Question Why do people like evil/ruthless/a hole protagonists?

Discussion in 'Novel General' started by Ibiskool, Jun 30, 2020.

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  1. Fear

    Fear Well-Known Member

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    4.7/5 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
     
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  2. SamStrike

    SamStrike Well-Known Member

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    For me a true evil protagonist is someone who is willing to do anything to achieve his goal by any means possible.
    Being evil means not being shackled by anything.

    The most evil option is not necessarily the better one, a true 'good' evil character doesn't have any morals or ethics. Because of that they will not care about acting as a good guy or an evil guy, he simply choose the better option to achieve his goal, whether that option is good or evil doesn't matter. They don't have any kind of moral restriction, and because of that the options they have are very wide.

    Many of the stories with such characters as MC don't usually have the Good vs Evil as conflict but a Evil vs Evil, or a Evil vs Evil vs Good. And enemies are not fixated, enemies can easily become friends or allies depending on the situation and benefits, at contrary to good guys that most of the times are bent on killing or restraining evils simply because they are evil.

    A perfect evil characters to me is someone that doesn't have morals, ethics, pride and vengeance. Only his goal should matter. That doesn't mean he can't feel enjoyment, just that it's not his priority and shouldn't impact his goal.

    To Quote RI:
    Many may say that it's boring to read a character so 'hollow', but if you think that a character needs morals, relationships... to be an interesting person than you are wrong. There is something that is really fascinating seeing someone struggle with everything they have for only one and only one selfish purpose, without being trapped or shackled by anything.

    Another fact that I would like to mention is that if a story is good I wouldn't mind for the MC to fail in the end, one example is RI where the author stated that the MC is not someone that is destinated to win, if the story would end itself being better like that than the MC would not succeed (that still doesn't mean that the 'good side' would win tho). The death of Evil doesn't equal the win of Good, just that someone else might win, or maybe no one will win who knows.


    I would like to say more but I'm tired and I'm going to sleep bye.
     
    Last edited: Jul 5, 2020
  3. Karyehs

    Karyehs Well-Known Member

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    The thing is: being "an asshole" is often was more intelligent than "being nice". Usually "being nice" means to "get the short end of the stick".

    It starts from things that doesn't matter; like holding open a door for a stranger, which makes you miss your traffic light, which may snowball into you missing your train and miss an important appointment.

    Acts of kidness make the world a better place for those people that enjoy them, but a worse place for people that are already at a disadvantage for some reason.

    Being nice is the way of the weak and civilized (civilized = deweaponized & conditioned to be weak and servile from birth to pension after slaving away 45+ years of life for meagre ressources) to survive their days.

    I guess everybody likes nice people more than assholes, but few people can afford to be genuinely nice... and they usually have assholes to protect them and "bend" the world for them.
     
  4. ToastedRossi

    ToastedRossi Well-Known Member

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    I can't say enough how much I disagree with this.

    What? None of this is true.
     
  5. Fear

    Fear Well-Known Member

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    What a garbage take, that road only leads to emptiness and regret.

    Most of these evil characters seek power, but what do you do when you reach there? Congratulations! You're the baddest motherfucker alive, now what? You stept on anyone in your way with no regard for anyone but your objetive, now sitting on a ivory throne, surrounded by bodies, alone. No relationships built other than out of interest or fear. Now what? Do you go squash some people? Some puny revenge for what you murdered more people that have nothing to do with it that those who did? And then? Kill a couple more for the sake of it? Meditate until the end of times?

    That take is inmature and wimsical. And that is precisely why you see most people that hace walked that road and reached the end of it repent, be miserable, a empty shell with no conections or purpose, and that is when you realize that the ends does NEVER justify the means.

    [​IMG]

    There you go my dude, an Oscar to the movie you just made up.
     
  6. Karyehs

    Karyehs Well-Known Member

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    Thanks for convincing me that my opinion incorrect with your well thought out arguments.

    It'd be great if conversations could always be as stimulating as a this one. I guess I should look more often for people who've never even seen a sociology class from the outside to discuss human behaviour with.

    Thanks for educating me. Please keep 'schlicking' to your high standard boilove porn while sharing your wisdom.
     
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  7. Nimroth

    Nimroth Someone

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    Equating nice with weak and asshole with strong is silly.
    If anything to get away with being an asshole requires you to be in a strong position, but being an asshole doesn't necessarily put you in that position.
    If you seriously think being an asshole is the more intelligent way, then that is because you are overly focusing on the assholes that simply had the intelligence to begin with to compensate for it, but there are plenty of other assholes that it is only causing troubles for.
     
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  8. Fulminata

    Fulminata Typo-ist | Officer of Heavenly Inc. |

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    Hmm, it's probably because of the overused idiotic goody two shoes troupe? in many stories, the "good" peeps ended up making lots of mistake because they don't use their brain, while on the other hand, the sociopathic evil mastermind use their brain.


    And then, we're gonna talk about good and evil! "Evil" is the anthithesis of "good". A more spartan way of interprering it is simply "things that can't fit the criteria of good". What is good and evil? i dunno! but then, i choose to view it as a method. Good simply means doing things according to moral/law/propierity, while evil is doing things with a more "unorthodox" way. What is moral/law/propoerity? It'll depends on the person that you ask/the story's setting!

    But from what i see, it seems that you disdain a poor characterization instead of "evil" characters in general.
    It's not too much of a stretch to call the Lotm protagonist as "evil", because he steals and deceive. Mao Ni's Fang Xian and Ning Que is pretty "evil", considering that they can be borderline sadistic and are utterly selfish, even when the world is at stake.

    What makes these "evil" characters shine, is that they're not just a cookie-cutter evil overlord. They got their humane side too, and the author manage to show it properly. After all, people is a swirly mess of good and evil inside, and the world irl is such a huge mass of grey area. A proper characterization of "evil" could gain the sympathy of readers because they are more "human-like" and much more relatable than a perfect knight in shining armor (who will never fall into temptations, is never selfish, and will always help the eldery to cross the street).
     
  9. Karyehs

    Karyehs Well-Known Member

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    Intelligence is a tool to "get stuff done". Often "being an asshole" is just the most efficient way to get "stuff done".

    Being intelligent means to have the capacity to anticipate the outcome/consequences of (your) actions and the ability to adjust your actions to get the outcome you desire.

    In most cases being soft/weak/passive is simply a bad decision. There are obviously exceptions, but "being active" is mostly superior to "being passive". And "being active" means you're likely "an asshole" or "an evil person" in the perspective of people with conflicting interests.

    The thing is: if you don't have the strenght of will to be perceived as an asshole/evil person, and get active for your own interests, you're basically the playball of what the people around you want from/for you.
     
  10. ToastedRossi

    ToastedRossi Well-Known Member

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    Fundamentally, there's nothing that makes evil characters more intelligent than good ones. It feels a lot like when we make the assumption that modern people are just smarter than people were in the past. It's completely untrue and the illusion only exists because we make incorrect assumptions about how intelligence works.

    That arises more from bad writing than anything else. When a character does something stupid it's either because of some character fault or it's the writer making a mistake. If it's the former, making mistakes is actually good for the story as mistakes are part of human nature and they drive the story. Think about it this way, would "Romeo and Juliet" be worth anything if the protagonists decided to make the smart decision rather than doing what they did?

    I don't even think that the first part this is necessarily true. I think that readers gravitate to this view because they read a lot of bad writers and bad writers are more likely to blame goodness for the dumb things their characters do. And really when I come across good villain protagonists, their character flaws are just as apparent and they're just as likely to make mistakes based on those. It only makes sense because that's really what good storytelling is.

    There's no reason for a good person to have to be soft/weak/passive to begin with. Your argument has no foundation.
     
    Last edited: Jul 5, 2020
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  11. Nimroth

    Nimroth Someone

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    There is no rule that says that being active involves being an asshole and that you can't be both nice and active.
    Can it be an intelligent choice to act as an asshole?, sure for people that can back it up, but it can just as often be the dumbest choice available.
    Or are you extending the claim to saying that people that riot or commit petty crime for no gain are being intelligent as well?
    If you really have any evidence to show that being an asshole is more often than not a smart choice, then I would honestly want to see those.
     
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  12. Fear

    Fear Well-Known Member

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    Ok, I'll let you drag me down to your level just this once.

    So, by what you said;
    > Intelligence is a tool to solve a problem.
    > It's harder to solve a problem while being a nice person and taking others into account.
    > Its easier to solve a problem by not giving a fuck and stepping on whoever you need.

    So, by this logic, your logic, it would require a greater intelligence to solve a problem while taking people into account that it would not taking them into account and being an "asshole".

    So you are basically admitting that you advocate for being an asshole because you are such a retarded piece of shit that you need to step on others to get shit done.


    Maybe, and just maybe, would it not be a wiser aproach to try to stop justifying the unmoral shit you do because of being flawed, and strive to be better so you can achieve your objectives without fucking anyone over? Just an idea.

    Come for another one if you want, champ.

    Speaking this amount of shit and having the audacity to answer me with a "prove me wrong"... Fucking ridiculous.
     
    Last edited: Jul 5, 2020
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  13. asriu

    asriu fu~ fu~ fu~

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    raccoon bread.jpg
    so it become batman vs joker?
     
  14. Fulminata

    Fulminata Typo-ist | Officer of Heavenly Inc. |

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    Hmm, first, my answer that was quoted for this section of argument is a speculation that tries to answer the OP's main question, as in the title of the thread. "Idiotic goody two shoes" trope has been milked until its last drop for centuries. Say, heroes that always charge headfirst, kill the dragon, and save the damsel? Ring any bell? Cause it rings a gazillion bell in my head. People get bored of knowing the ending.
    But yes, i agree that an overdone trope could still be great if it was done well


    Um, i'm a bit lost here since the "first" part of my answer that you quoted for this part is about Mao Ni's and LOTM MC. I refute OP's claim of these characters' "goodness", and the part that you quoted is explaining why those three characters could be perceived as "good" and gain the sympathy of the OP and the reader in general, when in fact, their deeds could be considered "evil". Maybe it's the spacing issue in my post?

    For the villains in general, It is exactly as what you said. Their flaws and bad choice that is inherent in their character are what makes them so interesting. Most of the proper "villains" poses a question : what if you, reader, let go of your conscience and get what you wanted, consequences/society be damned?

    And yes, as i pointed out, it seems that the OP's question is stemmed from reading a villain with bad writings, as seen from this tidbits:
     
  15. Fear

    Fear Well-Known Member

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    Sorry if I come out agressive but it really gets in my nerves seeing someone justifying being an asshole to not come face to face with his flaws.
     
  16. All The Wrong Novels

    All The Wrong Novels Well-Known Member

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    I think some parts of this are more about how context makes certain superficially good things actually bad, rather than if characters should be genuinely good or not, and it is still appealing to people about what is good or not.

    I think most people agree that doing what you need to survive in a world that's hostile to you (even if its against the rules of oppressors) is not bad, a lot of good characters are portrayed as pointing out injustices and hypocrisies of existing society. There's a lot of ways in which things that seem good on the surface are actually not so, another common example is "Toxic Positivity" which is when someone has an inability to address problems, and just tells people to cheer up, and tries to force the appearance of things being fine when they're not. There's other examples of when more structural problems in society are hidden, so people can appear nice/moral on the surface while benefiting from an evil system, but there's nothing good about this when you have full context. When pointing out acting good in an evil society is not actually good, that's not an argument to be bad, but just providing additional context on how to judge if the action actually is good or bad.

    This is why I made a distinction between a ruthless and an evil character earlier in the thread. A character who acts ruthless to survive in a against those who are ruthless to them is not bad. To form an equal society people to have to be willing to acknowledge the humanity and ends of others and coordinate how to best work to everyone's benefit, but anyone who disregards the humanity of others loses the right to ask others to acknowledge them, similarly a society that just wants to use people cannot blame them for looking out for themselves.
     
  17. TotallyNotAnAlien

    TotallyNotAnAlien Not an alien!

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    Rather than get involved in the argument, I would just say that for long time readers who have been reading since Baka-Tsuki days where translating Light Novels rather than Web Novels was the norm, the evil characters felt like a breath of fresh air since we all know how standard Japanese MCs are like.

    It's the same thing as when Chinese Web Novels started being translated several years ago, it was "new content" and "different", so we enjoyed it. Coiling Dragon, for example, would likely be drowned out in the huge selection of novels we have now if the translation was started today instead. Not to say it won't be popular though, just not as popular as it would have been back then before the "market" became flooded.

    It's sort of like having eaten sushi almost all your life, you suddenly discover beef or bacon. They are totally different food, and most people would enjoy having something new.
     
  18. SamStrike

    SamStrike Well-Known Member

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    How do you know? Do you expect them to be the same as you, having the same value as you, simply because they are also human? That's just completely retarded. They live in a different world, different thinking, different life. You can NEVER expect them to have the same kind of emotions/humanity as you or ourself. TO YOU that path may lead to emptiness and regret, but you can't speak for people who are completely different like them.

    Now.
    You seem to have missed my point entirely and only focused like if the most important thing would be the end goal.
    The most important thing (for me) is the journey and the process. Moreover...

    You are trying to force your perspective onto others, some people don't like or care about having relationships, some people are completely fine being alone. So why would they be forced to have one when nothing would change for them if they ended up alone or not. Not everyone is like you. People have other dislike and likes. We are barely alive for some decades while those characters are alive for hundreds or thousands of years, do you expect them to be the same as us? They probably have experienced everything, kinship, love, family multiple times. But they are bound to get tired and bored of it after such a long time. But there are things that you can pursue forever without even ever being able to reach it.

    Example from RI:
    Or another:

    Moreover you seem to forget again that what I stated is about what I like to read about, real life and fiction are two different things.
    I can use the same point you used. How do you know? You are probably just an average person doing a normal job or a student going to school, how would you know about someone who spent so much time. How do you expect to understand him/her?

    I am not saying I would be able to understand them either, but I like reading about them. and that's what I care about. It's interesting to me, whether they achieve their goal or fail.
     
    Last edited: Jul 6, 2020
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  19. Karyehs

    Karyehs Well-Known Member

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    It would have been great, if you actually stepped up to my level, but don't worry, I'll come down to you, for now.


    Yes.
    Half yes. The more elements you include in your calculations, the harder it is, obviously. On the other side, if you put in enough effort to get the good-guy-nobody-thinks-I-am-an-asshole-solution, you'd likely get a better result by being an asshole (with the same amount of effort and thinking/planning obv.).
    Theoretically, yes. Again, it's way more differentiated. Sometimes "being nice" leads to a better outcome than being an "goal-oriented asshole", that's called 'cooperation'. If the value of cooperating with you is less (including emotions and feelings of companionship) than the value of simply taking what you want, the logical decision would be to 'be an asshole'.
    Theoretically, yes. Practically, the so-called "greater intelligence" would very likely be a "better person" and do "more good", by not wasting too much time on pampering to everybodys feelings and just be an asshole whenever it's the best decision.


    Nope, lol. But it's fascinating how emotional and insulting you become in your attempt to convince me that being an asshole is for "retarded pieces of shit that need to step on others to get shit done". Must have felt great to write that. ;) Did it make you feel like a SJW that is defending 'the good'? Without trying to insult you (,but :p) it made you look like an asshole from my perspective. Not the intelligent kind, but the kind that is rude, just to be rude.

    I am not saying this to attack you, but to show you how important 'perspective' and 'subjectivity' is in evaluating good, evil, niceness and assholeness.

    To your: "to get shit done" -> if you ever answer me, it would be good to have an example here, because there are few formulations that are more meaningless. Who would "need to" be an asshole while buying groceries. Maybe you mean delegating? Idk.
    Nope. I don't need to justify anything, neither do the so-called assholes. I actually see myself as a rather nice guy, but very likely that's mainly the case, because I rarely come in situations where being 'an evil asshole' is the better way...

    Life isn't a movie where people are sleepless for weeks, because they took the last seat in a bus or waiting area.
    Well, you basically didn't make any point at all. You paraphrased me and then said
    "HAHA, sO gOoD pEOPle aRe mORe iNtEllIgenT."
    So my answer to that again: Nope.

    Often "good people" aren't "good", because they want to. They often are "good", because they know they'd lose every type of conflict... be it intellectually, emotionally, physically or in front of the law (because being an asshole isn't illegal, if you do it right).

    Good Night kisses from me. I hope the cramps will be over soon.
     
    Last edited: Jul 6, 2020
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  20. ToastedRossi

    ToastedRossi Well-Known Member

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    It is an answer of a sort but my point is that this answer only arises from the mistaken assumption that the kind of thing the reader doesn't like is because the characters are goody two-shoes. Reality is a bit more complicated that than and a more analytical reader should be better at identifying what that actual source is.

    I wasn't disagreeing with you. :) I thought your point made sense and I wanted to expand on it.
     
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