The year is coming to an end and I have one thing I would love to complain about. Something I dislike—no hate is how revenge is treated as a black and white thing in a lot games, as wanting revenge against someone is inherently evil and bad . Not something thats incredibly gray and nuance.And I already dislike being told how to feel while playing something.
Spoilers for a game:
The reason why I’m rambling because I was gifted Tales of Arise from a close friend and we binged played it all night. We got to the part where one of the main characters, whose name is Law, has his father murdered by a villain. In turn we go and fight him, killing him in the process. The next villain we fight is connected to another main character, Rinwell. Not only did this particular villainess enslaved an entire people but also genocide another, those being Rinwell people. Rinwell wants vengeance for her dead family and friends. It’s incredibly justified but for some god forsaken reason it’s treated as something bad. Hell when she has the final kill shot, Law gets in the way and protects the villainess.
Scolding Rinwell and tells her killing that evil woman somehow makes her even worse and instead we should turn her in(by the way there’s no judicial system in this world, that dumbass). As when he killed the previous villain, it didn’t make him feel better about his father death. So I guess the heroes aren’t allowed to kill her because revenge is bad but don’t worry another villain literally comes in like Batman to do it for them. Cause he’s evil and that’s okay……
This whole entire scenario left an awful taste in my mouth.
Oh yeah. It makes no sense that killing somebody for revenge is inherently bad even if it’s portrayed as a good thing that they die. Like sure, we need this villain to die, there’s no viable alternative, but if the hero does it, they’re magically not as heroic. It needs to be done but if you do it, you’re evil.
It’s why I’m not fond of “Bad Guys Do The Dirty Work”. It’s either bad or it’s not. You can’t make something objectively necessary and then say anyone who does it is evil. It’s one or the other.
Personally, I think revenge is different from “the bad guy needs to die, we have no other choice,” or seeking justice. If the villain needs to die, that’s fine. But the hero having a vendetta, wanting to actually kill somebody? I don’t like it
Well, I can’t disagree that it’s often handled poorly or too heavy-handed. But personally I love a good anti-revenge story, over an equally good revenge tale. The revenge story can be cathartic for a moment but the opposite is ultimately more satisfying to me.
I can respect that but real life in general is anti-revenge, poor regular people get screwed over every single day by incredible nasty and straight up evil people. Who not only get away with it but get to live happy long lives, free of consequences. But those same poor people are told they need to move on and that’s it “okay”. I don’t need to consume any anti revenge stuff, life already has a crap ton of it I can see with my own eyes.
Fiction is the only media that can give wronged characters truly satisfying endings.
See, part of why I like the anti-revenge message is because my experience is the complete opposite (and I agree with the sentiment of course). It seems to me that the average person has at least a bit of a vindictive streak. Just because they don’t have the power to act it out doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
Ah I dislike having choices for an easy puzzle I can do myself and not because my character stats aren’t high.
Pss, y’all should play library of Ruina for a fun anti revenge story. It’s really great. Plus you do get the option for it anyway
Anyway I need extenuating circumstances. Like the target is genuinely a normal and or repenting person now. Or the OG incident was an accident or misunderstanding. Maybe you did something to provoke them, or you’re family did. you and the target could be friends/comrades/whatnots? Nvm fantasy settings have mind control and the like. Or the avenger is looking at stuff tangentially related to get revenge to soothe their grief. The avenger is going too far? Involving other people etc
Like what if we got a child killer who is all grown up now and normal?
Or just mistaking the person?
Anyway life is super revenge happy to me but in the most petty, double standard and annoying ways
I personally don’t see the satisfaction in it. People have been telling the same “revenge will ruin you” story since forever. It’s hard to praise a good anti revenge narrative when I have to shovel anti revenge narratives off of my porch.
A growing hate of mine is authors ignoring hair choices right after you make them. For example A normal theme seems to be using the wind blowing as a chance to choose hair color and style. But usually one of the hair styles is bald or shaved, and yet the choice will end with you pushing/straightening your hair because of the wind. I just said I shave my head! I don’t have hair to fix!!!
I seen it happen some through games as well but while the annoys me it doesn’t make me rage. Hair style is easy to over look and really outside of breaking immersion doesn’t matter much.
But to mess it up directly after it is chosen…hulk Smash!
I totally relate and feel the same mild to raving irritation, depending on the egregiousness of the hair mistake.
Another thing that has been lowkey bothering me has been WIPS that offer us body choices with both “lean” and “lanky” as choices and… they are the same thing? I mean it’s been more than one WIP, do these things mean different things now? To me they are synonyms and I’m not sure the difference, and whatever it is, it’s so subtle it doesn’t even need to be there.
I’ve been under the impression that lanky is more malnourished while lean is more… physically fit? But I’m not native English-speaker, so I can of course be wrong.
Ha ha, exactly! I’ve been under the opposite impression, I’m just never sure. And where does “wirey” fit into this paradigm? Again, they all seem so similar, I need more clarity when I’m literally supposed to be describing myself lol.
The other one I hate is “muscular” vs “athletic”. Again, I’m pretty sure muscular means body-builder muscles whereas athletic is more generalized “in shape” but still so vague. Athletic compared to who? In what sports? This is the meaningless minutia that can take me out of a story for a quick minute because I fixate on otherwise meaningless details.
My interpretation of lean vs lanky is the same as @batmansrobin and @LiliArch’s. For wiry, I interpret it as someone who’s rather skinny but also strong. Like someone who has the build of a stereotypical anime nerd but can also bang out like 50 push ups no problem. Muscular to me is someone who’s built like a bodybuilder or something along those lines, while athletic is more of a swimmers build I guess? In my mind it’s like Cbum (Chris Bumstead) vs Michael Phelps build for muscular and athletic respectively.
Also, petite. As someone who shops in the petite section, it has nothing to do with the build of my body. It just means that I’m short enough to need shorter pant legs, skirts, sleeves etc.
Just to throw in my reading on the different body types, as I’ve felt it pretty unambiguous (though I understand not getting them): athletic is generalized fit, not big not small but the “average” of fit types with some definition; muscular is large defined muscles, someone focused on strength training; lean is slender but fit/healthy, not necessarily super defined whereas wiry is specifically pretty skinny but with very strong definition; thin and slender are the same thing but slender is the nicer way of putting it, and lanky specifically means slender and long-limbed. Like, a barbarian is muscular, a fighter is athletic, a rogue is lean, and a monk is wiry. Probably very arbitrary I know, but that’s how I picture it.
Of course none of this matters as I can’t come up with a single story or WIP that I’ve noticed actually takes it into account (at least for me choosing lanky/slender; perhaps there’s clearer differences with more diverse body types like fat [not used derogatorily] or muscular)
I remember wips with so many appearance options (e.g. body type), that I had to check dictionaries and English learning forums because I didn’t know what the differences were.
Skin tones: pale, porcelain, ivory, rosy, fair, light… tanned, tawny… Ugh.
I do feel like some WIPs can go a bit over the top with options.
On the more positive side, that does mean that the reader is more likely to be able to choose an option that feels right to them. One person might feel better about the term ‘lean’ while another might prefer ‘slender’, because even though there’s technically not must difference, size wise, the vibe of the terms are very much not the same.
It’s even worse when the descriptors of wood and food are used to describe human skin. Milk tea (sorry, Asadi) is pretty diverse and even the default one is pretty ashen, russet and mahogany make me think of furniture, I still can’t figure out at first glance what’s tawny supposed to be. Also saw someone picking chrysolite descriptor for yellow-ish skin tint and died inside a little because I thought MC was transparent.
