#Morally Conflicted Characters

[essayofthoughts]

Genuinely, I think one of the most fun and crunchy things about any character is

How far they will go for things they want

What they will do to get things they want

Things they won't do, no matter how much they want what they'd get in exchange

Because these things tell you some very important things about the character, namely their limits, their price, and their absolute No's. (And it lets you create some really REALLY crunchy conflict)

[bevsi]

some of the Arcane takes I’m seeing… maybe u should stick to The Owl House 🩷

[labannori]

Nightmare nightmare nightmare

[wizardsix]

local guy claims intellectual superiority by declaring people who criticise veilguard just haven't played long enough and don't really know what bad writing is. it must be very peaceful to have such an empty head.

[adelinamoteru]

its kinda crazy that yall will apply real world politics and situations to gotham when it comes to jason and his ‘vigilantism’, but never choose to take that angle when analyzing any other bat character’s

brother eye from batman? hello? does constant nonconsensual surveillance seem like an ethical way to keep an eye on supposed allies or stop crime in real life? does beating people up until they comply with u (under fucking duress) seem like the ethical way to produce testimonies and confessions?

but nah, one speech from jason in utrd and yall are up in arms about how nothing he’s saying is actually conducive to lowering crime rates.

at the end of the day, it doesn’t fucking matter who’s right and who’s wrong regarding these morals in real life because the dc universe is so fucking far from reality in the crime that the justice system has to deal with. there is no point in arguing a reality standpoint if its not going to be applied to vigilantism in the bat comics as a whole.

and on the topic of fiction, the willful ignorance as to how jason’s story also portrays a victims revenge/justice is just boring at this point. how are themes in a narrative not coming through to you. especially when doing literature analysis for any of these comics.

[realbeefman]

say what you will about svu and copaganda but the consistently repeated theme that olivia benson was fundamentally born Wrong and the way the violence of her conception radiates out and impacts every single relationship she has. she cannot conceive of an existence that does not render her as an agent of justice rather than a complex person and it infects her interactions with anyone who is able to balance that responsibility. the way law & order manages to successfully recast the police as superhero-esque christ figures is genuinely incredible and like. even the way the show itself oscillates as to what her exact fate is episode to episode. does it get better? worse? can she ever prove herself worthy? is the past ever really past? is this thing she’s been justly burdened with her burden to carry at all? in the eyes of the Law. Our Father who art in heaven. i wash my hands of this.

[juaneloriginal]

silly thingy

@blackkatdraws's sillies

[myrkulitescourge]

imo karlach’s soul coin usage seems like it should have been a little more significant than it was.

she only ever really stops to consider the magnitude of burning through a person’s soul for power during an origin playthrough—otherwise she rationalizes to the player that they’re doomed anyway, and if using them gives her an edge in combat, why not use them for good instead of leaving them to be used by evil? the dialogue with lann tarv in act 2, where he tells the story of each soul he's handing over to her, tries to humanize each soul coin, and still she doesn’t really budge and disapproves pretty heavily if she's told no in regards to using them.

it just seems like something that could have caused some kind of conflict between her and wyll, given he sold his soul to a devil in dire circumstances and takes issue with the player for sleeping with mizora, because she 1) is mizora, and 2) similarly expends tormented souls during her romance scene, even if for a different purpose. but it just... never really comes up?

i love karlach. but that seems like it should have gone Somewhere, from a writing standpoint? karlach values wyll as a person but is willing to use currency forged from souls like his for the sake of a temporary power up. she knows the soul is consumed when she uses them. that whole exchange with lann tarv is there to emphasize that every soul coin she destroys was a person once. but it all kind of loses narrative purpose if this combination of factors doesn't mean anything? karlach doesn't change at all in her willingness to use soul coins, no matter what the player says or how much she cares for wyll.

idk. missed opportunity that wyll doesn't have any dialogue about this, of all things.

[invested-in-your-future]

And people claim this is the same show...

Arcane Season One: With the powderkeg that is the class divide within the city exploding, is there any hope to avoid bloodshed between the working class and the powerful and ignorant elites? SHOULD the bloodshed be avoided when any attempt for change is met with oppression? What path is there forward beyond the cycle of violence? Will the reign of the rich once again bring it all to ruin via unrestricted perversion of technology and progress for the sake of exponential wealth? Just what choices will the two sisters standing on opposite sides make?! Can a traumatized girl turned revolutionary reassert herself and bring about something different? Can Good People in power remain good without the pull of authoritarianism corrupting them? Can love break through privilege? Just how will what just transpired affect the leads psychologically as the two cities descend into civil war? Arcane Season Two: The Arcane must be stopped! To neutralize The Arcane and the rise of The Machine God, we need to stabilize the flow of magic by reversing the polarity within the circuitry via the use of the McGuffin! Only this way can we stop The Night King and his armies of Nowhere Knights invading our country. Nobody cares about little police brutality because we will all unite under the same banner for the glorious purpose of fighting The Evil Magic Zombie Robots. Obviously, we need to preserve the bootstrap paradox by executing a limited-time loop, which I discovered due to my journey through parallel reali-

[agalychnisspranneusroseus]

Imagine you're Mr. Wu and your weird gay daughter runs away in tears after destroying some unespecified object while yelling about you ruining her life. Because you told her you'd be moving to another state. This is the last time you see your daughter in half a year, and when she comes back, she comes back... wrong. She's wearing a light leather armor, a fur-lined cape, and a green flower crown. She has two long scars, one alongside her spine and the other along her chest, the tissue around them covered in burn scars. Doctors say she shouldn't have survived. Doctors say she didn't. Yet she's right here, in front of you, hospital gown clinging to her small, fragile, trembling frame. She fidgets with her hands. Getting her to stay still has always been difficult, but now it seems impossible. She won't let go of her phone. She's always texting her two friends. When you take it away, she gets anxious. You always knew those damn phones cause kids to act weird, but your kid having a panic attack seems too extreme, even for her. Then again, she's always been odd. Nowadays, she wakes up crying and screaming almost every night, and you realize she's been stealing her phone from your bedside drawer every night to text her friends, returning it before you wake up. You catch her once and decide to give her that damn phone back. It's the only thing that calms her down, as if she were a baby with a pacifier. She spends her last weeks in LA clinging to her friends, having sleepovers and playing her weird board games with them. Everytime they drop her back at her house, there's an excessive amount of hugs and tears. But the moments when they call her, or when she leaves to meet with them, or when they show up at their door to pick her up... those are the only moments in which you see her happy. One of her friends, the rude and disobedient one, came back with a big scar on her face. She's been acting a lot nicer, though. The other one too. She acts a great deal more adult now. You doesn't know what happened or where your daughter went. She won't tell you. But you can tell this friendship is the only thing keeping her afloat right now. Maybe you know, deep down, that no one else would understand.

And then you decide to move anyway because fuck her amirite

[stardvstbby]

Maybe I’m being too harsh on Yona, but this is such a cop-out. Who is she to say what Zeno’s true feelings are? She’s basically saying: “I know I’m important to you. You wouldn’t want to cause me pain, would you?”. Like Yona, love, that’s completely beside the point. No he doesn’t want to hurt you! Of course not! But she’s deflecting, avoiding confronting a difficult choice that would lead to her friend finally finding rest after many lifetimes of suffering.

I understand why she needs to enter the chalice and speak directly with the gods. The cycle itself is the issue and she could prevent further people from being burdened with dragon power, and killing Zeno would only end his suffering.

But the way she completely dismisses his wishes irks me. She could’ve said something like: “Hold on. Before we commit to anything concrete, let me try speaking with the gods. Allow me a second option. And if that doesn’t work at least we know I can end this pain for you,” but no. Instead she like…gaslights him? “No, this is what you’re actually feeling.” “You’re in too much despair to make this choice, you’re not in your right frame of mind.” Even if it’s true that he doesn’t want to hurt her she’s still assuming she knows his thoughts and emotions better than he does. This is pure Sheltered Princess behavior.

Yona is robbing Zeno of his autonomy over his choice to die here, which ironically is exactly what the dragon powers are doing to him. When will he be awarded agency of his own life? His feelings and desires?

[nellasbookplanet]

Do I actually think Imogen is going to turn on the party? No. I don't think it’s any more likely to happen than I did Fjord releasing Uk’otoa, or Caleb returning to Trent and the Vollstruckers.

Given the nature of the game, any character turning fully dark is unlikely, seeing as it would take them away from the party for a time or potentially even turn them into an npc, replaced by a new pc. So far the only time we've gotten close to seeing something like it happen was Yasha siding with Obann, which could only happen specifically because Ashley was gone from the table for a long time (it was also the product of mind control, not an active choice to turn dark, and as such still doesn’t really count as a pc turning on the party in my eyes).

But the possibility is there. The seeds planted. Travis has talked about how, after he threw the falchion away, he briefly considered having Fjord leave the party and retun to the coast and Uk’otoa. Liam has mentioned that, early on, Caleb returning to work for Trent was a very real possibilty. It can happen, if the players and narrative are open to it.

And now, canonically, Imogen is desperately and understandably searching for a reason not to have to fight her own mother. She is, however briefly, questioning whether the Ruby Vanguard might have a just cause. Much as she hates it, she also feels the allure of the power Ruidus gives her. Her closest ally is someone who has repeatedly assured she will stand by her no matter what she chooses, even after she voiced the possibility of letting Predathos get out. None of these parts of Imogen are evil, and all of them are understandable and deeply rooted in pain and ostracization, but they could very easily be turned into justification, were she pushed enough.

The seeds are planted. Again, I don’t think it will happen (she seems firmly against the evil plan when reminded of how evil it is), but there’s certainly nothing strange or hateful about engaging with and being interested in the darker possibilities as presented in canon. It isn't character hate to acknowledge that Imogen has the potential to go dark, much as Fjord and Caleb and Yasha. To me, it’s what makes her character interesting. I want to see her clash with the party, whether because she’s desperate to save her own mother or because she’s high off the power of Ruidus and lured in. I want to see Laudna have to choose between the world and her promise to stand by Imogen no matter what. I want to see the fallout, the slow healing and redemption and coming to terms with bad choices. I eat that shit up, and if it doesn’t happen in canon I'll probably go read some fic about it to get my fix.

[meadowsofmay]

so, i am one film in of my the hobbit re-watch and it's interesting how they portrayed each dwarf visually. there's quite an amount of fighting which showcases us the way they act: who's the fighter and who's the carer, who's the leader and who's the follower, who's the mind and who's the brutal force. but — their appearance does tell a huge part of the untold story about who they are and what are their roles in the company.

while re-watching 'an unexpected journey' i had an opportunity to pay closer attention to fili and kili:

and if i still didn't know a single thing about them aside basics and was asked «who's going to be the next king?», i'd say fili without hesitation, based only on the visual.

fili is put together. he might even seem to be somewhat arrogant with his facial expressions. and visual implications of him being the mature one are in his braids, his still growing beard but already braided mustache.

in comparison to kili — fili has a little bit of the weight that the age brings on him.

one of the reasons why we might sympathise alot with kili is because kili feels young. his appearance screams that he is the youngest: long unbraided/barely braided hair and those bangs, strands of hair over his face in a way to make it look rounder and cuter. we see kili act impulsively, him being all over the place with attachement and trust, him being childishly loud and stupidly brave. and his appearance really makes sense of that.

the relationships between durin's are also quite interesting to look at:

the thing with fili is not just him being the oldest of the brothers, for also because he is prepared/taught to be mature one. we hear it quickly in action during the departure from laketown but richard also said in the appendices that thorin prepares fili to be the next to the throne. and i think, he used the word «groomed» which might mean that they're at the beginning of the process that is not exactly wanted by one of the sides. hence, why i am using «prepared/taught to» — fili is still young and dumb at times but he is ahead of kili on the ride of growing up. because he has to. he is, again, more put together but he has alot of weaponry that he carries on him in order to be prepared for any sort of fight. he learns skills and hence the reason he still has huge assignment of blades to chose from.

fili is also less confrontational with thorin. kill is really open and honest about his feelings towards thorin's actions, for example in the scenes where thorin is unfair to bilbo. seems like kili really did get attached to the hobbit and was not shy to be judgemental.

also desperate for he is still young and doesn't really understand the meaning of calculated decisions and compromises.

fili usually keeps to the side, be it because he observes, has less confrontational character or just knows not to interfere when thorin gets moody. when kili jokes on bilbo — fili just plays along. when thorin starts to berate them it's kili who's ashamed but fili is just there. he is so done with thorin, it seems, he doesn't have it in him to react.

observing kili's behavior we can say that kili looks up to thorin in a more sincere, childish way. thorin is the hero of his childhood dreams, for he is the dwarf who took up on the role of his father while juggling all of his other duties. kili wants to impress thorin, wants to be good for him too, it shows in a way he jumps into fights hot-headed. and he is often ashamed when he disappoints him.

fili, on the other hand, just does what thorin says because he knows thorin will want of him exactly that. he learned a lot from and of thorin, he knows how to operate under his command. in a way, he might start to see thorin more as a leader rather than a father figure.

and it might be for another post but we see fili get openly confrontational only in 'the desolation of smaug' and only because kili is in danger. no matter how important it is for thorin to raise a king out of him, fili is still going to put his brother first.

he protests:

first time is when thorin rushes everyone on the river bank while kili needs healer's attention because of his leg.

second time — when thorin wants fili to go with them to erebor and fili choses to stay in laketown with kili who's gotten worse. thorin needs fili there with them because he is the next in line. fili's priorities lie with his brother. and that's probably the most loud conflict fili had with thorin in the whole trilogy. that was the conflict of interests.

the most loud conflict kili had with thorin, though, is in 'the battle of the five armies' when he finally had enough of thorin hiding behind a wall while the rest are dying for them. he almost lost respect for thorin and that was his last attempt to bring him to his senses because this thorin was not his childhood hero, was not the person he looks up to and the matter at hand wasn't just his foul character. it was the conflict of morals.

and i find that beautiful.

[galactic-rhea]

You know, I keep thinking about the acolyte finale and I the force amnesia thing is...just too over-powered, in the sense that is so extremely useful that the amount of times in which any sith could and should have used it, is endless

And my response to this is that, narratively the thing that would have made the most sense was for Mae to die. I'm all for showing the jedi as flawed or the institution being corrupted, but the dark side is supposed to be...well, dark. From a narrative sense, if they wanted Osha to go on and be evil enough to be the apprentice of a sith as handsome as he might be, the darkest, evilest thing to do in that situation, was to murder her sister. Yes, she did kill Sol and that's evil, but huh, we had a whole deal with Osha feeling anger at her sister and we even had Sol be the one to tell her "There's good in her, the part that loves you" but we have not much indication that Osha really believed that. She shot her before (hesitated but the conflict is there), killing her sister despite knowing Sol lied to her would have : a) Truly shown how the dark side is taking over her. b) Leave no witness and no need to invent a super canon-breaking and extremely OP ability. and c) Big Emotional Impact.

Let's see, somehow the show wanted to be the inverse to usual Star Wars. And usual Star Wars is about love and, redemption, and defeating evil and family. So you had the chance to do just that, just the contrary to that as they alleguelly wanted the show to do, all I'm saying is...you want to do Sith Show? Then go on and be unapologetic about it. Because, from what I have seen in interviews is that, like I said, they didn't want the usual SW, with redemptions and fake-deaths or the usual hero journey.

Mae already did a lot of damage, so from Osha's POV, she could even justify herself with that. Besides, Osha seemed to be completely fine with sith arms guy just after a day, despite all the murders he did in front of her eyes, so I really don't think Osha killing Mae would have felt OOC or against her "going to be evil" arc, at all.

I will keep saying this over and over but it feels so much like there were whole episodes of development missing.

Or then you could just do the political intrigue corruption plot from the inside of the order, because the problem with having "the sith show", is that it would be a bit hard for the writers (but not impossible) to make the jedi have a corruption arc without making it look like justification (especially for this fandom because god lord), but is not impossible at all and it shouldn't be that hard either. My fav scene keeps being the one with Venestra and that Senator, and it only lasted like 2 minutes, whyyyyyyy

[nostalgia-tblr]

"are people not into that?" i ask, after posting my weird niche shit to the internet, despite knowing it to be weird niche shit.

[maintitle]

Now that I'm back in the online discourse of the Red Dead community after half a decade away waiting to have the ability to play and beat the second game, I'm really fairly quickly learning that there's this... weird, romanticized version of Arthur Morgan's character out there that really has no basis in reality.

Today I accidentally stumbled upon an anti-John Marston post and I'm not going to get into that here (even though I have A LOT to say), but the top comment was very strange to me. It talked about how Arthur is this 'giant', this 'greek hero', a perfect person, and as I read it I just... wasn't sure if I played the same game as them.

There's obviously a way of playing the game where he's this high honor hero, and I largely played that. But Arthur is also a deeply violent man, a deeply cynical and sometimes cruel guy. He's not a gentle humored guy, he's deeply sarcastic and at times kind of nasty with his humor, even to people he likes. He really often struggles with his worse nature, and it's not a struggle without reason. His first response to a situation is really often the most extreme, and the only reason I feel like people don't realize that outside of having a hand at deciding his honor is because he's the most outspoken about unnecessary vengeance... but that's not because he's opposed to it on principle, it's because it's important for him to protect his people, and that requires letting things go.

This isn't me bashing Arthur, by the way. The beauty of his character is how he struggles against himself, his own nature. How everyone can see his kindness even when he can't himself, even when his actions say otherwise. He's conflicted between what he wants his life to be and the life he has lead, the most important man in his life, one that's practically a father to him, instilled in him rules for life and he's watching him break every single one. For the first time in his life he has to figure out who he is and how he wants what little time he has to be defined. THAT'S a fantastic character, a hero even... but far, far, FAR from perfect. He's a deeply flawed human being who has done terrible things, and it makes me wonder the level of media literacy it takes to not understand that.