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The video title is very misleading
Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
STORM TROOPERS?? STORM TROOPERSS
Bro has a voice like a gentle landslide
16:20 you talk about how "orcs aren't people" but, that isn't the message in that story AT ALL. Orcs are people... they're just people who are trying to kill you and your family. Lord of the Rings is a war story, Orcs are enemy soldiers. It's understandable to kill enemy soldiers: war is a kill or be killed situation, you can't just not kill (or aid in killing, which is morally equivalent) when there is a war on. That's not one of the available options. This is NOT the same however as killing soulless henchmen. The deaths of enemy soldiers DO matter narratively: the act of killing another person changes the hero, even when it was done out of necessity. The hero can remain likeable, if they don't graduate from killing out of necessity to killing for sport, but they cannot remain unchanged by the act of killing. Cannon Fodder have to be soulless, or your reader is 100% going to say "hey, this hero is a mass murderer". I think this also applies to Man vs. Nature stories as well, because a war story is really just another version of that. Man vs. Nature is always really Man vs. Himself: and war stories are always that as well. The animal, or the enemy is always a representation of the hero's inner darkness. Aragorn never says as much, but if you read the entire book including the Appendices, you learn that many of the enemies are his relatives: some of the Ringwraiths, the barrow-wight, and the Corsairs. They represent tastes of what he might become if he were to take the Ring, precisely because he is a killer. Him being a warrior is presented as a necessity, but a dangerous one: one that actually causes him to face certain temptations which the hobbit characters don't, because they never kill. Also, Deadpool isn't likeable because he's good. Deadpool is likeable because he's funny, raunchy and entertaining to watch. Deadpool can kill people because he's not a good guy. Don't confuse anti-heroes and heroes, it's NEVER a problem for an anti-hero to kill a person because the entire point of anti-heroes is that they do morally questionable stuff. No one is out here claiming that Deadpool is the epitome of morality, we just like watching Ryan Reynolds in a skin tight suit dual-wielding katanas and cracking jokes. The entire point of Deadpool is to remove the necessity to think about the morality behind his actions by just up-front admitting that he's not a good guy. This is also a valid strategy for a writer and one that I personally think more authors who write historical fiction and non-fantasy fiction ought to use (instead of creating characters with incongruously modern attitudes towards social issues). Like, just make it clear that these people were #problematic, but that isn't a reason to not try and understand them. Because see that's the issue with the argument that "this story's hero is problematic" outside of fantasy (even within fantasy this can be a dumb argument when the character in question was never supposed to be heroic). So what? Problematic people are still people, who can be relatable and understandable. Having an emotional attachment to a character is not a reason to twist logic in order to justify that character's actions.
Mishandling death is what turned me off of the Jurassic World Franchise, where the baby sitter somehow got the most brutal gruesome death of the movie. I was like... WHY? That was funny in the theatre, but why are you making it funny for characters to die? Isn't this supposed to be action-horror? Aren't I supposed to be scared? Later I found out that scene felt funny because the movie was using the cinematic language of the karmic death on a character who had not been established to deserve it. Creating a jarring experience.
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did my guy have to use the eng dub of old FMA to jumpscare the shit out of me and completely break my groove while listening 😂😂
Im in the middle of a story that deals heavily with death so i needed this thank you
the tigerzelo (whatever its name is) stance is hard to compare since the first time Aang did it, the comment wasn't there so... his fire bending wasn't as strong as Ozai or as himself later on. it's different. and then with him being in the Avatar State PLUS the commet... it's harder to scale. but i get your points. you're right, of course haha
I have always believed that killing a villain is not in the heroes best interests because in someway that will fundamentally ruin their idealism. But sadly a truly unrepentant villain will not stop until they are put down, but I believe the hero should always kill in self defense or be forced instead of killing in cold blood or rage.
If your bringing up fma the xerxians with their extinct gold hair and eyes fit that niche narritively as well as visually
"Don't want kids to a corpse lying on the ground." Immediately plays Tarzan clip that shows the shadow of a body being hung. As if thats better! Lol
One thing that I learned from George RR Martin is that killing to many characters, without at least exploring their ideology, backstory and function in the plot is a huge mistake, Martin made that mistake, kill to many characters, and replace them with characters that we known nothing about or he did the opposite exploit a fan theory only to promote his show to oblivion, no actually caring about continuity, characters alliances or development, only for marketing, when that character was already dead in the books, now he changed the strategy for one similar to Stephanie Meyer Twilight, putting a team against another, when his story can be basically resume as Shakespeare Hamlet. Anyone remember how nearly all the characters ended in that play?
How about let’s talk about the morality of Savage Books absolutely killing it with his content recently?
So, Avatar TLA got around this by taking away Ozai's Firebending. How do we feel about characters who don't kill their enemies but do permanently disarm them (ie: remove their powers, their tools, their limbs, etc)
It's at least better than what Batman allows the Joker to get away with for sure.
This video was very thought provoking and made my analyse how i was treating death and killing in my own writing as well as in the fiction i consume. I will think for some time about this.
I find that the hero who chooses not to kill because of the vast power difference between them and their charges and/or adversaries, like Superman or Invincible, are the most compelling version of the choice not to kill. Otherwise, I feel like on even ground, we let the Lord decide who lives lol
That out group and in group thing skips a bit on that frequently those bad guy groups are trying to do something unapologetically wrong or evil. There was a reason star wars started with the empire glassing a planet :P Them just being different so we fight them is true, but then Thanos and co. is also trying to murder A LOT of people. This speaks in a lot of absolutes that rarely universally apply
Deaths can be impactful on "completed characters", but done poorly it feels so, so cheap lol And I guess that is the catch with death tropes. If the audience think it was useless or stupid in any way, you have usually cheapened your story.
Rule of Cool is not what enables F&F to exist, it's not what created it, and I would argue it damaged it beyond belief It's that kind of 'View it as a guiding light' that has damaged far more media than helped it - That includes the Velo riding a trex scene as well as the movie in general
Kind of interesting how the target demographic for these kinds of videos is 'People who are aware of the material but have since moved on' and how that's a large enough niche (eg enough people have left the franchise) for it to actually be viable and popular
So I don't have an unhealthy obsession with characters that the writer had probably intended to be less than human, I'm apparently just ✨ahead of my time✨!
I'm slightly saddened that he didn't bring up the garage phone call
I guess the meaning or at least function of death is to make space for the future generations of whatever organism is doing the dying. Including humans, maybe some day we can eliminate natural death scientifically but would this be wise wholesale is another matter.
If you would put your morals above the lives of others, you dont deserve to be in power.
Great video! I subscribed!
No mention of Bridge to Terabithia.. It never gets the appreciation it deserves
11:39 killing bugs still has the word kill in it.
It's funny you show sue storm among those heroes since she's threatened other characters with expanding forcefields inside them.
I wanted to write a short rant about the DBZ example but then Isabella's Lullabay started playing and all my cynicism faded away.
Great video until the end, then you said death is a fundamental part of the human experience. I agree it was in the past, but someday soon no longer.
No, no matter how immortal you are, something will kill you. Invulnerablility isn't something a human can be.
@@mattd5240 I suppose I shall find out.
I most prefer pragmatic heros like some monster hunter characters, Malcolm Reynolds, and the Doctor from Doctor Who.
I used to not think too much about death in fiction, but lately I have been more and more disturbed by it. Not really in fantasy or sci fi where different societal rules apply, but more so in stories with grounded and realistic settings (Uncharted in particular unnerves me). And moreso by watching others reactions to it. Some crave the deaths of the antagonist and are annoyed that the protagonist does not want to kill. Sometimes I can’t help but wonder if they’d actually be comfortable with killing if not for the fourth wall protecting them. A little unfair of me considering the point of fiction IS to experience these things we can’t in a safe way, but I still feel it’s a valid point to raise. One day I want to write a story that really plays with how death is treated in fiction and how we feel about it… And not be preachy about it.
so, the dragonborn IS the dragon afterlife, if a dragon dies by normal means they are simply hibernating in a way, hell some strong ones can just say fuck it ima be awake while 'dead', so it's not that bad
If you can’t let it go, it wasn’t ever worth having to begin with.
38:29 Your Koizilla example is a poor example of someone purposefully killing minions since Aang wasn't in control at the time. Aang causing an avalanche in the Northern Air Temple also is a poor example of Aang contradicting his morals because he doesn't view those actions as fatal which we know from the scene where he tells Yangchen in the finale that he doesn't think he ever killed. If Aang knew/acknowledged that he had killed people with the avalanche but then still refused to kill Ozai, then sure at that point he would be contradicting himself, but as it is, Aang is just ignorant.
The only time a "villain sacrificing themselves as redemption" has ever worked for me is in Transformers: Armada, and they did it twice! The most impactful was the first one, Starscream- he had defected more towards anti-hero, and had become friends with a human, Alexis, because she was the first person to acknowledge him as a being, not a tool for battle. While the Autobots and Decepticons are still squabbling, Unicron (who is as big as fuckin Saturn) has arrived to eat the Earth. Starscream tells Galvatron that he always tried his best for him, but Galvatron still abused him because it was never good enough. They fight, Starscream is bolder than he's ever been. Galvatron is insulting him the whole time, yet still constantly giving Starscream ways out- he doesn't actually want to hurt him. But Starscream is sick of the war going nowhere, mournful now that he's seen how Optimus Prime treats his men and it was never a matter of being "good enough," and angry that the two sides are still standing around while Unicron is about to enter the atmosphere and kill Alexis. Starscream deliberately steps into the path of Galvatron's sword, and is run through, forcing Galvatron to face the harm he's done to Starscream. Starscream tells Optimus and Galvatron that the only way for Unicron to be defeated is if the two of them let go of their pride and work together, because they're only thinking of themselves, and not taking the lives of their troops and the Earth seriously. He asks that they please, please, do it for him. Starscream puts his entire energy store into his laser cannons, and fires at Unicron in the sky, screaming with grief and rage. Being stabbed, with his energy depleted, he can't move out of the way when Unicron strikes him with lightning. His screaming body grows silent as he disintegrates in the light. We cut to Alexis at the space station, and the pendant she has- made of the rock Starscream brought to her from the moon- cracks in two. She runs to the window, and sees a far-off laser inching towards Unicron, but the length of the space is too far; it ebbs away without even touching Unicron. He proved one person cannot do it alone. In the finale, Optimus and Galvatron are at the mouth of Unicron, a black hole. Of course, the gravity is immense, and everything around them is getting sucked in. Galvatron loses his footing, and Optimus grabs his hand, both of them hanging over the precipice. Optimus still holds him, even though the bar they're hanging onto is starting to crack from the weight of both of them. For complicated plot reasons, Galvatron could effectively be a nuke if eaten by Unicron, and kill him if the black hole is destroyed. Galvatron asks Optimus to let go. Optimus refuses, begging for them to find another way. Galvatron says that the war will end here, and they're out of time. Galvatron sees that the bar is about to snap- he takes out his sword, and cuts his own arm off to keep Optimus alive. As he falls into the black hole, he yells goodbye, and to find their men, they need him. A lot of the series is unmemorable, but seeing that as a kid wrecked me for a week. I still get teary-eyed watching Starscream's futile pleas as he's dying, RIP the armada king
I've rewatched recently and theres one point that I felt absent from the discusion within the story that is Marley acuses Eldia of being devils because they usd the power of titans to destroy other cultures but they do EXACTLY the same when they got a hold on to the power, and every other nation would absolutely do the same and still blame the Eldians.
since you've mentioned it somewhat, I'll just say that the last wish is a MASTERPIECE.
Death and killing are different, very different. The protagonist is either the recipient or the instigator, for an Englishman who hasn't been to war, killing is completely unknown, but as a child who grew into an adult, death was part of my life, family/friends died, but I never had the need or the desire to kill. So as a writer I understand the passage of life to death, and understand the associated emotions because I've had the misfortune to experience it and my life experience of those deaths has meaning. The difficulty is when it comes to writing about killing, I can use my imagination but unlike dying, its a story based on others recorded experience not my own, and I suspect since I'm not a psycopath the emotions I can try to articulate are necessarily less complete than those of my own experience. That is why I suspect many literary deaths are almost emotionless, the steely eyed James Bond killer, bang, dead, move on - no emotional impact on the narrative. Yet many interviews with elderly soldiers particulary from WW1 the emotional impact was so devastating and followed them though their lives, but very few written characters are able to articulate this. Thats why I think killers in movies (in particular) are as a character lacking - killing takes life but I suspect the real fact that those killing the impact on them is significant, but for whatever reason, no character in major fiction ever demonstrates this.
My favorite form of Man vs Nature is Dungeon Meshi. They have to kill monsters in order to eat and survive as they navigate the dungeon. But you can feel Ryoko Kui's compassionate, scientific mind. They're enthusiastic and curious the monsters' biology, ecosystem, they use every part they can; they're respectful and reverent in the same way indigenous hunters are. Sometimes it feels less like a comedic DnD adventure, and more like a field guide written by a professor in love with nature!
I honestly really hate the argument that killing is "realistic" in fiction. It's fiction, inherently unrealistic. And even reality can surprise us sometimes; in real life, execution is a highly-contentious topic, not least because it's inefficient in matters of money, investment and legal standards, leaving only emotional closure as the linchpin for the argument, which, as we all know, are easily-understood and simple to communicate to one another. Me, personally, I'm a fan of the argument of "Sure, the bad guys deserve to die, but that doesn't mean the hero is allowed to kill them". Not in the "I don't have to save you" angle, but in the way that we want heroes to have standards the villains don't hold to. A sort of framing of the hero and villain's violence that communicates when one is allowed and the other is not. Then again, I am also a fan of Red Hood and Venom so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Also, there is potential to have a hero who kills minions but doesn't kill the boss; the minions are actively trying to kill the hero, and so the violence is retaliatory rather than vindictive. I am not sure how to write that one, though.
My day just got better.
For a second I thought you were gonna talk about JoJo Siwa 💀
The Khajiit humanborn was sent to kill all humans, it would be completely justified if the only humans left are facists who seek to enslave the world. Alduin was not reviving any old dragon, Party Snacks was not revived by Alduin he just lived in the mountain all this time, Alduin is specifically bringing back facists who support him. If the player chooses not to kill panther shacks (like 99.99999% of players, you gotta be crazy to do that and this is coming from someone who did the dark brotherhood quest a billion times) than it would be evil and the dragonborn would be a genocider not a hero. If the humanborn doesn't kill the human version of panty snatch, than the Khajiit did nothing wrong.
"Thou shalt not kill" is actually a mistranslation. The actual words in the historical language are "Thou shalt not murder", which in context of the times is "killing outside of tribal group". And make no mistake, the crime of murder was a crime in biblical times, but it wasn't a blanket statement to never kill at all.
So it was more acceptable to kill others in your group than those outside of it? Seems backwards to me
So, it's not a flawless, inerrant book
The Teen Titans cartoon makes my brain hurt. I have to assume the cartoon version of Terra didn't sleep with the cartoon version of Slade. 🤪 But seriously, awesome video, excellent consideration and exploration of the subject and it different debates and aspects!
Ha 1027th