The way of the hero vs. the way of the bad and evil

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marionline
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The way of the hero vs. the way of the bad and evil

Post by marionline »

The way of the hero vs. the way of the bad and evil

I just did some brainstorming, maybe you want to help me completing this list for people who run out of ideas, just like me... :)


The way of the Hero
What do Heros (usually) do?
  • save a Princess
    save the day
    feel sorry for ohters and help them
    help some village people
    (help to) find someone/something that's lost (a medicine for the King, a way home or they try to get their memory back)
    stop the evil guys
    fight a Dragon
    kill a Dragon or Monster
    collect something
    win
What do Heros (usually) not do?
  • Leave their Party alone and run away so they won't get eaten by hungry monsters
    make plans for wold domiation, that's somethig for the bad guys
    die befor the game is over
    lose; in the end they always win
The way of the bad and evil guys
What do they do?
  • kidnap the princess
    steal a treasure
    get others into truble
    treat everyone even their own servants in a bad way
    almost always tell theis plan bevor they get defeted by the hero
    lose and die in the end
    cause trouble
    they just care for themselves, won't will sorry for anyone
What do they not do?
  • Help village people just because it's the right thing to do
    win, or at least they shouldn't win
    help the hero
    keep their promises
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Post by The Wobbler »

I'm all for both heroes and villains that help Village People.
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Post by JSH357 »

Heroes don't do drugs
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Post by mjohnson092088 »

JSH357 wrote:Heroes don't do drugs
unless your hero is a skooma addicted paladin in oblivion. *cough cough*

how about a hero's quest changes themselves, or makes them learn something about themselves? ie, squall in FF8's attitude completely changes by the end of the game, or a villain becomes a friend under certain circumstances.
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Post by Feenicks »

I'm pretty sure that really traditional heroes and villains are organized on the order/chaos axis - heroes try to keep things in order as they see to be the case, whilst villains try to cause chaos and disorder in order to get ahead of the fray and change things to better suit themselves.
Of course, having 'pure; heroes and villains aren't always entirely interesting, if only because even the above boundaries become inverted somewhat when the heroes actually storm the villain's base of operations and usurp the seat of power in whatever godforsaken corner of the globe villains usually decide to inhabit for whatever reason, thus causing the surrounding area to suddenly plunge into chaos.

Also:
Similar to the above, there's something along the lines of heroes learning from their mistakes whilst villains failing to... actually that's probably completely misquoted but something along those lines.
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Post by Mystic »

I think the way to begin making the story good is to break one (or a couple) of these tropes in big ways.
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Post by Mogri »

Mystic wrote:I think the way to begin making the story good is to break one (or a couple) of these tropes in big ways.
Nah, that's so cliché.
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Post by Twinconclusive »

No one does wrong willingly
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Post by The Wobbler »

Twinconclusive wrote:No one does wrong willingly
What about slanderous trolls?
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Post by Twinconclusive »

Deep down, they just want to belong :angel:
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Post by Nathan Karr »

Some of us actually do do wrong willingly. Some of us will do it nine times.

It's just that much more evil if you know it's wrong when you do it.


You can do bad things with good motivations; you may think you're in the right, and even though the act is still wrong and you still ought to be stopped.

You can do good things with bad motivations. The guy might be doing helpful things that advance the greater good, but you can still tell that, beneath it all, he's scum.

Then there's guys like me (when I'm in a certain mood), who do bad things and have bad reasons for doing so.


The ends don't justify the means, nor do the means justify the ends. A breach on either will result in evil.
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Post by Baconlabs »

Pardon me if this is slightly off-topic. I'm kind of leapfrogging off of Nathan here.
One of the many properties of an interesting hero/villain is that the audience is unable to unanimously side with one or the other. The villain is a serial killer, but spreads the virtues of oral hygiene and donates to orphanages. The hero rescued several dozen chaste maidens and defeated the local Kraken, but subsequently spent his reward money financing a logging company that led to the extinction of the elves. Yes, these are terrible examples, but I think everyone here knows what I'm talking about. There's a reason these are so popular among certain crowds. Heroes and Villains move between their stereotypes and their extreme opposites according to the author's (and occasionally the viewer's) discretion.
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Post by Nathan Karr »

The reason that people with both good and bad traits are more sympathetic is because humans are, with one exception, that way.

It's not possible to be wholly bad or pure evil. In fact, pure evil is an oxymoron. Badness is about being damaged and imperfect; a villain who is stupid, weak, a complete jerk, holds no influence socially or financially, and so on, wouldn't be seen as much of a villain. He could be a complete monster, but if he doesn't have good abilities and a sound enough mind, he won't mean much to the plot, and in fact the heroes will look like slimes for handing his slime to him.

On the other hand, a purely good entity would be just plain terrifying to anyone with a good, level-headed assessment of his own actions. Further, if he's supposed to be human, nobody's gonna believe he's for real, because original sin is something we're all aware of even if we insist on calling it something else. In fact, I have to stare with incredulity when I see nonhuman creatures that are supposedly pure; they usually follow only what the author thinks of as qualities of a good person (which are, with very little variation, what personality quirks the author has and wearing white with gold).
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

Nathan Karr wrote:The reason that people with both good and bad traits are more sympathetic is because humans are, with one exception, that way.

It's not possible to be wholly bad or pure evil. In fact, pure evil is an oxymoron. Badness is about being damaged and imperfect; a villain who is stupid, weak, a complete jerk, holds no influence socially or financially, and so on, wouldn't be seen as much of a villain. He could be a complete monster, but if he doesn't have good abilities and a sound enough mind, he won't mean much to the plot, and in fact the heroes will look like slimes for handing his slime to him.

On the other hand, a purely good entity would be just plain terrifying to anyone with a good, level-headed assessment of his own actions. Further, if he's supposed to be human, nobody's gonna believe he's for real, because original sin is something we're all aware of even if we insist on calling it something else. In fact, I have to stare with incredulity when I see nonhuman creatures that are supposedly pure; they usually follow only what the author thinks of as qualities of a good person (which are, with very little variation, what personality quirks the author has and wearing white with gold).
This is perhaps the most insightful perspective on good vs. evil in fiction I've seen in a long time, and coming from the "neon coyote giving himself the Heimlich maneuver" guy, I am quite surprised. This isn't worth a golf clap. This is full-on worth a slow clap. The last line is golden. Nathan, why doesn't this side of you come out more often? Your statement raises questions that I think most authors would never think about. Maybe this will get them rethinking what their own values are before developing heroes and villains.
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Post by Nathan Karr »

Nathan, why doesn't this side of you come out more often?
I honestly have no idea. I guess I just generally feel uncomfortable discussing important issues.
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