#no protagonist is better or worse

[epickiya722]

Honestly the "this Shonen protagonist vs this Shonen protagonist, who would win" is so boring to me, it is.

It gets played out when people will go back and forth trying to explain why this protagonist would win, insults get thrown, etc.

It's like ship wars.

Instead, I like to think about how amusing it would be if Shonen protagonists switched places or something.

Like... imagine one protagonist handling another's biggest enemy with ease and telling the other one about it.

"Bro, it took like two punches."

"Oh my gosh. Thank you so much! Now I can just worry about my grades! I gotta graduate, you know!"

Like, a lot of the protagonists could relate to each other since some of them be high schoolers!

If they did do competitions, it wouldn't even like out of malice. Just friendly competition... and accidents.

"I did not mean to break your arm!"

"Ha, I'm used to it! No big deal!"

"WHAT?"

This is just me and I'm just saying, arguing about "who would win" is just so boring to me because what point is being made here? Where's the fun in that?

Yeah, who would win, but like... do you also know how vague that is?

Who would win in what? A tennis match? Jeopardy?

Also, consider the different elements that play into it! Settings, how their powers work, etc.

Seriously, open minds!

[abbey-abdominal]

Hi, I’m a sad lesbian obsessed with these two sad women. Have a nice day.

[ixcaliber]

trying to finish as much as i can off playstation plus before letting my subscription end and one of those things was the bioshock infinite burial at sea dlc and oh my fucking god what an absolutely atrotrious experience. incredibly somehow worse than bioshock infinite (a game i hold no affection for) and may be one of the worst video game experiences i've ever had.

[seriousbrat]

Canon Lily does not have any character flaws though. We can argure it is because she was never fleshed-out character on her own in the books but neither was James and we got to see his good and bad qualities.

I disagree, I think we do see flaws in Lily even though they're fairly minor, as flaws go. (And Lily is more of a minor character than James imo.) Anyway, a character flaw doesn't have to be some HUGE abjectly terrible trait or behaviour like Sev or James might have. Most humans don't have some kind of obvious massive drawback to them lmao, most people are normal and their flaws/bad qualities are a bit more subtle than 'literally being a bully' and 'literally joining a fascist group.' When I say I think all characters should have flaws I don't mean they should all secretly be assholes or evil haha. There are ways to write realistic characters who are also good and kind people.

I have a post here about what I think Lily's flaws are. But I'll also add that the flaws she's shown to have in canon are the basis for the reasons people consider her to be selfish, judgmental, a bad friend, two-faced etc. It's realistic for everyone to have moments or parts of them that are selfish or judgmental, and it's realistic for people, especially teenagers, to be imperfect friends at times. The thing is that instead of people interpreting these flaws as fairly understandable and normal in a teenage girl, they jump to the worst possible conclusions and inflate them to a ridiculous degree, with a side of blaming her for everything the men in her life did.

If Lily wasn't shown to have those flaws, people wouldn't be able to jump to them in order to villainise her. It's so weird with Lily, either people believe she's a horrible irredeemable she-devil or else she's a way too annoyingly perfect mary sue virgin mother and badly written etc. It can't be both lol. Lily has a specific role in the story because it's told through Harry's perspective. Is it that weird for an orphaned boy to idealise his dead mother? No. It's not even that weird for a non-orphaned boy to idealise his alive mother. Personally when I read Lily's scenes in DH it doesn't feel to me that she was written as perfect, she just seems like a pretty normal, if notably kind young girl with normal reactions to things.

Her reading Petunia's letter from Dumbledore and using it as ammo in an argument seems realistic. Her telling Snape that he's being ungrateful because James saved his life seems realistic. Her blowing up at James during SWM seems realistic. Her remaining friends with Snape despite his actions, and falling for James despite his, seems realistic.

Is Lily the most developed character in HP? No, of course not, but that doesn't make her that criminally underdeveloped for her purpose in the narrative imo. She's literally dead for the entire story, why would she be as developed as someone like Hermione? It's true that because of her importance to the central mystery, we don't see much of her until the end. Yes that's a shame for fans of Lily, though I also think it works well for the reader (and Harry) to realise that Lily has more importance than we'd realised. Harry identifies with James because he's a boy, it's James he goes to follow in SWM, and the logical conclusion that his mother would also be there (he even sees her and just doesnt recognise her) doesn't even occur to him until she enters the narrative herself. Even then, she's an afterthought to the way Harry's feelings about James are bound up in his own identity.

It's meant to be that way, it's realistic for it to be that way, it's good foreshadowing for the way Lily later enters the narrative in an unexpected way, but anyway, I think even what we are given about Lily is enough to construct at least a rough outline of her character if you care to.

Nobody ever complains about characters like Grindelwald or Regulus being underdeveloped lol, because they're not actually present in the story, nor are they supposed to be, despite being important to other characters. I think there's some confusion since Lily is an important character in Marauders' era, but pls let's remember that all of this stuff that we talk about on here is just background to the main story of Harry Potter. Obviously there's characters who are going to be underdeveloped if you just take them as characters on their own, and yes, since I like Lily I wish we'd seen more of her, but also it makes sense that we didn't see that much because the story isn't about the Marauders' era lol.

Personally I think people judge Lily too harshly as a character. It's not that I think everyone has to like Lily at all, but I do find the standards she's commonly held to a bit ridiculous since they're never even remotely applied to male characters. If you're only interested in angsty dark mean men that's fine, if you're only interested in the characters that have more of a presence in the narrative that's understandable, but personally I don't think there's anything wrong with the mere existence of a female character who is a good and pleasant person haha

[carlyraejepsans]

Tragic! Gorgeous game with extremely moving premise deathly afflicted with 2011 dialogue writing

[hotdogshipping-miwa-enthusiast]

I despise Seishiro Nagi

I get that he’s an apathetic character with little regard for most things in life, but it’s some point if someone is that emotionally stunted it and it seems to be a choice you cannot make excuses for their actions

I get that originally Reo was the one that forced him in this. He had no interest in soccer and reo pushed a dream that he did not have onto Nagi that is not a thing you can fault him for, but after saying something like this,

you cannot just expect someone to be unaffected and I hate that Nagi thinks that Reo should just understand that he’s clearly doing all of this for their goal

He picked someone over Reo completely, ignoring Reo’s feelings, which admittedly, he did seem like he was throwing tantrum over, not being picked rather than clearly voicing his objections, but he was hurt and betrayed at the time and Nagi had no obligation to stay with him regardless

And like admittedly, you can say partially his fault because he has major codependency issues involving Nagi, their entire relationship is based on silent understandings. They never communicate because he’s just always known what Nagi was thinking. That’s mainly because Nagi did none of the thinking, but maybe you can fault that with Reo because he never properly communicated feelings and therefore Nagi he never learned that that was a thing that people needed to do in life. If your relationship is entirely based off a shared goal and silent understanding with no communication, then wires are going to get crossed that’s just a thing that happens in life.

So up until this point you can maybe claim it’s Reo’s fault he got too attached to someone and got upset when they chose to be independent can’t be faulted for not wanting to constantly obey Reo’s wishes and stay by his side

So fine whatever but the minute Isagi is out of reach he turns back to Reo

and that is something that cement is the worst character to me. Even worse, that happens right after he fully commits to the idea that he is going to be an independent person he’s going to play soccer without, abandon him and he still wants to play soccer with Nagi but he knows he can’t cling to him so he’s trying to change

And even after Reo voices objections because Nagi is a fickle creature he continues to assert that he’s chasing after another man for Reo and maybe and his mind this is the only way that he can possibly breach the level that he needs to get at, but the fact that he constantly ignores that his actions have hurt Reo, even when Reo tells him to his face he annoys me so much

And the worst part of all this is that even after everything, even after telling Isagi that Nagi throws people away whenever he finds that they are no longer useful

he takes Nagi back

[softausterity]

full response to 90% of 'this game sucks but i like it' cases. for myself personally

[pausescreen]

comparison, first to retry

[imabiscuitinthousandworlds]

so i googled my current favourite play that i'm absolutely obsessed with and ended up on the english wikipedia site bc my browser is set to english and. it's so bad. the fucking plot overview leaves out basically everything that happens ever except for the end result. several key figures aren't even mentioned. "this guy dies for freedom" well, yes, but actually no, plus you're implying his sacrifice is actually worth it. that's not true. in some other section a dude is mentioned who claims this play is basically star wars. that someone familiar with the play but not star wars could look at a star wars poster and tell you which characters are narratively similar/equal to characters of the play. i am baffled. i have never, not once in my life, ever seen someone be so wrong. dude must have read an entirely different play. i'm tempted to dig up the english version and read it just to see how fucking wrong he is. he is *so* incredibly wrong. jesus fuck. how could you possibly say that

[josephsaturn]

Anakin Skywalker is to Star Wars as Phosphophyllite is to HNK

[noys-boise]

september 1st is sunday at least. cool. that's one more day i can add to the loop.

[july-19th-club]

how to make a character who sucks so bad and nobody likes him but he is genuinely a good protagonist (good as in interesting, maybe on a rare day good as in decent but also, just like, an incredible jackass) . i need to make him worse i need to make him MEANER!

[c0rpsedemon]

it's been 3+ years but i stay a jmart hater btw

[wipples]

What is it like to lack a sense of agency?

What is it like to have it?

[soft-serve-soymilk]

Also speaking of my son Dism scrolling through windows help forums is so fun because yay :) that's my son :)

[imminent-danger-came]

There ain't nothing Shera does that Lego Monkie Kid doesn't do better.