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But Why
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@Faraday
In Star Wars, the Empire are the bad guys. People can play as them if they want but no one is mistaking them for the heroes.In fantasy stories the Knight born into privilege and the Princess born into power are seen as the good guys while they ride their majestic white steed past the peasants dying in the streets.
You’re also correct about the wild-west was a terrible setting that glorified some of the worst people in history. Cowboys, real cowboys were the working class of cattle ranchers but the genera of Cowboy stories paints corrupt, mass murdering cops, thieves, and outlaws as the heroes of the story.
There are very few Wild West or Fantasy settings where the protagonist is in any way a good person. They are usually the lesser evil, at best.
It’s the propagation of the belief that the worst examples of humanity are the heroes of the story I have a problem with.
Maybe I’m just a liberal snowflake but I am sick and tired of bad people being held up as icons and getting away with doing terrible things while people cheer. I don’t see how anyone could enjoy pretending to be one of those vile people.
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@De-Villefort I really don’t know what to say to you at this point, except but why.
But why are you constantly ascribing historical facts to fiction as if the fiction was itself fact? You’re literally trampling on the definition of words here, and I’m at a loss.
MU* RP is fiction. We are not rewriting history. We are not reenacting history (the events in the RP are not events that take place on Earth). We are not copying history and everything that transpired within it, so far as I know. We are not literally becoming people who want to do evil things by becoming a Baron. I’m not going to go enslave my neighbors into being my serfs as soon as I’m done with scene 492. I don’t even have those thoughts.
I’m seriously questioning your ability to keep IC and OOC separate, at the minimum.
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@De-Villefort said in But Why:
There are very few Wild West or Fantasy settings where the protagonist is in any way a good person. They are usually the lesser evil, at best.
What are some examples of genres that you think do a good job of depicting truly good protagonists
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@De-Villefort said in But Why:
@Faraday
In Star Wars, the Empire are the bad guys. People can play as them if they want but no one is mistaking them for the heroes.In fantasy stories the Knight born into privilege and the Princess born into power are seen as the good guys while they ride their majestic white steed past the peasants dying in the streets.
You’re also correct about the wild-west was a terrible setting that glorified some of the worst people in history. Cowboys, real cowboys were the working class of cattle ranchers but the genera of Cowboy stories paints corrupt, mass murdering cops, thieves, and outlaws as the heroes of the story.
There are very few Wild West or Fantasy settings where the protagonist is in any way a good person. They are usually the lesser evil, at best.
It’s the propagation of the belief that the worst examples of humanity are the heroes of the story I have a problem with.
I know very little of Star Wars but don’t the ‘heroes’ often do sketchy things? Weren’t they the cause of hundreds of lives being lost? I know more of Star Trek. And I wouldn’t really call any of the Enterprise (or its variants) ‘heroic’ or anything.
You seem to be painting with black and white over adding any variation. Si-Fi, Fantasy, Western, are all based off something that embodies humans in one form or another. Comic books, for example, OFTEN flip the switch on their ‘good guys’ and show how dark they can go. Batman is a ‘dark hero’ who is bent on Vengeance but has a code of ethics but when he loses sight of those ethics he’s presented as one of the most sinister villains in DC’s universe.
If you can divorce RL for Western mu*s, si-fi (which I’ve noticed tend to have worse outcomes than anything fantasy) why is it so hard to do so with people wanting to be a pretty princess or a lord? People clearly just want to have fun being a royal or noble. Just like people enjoy being the Jedi person thing with the cool swords or a Star TRek person with the pewpew lazer or the cowboy who can shoot guns and never miss like in almost all western type movies (unless it is story purpose).
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@Rinel
Mostly stuff set in the future. Star Trek is good example for the most part.
Star Wars is mostly a good example. The Jedi are for all their many flaws, people who act selflessly for the good of society as a whole.
Super-hero based stories are of course focused on basically good people.
Firefly is a good, well known story with basically good protagonists.
Remember the Knight Rider TV series? That was a good example of good heroic people.I’m not saying all sci-fi is superior. Even in Sci-fi many of the heroes of the story are kinda shitty people.
Johnny Neumonic was basically a guy who professionally facilitated crime.
Blade Runner was about a guy who did a job he believed was wrong until it broke him.
Dune was just a bunch of rich people having a galactic scale pissing contest.My problem with the fantasy genera is that the stories who have terrible people for heroes is the standard not the exception.
There were no good people in Game of Thrones. (Except Hodor but he wasn’t a main character.) -
@icanbeyourmuse said in But Why:
People clearly just want to have fun being a royal or noble.
That’s like saying, “People clearly just want to have fun being a plantation slave-master.”
You’re being one of the worst people in that world to have fun?
Can you see where that might seem problematic from the outside?
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I am just going with this person only wants to villainify Fantasy no matter what is said.
The example of Firefly having ‘good people’ is pretty false. The /characters/ have morals, as any do. However, all of the crew of Serenity have little issue with putting people to death to achieve their goals. Jayne is with Serenity because Mal gave him the ‘best offer’ and there was an episode about him betraying Serenity. Mal and company were kicking people into a ship engine or whatever because they wouldn’t take money back to their boss. Serenity literally deals in black market stuff. They are in,no way, ‘good people’. They are the lesser evil in a world of people who commit deeds of eviler intents.
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@De-Villefort Wow. Dude, you should maybe seriously think about disconnecting from mushes if you’re making analogues to role-playing a character and actual slavery.
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@De-Villefort said in But Why:
@icanbeyourmuse said in But Why:
People clearly just want to have fun being a royal or noble.
That’s like saying, “People clearly just want to have fun being a plantation slave-master.”
You’re being one of the worst people in that world to have fun?
Can you see where that might seem problematic from the outside?
Trying that doesn’t work for on me, man. I am Native. I come from a ‘race’ that people tried to do genocide on. Should I be hating people who play priests because in my view many of those who follow religions are some of the worst people humanity has to offer. Should I tell my religious friends and family I don’t like them because they follow people who were the cause of the attempt on genocide? Should I hate all the white people for taking our land? For enslaving black people? For still prosecuting them and villainifying them? Your argument has little weight since the ‘worst people ever’ are just humans in general with some exceptions. I don’t claim myself to be a ‘good person’. If you try the ‘the stuff to natives was in the past and is from the time period of horrible people’ BS I can prove otherwise.
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@icanbeyourmuse
Yeah, Jayne is a scumbag at the start but he gets better over time.
But again, he’s the exception not the standard.
Most of the crew don’t want to kill.They are often in a situation where they have to in order to stay alive but they don’t go looking to kill. The same could be said for Star Wars rebel alliance, the Jedi, or any other heroic faction.
Nobles and Royals, they aren’t forced to kill. They choose to make war for power. They choose to ignore the suffering of their people for their own comfort. It’s expected for them to be bad people. Them being terrible people is baked into the setting.
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@De-Villefort said in But Why:
Nobles and Royals, they aren’t forced to kill. They choose to make war for power. They choose to ignore the suffering of their people for their own comfort. It’s expected for them to be bad people. Them being terrible people is baked into the setting.
Tell me you don’t play L&L games without telling me again. Do you know how many L&L games devolve into races to be the most charitable?
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@De-Villefort said in But Why:
Nobles and Royals, they aren’t forced to kill. They choose to make war for power. They choose to ignore the suffering of their people for their own comfort. It’s expected for them to be bad people. Them being terrible people is baked into the setting.
Tell me you don’t play L&L games without telling me again. Do you know how many L&L games devolve into races to be the most charitable?
I’m going with that the person hasn’t even looked closely at Arx, Atharia, or Concordia (I haven’t looked closely at that one but from what you guys have said, they don’t do historic nobility either) or any of the more modern fantasy games.
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@icanbeyourmuse said in But Why:
Trying that doesn’t work for on me, man. I am Native.
If someone built a game where everyone played the people who funded and benefitted from the trail of tears, would you be okay with people saying they wanted to play those rich land barons because they thought it was fun to throw parties and dance with all the pretty daughters of industry?
Injustice is injustice.
I don’t have to be Native to know what those land thieves did to the natives was wrong and that their life style shouldn’t be lauded as a good time. -
You all know this is a troll, right? There are no minds to be changed here.
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If I can summarize what I think you’re getting at; you’re asking why people make knights and the monarchy their protagonists, when they are the historical and moral equivalent to today’s billionaires, and yet people don’t vilify them the way they do today’s billionaires.
The thing is… people still do venerate billionaires, in real life and in their fiction. Just look at modern superhero settings, with characters like batman or iron man. Or even just look at the way Star Wars itself came to treat the Skywalker family. The chosen one narrative is directly emergent from the right of kings narrative of stories like that of King Arthur, but it is a core part of basically all popular fiction today, fantasy or scifi. It’s a topic that many critics dig into as a fascination for our society as a whole, but the very reason it’s problematic is the reason it’s attractive to people. They want to feel a little bit like the chosen one. Whether that’s through having magical powers or through being really rich and in charge or being the best at shooting aliens in your space ship.
No one’s saying you have to like fiction that implicitly or explicitly depicts a “right of kings” society, or like monarchies depicted and roleplayed in fiction, but I think you’d be best served at this point by just acknowledging that you have a personal and deep-seated dislike of it in this particular genre, instead of trying to argue that actually depicting a semifantastical monarchy and RPing a princess are the uniquely worst version of this kind of fantasy.
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@De-Villefort said in But Why:
@icanbeyourmuse said in But Why:
Trying that doesn’t work for on me, man. I am Native.
If someone built a game where everyone played the people who funded and benefitted from the trail of tears, would you be okay with people saying they wanted to play those rich land barons because they thought it was fun to throw parties and dance with all the pretty daughters of industry?
Injustice is injustice.
I don’t have to be Native to know what those land thieves did to the natives was wrong and that their life style shouldn’t be lauded as a good time.Why would I hold it against them? Are they saying they are doing it because they are ‘out to get me’? Are they doing it intentionally to be a jerk? Are they planning to play out abusing the people that are under them? Or are they doing it because they want to have fun with the rose colored view of nobility? The answer, as someone who prefers the fantasy genre, has been mostly ‘no’ to all but the last question. There is always exceptions. You’re viewing it as they are only intending bad intent. Everyone has, repeatedly, told you that fantasy as a royal or noble is divorced from the RL variant and everyone has acknowledged that nobility in history was not as rose colored as what we all play in the fantasy setting.
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@DrQuinn YOU’RE RIGHT, BUT MY GOD.
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@Tez oh shit i was going to say something but then i remembered we’re not in that section of the board, lol
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@DrQuinn I had a feeling the dude was a troll when he made his initial argument and using an image still from anime.
