Dec 26, 2025
Not "The Character did nothing wrong" or "The Character is irredeemably awful" but a secret third thing: The Character may display moments of deep love & compassion, may even have a strong sense of ethics, and may also be capable of brutal cruelty that is irreconcilable with those traits. The constant tension between the different sides of The Character's nature is exactly what makes them compelling, and attempting to reduce them down to simply "a terrible person" or "innocent & misunderstood" is missing the point of the questions a media with nuanced characters is asking you to consider
#you know what i'll swing a bat at several hornet's nests lol!#seto kaiba#tony stark#sylvanas windrunner#akito sohma#cersei lannister#i mean i joke as much as anyone about liking characters BECAUSE they're so shitty. or an ironic 'they did nothing wrong'#and there truly is a lot of fun in liking unpredictable characters who may go off on a dime and commit atrocities#but it's also a fact that some characters are just not written in a way that's easy to boil down and that's a deliberate artistic choice#fandom (and the internet) favour quippy takes; partly out of a desire for digestible brevity#but also partly due to a contingent of people who are deeply uncomfortable with characters & stories that resist simple categorization#it's interesting how many people latch on to brooding anti-heroes i think specifically because the complexity interests them on some level#but are unable to express or confront what about the character is actually compelling them. & work hard to sand them down into a Category#instead of being drawn to simpler characters to enjoy in the first place#bric-a-brac
