Quote:
Originally Posted by BWTraveller
As I said, a very large portion has to be recognized as not "justification" but actually a crucial point. There's a huge market for indulgence of the oppressed victim's fantasy of oppressing their oppressor. The fantasy doesn't work if the enslaved/raped/tortured party isn't an oppressor or traitor; the audience isn't looking for an excuse to hurt a character, they're looking for a character that they would enjoy hurting.
|
In other words, it's a
revenge fantasy, not a violence fantasy per se, and there's a difference. That makes sense. I do think this is a good explanation for something like Shield Hero, for instance, which is very much centered on a persecution complex.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Question
The thread is to discuss why authors who have their MC do these things almost always go out of their way to justify it with cheap copouts like "the girls were evil, so there was nothing wrong with the MC raping them" and "the kingdom was oppressive, so the MC actually improved things by killing the king and taking over".
|
The second example isn't necessarily that much like the first.
You could definitely justify a revolution if the kingdom is truly evil and it's a means of defending the people and they follow-through on that. If you have to take a side between a truly evil kingdom and those working to overthrow it, there's a least room for moral ambiguity there (and supporting the status quo is taking a side). Of course you can't just retcon that into a story or cover it in passing -- you have to make it a key point so that people can understand the situation and understand why the protagonist was doing a necessary thing for the greater good. That wouldn't
necessarily be the same as the other examples you listed, at least in my mind.
Now, the first example to me is different, and I'd tend to see any attempt at justification as a pretext. But there could still be a reason to insert that pretext. The reason BWTraveller gave could be one such pretext -- because the fantasy is about revenge, not about violence for its own sake. It's still not a "good justification" as if it makes it morally okay, but the pretext may be necessary for the story the author wants to tell. I'd even concede that the fact that someone could "turn evil" when consumed by the desire for revenge could make for an interesting story, if told in the right way. (There could be a difference between a justification a protagonist gives to themselves and whether the author is trying to justify what they're doing. Usually the rest of the framing would give hints about the latter.)
As with the other thread, I think it may be more productive if we start talking about specific examples rather than generalizations. Then we can at least say whether the justification provided is actually a "cheap copout" or not.