I was reading A Christmas Carol again and I think Ebeneezer Scrooge might actually be the bad guy? Like I thought he was good because he lives in a mansion and can sleep comfortably at night. The ghosts are clearly the bad guys because they're trespassing and violating his castle doctrine to show him all the non-woke things he did. It kinda reminds me of cancel culture and how saying the N-word a few times results in a bunch of social media ghosts bringing that up in future arguments. I used to read that and want to shoot the ghosts with the guns under my pillow which Scrooge would have done if I wrote the book. But I guess he's supposed to be the bad guy because they're actually showing him consequences of bad things he does? Like Tiny Tim isn't supposed to die because he can't afford health insurance?
Judge Dredd is a great comic ruined by chuds with no media literacy.
Although this guy somehow also thinks the Galactic Empire were the good guys, so definitely extra high concentrations of Hitler particles.
I see so many empire logos and stormtroopers on the rear windows of cars around my town.
There's a group of nerds who go around cosplaying as stormtroopers. They are indistinguishable from confederate reenactors.
nooooooooo they do shows for charity noooooooo they cant be fascists!!!1
I would bet a pretty large amount of money that he absolutely loved the movie before he found out it was satire.
Dunno what "self-evidently good" is even supposed to mean here too. Evidenced by what? What evidence? We should let a tonne of utterly traumatised people that have murdered others be the only voters and literally nobody else is allowed unless they're stone cold killers? Monstrous idea.
"Self-evident" means I am automatically correct and everyone who disagrees with me is automatically wrong no matter what they say.
I'd say I def fall into the Conservative side of the spectrum
I never would've guessed.
Okay, so the Judge Dredd thing is boilerplate fash stuff, he fails to get the satirizing, but I’m more perplexed with his take on Star Wars. It’s very explicit throughout the series that there’s a seedy criminal underworld in the galaxy that the empire is at best unable to contain meaningfully, at worst is actively utilizing when convenient. Jabba’s operation isn’t exactly a secret yet the empire clearly lets it slide. How the hell does he get “peace and justice” out of that?
It's not even an organic take to have!
Nothing the Empire does is good!
They're openly shown to execute civilians, oppress damn near everyone and even BLOW UP AN ENTIRE PLANET WITH PLANS TO KEEP DOING IT!
The only way you walk out of Star Wars thinking that the Empire are good guys is if you are a literal fascist!
Of course they’re horrible. That’s the fascist mentality, a little genocide is worth it to make the streets clean and the trains run on time. But the empire didn’t keep the streets clean, they were horrible at it. This dude just sees someone with a badge cracking skulls and automatically assumes that means crime and injustice aren’t a problem.
There's also a shitload of crime in Mega-City One and the fascist enforcers who hold all the legal power are pretty much all shown to be massively corrupt, so lol and also lmao.
Dredd is the One Good Cop, which is why his rookie partner is allowed to extra-legally psychically rip a dude apart for information and why it's totally fine to engage in high explosive firefights in a densely crowded apartment building because someone is manufacturing narcotics.
Adults who derive their morality from legality will forever be children to me
Some 20-30 year old manchild is gonna tell me they think "the law was a solid rock in a sea of chaos" in defense of a piece of media which was mocking all of that with a straight face?
Then again, he is a self-admitted conservative, maybe it should be more impressive he reads things that aren't InfoWars or gun fetishist magazines
This is why you can not under any circumstances make fascists look cool in your art.
If you make fascists look cool and enjoyable to ride along with, people will want to imitate them and will absorb every complaint you have about them into their identity.
Any critique of fascists must start with the fascists being absolute clowns. They should not be "cool".
Show
It sucks because I actually like having cool villains in my fiction. It can make for visually interesting and exciting conflicts, or make the evil instantly recognizable. Ngl I really like the look of the empire in star wars, but I hate that it’s only damn filthy tankies (and those neo marxists taking over universities ofc) who seem to be interested in critically analyzing media and can separate interesting fictional aesthetic from, yknow, actually supporting fascist ideas.
The libs/chuds (
) can’t be trusted to not slobber on even fictional bootsYou can absolutely have a ferocious, scary fash villain. Fascists don't need to literally be Mr. Bean to be a clown. Have them obsessed with something that would otherwise be benign. Have them feel some lack from a failed purity test (i.e. being It*lian and feeling like you're not white) rot their soul from the inside and torture them. Maybe a powerful mage in an all black military uniform who's self-conscious about going bald. A skinhead with a legendary weapon who shaves their teeth until they're all sharp and gets an infection of the mouth. A powerful tycoon whose project is a natural order that is obviously based on fictitious pretenses who has fooled an entire army who refuse to get out of Plato's cave. An elusive, beloved bard who conditions victims to believe that society is full of drones and his victims can do nothing but repeat what the bard has said uncritically. You can give a villain a fatal flaw allegorical to being fash that both makes them look like a clown and doesn't preclude them from being aesthetic.
The newest Wolfensteins did a good job making them look like clowns. Especially the second one, good stuff.
I've seen impotence used pretty effectively in sinister fash villains
Nah, in real life the villans are ridiculous and lame.
Cool villains are a fantasy about the world being more just. What if the suffering you experience isn't from some dentists kid who inherent your house but some cool evil guy. Then your struggle would be noble.That’s true, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a bit of unrealistic fiction here and there, as long as you can separate the exaggerated & escapist nature of that fiction from reality. For a not insignificant number of people their view of “evil” is based entirely on fiction (eg that “trump is voldemort” shit).
Personally I enjoy exploding space nazis wearing cool looking power armor in ridiculous fictional battles, while also acknowledging that 99% of the time the perpetrators of cruelty are the most milquetoast, spineless, banal, and evil pieces of shit in existence - who also happen to deserve the
all the same.Sometimes it’s nice to have that escapist fantasy of incinerating nazi cyborgs, as long as it doesn’t prevent you from doing good in real life of course.
one of the most annoying aspects of nazis is how funny they think they are
whenever a guy like this is posted here, I'm always like "Oh yeah, this guy is obviously doing a bit, why are people here falling for satire so blatant?" and then keep reading and it turns out that the person is not, in fact, doing a bit
for every person here who pokes fun at our inability to see when people are being satirical, there's a guy on reddit who not only thinks that the Empire in Star Wars were the good guys. And not even in an edgy way - he literally thinks that the intention of the films was to show that the rebels were bad and the Empire is good
the empire literally blew up a planet in their opening moment
the dude strangles people on a whim. maybe justice is just a word he instinctively reaches for to justify any authority figures brutality
Its the "Dirty Harry" form of justice.
Following the rules of society to enforce justice allows the "bad guys" to get away with rape/murder/theft. So you've just gotta throw down your badge on the captain's desk and take the law into your own hands.
one of the first actions we see the empire take is blowing up an entire planet to make one prisoner upset
I don't think so? I'm pretty sure I'd remember if the Empire was evil.
edit: source?
Wait there's a thread going on about 2000AD and nobody told me, the inventor of 2000AD Drokkposting?
2000AD LITERALLY DEPICTED THE EXECUTION OF MARGARET THATCHER IN THE FIRST ISSUE! IT'S ALWAYS BEEN LEFTIST!
With the exception of a particularly dark stretch in the mid-90s, all of 2000AD is good. There's a series they do on YouTube called 2000AD ABC, where they give an overview of a bunch of notable series that ran in its pages. I recommend it if you're interested, but nervous about getting into new comics.
With the exception of a particularly dark stretch in the mid-90s
Mark Millar delenda est
Mark Millar and his consequences have been a disaster for the comics industry.
Oh yeah I forgot the best part about Thatcher getting executed on page 3 of issue #1:
She wasn't even PM yet.
The only good thing to come out of England.
I might still have an ABC warriors collection somewhere.
That's not true, The Clash are from England.
Have you read Brink?
No sadly my comic days are in the past and almost all of them are sold off. I’ll look it up though.
E: I do still have lockjaw and the pet avengers.
I've read the first book of that and can't really remember much except thinking it was a pretty boring story with great art.
Just finished 1984 and I'm starting to think that Oceania and the party are supposed to be the bad guys
https://www.reddit.com/r/JudgeDredd/comments/16ablud/have_i_been_reading_judge_dredd_all_wrong/
I guess redditors aren't all bad, because they're really dunking on this fash loser.
