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Could a hero be made to look like a villain WITHOUT doing anything objectionable?

Vikram

Well-known member
This came to me while arguing with a Pakistani friend over tropes.
Now, we all know that all villains need "presentation", a set way of acting and looking so that the audience can tell that they're evil without a single action of theirs.

This is not necessarily over looks. Lots of villains are disgustingly pretty. Nor over charisma, since many are charismatic as well.

But generally speaking, when we see a small and weak looking young boy fight a hulking titan with black armour and creepy eyes.....we don't even need to know the context to realise who the bad guy is.

However, let me pose an alternate scenario. One where the titan in above example is the hero and the beaten boy the villain (or another hero, for that matter).

Can, with just text, it be indicated that the hero (whom we know) is the bad guy....but without making them do anything to deserve the suspicion, at least at the point the decision to class them such arises?

Please state your opinion.
 
The easiest way is basically doing what the thread title says.

A hero's inaction or inability, no matter how justified, will make at least some people blame them as a villain.

A hero who doesn't kill and let the law handle the villain, for example, will be treated with contempt in certain circles.
 
A hero who doesn't kill and let the law handle the villain, for example, will be treated with contempt in certain circles.
And yet heroes that do just that are overwhelmingly more popular than the murderous thugs.

Besides, outside of Japanese manga written by pretentious misanthropes, "villain" has a specific meaning attached to it.

This does not answer the question at all, tbf. Nobody is going to think that the guy/girl showing mercy and restraint is the villain. To the point that ruthlessness is one of the most telling hints of dark characters.
 
This came to me while arguing with a Pakistani friend over tropes.
Now, we all know that all villains need "presentation", a set way of acting and looking so that the audience can tell that they're evil without a single action of theirs.

This is not necessarily over looks. Lots of villains are disgustingly pretty. Nor over charisma, since many are charismatic as well.

But generally speaking, when we see a small and weak looking young boy fight a hulking titan with black armour and creepy eyes.....we don't even need to know the context to realise who the bad guy is.

However, let me pose an alternate scenario. One where the titan in above example is the hero and the beaten boy the villain (or another hero, for that matter).

Can, with just text, it be indicated that the hero (whom we know) is the bad guy....but without making them do anything to deserve the suspicion, at least at the point the decision to class them such arises?

Please state your opinion.
Well. If you write your story like William S. Lind did Victoria (oh god no, what have I done to deserve knowing about this piece of shit), you can very well turn, what everyone but Lind and the Alt!Reichers see as, heroes into archvilains and war criminals, and actual fascist monsters-in-human-skin into heroes and saints.
 
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Well. If you write your story like William S. Lind did Victoria (oh god no, what have I done to deserve knowing about this piece of shit), you can very well turn, what everyone but Lind and the Alt!Reichers see as, heroes into archvilains and war criminals, and actual fascist monsters-in-human-skin into heroes and saints.
WITHOUT doing something objectionable. :ROFLMAO:
 
Because the only people who need to be told, are the kind who don't intend to answer in good faith anyway.
The trouble is that this type of people actually believe that they are genuinely talking and answering in good faith. Their own good faith to be exact. However monstrous do you consider their 'good faith' is beside the point in their eyes.
 
The trouble is that this type of people actually believe that they are genuinely talking and answering in good faith. Their own good faith to be exact. However monstrous do you consider their 'good faith' is beside the point in their eyes.
Yes, they are very oblivious. Sometimes, you could point out to a bad faith debater the exact things they're doing wrong, and they don't get it at all.

With that said, I don't intend to waste my time with those. Do you have a serious answer, btw?
 
J. Jonah Jameson was able to do it for years, spinning heroic acts into domestic terrorism by that wall-crawling menace.
We never really got the impression that he was spinning any actual events. The man was an honest reporter, though otherwise unpleasant.

It was more that he kept ranting about Spiderman without any substance to it. No arguments, no real points offered, just continously calling him a crook.
 
We never really got the impression that he was spinning any actual events. The man was an honest reporter, though otherwise unpleasant.

It was more that he kept ranting about Spiderman without any substance to it. No arguments, no real points offered, just continously calling him a crook.
Which works very well to make anyone look bad. Case in point: US politics for a lot of time now.
 
This came to me while arguing with a Pakistani friend over tropes.
Now, we all know that all villains need "presentation", a set way of acting and looking so that the audience can tell that they're evil without a single action of theirs.

This is not necessarily over looks. Lots of villains are disgustingly pretty. Nor over charisma, since many are charismatic as well.

But generally speaking, when we see a small and weak looking young boy fight a hulking titan with black armour and creepy eyes.....we don't even need to know the context to realise who the bad guy is.

However, let me pose an alternate scenario. One where the titan in above example is the hero and the beaten boy the villain (or another hero, for that matter).

Can, with just text, it be indicated that the hero (whom we know) is the bad guy....but without making them do anything to deserve the suspicion, at least at the point the decision to class them such arises?

Please state your opinion.
Sure, by changing the reactions of the characters around the hero. If the hulking titan in your hypothetical is terrified of the boy and becomes progressively more terrified the nicer he becomes, that will cause the audience to question if the boy is actually a good guy.
 
Sure, by changing the reactions of the characters around the hero. If the hulking titan in your hypothetical is terrified of the boy and becomes progressively more terrified the nicer he becomes, that will cause the audience to question if the boy is actually a good guy.
Finally an actual answer! Thank you!

And that idea seems interesting, tbf. Using dissonance between expectation and reality is the oldest trick in the book. Even Shakespeare did that.

Basically, your idea is that we should show the "hero" being treated as a fearsome thing whose real nature we don't really know, to inspire creeping fear?
 
Finally an actual answer! Thank you!

And that idea seems interesting, tbf. Using dissonance between expectation and reality is the oldest trick in the book. Even Shakespeare did that.

Basically, your idea is that we should show the "hero" being treated as a fearsome thing whose real nature we don't really know, to inspire creeping fear?
Basically the idea is to suggest to the audience that there is more to the hero than they can see, that the other characters know something that they don't. But you'd also have to show that the hero doesn't feel bad about being feared so it doesn't seem that the other characters are totally unjustified in their reactions. Heroic actions and words in a non-heroic context can come across as being inhuman and weird, so if you alter the context and the reactions of the other characters, you can have a character who would be completely heroic in a vacuum still come across as villainous and inhuman.
 
Yes, they are very oblivious. Sometimes, you could point out to a bad faith debater the exact things they're doing wrong, and they don't get it at all.

With that said, I don't intend to waste my time with those. Do you have a serious answer, btw?
No. That had been the end of my elaboration on the OP.
Sure, by changing the reactions of the characters around the hero. If the hulking titan in your hypothetical is terrified of the boy and becomes progressively more terrified the nicer he becomes, that will cause the audience to question if the boy is actually a good guy.
Basically the idea is to suggest to the audience that there is more to the hero than they can see, that the other characters know something that they don't. But you'd also have to show that the hero doesn't feel bad about being feared so it doesn't seem that the other characters are totally unjustified in their reactions. Heroic actions and words in a non-heroic context can come across as being inhuman and weird, so if you alter the context and the reactions of the other characters, you can have a character who would be completely heroic in a vacuum still come across as villainous and inhuman.
This. So much this. Brilliant answer.
 
Basically the idea is to suggest to the audience that there is more to the hero than they can see, that the other characters know something that they don't. But you'd also have to show that the hero doesn't feel bad about being feared so it doesn't seem that the other characters are totally unjustified in their reactions. Heroic actions and words in a non-heroic context can come across as being inhuman and weird, so if you alter the context and the reactions of the other characters, you can have a character who would be completely heroic in a vacuum still come across as villainous and inhuman.
Heh. Practically animesque, this strategy. Utilise the fact that audiences prefer their heroes to be open to them, and to inspire fear only when it's time to show that they're badass, in spectacular action.

But creeping horror....that isn't very heroic. It isn't a spectacle. And it is definitely not something the audience expects of a hero.

In other words, expectations subverted. In the real, non sarcastic sense.
 
Would value dissonance count? Because one culture's hero could very well be another culture's villain...
 
Depends on what the dissonance is over.
For example, the average xianxia protag is a psychopathic villain by most western standards, while the average modern western hero is probably a hypocritical spineless weakling by mainstream chinese standards.
 
For example, the average xianxia protag is a psychopathic villain by most western standards, while the average modern western hero is probably a hypocritical spineless weakling by mainstream chinese standards.
Are they that bad? Xianxia heroes, that is.
 
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