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jackThe trouble with evaluating characters in fiction is that they're often scripted as doing something contrary to your otherwise general impression of their character, and you have to decide whether to gloss over it or not. Hence you get inconsistent interpretations.
For instance, in a repeating fiction, the main hero and villain often show a level of stupidity with regard to letting each other escape which is plausible if seeing an episode in isolation, but ridiculous when it happens EVERY TIME. Do you describe the character in terms of how the show intends you to take them (pretending each incident happened in isolation and was an unlucky consequence of a good decision) or how the facts reflect on them (they're a total idiot who ought to have learned better)? I try to show both...
Magneto
Magneto is wrong to see the situation as humans vs mutants. Despite the human/mutant terminology used in X-Men, X-Men mutants are human by any reasonable morality definition of the term. At first I thought this was just a mistake by a majority of the characters, but in fact, it is quite realistic. A civil war often involves exactly this sort of sudden realisation that everyone who previously thought of themselves as Americans, suddenly start thinking of themselves as two groups. But it's still not good.
On the other hand, he's right to see the mutant registration act as the beginning of the apocalypse. In principle it's reasonable -- yes, many mutants are dangerous through no fault of their own, and some sort of survey is in fact useful to prevent future abuse, but we know no government can do that without fucking it up, losing the data, and making everyone on the list a target for all sorts of horrific civil rights abuses.
Finally, we don't really see the moment when Magneto crosses the moral event horizon. His plan to turn world leaders into mutants is actually reasonable -- extremely ruthless and illegal and probably unwise, but not disproportionate. But before this he is casual about killing innocent people. He has Senator Kelly's aide killed, and there's no time spend justifying it. His minions attack lots of innocent people without any regard for their will-being. He his happy for Rogue to die in his place to complete his plan. These are not dwelled on during the film, but clearly justify his super-villain designation.
Of course, in film 2, he's happy to kill all non-mutants in the world, making himself as bad as Stryker, and by film three he's happy to abandon Mystique who he cares for personally (which is unbelievably unwise as well as awful). I'm not sure to what extent these are plot contrivances.
Senator Kelly
Senator Kelly calls for the mutant registration act, with no regard for the people it will harm or kill. Which is evil, although the sort of evil most people, if they happen to be in politics, end up countenancing. To his credit, when he is turned into a mutant, he does genuinely seem to reconsider his position.
For instance, in a repeating fiction, the main hero and villain often show a level of stupidity with regard to letting each other escape which is plausible if seeing an episode in isolation, but ridiculous when it happens EVERY TIME. Do you describe the character in terms of how the show intends you to take them (pretending each incident happened in isolation and was an unlucky consequence of a good decision) or how the facts reflect on them (they're a total idiot who ought to have learned better)? I try to show both...
Magneto
Magneto is wrong to see the situation as humans vs mutants. Despite the human/mutant terminology used in X-Men, X-Men mutants are human by any reasonable morality definition of the term. At first I thought this was just a mistake by a majority of the characters, but in fact, it is quite realistic. A civil war often involves exactly this sort of sudden realisation that everyone who previously thought of themselves as Americans, suddenly start thinking of themselves as two groups. But it's still not good.
On the other hand, he's right to see the mutant registration act as the beginning of the apocalypse. In principle it's reasonable -- yes, many mutants are dangerous through no fault of their own, and some sort of survey is in fact useful to prevent future abuse, but we know no government can do that without fucking it up, losing the data, and making everyone on the list a target for all sorts of horrific civil rights abuses.
Finally, we don't really see the moment when Magneto crosses the moral event horizon. His plan to turn world leaders into mutants is actually reasonable -- extremely ruthless and illegal and probably unwise, but not disproportionate. But before this he is casual about killing innocent people. He has Senator Kelly's aide killed, and there's no time spend justifying it. His minions attack lots of innocent people without any regard for their will-being. He his happy for Rogue to die in his place to complete his plan. These are not dwelled on during the film, but clearly justify his super-villain designation.
Of course, in film 2, he's happy to kill all non-mutants in the world, making himself as bad as Stryker, and by film three he's happy to abandon Mystique who he cares for personally (which is unbelievably unwise as well as awful). I'm not sure to what extent these are plot contrivances.
Senator Kelly
Senator Kelly calls for the mutant registration act, with no regard for the people it will harm or kill. Which is evil, although the sort of evil most people, if they happen to be in politics, end up countenancing. To his credit, when he is turned into a mutant, he does genuinely seem to reconsider his position.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-20 01:19 am (UTC)I'm a huge X-Men fan, in theory (in practice one must venture into specialty shops where I feel uncomfortable.)
The differentiation between where something becomes disproportionate interests me, but I admit I don't delve into areas of cognitive dissonance for villainous characters as much as I do for the supposedly heroic ones.
I still can't understand why Harry Potter thinks saving the muggles and helping the fecal contaminants that left him to be abused for a decade is a good idea. But I do understand why singular heads of counter organizations drift past what you call the "event horizon"--- their whole situation is set up to isolate them from anyone who might point out the way something is undermining the intended point.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-20 02:00 am (UTC)It's strange -- comic books are definitely the _sort_ of thing I like, but I've almost never got into any of the originals, mostly just adaptions.
I don't delve into areas of cognitive dissonance for villainous characters as much
I think especially in a recurring comic there's an almost irresistible tendency to require an antagonist, and hence the antagonist keeps on finding reasons to keep opposing the hero again and again, and quickly ends up doing things that put them beyond any normal evaluation of their morals or state of mind.
But an adaption often does show the basics of the story with less (but some) forcing it to happen the way the author wanted.
You would have to make very few changes to the story of the first one and three-quarter films to make Magneto into a hero. His vigilantism is in many ways as justifiable as batman's, who is painted as a (dark) hero. The drawbacks are (i) he lives in a first-world nation with at least nominal rule of law, which he chooses to abandon and (ii) it's completely unspecified whether the people he kills are personally guilty or not, or to what extent the notion of "war" justifies it.
I still can't understand why Harry Potter thinks saving the muggles and helping the fecal contaminants that left him to be abused for a decade is a good idea.
Hm. Well, partly, I think the story is based on a long tradition of abused-childhood cinderella stories, so we're invited to assume there IS a good reason for Harry to live with the Dursleys[1], even if the story fails to provide it. I think it's reasonable to judge the story on that basis, rather than make the (logical) connection that no reason implies the characters are violently insane for assuming there is. And partly, it's clear from Harry's hero complex that he always DOES want to save people, almost regardless of who they are.
[1] You can attempt to justify this in-story, perhaps saying that if Dumbledore bullied them into treating Harry well they might retract their offer of protection and leave him vulnerable to Voldemort. Although you'd still have to justify why he couldn't live Hogwarts. But that's a distraction. You can always find SOME justification no matter how contrived, doing so doesn't excuse bad plotting.
I do understand why singular heads of counter organizations drift past what you call the "event horizon"
Yeah. You don't need fiction, it's almost normal, which is awful :( If your job is to counter threats from group X, you are automatically going to keep FINDING those threats :(
no subject
Date: 2010-12-20 02:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-20 10:52 pm (UTC)I did understand why Stryker would go more than a bit peculiar. I thought that made it a better movie. Generally that's one of the hallmarks of a long-running series, where characters don't have to fall completely into stereotypes.
I think X-Men would make a great television program (in the American style, not the British style, though if they could hire some of the British writers that would be awesome.) There really is an episodic quality and an overriding story-arc. And a slight sacrifice in special effects would make it affordable if they didn't have to have big name actors. There is enough material to do 20 episodes a "season" (No idea why they call them that when there's only one season per year, not 4.) and the material is approachable.
[The reason not a British program style is it takes 4 years for 4.5 hours of programming to be produced, that puts it on par with a big budget movie. It's like they don't have enough writers, actors, and network airtime slots to have more content so they do things really slowly.]
no subject
Date: 2010-12-20 11:51 pm (UTC)Yeah. I thought several thing in the third were really cool but lots just didn't really track.