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Absolutely. A villain who simply is evil “just because they’re evil” is (in my opinion) pretty lousy writing unless you’re expressly doing it for the sake of comedic parody (And even then it entails a pretty tricky balancing act). Same applies to heroes; being good just because for the sake of “being good” definitely exists, but it’s a pretty flat defining measure for a written character.

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I never knew this was the hill I’d die on until you put it into words. Y E S.

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“I will kill everyone”

“No don’t”

“Why”

“Cos it’s bad”

“ok”

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But… but you don’t understand - the hero always needs to have the moral high ground :joy:
Coincidentally, I’d like to read a story where the moral high ground of the protagonist actually resulted in a bad ending.

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Hill is die on? Definitely happy endings. Like do t get me wrong angst is great and you can totally end some books in a series with angsty endings however in my opinion the last book should have some sort of happy ending. Like I hate when an author gets people to love the characters and then just gives them a miserable ending

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Agreed to an extent. It does depend on what the story is, what the character’s obstacles are and which direction the growth is in though. One Punch Man for instance requires the hero to be obscenely powerful or it would ruin the point.

I think people are sometimes a little hung up on the idea of all important characters needing to grow significantly in every area in order for the story to be worthwhile. Static characters or characters that are already at advanced stages in certain categories also have their purpose. Even when you’re following a character from their literal birth, there is still such a thing as natural talents and what have you.

It depends on what one’s thought process is relative to because these examples definitely aren’t pale daisies either.

One of the first things to understand about history is the astonishingly large portion of it that is educated guesswork or a fill in the blank style unknown so I would argue you absolutely can and
would have to in many instances. And even if that weren’t the case, people weren’t the Borg before 1990. What is called ridiculous is often merely not in vogue or proprietary but has life ever been perfectly aligned to a handful of standards really? I wouldn’t be able to comment on the examples given; that’s just my limited take.

I’m not sure what you believe historical fiction or alternate history is if not fictionalized history, honestly. Whether the fictionalized parts are entertaining or feel cohesive or not is up to the reader I suppose, but no one has a rulebook on what can be tweaked and what cannot be.

It depends on how deeply they are invested in their plans or whatever it is being fought and how moral they believe them to be which are two different things. People’s philosophies vs. actions are complex. A villain may believe themselves to be the true hero across the board, or they may believe the hero is misguided on what is the lesser of two evils, or they may be lying to themselves and not believe what they are doing is right but feel they have to go through with it anyways, or they may be attempting to do the pragmatic thing but be truly eaten inside about their failures or or or. Just as a hero can fight an antagonistic force without hating that force, the villain doesn’t necessarily think of the hero as their ENEMY in all bold either. Also, it may be a cliche, but never say never.

Anything becomes considered less and less interesting when it is seen enough. Pragmatism vs moral grandstanding is not the exception. If the script were flipped, we’d possibly be discussing how villains should be swayed with an appeal to compassion. Nothing is definitively interesting to me although I’m sure that’s not what you were truly saying anyways.

Fair. What I said on that was narrow; I’ll try to rephrase now. It is commonly believed, not necessarily and in fact clearly not by you but commonly, that race and so forth was far more confined than it was. Many do not know polar regions had and still have native populations such as the Inuits let alone the reason why. It’s the same in so many conversations surrounding certain media. What supposedly doesn’t make sense is really them not knowing why it makes sense and that it’s existed in our own world since forever. I actually agree with you to a point that authors should write in why something is how it is, but I also think it gets messy and that this comes up again and again where it’s not a present issue in the first place. That, and that it’s not always necessary.

I agree. But if it exists outside the abilities to grasp of the world you’re writing about or at least outside their common knowledge? For instance, Star Wars. What is the force? Yeah, midichlorians, yada yada. If you go deep enough into “how come” with that question still, and almost with any origin question, the answer essentially becomes “because”. There are varying scales on when someone’s answer will be “because,” and not all narration is the omniscient kind which can surpass any one individual’s level.

Fair enough again. But I’m still not 100 on why race or whatever description of a character’s appearance/identity has to have particular significance unless that’s what the story is about. And I don’t think the sense it makes has to be connected to our brand of sense demographic/culture wise, especially when you get deeper and deeper into fantasy setting. Agree to disagree then.

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I actually think the midichlorians explanation is obnoxious. I’m fine with the force just existing. In fact, it “just existing” enhances the story, like it’s the physical manifestation of good, evil, and everything in between. And it does raise a lot of questions, but I think this mystery adds to the universe rather than detracts by confusing the audience, because this mystique behind the force is pretty critical to the mystique behind the factions that use it (the Jedi and Sith, and other orders if you move into the extended universe.)

So, sometimes not having a “logical” explanation to things in a setting is good, I think.

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I think you don’t really understand the point of historical fiction? It usually has one of two goals: convey a message or exercise a fantasy. If it’s the former, by all means, it should be accurate. But part of the latter, fantasy, is that things can change earlier, or a small event can change large things, or even a large thing can’t change small things. World War Z, for example, where there’s no clear reason why the virus only spread in the late 20th century and why history went exactly the same until then.

True, you’re right. The fact is that we just don’t know exactly how any group in history lived. We have clearer pictures of some than others, but it’s simply not feasible to know everything about how people lived in the past. That’s part of why technically every piece of historical fiction is fantasy.

Oh yeah, that reminds me: FYI to writers, modern scholarship agrees that Bushido as a concept was invented by Meiji era nationalists and quickly picked up by European Orientalists and dispersed through misinformation. You can still use it though, of course.

I suppose you can set an entire story in only one type of setting, but honestly, if you’re doing that, why not base it off the Edo Benin Empire or Khmer Empire instead of Medieval Europeans? I’m sure most stories would still work well in other complex stratified societies like these, and you have the added bonus of teaching people about topics that don’t show up often in Western curriculums.

True, issues came up the second we pulled out absolutes. But generally I’m considered light-skinned as someone from a country close to the equator, and most Inuit or Native Siberians I’ve seen are generally paler than I am, so it’s a very subjective measure.

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This may sound contradictory to some of my previous statements, but this is one of the cases where I agree with what you said here. The original Star Wars, for all of its sci-fi trappings, is more of a fantasy adventure. The Force’s appeal is partly due to this said mystique which you mentioned; I disliked it when George Lucas suddenly flipped the consistency of the previous flavor of the original episodes and began trying to explain everything with a more scientific slant.

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I guess it’s not size-fits-all - some settings do better without scientific explanation for everything.

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Magic doesn’t need to be fully explained/explained away. It’s more fun when its mysterious and mystical.

This is one of the gripes I have with Doctor Strange. Magic is magic.

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When it comes to magic, I’d say that it doesn’t need to be explained fully, however, there are things that should ALWAYS be explained with new magic systems.

The two main points that I believe should be discussed are:

1: The limitations of magic: If magic has no limits placed on in early on, then it can be easy for the author to just use it as a crutch to get the main group out of a sticky situation.

2: How to progress magical skill: The process of becoming better at magic and being more skillful should be explained, either via montage or by telling people, so that it doesn’t feel like bullshit when the MC starts firing death lasers at the villain like it’s no big deal.

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I have three

Super powerful doesn’t negate room for character growth. It also doesn’t mean it can’t be interesting. Three words: One Punch Man. It’s one of the most interesting shows I’ve seen and proves that being practically unbeatable doesn’t equal uninteresting.

Personally, in most cases I would rather see that done well than the age old “powerless MC becomes uber powerful and/or the bestest” because too many writers don’t understand humans well enough to pull it off without resulting to destroying every character around the MC to show how great the MC is. If you can’t prove a character to be powerful or smart without altering all the other characters in the vicinity, then there’s a problem.

Anyway… my point is that super powerful characters can be interesting and their journeys can be engaging as long as there are other qualities and characteristics that define them. If their only defining characteristic is “I’m awesome!” then yeah, I agree that it will be boring.

Agreed. It also stands to reason that the views we have of history give an overall mood of an era, not a more personal one. In some ways, judging the past and assuming we know all the facts is much like using stereotypes, and it’s just as big of a mistake. Personally, I’ve learned to dig for anomalies in history, the stories that are dismissed because they don’t fit the accepted narrative or are judged too insignificant or ‘rare’ to bother acknowledging. Often, that kind of information proves more interesting than the rest. And, the way I see it, you never know what you might learn if you don’t step outside of the box every now and then.

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To me it’s more interesting.