#humans are inherently selfish and look for excuses to be cruel most often than not

[kasumingo]

Not to be bitter and old but all the "Humans are inherently good" posts never got through me, especially seeing how people online act, how do most act when given the opportunity to be cruel and what is happening in the real world currently in general

i know it's a nice sentiment but it doesn't really

work

nor does it have any reflection of what's happening when you start paying attention

[saviorgoddessastrid]

How To Write An Interesting Deity

So, I get some commentary about how Astrid’s an incredibly well-written deity OC, and I have a couple of friends who I talk to about our mutual frustrations with how folks generally RP or just write deity OCs.  Given how I am a guy who wants others to improve, I’m going to detail how to come up with a deity that folks are going to be actually interested in.  Fair warning, this is a lot simpler than it sounds, and most of it is going to be under the cut due to the length.  So, let’s begin, shall we?

So, when we talk about gods that are being written by folks, there’s a general set of pitfalls you’ll see people fall into, what I shall refer to as The Classic Blunders.  These are pitfalls you see almost everybody who writes a deity do, and they‘re mistakes you should probably avoid if you want your deity to be interesting.

Classic Blunder #1: The Power Fantasy.

Let’s not kid ourselves here, deities are an easy Power Fantasy to write, because gods are inherently overpowered beings and you can easily excuse their OPness under their divine status.  However, consider this: Everyone and their mother knows this fact, and is using it for that very purpose.

With this Classic Blunder, you commonly see folks creating a deity with the express purpose of being The Strongest(tm) and having little personality outside of Being The Strongest(tm).  This isn’t exclusively a mistake done by deity writers, and honestly it speaks more of one’s inexperience with RPing than it does their actual OC when it’s committed.  These deities all have a single purpose: Be as ludicrously overpowered as possible, and shit on everyone else and get away with it because they’re a god and they’re taking the shit on mortals.

This may seem entertaining in the short-term, but frankly, folks aren’t going to be interested in a character who is, by all measurements, arrogant, selfish, and prone to destroying anything they want on a whim just because they can.  While some folks might find entertainment in the Power Fantasy, for those of us who like good characters, this becomes an extremely frustrating topic because the vast, vast majority of deity OCs are built with this purpose in mind.

I’m not going to say not to make your deity powerful, because that is part of the purpose of gods, to be something greater than a mortal.  However, instead of having your deity abuse their power and shit all over everyone else, consider the following: Instead of focusing on what they can do, focus instead on what they should do with that power.

Here’s a classic example: Folks like to ask, “If God is all-powerful and benevolent, why doesn’t He just cure every disease possible?” And while yes, the vast majority of deities could easily obliterate every possible disease out there in an instant, the long-term effect of such an action is a net-loss.

In curing every disease imaginable, not only are people left with weaker immune systems, medical science is rendered irrelevant.  No new cures and breakthroughs are invented, and people have less reason to actually treat themselves when something does happen, because they have a god who has already set precedence that they can and will cure their diseases and injuries for them.

Their followers learn nothing, and ultimately slip backwards and become reliant on their god’s power to solve everyday problems because there is precedence for such a thing.  That is not a beneficial thing in the long run, and gods, being totally immortal, will live to see the lasting harm of their actions.

Unless your god’s shtick is explicitly being evil or uncaring, your god is probably going to be concerned with the long-term ramifications of their actions, since they will live long enough to be concerned by them.  And if they’re uncaring, they’re less likely to want to involve themselves in trivial mortal affairs.

That’s an important aspect to consider.  Gods think bigger and broader in scope than mortals do, and while they have the power to change reality, whether or not the should do that is a matter of debate.

Classic Blunder #1a: Hostile Divine Negotiations

This Classic Blunder is related to the first one, and like the first one, tends to be the result of inexperience more than anything else.  This Classic Blunder is mostly for crossover material.  In particular, two gods interacting with each other across universes.  A lot of folks who write Power Fantasy deities like to look down on other deities and make it very apparent they don’t approve of the other.

It is important to bear in mind that gods are petty, selfish creatures prone to spiting whoever offended them at a moment’s notice.  Every god knows this, and even if your god is extremely powerful, they will also know that every deity has a number of allies at their back.  Remember, a good chunk of bad things that happen to mortals in mythology are the results of them insulting the gods in some fashion and suffering payback, which the gods are happy to inflict.  There’s no reason to believe that the gods won’t do the same for another god not of their pantheon (or even of their pantheon, depending).

As such, if your deity is going to waltz on in and start insulting another deity because you view your god as arbitrarily stronger, recognize that you’re pretty much going to, at best, get an annoyed god that wants you to go away, or at worst, an interdimensional pantheon war, which is a horrible result because war between gods is never pretty, and your god will stand to lose a lot as a result of these shenanigans.

As a result, no matter how powerful your god is, it’s generally wiser to have your god be at least neutral in tone around other gods.  They may have their issues, but few gods would be reckless enough to insult another god and risk a war between pantheons, because even if they’d win, they’d lose more than they’d gain.

Classic Blunder #1b: Omnipotent Jackass

This one’s also related to the first one of Being The Strongest(tm), and this one is mostly about goddesses, particularly omnipotent goddesses.  This one I see less often in RPing than the others, so much as writing, but it’s a thing that happens sometimes.  I’ve noticed that several people who write omnipotent goddesses tend to have their goddess simply abuse their power, warp reality to their leisure, and be treated as the sexiest woman alive as a result of their power.

However, these sorts of characters are, to me at least, much less appealing than kind-hearted goddesses, because when you read between the lines, these characters come off as cruel, selfish, and self-centered, caring about nobody but themselves and willingly using their power to do whatever they damn well please, knowing that nobody can stop them.  I can see some level of appeal in it, but I’d rather someone who has infinite power be restrained in its usage because then I know I can talk with them without them turning me into a footstool because they’re bored.

This doesn’t necessarily apply purely to sex appeal either, though it tends to be used for such, but any god who abuses their omnipotence to no end can fall into this particular Classic Blunder, especially if they’re doing it just because they can.  The only real thing I can say here is that, unless you’re deliberately making your god uncaring about anyone around them, it’s probably better that they show at least some restraint in their power usage.  It’s not very fun to have someone who’s omnipotent constantly warping reality to their leisure and being a dick to everyone, at least, for those of us who don’t find that stuff attractive.

Classic Blunder #1c: Amoral God

This topic is closely related to Omnipotent Jackass, but has a few distinctions.  Amoral God largely has to deal with gods who are intended to be Lovecraftian in design.  The problem is that these gods end up as a case of “all the power in the universe, and no personality to back it up”.

The idea behind Amoral God is that they operate on an entirely different set of morals than mortals, and thus are beyond mortal comprehension.  What you typically get instead is a god that simply does what they please and has no discernible motives for anything except “It Amused Me”.  These gods are extremely boring to work with because they just don’t seem interested in anything except what personally interests them, and end up being extremely one-note in personality even when you’re trying to make them interesting by making them unlike other human gods.

The only real thing I can tell you here is that vagueness does not equate to substance in and of itself.  You need to go with something greater than that if you wish to be a truly interesting deity, someone who folks are going to want to learn more than that.

To give you a general tip on how to write a Lovecraftian deity: The trick with Lovecraftian gods is that their sense of morality is different from ours, but that wouldn’t make them completely incomprehensible to us.  Their actions and deeds are going to seem strange to us, but they are definitely going to be consistent in their applications.  When writing one of these gods, figure out what they view as right and wrong, and make it apparent that they view things in this manner.  Don’t just end it at “they view things different from humans, so don’t bother trying to understand it”.

Classic Blunder #2: The Christ Problem

Now, unlike Classic Blunder #1, Classic Blunder #2 is an issue that comes at you from both writers and readers.  What is The Christ Problem you might ask? The Christ Problem, as a friend of mine calls it, is the assumption that gods are inherently perfect creatures, who are either pure good or pure evil, with no room left for a middle-ground.  Mistakes made are intentional, and flaws hint at them being evil.

The interesting thing about The Christ Problem is that this is a purely Judeo-Christian view of the gods, and even then, it’s a misinterpretation of the Judeo-Christian God, who was very much a flawed figure in the Bible.  Outside of Christianity, gods have always been treated as flawed creatures, and never a perfect being.

Greek Mythology, one of the best examples of gods done right, was so memorable to so many because their gods were human.  Every god in Greek Mythology had their flaws, their vices, their virtues, and were overall no different from their own creations with the exception of power.  However, this was by no means exclusive to Greek Mythology in and of itself.  Norse Mythology had much of the same issues with the gods, that they made mistakes in a desperate attempt to avert Ragnarok and, in the end, caused the very thing they were trying to avoid to occur.

When you work with The Christ Problem in combination with The Power Fantasy, there’s a noticeable split in how it’s applied.  Many times, male deities are treated as pure good even though they are by all measurements cruel and arrogant, while female deities are treated as the purest of evils even if all their actions point to them being good people just because they made a few mistakes.

Counteracting The Christ Problem is very difficult because of how this is a Classic Blunder committed by readers just as often as it’s committed by writers.  The only real thing I can tell you is this: No religion in the history of existence has treated their gods as truly perfect, and gods can make mistakes.  As well, the idea of a god never doing a bad thing ever is totally unrealistic.  As I said, gods are infinitely more likely to care about the long game, and they will be willing to do a bad thing in the short term for a long-term gain for their followers.  Just remember: All the most interesting gods out there got that way because they made very human mistakes and are all the more relatable because of it.

Classic Blunder #3: Where The Religion?

This one’s a more minor nitpick, but I noticed that a lot of deity OCs don’t actually touch up on one of the most important aspects of gods: Their religion.  There’s a lot you can do to craft a god’s personality by just figuring out their religion.

The vast majority of deity OCs never mention their religion, or if they do, it’s only in passing and never given some actual detail.  Religion is perhaps one of the most important parts of a god, because religion is typically how gods interact with their mortal followers.  Really, if you’re going to write a deity OC, you should really think deeply about what your god teaches to their followers and what they believe in.  There’s a lot to cover on that topic alone.  And developing a god’s religion will help you develop their personality.

When it comes to deity OCs, developing the religion is entirely optional.  Many deities can get by without any actual worship, and even if they did need it, not every god is directly involved in their faith.  You rarely see other mythologies delve into how exactly one should worship the gods and make it a key factor of the gods (most simply leave it at “respect the gods or else”).

However, if you’re stumped on where to take your deity and what you want them to be personality-wise, it would be quite beneficial for you to contemplate their religion.  Consider what aspects your deity represents and what they teach.  For instance, many War Gods are all about battle in some format, while a Sun God is typically about...well, the sun and the warmth it brings.

You need not develop an entire mythology around your deity, simply consider what they teach, what they represents, and how their domains affect them as a person.  Many gods are interested in assuring that their domains remain unchallenged and that they can continue to grow in power as they work.

What to do to make your deity stand out?

Honestly, I know that this sounds like a lot of explanations, but frankly, it all boils down to one thing: Give your gods a genuine personality outside of their raw power.  How do they view their worshipers? Do they love them like they would their own children, or are they distant from their followers? Do they get personally involved with their faith, or do they leave their worshipers to their own devices? For that matter, what does your god do when confronted with followers who use their faith as a shield against criticism and commit horrible misdeeds that go against the god’s own teachings?

If you can give your god a genuine personality that is about more than just having raw power, then you’re well on your way to creating a fascinating deity that truly stands out among the rabble that other deity OC writers come up with.  And I assure you, folks will be infinitely more interested in interacting with your deity if they can be taken as something that seems human, despite all of their divine power.

In regards to a god’s power, the best thing to do is leave the limits defined, but the powers vague.  You’ll notice in a lot of other mythologies, the gods tend not to have their powers spelled out for everyone in plain lettering, they simply give them a defined limit, and leave the rest up to one’s imagination.

Where To Start?

If you wish to write a truly interesting deity OC, I strongly suggest studying ancient religions, particularly Greek Mythology, though by all means, don’t feel it necessary to restrict yourself to it.  Any religion can serve as inspiration, as long as you use its ideas respectfully, and while I myself love a good Greek Myth-inspired character, every other religion out there has something interesting to bring to the table.  Pick up on the quirks and traits that the gods of other religions demonstrate outside of the Christian faith.  See how the god’s domains influence them as people, and what they teach to their followers through their myths.  You’ll find that it’s much easier to write an interesting god than you might think if you study how other religions did the topic.

Above all else: Don’t rely too much on your god’s raw power.  Once you get to the point where your god can create planets with their mind, any higher and you’re basically just saying they’re fully omnipotent.  There’s little reason to boast about a god’s accomplishments, because every god is well beyond what mortals can do, and we don’t read about gods to see them constantly boasting and belittling others.  We read about them to see the unique challenges they face, and see how their very human flaws result in them committing terrible mistakes out of selfish reasons.

Gods are, by far, one of the more interesting topics to write about when you work with more than just a bland power fantasy.  Really, you should try it sometime, you might find it to be more interesting and worthwhile than Power Fantasy OC God #5731257532652.

[saiyanshewolf]

Anyway so I’m apparently in the minority but I loved a lot about TLJ.

1. Rey.

I have never identified with someone so much.

Let me preface this with: Kylo Ren is a manchild with anger issues who throws temper tantrums where people end up dead. He is the EPITOME of “cool motive, still murder.” I am not making excuses for Kylo Ren.

Now:

Kylo Ren is a terrible person who has done terrible things, but Rey still thinks she can save him.

I get that that is exactly why people are pissed: the fact that a female character like Rey spends the movie trying to rescue an unbalanced, hateful man like Kylo Ren. The trope of pure-girl-from-the-archetypal-light-side rescuing the dark-broody-violent-boy-from-the-archetypal-dark-side with her Goodness and Love is a very tired one indeed, and what young girls take from stories like that is that if they are good enough, if they just love them enough, if they put up with enough, the man will change.

In reality, however, that rarely (if ever) happens, and girls are often left feeling like something is wrong - that they’re not doing enough and it’s their fault that the man they’re with isn’t healing.

In TLJ, however, the point is that Rey doesn’t rescue Kylo Ren. She doesn’t save him.

But she tries.

She tries because she is a fundamentally good person. She tries because she does not want to fight when there’s a chance she can make an ally. She tries because she wants to believe the best of people. Most of all she tries because she comes to understand what turned Ben Solo into Kylo Ren.

She tries, and for a short period of time they are allies (their fight scene teamup was gorgeous and I’m not sorry).

Their alliance is short lived, however, and then Kylo Ren asks her to join him. He tells her the truth about her parents and he does it with blunt cruelty (which could come from either a place of manipulation of a place or awkwardness, but it is cruel either way; intentions, the road to hell, etc). He tells her that she is nothing and then immediately tells her that he does not think she is nothing, perhaps the most manipulative line he has (again, intentions, road to hell). In a callback to Anakin and Padme, Kylo Ren begs Rey to stay with him and rule to galaxy. And yes, he does beg. Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley’s acting was lovely in that moment; I really felt how desperately he wanted her to say yes, how deeply they both wanted someone by their sides who understood them.

And yet.

(“You’re breaking my heart. You’re going down a path I can’t follow.”)

Padme’s words, not Rey’s, but they’re appropriate nonetheless. Rey cannot and will not follow Kylo Ren. She tried to help him. He failed her - like we all knew he would - but she tried.

What does she do then? What does she do when she realizes that Kylo Ren is refusing to change his ways, that he is, in fact, asking her to join him, to accommodate him?

She leaves.

Do you understand what that would have meant to my dumb, impressionable little 13 year old self?

To see a story where the girl actually leaves when the broken man she’s trying to save refuses her help?

A story where she leaves and doesn’t die shortly afterward (like Padme)? Where she doesn’t languish in misery and self-loathing afterward? Where she leaves him and makes an active effort to oppose him and all he stands for?

My entire life I’ve had a problem with wanting to fix men, to save them, because that’s what I’d been taught was my job. The media I passively consumed had normalized that kind of behavior to the point that I didn’t even begin to think twice about it until I was almost in my mid-twenties. I was made to believe that if I just stuck with them, that if I endured their bullshit and showed them how patient and loving I could be even when they were downright cruel, they would eventually change.

I endured years of shitty treatment, of straight up emotional abuse, and not a goddamn one of them ever changed.

Rey tries. She tries to help Kylo Ren because she’s a good, kind person, because she senses his pain, because she’s empathetic, and sure, maybe because she’s also a little bit naive.

She tries, and he fails her, and Rey leaves.

Rey leaves and finds the rebellion. She leaves and does something to combat the man she was trying so hard to save, because he refused her help.

It seems like a ridiculous thing to be happy about, I know. I understand if people think that the better message would be in Rey refusing to try to help him, period, and that’s certainly a valid point of view. For me personally, however, that would remove the main reason that I identified with Rey to begin with: her empathy, her desire to help others who are suffering, her ability to see the potential for good in others, no matter what.

Rey doesn’t save him. She isn’t killed by him. She isn’t destroyed by not being able to save him. It isn’t presented as some failure on her part that she doesn’t save him.

Little girl me DESPERATELY needed that particular message.

Rey trying to help Kylo Ren and leaving when he ultimately fails her is, for me personally, more powerful than if she had never tried to help him at all.

2. The multiple failures, narrow escapes, and near misses.

Rey isn’t able to break through Kylo Ren to bring Ben Solo back.

The legendary Luke Skywalker, in a moment of weakness, a moment of fear, a moment of humanness, raises his lightsaber against his sleeping nephew...and when he is caught, disaster ensues.

As a result, the Luke Skywalker that Rey finds is not who she expects him to be.

The rebels lose all their bombing fleet and are tracked across space by the First Order, having their ships picked off one by one.

Finn and Rose do not find the hacker they were looking for, and are betrayed by the hacker they do find.

Finn, Rose, and Poe’s plan to remove the tracker and escape the First Order fails.

The First Order picks off the rebels’ transport ships as they try to escape.

The base the rebels escape to is decrepit and they are essentially trapped there waiting to be killed; many more of them are killed as they try to take down the ram.

Almost every single turn of the story seems hopeless. General Leia herself admits to giving up hope.

Until Luke Skywalker gets his shit together long enough to exploit Kylo Ren’s weakness, buying them time to escape...and even then there is the disappointment that it isn’t “really” Luke, that the concentration required saps him so completely that he dies.

Even when the rebels do try to escape, their path is blocked, leaving them vulnerable.

Until Rey appears...and lifts the rocks.

There is very little hope to be had in TLJ, but there is hope. There is always hope, no matter how faint.

That, I think, is a very good and very important message...particularly given the current political climate.

Which brings me to...

3. The way TLJ paints its villains and the way it chose to portray the ultra-rich.

Snoke was a frightening villain. Snoke was an intelligent villain...to a point.

Snoke underestimated Kylo Ren...which ought to make Kylo Ren a more frightening villain, but that isn’t what happens.

Kylo Ren killing Snoke really illustrates the selfishness and self absorption inherent in the dark side, I think. Snoke didn’t believe that Kylo Ren would dare. He does dare, however, and he does kill Snoke. It’s almost too easy...almost anti-climatic.

Snoke was a frightening villain, but he was self absorbed enough not to see his own death coming...thus he is replaced by Kylo Ren, who is really not a frightening villain at all. We have only to look at Hux to see that: he refers to Kylo Ren as Supreme Leader only under the duress of being force-choked, and even after that he is barely able to conceal his irration with Kylo Ren’s petulant demands to fire everything they have on a single man; he even makes a snarky comment to the effect of “Do you think you got him?”

Would anyone speak to Darth Vader like that? (As in original trilogy Vader, prior to the context of the prequels.)

Darth Vader was terrifying. Kylo Ren is not. You’re meant to hate him, but...

A lot of people who are fond of characters like Kylo Ren don’t hate him because they understand why he turned to the dark side. I myself tend to fall into this category with a lot of villains. I don’t defend what these characters have done (cool motive, still murder) but I do believe that understanding the why makes them more interesting characters. I’m not going to get into a debate about “is it okay to like villainous characters” because that’s not something I’m interested in, but this view seems to focus on the fact that Kylo Ren is a fictional character, rather than who that character would be as a real person.

For others, I think that hatred of Kylo Ren as a villain manifests as a really dull, disgusted sort of hatred: he’s angry, volatile, angsty, and violent, a manchild who throws temper tantrums at the slightest provocation. There’s little real fear there, and what fear there is is full of that same disgust, almost as if you’re disgusted that you have to be afraid of such a person.

That being said...what kind of people are running our country right now? Yeah.

I also really enjoyed the scenes on the gambling planet and how all the ultra-rich assholes there were very obviously portrayed as exploitative assholes. There’s not much else for me to say on that point. It was pretty thinly veiled.

TLJ is, I think, a movie about not giving in, no matter what. (“Never tell me the odds.”) Rose and Finn don’t give in even when the First Order literally has their boots on the backs of their necks. Rey doesn’t give in when Luke first refuses her and she doesnt give in to Kylo Ren no matter how much she wants to help him; Luke gives in to his moment of fear, and then later on doesn’t give in to the fear that has been keeping him uninvolved for so long. The rebellion itself never, ever, ever gives in despite incredible, overwhelming losses.

...but all that’s just, like, my opinion, man.