Assorted evils

[beccaelizabeth]

At the Redemption conventions there's a bit called Ruler of the Universe
where mostly bad guys line up and try and get our votes for Ruler of the universe

and it's been fun, it's funny, choosing between evil!UNIT and The Master or Missy and an assortment of Centauri is just funny theatre

but

then this year instead of Drazi War we had Empire or Rebellion on our badges
and
No.

Given those options, we rebel.
Right?
All of us?

And now reading about Marvel's latest comics drek and marketing gimmick, same with HYDRA. That is not an option. Ever. They want shops to cosplay as nazis to sell comics? Never.

And it's just rolling back the unfunny line, so instead of a joke about the wrong lizard, it's... nasty.

Like, the closer to reality the dark gets, the less funny it is.

Drazi war is always funny, because you take arbitrary sides and then go all in to make yours win. Politics with no content, allegiance with no thought, funny.

Choosing between the kind of people who would try and rule the universe and then, on occasion, seeing the baby win instead, that seems funny because watching them get all backstabby and all the competition is memes. It's like when the Master teams up with something and ends up having to run away again, only with more posters.

But then something like this Hydra thing happens and there's suddenly an awareness that we might be sitting here laughing at team evil, but we're also cheering them on.

and then the fun falls out entirely.




And I'm a villain fan. I've always been a villain fan. I've also always been able to argue the finer distinctions and can happily explain at length how Chaos isn't evil and Rogues aren't always the bad guys, but I know that's a lot of fiddling around with moral edge cases. Villains villain. I'm not excusing them.


But then this doesn't feel like fan stuff no more, this isn't characters playing what if or power fantasies or being there when the heroes cross the line.

It's lawful evil trying to sell itself.

And I am creeped out and re examining me.



Which is actually one of the reasons suggested for why they've pushed this particular storyline, but, nope. Don't take the heroes away. We need heroes.

It isn't news that heroes can cross a line and be the real bad guys.

But I'm really specifically creeped out at how they're writing it this time, how long it's going on for, and the specific bad guys they're using.

I mean, a couple of hours of film and some fallout on the television about SHIELD being infiltrated by HYDRA is still a different thing than just rewriting the comics universe the way they have.

And I also got fed up of that when they didn't seem to learn the lessons from it. Like, the 'how about we don't act like the bad guys' lessons. Too much messing around in the shadows, nowhere for the heroes to stand in the light.



I'm really worn out exhausted by evil. Especially glamorised lawful evil.


My guys are always the ones lawful enough to make a deal and chaotic enough to bring the system down if said system goes all secret prisons. The ones who still stand on the same line in the darkest timelines, because like Batman, they've thought this through, they know exactly how evil they're going to be, and they're not going to be that.

And still it would be better to be just a bit more light side than they manage, and so I go off them if they ever seem like you couldn't possibly tug them that last step back.

But. Rogues and chaos. Feels different.



This other stuff I do not want to play with.




It feels like media has taken a long march down into the grimdark for a really long time now
until it's all zombies and don't have to save you
and heroes are just people choosing who to punch.



I miss when the Justice League was a UN peacekeeping force made up of a really wide assortment of people including a guy who fought with a solar powered flashlight to disorient his enemies. I mean, write a world where that works. Where there's the option of being good and having it work out.

Heroes are supposed to hold that line.

Live as though the world were as it should be to show it what it can be.
Where the smallest act of kindness is the greatest thing in the world.


And I'm tired of stories that just answer that with all the angst and woe and bad consequences.

I want to see where being decent to people works out and gets them to be decent back.


Supergirl season one was pretty good like that. Some comics right now are apparently good like that. But there's all this grimdark noise too, and I'm tired of that.

Comments

[miss_s_b]

PREACH PREACH PREACH

This is EXACTLY how I feel.

[beccaelizabeth]

thanks
(like the icon)

[ironymaiden]

thisthisthis. (here via miss_s_b.)
i was at Walt Disney World a few months ago, and at Hollywood Studios every so often the Imperial March plays and Captain Phasma marches down the street leading a squad of First Order storm troopers. it wasn't fun, it was chilling.

[beccaelizabeth]

*nods*
having the bad guys around to get defeated, fair enough
but not being able to avoid them, not okay
and them getting to be center stage alone, nope.

I didn't buy a lightsaber last couple times I tried because all the boxes had bad guys on them. want a hero thing, not a bad guy thing.

[alatefeline]

Yes. Thank you.

Okay fine it's important to deconstruct the easy small puzzle pieces of enormous evil but if there are no fictional models of how to be good AT ALL what can people aspire to? Better evil-ing? NO THANKS.

[beccaelizabeth]

indeed

[brithistorian]

Yes! This! Totally this! And I loveloveLOVE that you correctly identified lawful evil here! I wish people who work at the media companies would understand that some people like grimdark, but there's really no need to be all grimdark, all the time.