Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Pop psychology has killed the villain

unherd.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 50 posts

Re: Pop psychology has killed the villain

#41

Post by romwell »

dragonwriter wrote: post #3

> Some of these are successful entertainments but, nonetheless, ones that nobody asked for. I doubt that any child has ever watched the Wicked Witch of the West and thought, “Huh, what’s her story?” Wicked wasn't aimed at children. Nor is it even remotely intended as a friendly to the original explanation of backstory, it is a deliberate inversion that is based as much as anything on the insufficient demonstration th…

>I doubt that any child has ever watched the Wicked Witch of the West and thought, “Huh, what’s her story?”

Also, apparently, I was that child.

Not with Wizard of Oz in particular, but I had a book called "Fairy-Tales Of the People of the World" in pre-K, and I remember being distinctly pissed about most of them having a "good" ending whereby the villain was killed.

I was, like, this doesn't seem necessary. Seems kinda bad from the perspective of the baddie. And the "good" characters became kind of repelling.

My favorite tales were the ones about the Sly Fox and the like, where the stories were about tricking and outwitting.

Re: Pop psychology has killed the villain

#42

Post by dTal »

anm89 wrote: post #35
wpietri wrote: post #6

I hadn't heard about the site, so I looked it up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UnHerd It's paid for out of the pockets of a hedge fund billionaire who used to support the Liberal Democrat party in the UK, but who has since become a major Conservative donor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Marshall_(investor) He's also a major funder of the recently launched UK News, whose biggest draw appears to be far-right poli…

It's an article about someone's opinions about storytelling. Who cares what political team some person connected to the project was on. Are you claiming this invalidates their opinion about screenwriting? Not every occurrence in the world needs to be leveraged to air political grievances.

>Not every occurrence in the world needs to be leveraged to air political grievances.

But the article is rich with political subtext; the idea that society is declining due to unreasonably soft-hearted attitudes towards undesirables is a fundamental anti-progressive pillar. The author is completely aware of these political lines and directly references them.

Counterpoint - why would you expect articles on a media website funded out of pocket by a hedge fund billionaire with a penchant for political lobbying to be neutral? What's in it for the billionaire?

Re: Pop psychology has killed the villain

#43

Post by anm89 »

dTal wrote: post #42
anm89 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an article about someone's opinions about storytelling. Who cares what political team some person connected to the project was on. Are you claiming this invalidates their opinion about screenwriting? Not every occurrence in the world needs to be leveraged to air political grievances.

>Not every occurrence in the world needs to be leveraged to air political grievances. But the article is rich with political subtext; the idea that society is declining due to unreasonably soft-hearted attitudes towards undesirables is a fundamental anti-progressive pillar. The author is completely aware of these political lines and directly references them. Counterpoint - why would you expect articles on a media web…

Gasp! Billionaires! And they have their own website which people can post links to! Gasp again!

Those dastardly billionaires with their media websites.

If only I had known this website was run by evil billionaires I could have found some other website to read links people post about tech stuff.

Re: Pop psychology has killed the villain

#44

Post by romwell »

woodruffw wrote: post #25
sp332 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but it also makes her not a dog-killer. I guess the writers didn't feel up to the task of making that seem banal. It crafted a different character.

I'm not much of a Disney person, but I wouldn't be surprised if the "no dog killing" change was more of a change in child media guidelines than the vague (and culture-war-y) psychological aspersions that the essay's author claims. Violence against animals (and children) is one of those "hard no" rules that I understand to be common practice when developing media for children. Which isn't to say that I necessarily agr…

I agree with this rule.

As a child, every time I encountered a character that was cruel to animals, I was like come the fuck on, that person is already clearly bad, how fucking lazy is this writer?

There was one book where there was one character which was cruel to cats in a very specific way. In 34, I am still feeling traumatized by that short, textual description.

I'm not disturbed easily. Just to quantify: a few years ago, I've seen an aftermath of a fatal car crash: bloodied children, first responders doing CPR on mother's body that didn't need it at that point (she was a goner; news said, she didn't wear a seatbelt). I helped clean the debris for the ambulance to come through.

I was fine at the scene. It wasn't on my mind a eek later. I didn't forget, but it wasn't disturbing anymore. And I didn't even know one can flip an SUV in clear weather.

But I can't get over that fucking cat murderer. I don't even remember the name of the book, or anything else from it. Just the way he did it.

I gained absolutely nothing from that, except a strong hatred for this cheap way of creating a villain.

Even though I learned, when I grew up, that some people do torture animals, and that it is a predictor for other horrible things that they do. That book might have been not just realistic in that description, but outright real.

..I still wish I could've un-read that part.

The only other thing that affected me that strongly was watching "Dancer in the Dark" as a teenager. It's still one of the movies that I'd rank as the Best of All Time. I have not seen it twice, and I don't feel I'm ready.

But at least the cruelty wasn't pointless there. It was a means, not the point.

Cruelty to animals as a villain's trait is rarely a means to an end. A hunter that skins his game isn't an example of that.

But, say, a character that skins an animal for fun is traumatizing.

The problem here is forcing the child to choose between being unempathic or traumatized.

Because either you empathize with the defenseless, tortured being (traumatic), or you get desensitized and learn to not feel bad about cruelty for cruelty's sake.

Which is precisely what we want to avoid.

Re: Pop psychology has killed the villain

#45

Post by romwell »

anm89 wrote: post #43
dTal wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Not every occurrence in the world needs to be leveraged to air political grievances. But the article is rich with political subtext; the idea that society is declining due to unreasonably soft-hearted attitudes towards undesirables is a fundamental anti-progressive pillar. The author is completely aware of these political lines and directly references them. Counterpoint - why would you expect articles on a media web…

Gasp! Billionaires! And they have their own website which people can post links to! Gasp again! Those dastardly billionaires with their media websites. If only I had known this website was run by evil billionaires I could have found some other website to read links people post about tech stuff.

You have added nothing of substance to the thread.

Thanks for admitting you have nothing to say; I love comments that consist of nothing but sarcasm for that reason alone.

Please continue.

Re: Pop psychology has killed the villain

#46

Post by bigbillheck »

anm89 wrote: post #35
wpietri wrote: post #6

I hadn't heard about the site, so I looked it up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UnHerd It's paid for out of the pockets of a hedge fund billionaire who used to support the Liberal Democrat party in the UK, but who has since become a major Conservative donor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Marshall_(investor) He's also a major funder of the recently launched UK News, whose biggest draw appears to be far-right poli…

It's an article about someone's opinions about storytelling. Who cares what political team some person connected to the project was on. Are you claiming this invalidates their opinion about screenwriting? Not every occurrence in the world needs to be leveraged to air political grievances.

> Not every occurrence in the world needs to be leveraged to air political grievances.

The comments on the original article certainly appear to have taken it as an invitation to air political grievances.

Re: Pop psychology has killed the villain

#47

Post by optimalsolver »

anm89 wrote: post #35
wpietri wrote: post #6

I hadn't heard about the site, so I looked it up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UnHerd It's paid for out of the pockets of a hedge fund billionaire who used to support the Liberal Democrat party in the UK, but who has since become a major Conservative donor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Marshall_(investor) He's also a major funder of the recently launched UK News, whose biggest draw appears to be far-right poli…

It's an article about someone's opinions about storytelling. Who cares what political team some person connected to the project was on. Are you claiming this invalidates their opinion about screenwriting? Not every occurrence in the world needs to be leveraged to air political grievances.

>connected to the project

By "connected to the project" you mean "funds the entire thing".

Re: Pop psychology has killed the villain

#48

Post by wpietri »

anm89 wrote: post #35
wpietri wrote: post #6

I hadn't heard about the site, so I looked it up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UnHerd It's paid for out of the pockets of a hedge fund billionaire who used to support the Liberal Democrat party in the UK, but who has since become a major Conservative donor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Marshall_(investor) He's also a major funder of the recently launched UK News, whose biggest draw appears to be far-right poli…

It's an article about someone's opinions about storytelling. Who cares what political team some person connected to the project was on. Are you claiming this invalidates their opinion about screenwriting? Not every occurrence in the world needs to be leveraged to air political grievances.

> Not every occurrence in the world needs to be leveraged to air political grievances.

Sure. But many things do exist exactly for that purpose. So I think it's always worth knowing why something's being written. In this case, the funding model suggests that it's exactly about airing political grievances. Since you claim to care about that, shouldn't you be glad to know that may be going on here?

Re: Pop psychology has killed the villain

#49

Post by wpietri »

anm89 wrote: post #43
dTal wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Not every occurrence in the world needs to be leveraged to air political grievances. But the article is rich with political subtext; the idea that society is declining due to unreasonably soft-hearted attitudes towards undesirables is a fundamental anti-progressive pillar. The author is completely aware of these political lines and directly references them. Counterpoint - why would you expect articles on a media web…

Gasp! Billionaires! And they have their own website which people can post links to! Gasp again! Those dastardly billionaires with their media websites. If only I had known this website was run by evil billionaires I could have found some other website to read links people post about tech stuff.

Gosh, you sound like a guy with a political grievance. Why are you bringing that to a simple statement about who paid for an article?
Post reply on HN