#it's a very nuanced complicated situation etc etc but honestly a large part of it is also deirta being like what the fuck is this guy's

[wizardnuke]

what's funnier for a meet-ugly fic. if it's a meet-ugly from the start ("we first met each other in a holding cell") or if it starts cute ("my grocery bag tore open on the street and they helped me pick everything up, also I got their number") and then gets ugly ("I didn't call them because I was busy and five days later we met again, in a holding cell")

#warning. long tags that got wildly off topic real fast. there's caleb meta in here #I think it's the difference between them being like 'huh. who's this guy' and the spiderman pointing meme #fic im writing doesn't have this thru a ship lens but it has a similar thing except like. it's a meet ugly where they don't exactly meet #but they see each other #smash cut four years later spiderman pointing meme in a holding cell YOU. WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE #pov you're trying to convince everyone you're interacting with (while in the holding cell) (well. a dungeon) that you're an assassin from #another country but your mother in law is in the next cell over and she CLEARLY recognizes you and does NOT believe the show you're #putting on because context from the prev time you were around each other states you are not loyal to that country and that you are also a #lying liar who lies shamelessly at the first chance you get if you think it'll get you what you want. and it's making shit complicated #because she visibly wants to ask questions about why the hell you're here but you're under surveillance so she's just staring holes into #ur skull and she doesn't know she's your mother in law. this is the funniest thing I've ever written #it's a HARROWING experience for caleb in the fic. he is terrified out of his mind. but also. it's so so funny. my guy why did u do that #'caleb is a master manipulator' common misconception! he is a conman and scammer! he wishes he could operate on pure unfeeling logic and #intellect but sometimes and even oftentimes he is made of 80% panic minimum and then he commits to the bit #it's a very nuanced complicated situation etc etc but honestly a large part of it is also deirta being like what the fuck is this guy's #plan. why the fuck is he even here. and caleb's internal monologue is 'do NOT accidentally call her mother. do not do fucking not' which #is if anything making it more difficult to not call her mother. big fan of the way he refers to elders with titles I 100% think he would #call her that if he and essek were officially together. 'caleb has good social skills and awareness' common fucking misconception he is a #conman and scammer and knows vaguely what to say to get what he wants or more often how to direct attention away from what he's doing but #when he's just Being Caleb he gets to the fuckin point and that lady is his mother in law and he would refer to her as such even if #that's. a fascinating choice to make given everything about essek and also the lingering political situation between the empire and dynasty #I love caleb sooooo much I think he makes a good few snap decisions that are objectively DEEPLY unhinged and I think abt that a lot #calebs not a stable guy! I think it's rlly interesting how not stable he is even when he's doing well he has a few screws loose up there! #this is coming from someone who can relate to the irrational thinking that mental illness does I think he just sees point A to point B and #Does Shit. that's why he fireballs people when he knows it's going to trigger him. it's why he told essek to get it together instead of #killing him- he saw an ally. his morality and his decision making skills are removed from normal logic bc fuck normal logic he's caleb #widogast (sometimes- he goes by a fake name and considers himself entirely seperate from bren while he also holds himself accountable for #the crimes that bren was manipulated into committing) and its why he's Like That and I think he's neat. #I'm done now. what is this.

[leori-the-unlearned]

In terms of fandom, you'd probably have to consider the audience too! who's going to latch onto the idea of a stray (bullied and lonely) teen finding a new family of friends in a different world where they can achieve so much more than they thought they could?

That story idea appeals to a large audience, but especially to people who have something they want to avoid/leave. Might be school or homework or more extreme things like abuse, neglect, etc.

So like, it's projection I think? Take this character who you can relate to and just, why not add more? It's relatable, isn't it? And honestly, people who have parents that don't make (too many) mistakes and genuinely support them in all they do, are they into fandom as much? are they the ones writing or reading the fanfiction?

Not saying that everyone in the fandom has a dark mysterious and hurtful past, just that it's possible that part of the reason why there's so many Luz-has/had-bad-parents is because of the escapism appeal of the show.

also there's probably an element of not wanting to see a character you project on so much having so much more than you. a friend group? found family? people that don't judge you? a new school where you can thrive and, at least for a while, everything seems so much better? and then add onto that a healthy parent that isn't trying to hurt you, that's trying their best still. idk might be projection on my part lmao but Luz's story, ignoring how dark it gets, with bonding is something I imaging tons of people wish they had.

(re: this post, for context)

yeah! the audience of the series + who of that audience wants to write fic for it is a big factor, very true

most fic writers are doing so as a hobby, and not necessarily building a narrative meant for critique or as a grand commentary, so most of what comes out (in certain common fic types) are things an author wants to happen to the characters - which can also come from wanting the best for themselves and, like you said, projecting onto a character who can have that.

and i don’t begrudge fic writers for that! i just see it as something interesting to observe a pattern of. and i can’t say i don’t wish for something like luz myself, to end up in a (magic!!) world made for showing off my strengths :>

and i figure there are still a bunch of individual reasons at play, and any one fic might be solely derived from/a combination of: projection, being inexperienced with actual parental issues, not knowing how to write complicated/nuanced situations and sticking to a comfort zone, or not thinking about it that deeply and just using the parents to bring characters to a different story state.

also, the points on making things worse to be more relatable is an interesting thought! taking luz as an example, despite the physical dangers of the boiling isles, plus being wanted by belos and the EC, she lives a pretty fulfilling, idyllic life where she can chase her dreams and otherwise not deal with a lot of issues she had back home. on the isles, she’s living escapism - and to take that as a status quo, like for slice of life fics, portrays a way more perfect life than most people really have. the same is true for the witch kids, besides the ‘wanted’ part, at least before we see more closely into the blight family.

thanks for the food for thought, anon!

#leori words #askimili-esgarrouth-isthill #toh #this post is pretty much word cascade (avoiding the word ‘vomit’) #theorizing without searching for a concrete answer! i just like to rotate the situation #though it does make fics that go the extra mile to write characters with their own perspectives feel special #<- this mostly comes from having the life experience to /learn/ different life perspectives though #also re: the point about bad parents affording a guilt-free escapism. cause if theres nothing there to fix of course you can cut and run #but if it’s a relationship where neither party is wrong? where either one can wrong the other- child or parent? if you could be at fault? #that’s a tough thing to confront; the thought you might be in the wrong. so characterizing parents as irredeemably evil absolves that #maybe im going too deep into it! this is now just a general study on my part of how people react to things

[whitehotharlots]

The point is control

Whenever we think or talk about censorship, we usually conceptualize it as certain types of speech being somehow disallowed: maybe (rarely) it's made formally illegal by the government, maybe it's banned in certain venues, maybe the FCC will fine you if you broadcast it, maybe your boss will fire you if she learns of it, maybe your friends will stop talking to you if they see what you've written, etc. etc. 

This understanding engenders a lot of mostly worthless discussion precisely because it's so broad. Pedants--usually arguing in favor of banning a certain work or idea--will often argue that speech protections only apply to direct, government bans. These bans, when they exist, are fairly narrow and apply only to those rare speech acts in which other people are put in danger by speech (yelling the N-word in a crowded theater, for example). This pedantry isn't correct even within its own terms, however, because plenty of people get in trouble for making threats. The FBI has an entire entrapment program dedicated to getting mentally ill muslims and rednecks to post stuff like "Death 2 the Super bowl!!" on twitter, arresting them, and the doing a press conference about how they heroically saved the world from terrorism. 

Another, more recent pedant's trend is claiming that, actually, you do have freedom of speech; you just don't have freedom from the consequences of speech. This logic is eerily dictatorial and ignores the entire purpose of speech protections. Like, even in the history's most repressive regimes, people still technically had freedom of speech but not from consequences. Those leftist kids who the nazis beheaded for speaking out against the war were, by this logic, merely being held accountable. 

The two conceptualizations of censorship I described above are, 99% of the time, deployed by people who are arguing in favor of a certain act of censorship but trying to exempt themselves from the moral implications of doing so. Censorship is rad when they get to do it, but they realize such a solipsism seems kinda icky so they need to explain how, actually, they're not censoring anybody, what they're doing is an act of righteous silencing that's a totally different matter. Maybe they associate censorship with groups they don't like, such as nazis or religious zealots. Maybe they have a vague dedication toward Enlightenment principles and don't want to be regarded as incurious dullards. Most typically, they're just afraid of the axe slicing both ways, and they want to make sure that the precedent they're establishing for others will not be applied to themselves.

Anyone who engages with this honestly for more than a few minutes will realize that censorship is much more complicated, especially in regards to its informal and social dimensions. We can all agree that society simply would not function if everyone said whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. You might think your boss is a moron or your wife's dress doesn't look flattering, but you realize that such tidbits are probably best kept to yourself. 

Again, this is a two-way proposition that everyone is seeking to balance. Do you really want people to verbalize every time they dislike or disagree with you? I sure as hell don't. And so, as part of a social compact, we learn to self-censor. Sometimes this is to the detriment of ourselves and our communities. Most often, however, it's just a price we have to pay in order to keep things from collapsing. 

But as systems, large and small, grow increasingly more insane and untenable, so do the comportment standards of speech. The disconnect between America's reality and the image Americans have of themselves has never been more plainly obvious, and so striving for situational equanimity is no longer good enough. We can't just pretend cops aren't racist and the economy isn't run by venal retards or that the government places any value on the life of its citizens. There's too much evidence that contradicts all that, and the evidence is too omnipresent. There's too many damn internet videos, and only so many of them can be cast as Russian disinformation. So, sadly, we must abandon our old ways of communicating and embrace instead systems that are even more unstable, repressive, and insane than the ones that were previously in place.

Until very, very recently, nuance and big-picture, balanced thinking were considered signs of seriousness, if not intelligence. Such considerations were always exploited by shitheads to obfuscate things that otherwise would have seemed much less ambiguous, yes, but this fact alone does not mitigate the potential value of such an approach to understanding the world--especially since the stuff that's been offered up to replace it is, by every worthwhile metric, even worse.

So let's not pretend I'm Malcolm Gladwell or some similarly slimy asshole seeking to "both sides" a clearcut moral issue. Let's pretend I am me. Flash back to about a year ago, when there was real, widespread, and sustained support for police reform. Remember that? Seems like forever ago, man, but it was just last year... anyhow, now, remember what happened? Direct, issues-focused attempts to reform policing were knocked down. Blotted out. Instead, we were told two things: 1) we had to repeat the slogan ABOLISH THE POLICE, and 2) we had to say it was actually very good and beautiful and nonviolent and valid when rioters burned down poor neighborhoods.

Now, in a relatively healthy discourse, it might have been possible for someone to say something like "while I agree that American policing is heavily violent and racist and requires substantial reforms, I worry that taking such an absolutist point of demanding abolition and cheering on the destruction of city blocks will be a political non-starter." This statement would have been, in retrospect, 100000000% correct. But could you have said it, in any worthwhile manner? If you had said something along those lines, what would the fallout had been? Would you have lost friends? Your job? Would you have suffered something more minor, like getting yelled at, told your opinion did not matter? Would your acquaintances still now--a year later, after their political project has failed beyond all dispute--would they still defame you in "whisper networks," never quite articulating your verbal sins but nonetheless informing others that you are a dangerous and bad person because one time you tried to tell them how utterly fucking self-destructive they were being? It is undeniably clear that last year's most-elevated voices were demanding not reform but catharsis. I hope they really had fun watching those immigrant-owned bodegas burn down, because that’s it, that will forever be remembered as the most palpable and consequential aspect of their shitty, selfish movement. We ain't reforming shit. Instead, we gave everyone who's already in power a blank check to fortify that power to a degree you and I cannot fully fathom.

But, oh, these people knew what they were doing. They were good little boys and girls. They have been rewarded with near-total control of the national discourse, and they are all either too guilt-ridden or too stupid to realize how badly they played into the hands of the structures they were supposedly trying to upend.

And so left-liberalism is now controlled by people whose worldview is equal parts superficial and incoherent. This was the only possible outcome that would have let the system continue to sustain itself in light of such immense evidence of its unsustainability without resulting in reform, so that's what has happened.

But... okay, let's take a step back. Let's focus on what I wanted to talk about when I started this.

I came across a post today from a young man who claimed that his high school English department head had been removed from his position and had his tenure revoked for refusing to remove three books from classrooms. This was, of course, fallout from the ongoing debate about Critical Race Theory. Two of those books were Marjane Satropi's Persepolis and, oh boy, The Diary of Anne Frank. Fuck. Jesus christ, fuck.

Now, here's the thing... When Persepolis was named, I assumed the bannors were anti-CRT. The graphic novel does not deal with racism all that much, at least not as its discussed contemporarily, but it centers an Iranian girl protagonist and maybe that upset Republican types. But Anne Frank? I'm sorry, but the most likely censors there are liberal identiarians who believe that teaching her diary amounts to centering the suffering of a white woman instead of talking about the One Real Racism, which must always be understood in an American context. The super woke cult group Black Hammer made waves recently with their #FuckAnneFrank campaign... you'd be hard pressed to find anyone associated with the GOP taking a firm stance against the diary since, oh, about 1975 or so.

So which side was it? That doesn't matter. What matters is, I cannot find out.

Now, pro-CRT people always accuse anti-CRT people of not knowing what CRT is, and then after making such accusations they always define CRT in a way that absolutely is not what CRT is. Pro-CRTers default to "they don't want  students to read about slavery or racism." This is absolutely not true, and absolutely not what actual CRT concerns itself with. Slavery and racism have been mainstays of American history curriucla since before I was born. Even people who barely paid attention in school would admit this, if there were any more desire for honesty in our discourse. 

My high school history teacher was a southern "lost causer" who took the south's side in the Civil War but nonetheless provided us with the most descriptive and unapologetic understandings of slavery's brutalities I had heard up until that point. He also unambiguously referred to the nuclear attacks on Hiroshmia and Nagasaki as "genocidal." Why? Because most people's politics are idiosyncratic, and because you cannot genuinely infer a person to believe one thing based on their opinion of another, tangentially related thing. The totality of human understanding used to be something open-minded people prided themselves on being aware of, believe it or not...

This is the problem with CRT. This is is the motivation behind the majority of people who wish to ban it. It’s not because they are necessarily racist themselves. It’s because they recognize, correctly, that the now-ascendant frames for understanding social issues boils everything down to a superficial patina that denies not only the realities of the systems they seek to upend but the very humanity of the people who exist within them. There is no humanity without depth and nuance and complexities and contradictions. When you argue otherwise, people will get mad and fight back. 

And this is the most bitter irony of this idiotic debate: it was never about not wanting to teach the sinful or embarrassing parts of our history. That was a different debate, one that was settled and won long ago. It is instead an immense, embarrassing overreach on behalf of people who have bullied their way to complete dominance of their spheres of influence within media and academe assuming they could do the same to everyone else. Some of its purveyors may have convinced themselves that getting students to admit complicity in privilege will prevent police shootings, sure. But I know these people. I’ve spoken to them at length. I’ve read their work. The vast, vast majority of them aren’t that stupid. The point is to exert control. The point is to make sure they stay in charge and that nothing changes. The point is failure. 

[giantsreach]

it’s rough that anders is used as a metonym for mage rights when it comes to a character like carver, who dislikes anders not because he believes mages should be oppressed ( or even that incrementalism is necessarily key, given that inchoate templar carver is glad bethany was never sent to the circle and warden carver literally gets pissed off at hawke if they don’t side with the mage rebellion ), but for personal umbrage.

not that fandom misinterpretations of carver are particularly New, but carver and anders get off on the wrong foot immediately for apolitical reasons. anders draws attention to the fact carver was the odd one out among his siblings and father, i.e. the situation which led to carver’s emotional neglect and cultivated his inferiority complex. both issues are still at large in carver’s life during act i and are only exacerbated by the hardships at hand. it’s a sensitive topic, and carver feels it’s being used to gauge his political leanings. he’s understandably standoffish. 

anders also brings up bethany’s passing, which is a sorer-than-sore spot for carver, and does so with a limited perspective ( that is to say, hawke’s by proxy ). “being on the run never made her bitter,” anders says, completely oblivious to the fact carver knows bethany resented being anything but normal. this misstep gets under carver’s skin in a very intimate sense — he can’t argue the point without dropping his guard, so instead he lashes out. ( carver does this with hawke, as well. the difference is, he actually allows himself to be vulnerable afterwards. ) 

of course, it’s not anders’ fault that he ( and, by extension, hawke ) isn’t privy to that information, but it’s not a great start between the two of them nonetheless. carver doesn’t talk about bethany, and when he does, it’s only when he’s under emotional duress or opening up to hawke ( or fenris, whose approval carver seeks ). this, compounded with the fact that carver worries about hawke falling under templar suspicion, makes anders a point of contention for carver. 

and being that anders misunderstands carver’s irritation with him ( and honestly, why wouldn’t he? carver’s committed to being disagreeable even when it works against him, so he’s not going to explain the nuances of his aggrievement to anders; carver’s never had a sterling reputation to begin with, ergo what does it matter that another outsider thinks he’s an ass? ), their sniping worsens. 

to be fair, anders is usually kinder to ( warden ) carver than carver is to him, but by the time carver’s emotionally hale and hitting the tip of maslow’s ol’ hierarchy, he’s found other things to quarrel with anders over ( e.g. leaving the wardens ). part of it is a lingering annoyance, sure, but carver’s also just the kind of person to take the piss out of someone because it’s comfortably routine. 

in other words, sometimes he’s a dick to anders because that’s just How It’s Been. for example, in mota warden carver will be positively disposed towards orlesians overall when discussing the topic with fenris but will also weigh them against darkspawn when talking to anders for the sheer opportunity to dunk on him. ( though, the way carver asks, “. . . you’d be gone though, right?” sounds more teasing than mean-spirited, but that’s just my take. )

all things considered, however, carver can be level with anders. during legacy, carver and anders will often respond to each other’s comments within cutscenes when grey warden issues arise ( e.g. the calling, awakened darkspawn, etc. ), and the tone between them is rather solidary. they have shared experiences now, whether they like it or not. furthermore, when traversing the prison, carver will also try to call out to anders when the latter becomes visibly unwell ( “anders? anders? — maker, it’s like he doesn’t even hear me.” ). it’s not like carver doesn’t care about him at all. they just don’t see eye-to-eye. 

anyway, this isn’t to dismiss the other banter they have, but it is to say that carver and anders have a more complicated dynamic than just “carver hates anders and on no basis other than carver is pro-circle and anders is not”. 

#( re: study ╱ headcanon. ) #( literally no one: #me: ok guys u got me i guess i HAVE to share this 9 paragraph meta on carver and anders ) #( tbf i could probably churn out one of these for each companion fdsjjhd #though i think carver's meatiest interactions are w aveline anders n fenris? they skimp on substance wrt the others smh. )

[meta-shadowsong]

On Moral Ambiguity in Fiction

And where it works and where it doesn’t (at least for me), using Star Wars and Harry Potter as sort of examples/case studies/what have you.

Couple sort of definition things to get out of the way--first, when I say ‘moral ambiguity,’ I’m talking specifically about characters and character arcs/dynamics, rather than overall situations/plotlines. Because the two universes, as a whole, are pretty firmly “there is Real Evil and we are going to Defeat It” type of stories. And both verses also have clear and obvious Evil Bad Guys Who Ruin Everything (Palpatine and Voldemort).

I should also say, as a sort of disclaimer before we get started, that I really like nuance, especially when it comes to characters and character alignments. I have a thing for double agents; for people who were once good but now evil, or were once evil but now good, or who are somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, and exactly where they end up depends on the weather/time of day/what have you. Which is not to say that I don’t enjoy the Obviously Evil villains, or the True Good heroes. Honestly, I think that a universe that has variety going for it tends to work the best.

Last definition - there’s a few different ways to do a Morally Ambiguous/Grey Area character. There are the fallen heroes, of course, and the redeemed villains. There are also “technically on our side in the bigger fight against Evil but also really shitty people” or “Your Allies Can Be Assholes”; and “clearly our enemy but also in some ways a decent person with whom we can Empathize” or “Your Enemies Can Be Decent People.”

(Also, while I’m not really going to focus on them here, I should mention that there are also sympathetic villains, who are never redeemed or switch sides or anything, and remain entirely Villains throughout, but have enough character development/humanizing characteristics that you can at least somewhat empathize with them even as they’re Horrible People who do Horrible Things. I’m leaving them out primarily because characters in that category tend to need way more in-depth discussion/their own essays about where they fall on the good vs. bad line; and besides I’d rather focus on different kinds of Morally Ambiguous/Grey Area characters for the purposes of this essay. Also, while I think there are examples in both verses, characters in this category tend to be very much YMMV. Basically, there’s a sliding scale from “Pure Evil” up to “Your Enemies Can Be Decent People,” and I’m trying to pick my examples that sit further on the lighter end of the greyscale here.)

Right. On to the actual discussion. Star Wars, on the surface, bills itself as straightforward good-vs-evil/Fairy Tale Logic/“once you start down the dark path” etc., etc. Harry Potter, on the other hand, has that great line: “the world isn’t divided into Good People and Death Eaters.”

Of course, once you actually start digging into it, Star Wars is absolutely not what it claims to be, and Harry Potter, while not technically wrong, fails to deliver on everything that statement implies.

When I look at Harry Potter, there are certainly a lot of Morally Ambiguous characters involved. We have Dumbledore, who fits into “Your Allies Can Be Assholes;” Barty Crouch, Sr. fits into this category as well. You have Fallen Heroes, with Pettigrew being the primary example. You have people who are maybe not technically actively working for/with the Big Bad, but are still Truly Awful People; i.e., Vernon Dursley. And you have people who are maybe on your side and maybe not assholes, per se, but have their heads so far up their asses with their preconceptions/have so many blinders on that they move past useless into actively obstructionist; i.e., Fudge.

But what you don’t find is the flipside of that. I can’t think of a single person who falls under “Your Enemies Can Be Decent People.” And while I can think of a few “redeemed” villains, they’re either so badly handled they become Your Allies Can Be Assholes (Snape), exist entirely in Backstoryland and thus don’t really have personalities or anything to latch on to (Regulus Black), or are barely present in the narrative by the time they have their Heel Realization (Dudley).

And that’s...like...leaving aside all the other issues with Harry Potter that have been cropping up in hindsight over the past few years...I think that’s a large part of why I fell out of love with the franchise. Like I said, I have a thing for double agents and grey-area/ambiguous characters, and I think a lot of it comes from the way I read this series when I was younger. I mean, it comes from some other places, too, but HP was a big one (probably because HP was such a big Thing for a long time overall, in my life and in pop culture in general). But looking back, it’s...really not what I thought it was. And it’s such a bleak, crapsack worldview, you know? “The bad guys are Bad Guys, but gueeeeess what! So are a good chunk of the nominal Good Guys!”

So, no, the world isn’t divided into Good People and Death Eaters. Technically. But it’s divided into Death Eaters, Other Bad People, and A Few Trustworthy Friends.

When I look at Star Wars, on the other hand--yeah, there are definitely Your Allies Can Be Assholes characters running around. Saw Gerrera, at least in Rebels and Rogue One, is of course the primary example. But there’s also--like, Borsk Fey’lya in Legends. And, depending on the reader/writer/narrator, various characters could fall into the “so many blinders on that they move past useless into actively obstructionist” categories. Plus, characters like Hondo, and others from the seedier side of the galaxy who are Not Good and Only Occasionally Nice, but they’re reasonable allies against the True Evils out there. And of course we have our Fallen Heroes--even if we exclude Anakin from this conversation, we have at the very least Barriss, to say nothing of Dooku and Pong Krell (we don’t really see either of them in their not-fallen hero state, but we know it existed at some point).

But you know what Star Wars also has?

The other side of this coin.

Again, even if we exclude Anakin and Vader from this conversation. Redeemed villains and “Your Enemies Can Be Decent People” are all over the place. I mean, there’s obviously my best beloved Alexsandr Kallus, but there’s also Bodhi Rook and Galen Erso; there’s General Madine (another super-prominent defector); going to Legends there’s Mara Jade and Gilad Pellaeon; there’s Ventress, who was a good person and then fell and then slowly starts finding her way back; there’s my girl Bo-Katan, who joined Death Watch and probably murdered A Lot of people, and then realized Just How Awful things were and tried to fix it. (...side note, I kinda ship Ventress and Bo-Katan, anyone with me? XD). I’m still catching up on some of the canon novels/haven’t really played the video games, but I know through Tumblr/fandom osmosis there are examples there, too.

Plus, something that came up quite a few times in the Clone Wars was that, apart from Palpatine and Dooku and their inner circles, the majority of people on both sides of the conflict genuinely believed they were fighting on the side of Right; and the Separatists actually did have some legit points about the way the Republic government was messed up. (Which is one of the bits I had a slight issue with in Queen’s Shadow, that they seemed to be taking that away from Mina Bonteri a little bit by having her in contact with someone who seemed to be either Sidious or Tyranus, but I digress.) But the PT era in general is where ambiguity and complicated politics lives, and this also starts getting into some YMMV territory, similar to Sympathetic Villains, so I’ll leave it at that.

I think that what it comes down to, really, is that HP, for all it makes its moral ambiguity explicit/centers it/talks about it, leans hard into the Your Allies Can Be Assholes aspect, while Star Wars leans more towards the Your Enemies Can Be Decent People side of things. And, again, this is not saying that there isn’t a range of quality in how these things can be handled. Like, Your Allies Can Be Assholes, when handled well, can be really engaging/amazing. And Your Enemies Can Be Decent People can quickly go in all kinds of bad directions if it’s not handled well.

But overall, a story that leans more towards the second is more hopeful. One of the main arc words in SW is hope, and I think that’s why the grey-area characters work so much better there, because they support that thesis, so to speak.

I also think that Star Wars has a much more balanced greyscale than HP does. Like, the Your Enemies Can Be Decent People is more prominent because, again, the series’ watchword is Hope, but there's still quite a few Not Nice people on the side of Good, which adds its own layer of nuance/interest, at least for me. ...and, you know, the fact that Star Wars has both Pure Evil and more nuanced villains/antagonists probably contributes to that. It might be that this kind of Moral Ambiguity works best when there is a clearly defined Evil to compare it against. Both in terms of the greyscale good guys and the greyscale bad guys.

In the end, I think there’s probably a lot of things that go into it, but overall the ambiguity in SW works so much better for me than HP. And I think the distribution along that sliding scale is a huge part of it. Because HP’s version kind of boils down to ‘Life Sucks; sure there are a few Good People who try to make it suck less, but most of the people, even on your side, are kind of awful’ and SW’s version boils down to ‘there is hope, even if it doesn’t always pan out; yes there is evil in this world and there are some, even on your side, who might choose it and refuse to change--but there are at least as many people who turn their back on it, even if it takes them a while.’ Both acknowledge that there is Evil in the world, and that dealing with it isn’t always simple or clear-cut, but SW takes a broader, more nuanced look at that question. Even if it doesn’t outright say that’s what it’s doing.

(And, sure, the fact that HP promised things it didn’t/couldn’t deliver and handled a few of the examples it tried to provide really badly doesn’t help, but...yeah.)

So, there it is. A lot of Personal Opinion, obviously, but...I feel like I might be on to something here? What are your thoughts?

((Also, I’m aware that I didn’t talk about the ST like at all, but that’s because, at least IMO, the ST has fewer morally ambiguous characters in general, at least in the sense I’m talking about. That being said, there’s at least the one guy from the Phasma frame story who falls into Your Enemies Can Be Decent People; and I guess I technically could have mentioned Kylo Ren when talking about fallen heroes, on the same justification I included Dooku/Pong Krell, even though I personally find him much less interesting than Dooku, in particular...Anyway, what I’ve noticed in the ST is that, when people are working at cross-purposes, they tend to still be firmly on one side or the other, just with differently-aligned priorities. And/or are Hondo, who marches to the beat of his own drum and always will. I love that he’s still around XD.))

#star wars #fandom #originally posted july 2019