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On heroes, villains, and double standards
(aka Xparrot is metaing again, run awaaaa~~~~y)(aka why don't I have a Loki icon yet?)
On my flist the question was posed, why is Loki getting so much love in Avengers fandom in spite of all his wicked deeds, while so many heroic characters are vilified for much less severe character flaws? Which, as a long-time villain fan, I just had to jump in and say:
To begin with, this is something of a false equivalency: in fiction there are many minor character flaws that are worse than grievous flaws from a storytelling standpoint, because they are less interesting. Huge tragic flaws can make for more compelling stories than minor, human flaws, and sometimes minorly flawed characters are disliked because their flaws are boring or annoying, as opposed to horrific or terrifying (and thus intriguing).
(And then, sometimes we like villains without ever considering their morality, because they're entertaining, because their scenery-chewing cracks us up or their wicked cleverness is so much fun to untangle - or just because they're sexy and we don't care what they're doing, as long as we get to watch - and since it's fiction, that's cool; file it under Not My Kink and move on.)
But putting that aside, as a fan of both villains and heroes (oftentimes in the same stories), I admit that I hold villain characters to different moral standards as hero characters. There's a lot a hero can do that will be unforgivable for me (killing is a big one for a lot of superheroes), while as a villain doing the same thing will not change my feelings for them substantially. Much of this is because of the different way characters tend to be treated in the narrative - heroes get rewarded in the end, villains punished. So a hero who missteps may pay for it to an extent, but largely will come out on top in the end - they'll have their friends around them, get the girl/boy, the adulation for saving the world (or at least the satisfaction of knowing they did); while the villain usually gets what's coming to him. Heroes sometimes get criticized when the audience believes they are not being held accountable for their flaws, while as villains rarely have that problem. A lot of the love of woobie villains is for characters who get no love (or not enough love) in canon, so fandom jumps in to fill the void. (Whether they deserve love simply for being pretty/angsty is a whole other question!)
Some of this isn't different standards so much as moral relativism - morality can be subjective, depending on a character's circumstances and history. Thor in the comics kills his enemies in battle on occasion, and this doesn't particularly bother me because that's part of the Asgardian code of honor he was raised with. While as Batman killing under any circumstances is just wrong. But it doesn't necessarily make either Thor or Batman a better or more moral hero.
But especially in fiction we tend to apply still more subjective-to-the-point-of-hypocritical standards to characters and their actions. In Gintama they reference the "Gian effect", named for the bully character in Doraemon - Gian is usually so mean that if he does even the smallest kind act, it makes him sympathetic (while as if a good, sweet character does anything even a little less than nice, it's demonic!) If Clark Kent adopts an abandoned kitten it's cute, but nowhere near as adorably touching as if Lex Luthor takes one in (in the absence of a kitten-involving master plan, of course.)
In real life, double standards can be vastly problematic, because they come from unreasonable, unfair expectations and prejudiced stereotypes. Sexist, racist, classist double standards arise from beliefs that a sex or race or class is inferior to another, less capable/less intelligent/less worthy of being offered the same considerations. There are some double standards that most of us agree are reasonable - e.g. children are not usually tried as adults in criminal cases, because children are considered to be less morally culpable than adults, less capable of making the right choices. And we all have a degree of subjective standards for the people we know personally. But multiple standards inherently fly in the face of social equality.
However, this sense of fairness or unfairness doesn't apply to fiction. Fictional characters are not real people; as characters in a story, they are deliberately written to follow specific roles, perform specific duties within the story. It's not unfair or unreasonable to place expectations on fictional characters, because the point of most stories is to make you have such expectations, to make you like them or dislike them and respond to them accordingly. An emotionally involving story will almost inevitably prejudice you for or against certain characters. So when a villain character does something good or noble, it's not unreasonable to say, 'That was unexpected!' Characters acting out-of-character, going against expectations, can make for compelling stories; and for many fans of villains, that's a big part of the draw. But that effect isn't so engaging if the villain hasn't been established as being truly wicked, if there's no proof that he's going against type when he turns good - while as with a truly despicable villain, even the smallest hint of good is fascinating, because it's so unexpected.
On the other hand, a hero who is good most of the time can be judged harshly for even momentarily lapses - because while many fans of villains enjoy both their entertaining villainy and their lapses into good, heroes are usually liked for their good qualities, and betraying those traits works against what makes them so likable.
Not all double standards in fiction/fandom are fair or acceptable - e.g. audiences may place different expectations on female and male characters based on real-world sexism and ideals of masculinity or femininity. On the other hand, sometimes it's the story itself that imposes those expectations, by casting all the women in certain roles and all the men in other roles. But that either of these cases is problematic doesn't mean that the general practice of casting characters into roles is wrong; that's simply how stories work.
Which isn't to say that you should feel obliged to like villains, or feel sorry for them just because they've been written into their roles! Hating characters for doing terrible things is as justifiable as loving them for doing wonderful things - or liking them because they made you laugh, or because you wish you were them or wish you knew them, or because they're super-sexy and have great fashion sense. (Or disliking them because they remind you of someone you don't like, or because you know you'd never get along with them, or because their story isn't interesting to you, or because their helmet is stupid...) While your tastes in fictional characters can reveal elements of your own preferences and prejudices with real people (and should be something you examine, especially if your preferences tend to fall along the lines of existing prejudices such as sexism or racism), it's also about your preferences for stories, what kinds of stories entertain or involve you, and how deeply you relate and equate fiction with reality.
(Then there are those of us who especially like villains because we love a good redemption story - it fits my personal philosophies to portray all people as potentially redeemable, however unlikely - and the greater the evil, the more compelling the turn to good. More difficult struggles are more involving, and while a hero usually is doing what comes naturally, villains fighting against their base natures to be heroic can be fascinating, in the same way that an alcoholic turning down a drink can be a significant, triumphant moment while another character passing on a cocktail is not even worth noting. Which doesn't mean that heroes being heroic can't be compelling in their own right, but it's a different kind of story, enjoyable for different reasons.)
Or, tl;dr version: villains aren't heroes, what fans like in a hero may not be what they like in a villain, and that's okay.
Leaving the most important question unanswered: why do I still not have a Loki icon?
And to reward you for enduring my rambling - or if you just want to just skip to the good stuff - have an awesome and hilarious and adorable Avengers fic featuring redemption via a kid!Loki who, while not quite the comics char I so adore, is close enough to yet elicit dolphin noises from me (literally; I scared the cat last night reading it...) Plus it's got cute gen teaminess and h/c and an awesome tags list and a fantastic Clint POV and did I mention hilarious?
Amateur Theatrics (26585 words) by
galaxysoup
Fandom: The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
In which Thor’s primary problem-solving method (a mighty blow from Mjolnir) fails to have the desired effect on a magical artifact, and his secondary method (a mightier blow from Mjolnir) proves to be actively disastrous.
On my flist the question was posed, why is Loki getting so much love in Avengers fandom in spite of all his wicked deeds, while so many heroic characters are vilified for much less severe character flaws? Which, as a long-time villain fan, I just had to jump in and say:
To begin with, this is something of a false equivalency: in fiction there are many minor character flaws that are worse than grievous flaws from a storytelling standpoint, because they are less interesting. Huge tragic flaws can make for more compelling stories than minor, human flaws, and sometimes minorly flawed characters are disliked because their flaws are boring or annoying, as opposed to horrific or terrifying (and thus intriguing).
(And then, sometimes we like villains without ever considering their morality, because they're entertaining, because their scenery-chewing cracks us up or their wicked cleverness is so much fun to untangle - or just because they're sexy and we don't care what they're doing, as long as we get to watch - and since it's fiction, that's cool; file it under Not My Kink and move on.)
But putting that aside, as a fan of both villains and heroes (oftentimes in the same stories), I admit that I hold villain characters to different moral standards as hero characters. There's a lot a hero can do that will be unforgivable for me (killing is a big one for a lot of superheroes), while as a villain doing the same thing will not change my feelings for them substantially. Much of this is because of the different way characters tend to be treated in the narrative - heroes get rewarded in the end, villains punished. So a hero who missteps may pay for it to an extent, but largely will come out on top in the end - they'll have their friends around them, get the girl/boy, the adulation for saving the world (or at least the satisfaction of knowing they did); while the villain usually gets what's coming to him. Heroes sometimes get criticized when the audience believes they are not being held accountable for their flaws, while as villains rarely have that problem. A lot of the love of woobie villains is for characters who get no love (or not enough love) in canon, so fandom jumps in to fill the void. (Whether they deserve love simply for being pretty/angsty is a whole other question!)
Some of this isn't different standards so much as moral relativism - morality can be subjective, depending on a character's circumstances and history. Thor in the comics kills his enemies in battle on occasion, and this doesn't particularly bother me because that's part of the Asgardian code of honor he was raised with. While as Batman killing under any circumstances is just wrong. But it doesn't necessarily make either Thor or Batman a better or more moral hero.
But especially in fiction we tend to apply still more subjective-to-the-point-of-hypocritical standards to characters and their actions. In Gintama they reference the "Gian effect", named for the bully character in Doraemon - Gian is usually so mean that if he does even the smallest kind act, it makes him sympathetic (while as if a good, sweet character does anything even a little less than nice, it's demonic!) If Clark Kent adopts an abandoned kitten it's cute, but nowhere near as adorably touching as if Lex Luthor takes one in (in the absence of a kitten-involving master plan, of course.)
In real life, double standards can be vastly problematic, because they come from unreasonable, unfair expectations and prejudiced stereotypes. Sexist, racist, classist double standards arise from beliefs that a sex or race or class is inferior to another, less capable/less intelligent/less worthy of being offered the same considerations. There are some double standards that most of us agree are reasonable - e.g. children are not usually tried as adults in criminal cases, because children are considered to be less morally culpable than adults, less capable of making the right choices. And we all have a degree of subjective standards for the people we know personally. But multiple standards inherently fly in the face of social equality.
However, this sense of fairness or unfairness doesn't apply to fiction. Fictional characters are not real people; as characters in a story, they are deliberately written to follow specific roles, perform specific duties within the story. It's not unfair or unreasonable to place expectations on fictional characters, because the point of most stories is to make you have such expectations, to make you like them or dislike them and respond to them accordingly. An emotionally involving story will almost inevitably prejudice you for or against certain characters. So when a villain character does something good or noble, it's not unreasonable to say, 'That was unexpected!' Characters acting out-of-character, going against expectations, can make for compelling stories; and for many fans of villains, that's a big part of the draw. But that effect isn't so engaging if the villain hasn't been established as being truly wicked, if there's no proof that he's going against type when he turns good - while as with a truly despicable villain, even the smallest hint of good is fascinating, because it's so unexpected.
On the other hand, a hero who is good most of the time can be judged harshly for even momentarily lapses - because while many fans of villains enjoy both their entertaining villainy and their lapses into good, heroes are usually liked for their good qualities, and betraying those traits works against what makes them so likable.
Not all double standards in fiction/fandom are fair or acceptable - e.g. audiences may place different expectations on female and male characters based on real-world sexism and ideals of masculinity or femininity. On the other hand, sometimes it's the story itself that imposes those expectations, by casting all the women in certain roles and all the men in other roles. But that either of these cases is problematic doesn't mean that the general practice of casting characters into roles is wrong; that's simply how stories work.
Which isn't to say that you should feel obliged to like villains, or feel sorry for them just because they've been written into their roles! Hating characters for doing terrible things is as justifiable as loving them for doing wonderful things - or liking them because they made you laugh, or because you wish you were them or wish you knew them, or because they're super-sexy and have great fashion sense. (Or disliking them because they remind you of someone you don't like, or because you know you'd never get along with them, or because their story isn't interesting to you, or because their helmet is stupid...) While your tastes in fictional characters can reveal elements of your own preferences and prejudices with real people (and should be something you examine, especially if your preferences tend to fall along the lines of existing prejudices such as sexism or racism), it's also about your preferences for stories, what kinds of stories entertain or involve you, and how deeply you relate and equate fiction with reality.
(Then there are those of us who especially like villains because we love a good redemption story - it fits my personal philosophies to portray all people as potentially redeemable, however unlikely - and the greater the evil, the more compelling the turn to good. More difficult struggles are more involving, and while a hero usually is doing what comes naturally, villains fighting against their base natures to be heroic can be fascinating, in the same way that an alcoholic turning down a drink can be a significant, triumphant moment while another character passing on a cocktail is not even worth noting. Which doesn't mean that heroes being heroic can't be compelling in their own right, but it's a different kind of story, enjoyable for different reasons.)
Or, tl;dr version: villains aren't heroes, what fans like in a hero may not be what they like in a villain, and that's okay.
Leaving the most important question unanswered: why do I still not have a Loki icon?
And to reward you for enduring my rambling - or if you just want to just skip to the good stuff - have an awesome and hilarious and adorable Avengers fic featuring redemption via a kid!Loki who, while not quite the comics char I so adore, is close enough to yet elicit dolphin noises from me (literally; I scared the cat last night reading it...) Plus it's got cute gen teaminess and h/c and an awesome tags list and a fantastic Clint POV and did I mention hilarious?
Amateur Theatrics (26585 words) by
Fandom: The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
In which Thor’s primary problem-solving method (a mighty blow from Mjolnir) fails to have the desired effect on a magical artifact, and his secondary method (a mightier blow from Mjolnir) proves to be actively disastrous.
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Yes, yes! A thousand times, yes! For me, the central definition of a true hero is forgiveness and love to the point of foolishness. Thor does love Loki, he does keep reaching out to him, and he keeps getting fooled by him. But all that is what makes Thor a hero, not just a strong guy with a big hammer. And it's Loki's rejection that makes him the villain, because he could have taken Thor's offer, and they could have fought the alien invaders together, and then Loki would have been a hero, too.
On SV, Clark kept using Lex, and kept turning away from him, whereas Lex never really turned away from Clark until the bitter end. That's a major reason why I can't see Clark as a hero and Lex as his nemesis.
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Oh well. At least it means SV!Lex is one "villain" I don't have to come up with crazy redemption scenarios, because he's already halfway there!
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Aargh! You're right. I'd forgotten that. And he really believed he was saving Earth from a potential monster. I tend to agree with him. :-)
"...SV!Lex is one "villain" I don't have to come up with crazy redemption scenarios, because he's already halfway there!"
At least half-way.
"In the scene on the cliff in Avengers, I couldn't help but think of SV, and think that YES, THIS is how it's supposed to be!"
Yes! This is what I keep doing, too. I'm always comparing SV to some other TV show or movie, to the detriment of SV. I haven't come across one show or movie that gets it worse. :-)
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And now I'm thinking... didn't he say 'I LOVE you like a brother'? :-)
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And yeah...SV sent the benchmark for me for badly done superhero-supervillain stuff; I tend to compare most such to it, and it almost always loses XP
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I think he's halfway there because Lex is more of an example of an anti-hero with priorities gone very amuck. He has reasons for what he's doing, and they generally aren't selfish ones, the way I interpret SV canon, anyway. He takes the needs of the many very seriously, sometimes at significant cost to himself, personally. (Not that I agree with his actions; from a practical standpoint, a lot of the defenses he tried to set up were really f'ing stupid -- really? you make an army of super-clones when you're fighting Phantoms that can possess bodies? really? *headdesk* -- and a lot of the bad/wrong/evil stuff he did could've been done better with less of the above, like Level 33.1 and such. ...Not that we get to see or hear much of what actually went on there. Clark was shocked by what Belle Reeve was like, too.)
At least Lex seems that way to me pre-S8. We're left completely guessing as to motives at S8 onwards, instead of only partially after the start of S5 or so. Kind of hard to make excuses for a 'woobie' when the bombs start going off.
And yes, I realize that this is all SV-relative morality. Neither of these guys would really get my vote in real life, thanks. (Not unless Lex cut out the stupid shit / acted more optimally, and maybe actually had an ends work out for once. Though I doubt he'd have either problem IRL, since he wouldn't be typecast as always having to fail and always being betrayed by everyone ever. *heh* ...Except for maybe the whole, "Hah! Your name is Lex Luthor and you're bald? Really? *snickers*" that he'd get from people, assuming he stayed out of an asylum.)
...And I thought MR said "love" too, FWIW :)
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I always thought he went batshit in s6 and s7 because of PTSD and guilt and such from being possessed by Zod. (Because there's no way he feels safe after that, plus, what Zod made him do and how guilty he was finding things out in the aftermath, and possible mind-rape &etc. ...)
I agree about Lex's grey morality (though he seems inclined to do white things when possible -- I remember some later-season stuff when he did things better after being more-or-less called on them through direct or tangential Clark-interference).
I definitely categorize myself as a Lex-apologist, and I don't hate or even dislike Clark (though there are a lot of things the character did or didn't do that I didn't like). That may be because I forget how much he tended to whine between episodes, though (oy).
I think Lex As Villain and Clark As Hero fall under the same heading as Lana As Perfection in Smallville writing. I tend to take all of those 'pushed as straightforward by the main show viewpoint' things with a saltshaker or two ;)
*lol* So the takeaway here is that you and greenlady feel this way about Lex, too? *yay, for I am not alone!* :)
no subject
And yeah, Zod does seem to be likely motivation for a lot of Lex's crazy (and it drove me nuts that the show never really acknowledged that what he did as Zod was completely beyond his control - unlike Loki, where it's not clear how much freewill he has, Lex was possessed, and everyone knew it - but they never sympathized...)(I will be completely shameless and point out the fic I wrote based around this ^^;)
I think Lex As Villain and Clark As Hero fall under the same heading as Lana As Perfection in Smallville writing. I tend to take all of those 'pushed as straightforward by the main show viewpoint' things with a saltshaker or two ;)
Heh, yup, so true - the disconnect between Show and Tell in the show was pretty extreme (worsened, I think, by those writers and actors who worked contrary to it, at times! Such as MR's "I love you"...)
(And the essays probably read better oldest to newest, as it was an evolving theory so changed a bit as I went along...)
(ETA: Forget to say, but if anything in my previous posts moves you to comment, don't hesitate to do so even if they are years old - while right now Loki's my passion, I always have space in my fangirling for a good Clex rant ^^)
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I get up to some pretty wild and woolly theories, I must admit, but don't let them scare you too much. I'm really quite sane. Really. :-)))
no subject
For "Avengers", I shrug because we only see part of Loki's decision-making process. We have no clue if he could've gotten to Earth on his own without help, or anyplace else, or what shape he was in at the beginning when he got picked up by Thanos, what happened in the meantime while he was there, whether there was any mindcontrol or not, etc. etc. --I could easily see a parallel drawn to what happened to Stark in the desert, to what might have happened from the end of Thor onwards. (Which I see mirrored in other people's fics, so I feel like I'm not alone!) But we just don't know yet. And Loki seemed pretty damn relieved to lose at the end there, IMHO. The thing is, we don't actually know the details of his choice, or how much 'lewway' he might've had, and the consequences of not giving them the cube once on earth seemed pretty dire, if that one 'flashback' he had was any indication.
I guess I could say that he might not be a total villain, he might just be as weak as many people would have been (though strong enough to not curl up in a little ball and go quietly insane and die, obviously) and opted for survival and going along with things instead of 'saying no'. Expecting Loki to have said 'screw you' to Thanos and called up his brother the moment he was on Earth, throwing himself on Thor's (and Asgard's) mercy and help (and/or that of humans, given what Asgardans think of them) sounds to me about as realistic as a cow learning to fly, given how Thor ended (what Loki seemed to be thinking/believe at the time he fell). And not doing so seems reasonable/almost a wise decision, given that Thor made comment to knowing Loki had been with Thanos... if I remember the movie correctly? Though there is a difference between 'not calling Thor' and 'trying to take over the earth', of course *coughs* ^_^;;
I suppose it comes down to me as wanting to be able to cheer a 'villain' or villainous type on as they try to better themselves and become 'good'/redeemed and do penance and fix their mistakes (what they can fix). I also like the idea of redeemability for all, as well:)
...And I may need to write a fic about Lex Luthor adopting a kitten for a kitten-related world-dominating plan SV fic now. Or something. (I laughed so hard when I read that! Darn you and your sneaking plot bunnies in there like that :-P )
no subject
Yup, I also subscribe to the Loki-maybe-wasn't-in-his-right-mind theory (see the last post I've put up!) Especially the way he folds at the end - either he's honestly relieved to have lost (and maybe be bonked back to himself?), or he's got a master-plan, but whichever it is he really wasn't as upset about losing as one would expect...
(And Thor doesn't know Loki was with Thanos - he knows something happened to him, he asks "Who showed you this power? Who controls the would-be king?" - but Loki doesn't tell him, and Thor doesn't seem to have an actual guess who or what or how Loki's being influenced. That he keeps trying to get through to Loki anyway, even having less evidence than the audience that his brother's being manipulated - awww, Thor! Now yeah, that's a big double-standard - I like my heroes to never give up, and my villains to always, in the end...)
Comics!Loki is a lot more overtly and consciously evil (at least until the current storyline with kid!Loki, which is beyond amazing) - but even he's got some interesting motivations when it comes to fate and his role as a trickster god - he might not have a choice about being what he is, in-canon as well as the casting in fiction.
I suppose it comes down to me as wanting to be able to cheer a 'villain' or villainous type on as they try to better themselves and become 'good'/redeemed and do penance and fix their mistakes (what they can fix). I also like the idea of redeemability for all, as well:)
Yup, this! I find tremendous satisfaction and optimism in redemption stories, because their underlying theme is that anyone can change for the better, anyone has the capacity. There are some characters who for me are too far gone, who have never shown enough humanity for me to believe it's possible (some versions of comics!Lex can fall into this) but SV!Lex and movies!Loki are nowhere near that far gone, no matter what terrible things they've done...
no subject
Ah, k. I couldn't remember if I'd read something in fanfic about knowing where Loki was, or if it had been only implied in the movie at one point that Odin/Thor/Heimdall knew a little more than they might have let on about what had happened to him. (Clearly I need to see Avengers a third time! *g*)
"even having less evidence than the audience that his brother's being manipulated"
Well, they supposedly have known each other for a thousand years or something, right? One would think Thor would know his brother better than the audience, BDA or not ;)
...Ok, saw you had a post on comics!Loki and I am worried that I may have to start reading Marvel soon if I read your post (I am a DC girl, you understand... even though my first comic book reading was technically huge black and white compendiums of X-Men comics, heh).
...Yeah, I'm gonna o read that, anyway *dies*
Oh, and complete agreement from me on your last paragraph there :) :)
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--Also haaaaw Thor is such BDA (gotta love the lunk! Especially when he is so loyal to his brother, even if he fails to express it in ways that actually reach Loki...)
If you're going to read any Marvel, Journey into Mystery is totally worth betraying DC for! (okay, I don't actually read DC comics regularly, but I didn't read Marvel either, and now...)