Failshank Redemption!
Hey, everybody. I'm back with a general bashing rant! There's this certain bashing trend that's bugged me for some time now.
So you've got this Villain Redemption fic. In this fic, the main villain is redeemed by the power of TWUU LUBB! Or friendship. Or karmic comeuppance. Or cheese. Whatever.
There's a little problem, though. The author decided to bash a character (or characters). And boy did they ever! The main heroes, supporting characters, or neutral parties get warped into villains themselves. The supporting villains have suddenly become much worse than the main villain ever was. And the comedy relief characters have suddenly become severely annoying jerks. And at the end, all these neophyte baddies are subjected to some horrible fate that makes Agony in Pink look like an episode of Care Bears. Even if they hadn't done anything wrong other than be jerks, they still get tortured and brutally killed by some freak accident (or a Sue).
Now is it just me, or did all that just totally defeat the purpose of the redemption fic?
Seriously, if this fic is about how anyone can turn over a new leaf and be redeemed - especially after the villain received a nasty punishment - isn't making all those other characters utterly despicable and then snuffing them out contradicts everything they had to say? Shouldn't those other bad guys get redeemed, too? Shouldn't the good guys, who the author so brilliantly made into villains, also be redeemed? You'd think the Law of Love Conquers All would apply to everyone, but I guess that's applying Earth Logic where it doesn't exist.
If you want a fandom example, the best one I can think of comes from the Yu-Gi-Oh! fandom (which the rant was inspired by). First, we have Yami Bakura and Yami Malik. They are not nice guys. Yami Bakura is the vengeful spirit of a tomb raider who has a severe grudge against the Pharaoh. In his quest for vengeance against the throne, he's killed countless people without breaking much of a sweat and even summoned the resident Cosmic Horror on Egypt. Yami Malik is an evil second personality created by the tombkeeper Malik. He killed Malik's dad, tried to kill Malik's foster brother, and tortured Yugi and Malik. So yeah, not nice guys. But wait! They can be redeemed! Love conquers all, right? Usually, they're shown the way by their "soulmate," (who that is depends on the author) and immediately stop doing their evil shenanigans. Sometimes, they even settle down and have a family.
And then there's...Téa. Or Anzu, if your prefer. As most of you may know from the countless rants here, Téa's not actually a bitch, she just plays one in bad fanfic. She usually gets warped into a complete idiot or a homophobic harpy. Not nice either, but nowhere near as bad as somebody that summons Elder Gods or takes over someone's body to kill people, right? But what happens to her? Doesn't she get to be redeemed now that she's a villain too? Is she swept off her feet by her own "soulmate" and cured of either her learning disabilities or crippling hatred of homosexuals? Hell no. She gets thrown in jail, tortured, or killed in some brutal fashion.
Yeah, I know this has been around forever. I'm aware of the "reasons" (somebody in the way of an OTP, can't tell the difference between fanon and canon, main villain is a bishie, need a villain because the bad guy is a good guy now and OMG can't have a story without a villain, or just plain wanting to take their anger out on a character). But I still find it disturbing. Not only does it show that the authors are so busy bashing a character that they aren't paying attention to the moral of their own story, it also seems that the REAL moral of the story is "Everybody can be redeemed...but not you, 'cause I don't like you!"
(I hope this doesn't seem more like a fanfic rant than a character bashing rant. I can get rid of it if it does.)
So you've got this Villain Redemption fic. In this fic, the main villain is redeemed by the power of TWUU LUBB! Or friendship. Or karmic comeuppance. Or cheese. Whatever.
There's a little problem, though. The author decided to bash a character (or characters). And boy did they ever! The main heroes, supporting characters, or neutral parties get warped into villains themselves. The supporting villains have suddenly become much worse than the main villain ever was. And the comedy relief characters have suddenly become severely annoying jerks. And at the end, all these neophyte baddies are subjected to some horrible fate that makes Agony in Pink look like an episode of Care Bears. Even if they hadn't done anything wrong other than be jerks, they still get tortured and brutally killed by some freak accident (or a Sue).
Now is it just me, or did all that just totally defeat the purpose of the redemption fic?
Seriously, if this fic is about how anyone can turn over a new leaf and be redeemed - especially after the villain received a nasty punishment - isn't making all those other characters utterly despicable and then snuffing them out contradicts everything they had to say? Shouldn't those other bad guys get redeemed, too? Shouldn't the good guys, who the author so brilliantly made into villains, also be redeemed? You'd think the Law of Love Conquers All would apply to everyone, but I guess that's applying Earth Logic where it doesn't exist.
If you want a fandom example, the best one I can think of comes from the Yu-Gi-Oh! fandom (which the rant was inspired by). First, we have Yami Bakura and Yami Malik. They are not nice guys. Yami Bakura is the vengeful spirit of a tomb raider who has a severe grudge against the Pharaoh. In his quest for vengeance against the throne, he's killed countless people without breaking much of a sweat and even summoned the resident Cosmic Horror on Egypt. Yami Malik is an evil second personality created by the tombkeeper Malik. He killed Malik's dad, tried to kill Malik's foster brother, and tortured Yugi and Malik. So yeah, not nice guys. But wait! They can be redeemed! Love conquers all, right? Usually, they're shown the way by their "soulmate," (who that is depends on the author) and immediately stop doing their evil shenanigans. Sometimes, they even settle down and have a family.
And then there's...Téa. Or Anzu, if your prefer. As most of you may know from the countless rants here, Téa's not actually a bitch, she just plays one in bad fanfic. She usually gets warped into a complete idiot or a homophobic harpy. Not nice either, but nowhere near as bad as somebody that summons Elder Gods or takes over someone's body to kill people, right? But what happens to her? Doesn't she get to be redeemed now that she's a villain too? Is she swept off her feet by her own "soulmate" and cured of either her learning disabilities or crippling hatred of homosexuals? Hell no. She gets thrown in jail, tortured, or killed in some brutal fashion.
Yeah, I know this has been around forever. I'm aware of the "reasons" (somebody in the way of an OTP, can't tell the difference between fanon and canon, main villain is a bishie, need a villain because the bad guy is a good guy now and OMG can't have a story without a villain, or just plain wanting to take their anger out on a character). But I still find it disturbing. Not only does it show that the authors are so busy bashing a character that they aren't paying attention to the moral of their own story, it also seems that the REAL moral of the story is "Everybody can be redeemed...but not you, 'cause I don't like you!"
(I hope this doesn't seem more like a fanfic rant than a character bashing rant. I can get rid of it if it does.)