Yes it makes sense. It would motivate them powerfully. But it’s been done too many times, and it’s too easy.
The rule makes you find more interesting ways of motivating them. Are they driven by bruised pride? By romance? By obsession? Anything is more interesting than rehashing the cliché Hollywood loves.
Similarly, don’t make a villain more evil by saying “they’re a dictator and also a kiddie-fiddler orremoved”. That’s just tacking on villainy.
That would be like having a right-wing US President, and saying “oh he’s also aremoved and best friends with a child-trafficker” - lazy, unrealistic writing. Make your villains more nuanced please.
Granted. I have killed the character themselves over and over again to motivate them instead. And permanently severed and replaced pieces, ship of theseus style. The torment will continue until motivation improves.
He is my favorite blorbo and he has every disease
if my whole family died i wouldnt want to do anything
The classic fantasy trope of ignoring how disabling trauma can be
new rule: all stories must either be explicitly revolutionary or be slice of life shows in post-capitalist utopias anything else is reactionary
I can get behind this
I mean…
This just in: a rule that prevents writing a sorry about a Palestinian fighting the Epstein Regime.
Sorry kiddos, your life story is a trope.
The main character is forced to spend time with their cringe family and gets so annoyed that they go on a hero’s journey just to avoid them. Occasionally they get brought into a group phonecall where the family is having a shouting match over whether to buy a new chair or fix the broken one. The argument is never resolved over the entire 12-book series.
But it’s been done too many times, and it’s too easy.
Ok then I don’t wanna see any cishet characters anymore. BO-RING!!! To put a twist onnit you could always have a protagonist with a weird found family, and have them get killed. People would cry, I think.
The rule makes you find more interesting ways of motivating them. Are they driven by bruised pride? By romance? By obsession?
By burning hatred mixing ugly style with lust…
That’s just tacking on villainy.
Ideally I think that if there is a “villain”/antagonist, they should have wronged the protagonist in a really achingly specific way. It should be extremely personal.
Ideally I think that if there is a “villain”/antagonist, they should have wronged the protagonist in a really achingly specific way. It should be extremely personal.
The antagonist banged the MC’s dad and was gone in the morning when dad woke up.
To put a twist onnit you could always have a protagonist with a weird found family, and have them get killed.
Too late, the Witcher series did that
Though largely people hated that arc and celebrated when the unhinged villain brutally murdered Ciri’s found family in front of her
More proof that The Witcher as an IP is a net negative…
As a fan of the games. I can’t argue with you (sad lol). I love the idea and shit but fuck most of the story is annoying AF.
Happens in Legend of the Condor Heroes, too.
But beyond snark that twists the premise in a gay and fandom-bent direction, the premise can be deconstucted itself: why does this conception of storytelling require a protagonist to be wronged by an antagonist who then must be stopped? Why does narrative only center around violent conflict? Has the burger reich so perverted our sensibilities? Is there no room for rumination on the internal lives of characters, the social links between them? The processing of grief? The trials of organising, perhaps? Existential dread? Does the ghost of Joϟϟeph Kkkampbell haunt us so?
Disney in shambles right now
“Neither do we!”
You should look into FF14 villains. There is a grouchy sassy old man I think you would love…though you will have to play all the way up to Shadowbringers to meet him. (There are other good villains but he is normally consider the reigning king)
Though the free trial should go up to Shadowbringers soon with the new expansion next year. If it doesn’t already. I forget where the cut off is anymore. They add a new one to the trail every time a new expansion comes out.
what if we kill their houseplants
My name is inigo montoya, you killed my calathea orbifolia, prepare to die
If you wanna do something out of the ordinary, have a cast that’s mostly Black. (I know this exists, but it’s still pretty rare.) BUT I want it to be either fantasy or sci-fi.
Like I dont think there is a single fantasy or sci-fi show/movie with an entirely black cast at least that I know off.
EDIT You could say Black Panther, but Black Panther with a mostly white cast would be a very weird idea and feel wrong. So I don’t think that one counts, since it needed a mostly Black cast to work. Also super heroe movies are not what im thinking off when I say sci-fi/fantasy.
Like I dont think there is a single fantasy or sci-fi show/movie with an entirely black cast at least that I know off.
Have you been reading books from Africa?
I was specifically taking about movies and shows. I’m aware there’s african-fiction in terms of books.
The Culture average skin tone in humanoids is a lot closer to Black than white, but race doesn’t really exist as a culturally meaningful category for them. The only time it comes up is some Azadians making shitty remarks about Gurgeh.
i’ll give you two guesses what the actors in any mainstream adaption would look like.
One of the many reasons nobody with the resources to make a Culture adaptation could ever be trusted to do so
Only a matter of time before Marlon James’s Black Leopard, Red Wolf gets an adaptation. And there’s supposed to be a movie of Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower soon.
Nnedi Okorafor or N.K. Jemisin might have some scifi/fantasy. I know of their work but not read anything
While that is a very fair recommendation I dont think there are any movies / shows inspired by her. (fuck I just realized im in the writing comm)
Yeelen is a movie I can think of that ian’t American.
Ok. I will give you that. Still the landscape feels very sparse wouldnt you agree ? Like there is Sinners if we count that generously as sci/fantasy. In regards of recent movies but I cant think of much.
Yeah I agree, it’s like trrying to find good trans movies. Good rep is hard to find. If you’re looking for a decent film that has a predominantly black cast I watched The __ That Sat By The Door 1973, not fantasy nor scifi but I enjoyed that recently. I wish there were more predominantly black films
My motivation is being a lumberjack in the forest to get sick gains but all of these gosh durn vampires keep interrupting my workout
This is why Chainsaw Man appeals to so many people: the protagonist’s main motivation is to cop some titties and get laid. Whomst among us hasn’t charged into the mouth of eldritch horrors for the possibility of getting a Fr*nch kiss?
MC of Gintama’s main motivation is to do as little work as possible and to not get hasseled by his landlord
Well lets use the next trope: Kidnap the daughter/wife (has to be female)
are you suggesting they should write men you’d want to recover?!
Um a story about a group of women communist fighters mowing down nazi brigades in order to free their POW husbands would be about the best story I can imagine actually
Ok POW wives and I’ll watch it
Deal!
Nah let’s take ir one further, just fridge them
This is quite Leninphobic
If life imitated art, we’d have better villains (thinking of BtAS)
