#problematic tropes

1. Any of my ships that fit it

2. General Opinion

The era we’re entering now is one of realizing and addressing the social norms we’ve become accustomed to. This story is really about finding the strength somewhere in us to challenge the notions we are taught from the very beginning. Every character I’ve written has their dysfunctions. Every character has their weakness. The powerful characters in the story are not exempt from their own fuck ups, though it might take longer. And sometimes the people who make the biggest waves are those who are gravely underestimated.

Without giving away too many spoilers, I’d like to remind everybody that (my character) Hades is a very selfish person. Brown waves and blue eyes and tragic history don’t make up for the things he does. Nila/ Elpis may be a sweetheart, but she has no idea how to set boundaries, and that hurts her in the long term. Polaris is kind and just, but in his position he often gets railroaded in order for Hades to get what he wants.

Nobody’s perfect, and that sets the story up for problematic interactions. Part of that is what makes the story interesting, but from another angle one might be able to see how lamentable that really is. Hardship and suffering are interesting. And, whether or not it makes for a good story, some characters make their own pain a defining feature, and that can change the entire course of history.

The issue we face with writing problematic characters is not that they’re interesting, or that they affect the story, but that, even when we love them, not all characters are redeemable. Not everybody is going to find the light and have their come to Jesus moment. And, as a writer, sometimes that’s very difficult, because you invest so much time and energy creating and cultivating even the worst of the characters. We encounter the sunken cost fallacy every time we put pen to paper.

That’s why as a writer it’s very important to pace yourself. When you invest that much time and energy into a project, it’s very easy to get burned out. It’s easy to fall so deeply in love with something and spend so much effort on it that you get absorbed by it and you have no idea how to let it go. So you have to pace. And the reason we pace is because most of us, and here I’m generalizing, are afraid to take the entire transcript of our writings and burn them. In very, very short terms, we are terrified of letting go; we are terrified of losing that investment.

(Original sourced here.)

The Celto-Germanic power fantasies are pure and good and noble and the founders of civilisation

The antisemitic stereotypes live underground and sing about gold

The caricature of every steppe culture ever invades every Friday to kidnap our women

That's a English Person

All the humans are white, except for the Barbarians from the Distant Lands