#unsympathetic villain with no hidden tragedy

[about-faces]

Have you ever wondered about autistic Harvey Dent? And that his obsession with order, fairness, duality, even numbers and two based crimes stems from that?

That’s something I’ve definitely considered a lot since becoming the parent of an autistic child, and subsequently becoming aware of my own lifelong autistic tendencies. I’ve been reluctant to draw those comparisons to Harvey, given how much he’s already a hot potato of ableism discourse. Regardless, I think it’s been a major reason I’ve identified on some deeply personal level with Harvey as a character.

The one image that really got me starting wondering if Harvey’s autistic was this bit from his origin retelling in Countdown to Final Crisis #27, written by Mark Waid with art by Mike Chiarello.

Despite being described as “schizophrenic,” the way li’l Harvey collected 2-related items as a kid really pinged my radar. It was the first time that Two-Face’s obsession with twos seemed like it could be something more than just a goofy gimmick that almost always detracted from the fundamental tragedy of his character.

That said, writers like Waid are exactly the sort who should never try introducing explicit autistic traits into Harvey stories. Waid tends to be very unsympathetic with villains, and just as he used “schizophrenia” as a shorthand for Harvey’s hidden evil, so too might autism be similarly demonized if it was used to illustrate just how “crazy” and “evil” Two-Face is. See again, Waid:

I’m painfully aware that most people don’t view Harvey Dent as a sympathetic character in his own right, but rather just an iconic villain. So while I personally recognize a lot of neurodivergent behaviors in Harvey and I find them to be extremely valuable, I’d be scared to see them explored in canon.

[mysterylover123]

Mysterylover watches Bleach episodes 122-123

mysterylover123

1. Picking up where we left off with the Battle of the Bad Guys. Aizen aka the Evil Emperor, dedcides that GJ’s actions were All About Him and trying to Make Evil Senpai notice him, and GJ agrees to this, annoyingly. Dammit GJ I wanted you to go Spike on his ass!

2. DID GUY WHOSE NAME I DON’T REMEMBER JUST CUT OFF GJ’S ARM?!!? FUCK HIM UP GJ!!! (OMG I just realized GJ is Ichigo’s perfect evil counterpart. Same pumped up spiky haired mannerisms and all)

3. Gin says that Evil Aizen was “cruel” to pit them against each other. Um, cruel is a bit of an understatement, grinning Guy. Lord EvilDouche is way beyond ‘kinda mean’ at this point. 

4. Uryu’s back! Yay! I almost forgot you were in this arc. Uryu why do you even trust this evil Shonen dad to give you back your powers? 

5. Rukia has fun shenanigans at the Kuro house. And yay she was healed fast by good gal Hime. I like seeing them bonding, as well as Ruki letting Ichi have it for being all worried about her like the Tsundere she is. 

6. Sad Brooding Ichigo Montage time. Ichi whatre you gonna do? At least Hime is healed enough to be in school. And a close-up on Tatsuki! Please please please let her get involved in this arc. 

7. Oh Ichi. He’s gonna use them to master his new mode huh.

8. Pigtail girl is badass BTW. Please train Ichi like crazy. 

9. Ichi takes a long time to Just Get It unfortunately. But now he’s fully being trained. Yay I guess? 

10. And your sisters are worried about you! (I’ve just noticed that Ichi’s sisters are kinda like Rukia and Orihime in personality and even looks). And IchiDad is best Dad

11. Orihime and Rukia are both now wearing vests with their uniforms. Guess it’s summertime? Also Ruki couldn’t find Ichi. Damn. 

12. THE HOLLOW CREW READS SHOUNEN JUMP? Is this just a dub joke or was that in the manga?!?! Please tell me Kubo put that line in the manga as a wink and a nod to his own magazine. 

13. Ichi I really hope we can trust these guys cause from where I’m standing it looks like they’re gonna eff you up.

14. Ichi vs Hollow Ichi! I am Zangetsu huh? This is odd...but cool!

15. Feral Hollow Ichi is gonna fight a badass glasses chick? Awesome! I love her already BTW.

16. So we’re back to training montage mode. Always happens eventually I guess

[gone-series-orchid]

drake thoughts

something that i’ve never liked about drake is how one-dimensionally evil he is. you can figure out what he’s going to do/how he’s going to think from the beginning of the series all the way to the end. his character development is him getting more and more unsympathetic, from him being a garden-variety sadistic bully in the first book to...that, but times eleven, by the last. there’s never any room for the reader to sympathize with drake. he’s got no hidden depths, really, aside from a backstory that vaguely explains where his sadism and warped worldview came from (the victim-perpetuator cycle of abuse).

i wonder what it would be like if drake were to be a bit more fleshed-out and not so generic; he could still be a horrible sadist, but he’d feel more human. his penchant for doing evil things would be an active choice he made instead of just the function of the stereotypical villain role he inhabits.

i’d like it if drake was more of a two-bit bully throughout the whole series—he’d be working against the protagonists, but he wouldn’t be necessarily working with the gaiaphage, either. drake, like zil and caine, wants to take advantage of the fayz’s chaos to do what he wants. he wants to be an evil s.o.b.! but he doesn't try to justify it like caine and zil does; he isn’t doing it because of some anti-moof agenda or because he wants to become an all-powerful leader. he’s doing it because because he’s a misogynist who wants to hurt girls as a misguided sexual expression. his evil acts are a manifestation of deep-rooted trauma that persists over and over. it’s awful, but also somewhat tragic; drake is too stubbornly set in his ways to achieve any sort of resolution to the trauma he’s suffered. like all victim-perpetuators, he wants to inflict his suffering on others. he’s stuck in a cycle of abuse that never ends. when the fayz doesn’t conform to his preconceived notions of how the world works, he seeks to make it that way, no matter the cost.

i’d like it if the tragedy of drake’s character was illustrated more. he’s a character to be pitied. and if that sense of pity became stronger and stronger in the audience as the series went on, as drake becomes more and more unhinged. by the later books, it’d be interesting if he were something of a beaten-down rabid dog, still insisting his superiority as head bully™ as his undead body deteriorates and more formidable villains like gaia rise up. in this version of the series, he’d be a relic of the early days of the fayz, unable to adapt.