Mercy Mild? -CACS
This all is in reaction to our esteemed hostess, who made the following two comments in a post titled Sheep Who Think They’re Wolves:
Unfortunately over the years this has morphed into the more sinned against than sinning villain, into the repressed/tortured villain. Into the person who lashes out because, like a tortured dog, they can’t help it.
and
The problem with this is that all of us, every one here, I’d bet, knows someone who had a horrible childhood, was beaten, was kept in the cold and rain, or whatever, and has never committed a single crime.
I grew up on older books and movies. They might give you reason for a person resorting to a life of crime, but the mothers would still weep for their children when they made a bad situation worse by that choice. When given an understanding of why the bad choice was made everyone was clear on one thing: You shouldn’t a ought a done it.
Anyway, for some reason, this started a flood of movie images to come to mind.
One of the standing themes in the Warner Brother’s 1930 Hollywood crime dramas was dividing choices. They didn’t excuse the criminal behavior, but sometimes they did suggest that even the bad boy or man was capable of redemption.
Trailer for Angels With Dirty Faces
Post war realism had the socio and psychopaths who were the scum of human existence — gleefully pushing mothers in wheel chairs down stairs.
Richard Widmark as Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death>
Their fellow crooks knew they were something particularly loathsome. We didn’t like them and we weren’t supposed to.
When you were given ample reasons for someone’s brokenness most of us understood they were the rabid animals of the human race in need of removal.
Jimmy Cagney as Cody Jarrett in White Heat — ‘Made it ma! Top of the world!’
No one in the audience doubted that it was a good thing for everyone when Liberty Valence was shot.
Although we were made aware that Bill Sikes had once been a child of the streets, because of what he had become, an entirely selfish person who took joy in being a perverter of the innocent, we were relieved when he inadvertently hung himself while in murderous pursuit of Oliver Twist.
The turn may have started with one of the first Hollywood films to be made in the style of the French New Wave directors. There was a certain romanticism in spite of the violence to Bonnie and Clyde. Still, it is clear they were crooks — as in bent, not right.
The Godfather portrayed the beginning of the mob as the transfer of a form of shadow government into an area where the local government did not take care of the people. By the end it was clear they were victimizing people which was not to be considered a good thing, even within the family. Why else would the goal be to get Michael out of the family business?
Yes, the Motion Picture Code, originally instituted in 1930, had a lot to do with films consistently portraying clear images of criminal activities being unacceptable and the consequences of living a life of crime shown as unpleasant. Post WWII the code’s hold on films began to break down. People still preferred to see films where there was an underlying morality. There was still the understanding that crime was wrong, harmful not just to the immediate victims, but also to those living in places with high crime rates. Films that, even if they portrayed criminals as charming, did so with care.
Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid left me conflicted, they are charming, but in the end they remain murderous robbers and they are ultimately hunted down for it. In 1973’s repairing of Newman and Redford The Sting, the (anti) heros of this film are charming con men. It largely worked because it was clear that the target was a thoroughly unpleasant Chicago bookie that the equally corrupt law enforcement would not touch. It did not dwell on the general crimes that had been committed by the con men. It emphasized that the criminals are taking down other criminals – a form of retributive justice where the proper authorities fail to do their job.
So when did our stories so completely change and what are the effects of this change? When did we start to present an argument that a law abiding citizen should even entertain feelings of guilt because they had something to be stolen? When did actions that tear down a civilization — the inexcusable — become excusable? I don’t quite know, because at some point I gave up on watching or reading most new stuff, particularly when I discovered it had such a narrative.
A nebulous ‘they’ has been teaching us that to have stuff somehow justifies it being taken by force, and not just in the Marxist’s sense by the collective. This ‘they’ includes the community activists who teach we should seek to understand and in that understanding thereby excuse criminal behavior, are destroying society in the name of helping. Activists insist that the police unfairly target minorities, particularly young minorities. The activists further insist that lack of parity in the numbers of convictions between various social groups can only be the result of racism.
Society has been pushed to where we are reluctant to hold criminals responsible for their actions, or send them to jail when convicted, in part because of the fear of accusations of racism. In doing so they we have been hurting the very social groups from which they come. It is the minorities from bad neighborhoods that are most often the victims of crime. Why isn’t creating a situation where that occurs considered racism?
So poor minorities are victimized by crime. Having been victimized they have what is now acceptable excuse to turn to crime – and we are led to believe they have no other choice. I suggest that to say that any group has no other choice but to turn to crime is in itself racism.
Who this does compassion and understanding help? Maybe the community activist, but certainly not the community.
What can we do? One thing is to write new stories to capture the imagination with a different picture of what could and should be. Human Wave stories.
According To Hoyt 
I have a roommate who binge watches police/forensics shows–CSI, NCIS, Criminal Minds, and the like. One thing that becomes very clear after a while is a doctrine of what might be called “selective original sin”.
White male straight characters (who make up the majority of the killers on any of these shows) get to be just plain evil. While some are shown to be products of their environments (usually the really bizarre ones) most are people who are bad because they chose to do bad things.
Evil in non-white, non-male, non-straight characters has to be justified evil–they are bad because someone made them bad. That someone is almost always a white male straight character. If the killer is a black man, he was traumatized because some white man killed his daddy. If the killer is a woman, she is a killer to get revenge because she was raped. Gay killers are reacting to homophobic bullying.
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I normally do not watch fictional forensic programs. The Daughter at twelve decided that she wanted to be a forensic pathologist, and so we watched the real science programs. (Since she has had more exposure to the sciences she has found real interest in the idea of research into treatment of neural injuries.)
As both a Mandy Patinkin and Joe Mantengna fan I have watched Criminal Minds. In spite of today’s short hands and standard devices for plots I have actually enjoyed the show.
You touch on some of those short hands presently used. I believe that this has pretty much always been an aspect of story telling. Often lazy story telling. In the 1950s if your character was homosexual in pulp fiction they were either nasty or pitiful … that is if they were not both. There was as time when every police show hunted a crazed Vietnam Vet at some point, and drunk rednecks following aspirations of a twisted leader seeking the rise of the new south were a dime a dozen. A TV series needs to come up with some two dozen plots a year that they think the audience will accept. Not all of them do that so well.
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The ideal villain in an episode of Law and Order must combine some or all of the following characteristics:
1 Straight white male.
2 Conservative Christian
3 Successful businessman
4 Republican
5 crazed or embittered veteran
6 member of Homeland Security
7 If minority male, goaded to a life of crime and violence by one of the above
8 If minority female, goaded to a life of crime or violene by one of the above except number 7
If you could write a series premise that guaranteed every villain was a straight white male conservative Christian Republican who was really a bittered or crazed veteran determine to drive minorities to a life of violence and crime, NBC would give you a ten-year contract on the spot.
(You’d also make a pretty good member of the Congressional Black Caucus, but that’s another story.)
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There’s a certain Pillar of the Community, who, you know the instant he turns up, will be a child molester or a wife-beater.
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well, this might be true in THEIR communities. As we have proof daily.
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Truth.
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I remember my son’s (@ 6 & 7) asking me to change the channel on a movie where the Good Guys were criminals and the Bad Guys cops just doing their jobs. It offended their budding sense of what was right and good.
I was pretty careful to avoid those situations far a long time afterward.
It got me thinking more carefully about what was influencing me as well.
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I am glad your son spoke out. Good for him.
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“It is the minorities from bad neighborhoods that are most often the victims of crime. Why isn’t creating a situation where that occurs considered racism?”
Because the people pushing the narrative of “criminals are the true victims” are the ones creating the permanent lower class that creates the criminals. If you really want to piss a prog off, call it The New Plantation System.
Whatever happened to the idea of “If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime?”
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Caused many a liberal head to explode by calling Democrats the Party of Slavery — from Plantation to Collective.
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Only the Democrats could recreate the plantation system and still have to import cotton goods.
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Cool Hand Luke ?
Luke was an f’ing moron. If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.
I’m pigheaded, My dad had short hand when I was being pigheaded over stupid things, “Don’t be Luke.”
(Note: this doesn’t invalidate an earlier comment on an earlier post. You can’t win on defense. You have to go on the offense sometime, but running and hiding are hard habits to brake. Sometimes you have to risk loosing to win. When you are taught to avoid risk, learning to taking necessary risk is hard to do and learn.)
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So if we think you’re being pigheaded over stupid things, we should say “Don’t be Luke.”? [Very Big Evil Grin]
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Though, I can’t promise that we won’t still have “A Failure to Communicate.”
;)
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Use the Force, Luke???
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About “Cool Hand Luke”, a review that also has a brief history of the anti-hero in the movies:
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/cool-hand-luke-1967
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There’s a fine line between excusing criminal behavior and explaining it. Do it right, and you can create fascinating characters.
Remember Dr. Miguelito Loveless, the criminal genius from The Wild, Wild West? One of the things that made him so interesting was the conflict between his goals and his methods. He wasn’t just out for money and power. He pursued worthy causes, such as protecting orphans, through criminal means. But even as a kid, I saw that Loveless, though a compelling character, was still a bad guy who had to be stopped.
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I remember running into a non-canon Wild Wild West story that started off with Jim West reported dead, and Dr. Loveless was OUTRAGED! NOBODY got to kill West, unless it was HIM! West was the only person who had even done him the respect of never underestimating him!
I thought it was a promising start, but it rapidly dissolved into goo.
It’s a pity they had to have Loveless in the WWW movie. Will Smith actually made a decent Jim, and the story wasn’t any sillier than the TV series had regularly, but Miguelito Loveless WAS Michael Dunn. Nobody else an play that character without having a HUGE hill to climb.
But then, I thought the Avengers movie could have worked if they had said it was two DIFFERENT agents, instead of Steed and Peel.
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And minus Sean Connery in a furry suit, of course.
Gee, I wonder why he doesn’t appear in movies anymore?
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Oh come on. For once Sean Connery got to play the bad guy. Don’t try to take that away from him.
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Connery in a furry suit is less demeaning than Connery in Zardoz.
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You just had to bring up Zardoz, didn’t you?
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You spoke a mouthful, brother.
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Did you ever look at Zardoz as the anti marxist or anti socialist film? An effete, failing society wrapped in a bubble, fomenting a brutal caste system on a defenseless society that it both hates and fears because even under such abuse it is being out-produced? Even the giant Zardoz head looks like a bizarro Marx bust vomiting anti-human homilies and weapons, floating around like a “specter haunting the world”.
Granted, Sean Connery miming being sucked into the Tabernacle while wearing a red hotpants and suspenders was a bit much….
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You’re right about the movie. And as for the Steed and Peel Avengers movie, wow, what a let down! When I heard the casting, I just KNEW it was going to be a winner. But bad writing can undo great casting.
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What? No. Ralph Fiennes couldn’t fill that Bowler properly. It fit him like a football helmet. And don’t get me started on Uma Thurman, it would be ungentlemanly of me.
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It’s interesting to note that Robert Towne, who was the uncredited re-writer of the screenplays for both Bonnie and Clyde and The Godfather, went on to write the screenplay for Chinatown, which is considered one of the best original screenplays ever. While Towne didn’t like the ending that Roman Polanski, Chinatown’s director, chose for the film, in retrospect it was the right one for a neo-classic film noir that didn’t telegraph a thing to its audience. Of course, it didn’t hurt to have Jack Nicholson as the detective Jake Gittes, and it’s hard to imagine anyone else in that role.
While the good guys don’t win in Chinatown, what’s right about the film is Jake Gittes unwavering personal code of conduct – he doesn’t like being jerked around and while his work requires him to deal with sleazy and crooked people he’s capable of being suave and refined. In the end of course it’s still Chinatown for Jake and he gets hurt. Not all endings are happy and sometimes it’s good to watch a film that doesn’t pander to moral sensibilities that are more soppy sentiment and treacle than hard-boiled and tough – tough in the sense that sometimes life really is tough.
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Raymond Chandler said:
Of course, it all depends on how one defines “honor,” don’ it?
The writer has every opportunity to employ techniques to create a world in which the reader loses all moral anchorage, becomes enmeshed in fifty, a hundred, a thousand shades of grey and no longer knows right from wrong.
Human Wave writing, by anchoring itself to certain fundamental principles, restores and retains a sense of honor, set in concrete foundational concepts, that recognizes that while are people are made of clay we can aspire to doing right. The grey gooers even acknowledge that fact by couching their amorality in a veneer of principle, decrying various -isms as justification for their characters’ actions while side-stepping the logical corollary that racists and sexists are right to act as they do, given what they believe. After all, what kind of fool would entrust a child, a deranged man, a negro or a woman to understand where their interests properly lie?
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If it helps, Jake Gittes is a hero in the film. But he’s one who doesn’t win in the end. It’s Chinatown, after all.
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It’s one thing to write the stories, it’s another thing entirely to have the “folks in charge” package, market and distribute them.
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Which is why we have rising amounts of indie publishing, more and more indie films, and declining public support (as in box office revenue and sales numbers) for message films and books.
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Thankfully indie. The world of computers and independent publishings can make all the difference. The grand poohbahs and doyens of proper taste and opinion are loosing control.
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The more they tighten their grip, the more of us slip through their fingers. ;)
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So about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – it’s not about re-writing the moral code of Hollywood, it’s more about casting Newman and Redford as Hope and Cosby in a western with the humor updated to the 1960s. I mean, you do know that William Goldman wrote the screenplay for it and presumably everyone knows he also wrote the story and screenplay for The Princess Bride? Please, if you haven’t seen it do yourself a favor and watch Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, it’s still hilarious and great fun.
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You’re missing the point, Hope and Cosby weren’t portrayed as violent criminals just having fun.
The real Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were violent criminals.
That movie showed them as violent criminals who the viewers were supposed to root for.
As for it being a “comedy”, it was if you find “wise-cracking” violent criminals funny.
I doubt that you would find it funny if you were robbed and killed while the criminals made “wise-cracks”.
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I imagine the bit about the Dread Pirate Roberts in The Princess Bride caused you to walk out of the theater then.
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I don’t know about the Dragon, but many a movie or TV show has induced my sympathy for characters about whom only later did I say “Wha? Waitaminnit!”
Consider the first Pirates of the Caribbean film in which the Crown’s Royal Navy are portrayed as a lot of humourless prigs implementing the exploitation of occupied lands while “Captain” Jack Sparrow wins our sympathies as an honor-less unreliable self-serving clown.
For that matter, consider Rooster Cogburn of True Grit who uses the cover of the law to commit numerous acts of murder and abuse.
And then there is Han Solo, a man routinely violating the laws of the Republic (when we meet him the Empire has not yet dissolved the Senate) …
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And as you know Bob, Han shot first. Greedo had it coming.
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Han was part of the redemption arc, a foreshadowing of the redemption of Darth Vader. (Given the prequels I’m not sure I buy Vader’s redemption, but…)
Coburn was a rough character with little appreciation for the limits of his authority, but as I remember he aimed his rough edges at the criminal lot of a preference.
I think (mostly) they’re interesting characters despite their faults, rather than because of them.
Unfortunately, this isn’t much the case lately.
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There are two movies of True Grit in addition to the novel.
I do not agree with your conclusion as far as the book is concerned.
Yes, the protagonists are Democrats, and the book severely whitewashes the history.
The book covers maybe one hired killing while he is actually holds that office.
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There are multiple instances of Cogburn not reading anybody their Miranda warnings … and his treatment of prisoners surely does not comport with the best sociological practices.
;-)
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Anyone who tries to bring the standards of other peoples and places into the law enforcement practices of Indian Territory or Oklahoma is a racist. Bringing current standards, or wished standards, into a discussion of historical law enforcement is racist. Bringing up Cogburn’s history as relevant to the Republican decision to not treat the Democratic Party as the allied occupation forces treated the NSDAP is racist, unless you want to make modern law enforcement a Republicans only club.
Grins, Ducks and Runs Away.
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The problem with your third example is simply that he is breaking the laws of a government that doesn’t deserve obedience. Doesn’t mean he isn’t breaking the law, just means that it wouldn’t necessarily be wrong to break the laws of that entity.
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Not disputing your evaluation, but please note that I specified Han broke the laws of The Republic, before it was an empire.
And don’t all criminals claim that they’re “breaking the laws of a government that doesn’t deserve obedience”? In Star Wars and many works of fiction, that conclusion is assumed rather than demonstrated (before the arguments start, stipulate that The Empire rather quickly proves its tyrannical nature.)
Heck, only Ayn Rand ever drew attention to the essential evil of Robin Hood, whose predations undoubtedly justified higher taxes on The Poor and Middle (such as they exist) Classes as well as increased police oppression.
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Frankly, one of the few “redeeming” features of the prequels is that they showed exactly why the “Republic” needed to be overthrown long before it took off the mask.
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Prequels? I know of no prequels.
I have heard rumour of some gross bastardizations trading on the name and reputation of the Trilogy, but frankly, after the third film’s abominable execution I cannot imagine any sensible persons entrusting Lucas with money or attention for additional films.
Perhaps you have been misled by promotions for X-rated knock-offs, such as Star Whores?
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“Heck, only Ayn Rand ever drew attention to the essential evil of Robin Hood, whose predations undoubtedly justified higher taxes on The Poor and Middle (such as they exist) Classes as well as increased police oppression.”
Every evil government in history:”Look what those bad people (Jews, Patriots, etc. ad nauseam) made me do.” This is why I am not a Randian.
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Not a Randian? But surely you sometimes get a little bit Randy?
By attacking the social superstructure and failing to address the underlying core inequalities of his society, Robin Hood in fact exacerbated the societal mumblestructure justifying the oppressive regime and … oh, bugger it — even i have limits as to how far in cheek my tongue will go. It’s Boxing Day, I shall leave those shadows alone.
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We all often get a little Randy. I consider Randians largely fellow-travelers with me. We can go part of the way together. BTW watched Death Comes to Pemberley last night. Other than the fact the two principals were hit with the ugly stick (with concussive force) it was quite nice.
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I was quite pleasantly unappalled by Death Comes To Pemberly, although neither an Austenite nor a Jamesian in my general reading. Aside from a few unavoidable aspects (hmmm, that subplot must tie in somewhere …) I never had the feeling that the producers of the piece were, like little children donning adult clothes, merely putting modern characters in vintage clothing.
The motivations and reactions stemmed from appropriate period elements (although little Lydia seemed tailored a mite much toward modern sensibilities.) I thought the presentation of Wickham’s motivation and resentment a trifle sympathetic, but modern audiences can’t be expected to readily grasp the difficulties entailed by raising a child above his station, and so need a bit more coloured in.
At any rate, it was far from the worst thing done to the characters of P&P.
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While I have not expected that Elizabeth should be a beauty, there should be a lively spirit about her. Jane had the true enduring beauty of the family, and I always thought of Lydia as cute/pretty — something that would wear out with time and care. I was not sure of the casting of Elizabeth, but then I always see her as Elizabeth Garve.
BTW: This morning I was happily curled up with one of my Christmas presents, Lone Star Sons by fellow Hun, Celia Hayes. Fun read so far.
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Spinning wildly out of the ether:
My mental picture of you is someone curled up in a tall backed, comfy wingback chair, interesting quilt for warmth, face buried in a book. Small side table stacked with books, one small space kept clear for the appropriate beverage.
When you comment I imagine this someone peeping over the top of the book to relay a thought — and then returning to the reading…
Little stories told in the comments over long periods — they have power.
Your “BTW” just reinforces this illusion. And I have that book, too. Looking forward to reading it as soon as I can beat the jackals back.
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Why, thank you. :-)
Just so long as I don’t remind anyone of Mary Bennett.
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Perish the thought.
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In Austen class, when asked to say which of the bennett sisters he’d like to date, #1 son said “Mary Bennett. Let’s face it, she’s just a sci fi geek born too early.”
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Aaaaaaaa.
O.K. Must think about this.
Well that is an original interpertation.
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He said “I know that social awkwardness and her attempts to escape her family into entirely the wrong kinds of books, because she also wants to impress them, somehow. I find it rather sweet, in a weird way.”
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I just finished that and left a review on Amazon. It was excellent.
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I’m Skeptical, I guess that makes me a James Randi-an
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That’s frisky not randy.
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@accordingtohoyt
Midget little, or pixie little?
Doesn’t that go against the13th amendment?
What do you feed him?
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Used to feed him cat food. He passed away 8 years ago :/ He was Pixie’s brother, as happens.
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Never mind that In the Beginning, Robin Hood was robbing from a bunch of tax collectors, and the story was altered later…
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See, I like the robbing from a bunch of tax collectors part, because the taxes are unjust :D
Fictionally, I mean, she adds for the benefit of Fed the Fred.
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Robbing tax collectors just gets them to raise/collect more taxes. You have to strike at the root cause of the problem and reduce government spending. The first step toward that would have been to end government involvement in overseas wars (especially with a king who constantly required ransoming) and to reform the tax code to more fairly distribute the pain.
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Well, I’m okay with paying to defend our national interests and keeping roads open… Regulating interstate commerce could be made a lot simpler though, I think. Most of the rest, eh, I think I could do without it.
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You don’t *rob* tax collectors, you reappropraite what was morally yours.
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Ah, no. The tax collectors were a later version. In the earliest version, A Lyttle Gest of Robyn Hood and the like, he would rob corrupt churchmen, but also peddlers and other poor folks. Stealing from the rich and giving to the poor was a Tudor innovation, and the tax collectors came in with the 20th century.
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Just make sure you avoid strong drink. It makes you shoot at Tax Collectors, and miss.
Just some good advice I read somewhere….
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I HAVE a button with that. Used to wear it every April 15…
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You too? 8-)
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I know there were a lot of people doing buttons at Cons through the 90’s (they aren’t so popular in the PNW, I haven’t seen “Button Armor” in a long time) but back East, Nancy Leibovitz is the best known. Her operation could span half a dozen tables with several assistants. Her catalog was a substitute for humor for a great many fen who otherwise couldn’t tell a joke. She’s still around doing cons, her catalog is online (nancybuttons.com), she even comments on my LJ every once in a great while, although it seems mostly when I offend her political sympathies (The latest being when I repeated my tweets about the torture report.). But the best thing about her buttons were that she did the original Calligraphy by hand, rather than just running them off a laser printer.
I have a couple dozen myself.
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I thought Robin Hood was an outgrowth of the Peasants Revolt in the 13th century. Wat Tyler and the attempt at regaining freedom from the clamping down of the aristocracy.
(Templars may have been involved if you read the right books)
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I recommend Robin Hood by J.C. Holt, for an exhaustive study of the evidence of origins.
This is, to be sure, somewhat complicated by its oral origin. A Lyttle
Gest of Robyn Hood is obviously cobbled together from pre-existing and not entirely consistent stories, but there are no earlier manuscript of tales of him. (The first allusion was earlier, to be sure.)
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A fairly readable modern take is Parke Godwin’s “Sherwood” and “Robin and the King”, which sets Robin directly at the middle of the Conquest and dealing with William and his sons.
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We’re Americans. We have a large amount of sympathy for smugglers and other poor honest men imprinted directly into our national DNA.
The rumours of the prequels are terrible. Especially the one about “the force” being a venereal disease.
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“And don’t all criminals claim that they’re “breaking the laws of a government that doesn’t deserve obedience”? ”
No, most are not that philosophical. They get enraged at being a crime victim, but either they blame their circumstances, or they never draw any connection between their actions and morality.
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There is a scene, early in the movie, in which Butch and Sundance try to persuade a nebbishy clerk, Woodcock, to open the boxcar in which resides the payroll safe
Think about that. Here is a guy doing his duty, protecting the payroll for which thousands of honorable working men (and not entirely honorable working women) are waiting, and he’s portrayed as a sucker. Consider how differently the scene runs if it is George Furth playing Butch and Newman playing Woodcock.
The fact is that we are persuaded, through a variety of means, to sympathize with a bad person.
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I’m not sure, but I think there’s a condition called “humor blindness” that prevents those having it from recognizing humor when the read it. Let’s try reading the following to see if we get a similar result:
Inigo Montoya: I donna suppose you could speed things up?
Man in Black: If you’re in such a hurry, you could lower a rope or a tree branch or find something useful to do.
Inigo Montoya: I could do that. I have some rope up here, but I do not think you would accept my help, since I am only waiting around to kill you.
Man in Black: That does put a damper on our relationship.
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A pompous man trips and falls down a flight of stairs in front of a crowd of people.
At the bottom of the stairs, he’s found to be dead.
On which step of the stairs doesn’t it stop being funny?
Of course, “don’t you have a sense of humor” is the favorite line for the sadistic person.
I have a sense of humor but there are somethings that aren’t funny especially when you imagine them happening to you.
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When permanent harm is done–or, say rather, when the largest bruise is not to his ego.
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Hmm, yeh — I wouldn’t know. I have no sense of humour. Used to, sure, but it got sick and died.
I do find it amusing to consider the long long list of things that used to be acceptable as humour on screen — physically damaging pratfalls, racist and sexist stereotypes — that no enlightened person would even dream of presenting now.
For example, once upon a time it was deemed acceptable for Al Jolson or Gene Wilder to appear on screen in blackface. Thank G-D we live in more enlightened times.
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AFAIK, that scene in Silver Streak hasn’t been cut. It was, and still is, hilarious.
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And yet, in this exchange from the (Pryor-written) film Blazing Saddles —
— the broadcasters routinely bleep the word “ni.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTQfGd3G6dg
(Oddly, the same word is not bleeped when used by Monty Python. Must be the British accents.)
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From an article about blackface in Hollywood from the Washington Post:
“In the 1976 movie ‘Silver Streak’, co-stars Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor pulled off a scene in which Wilder’s character puts on black shoe polish and garish clothes to disguise himself as a black man long enough to get past security guards on a train. Wilder desperately smears on the grease in a terminal restroom, trying to coach himself into acting ‘black’. But he’s so nervous, and so racially clueless, that the joke is on Wilder’s character — he’s a goofball. Pryor’s dumbfounded reaction to the jive-walking Wilder emerging from the bathroom sums up the audience’s take, and the bit works by the rules of the odd-couple buddy movie.”
“Not everybody can do this.”
Not even Mel Brooks. To be fair, it’s pretty hard to top Richard Pryor.
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Can you imagine trying to get Blazing Saddles made today? They’d shoot it down for all the wrong (and ironic) reasons.
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I’m not sure, but I think there’s a condition called “humor blindness” that prevents those having it from recognizing humor when the read it.
There’s definitely a condition called “unable to form an argument” where, rather than defending a position, the sufferer instead makes accusations of some sort of failure on the part of those who do not agree with them.
Oh, wait, that’s not a condition, that’s just a fallacy that indicates someone can’t support their point.
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Goldman did not just do comedy and humorous takes. He also did, among others, the screenplay for The Stepford Wives, All the President’s Men, A Bridge Too Far Chaplin and Absolute Power. Also the novel and screenplay for Marathon Man.
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There should have been a comma between Far and Chaplin.
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Indie! Some people (not me) sell more than traditional. And they’re OUR people.
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Sometimes evil just IS. People can say oh, it was his deprived childhood, or maybe he has a chemical imbalance, or she’s “autistic”, or she was a victim of society, but some people just choose to be monsters, to embrace evil rather than shun it, taking darkness into their souls and bathing in what the rest of us recoil from. There’s nothing to justify that, no matter what the VileProgs and their supporters might claim.
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Yes, sometimes evil just is. We don’t tend to like this. We would prefer that it could be explained, because, if explainable it could possibly be prevented in the future.
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And sometimes we admire a character for fighting their inner desire to work evil, or redirects that desire to better purpose. I haven’t ever watched Dexter but gather it is an excellent example of this, allowing a character to give reign to their darker nature by targeting worse predators.
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I’ll stick with Batman. Dexter strikes me as revolting.
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It might lie in the slice of story you choose to tell. You can tell the story of the 1966 Texas Bell Tower shooting from various points of view.*
If you told your story from Charles Whitman the shooter’s standpoint, you would definitely look at possible causes in his life that lead to the action. I am of the opinion that whatever his reason for killing 16 people and wounding 32 more, they could neither excuse or justify his actions. What happened to him could only provide some of the cause building towards the tragedy of the day.
Now if you tell the story from the standpoint of a student or teacher who went to the university one day and their world changed or tell it from the point of the responders Whitman’s background and motives would not be part of the story. At least on the day of August 1, 1966 none of them would have the slightest idea what the motives of the man in the tower would be. For them he would simply be an evil and danger that had to be survived and stopped.
*This is not meant to be all inclusive.
I believe that the VileProgs are uncomfortable with the idea of a world where there is no explaination that does not allow them to believe they can institute a fix to the situation.
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Whitman was found to have a pecan sized cancerous tumor in his brain that was partially necrotic. He had attempted to seek help, seen 5 doctors and a psychiatrist in the fall and winter of 1965 and had seen a psychiatrist in late March.
He knew he was having problems and didn’t know how to solve them, and got little or no help.
He wasn’t evil so much as broken. Or he was a little evil and a *lot* broken.
We all have freedom of choice, but none of us are Jonathan Livingston Seagull, our choices aren’t among all choices that exist, only all choices that are open to us. A chinese monk living in 2 B.C. cannot convert to catholicism, a Russian Ballerina can’t fly the space shuttle and I’ll never be the commander of a Marine Corps Infantry Brigade. Those options are closed, much like as his condition worsened Whitman felt his options closing in. Unfortunately shooting himself in the head wasn’t one of those options he could see.
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It is believed that the physical problem the tumor greatly contributed to the downward trajectory of Whitman’s life. There were likely other pressures. It explains, it neither excuses or justifies his actions. Nor does it change the picture for those teachers and students who were in the line of fire or those who responded that day.
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I like the idea of evil being a form of stupidity. It rarely improves things even to the persons doing it, not on the really long run anyway. Religious beliefs are part of this, I have them, and I do believe you will be taken to task after death if not before, but even if we leave that out, well, if we take crimes, the criminal who does manage to live to an old age without ever getting caught or without any of his deeds biting him in the behind one way or another – and they pretty invariably hurt those people who should be their own, their family, their neighborhood, anybody who cares about them – and being successful enough that he can live most of that life in the luxury he wanted is a rarity.
So even when there were understandable reasons to turn to crime, or other forms of evil, doing that is kind of like getting an itch in your hand and in response chopping it off, or scratching until you break the skin and create a wound, a response which turns a bad situation into a worse one.
Stupidity.
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Of course there are also situations when disobeying existing laws can be only technically criminal, but not evil in the moral sense. Like when the whole governing system of a country has become dysfunctional enough to count as evil itself. Or it seems to be well on its way there. But especially with the latter one should think very, very carefully about what laws and parts of the laws one perhaps disobeys, not break all of them willy-nilly just because.
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There are classes of laws: “malum prohibitum” and “malus in se” that are part of this. The former refers to things that are wrong because they are prohibited, like parking meter violations and speed limits. The latter because they are wrong in and of themselves, your theft, assault, and murder crimes. Someone more familiar with the law could explain this better than I, but that is how I understand it.
Laws are made to set limits on the interactions of human beings with each other, by and large. When the ledger of laws becomes so bloated that not a man born can live his life without being in conflict with the law at some point (if for no reason other than that the law conflicts with itself at several points along the way), we need to reexamine those laws and trim things down.
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And we are seeing the systematic elimination of mens rea from enforcement.
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Especially in the universities. It boggles the mind that this twisted mockery of justice is practiced, nay, enforced by the Fed!
I can only hope this will be seen as a dire warning and not as a signal of things to come.
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Dan, you might find this interesting:
The Law: by Frederic Bastiat
http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html
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*grin* I have an old edition of The Law that’s currently being read by family members and passed around. Bastiat was a heck of a writer and theorist. Thanks for reminding me that it is time I read him again.
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Putin, Sharpton, and Obama seem to have profited pretty well by it.
We’ll have to see about that, no?
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And yet, they all seem to be thoroughly miserable people? Well, maybe not Putin, but that’s hard to know, his public image is so managed.
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I doubt all that many of them will die satisfied with their lives. As long a they are alive, perhaps yes, and even then how much of that is true, how much pretending to themselves, but dying… Maybe I’m just hoping because I want justice. But of those we have some reliable seeming information, no, not that many of them seem to have been truly happy in their lives.
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Yes. But as said, I have religious beliefs. And lets take Stalin, for example. Very successful his whole life. But think of the way he is said to have died. :)
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This seems an appropriate place to note that yesterday (12/25) was the 25th anniversary of the trial, conviction* and execution of Nicolae & Elena Ceaușescu.
*On charges of genocide and sabotage of the Romanian economy. The trial lasted two hours.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceaușescu
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and one of their more nightmarish programs is the basis of The Brave And The Free. (Yes, yes, I think it will get one. Other stuff is moving, at last.)
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As a general rule, criminals* demonstrate a decided bent toward short-term thinking and lack of impulse control. These are not traits which lend themselves to long-term prosperity.
We might also contemplate whether the successful criminal or tyrant ever rests easily, knowing how easily power is gained by the unscrupulous.
*I leave the distinction between successful and unsuccessful criminals for an other discussion, with the stipulation that here we are talking about those who are caught — either formally or informally — breaking laws.
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Since most of them will probably mostly associate with others of their kind – they can’t trust anyone around themselves, not fully, ever. Now while they are in the prime of their lives, that’s one thing, but if they survive long enough to grow old… heh.
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Most of us, maybe all of us, have at least one monster inside. Some have more. Heck, just our normal human animal instincts run rampant are monsters in their way. Most of us control them. That’s what basic civilization is. We chain our beasts; if we’re able we put them to work. Those who don’t rein in their monsters must be kept away from society, and taught how if they’re willing and able. Those who simply refuse to keep those monsters in check should be removed premanently. Given the years of struggle and pain I’ve spent to keep my monsters from running amok, my inclination for those who let theirs govern them is generally a quick and ignominious death. For related thoughts (and better than put than mine), see this post from the inimitable LawDog.
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Paraphrase of an interview with Richard Pryor after finishing “Stir Crazy”…I just finished several weeks of work in the AZ state prison and we used several of the inmates in the movie. I worked with these guys for a while, got to know them, know their stories, understand their motivations, desires, etc and it makes me thank God we have prisons to put these people in, they will f*ck you up just to see the look on your face. thank God for prisons. (with apologies for my paraphrasing)
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He put some of that into his stand-up routine, I believe. I don’t remember the entire portion, but particularly standing out in my mind was his asking one person, ‘Why did you kill your whole family?”. “Because they were home.”
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See, this is why I would be totally unsuited to law enforcement, because that would trigger at least two magazines worth of accidental discharge into various sensitive parts of the perp’s body.
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“I’m depraved on account of I’m deprived…” West Side Story”.
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One thing is to stop glorifying crime and criminals… Paint them in a realistic light… Sleazy, dirty scumbags…
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One problem with that is that we, as Usaians, have a long history of glorifying crime against the state, dating back to well before the Revolutionary War–our Puritan ancestors didn’t come here because they were cheerfully obeying England’s laws, after all! It’s easy for us to justify someone breaking the law because the law is wrong. Then our just lawbreaker needs funds, so he engages in smuggling some contraband. Which is all quite realistic, really, and feels like no harm was done, after all. But it’s not so big a step from smuggling to overthrow an unjust regime to smuggling as a career choice to killing the legitimate authority trying to stop the smuggling, is it?
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Yes. Rebels should be very, very careful and think very deeply of what they do, and what laws they break. The fact is, most successful (or “successful”…) rebellions end up replacing bad with bad, and sometimes with worse. Perhaps just because of this, the rebels lose their sense of morality in their zeal to unseat the people they hate and just start to think of the first act, that unseating, and forget to plan for the aftermath.
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It is often suggested that the reason for the success of the American Revolution is that it was a rebellion in defense of the status quo. The colonies fought to retain such rights as they had, not to assert ones they imagined should be held.
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Which is why I am more sanguine than some about American Revolution 2.0, because that is exactly our motivation. Doesn’t mean there won’t be those who attempt to hijack it for their own ends; just means we know the end we wish to reach, and it isn’t Utopia, but “leave to live by noman’s leave, under Nature’s Law.”.
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YES! Hey, you should have written my post today…
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His reply is forthcoming.
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Nod. Also, the American Rebels weren’t “destroying” a bad government leaving them with the problem of creating a new government. Their local governments were part of the Rebellion. So after they won, their local governments were still available to keep “order”. The big problem they faced after they won was creating a better alliance between the “States”.
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Abandonment of traditional morality has long been part of the “smart” people’s agenda. This allows them more space for gaming morality through such things as cheering for somebody hacking the email of Sarah Palin but deploring the hacking of dim-bulb actresses what think posting nekkid pitchers of their selves to the cloud should be secure, to approving the public embarrassment of Sony executives until a lousy film “comedy” gets suppressed.
Traditional morality is just to unambiguous for such parsing of nuance, what with its call for doing unto others as we would be done unto rather than as we think they deserve.
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Turtle check.
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*looks down* Bigger turtle.
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*sigh*
I’ve got the drinks.
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All the way down?
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I hope so!
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I blame Pygmalion.
OK, that’s a bit obtuse.
People tend to fall in love with their own creations. And the villain is often the more compelling character than the hero, after all, he’s the one causing the difficulties the hero must overcome!
I can’t really blame Robert Louis Stevenson for finding Long John Silver more compelling than young Jim Hawkins.
But Thomas Harris deciding that Hannibal Lector should become the “hero” of his story… Seriously a bridge too far. And I think less of him for doing it.
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Having read the original recently, I’m not sure I agree on that (RLS finding Long John Silver more interesting than Jim Hawkins). Certainly, most of the movie versions I’ve seen have, though.
I think my favorite version of it is “Treasure Planet”, in spite of, well just in spite of. Once I wrapped my head around the fact that it’s really fantasy, with Sci-fi trappings.
Just don’t go into it thinking that there’s more than a nodding acquaintance with the book. ;-)
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I’m glowering in your direction. You just forced me to realize it’s been 28 years since I read the book.
And of course, it would be foolish for me to put my old impressions against your sparkling new memories.
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A sign of a really good adaptation is that it keeps the spirit right, even if it totally nukes a lot of details.
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Tom Hiddleston first tried for the lead in the Thor franchise. While it is interesting to imagine the depths he might have brought to their character, it is his Loki performance that fascinates. Many types of motivation are implied, but we need to remember: He is the personification of mischief and can be trusted to tell us exactly that justification He expects us to believe.
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Alfred P. Doolittle, pt.1:
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Alfred P. Doolittle: pt. 2, middle class moriality
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When Richard Widmark was doing his cop series, “Madigan”, they did an episode in Portugal (“Madigan: the Lisbon Beat”). Gal I knew was cast as the wife of the Portuguese cop he was partnering with. Producers thought it would be funny to write her in a wheelchair.
Widmark flat out demanded a rewrite. To his credit, he insisted her part be left in the episode, but he would NOT do a wheelchair scene…
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I never understood the “good” Bad Guy thing either. By all means, explain his motivation for going into a life of crime — but then make his criminal activities thoroughly evil and beyond the pale. Everyone can feel the temptation or urge to, say, rob a bank, so that’s “understandable” (if not excusable). But to shoot the bank manager, the security guard and two or three customers? That’s what sets true evil apart from society, and is what also makes us interested in the character.
Nobody cares about the poor schnook who steals a loaf of bread because his wife and child are starving; that’s not interesting. But an ex-convict who steals the church’s silver candlesticks after having been given a meal and a place to sleep for the night? Now that’s an evil man. Heck, there might even be a story in that premise somewhere, especially if the ex-convict later becomes a successful politician who is now taking care of the daughter of a fallen woman, and is being pursued by a remorseless policeman — all the action taking place during a period of, say, social revolution.
I’ll get right on it.
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Nah, it’ll never sell, Kim. Too far fetched. There’s no music in it, no story.
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But it’ll work, if only he writes it in French. The French people not only like that sort of thing, but their language makes it work somehow in a way that English just doesn’t.
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I don’ know . . . French is so repetitive at times. “J’accuse, J’accuse,” over and over . . .
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Oui, mais ils adorent quel livres.
(Okay, my French spelling is abysmal. I can follow a conversation between native speakers but generally not formulate sentences quickly enough to participate. But well enough to catch the dirty jokes and double entendres and embarrass my husband’s friends. And I can read it. Oh, can I read it.)
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The key might be whether there is such a thing as redemption. The pursuing policeman does not believe in redemption, once a thief and a criminal always a thief and a criminal. The question to us is whether, and to what extent, this may or may not be true.
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Christ tells us that there is redemption. Such that we cannot describe a human who has committed acts so evil that they are beyond the power of Jesus.
As humans, we are also informed by our experience.
Criminals who never encounter persuasion against crime beyond what they the persuasion the ignored at the first may choose over and over to commit crimes.
A policeman who’s experience with humanity is informed by such criminals, and other cops, may have certain doubts. Especially in a Christian flavored society, where aping conversion might be an easy ticket to escape prison in order to offend again.
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CACS, you just made the plot over-complicated. Redemption? That’s such a Christianist concept. That’s not what New York publishers see people reading on the subways these days. Nah, I’ll just have the protagonist rape his adopted daughter so that the remorseless policeman (the story’s hero, because he’s a State official) can shoot him in the stomach and watch him die. Then the cop can marry the abused girl. Now that’s a Hollywood ending for ya.
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…and before anyone threatens me with death if I ever write such a travesty, I think I’d kill myself first, before writing it. Even writing the above comment made me feel slightly nauseated.
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Maybe if it was starring Clint Eastwood at his prime it could of worked. But he certainly wouldn’t be the hero because he was an officer of the state.
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Those of us who recall seeing (in my case, reading about) his part as a psycho killer who pushed a woman in a wheelchair down a long flight of stairs know why.
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It all started with Cultural Relativism (by people who never bothered to define an inertial reference frame). Really, our criminals look almost heroic compared to a culture here on the planet that believes in beheading unbelievers and stoning women for showing their head.
It doesn’t take long to spiral down to our current insanity: where Comet Scientist’s Shirt choice is the biggest threat to all of humanity.
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;-) The World Turned Upside Down:
Reportedly requested by General Cornwallis to be played at the surrender at Yorktown.
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Stockholm Syndrome has been much referenced in respect to that very thing. After all, who would *you* rather have drive your sixteen year old daughter from school: the honest man who has a wife and kids and a moral code that requires that he defend those in his care as if they were his own? Or the one who thinks your daughter is an infidel and a prostitute for showing more than a strip of skin around her eyes?
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I just read a bit from a public defender about his clients.
http://www.amren.com/features/2014/05/confessions-of-a-public-defender/
Even accounting for public defenders working mostly with those that do not have the funds and sense to hire someone and work with them, I see a strong argument that the left has not been doing anyone any favors. I also see evidence for LBJ being both a genius and a monster.
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Consider those Leftoid Intellectuals who are telling young men of color that the system is fixed against them, that the police are instruments of oppression(™) and that resistance is justified.
Meanwhile, the drugdealers and gangbangers amongst them are rebels against an unjust system intended to strip the Black Man of his cultural identity.
What could possibly go wrong?
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And he is still liberal? (Shakes head)
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LBJ’s Great Society was one of the greatest examples of hubris in the 20th century, somewhere on the scale between the Aswan High Dam and Japan’s war plans in 1941.
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Maybe only when you go by the stated goal, rather than the hidden goal, which he has also been quoted on. The span it was meant to operate over was either one hundred or two hundred years.
It isn’t hubris if you pull it off.
If you go by the real goals, as long as the demographic votes Democratic over that span, he wins. Perhaps he had an alternative victory condition of ‘they are forever destroyed as a political force’. Depending on how one estimates his hatred of the United States, and willingness to break things for advantage, a resulting destruction of the United States might be rated as a victory or a defeat for him.
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Be careful with that one–AmRen comes across as a subtle white-power/white-seperatist site, and what Mr. Smith has to say, while fitting in with what I’ve seen, is a little *too* neat and OTT.
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I am perhaps too gullible when it comes assuming people believe what they state they believe.
Skimming through it looking for citations now, I was struck by the wording. I think I’m not seeing the care and precision Drake and Kratman lead me to expect of lawyers.
I don’t know if that trumps the questions I had about sampling or not.
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Yeah, that got me twitchy too.
Whenever people use race instead of culture, then make broad generalizations…one wonders.
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It is plausible that the multi-generational unwed mother families, supported by welfare, might be particularly screwed up. Certainly, public defender criminals are not a representative sample of criminals, which are not a representative sample of the over all population.
If this guy were a junior but still experienced lawyer, as a layman, it seems plausible that a more senior lawyer had been skimming off the clients that do not fit his narrative.
The absolute way the narrative is framed seems to conflict with his claim of not being disenchanted.
This is the sort of article that loses most, if not all, of its value if the integrity and analytical competence of the author are not fully sound. It also gives one cause to wonder, raising a number of different questions.
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It seems lately half the characters I write are criminals of some kind. One is an assassin working for the fantasy world mafia who has a change of purpose and ends up as an assassin for Good. Or at least, Somewhat Better. It’s very liberating sometimes not to have to write a Dudley Do-Right. And sometimes it’s scary.
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The Dudley Do-right character, because he cannot see anything but what is right, tends to be boring because he is so unreal. He is the descendent of the rather cardboard characters of commedia dell’arte. The true hero is not the man who faces no fear or questions, but the one who tries, in the face of fear and questions, does what he sees to be correct.
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The evil man who becomes good is perhaps among the most interesting of characters, if written well. Why, how, what it will be like to live once you see, truly see, how wrong you were before.
As well as the characters who teeter between evil and good while managing to stay on the side of good, and who can do evil things when defending good. Evil is often a lot easier choice than good, it’s surrendering to the immediate impulses, you want something so you just take it, or feel angry so you hit that irritating type. Good needs more thinking (well, not if it saving the puppy or saying something nice to somebody you like, but very much so when it’s going against evil – when is it right to use violence, when is it going too far, when should you steal from the king to feed the starving peasants and when would that do more bad than good in the long run… lots of thinking to do there). So if somebody is kind of halfway there, but still can stay manage to stay on the side of good… there is the risk of falling, and that makes it more interesting than somebody who seems to have a strong moral stance and is always just good.
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Been thinking about it.
Seems like exploring bad guys in story can be interesting, and can lead us to identify with/root for the bad guy in many ways. The immersive nature of story and the simple empathy of the audience invites this and brings it about, when there’s a human story to be told.
I’m okay with it. If — I’m allowed to see the actions of the character as bad, if I’m given the perspective to understand the character and the freedom to disagree with his choices. Human stories interest me, even when they’re stories of wrong choices.
I’m also interested in stories where the bad (perhaps evil, though it’s much harder to do credibly) character is, wittingly or no, acting as an agent of good. Han, Rooster, etc. Doesn’t make the characters negative actions good or acceptable, but gives the character some element of humanity I’m comfortable identifying with.
The goo invasion comes (for me) from the moral relativity morass: Here’s this character, you might want to call him bad, even evil — but you can’t! Your moral judgement can’t be applied! You have to accept the legitimacy of his actions within his framework!
Blech. Moreso when the victims of this character are presented with limited to no dimension to avoid highlighting the inherent conflict of the relativity: somebody is getting hurt, without reference to their moral preference.
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The goo invasion comes (for me) from the moral relativity morass: Here’s this character, you might want to call him bad, even evil — but you can’t! Your moral judgement can’t be applied! You have to accept the legitimacy of his actions within his framework!
When we cannot call a wrong wrong or an injustice injustice unless it is a sanctioned opinion. In fiction or fact. Exactly.
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That one scene in The Raiders of the Lost Ark everybody loves, when Indiana Jones just pulls his gun and shoots the big guy whirling his sword: I have always felt a bit conflicted about that one. On one hand it is a rather clear case of self defense, it seems certain the sword guy is about to attack Indiana, and he is big, and seems to be pretty good with that weapon, and Indy would be a fool to attempt to fight him on his terms. And he is in a hurry to find Marion, anyway.
On the other hand: that guy is challenging him. He is not flat out attacking, he is showing off first. Would he have attacked if Indy refused the challenge? Indy doesn’t know that guy, doesn’t know his motives or what he is about to do. What if he was somebody from a group where that kind of challenge was customary, and something like a show of respect towards the challenged? What if he was a good guy who might have become Indy’s companion, if Indy had fought him in a way he thought was honorable, in the ways he had been taught of honor? (Hey, common enough a trope, that).
So there is also a nagging feeling that Indy shot a little bit too soon for it to have been honorable, or completely moral.
And I suppose that might be why people like that scene. It makes Indy less pure.
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On the other hand: that guy is challenging him. He is not flat out attacking, he is showing off first. Would he have attacked if Indy refused the challenge? Indy doesn’t know that guy, doesn’t know his motives or what he is about to do. What if he was somebody from a group where that kind of challenge was customary, and something like a show of respect towards the challenged?
For me, none of those maybes overcome the fact that the guy was threatening deadly force on someone who had no sword.
The only rational response to someone offering you deadly threat, even if he’s doing it in a show-off way (and, one hopes, Indy knows enough about the majority culture of the area to know that the more you show off the easier you think the fight is going to be) is to use whatever weapon you have.
Indy had a bullwhip– which isn’t really a weapon– and a gun.
From the guy’s behavior, he probably didn’t know Indy HAD a gun– his showing off thing indicates he expected something more like the bullwhip.
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(Of course, we all know the story of that scene. Originally Indy was supposed to fight with the whip, but Ford was very ill and came up with the gun idea. Which is why Spielberg had him lose his gun before a similar scene in the sequel).
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I wasn’t for sure he was supposed to fight with the whip, but did remember the “I just wanna go” thing.
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You mean the seconded move that is a prequel. Lucas gas a bad habit of writing shit then filming it out of order.
;)
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It could be that many fictional villains are more interesting than the goody-two-shoes characters not because they are *inherently* more interesting, but that the writer really had to think about why they do the things they do — and believed the good characters just did things “because those are the rules” and no further effort of justification is needed. Recipe for blah.
I would argue writing about morally good characters — who think about their actions and decide what to do based on their own rational judgement–who are set in a world where “the rules” are BAD, thus can be just as interesting as the evil characters. And in a sense, that is Human Wave. Are people constrained in their actions because of a Rule, or because of the reason behind the rule? I refrain from running over little old ladies because I firmly believe it is wrong. It is also illegal, but that’s not what I think about when I see Granny in the crosswalk. If running her over was required by law…well, I’d be a criminal I guess.
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This.
Those who are only motivated by complying with the rules don’t make for much of a hero. Following the prevailing rules can make for a pretty bad world, witness much of the last century.
To be real, possibly our heroes should be as complex as our villains. Otherwise, as you say, they are blah.
What is needed is to learn the principles and motivations that underlie good choices. Human Wave is not about simplistic formula, or two dimensional actors. In the end that does not inspire. Human Wave should inspire.
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Hero can mean many things, but often we are not writing about Greco-Roman chieftains and champions.
As readers, viewpoint characters give us means to judge them that their fellows could never have. This, in combination with all the choices available to us, permits us to hold them to standards that would be tyrannically impossible for us to hold our fellows to.
We can say that a hero may be in difficult circumstances that foster difficult decisions, but they needn’t make choices identical to those of their peers.
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but they needn’t make choices identical to those of their peers.
Usually they won’t, or, given a chance, all their peers would be heros as well. Admittely, I tend to think of a hero as having something more to him than the average person.
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One book, admittedly fictional, I read had an interesting comment about “heroes”. The narrator was talking about what happens when a group of people see a person having some sort of medical “fit”. With a small group of people, most of the group is likely to try to give help but with a much larger group few of the group will try to help.
Then the narrator stated that a hero would try to help. While the narrator was a person with super-powers, she was talking about heroes who lacked super-powers as well as heroes who had super-powers.
Her “break-through” event was when while she was trapped in her car (and basically safe) but she started thinking about others who were also caught by the same disaster and needed help. So she gained not only the power to get her out of her car but the power needed to help rescue others.
Note, this series is the “Wearing The Cape” series and while he’s writing about super-powered heroes, he also compares his fictional heroes to fire-fighters and police-men.
Oh, later in the series a young super-powered woman has followed a group of heroes into a dangerous situation. During a moment of “breathing space” (ie the heroes & her aren’t in battle but are waiting for the bad guys to attack again), she asks the others “why are they doing this”. There’s no “real” connection between the heroes and the civilians they are defending. There’s no “authority” requiring them to get involved.
She doesn’t get an answer because to the heroes there’s no question that they are doing the “right thing”.
Oh, she’s not a bad person. She was just a “media star” with super-powers. They were heroes who happened to have super-powers.
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I have never forgotten one thing from one of my First Aid classes. If you say “Somebody get help!” or “Somebody call 911!” to the crowd of onlookers while you’re trying to stop someone’s bleeding, none of them will do it, everyone assumes someone else will.
POINT at one person and say “You, Call 911!” and that will stir them to action. It involves them and breaks them out of their spectator shell.
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I’m working on a story where a heroine is on a quest, and keeps meeting people who tell her that her mother’s wedding (at which things got ugly) was a formative experience. However, every single one of ’em attributes learning a different lesson from it.
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Of course, what you can also do is have a character who does the right thing because of the moral rules he thinks are in place…but those rules are just a bit off from the prevailing society.
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One thing is that the hero is often afflicted with Sloth, while the villain has all the Zeal — the determination, the dedication, the will to act.
Give your heroes goals and have them pursue them.
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I think, rather, it is that the hero is reactive while the villain is active. This naturally will depend on the nature of the tale and where we join in, but in any protagonist/antagonist structure I think it might hold. The villain is disruptive of social order while the hero is restorative.
Clearly this is limited to the dualistic structure and would not apply in stories where the hero, for example, strives to overcome personal limitations, such as sloth or apathy.
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Nah, just put the villains in charge and the hero is the one disrupting the order.
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Note comment re: “where we join in”
When we join a story in progress, e.g., Darkship Thieves. our Hero in such tales restores order ante the villainous takeover.
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Heh. Seen too many reluctant heroes lately?
I rather like some subtypes, like a coward who would like to do the right thing but has problems because he is just plain scared, or doesn’t think he has what it takes. I am a bit tired with the just plain selfish tough guy types, the ones who _know_ they could do it but drag their feet through half the story because ‘It’s not my fight’ for whatever reason.
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And that would not be somebody who actually does have some pressing commitments elsewhere, like a family waiting for him. They always seem to be drifters who have nothing anywhere.
Actually a family man who could do it but drags his feet because he has that family who depends on him waiting somewhere might be rather interesting…
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Yes, but what do you do with the family?
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A brave wife and mother, holding the fort while her man is away doing what he must, well, she’s a hero in her own right. Run both story lines and bring them back together in the end.
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I may have talked too much about the “Wearing The Cape” series but there was the “Deal” in that world.
Basically the “Deal” was that the criminals and “supervillains” left alone the families of the “superheroes”.
In return, the “superheroes” followed the government’s rules on apprehending the criminals, etc.
It was one thing for the “supervillains” to fight the “superheroes” but another thing to threaten the heroes’ families.
Why did the criminals and supervillains follow the “Deal”?
It seems that one superhero’s family and himself were killed in one city.
Shortly afterwards, an unknown super-powered vigilante started brutally killing the mobsters associated with the group that murdered the other superhero’s family.
Nobody in the criminal world wanted it to happen again. [Very Big Evil Grin]
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For a variation on that theme, see L’Amour’s Ride the Dark Trail. A widow – worn, tired, and besieged – waiting for her boys to come home. I read it for the first time when I was about ten, and both Logan Sackett and Em Talon had a huge influence on my ideals growing up.
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You can find the book here.
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Perhaps a hero who has been a victim of modern education, so up-to-here with nuance that paralysis sets in — forced into action by an overwhelming imperative and learning that Alexander’s is the best solution to Gordian’s knot.
Then there is the Libertarian Hero, insistent on letting people suffer the consequences of their choices.
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Somebody who has made wrong choices when going by appearances before – perhaps the damsel in distress turned out to be the villain, and the man chasing him was the good guy, and because our hero interfered the villain got away and the good guy ended in jail or hospital or morgue – and because of that our now reluctant hero gets paralyzed by indecision. :D
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“Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.”
One of the ones I have knocking around has that- someone who is trying to be good, because he’s started out all wrong and in a bad place where most of the choices are horrible or worse. It might be he’s not so much reluctant as he doesn’t trust himself.
Heroes that never make mistakes don’t fit, because how do they ever learn or grow as characters if they’re so darn perfect to start out with?
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Yes.
There are hell of a lot of cases in real life where you just can’t tell who are good and who are bad, or at least a little bit better and a little bit worse, or if there is any difference at all between them. Maybe it’s because there is too much conflicting evidence, maybe because both sides have really acted in both wrong and right in equal measures, or because you could say that both have behaved right if you look at it from what they knew at the time – except neither one knew enough – or both have acted wrong.
Real life can be darn messy. Which can make stories where you have clarity sometimes quite… irritating, perhaps, when that clarity is presented in a too simple way.
But in other times a well written story with clear evil and clear good can be just refreshing, a nice holiday from all the messy stuff.
Can use both.
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The TBAR books I’ve come across tend to have that sort of false clarity to them, too. If something is presented as unambiguously good, but isn’t really, that’s a sign (and vice versa). Oh, like the Superman film where he levels a city fighting the bad guy (not enough sleep, my brain still thinks it is last night). Our hero has done A Bad Thing and doesn’t seem to hold any remorse over it. Yes, I know I am mixing apples and toothpicks, but they’re both stories.
Clear good and evil that are refreshing aren’t… simplistic, I suppose? Can’t think of a better word, either. I think of the Aubrey/Maturin books. Or Dave Drake’s Lt. Leary series. There is good and there is evil, but the good is not so very lily white that it trips that “someone is trying to cover something up here” nerve, nor is the evil so vile it becomes Snidely Whiplash tying a girl to the railroad tracks simply because evil. There are moral conflicts and consequences. Good stories manage that somehow.
I’d like to see more of those, which I guess brings us back around to Human Wave. *grin*
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Dan,
What did Superman have to feel remorse about?
He didn’t pick the battlefield that was thrust upon him. It was either fight or the whole world would be destroyed. Superman is not morally responsible for Zods actions.
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I know, I’ve gotten that reaction a lot. My take is that this version of Superman seems less conscious of the consequences of his actions, and that we don’t see him trying to take the battle *away* from bystanders (as I would have expected).
I know it’s an opinion not many share. Better examples would be the anti-heroes of the ’90s, or Thomas Covenant. The latter was a literal TBAR.
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Or parents/teachers who scolded him without mercy if he ever set a foot wrong — or even when he didn’t, and they were just looking from someone to yell at, but he was too young to figure that out and just kept looking for something to keep them from yelling — until he’s terrified to set a foot wrong.
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Res,
:)
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“Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/ralphwaldo122579.html#8iu5FT0jf47gUQmy.99
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Also, somebody can be good and obey the law, but do so in a weird way.
I always wanted to play a lawful good rogue.
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Lawful good rogue? Such characters abound in fiction: Simon Templar, Robert McCall, the crew on Leverage … even Nero Wolfe frequently adheres to higher justice.
They are also common in classic Westerns (and not just the Maverick brothers) — which might be one reason such tales have fallen out of favor today. Shane, to pick one example, depicts the necessity to use force for defense of good, despite its effect on “order”. Its director, George Stevens, headed the film unit which documented the depravities of Dachau. He made Shane to express his horror at seeing little German boys playing at Cowboys & Indians in those days at the war’s end, but realized that violence cannot be excised from the human soul.
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In which case they are not lawful anything. Neutral Good, IMHO. I will obey the laws that are reasonable and just (preventing harm through force or fraud to those who are not harming others); breakl the ones that aren’t as often as I can, and work to remove them.
Someone who is lawful will obey the laws to the letter. Good will add the component of enforcing them with mercy; evil will enforce with cruelty.
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D&D’s alignment was originally Law and Chaos and, per Appendix N, obviously pretty heavily ripped off of that one Poul Anderson book.
That value of Law sounds like Christ’s Law, and maybe isn’t particularly close to the D&D contemporary understanding of Law
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I’d argue that the Law-Chaos axis was ripped off from Moorcock.
But I’ll concede it was largely Anderson’s characters who served as paragons of the alignments in the 2-axis L-C/G-E system.
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My understanding from memory of reading the recent commentaries on the Appendix N was that the Anderson somehow predated the Moorcock. Three Hearts and Three Lions, per Castalia House, was 1961, and wiki says Elric was 1963.
Take a look at the retro-clones. The ones that supposedly are based on the earliest rule sets have just the Law-Chaos axis. I’ve been hearing all sorts of stuff about how B2 makes so much sense based on the context of Anderson’s polarities.
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A quartet of quibbles. I don’t recall the Order/Chaos in Three Hearts & Three Lions being as major a compinent of Anderson’s work as it was in Moorcock’s; we’re talking one novel versus nearly a whole body of work.
Second, publication dates are not determinative, as the crux of the matter should be what the D&D creators read and when. Given the vagaries of SF&F distribution in those dark dark ages, it would have been entirely reasonable that the D&D creators read Moorcock first.
A third point is whether the distinction primarily begins with those two authors or whether they were picking up on and developing themes which had been extent in folk myth for ages, such as the distinctions between Faerie Courts. Answering that would require a contributor whose readings of such elements are deeper and more recent than mine, so I merely pose the possibility.
Finally, there is no fourth point except that I am easily amused by alliteration, for which you can probably blame Stan Lee.
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Appendix N seems pretty clear that both were influences. Three Hearts and Three Lions was the first of Anderson’s books mentioned. This suggests that it was more influential than his others.
http://www.digital-eel.com/blog/ADnD_reading_list.htm
That said, I’ve never seen a book of D&D rules predating 3.0, and Appendix N is enough before my time that there are huge swathes I haven’t read. So maybe everything I’ve said is worthless.
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Actually, Anderson’s Law/Chaos axis was pretty clearly determined in the Operation Chaos alternate world magic stories, which began appearing in 1956. IIRC, also appeared in the original version of The Broken Sword, published in 1954.
Moorcock is very open about the debt his Stormbringer novels owe to The Broken Sword (ie, Stormbringer strongly resembled the Anderson novel’s cursed sword).
Moorcock’s Law and Chaos does not predate Anderson, anymore than his cursed sword predates Anderson’s.
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It has been about forty years since I read Operation Chaos, so I am not going to debate that point except to say I don’t recall so strong a plot point about a division between Order and Chaos. A quick glance at the Wikipedia description supports my memory. At any way, the matter is irrelevant.
Moorcock’s acknowledgement about Stormbringer’s debt to Anderson is irrelevant.
I presume I was insufficiently clear in the critical point that it matters not whether Anderson or Moorcock published first, what matters is which of them the creators of D&D read first. The crux here is who had the influence on D&D; if Moorcock was who the creators first gathered the idea from, Anderson’s prior publishing matters only as an influence on Moorcock, and thus as a second order influence upon D&D.
A dip into TVTropes indicates the dichotomy can be found in the Icelandic Sagas from which Anderson drew much influence, as well as The Cat In The Hat, which probably had greater influence on D&D’s creators than either Anderson or Moorcock even though it was published contemporaneously with the works cited.
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Just making an observation.
Government vs. Anarchy got changed to Law vs. Chaos, because some (RES, I believe this to be the genesis of most our disagreements; see the following.) people believe that without an enforcing body no one will voluntarily follow the rules leading to chaos. I and others believe that most everyone, not to say there are not knuckleheads, but that most people do not need to be told not to murder their neighbors as the inherently understand that doing certain things will eventually come back on them.
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[P]eople believe that without an enforcing body
no one[enough people] will [refuse to] voluntarily follow the rules [to] leading</DEL to chaos [or worse.]Fixed it fer ya. Properly presenting opposing views is essential to avoid arguing against straw dogs.
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[P]eople believe that without an enforcing body
no one[enough people] will [refuse to] voluntarily follow the rules [to]leadingto chaos [or worse.]Phooey on WP having no Preview.
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[P]eople believe that without an enforcing body
no one[enough people] will [refuse to] voluntarily follow the rules [to] leadingto chaos [or worse.]If that doesn’t show up write Eye concede de feet.
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:)
Fair enough, thought it is my understanding based on the objections to an AC society I usually hear, and is or was a statement of my general understanding and not a restatement of anyone’s position. RES was wondering if this is why we but heads so much. I feel the same way when I hear someone make a statement about what is the AC position then make an argument around it, so I feel you.
Interesting, but we haven’t ever defined what “[enough people] will [refuse to]” means; is this even quantifiable? Or, is this just an opinion based on our experience. Where you believe (I think) enough people will choose poorly and unbalance the system, and I believe that their are not enough outliers (malcontents) to unbalance society even if they do choose poorly.
Do we as individuals follow the law or societies rules because we are forced to or because we realize that the benefits of doing so out way the draw backs?
Something I’ve noticed is people’s answer to this question change depending on if we are talking about society or personally individually.
RES, the main observation was about this is an old argument as you pointed out see Icelandic: Odin vs. Loki up to today labeling of Law vs. Chaos , and this not a new observation by Poul or anyone of the last century. RES bringing you into comment was an observation within an observation, about not being sure if we are ever going come up with a definitive answer or come to an agreement Silly brain needs to learn to focus on one thought at a time.
;)
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We will probably not gain agreement on what constitutes enough people to keep the ball rolling or to upset the apple cart of society.
I grew up in the household of an assistant D.A. in a major northeastern metropolitan city. Over his time in the office he moved from general work, to heading the frauds division, finally heading the appellate division. I heard tales of every day. Even when laws clearly definined what was allowable and what was not there were too many people who thought it worth their while to ignore them — leaving a wake of misery behind them.
It doesn’t take very many to decide that they can take what they want by force to create a problem, particularly if they form coalitions. With my background and my readings in history, Rousseau be damned, I find it impossible to believe that goodness is or ever was, the default of mankind.
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P.S.
Another observation people tend to conflate law and morality.
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History indicates that individuals have time and again chosen to step in when they see a vacuum in power and a lack of structure occur. And these individuals have succeeded, in part because it seems that most people are quite willing, if not eager, to follow.
In the essay you linked on Libertarianism a while back the examples given to prove that libertarian societies have functioned mention the use of social pressure to bring people into line with mediation being employed within these groups. I don’t see liberty in that. I see the seeds of tyranny.
Meanwhile I suggest you don’t try driving on a reservation…
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People see a need, other people agree there is a need, and they fill it.
Then other people complain, either because folks aren’t supposed to want what they do, or they don’t like how they filled the need……
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Reservation?
Grew up in the Four Corners area.
Not quite sure what you mean.
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Four corners? And you are unsure? Things must have changed in the last couple of decades.
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Yes,
They’re no more lawless than some Texas Sheriff fiefdoms I’ve known.
They can be a might touchy. You go in acting all untitled or into certain areas without an invitation you are going to get razzed.
You seemed to have been implying the the Rez’s are lawless. They are not, at lest the ones I’m familiar with. I did not find thin to be anymore or less than any other bureaucratic entrenched welfare system.
Different rules and Different culture.
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Just that there are differences. What could be legal to drive on the reservation did not necessarily meet what you and I might consider safely road worthy.
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CACS,
New Mexico when I last looked (15 yrs ago) didn’t have or require state inspection.
In high school (89 to 92) I drove a 1970 Ford Pickup with out pickup bed. You might be surprised what I consider road worthy.
;)
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Depends on the DM/Gamemaster, but that’s a pretty darn good approximation. Lawful anything is profound respect for the law- spirit and letter, both, in the Good. LE is using the law to evil ends, quite often the same law, but respecting only the letter of law. LG recognizes that the law is there for a reason, and looks to that reason as well as the law as written.
This is why many an experienced DM winces when someone wants to play a Paladin. Lots of Lawful Stupid out there… But pretty darned awesome when you find a skillful player.
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One of the more amusing AD&D sessions I ever participated in was when a pair of young power gamers decided they wanted to play evil characters. With the DM’s help, the other member of the group and myself showed them exactly why evil loses. He made fifth level solely on killing their characters (and occasionally mine) repeatedly. It only took two sessions before that idea died and was never repeated.
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Heh. You can run “evil” campaigns, and make them interesting… but it takes adults to do so. One of my better ones was the old “Evil vs. Evil” one, so the PC’s could still slay monsters and interact with towns in a relatively normal manner. Not workable with power gamers or min/maxers.
Of course I was darned lucky to have a group that wanted to tell a good story. I’ve not had to kill other players often as a player (except in White Wolf games, but that’s another tale), but “show(ing) them why evil loses” sounds hilarious!
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Oh yes. There was a lot of discussion in the Order of the Stick forums about an evil group they faced, and how it showed how it was done. Iron-clad rules and a strict favor-trading system. . . .
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the problem is that they used lawful to indicate three different kinds of order that do not, in reality, line up nicely:
1. do you think the universe an orderly place?
2. do you support society and its laws and customs?
3. do you run your life in an organized manner?
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Of course the fundamental problem is the alignment system. Take philosophical conudruums that people have broken their hearts over for millennia, misunderstand half of them, boil them down to game mechanics, and then hand them over to sophomoric gamers (some of whom, indeed, have the excuse of being sophomores), and the result will be ugly.
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Can’t disagree, there. The alignment system needs a *lot* of help from the gamers themselves to work right, and it can still turn out some ugly outcomes. Some campaigns I’ve come across… *shakes head*
A good DM rewards the players who have thought out their character well and can justify their actions reasonably based on their history, beliefs, and morals. Of course, that can lead to some pretty memorable characters for reasons unintended by the player himself, too. *grin*
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The distinction I would make is that in D&D, the Law is going to be the Law of a deity, not necessarily those of Men. Thus, following the Law to the letter is the correct thing for the Lawful character to do.
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Exactly. When there is indisputable proof of a standard, it becomes easier to obey it.
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*grin* That’s the fine distinction all too many miss, and succinctly put. I foresee a discussion with my players in the future on this very topic … *wicked grin*
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Wish you lived close enough to game with! Drove my first DM crazy because my chaotic neutral character was, and didn’t see any reason to go rescuing any villagers out of the goodness of her heart, make it worth her while, thank you very much! She’d rather busk at the bar.
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Chaotic Neutral: Might save your life, might steal your car.
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Or save your life and take your can in “payment”.
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Er, “car”, not “can”.
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Take your can in payment, leaving you having to squat behind the bushes the rest of your life.
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Dan,
Instead of alignment my GM and Groups I played with went with the back story, goals and motivations model.
;)
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You can make much richer campaigns that way, and I prefer it, tbh. I run a lot of new/newish players lately, though. The alignment system is a good enough starter set so they can have fun, but as Mary said above, it’s limited (and immature, as a system).
But yeah, backstory, goals, and motivations make for awesome gameplay. Especially if/when the evil gamemaster eventually kills a character… Or even almost does. *wicked grin*
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Unfortunately, most of the D&D gods are of a maturity level equal to the alignment system, raising questions of why any Lawful character would obey them.
Especially the non-Lawful ones.
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I once played a paladin/swashbuckler. It was fun.
But when reading Rusty & Co., there are comments on the theme of “I love this paladin! Good heavens, did I really just say that?”
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From the actual text of the alignment description, a lawful good paladin does not have to sacrifice babies just because it’s the law. The actual text was something like strict adherence to a moral code.
*grin* Had a bad GM that tried that trick….
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In “Have Gun Will Travel”, the hero’s name was Paladin. The character was darker in the radio series, but in both the TV and radio versions the easiest way to make him your enemy was to use him to abuse the innocent.
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I had SUCH a crush on Simon templar when I was ten or so.
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I had it bad for Anna and Belle, myself.
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“For the shield and the sword and the pipes of Pan/ Are birthrights sold to a usurer;/ But I am the last lone highwayman/ and I am the last adventurer.” _The Saint and the Last Hero_ L. Charteris.
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‘House burglary is probably the poorest paid trade in the world; I have never known anyone to make a living at it. But for that matter few criminals of any class are self-supporting unless they toil at something legitimate between times. Most of them, however, live on their women.’
-Dashiell Hammett, From the Memoirs of a Private Detective
a) Welfare and the criminal class
b) Theives’/Assassin’s guilds in D&D
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