Red Stapler and Leather Pantsing

Not referring to actual red Swingline staplers or genuine leather pants here.

I'm somewhat concerned over the possibility of my work becoming an unintentional and unwanted recruitment ad for a high-profile hate group.

More specifically, the KKK.

You see my work has them becoming the spies and saboteurs for a group of super Nazis residing in a pocket universe. To better perform acts of terrorism, the super Nazis have provided them with easy access to weapons and, for the zealously or insanely devoted, superpowers.

They are the bad guys. They are very racist. They inflict pain and suffering on innocent lives.

Yet, I can't help but worry some portion of my audience will fantasize about becoming a super soldier Klansman and possibly making the poorly thought decision to join the Klan IRL.

If you have similar concerns about your work, please share them here.

edited 17th Apr '14 8:38:11 PM by Worlder

In that case, don't name the hate group they're part of, I guess.

Am I suppose pull a "Hydra" then?

Look, you cannot control what readers of your work take out of it. You can influence it, but you can't control it. If you don't make your KKK characters admirable, or likeable or cool with no drawbacks, most readers won't want to be one. And you can't do anything about the wackos who do except make it more difficult for them to find something to want to imitate.

And anyone who decides that joining the real KKK is a way to become a Nazi/KKK super soldier is so far gone from reality that nothing will get through to them. Or they're already most of the way down the road to KKK or neo-Nazi anyway.

edited 19th Apr '14 2:33:54 PM by Madrugada

A lot depends on the implementation anyway. If you yourself do not feel that way about them, it's very unlikely that that will come through in your writing.

All I know is that the KKK in the present day are a pathetic bunch.

Depicting them as super villains and international terrorists could be considered a favor toward their image, given that many people see them as a loud toothless laughing stock.

edited 19th Apr '14 6:40:27 PM by Worlder

Nazis of today are a pathetic bunch. Doesn't stop Hitler from being the go-to-guy when the Big Bad wants to clone someone evil.

Nazis were always pathetic in way. You could portray the "super" soldiers as losers otherwise (socially, mentally, intellectually). Nothing you'd actual wanted to be.

Alright no charisma and definitely no bond style dinner interrogation.

You could simply make it that they're a kind of secluded echo-chamber of reactionary thoughts, that their allies are little more than thuggish cavemen prescribing all their ills to practically imaginary foes, and that their attempts at "style" and "charisma" are so laughably dated to be almost fossil-like.

edited 20th Apr '14 10:40:14 AM by StillbirthMachine

Well, it is kind of hard to convey that when most of their appearances tend to occur either in the middle of or after committing a terrorist attack.

Also by depicting them as competent terrorists capable of doing severe harm, I'm at least implying that they are "competent". Thus you see the problem I'm having, I'm trying to minimize that silver lining.

edited 20th Apr '14 11:09:52 AM by Worlder

Competent doesn't equal sympatheic, likeable, or attractive. The Big Bad in the old thriller novel Black Sunday is supremely competent at being a terrorist, but his competence doesn't lessen that he's utterly unlikeable and would qualify as a Complete Monster by the standards of this wiki, strict as they are.

You're worrying too much about something you can't prevent. If you, as the author, don't treat them as something good, or likeable, or admirable, then the vast majority of your readers won't either; and the ones that do are going to be people who have such a twisted idea of what's likeable, admirable or good that nothing you could possibly do would have an effect on how they see the characters.

If everything else fails, just make them hideously ugly and/or disgusting. That throws a monkey wrench in a lot of people prone to Draco in Leather Pants.

Pulling a Hydra works too well, if the "Hail Hydra" meme is any indication. Good job fandom. You made a meme out of a supporting a group that's nazis in all but the name!

Yeah someone else mentioned making them ugly but you have an organization as opposed to single people so that wouldn't quite work.

Or UC Gundam's "Sieg Zeon."

Which I've been known to do on occasion in WW 2-themed games.

Maybe show the effects their actions have on other people? I know that sounds a bit cheesy, but if you really humanize some of their victims, and look at the consequences for their crimes, it might make them less likeable.

But then, if a member of the KKK does end up reading it, they'll probably sympathize with the characters anyway, no matter what you do. You can't control that, so I'd just make sure it's clear you don't support these characters, I guess, and that the tone of the story reflects that.