introduce a bad that's badder than the existing bad

[kaigou]

Up to episode 17 on a series, and a new set of characters introduced have proven to be smug, condescending, and downright offensive. It's not like that's all an uncommon move by writers; if you're at all uncertain as to whether your main protagonists have full sympathy, bring in a character designed to be completely unsympathetic. It's peculiar, sometimes, how we -- as readers/viewers -- will fuss privately over characters we find less than sympathetic, but woe be to whomever voices that criticism out loud! Our original annoyance is subverted in favor of attacking the newcomer who doesn't have the 'history' we've developed with the character, whether the newcomer is a recently-arrived fan, an uninvolved friend, or even a new character inside the story.

It's a common move, alright, although I think some authors rely on it out of insecurity and not as a purposeful manipulation -- though sometimes the obvious intentionality of the latter can be even more annoying. (If I'm going to be emotionally manipulated by a story towards specific ends, then I'd like that manipulation to be seamless, please. Otherwise it's just a sledgehammer.)

Thing is, anytime I run across this kind of maneuver, I always think back to my freshman year in college. In my senior year of high school, I'd started the year dating jocks but spent the last semester dating a skater (who was, all other things aside, really a very nice and charming person). There were definite feather-ruffles going on, if slight sometimes, when D would appear with one or two or his friends in tow -- my parents could smell the reek of cigarette smoke on some of them, and severely disapproved, possibly more about that than about the studded army jackets or the spiked mohawk or the boots tromping across the nice rugs.

So when I went off to college, it seemed like the perfect card to send my father, halfway through my first semester. On the card's front, it said: "Dad! Guess what! I'm dating a guy who's got five tattoos, three piercings, rides a motorcycle, has a one-foot mohawk dyed bright green, and only has another two years on parole!"

On the inside, it said: "I'll dump him for fifty bucks." Which I thought was funny, and something my father would see the humor in.

Two weeks later, my father made a deposit into my bank account for a hundred dollars.

Go figure.

Comments

[superdustbunny.livejournal.com]

Great point about the sympathy card.
Admittedly I'm not fond of the Trinity sibs. Of course, they're the guys that are supposed to be easily hated- that's probably the reason why they're such jerks and why Nena kissed Setsuna (I hear BL fangirls crying).
But the thing is, I'd like to think that Trinity's role is more along the lines of antagonizing everyone. Since the 'bad guys' so far introduced in the plot aren't bad guys at all. Graham is a pretty decent fella, and Sergei is upright as anyone. Patrick's just...comedy. For now. And to personify the stupid-soldier-clever-commander cliche funny.
With pretty much of the first season over, I guess they would need to establish a real antagonist to end it.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

In some ways, the arrival of a real antagonist -- y'know, an obstacle to Our Heroes achieving goals -- just seems to prove my complaints true about the first fifteen or so episodes: it just didn't feel like the story had any antagonists. Oh, sure, okay, it had antagonists but not in the sense of getting in the way with any significant punch. The only three who did/could (Graham, Ali, and Sergei) did so only on the battlefield, and all of them for whatever reason however believable withdrew each time, before they really became a stumbling block.

It felt like -- despite other slow arcs forming -- that the overall story just got reset at regular intervals. Okay, we clashed, no one won, see you next week! I like forward progress but failing that, I'd at least like to see some kind of conflict that actually puts characters at risk, and every time we've come close to that, things just seem to get brushed aside. (Granted, you could say ep16 explained why, or you could say ep16 did a boatload of retconning to fill the plotholes.)

[underpope.livejournal.com]

Ha! That's a great story.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

The drawback (to reply to you but sideways reply to CP below) is that after that, he made the offer to repeat the generousity upon meeting a few other boyfriends. I didn't accept, but I did wise up and stop introducing him to anyone I actually wanted to keep. ;-)

[christeos-pir.livejournal.com]

Think it'll work again?

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

I think they'd pay me to keep you, instead. Don't know what you did, but they're universally convinced you're all that and sliced bread. Must be the blue eyes.

[misshallelujah.livejournal.com]

I don't want to judge so quickly, since I haven't seen episode 17, but judging from the vastly negative reaction from the fandom about the Trinity just two episodes after they debuted, I'm tempted to give the writers an automatic FAIL for creating antagonists that are so obviously dislikable and unsympathizable with. When I first began writing my mentor told me that the best writing has antagonists who are almost, if not equally, sympathetic as your protagonists. It's something I wholly agree with.

In the case of this show it's made even easier by the fact that the protagonists themselves are already pretty much anti-heroes. You wouldn't like them if you knew them in real life. Making the Trinity look so obviously bad so that we know who to root for only cheapens the audience's struggle to accept, and sympathize with, the flawed protagonists. It also throws away an invaluable tool known as dramatic tension because come on! We already know who to root for!

Of course, it could transpire that Sunrise would turn this all on its head and make the Trinity eventually end up being the good guys. Unlikely, but can't be ruled out. If it does happen, and it's well done? I will toss hats.

TL;DR summary: Sunrise, please redeem this series. I like it too much now for it to start sucking.


As an aside, did you really date the punk biker, or was he a bogeyman you made up to hustle money from your dad? XD


(P.S. I friended you because I stumbled upon your LJ and liked your meta. So I'm not quite a random stalker, not really.)

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

(Liked my meta? How are we using the term now -- you mean, like what I talk about? Uhm. It's Sunday, my brain is gone, have mercy.)

I agree with you on the Trinity (and your impressions even without seeing it). Normally I'd say -- or prefer to be able to say -- oh, don't make any judgments now, wait and see for yourself, you might find the same redeeming values I teased out. (Which I try very, very hard to do, if I'm already liking the story a great deal then it's worth the effort.) Except that in this case...

Well, your comment about a whole boat of FAIL kinda sums up my reaction right now.

[okaasan59.livejournal.com]

^___^

[kdorian.livejournal.com]

*LMAO* Ah, parents.

[siriusjazz.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm not the biggest fan of the Trinity siblings, I think mainly because they just bust in with this "Yeah, we're badass - WHUT!?" attitude. The eldest one I can stand, but I don't like Mihael because he's psychotic simply to be psychotic, and I don't care particularly for Nena, either, 'cause she hasn't shown much substance. I dunno, maybe I'll come to like them in a while - I used to loathe Tieria in the beginning, but I'm finally starting to warm up to the bastard, lol. I have a sneaking suspicion that these new pilots will probably turn out to be the true antagonists, and the original Meisters will turn against CB to fight the siblings.

But lately my answer to anything m00-related is "Needs more (H)Allelujah." XD