part of it is because lesser educated people are closer to the audience.

Check out my fanfiction!

And I would have believed that if the rest of the film wasn't also anti-"ordinary people tired of paying hero insurance over the damage caused by self-styled supers" - in other words, the same special snowflake non-conformism that drives anything from Harry Potter to The Matrix. Thus, it's no great wonder that a high-grade fashion designer catering specifically to the supers would be treated with praise. Like we went over before - if the public in general didn't want super help in the first place, while even Bob and Frozone's off-record forays into heroism tend to leave cops frozen solid, then both parties are really masked psychopaths who don't actually care about people's wishes, but the bad guy is at least planning to eventually enable them.

In short, the film is ultimately against tall poppy syndrome, only using a metaphor that doesn't work that way, not even in the already hyper-individualistic superhero genre proper.

And it appears Brad Bird's latest project, Tomorrowland, will yet again center on the same themes, using science as their fulcrum - in the words of co-writer Damon Lindelof, "What Hogwarts is to magic, Tomorrowland is to science: They are both easy to find if you are a wizard and very difficult to find if you’re a Muggle." Oh, joy. All in all, it does feel like the guy's really just a one-trick pony, putting the same faux-Objectivist self-actualization theme in anything he runs, regardless if the other particulars of the chosen subject matter actually befit such portrayal.

Now then, when it comes to anti-intellectualism in general, I do find it rather intriguing how, while it is a staple of marketing, it actually backfires more often than not, with even suave and sophisticated serial killers like Hannibal Lecter getting applause for duping the law, while highly educated gadgeteer detectives like Batman reliably outshine the more straightforward bruisers in popularity. So, I kinda feel there's a considerable amount of marketing miscommunication between what truly appeals to the audience, and what studio execs are willing to greenlight.

edited 19th Jan '15 2:41:40 AM by indiana404

That is kind of odd however that is not to say that every person who watches a show is some sort intellectual genius.

"We are just like Irregular Data. And that applies to you too, Ri CO. And as for you, Player... your job is to correct Irregular Data."

I think it's the fact that people empathise more with a character that works, thinks and labours into how to win, rather than someone that is just bestowed with the ability to do so. Unless that character got his intellect through a lab accident or genetic disorder or something.

You can maybe root for a strong character that has at least worked their way up to that level, having Took a Level in Badass, but I guess the fact the intellectual villain has put a lot of convoluted planning into their schemes while the hero just has to attack, attack, attack takes a lot of gratification out it.

This is why the best strong heroes are still shown as needing to put tactics and wit into how they attack the villains. Rather than a powerhouse that can just smash stuff or a telekinetic who can just flick their fingers to take it all down.

edited 19th Jan '15 3:08:41 AM by Psi001

Indeed. I'd say the problem is with executive mentality toward the action genre. Mystery shows and medical dramas get a lot of mileage from having very educated heroes talk about rather complex concepts in their respective fields, even if it sometimes borders on technobabble. Meanwhile, the action hero's raison d'etre is mostly about throwing punches and pulling the occasional trigger, and popular impression stands that this sort of thing doesn't take much knowledge to do effectively.

I do believe the main issue is cultural above all else. Namely how, in American fiction, physical ability, scientific knowledge and mental faculty, and their respective potential for achievement, are almost invariably presented as inflexible inherent traits that some people possess in the extreme while others are precluded from ever having, leading to various social struggles. Contrast that with how Japanese culture emphasizes the importance of hard work and formal education above all else, and aspiring To Be a Master is the perennial trait of just about every shonen hero, with or without benefiting from inherent gifts.

And from a purely dramatic perspective, it simply looks more sensible and impressive if a character's feats are presented as stemming mostly from perseverance and education, rather than some unexplained divine providence or inherent superiority. Hence why wicked cultured bastards pre-planning every move are much more relatable than born winners who've never exerted any effort to gain their status.

edited 19th Jan '15 7:06:39 AM by indiana404

To quote myself from a number of pages ago...

Or to be really blunt, the US decided to get smart in WWII, and dropped the atomic bomb on people. They decided to get smart with the current tech revolution and we now have the NSA people listinging in on eveything we do and say on our devices.

As most people in Hollywood don't like those type of things, they're not going to give most heros the means to do them, including the technological know how, and if they do, everyone is going to be second guessing them.

As the thread has devoleved into rooting for people based on the source of their power, not because of why they do what they do, I think I'm leaving the thread (unless it gets back on track) as there's no use discusing topics with people who don't take works at face value.

edited 19th Jan '15 8:55:14 AM by ObsidianFire

That's the thing though - as I discussed with @Fighteer, at face value, we frequently have gods and monsters walking among mortals, magocrats manipulating events behind the curtains, supernaturally enforced social inequalities worse than any known caste system, and cosmic horrors warranting defenses that make the NSA look like a neighborhood watch. In short, any relatable morality is cast aside. This is why a lot of stories include muggle best friends whose job is to convey how the audience would feel when directly faced with the various supernatural aspects of the fictional world in question. For stories without such conveniences, however, basically anything goes in terms of how audience reactions can turn out. I did mention it before - as a rule of thumb, the more fantastic the setting is, the more popular the villains become, no matter if they make baby Genghis cry on a daily basis.

edited 20th Jan '15 3:28:20 AM by indiana404

So what would the possible 'solutions' to these problems? It isn't as though everyone is an intellectual whos enough technobabble to understand the content and plot points in those shows.

"We are just like Irregular Data. And that applies to you too, Ri CO. And as for you, Player... your job is to correct Irregular Data."

Indeed not, but they don't have to be. Look at how the Iron Man films did it - the tech is all but magic in function and form, but the hero is shown constantly working at it, making mistakes and learning from the experience, so every step of just how his abilities work is made relatable in some way. Similarly, even the fight scenes in the new Sherlock Holmes films ran on Awesomeness by Analysis, making every move a display of easily visible mental faculty as well as physical prowess.

In the same vein, the fights of Batman and Spider-Man are much more engaging, not just because they're underdogs, but that since they're underdogs, we can see and relate to all the effort they exert to overcome the foe. To contrast, whenever Lex Luthor goes against Superman, much more attention is given to the details of his scheme and the functions of his latest doomsday device... which Superman smashes just by being Superman. Grant Morrison said it - it's hard not to root for the guy when you can see all the work he puts in, and of course, the kind of stones he must have so as to go against a borderline physical god.

On an unrelated note, I found myself cheering for, of all things, the pompous leader of Laketown and his weaselly sidekick - the two were just so blatant hate sinks with scenes completely detracting from the action, that it almost felt the film had accidentally spilled onto the set of a Dickensian social commentary piece. Best of all, unless the extended edition shows otherwise, the latter guy ultimately got away scot-free and filthy rich to boot. Meanwhile, as the Dwarves' endeavor precipitated just about every death in the main storyline, the Elves were busy being Elves as usual, and everything was basically a black-op orchestrated by Gandalf where he forgot to tell any participant about it, it was hard to consider anyone but Bard and Bilbo as genuinely heroic.

edited 20th Jan '15 3:38:59 AM by indiana404

with sherlock homes and iron mas its more robert dowing jr acting skill and personality, to the point that Iron man feels more like sherlock with a suit.

Why? because of their personalities overall, Tony stark is a rich playboy and he play out for all his worth, same with sherlock who is a smartass but in such a way that you could admire him(and his expy house who is even more of a jerk) their personality matter much more that their social status.

instead Syndrome is petty and jelous, he not a super because he dosent have power but because he wants to tear down his idol for reject it him.

Also call batman "the underdog" is really weird consider he is "normal" by the virtue of not having power, he is still better that 99% of the people

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

I'd say he's frequently the underdog physically, often being outnumbered by heavily armed thugs, while not being bulletproof himself - a quick demo of the Arkham games and you see why the careful stalking and deliberate planning aren't just cool to watch, but necessary for survival. Otherwise yeah, he's not exactly a Working-Class Hero, but him being a detective also adds the aforementioned benefit of seeing him resolve the case rationally... by comics standards, at least.

And while we're at it - the Joker is one of the few villains whose popularity I've yet to grokk. Sure enough, he's a symbolic opposite, unpredictable agent of chaos, etc. etc. Big heady stuff to write your literary thesis on. But put more simply, the guy waivers between being a colorful mobster, and a currently overdone shock-value serial killer - and not even a stylish one like Hannibal Lecter. I wouldn't get judgmental, seeing as how my own favorite DC character is the guy who killed his entire species for giggles; I just don't see the appeal.

Although, come to think of it, since he's basically a slasher right now, and slasher film protagonists also get incredibly popular, it could be that. Probably a catharsis thing.

I wouldn't have expected it for myself either, but the guy grew on me.

edited 20th Jan '15 10:57:51 PM by indiana404

Didn't peg you as a Lobo Fan Indiana.

edited 20th Jan '15 6:43:26 PM by HandsomeRob

One Strip! One Strip!

Joker charm come when he is "the prince clown of crime" his more eh..."inocent" face where he make lethal jokes and laught a lot, the dark knight of couse is his agent of chaos where he was really scary and awsome, but most of the time people dosent root for him, just consider awsome, one of those things of fiction can do.

Also, I want to said that rooting for quadrich or the joker is just evil is cool, you dont want them to win, just to cause as most mayheim is posible before they are down, and of course to go down with a bang, so you can have all the fun without "rooting" for them, in the case of quadrich becuase the other are annoying, in the case of the joker because he just so damn fun

edited 22nd Jan '15 9:32:55 PM by unknowing

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

Quaritch also left the impression of genuinely being like A Father to His Men and an all-around decent guy... before he suddenly went all Apocalypse Now in preparation for the big final showdown. I get it, James Cameron has an anti-Vietnam fetish - and it would actually look convincing if he ever had the guts to address the actual issues of that war, like how the US rained chemical weapons down on its own soldiers on orders by the now-sanctified JFK, instead of just prattling against the generic evilness of the military-industrial complex.

I found something similarly distasteful in Tolkien's pro-royalist themes, where both the Steward of Gondor and the elected Master of Laketown were revealed as despicable straw losers against which the blue-blooded Aragorn and Bard would shine. The same thing is found in The Incredibles, where not just Syndrome, but apparently over half the nation's voters simply had to be narrow-minded litigious lugs - as personified by the obligatory obstructive bureaucrat boss - just so the film's themes would seem plausible.

And the trope namer itself had few practical details to show about the titular government. The only thing we get from the films is that the Imperials also favor the military-industrial complex, and that they've disbanded the Senate - having seen it in action, I can't really disagree - and have switched to locally-enforced limited government. So, they're basically Space Republicans... and that's terrible.

All in all, you can see why the initial concept of a character would attract people, while the later acts of evil would feel too over-the-top to be convincing. I often mention Chick Tracts as the most prominent examples of it - really, if you read a story where tabletop games do lead to eternal damnation, would you honestly start rooting against the players and developers... or would you think the story itself is too ridiculous to take seriously, but still good for a laugh or two, especially if you cheer for the "bad" guys? Ultimately, there is no wrong way to enjoy fiction.

edited 23rd Jan '15 5:30:10 AM by indiana404

I guess my problem with the way your coming at this, is that for me, people acting evil means, "people are acting evil". Not, "the dev team is giving you a reason to not root for a character". I mean, if killing innocent people (in universes where the good guys avoid doing that) isn't a good enough to not be a bad guy, then what is?

I just find the way you go assigning secondary motives to characters just so that the people who are more in line with your way of thinking are no longer the bad guys is a really bad way to approach the trope. As in, it makes me discount your entire argument. All of the motives you're assigning them are nowhere to be found in the work itself and in some cases (The Incredibles and Star Wars) fly in the face of the motives they are specified to be having in the work. In the case of The Hobbit and Lord Of The Rings examples, it looks like a case of Values Dissonance and Culture Clash as the Middle Earth setting is clearly a Medieval European Fantasy and you're ignoring the implications of that setting and expecting it to conform to your own values.

Personally, I tend to find myself Rooting for the Empire in works where both the good guys and the bad guys have done similar things and the bad guys have just as good an explanation (or a better one) for why they did what they did as the good guys do.