Daughter of fantasy villains decides to rebel against her parents by actually going through with her arranged marriage to a local golden retriever of a prince instead of running off with some local villain-to-be or conquering said golden retriever’s kingdom and ruling it solo like her parents expect her to. Plus, sue her, she’s into the clean-cut earnest look.

At the same time, local prince charming discovers that he’s actually very into the gothic fiance his parents have landed him with in order to try and establish peace with the local evil lair down the lane, he would never have guessed a spiderweb pattern could look so fetching on a ball gown…?

Meanwhile, two pairs of parents in a tizzy because they both expected their offspring to whole-heartedly reject this union and give them an excuse to conquer their goody-two-shoes/evil neighbours, they’re not supposed to actually like each other-!

respective friend groups undergoing culture clash like all of prince charming’s knights are like what vile spell has been used to ensorcel our prince.  we must be on our guard for surely this is but a ruse for an assassination attempt

meanwhile the villain bride’s friends are all like clearly he loves you not, why do you persist in a manner that will ensure your own heart break, i mean if he was taking this seriously there would be at least three assassination attempts by now.  it’s like he doesn’t even notice that you have massive amounts of dark power to covet for his own

smashcut to

fully armored knight, clanging through the hallways in attempts at stealth, blades drawn: i’m just saying, i took an oath of protection.  this feels wrong.

prince charming: it’s not wrong, it’s celebrating cross cultural traditions for my beloved bride

knight: it’s attempted murder

prince charming: it’s a loving attempted murder

@chucktaylorupset  Meanwhile the bride has a bouquet of roses, cornflowers, and wheat sheaves on her desk in her room, and she’s not coming out until she’s written a beautiful and moving poem about how they favourably compare to her groom. It’s been three days. She’s gone through an entire raven’s worth of quills (unethically sourced). The ‘toads who used to be my friends’ list has gone up by one. But she’s bent dark forces and eldritch spirits to her will and, by the powers obscene, this will not be the thing that breaks her.

Sorceress friend: Please, just get him an amulet that will double his power at the cost of his soul, no one’s worth this.

Rebellious villainess: (nearly in tears) No, he brought his best knights to the castle and tried to kill me last week, at midnight, I can’t ignore something like that! He even kicked Cathulhu!

Sorceress friend: He nudged it with his foot. And then he apologized to it. In tears.

Rebellious villainess: (actually in tears now, for reasons of feels instead of poetic torment) He’s trying so hard!!!

Villainess: Beloathed, I need a goat.

Prince: Of course, darling - may I inquire as to what for?

Villainess: Blood sacrifice to the dark gods, you know how it is.

Prince: …

Prince: …darling, you know I support your lifestyle choices, but I must say this before it potentially happens.

Prince: I’m not all right with human sacrifice. That’s one of my boundaries. I don’t know if you do that or not, but it seemed a topical time to bring it up.

Villainess: (carefree laugh) Oh beloathed, don’t worry yourself about such things, I would never!

Villainess: (leading him off to the goat market) Only incompetents use actual humans. Skilled practitioners of the dark arts know that a goat is not only a sufficient sacrifice, but the superior one.

Prince: You don’t say? Fascinating!

@sapphire-monkey One of the nobles against the marriage in the prince’s kingdom invites the villainess to a local village’s blessing ritual, secure in the knowledge that it’s not only custom to wear the absolute palest white or undyed linen/woolen clothing one owns, it’s a requirement of the ritual and sacrilegious to do otherwise. Let’s see you deal with that miss all-black-wardrobe.

She arrives in diaphanous white silk edged with lace that gives the impression of beautifully tattered hems, all of it drifting gently around her on the spring breeze to give the feeling of a wraith from a haunted castle or something of the such. While not her personal cup of tea, she finds the ritual very moving, and absolutely understands why its one of her beloathed’s favorites.

One of the nobles from her kingdom, meanwhile, decides, fuck it, and just turns the prince into a frog. It takes her two minutes to find and fix him.

Villain noble: How.

Villainess: True love’s kiss, bitch.

Villain noble: (seethes)

The prince, meanwhile, pissed off the entire villainous court for the recent engagement ball that was held by knowing and responding accordingly to all the proper threats and insults. He studied before doing this, and he’s not going to shame darling in front of her peers! Bastard even managed to subdue his chivalry long enough to flirt with one of her friends right in front of her, how dare he be so considerate and sensitive to her needs like that-!?

First time the Prince finds out Villainess can transform into a gigantic fire-breathing dragon is a very O_OU moment for him.

Villainess: Are you surprised I can? It’s a common ability.

Prince: I didn’t want to assume.

Villainess: …

Prince: (sweats)

Villainess: …you’re picturing me turning into a dragon and riding on my back into battle, aren’t you?

Prince: N-no, no, of course not-!

Villainess: (drapes in his lap) It’s okay, we’d look fantastic. (sly expression) And probably scary enough to get the enemy forces to surrender without any needless bloodshed.

Prince: (sweating) Darling, are you trying to tempt me into putting you into a position where you could be injured in battle?

Villainess: A little. :3 (more seriously) But it is also on the table if we ever need to defend our throne. It’s the sort of thing that form’s for, really.

Prince: If you’re comfortable with it, then very well, it shall be added to the list of acceptable strategies.

(comfortable cuddling for a moment)

Prince: I imagine you make a very majestic dragon.

Villainess: (preening) I really do.

Prince: Perhaps we should have a tapestry done of it, then? It could hang opposite the one of my family’s crest in the throne room when we someday ascend the thrones ourselves.

Villainess: 8O! Beloathed, I would adore a tapestry of that! (cuddles further against him) Oh, and across from your family crest! That would be such a slap in the face to my parents, having a tapestry of me there instead of their own crest.

Prince: (hadn’t thought of it that way, but is happy that she’s happy)

Villainess comes in one night thoroughly out of sorts because her stupid cousin’s decided to make a move on her rights to the souls of their ancestors, and the jerk’s competent enough to actually have a potential chance at getting them, too, like he’d even wear the necklace of jewels they’re trapped in-!!!

The Prince listens patiently to her frustration until she’s finished, then considers for a few minutes.

“Darling, about that banquet your family’s having next fortnight - will your cousin be in attendance?”

“Yes, he’ll be using it to lay the groundwork of his plans. Why?”

“Would it be all right if I popped in for a bit? And was rather more… myself than I usually am around your parents?”

“…I suppose it’d be all right.”

“Wonderful!” (kisses her hand) “Perhaps wear those full-arm gloves your friend got you for the event - the ones that allow you to handle blessed objects without them interfering with your dark powers?”

“Well now I’m just curious. I shall do as you request, beloathed.”

The night of he shows up to the banquet positively radiating charm, good will, and benevolence, decked out in full armor that’s glowing slightly. Oh this? It’s the ancestral trappings of one of his relatives who was a champion of the stellar deities, those who guide ones who have become lost in darkness? He’s not a holy champion himself, but he is a fully-realized warrior of light and family, so he’s permitted to wear it at times. Oh yes, he completed his warrior of light trials when he was eighteen, when on a quest and everything! That’s where he earned his sword - it’s actually a shard of sunlight, you know, not metal. That’s why he’s called Prince of the Sun and Stars sometimes - bit of a grandiose title, really, but the artists and poets enjoy playing with the imagery, and who is he to deny them, especially when Darling is so fond of the stars herself! There’s a lass in one of the kingdom’s villages doing a portrait of the two of them together playing with that motif, actually, and it looks like it’s going to to be absolutely lovely when it’s done-

And he continues to be cheerful, charming, and just the nicest, most polite guy for the time he’s there while also reminding everyone in no uncertain terms that, for as long as the forces of evil have been trying to quash the forces of good, his side has been working at the opposite. And his side tends to win more often. And maybe it would be wise not to pick a fight with Darling because he’d hate to have to do battle with a potential in-law in the path of supporting her family’s traditions regarding people who cross them…

Jerk cousin is thoroughly cowed out of making an attempt at the family-filled jewels, and Villainess’s friends are standing with her off to the side going, “Okay, beginning to see what you see in him now.” Villainess herself is walking around with on safely-gloved hand on his arm as he intimidates the hell out of everyone she knows in order to help her protect what’s hers, swooning a little bit inside the whole time.

(Hers might be more diversely applicable, but Villainess isn’t the only one bringing something to the table in terms of power. Prince is generally more useful for things like getting birds to sing in chorus or making friends with bunnies, but his family does specialize in slaying evil. She may be skilled at facing enemies of all sorts, but he’s prepared specifically for anyone in her home court who might try to backstab her.)

Oh my gods, yes, absolutely!

Congratulations, you are officially the smartest person on the entire thread, holy flip-?!?

Villainess is chilling in Prince’s court one day and a lady of the court storms up to her in tears, make-up running, and is just, “One of your friends turned my fiance into a newt, a newt, and he fell in the moat before I could catch him and I don’t know how to find him, or how to change him back if I do find him, and the library only has information on frog and bear transformations, and no one knows what to to do and you’re the only person who might know what to do, please help me-!” (bursts into inconsolable tears)

This throws Villainess through a loop, people don’t tend to whole-heartedly throw their trust in others like this at her place, this is super unsettling, so she just responds in the way she usually would, “Oh? And what price are you willing to pay?”

“Anything.”

…ooooooooh that is so, so tempting, why are people in this court so earnest, don’t they realize that the reason the higher nobles are worried about her marriage to their prince is the very real potential that she could use this opportunity to cast their country and its people into a thousand years of ruin and despair, bare minimum…?! But it would make Darling unhappy if she’s too mean about this, so, “How about your dignity, then? First off, we’ll have to get you out of that dress…” (seductive smirk and cock of the hips)

Court lady: (still in tears but hands immediately go to her bodice laces to start undoing)

Villainess: (grabbing her hands) OKAY, WHOA, HOLD UP, WE’RE IN THE MIDDLE OF COURT, HAVE SOME STANDARDS!!! Just- just go put on something you don’t mind getting all messed up, we’re going to have to get in the moat a bit for this, and even the edges are all muddy.

Court lady: Oh. (sniffles) Okay. Thank-you.

They spend the next three hours dredging around the moat to find the right newt and then perform the right ceremony to turn him human again. He appears naked and covered in mud and court lady unabashedly flings herself into his arms, sobbing in relief this time, and it’s disgustingly wholesome and romantic.

Newt Lordling: (once he’s finished doing a bit of sobbing of his own into his fiance’s hair) Wait, aren’t you Neskatina’s friend? Could you tell her that my sister likes daffodils? Girls, and daffodils? I tried to tell her myself, but the newt thing happened before I could get past asking her to stop with the threatening letters. We- we really don’t send those around here unless we mean it, she’s been finding it a bit upsetting. Daffodils would be much better received.

Villainess: …noted.

I thought about them more and… there’s no way Court Lady isn’t going to decide to be friends with Villainess after all this, is there? She helped her save her fiance when she thought him lost to her forever and had nowhere else to turn, they did what amounts to a mini quest together, they’re friends now. Villainess has no idea how to handle it when the next court function comes along and Court Lady scampers over (tear-free this time) and proceeds to spend a decent amount of the evening with her just being… so unabashedly friendly. It’s unnerving.

Prince: She’s grateful to you and wants to be friends.

Villainess: (glowering suspiciously) Sounds fake.

Prince: She thinks you’re nice.

Villainess: Disgusting.

She still goes when Court Lady invites her on a trip to the meadows with some of the other ladies to pick greens, all of them surprised by the discovery that going out to gather flowers and useful herbs and such is something ladies from both courts do from time to time (though for very different reasons). It’s common sense to wear an older outfit that’s all right to get a bit grass- or mud-stained (ladies from the Prince’s court call them their ‘daisy dresses,’ Villainess and her friends call them ‘gathering gowns’), and Villainess is kind of shocked that the pretty nobles from her beloathed’s court do this sort of thing.

The ladies all titter, then it’s story time, because you can bet most of them have a heroic/clever/wise relative somewhere in the family tree who was born a peasant and married or gained nobility for some feat or other, and it’s fun to have someone new in the group who hasn’t heard all the stories before. Villainess is surprised again, because she does actually know some of these stories, but from the relatives of the villain involved (usually told in a ‘you’ll never guess what so-and-so’s idiot relative got thwarted over’ sort of tone). Going on outings like this helps you stay connected to your roots!

Also, Court Lady turns out to be the daughter of the royal apothecary and has a deep knowledge of the properties of various mushrooms. She even knows about poisons because they’re used in medicine sometimes. Villainess might be starting to like her as a person.

Another lady finds a patch of old teasels and braids them into a crown for Villainess, because “They’re all dark and spiky, and about the same colour as your daisy dr- ah, your gathering gown! We tend to make each other flower crowns when we go out, but I thought you might like these better.”

Villainess: …won’t they get deceptively yet horribly tangled in my hair, making the crown stay on well but an absolute nightmare to take off?

Lady: (terrified that she’s judged wrong) Yes…?

Villainess: (trying so hard not to be horribly touched, she’s just allergic to all these non-lethal flowers, that’s why she’s suddenly feeling sniffly) That’s really thoughtful of you.

To get a touch spicy - both are shocked to discover that their fiance is under the belief that the alignment they’re not a part of invented bondage.

Prince: It had to have been a villain that invented it, your side’s the one that gets all clever with ropes and knots and everything!

Villainess: No no no, it must have been your side, because safe words and after care!

They are both very perplexed, but also in absolute agreement that they will not be asking their parents about this.

(Because why go with the trope ‘good folks are vanilla in bed and evil folks are spicy’ when you could go with ‘actually one’s moral alignment has no effect on what they’re into in bed and actually it’s a pretty even division of spiciness levels all around’ and have both groups get tripped up by the discovery?)

@moviegirlsincedisney​   #amazing #I need comics and books and a tv show #also I imagine after neskatina has sent a bouquet of daffodils with a black ribbon binding them together #she receives a letter threatening her for turning the lordling into a newt from the sister #It’s filled with scathing comments the likes of which neskatina has never heard from the lips of the Good Folk #at the end of the letter written in tiny print is a post script saying ‘did I do it right? you’re cute’ #Neskatina is disturbed when instead of ruining the effect of the whole letter she is instead only further endeared

^Yes, all of this, good, canon!!!

This has gotten infinitely better since the last time I saw it.

It’s the fantasy equivalent of Ensign Stabby.

You just- just came for me like that, right from the hip, didn’t even blink, I’m never going to recover and I’m so flattered, thank-you!

[Image ID:] A short comic of someone with pointy ears wearing a hat reading something from their laptop, which results in them pulling their hat over their head and screaming. [End ID]

There’s that semi-common trope in a lot of stuff where the King’s advisor turns out to be super evil, right? I imagine that could play back into this, where the Prince’s father’s advisor is like. Visibly evil and malicious and conniving, complete with backhanded comments and an unsettling name. And Villainess finally meets him and realizes this immediately. She personally finds him to be one of the most tolerable people in the castle, but she is a bit concerned that the Prince doesn’t know and that this man could cause some out of place stress to her Beloathed. Eventually she decides to tell him, and so later that night she asks about it.

Villainess: Beloathed, what do you think of your father’s advisor?

Prince: Him? Oh, he’s been with the family since my father was a boy. He practically raised Father when my grandfather fell ill. We are lucky to have him with us.

Villainess: …are you aware that he’s evil?

Prince: Hm? Oh, yes.

Villainess, now a bit confused: And you haven’t removed him from the job? I would have assumed that your people would not tolerate this kind of darkness, especially so close to power.

Prince, shrugging: It’s kind of a tradition, to be honest. The King’s advisors have all been evil for… well, centuries now. It’s something that mostly goes unspoken. The position tends to corrupt people. Eventually he will reveal a daring plot, and I will defeat him to protect the light and discover something new about the side of good.

Villainess: Hmm. I suppose that makes sense.

And later on the Villainess begins to foil the advisor’s plans, mostly because all of them are mediocre and her beloathed deserves a much more challenging trial than that. The Prince is touched that the Villainess is putting this much attention into such a small, unspoken tradition. The advisor is very confused and upset because “what do you mean that was a bad plan, I even included poison!”

8O!!! GUYS, ANOTHER SET OF DESIGNS FOR THESE TWO JUST DROPPED AND THEY’RE GORGEOUS!!!! How is everyone who draws these two so good at character design, holy flip, she looks so elegant and menacing, and the design of his armor is fan-

(notices his hand)

Is- oh gods, he’s wearing a ring in the same colour as her jewels, oh that’s such a beautiful, subtle little touch, I love it!

(Also, one of the odd little things I like best about this piece? Somehow these versions of the couple just look like they’d get along with @nananarc’s version of them. They’re both very distinct takes, but they all feel like they could inhabit the same world, which I choose to interpret as both artists managing to fully encapsulate the vibe of this setting and its characters while also putting their own spins on it. Wonderful!)

pirates of the caribbean really introduced an eldritch octopus man who kills indiscriminately and torments the dead as their poster villain and then you watch the movies and it's like, "oh no, actually the worst villain in this series is a small white british man who functions as the herald of capitalism" and that was very very brave of them

#here is a man so heartless he has literally cut his own heart out of his chest #but he's still not as evil as the fucking east india trading company

Not knowing that you have a villain inside you, a hero, and a bystander is a lesson that everyone should learn.

What is the quote from Jingo, by Sir Terry Pratchett, to the effect of "when someone does something terrible, we want it to be one of Them, because if it isn't Them, then it is Us?"

“It was because he wanted there to be conspirators. It was much better to imagine men in some smoky room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over the brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn’t then you might have to face the fact that bad things happened because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog and told their children bedtime stories, were capable of then going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people. It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone’s fault. If it was Us, what did that make Me? After all, I’m one of Us. I must be. I’ve certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We’re always one of Us. It’s Them that do the bad things.”

Jingo. 1997. Pratchett, Terry. NY, London, and Ankh-Morpork: Harper-Collins. p. 205

Quick! Funniest reason for someone to become a villain

Has a crush on the hero and can't be normal about it

The funniest trope by far is like… after The Villain Of The First Half Of The Series is defeated like… they just join the hero’s team and are a minor annoyance drinking coffee and being sarcastic and the heroes are just like “looks like we have an annoying roommate now great”

hot take here but the way people talk about “redemption arcs” and how they require that the sinner repent, debase himself, and then atone for his sins in order to be accepted back into the warmth of readers’ love, but there are some unforgivable sins for which no atonement is enough

is INCREDIBLY culturally christian

Another fascinating thing about responses to this post: whether they’re agreeing with me or disagreeing, whether they think people’s insistence on this arc is good or bad, a huge portion of people use the word “forgiveness” and center their entire response to this post around it.

Please observe that I never once used the word “forgiveness” - although I should have, because the idea that forgiveness is a necessity for ceasing-to-be-a-sinner, and indeed that forgiveness is the primary goal, is itself christian.

I have at no point in the original post or in any of my further discussion of it said that the end goal, or even a significant feature of, a villain-to-hero arc was forgiveness.

Yet everyone who thinks this arc is indeed the only valid option phrases their arguments in terms like “Would you forgive someone who didn’t…”

Maybe I would - maybe I wouldn’t!  But I never said anything about forgiveness being a requirement!

And everyone who wants to tell me that Christians Don’t Think Like This, Actually, says it in terms of “But Jesus forgives everyone, all you have to do is repent and you will be forgiven.”  …okay great who says the characters need to be forgiven, why is it RELEVANT whether Jesus would forgive them or not - unless you’re operating in a Christian framework where God’s Forgiveness is a central feature of your belief system.

People who agree that yes, this is a culturally christian thing, and further believe that another form of arc would be superior, are saying “you should be able to just stop doing bad things and only do good things, and that should be enough for you to be forgiven” - okay you got the spirit but why do we have to be forgiven.

Forgiveness - as least as it is being used in this context - is someone else granting salvation to you.  It is someone else absolving you of your guilt.  It is you having shown someone else that you are worthy now, and them casting judgement upon you, and then agreeing that you are enough better than you were before.

Why does someone else get to sit in judgement and decide if you’re a good person now?  Who besides a god stands in that position of omniscience and moral superiority and moral infallibility?

What if a character chooses to end his life of villainy, anonymously transfer all his ill-gotten gains to those he harmed, and devote the rest of his life to curing cancer alone in a lab on a deserted island, finally releasing his cure anonymously on his deathbed.  No other character even has any idea this has happened; they all figure he just died or went into hiding.  No one has forgiven him.  Does that mean he’s still a villain?

What if all the other characters have hardened hearts for whatever reason, and no matter how much penance the ex-villain does, even if he only did one tiny bad act and then spent years in pain in punishment and then spent decades saving the world over and over at great personal cost, they will never, ever forgive him?  Does that mean he’s still a villain?

What if everyone he personally wronged died in an accident, he was the only survivor, it was that shock that caused his change of heart, so everybody he knows now loves him and knows him only as a hero, but the people he hurt can never forgive him?  Is he still a villain?

On the other side, if, say, a child continuously forgives their abusive parent, does that mean the parent isn’t a villain?

Forgiveness does not have a one to one correlation with goodness.  In either direction.

I am concerned that what people are doing is translating “…in order to be accepted back into the warmth of readers’ love” as “be forgiven by the readers” (which is not inaccurate, in terms of the christian framework) and then all agreeing that yes, that should indeed be the central goal of every villain-to-hero arc.  Which opens a WILD can of worms.

Because that means - We, as the readers, are in the position of gods to the characters, casting judgement upon them, looking into their hearts and deciding whether We will grant forgiveness to the characters for the wrongs they have done to others.

Like.  Aside from all the other implications.  At the point where you are granting someone forgiveness for something they did to someone else, something’s gone very wrong.  Assuming you’re not, in fact, actually yourself a deity.

But also for people to make translation of “…warmth of readers’ love” to “readers’ forgiveness” you have to already be assuming that we can’t love a character if we haven’t forgiven them for every wrong they’ve done.  And that wouldn’t even be true if they were a real person, and super duper isn’t true if they’re fictional.  I love my mother with all my heart.  I’ll also never forgive her for what she did to me and my brother.  Forgiveness and love are two separate emotional axes and one does not imply anything about the other.

Look.  Here’s some advice for actual real life.  You don’t need to forgive someone to let them participate in society.  You don’t need to forgive someone to love them.  And you DEFINITELY don’t need to forgive them for them to be a good person.  Whether they’re a good person is in their heart - not yours.

I already loved the first post, but this addition lays it all out in such a clear, concise manner, that I’m actually in awe. 11/10 OP, it is, if you’ll forgive the pun, absolute god-tier

I just. Fuck. Yes. I have nothing to add to this apart from aggressively gesticulated agreement and gratitude to OP for taking the time to articulate this whole amazing thing.

yeah this checks out

tags via @thyrell

Every day, people on this site commit acts of heresy that would have got them burned at the stake in the past.

it’s what our heretic ancestors burned at the stake would have wanted

Writers: Bad people are still people with their own problems and emotions, even when they cause problems and distress and hurt other people.

Tumblr Gremlins: Problematic. Blocked.

If you portray bad people as good people, then you’re normalizing abuse. Of course that’s fucking problematic.

Newsflash: people and good people are not synonymous.

If you portray a villain, that villain has thoughts, emotions, desires. Maybe even loved ones. They have things they want. They have reasons for what they do. And none of this excuses their villainous acts.

If you portray a good person, all of the same things apply. Thoughts, emotions, desires, loved ones, things they want, reasons, etc. And when you look at the acts they commit, you think to yourself, “That is a good person. I consider this person heroic, someone worth emulating.” Whereas when you see what the villain does, you think, “Man, that is fucked up.”

The entire difference between a good person and a bad person is not whether or not they are people, but whether the things they do and their reasons for doing them are good or bad. So you can portray a bad person, who abuses people, as having emotions, and desires, and thoughts, and they can still be a bad person. 

So yeah. The OP says “bad people should be written as if they are people.” This is true. “Normalizing abuse” is what happens when you write bad people as if they are incomprehensible evil monsters with no common humanity with the rest of us, because this tells abuse victims, most of whom love their abusers, “You’re not really being abused because the person you love is not a bad person! Bad people are 100% evil monsters and the person who is hurting you obviously has feelings!” No. Bad people are people. When you write an abuser, write them as a person, with thoughts and feelings, because real abuse victims know that their abusers are people, and you don’t want to convince them that their abusers can’t be abusers because only monsters are abusers. You want them to understand that abusers are human too, because they already know the person abusing them is human. What they don’t know is whether or not they can consider what’s happening to them to be abuse. 

^^^

Antis: “Only good people are actually fully human beings! This totally isn’t fascist or anything!”

“If you write well-rounded, deep, believable characters you’re a fucking abuse apologist!”

This is way too similar to that god damn “if you write characters being traumatized/in traumatizing situations then you are fetishizing abuse and you’re bad!” Like stories need conflict and sometimes being involved in conflict can be traumatizing, do you really want to consume only media that is entirely Good People Doing Good Things, Everyone Is Happy And Nothing Bad Ever Happens?? Because that’s sounds like a whole lot of boring to me

Given the alternative that we’ve had forever now, where characters go through intensely traumatic shit but have absolutely no trauma whatsoever - thus conveying the message that the problem is YOU, YOU’RE the only one who breaks like that - I’m gonna have to say I’ll take the realistic portrayals of trauma.

There is something, I think, to us as a whole, as humans, that is INSANELY disturbing and difficult about viewing irredeemable, evil people as PEOPLE. Like, we cannot accept that people who do things like commit genocide or murder people or abuse people are, in a lot of ways, just like us. That they have families and feelings and complex inner lives. And my gf just summed up why the portrayal of evil people as something apart from human is such a problem:

Because it keeps us from confronting evil when it DOES actually show up. It keeps us from confronting other people, who we know, who espouse hatred. Because how can this person, whom we know , who maybe we are even friends or family with, be an empty evil husk? It’s what keeps us from addressing things like racism, fascism, white supremacy- you name it. 

When we dress up evil people as something apart from us, when we act like humans are inherently better than the evil people we see in media, it means that come being faced with a person who is doing abhorrent things, we are unable to process that. Because we feel like humanity and evil are incompatible. 

You know it’s funny but we really need more bad people depicted as real people because it’s meant to be a warning to what you can become if you aren’t careful. Antis are good examples of that because they genuinely don’t realize how evil their behavior is because they think they are doing it for the greater good or with the best intentions justifies it. People are always the hero of their own story and if you can’t recognize that you are capable of being a monster then you will become a monster because you see everything that you do as good. It takes any complex thinking about morals out of the picture because you aren’t a laughing disney villain so why should you be concerned if your decisions hurt people if it wasn’t apart of the big picture or plan you have.

Think the Original The Lorax where the bad guy was viewed as complex and had good points even though he still was the bad guy. He was complicated and Kids could understand it through Seuss’s writing that he was just a person. Then look at say Ursula or Makeficent who had the complexity of a wet napkin and few kids could imagine themselves becoming. Obviously some kids can imagine themselves as them but which story really teaches you that good people do bad things or bad people don’t always realize they are bad.

It’s not some evil pro villain thing to make bad guys real. It’s a warning that you need to be careful because you could easily become the bad guy even if you have the best intentions.

good thread about bad people.

I’ve had enough “boy falls in love with girl” redemption arcs. Give me “bad guy to dad guy.” Give me “villain’s favorite bakery has a ‘no villains’ policy and they had really good croissants so they reformed.” Give me “got bored, accidentally did something good, stumbled into being city’s greatest hero” type villains. Give me “villain worked for evil assassin agency, got their marks mixed up, accidentally killed bad guy instead of good guy, lol oops nothing left to do but switch sides” villains. Give me unconventional, fresh, and sometimes cheesy redemption arcs.

“…villain’s favorite bakery has a ‘no villains’ policy and they had really good croissants so they reformed.”

This made me die of laughter within thirty seconds - well done, sir/madam/entity/frog.

“Sir/madam/entity/frog” is now my new royal title thanks

Yeah, there’s a reason for that.

It’s called: antisemitic caricature.

I don’t understand what’s Jewish about mother gothel… she has a typical Disney face doesn’t she? Is it the curly hair..? I mean her nose and everything else seem normal?

I’m sorry, I’m just trying to figure it out, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.

dark curly hair - long hooked nose - darker complexion than the blond blue eyed heroine 9and really the rest of the cast - portrayed as greedy and evil.

Lisa Edelstein is Jewish.  As are Idina Menzel and Amy Winehouse, both of whom I have seen compared in looks to Gothel.  Gothel’s design is a pretty clear caricature of ethnically Jewish women.  

This is a pretty good contrast between Rapunzel and Gothel.  Rapunzel has the “typical Disney face”:

Here’s a more close up look at her features.

The hooked nose becomes even more pronounced as she becomes “eviler.”

If you wanted to claim that there was noting out of the ordinary for Disney animation when it came to Gothel’s features, you would have to find at least one Disney princess or heroine with similar characteristics (long hooked nose and dark curly hair, etc).

But here is what we have is -

small noses that turn up at the end:

wide, flatter noses (though cheers to Disney for not putting button noses on their characters of color, although Esmerelda’s clothing design deserves another essay on Rromani stereotypes and there are some major issues with Pocahontas as well)

And then a few misc noses (again, props for Jasmine’s nose not being a button):

Apart from just the design of Gothel, there’s also the whole: “obviously ‘other’ (read Jewish) woman kidnaps the pretty blonde (read: gentile) kid to use her for ritualistic/magical purposes”

Like that right there on top of the aesthetic Jewish-coding is what pushed the antisemitic caricature over the top for me.  It harkens back to antisemitic blood libel that claimed that Jews stole gentile children for all manner of nefarious reasons. Even when Gothel is in “mother” role to Rapunzel, she’s is shown as nagging and passive aggressive, both antisemitic stereotypes of Jewish women.

There is no one thing that makes her an antisemitic caricature, but the design, plus the storyline she plays out, plus her characterization cement the overall character as antisemitic.  

Jew-coding a villain is not in itself always antisemitic when there are also Jewish coded heroes. Rapunzel does not have that.

Having a villain steal a baby for magical/ritualistic reasons is not always antisemitic as long as the villain is not Jew-coded.  Rapunzel fails this as well.

Having a nagging and passive aggressive mother character is not antisemitic provided that she is not, again, coded as Jewish.  Rapunzel fails once again.

Hope this helps.

EDIT: @ariminak pointed out that some of my wording made it sound like Gothel’s features only stereotypically caricatured Ashkenazi women when in fact that is not the case.  I changed the language to remove that phrasing and make it clear that any ethnically Jewish women can be affected by this type of aesthetic trope. If you reblogged the old version, could you please delete it and reblog this one instead.

Spread this version so people recognize that this stuff harms all Jewish women.

omfg can y’all chill the fuck out, any race can be portrayed as hero or villain, it’s a fucking kids movie not a political statement

So I’m guessing you’re white and a gentile. As such, you’ve more than likely grown up looking at tv and movies and fairytales and seeing your face in those of the heroes.

Jewish people don’t get that.  When we are portrayed in live action, our characters are more often than not whitewashed and in other media, our features are used and caricaturized to create “evil looking” villains.

You don’t see it because you’ve been ingrained with the idea that “ethnic” features are just “how you make a character look evil.”  You don’t look at Gothel and see your mother.  You don’t see yourself and your people.  You don’t see decades of propaganda aimed at fostering hate against you and ultimately seeking to destroy you.  

But seeing how you also seem to think that saying you’re not attracted to an entire race of people ISN’T racist, you really don’t get any say on any of this.

So really, you need to chill the fuck out and stop telling marginalized people to stop talking about the tools of our own marginalization.

Let’s play a game I like to call: Movie Villain or Antisemitic Propaganda:

Many “evil witch” tropes were built on European antisemitic stereotypes, not just in appearance but in the storylines they play out as well. Greediness, stealing children, killing children, hunger for power, etc.  Every time a movie villain design uses stereotyped Jewish features to communicate “evilness” to an audience, they perpetuate the marginalization of the people they are using. 

One big issue I have is that Gothel’s didn’t start out as the antisemitic caricature that made it to screen.  Much of the early concept art has a more dark romanticism feel.  

They changed the original design. Presumably to make Gothel more “other” from the good characters in the movie.  At some point, a decision was made that dark curly hair and a hooked nose wound better convey their villain.

It really doesn’t matter if any of this was intentional, I’d actually bet that it wasn’t.  However, antisemitic tropes are so engrained in our societies that people like you, even when confronted with a step by step break down of what it is, feel comfortable thinking that there’s nothing wrong with it and mocking those calling it out as if we are overreacting.

You seem to have completely ignored the majority of my post.  It is the character design, plus the characterization, plus the story line that mirrors blood libel that makes Gothel an antisemitic character.  It’s not just about someone of a certain race or ethnicity being a villain.  It’s about how stereotypes of a certain ethnic group are understood as “villainous” due to villains being repeatedly coded as Jewish over decades of film and tv.

And contrary to your naive belief, all media is political to some extent. Every time a historically present minority is not included in film (ex: lily-white Harlem in Fantastical Beasts) or when a minority character is whitewashed, or when the “ethnic” features of a minority are used almost universally to portray bad guys, it is a political and social issue.  When you never see yourselves as the people who play the hero or even see your people existing in a portrayal of a place where they should be, it is not benign.

Reblogging again for these additions.

I’m not Jewish, but I can imagine seeing yourself villanized again and again must wear on you so hard (like queer coded villains do on me). The stereotypes are so insidious, I didn’t even realize she was Jewish coded until I saw this post for the first time, and since then I’ve been able to pick up on more anti-semitic media.

Stay cognizant!

This is a writing blog so fellow writers! Please take a good look at your villains— even if they’re not Jewish, it can be antisemitic. Thanks. - A Jew™️

[Image description: Tweet: “I know Seeking Power is the Hip Villain Thing to do, but I periodically question dark lord priorities, bc the idea of being in charge of EVEN MORE STUFF than I already am makes me want to lie down & die, whereas I’d prob sacrifice babies to blood gods for a sabbatical?

New tweet: “sure, you could rule the galaxy, but you could also nap for a million hours, & one of those options would involve way fewer meetings, I’m just saying, Lord God-King McBroods-a-Lot”

New tweet: “…every time a villain’s like ‘I SHALL COMMAND MILLIONS’ I’m like, ‘bitch, you ever so much as led like a 6-person team? YOU DON’T WANT TO MULTIPLY THAT NUMBER. TRUST. THE CONFERENCE CALLS WILL NEVER END.”

Reply: “LISTEN! Folks WILL reply all!!! You don’t want this. I really questioned Hela on this point.”

Reply: “OMG YES. like, girl, if you really want to punish your brothers, put them in charge of mandatory meetings through lunch that could as easily be a 3-line email, tell them they’re responsible for ‘Asgardian team building,’ & peace out before 5″]

All the Flash villains (and anti-hero) moodboards I’ve made so far

Here’s a hot take: villains should be relatable.

Not every villain, not every time, and certainly not to everyone at once, but there should be moments. We should, occasionally, be able to see ourselves in the bad guys, be able to understand how they got there.

Because it reminds us not to fucking go there.

Antis who get upset about villains having relatable qualities (often couched as being “romanticized” or “woobified”) are people who cannot bear to ever think of themselves as having the capability of being wrong.

Every human alive is capable of being a horrible person. Relatable villains remind us to keep an eye on that shit.