#i mean. hell this LITERALLY happens in wc where the ‘’born good’’ characters are abusive and murderously xenophobic

[yuridovewing]

Feel like one of the best ways you can convince someone that no, villains with compelling motives that have sad backstories are not terrible writing compared to straight up born evil villains who just want to kill everyone and be done with it, is to tell them that Warrior Cats writes born evil villains constantly while literally preaching “That’s how evil works, you can’t CHANGE, you’re either touched by demons at birth or you aren’t!” and it blows chunks

#brokenstar tigerstar hawkfrost darktail one eye etc etc would all be so much more interesting if they werent so one note #and just had ‘’born evil’’ slapped on as their explanation for being evil #‘’ew why are you woobifying tigerstar’’ because i think a villain who feels emotion besides ‘’evil’’ and ‘’angry’’ and actually does care #about his clanmates but is also a bigot that deserves to be beaten down is more interesting than canon #to get like real world political here… abusive people and bigots like. are not one note born evil demons #they have loved ones and reasons for turning out the way they did. and im not saying that to go ‘’so you need to give them grace!’’ #im saying that because the line of thinking that every bad person is a super obvious mustache twirling villain with no soul #makes it so that people justify abuse and crimes from REAL people. like ‘’oh my friend says some racist things but he isnt BAD! he loves me! #would an abusive person be nice to his wife in public? of course not!’’ #and its rhetoric like that that lets abuse and bigotry thrive. if you put the world in categories of born evil and born good #then you will dismiss all the ‘’good’’ people in your life who have done horrible things with ‘’but she donated to charity once’’ #i mean. hell this LITERALLY happens in wc where the ‘’born good’’ characters are abusive and murderously xenophobic #where characters like clear sky and blackstar just get a sticker like ‘’oh you cant be TOO mad at them! theyre good at heart!’’ #‘’ignore all the times they killed vulnerable people for the crime of being born somewhere they didnt like! they were nice to a kid once!’’ #the message there is literally ‘’bad people cant REALLY be bad if theyre nice to people sometimes’’ #like. im not even mad at clear sky being motivated by witnessing his loved ones starve to death for why hes such an abusive control freak #thats an interesting reason to become a villain especially since the change happened when he was put in a position of power #the problem is not him having a sad backstory. the problem is the erins think his sad backstory means he was never that bad #and anyone who’s upset at him can go eat shit and die cause he looked sad #like. i get this line of thinking often comes from writers doing this for abuse apologism and just wanting to see abusers be held accountabl #accountable #but how exactly does it help victims of abuse to portray abusers and bigots in a christian ‘’touched by the devil’’ light