Your Sliding Scale of Idealism Vs Cynicism

My position on the scale is hard to quantify; I consider myself a nihilist in the original sense of the world (ie. life in itself is meaningless, so its up to each person to find/make a meaning for their life), and my view on humanity fluctuates depending on the situation (though it usually tends to stay on the cynical side: "humans are bastards" at worst and "most humans mean well but often mess things up" at best). On the other hand, I strongly believe the world is a wonderful place, filled with all sorts of wonderful things (many of which will likely kill you if you mess with them, tho).

Consequently most of the stuff I write tends to have both cynical and idealistic elements. Recurring theme seems to be that conflict or evil will always exist, but the heroes are able to hold back the worst of it, at least for now. I also like sticking things from different ends of the scale together, so you get things like a world-devouring eldritch horror being defeated by willpower and the power of friendship, or a cute girl doing cute things in a crapsack world with eternal war.

i myself am a fairly strong cynic.

however, i generally try to keep my stories in the middle, with the world being in no way a crapsack. it gives some people a hard time sure...but overall its fairly nice (at least in the regions of the world the stories visit) to its inhabitants and the standard for living has gone up the further along the timeline you go, even as catastrophe's across the world happen. that being said, i still lean towards the cynical side, with a majority of main characters being despicable people based off their actions, with the circumstances leading to those actions drawing sympathy. additionally, my world currently has 4 timelines. 2 of those have ended abrubtly and the 4th is heavily affected by the destruction of the 3rd.

so basically i'd have to say i write my stories on the tepid side of cynicism... consequences are often far reaching and characters end up on the dark grey-ish side of the morality spectrum more often than not, with the stories usually emphasising their character flaws, but if they earn a happy ending, they'll get one, and even the darkest of grey antagonists have sympathetic traits, and inflicting misery on each other is not the population's first course of action.

edited 18th Oct '13 2:48:40 PM by Tarsen

In my opinion, we are just as capable of good as evil, and as capable of order as chaos. However, I like to go any direction that works for the story. Can range from "You can change the world for the better if you believe in yourself" to "we are trapped in an eternal prison by our malice and self-loathing that only death will remedy". Good times.

I myself am generally an optimist. Having said that, though, my stories are riding on the Cerebus Rollercoaster.

Recently i've grown a distaste towards cynical stories. There is no reason to care or be invested in anyone, if all the author is going to do is wave that carrot on a stick and then shove it deep up your arse for thinking he won't. And authors relish in that cynism, boasting on every page how they're different from "idealistic mainstream", how they have "true true realism" while actually just switching the side that gets all the deus exes. Such "cynism" loses its power and reads like some author's internal wangst about their unfulfilled lives.

Even worse when they're claiming "my characters aren't typical heroes and villains, this isn't so idealistic" while they stamp one-dimenstional asshole after one-dimensional asshole and one on top of the asspile who is an always-right-asshole. It's just as laughable as an overly idealistic predictable fairy tale, but absolutely NEVER gets treated as one. The amount of praise these wangst-filled pretentos get is sickening.

A perfect example is Batman world, that constantly gets worshipped for its supposed "realism". While actually it's the Joker's playground. He walks all over anyone and everyone, magically gets on top of everyone without much effort, and everyone has to tolerate his repeated out-of-all-boundaries scumbaggery. And no one realises that in a realistic world a backstabber who is this openly against everyone else and without strength to actually afford to be against everyone else would have been beaten up, tortured, raped, and murdered a million times over at least by the fellow criminals he keeps betraying.

Which is why i take great care to make my characters likable and understandable in some way. I explore the "why"'s, what makes them do this and act this way? Even a despicable serial killer wasn't born one(and ISN'T a misunderstood innocent puppy with a single traumatic event in his life shaping his entire personality either. People have more than one fucking event in their lives), but something arranged his puzzle pieces that way. Show their struggles, their effort, and have the victory be deserved. A struggle to victory is what makes the victory admirable. I want my characters to win, but it should never be easy. Not all of them. But i take it as a rule that at least somebody should walk out of this with their lives intact. You won't know who, but you can trust i'm not just projecting daddy issues on you *cough* Stephen King *cough*. (Seriously, he has nice ideas and can write scary things, but every abusive parent in his work is downright hilariously over the top)

edited 19th Oct '13 11:29:22 AM by Luminosity

Hear! Hear! I tried to be dark and edgy and I think I'm rather good at it, but my current story is going "good can succeed despite all odds" route. I'm still rather mean shit to my characters, but they have hope. Besides I made some realy big bastards, that I can't bring myself giving victory.

In short my story is kind of idealistic disguised as cynical.

I think the general trend towards cynicism in modern fiction is because it's easier to write. If everyone's an asshole with a dark side, all you have to do is put two characters together and BOOMINSTACONFLICTLOL. So for my writing, I do the exact same thing from an idealistic perspective, which surprisingly ends up being a little more complex and (in my opinion) realistic: everyone's out there trying to do good for someone, but everyone either has a different definition of good than everyone else or can't do good for someone without hurting someone else. Something like that is a lot more powerful of a message than DEEP DOWN, EVERYONE IS GRIMDARK or the like. That's my take on it, anyway.

But I wouldn't call the Batman mythos a shining example of realism, even as a fan. Remember that it is a world with mutant crocodile men, women that can instantly grow plants and a guy with a cryo suit who uses a freeze gun instead of a normal gun for whatever reason. Point that out to any Batman fan and I'm sure they'll concede.

I prefer writing/reading generally idealistic stuff, but not to stupid levels (I particularly hate the whole If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him thing; I can understand works where the hero is hesitant, but I hate stories where killing any villain is viewed as the ultimate sin; personally, I think heroes who refuse to kill the bad guys are doing it less for the good of humanity and more to protect their own dainty little consciences from the reality of killing. Of course, if I had to kill someone, I can't say I'd be any better).

Of course, the only thing I hate more are works where the villain always turns good in the last few minutes, just because the heroes say 'Love! And Peace!'.

edited 20th Oct '13 6:50:15 PM by DoctorWhom

One for Lumiosity, because that was an awesome and great post and you should feel great for it. Devious has a great idea there, too and I might have to borrow it someday

Honestly, I'd imagine that reality, being the sum total of absolutely everything, would fall squarely in the middle of the idealism-cynicism scale on average. Or to paraphrase the Doctor, the good things don't necessarily make the bad things okay but the bad things don't make the good things invalid either. A truly realistic story would have a little of everything. Not that that means you can't have a story on one side or the other be believable, of course, but that's something largely seperate and something some "realistic" stories don't actually seem to bother to do, ironically.

I also can't help but notice few if any overly idealistic stories actually get passed of as "reality". It's like, if fiction was a pie, idealistic writers would leave their work out on a table and invite everyone who likes pie to come have some, and if you don't you can just leave it, but the cynics (or at least certain cynics) come running up to you screaming "THIS IS THE REAL WOOOORLD" and slam the pie into your face. Oh, and the pie is full of shit. :P

... And now that I'm done rambling I

I think I tend towards idealistic, though I have a fondness for Bittersweet Endings. The way I see it is something like, everyone has some good and some bad inside them, but the good is more likely to win out than the bad because the good side is more likely to be disgusted with the bad than vice versa? Something like that. The only way someone can make themselves truly irredeemable is by being an incomplete human being, a flat character, basically. And that's just not as interesting, is it?

edited 22nd Oct '13 9:25:03 AM by yamiidenryuu

hm. in my very small body of writings... well, i don't think cynicism or idealism really figures into it. i just want to write a story, and i do not care at all where it may lie on the idealist-cynic scale. i try to leave things ambiguous.

I have to agree with njrxll's comment on the first page re: Optimism and Pragmatism vs. Idealism and Cynicism.

I tend towards pragmatism, but the problem is that the further cynical viewpoints are not pragmatic. Excessive brutality provably doesn't work and dystopia is hard; words are cheap but bullets and the means to deliver them in sufficient quantity are expensive.

At the same time, the works I right tend to be about redemption, making the world a better place, and sacrifice to do so, which is pretty optimistic.

edited 24th Oct '13 7:35:48 PM by Night

I definitely fall more towards idealism. Except, oddly enough, with death. In a little under 200 chapters, I've killed six major characters, and only one of them had a death that really accomplished anything. Two were shot down from behind after winning a fight. Two killed in a fight one was a traitor to the heroes, and died fighting against them, the other died because he rushed in stupidly. The first death was actually in a car crash (after a successful date that was developing into a serious relationship). Only one character died actually saving other people, which is generally the standard for a "meaningful" death.

So in general, I lean towards idealism. With death, I lean towards it being often sudden, brutal and pointless, which is a little more cynical.

Mostly, like with everyone else here, I try to have the story reflect how I view the world. And I view the world as being generally a pretty good place. There's heartache, but there's happiness. You gotta take the bad with the good. All that crap.

I tend to like Idealism, but I find Idealism more rewarding with a bit of Realism Cynicism in the beginning and middle. Earn Your Happy Ending, pretty much. In my first novel I'm working on, the main characters are raised to be incredibly idealistic, but soon realize that the world is a littel darker than what they thought. It gets better though.

I don't write how I view the world at all, mainly because I ascribe to the theory of fiction as escapism. I try to write as I would like for the world to be, not as it is. Inevitably, some of my experiences and cynical perceptions of reality do make it into what I write, but by and large, my writing is heavily idealistic because I believe that these ideals are worth striving for.

I'm right in the center, with a slight leaning one way or the other depending on my mood.

I'm very cynical in my works, but I don't tend to place total pessimism as realism as a lot of person I know. I also tend to justify my characters badness or goodness. Almost no "for the evulz" in my works, the few exception is either parodies or complete monsters mixed with sociopathy.

My work is one of those "dark idealistic" ones, like the trope page says. Essentially, yes the Elder Gods are real, and they can find you and mind-rape you, but if you have enough willpower you can kick their multidimensional eldritch butts.

I'm usually somewhere in the middle. Sure life sucks and people suck even more, but that doesn't mean you can't make something good out of it if you try hard enough, and the protagonists usually do. Doesn't mean there won't be sacrifices, but that's how the real world works. Nothing worth having is free.

I can slide to one of each scale depending on the mood and setting of my story, but I stand firmly on the idealistic side. Because, no matter what can happen, even in the darkest times, Hope will always come back to help us all no matter what. Even if you may lose someone or all dear to you, never give up hope, ever., Humanity, for all the evil they can commit, doesn't mean they're incapable of committing good either and perhaps, more and more are accepting o what can make us flourish for a long time.. Also, by fighting with your love and friendship of others, you'll surely get a good outcome for your soul.

Honestly, I am pretty much a idealist, but dunno.

Most of my settings are places filled with conflict, where wars are pretty common, either being a apocalyptic century war or the characters living on the short peace after it seeing how that peace is broken at their eyes.

Also, a lot of horror tropes are common when you treat demons. God Is Good, but he is dead and now he is just a spirit trying to reform his body, angels are extremely cold and utilitarian, demons are brutal and the lost forgotten dragons are coming back to try to cause the end of the world, and this is without counting the danger of the Prism.

...eventually it worked out, some alliances were made, God revived and then he fused himself with the will of the universe, finally fullfilling his dream of Take Over the World to Save it. Then He fuses himself his his own shadow, finally becoming a actual omnipotent being for some moments, that he uses to turn the world into Paradise.

Said this, there is still some cynicism even after that, because the whole plan of create Paradise was because God decided that the world was a Crapsack World no matter how much humans and gods tried to change it, so the best choice was just re creating the world.

Is hard to tell. Is more close to the Enlightened side of Romanticism Versus Enlightenment rather than the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism.

edited 1st Oct '17 10:26:57 AM by KazuyaProta

IRL, I tend to zigzag from being very idealistic to very cynical. But in my writing, all of it is usually pretty idealistic. Even when I'm writing things that are darker or in a bleaker setting, my work still tends to be more idealistic. The hero will still rescue the princess, even after he broke some ribs and is poisoned. The scrappy rebels WILL overthrow the empire, no matter how bad the odds. The crapsack world has a small kernel of gold inside it.

Like I said, I can be a cynical person, but I don't have it in me to write a cynical story.

i have my very cynical moments in real life but in this life, it's more idealistic.