Tumblr crosspost (3 August 2020)
Sep. 30th, 2023 10:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anghraineIt’s irritating when people are like “villains think they’re in the right, too!” as if it’s some kind of brand-new revelation.
But I do have a great and towering weakness for characters (villains or not) who genuinely think they’re in the right and just don’t know better. It can be a tragic childhood or event, or something else altogether, but the main thing is that it profoundly shaped their way of thinking to the point that they don’t—and in the moment, can’t—understand.
For me, part of the identification is … well, I’ve had bad things happen, of course, but nothing I’d term tragic, and I don’t think I’ve done anything particularly terrible. That said, I’m autistic and have made a ton of mistakes because I just didn’t understand. And I feel like people don’t always grasp what it’s like to be so shaped by something that you can’t properly understand the world around you, but also don’t understand that you’re not understanding until after the fact.
Of course, other autistic people have other preferences (and I know there are non-autistic people who share mine, for that matter!), it’s just how it’s affected me and my tastes personally. There’s better Representation™, sure, but characters who do wrong things and just don’t get it do hit a particularly relatable note.
Tags: #villain blogging #sort of #it's not just villains! #but i was thinking of some of my faves and so many of them do things that are Bad in various degrees (sometimes pretty minor things) #but just don't understand #because of what made them who they are #sometimes they get past it! sometimes they don't! but that's the thing that drives a lot of the appeal #and why the casual dismissal of ~tragic pasts~ (well SOME PEOPLE just get over it so it means nobody is being influenced by their pasts!) #is so intensely irritating
But I do have a great and towering weakness for characters (villains or not) who genuinely think they’re in the right and just don’t know better. It can be a tragic childhood or event, or something else altogether, but the main thing is that it profoundly shaped their way of thinking to the point that they don’t—and in the moment, can’t—understand.
For me, part of the identification is … well, I’ve had bad things happen, of course, but nothing I’d term tragic, and I don’t think I’ve done anything particularly terrible. That said, I’m autistic and have made a ton of mistakes because I just didn’t understand. And I feel like people don’t always grasp what it’s like to be so shaped by something that you can’t properly understand the world around you, but also don’t understand that you’re not understanding until after the fact.
Of course, other autistic people have other preferences (and I know there are non-autistic people who share mine, for that matter!), it’s just how it’s affected me and my tastes personally. There’s better Representation™, sure, but characters who do wrong things and just don’t get it do hit a particularly relatable note.
Tags: #villain blogging #sort of #it's not just villains! #but i was thinking of some of my faves and so many of them do things that are Bad in various degrees (sometimes pretty minor things) #but just don't understand #because of what made them who they are #sometimes they get past it! sometimes they don't! but that's the thing that drives a lot of the appeal #and why the casual dismissal of ~tragic pasts~ (well SOME PEOPLE just get over it so it means nobody is being influenced by their pasts!) #is so intensely irritating