Why should I care about evil?

how and why is someone who is clearly, objectively, inarguably evil a “protagonist”?

Because the story follows him from his perspective all the way through it.

That is the criteria for someone to be the protagonist of any story. Morality irrelevant.

Simple as that.

Villain Protagonist is a trope here even.

Edited by TitanJump on Dec 25th 2021 at 6:24:07 PM

Who would WANT to follow someone like that?

The story would?

And the readers to see how this plays out?

yes, because everyone wants to follow a ruthless murderer. Most relatable and interesting character in the history of fiction. Everyone should strive to be just like this paragon

(Sighs again)

I believe you are operating on a serious misunderstanding in regards to what a "protagonist" even is supposed to be in a story.

The Protagonist in "Death Note" is also the Antagonist in the same story. Opposing the "Heroes" all the way through.

The Heroes are not the protagonists. They are the "Heroes".

"Protagonist" is not defined solely as a "Hero's" role in every story.

It can be held by the "Antagonist" as well.

...

Okay, I should have asked this from the get-go.

"What is the definition of a protagonist to you?"

Edited by TitanJump on Dec 25th 2021 at 6:45:04 PM

I’ve read Villain Protagonist and I still don’t get it. Protagonists, being the main characters, shouldn’t be evil. Because being evil gives you, the reader, no reason to relate or be interested in their actions.

I don’t get “lawful evil” either. If you harm anyone or anything for any reason either, then you are *objectively* evil and I should want nothing to do with you.

And that is where your misunderstanding of this topic lies.

The Protagonist is the lead-character in any work. It is not anchored by any shred of morality whatsoever and can be good, neutral or evil.

It is that simple and the very definition of a "Protagonist" to begin with, originating all the way from ancient greece.

The Protagonist can be "The Hero"

The Protagonist can be the "Antagonist"

It can even be its own character that is neither "Hero" or "Antagonist" at all.

But what it never is, is strictly "good" or "evil".

That is what defines a "Protagonist".

Edited by TitanJump on Dec 25th 2021 at 7:02:15 PM

that still doesn’t answer why I should concern myself at all with one who’s evil

I mean, you're under no obligation to, but some people do choose to. This can be for reasons of exploring a different viewpoint, enjoying seeing someone act unfettered by the realistic concerns which limit us in the real world, or just because they find it fun. Another classic solution is to put your villain protagonist up against another, worse villain.

Also, I will just say, evil is not universally defined for most people. My reference to the Illiad is an example of this. But besides moral dissonance over time, you may have stories with grey and grey morality, or even black and black morality, which can still be interesting. How do people handle living in such circumstances and can they still find small ways to be moral?

It sounds to me like you're combining two different things: 1) A strong belief that some things are unforgiveable/irredeemable and inherently make one evil going forward (so what should be done with such characters/people?) 2) A belief that it is boring (or immoral?) to find such characters interesting

On (2) I will point out that your position is not the only one. Lots of people find serial killers interesting and there's a reason 'if it bleeds, it leads' and people like war stories. Lots of exciting things contain characters (or people) who have done horrible (and maybe necessary, maybe not) things and people enjoy reading about them.

I mean, to take a different example, basically any historical fiction (or history) of the ancient world is going to be tales of people who have committed horrible crimes by modern standards. Is that whole arena just totally not of interest to you?

Also, I guess I'm not certain on the point of the thread? Are you looking for advice/assistance on how to get better at writing villains? Are you looking for reasons why people enjoy a 'good' villain? What are you asking?

Isn’t that how three year olds think?

Harming anyone for literally any reason is objectively evil. Why should it not be?

At that point, everyone is too far gone for me or anyone else to care.

Why? Why should I care if someone is a Complete Monster?

Sounds like *everyone* is a monster then. Why should I think otherwise?

A little of both. And understanding concepts like “lawful evil” or “villain protagonist”.

I’m trying to write a story where the closest to antagonism that exists is a new coworker not getting the hang of her job. And literally the only thing I want to do is kill her off because how dare she be bad at a new job!

Uh...okay. I can't tell if this is some odd satire or sincerity, but no, harming anyone for literally any reason is not evil. To take an obvious example. A person is tied to railroad tracks and will die when the train comes. In cutting them free, you accidentally give them a shallow cut on the arm. Is saving their life in this manner evil?

More generally, you seem to have some difficulty telling the difference between fiction and reality? Lots of people enjoy reading tragedies, almost no one wants one to befall them. Enjoying (or writing) a power fantasy (of the, if only I could do whatever I wanted and didn't care about consequences) is fine. It's not my preferred fiction, because I tend to find it pretty boring, but there's nothing inherently wrong with that.

Which you seem to understand, because you want to kill the person for being bad at their job. But you wouldn't, because that would be wrong, right? So, you do understand reality. Some people find it entertaining to read a book about someone who kills all the annoying people who are bad at their jobs. Some don't.

There's nothing wrong with a story without an antagonist, or with an antagonist, but without a villain. A lot of modern literary fiction tends to fall into this category. Another example is the White Gold of Empire book, which is basically a slice-of-life story about salt makers in a fictional city. If you want to write slice-of-life fiction, even science fiction or fantasy, that's fine. I've drifted into enjoying more of that myself over the more action oriented stuff in the last few years.

ETA: Given your moral stance and boredom with the character of villains, I would either stick to essentially non-action stories, or stick to entirely one-note villains. Villains who are evil for the sake of being evil and having nothing else to them can work and don't require a lot of exploration for the audience. They can drift into boring unless given some flair, but so long as they're just an obstacle to be overcome, you can focus on interactions between the heroes.

Now, if the heroes are always in agreement, because there's only one right way to do things and there can't be disagreement without one of them becoming evil...you have a lack of interesting conflict problem.

On the broader question of why other people enjoy such things, I've given you several reasons and you just sort of reject them, so I'm going to let that drop. However, you also assert no one else can care about a villain, which just isn't true. I mean, take a look at the magnificent bastard trope, or most horror movies made in the last half-century. The character most delved into is almost always the villain, the monster and they have lots of fans.

Edited by ECD on Dec 25th 2021 at 12:26:40 PM

"But perhaps more useful to you, Twentington, is that even if I don't like them, I may yet find them interesting.

This. At an advanced level of writing, we do not create characters to be admirable, or even likable. We write them to engage the imagination, to fascinate. And to feel a sense of vicarious satisfaction when they are finally overcome.

This idea goes all the way back to Aristotle's use of catharsis in tragedy. First, we introduce an evil character in order to arouse destructive, dangerous emotions in the audience, but in a context where experiencing those emotions will do no harm. Then, when the villain is overthrown, the dark emotions in the minds of the audience are also overthrown, and replaced with happier, more inspiring emotions.

Repression is not psychologically healthy, yet it is necessary in order to get along with other people and to accomplish our tasks. We suppress our anger at our boss, at our spouse or children, at the world at large, because the costs of expressing anger towards those individuals, at least in an impulsive way, would exceed the momentary pleasure. So instead we go to a movie or read a book, and experience second hand the forbidden pleasures of identifying with a character who goes about dominating and intimidating others the way we would, at some level of our personality, like to. Then we purge those feelings by identifying with the heroes and their struggle to overcome the villain. In other words, the story re-enacts, in dramatic form, the emotional struggle we all have inside our minds between our positive and destructive impulses. The story allows us to release our darker impulses and achieve a satisfying sense of catharsis in a safe and enjoyable way.

We like watching serial killers end the lives of innocent victims because we all have some of the emotions of serial killers inside us, and left repressed those could cause unhealthy levels of neurosis. Stories let us get them out and express them in a safe and socially acceptable way.

And that's the block I'm trying to overcome here. Evil has to exist, yet I hate so thoroughly that it does that I don't even want it to exist.

But if the antagonist represents something that I dislike, then shouldn't my goal not only be to defeat them, but to fully erase their existence? If say, I make the villain a total homophobe, I'd hate that because I'm pansexual. At the villain's defeat, he should be SO thoroughly out of the picture that no one even knows what the word "homophobia" even means anymore.

I have literally never felt catharsis because no character in fiction has had an experience a millionth of one percent similar to my life. I'm the kind of person who can predict literally every plot beat in a movie before the opening credits are even over.

And how the hell is that healthy? We shouldn't have those emotions at ALL.

Okay, but that's not actually an option in reality. You get that right?

And it's not even an option for you, personally. That's why up above you talk about wanting to kill someone for being bad at their job.

I will also say, the notion that anything you dislike is evil and should be entirely vanquished is...problematic in fiction (and in reality). I don't even know if you can write slice-of-life fiction that way.

I guess you could write sort of 'site visit' fiction to the utopia you imagine?

A word of warning, a lot of people are likely to view your utopia (where everyone agrees with you and other ideas have been so completely destroyed no one even thinks of them) as a dystopia.

ETA: Also, just to be clear, disagreement is not usually viewed as inherently evil. I'm betting even you don't take that view. If someone prefers to wear clothing you think is ugly, are they evil? There's plenty of room for disagreement/argument/conflict without anyone needing to be evil.

Edited by ECD on Dec 25th 2021 at 1:37:42 AM

And yet we do. This isn't a choice, as human beings, we are born that way. If I were to speculate, it's because in the ancestral past, humans who are capable of doing evil things leave enough descendants to have that gene spread throughout the population, but that's just speculation. We all share an evil side, and letting that evil side out occasionally is healthy and productive. People who deny or repress their evil side are historically prone to being driven by it, at least while under stress. Acknowledging it and then practicing at overcoming it is a better mental skillset in the long run.

Given the premise that one's destructive emotional impulses cannot be "erased", the next best thing is to master them.

"I have literally never felt catharsis because no character in fiction has had an experience a millionth of one percent similar to my life."

In that case your internal experience might be unique and other people will have trouble relating to it. Or you're in denial, up to you.

Edited by DeMarquis on Dec 25th 2021 at 4:39:27 AM

I'll be honest, it sounds like the morality exposited here comes from a very, very extreme and absolutist sort of place, an authoritarian and perhaps even fascistic perspective.

The idea that the protagonists are or should be the pinnacle of and definition of morality by default is an idea that has been debunked, deconstructed, taken apart, and otherwise critiqued by multiple different authors time and time again.

The antagonist can allow people to explore a deviated, "unacceptable" and outcasted view of the world. Queer guys like me very often see a number of elements of ourselves in the villain through such a lens - because the heroes, let's be honest, are kind of whitebread most of the time - too committed to standard virtues to seem interesting. Most often in fact, the hero is far less interesting than the villain is.

Why do you think I love writing the Umbral Horde (over in Shadows of Sandfield and the villain critique thread) so much? They're the bad guys, indisputably - and a number of their branches (cough Caith cough) are morally indefensible. But the greater whole maintains my interest by dint of their status as outcasts, as the outsiders, of how they rather than live in good spaces consciously chose, historically, to lodge in cursed or dark, forbidden places. They acknowledge their status as the outcast, and they draw power from it. They dwell in shadows, and inch their way into society, subverting things in society today that I'd say would deserve subversion and internal destruction.

And as a bisexual guy...well, that's just intrinsically interesting to me.

Edited by NickTheSwing on Dec 25th 2021 at 3:54:11 AM

What """antagonists""" could even exist in a semi-realistic setting anyway?

And again, if an antagonist represents something I dislike, why should I engage with them at all? Wanting to harm, kill, or otherwise lessen someone for any reason IS. OBJECTIVELY. EVIL. and should be avoided at all costs.

Plenty. As should be obvious by the wealth of modern setting works that feature antagonistic characters and villains

...Would you defend the use of the Ludovico Treatment?

Just asking, for the sake of this continued discussion.

It seems as though your perspective is based on chasing out any and all negativity, getting rid of any quality not inherently "admirable". Writing any sort of good fiction and such a closed-minded mentality are utterly inimical. They are completely anathema.

Edited by NickTheSwing on Dec 25th 2021 at 7:33:04 AM

Also, I just want to point this out, the moral stance of yours towards evil... matches perfectly the moral stance that the protagonist of "Death Note" has and what made him set off on a quest to kill "all evil/evil people" in the world on a massive killing-spree with a supernatural artifact in that story.

Yes, his definition of "evil" also included "laziness".

He also thinks he is a "good" person for doing so, despite being the Big Bad of the story.

Just wanted to point it out.

Or to simplify.

Punishing "Evil" = Good.

Eradicating "Evil" = Evil.

Simple as that.

Edited by TitanJump on Dec 25th 2021 at 4:44:24 PM

I'm also reminded of Terry Pratchett's quote about that one inquisitor or priest. The one with the stone head.

That, or Shin Megami Tensei's LAW faction.

Honestly, the kind of work you seem intent on producing seems to be an example of what I'd describe as a Esoteric Dystopia. Where many people outside of you could see this as a dystopia, whereas you only see a utopia.

Seems that's the only other option that isn't "worship any and all evil and become a total psychopath". If you give evil an inch, it'll take infinity-plus-one miles. Therefore the only way is to erase all evil ever.

Huh?

God I like this topic but I'm starting to get worried. Do you really have such an obssesion with such a black and white attitude?

You dont even need villains, the only person who seems to think you need a villain is you.

A kitten falls into the river, after much nailbaiting tension that he wont make it he is saved by the hero. The end. No villain. The only person who seems to drown in a puddle is you.

So that's why I'm trying to start lighter with the "new coworker" story. But again, all I want to do is kill her off at the slightest mistake. Because how dare someone have the audacity not to nail a retail job on the first try.