Villainy

I'm reading a bunch of fic with at least one of three different bad guys
and many of them ship them with the good guy
(because I ran out of villain husbands fic to read ugh)
and just
why do so many pit so much work in to explain that
secretly
they're not a bad guy really.

I mean, it's not the redemption arc thing, I'm actually looking for that
it's just explaining how we only think we saw them be evil and secretly they never were and that one dead guy deserved it and somehow the bad guy new that when shooting into a crowd.



I mean I know I'm saying this as someone who can find a chaotic neutral angle where he never really meant to kill Ripper for any and everything Ethan Rayne ever did
but Ethan made people change into their costumes
he didn't just, you know, murder people.

And even so, still a nad guy from Team Lawful's perspective.



Also with the Flash it keeps winding me up that fic goes out of it's way to excuse the times they kidnapped the team or that time he killed Barry's mother
but
ignores everyone else.

I mean Cold shot into a crowd at random to see what Flash and the gun could do
and Eobard killed at barest minimum Stagg and the reporter dude
and Flash knows this and really ought to care.

But even longfic thus far doesn't seem so keen on saying yep, they're a murderer, killed a bunch of people, now what?

And though I've read one fic so far that had Barry notice he's killed people too, it was only one.

Quite a lot of fic seems to take Barry's idea that the difference is they're the good guys and, well, believe it.

*sigh*




Also? Someone loving a person and doing everything to protect them doesn't actually make the everything good, or not-evil. Evil is in the act, not the motive, and a lot of things get done in the name of protecting their own.



Every villain is a tragedy, because every villain had a million different people they could be and right now they've ended up in the dark.
Explaining that away is just the wrong approach.
The interesting part - the tricky part - is seeing how to get from their back to the light.
Because the actual point is, that's always available.
You can get there from anywhere.
Redemption or enlightenment, that arc can start in the darkest places.

But explaining how everything they did was secretly okay is the exact opposite of what they'd need to get to either.


Every villain thinks they're justified, and every cillain is a tragedy, unless they turn out to be that bit of the story where they're up a tree and now the tree is on fire.

Don't just gild a treehouse in the flames, figure out how to get them out again.

1990 The Flash

episode four honor among thieves
opportunity for a Highlander xover
since it has Liz Gracen playing Celia Wayne, a former archaeology student who attempts to steal a gold and ruby 'mask of rasputin', which has some kind of weird flashy effect when light hits the eyes just right that they didn't do anything plot relevant with.
It was a bit sloppy for Amanda but the planning was all by her boyfriend, who set up multiple thefts across town to draw the police off then just tranq shot the guards and smashed the case.

Without the Flash that one would work. ( Read more... )

This version of the Flash has him moving objects at super speed much more frequently. He picks stuff up and builds walls from gold bars and other stuff that everyone could do but not that quickly. So far no lightning punching or secondary powers like air vortices. Just doing ordinary things fast and running besides cars like they were stopped.

Also he put a duvet on a car windscreen to make it stop and seemed surprised when it crashed and he got broken bones. Still learning.


Adding this archaeology professor as some kind of second dad that influenced him to be a CSI is a bit odd. Did people need influencing then? Was it not the cool science of choice yet?


The bits where they get the computer to do... anything remain super weird. Like, to get files from multiple cities they had paper files sent in the post. But the computer can match a picture to a file? Someone doesn't quite grasp what the cutting edge looks like and I'm not sure who.



I'm not entirely enjoying watching the episodes for themselves, they're too 1990
but pulling them apart for parts is kind of fun.