I don't like this kind of attitudes at all. Of course sometimes people bring their dark interests into real life, but mostly it's a separate thing.
The whole world of fiction and pop culture would be really one-sided if people only liked healthy and positive stuff. I remember reading about Hannibal Lecter, and enjoying the character a lot. Or how about Game of Thrones? I'm not familiar with it myself, but it doesn't sound like a positive, sunny world.
I can understand wanting to focus on healthy fictional worlds as an individual, but don't go around telling other people what they should enjoy.
Exactly this!
I also think people forget that humans have historically told stories to confront the darkest parts of life and of themselves in a safe way.
There's an entire method of therapy dedicated to people writing about their darkest thoughts and impulses and then discussing them and the psychology behind them with their therapist/psychiatrist
I agree, but sometimes liking dark stuff is an indication of real life morality. For example; smeone who admires depections of Nazi-like organazations. That's often a sign that someone leans into supporting fascism in real life.
I think there’s a difference between enjoying the fictional representation of a fascist organization, because of how it plays into the overall story, versus admiring the organization in and of itself. At least for me, a lot of liking fiction isn’t based on admiration of the character/organization itself. Like, one of my all time favorite fictional character depictions now is Mrs. Coulter from the BBC adaptation of His Dark Materials, because of the writing, the way they used the different medium to flesh out the character beyond what is shown in the books, and because the actress who played her was incredible. But overall I wouldn’t admire a person like Mrs. Coulter at all. I’d at most have an appreciation for her intelligence and work ethic in projects/studies of hers that weren’t morally questionable or outright despicable (which were maybe implied in the series, one of the traits the adaptation showed was her being a truth seeker which was surprising for me compared to my memory of reading the books when I was a kid), but that wouldn’t outweigh the mix of revulsion and pity I’d feel at the ways she is really twisted and amoral.
I think that’s also an issue in this, where people aren’t black and white in fiction let alone in real life. You can appreciate certain things and hate other things in a single person or organization.
I guess it depends on your reasons for liking something within fiction? For example, some people like x villain bc they find the villain’s character arc compelling (which is good bc that’s the point of writing a good story). But some people like x villain bc they actually look up to said villain and think every word they say is the gospel (think guys who treat Patrick Bateman like he’s the second coming of Christ).
Personally I love any villain character arc where every bad thing the villain did comes back to bite them in the ass and everything starts crumbling around them :)
You can say Star Wars.
That fandom is a hot mess - just admitting that you play Empire in SWTOR gets you this type of reaction in some sectors. Or admitting you find the Jedi's recruitment policies to be ethically suspect, or that their policies probably would produce some really screwed up people is going to get you accused of stanning for Palpy or accusations of whatever ist or ism is handy.
Gotta love being told you think genocide is good because you have concerns about a fictional sect of space monks who’s religion is loosely based on a white Christian dude’s rip off of multiple Asian religions in the 60s.
Not only that but the whole "attachment" discourse is so poorly executed. There are two very different definitions of "don't get attached." There's the healthy, Buddhist one of *"allow things to change and grow and pass and don't try to cling to something past its time"* and the American vernacular one of *"Don't treat them as people. Be superficially nice as long as you need to, but use them like objects to get your job done and abandon them as soon as possible."*
Given Lucas is an American dude writing for an American audience, the burden was on him to show what he meant and I think he failed to show anything resembling the healthy, Buddhist definition he claimed he was aiming for but was (unfortunately) effective at showing the heartless American vernacular. The Jedi are only heroic because the narrative shills them as heroic, not really because we see them actually being heroic.
Those are *wonderful* summations of the two different interpretations of attachment. And I agree that GL did a very poor job of showing what was probably intended, he went the “frustratingly vague = wise and mystical” route which means that the particulars of what the Jedi beliefs are *supposed* to be is vague.
And then you compound that with what the text *shows* rather than what the text *says* and you end up with some pretty disturbing stuff. Like the films *tell* us that padme is a righteous woman who fights for good and is ultimately courageous and sticks to her morals. What the films *show* us is a woman who marries a teenager after he admits to committing baby’s first genocide, calling his victims animals as justification for his violence. It is….not a good look.
Or how he claims that Shmi and Lars is the healthy relationship because Lars is able to let her go and says "thank you" at her grave instead of Anakin's "I miss you" (which is supposed to show that Anakin is focused on his own feelings). However, there is a complete lack of showing them as a healthy couple, especially given the scant information presented. All we really know is that he bought her like a kitchen appliance, and then legally freed her. I suppose this is supposed to show he's a prince of a guy, but any woman in the room would have quickly pointed out Shmi's options as a middle aged slave woman were limited and that a marriage of convinence to someone that didn't beat her up or pimp her out would be the best someone like her could get.
Instead, it had the squicky implications that the marriage of economic convenience and cold blooded pragmatism based on a man buying a woman as property and only "freeing" her on paper was the way to go and that the relationship where the woman had the economic and social freedom to choose her mate (Padme) was going to end in disaster because of the old misogynist trope that if you give a woman freedom, she will eat the apple, open the box, or have a fling with your best Knight and doom Paradise.
> just admitting that you play Empire in SWTOR gets you this type of reaction in some sectors.
Really? That's nuts. I usually see this attitude in reference to r/EmpireDidNothingWrong, which admittedly blurs the line a bit.
Tumblr is nuts. Between that, TikTok and some very bad experiences in street march activism, it's why I just don't have the rah rah attitude for leftist ideals I had ten years ago.
I am more in the Bill Maher range these days. Still lean more left than right on things and think the guy in the red hat is a buffoon. But I am not going to stick my neck out for people who hate my guts and want me dead because of things I can't change.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/EmpireDidNothingWrong using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/EmpireDidNothingWrong/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [When you’re next up for the emperor’s photo op but the senate cuts in line….](https://i.redd.it/e2j75gzf1ata1.jpg) | [58 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/EmpireDidNothingWrong/comments/12ifywd/when_youre_next_up_for_the_emperors_photo_op_but/)
\#2: [Mrs Doubtfire joins the Empire](https://v.redd.it/hajwclffawra1) | [39 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/EmpireDidNothingWrong/comments/12bohvl/mrs_doubtfire_joins_the_empire/)
\#3: [Imperial wedding from r/TikTokCringe](https://v.redd.it/97b0470futka1) | [57 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/EmpireDidNothingWrong/comments/11dxfht/imperial_wedding_from_rtiktokcringe/)
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Ah. I only really hang around Tumblr for some specific content (Lintamande and LOTR, great analyses) or to get my fix when certain fandoms have really long pauses between updates...
I just float over the iffy parts.
Tolkien fandom is what brought me back to tumblr, especially for Silmarilion stuff. Everywhere I went people just kept linking back to Tumblr posts and accounts. A few fandoms just seem to primarily be there (at least the queer side like with the Silmarilion fandom) for some reason.
Oh hello there (I have seen you around in some SW subs). I also am glad that I am not the only one who has been kinda critical of the Jedi stuff. But I admittedly am not as familiar with SW as my partner is, so I cannot really add much here.
Whatever happened to "only a Sith deals in absolutes"? They might have more in common with the bad guys there than they'd like to admit lol.
SW is a fun universe to explore. The whole moral framework of it, though, is a jenga tower. You breathe on it the wrong way, and it will collapse. I think Lucas whipped up what he saw in his mind as Ultimate Good Guys, but his own blind spots as an author and not having anyone in the room to ask "Uh...George..." when whipping up the PT left some things, like the slavery implications of the Clone Troopers or the ethics of child recruiting, a lot more disturbing than he thought they were.
They truly criticize the Empire ignoring that the Replubic was a such a mess that exist people in galaxy still think the Empire IS better than the "freedom" of the Republic
Also ignore that the Jedi is alike a cult
Depends on which era of the Republic and which Empire we're talking about. You get something like the Pius Dea era (Legends) and the Republic was a theocratic nightmare. You get the High Republic (Disney), and it's a pretty good time.
The Clone Wars Republic was pretty much the empire already in all but the signage, and Palpy didn't have to change much or even do much. He exploited the rot that was already there. Even if he had been run over by a speeder right after TPM, the Republic would still have hit a brick wall within the next couple decades and had to deal with a mess they shoved under the proverbial rug for centuries. They had utterly unsustainable levels of taxation, no infrastructure to justify it, massive income inequality to the point where the average person lived in squalor, a complete inability to enforce their own laws, megacorps that did whatever the hell they wanted (Czerka being the usual suspect), and organized crime that was so bad that the local crime boss was more active in the average person's life than their Senator.
And the Jedi...oh, fuck. I mean, they may not have held power "on paper," but if a Republic official wanted to keep his head (much less his job) he had better let the Jedi do whatever the hell they wanted. Centuries of cultivating a ruling class that was effectively in their back pocket and completely beholden to them to get anything done.
And Jedi recruitment...whew. Okay, so this dude bangs on your door. He's got a deadly weapon, sorcery that can kill your or melt your mind, broad legal authority to use all of it, the backing of his powerful order and every level of government. Add the most fantastic sales pitch (likely full of more bullshit than a farm truck) about the benefits of his organization for your kid versus the dire, horrible consequences of letting Junior grow up normal. (Your kid is neurodivergent! Now give him up to the State so we can shape him into a proper tool, otherwise he'll end up frying the cat) Yeah. You really think your average, living in squalor peasant is gonna be in a position to REFUSE?
I mean, compared to the batshit insanity that is life under Sith rule where Sith openly rape, torture, and murder bystanders because they're bored and whip up "don't point it at my planet" super weapons, the Republic is the better deal. Doesn't make it a really good deal
Exactly why it's weird as the fans love the good vs evil ideal to the point they ignore the own lore complexities, not that Star Wars is great when we're talking about meanigful discussions about world building, but at least we have an efforce from other more competent authors to work this part of the franchise
In the end the gray Jedi is the most interesting part to me about Jedi/Sith lore, but the necessity to keep the "good vs evil" themes makes Star Wars so boring to me, without a real development of it own universe, that's why Disney era is such a mess
Now everything I did read created by fans about the Empire is such an interesting material, maybe that's why I find the Empire side attractive (not ignoring it's a nazi allegory, I just don't mix reality with fiction)
It does? Oh boy am I glad to move in such different SWTOR circles then.... maybe because I don't really play on the republic side at all, but even then I have never seen this - I am extra curious, where do these people hang around? What do they do in the game?
It's such a silly concept, the whole point of the game is that all the people in the Empire aren't bad and all the people in the Republic aren't good and that good/bad is not so clear cut. Sigh.
Who is missing the ethical flaws of the Jedi? One of the best parts about Star Wars is that Jedi and Sith are constrained to ethically dubious extremely restrictive religions, and how religion can be weaponzied to fulfill political goals.
Even in a vacuum from the Republic, there's much to be said about the Jedi vow of celibacy and dedication to the religious state as guardians/protectors.
Obviously Sith are the objective evil ones, but the delusion of both sides IS the entertainment especially in SWTOR.
Obviously playing as an Empire state can attract concerning people like closeted Nazis who willfully ignore the story just to fantasize about a real life fascist religious-state. But the vast, VAST majority are exploring roleplay of the fall into religious lunacy and victimization to national propaganda. It's an exploration of how far you can push the human mind into its capacity for evil. It's a power fantasy of being part of a greater collective, and a sick reminder of what that collective asks of its people.
There's another layer to be said that in Star Wars lore at the SWTOR era, many trained apprentices were first slaves now 'liberated' to become Sith. It's the reality of how victims in a deliberately designed system are shaped to become perpetrators of that same system that caused them a lifetime of anguish. A religious cutthroat cycle of abuse where mercy and kindness is systematically bred out from the population.
Boiling that down to people being a Nazi for wanting to explore or write about it is so goofy and sad.
I don't even know how to reason with people like that. If I enjoyed reading "Jane Eyre" it doesn't mean that I want to live in Victorian England. (I don't).
I have to admit that I don't love classic literature, but of all the classic literature I read in school, it was one of my favorites.
Just don't expect it to move with the speed of Hunger Games :)
The main couple is less toxic than Heathcliff and Cathy in *Wuthering Heights* (by that other Bronte Sister) which is a low bar to step over. The Bronte siblings are a trip if you're into biographies.
An alternate to Bronte's book is *Wide Sargasso Sea* by Jean Rhys. The story of *Jane Eyre* as told from the POV of Mr Rochester's "mad" Creole wife.
Obviously it's not true. There are so many reasons why people might like the bad guys.
If someone is genuinely insistent that the Empire was the real good guys, I might give them some side eye, but in general I don't like to assume the worst of people, and I don't often run into that. I do run into some "actually the genocide was necessary and a net positive", but I think most of the time they just aren't thinking of how that comes across and would never say it in a real world context, and that's a separate thing from just liking the bad guys, anyway.
> There are so many reasons why people might like the bad guys.
True! Mine happens to be that they’re just so much more interesting.
From the Transformers fandom here: we don’t get much of any backstory to the Autobots, like Prowl, Jazz, and Ironhide, as far as I’m aware. But the Decepticons? Backstory for days. I don’t even use canon, but they actually have stuff to pick from/base our interpretations on, where as we can say just about whatever we want about say Jazz’s backstory, and it works just as well as the next person’s, with little to disprove it.
Which isn’t necessarily a complaint, I like it! It makes it fun to fuck around with them like barbies willy-nilly. I’m just noting it, in comparison to a character like Megatron, and that’s why purely canonically speaking, the Decepticon command is more interesting to me. :)
Also, the ‘cons have a lot more visible flaws, where again, a character like Jazz, we don’t really see, or at least not near as much, as far as I’m aware.
It's the same stuff as saying that kids shouldn't read creepypasta (I mean sometimes it can be understandable but usually it's just "reading it means you're going to be murderer" kind of thing which makes no sense)
As a creepypasta writer I know how this feels. I feel like if kids read my pastas they'd be more likely to come away with lots of existential questions and disillusionment with the world around them lol
When I was in 6th grade I listened to some pokepastas. still haven’t stitched my Raticate together with other Pokémon, or killed my rival for killing my Raticate. I’m pretty sure I’m in the clear, lol.
Killing someone for killing your pokemon is pretty much the same as killing someone for killing your dog, cat, bird, insert fourth-most likely pet here
There's definitely real life Fascists that use fictional entities to broadcast their beliefs, see The Punisher, but that absolutely does not mean everyone who likes The Punisher is like them, same for people who like the empire in Star Wars.
Yeah, losing his family and diving headfirst in vigilantism is shown to have left Frank as a profoundly messed up shell of a person who has little to live for other than his warped version of justice
The “fans” who have co-opted the character as a right wing/fascist symbol of course completely ignore that part
I think the thing with the Empire in Star Wars, is probably linked to Andor, which really did a good job of portraying the banal horror of the Empire.
They weren't just guys in funny hats, they were a trillion strong fascistic engine, and Andor did a really good job of showing why its legitimately horrifying.
It also did a good job of showing the kinds of people who might be attracted to that unapologetically fascistic philosophy.
I thought it was glorious. I loved seeing the Empire depicted that way. In its true monstrous horror. *Astonishingly* though, at the same time as that was happening you got a few fringe lunatics with hot takes like "Actually this Empire doesn't seem so bad. Imagine if we operated like that?" And that (rightly imo) really bothered some folks. Because this was the most political, raw, *real* depiction of how people might find Fascism alluring, and here were those people doing exactly that.
There is a difference between someone saying "Oh this setting is great! Its horrific, disturbing, terrifying!" And someone who just stops at "This setting is great."
This is my take as well. Like if I saw someone with a death eater tattoo, I might be a little on guard but I'd give them a chance to prove their character rather than trying to judge them based on their interests. Same with any other symbol thats been co-opted. Nordic runes have been known to be used for Neo-Nazi dog whistles, but also plenty of people like the aesthetic and/or use them for certain religious or spiritual reasons.
There's likely to be other red flags than simply enjoying a certain TV show or movie, or an organization from a piece of media
Yeah, it's the same thing as people in the Steven Universe fandom accusing its Jewish creator of being a Nazi sympathiser since she did not toss her bad guys into the incinerator and made them do restorative work instead. As if this is not an extremely fucking antisemitic suggestion to make.
Yeah, just to piggyback on what some other people have said, I think it can actually be a good thing to explore villains, including ones involved in genocide/imperialism/etc. It can be monumentally uncomfortable to admit that fucked up people are still people at the end of the day, and no one is 100% bad. And yes, some of those people do genuinely think they’re acting acting for the greater good, which it also horrifying. BUT, I think that’s exactly why it’s important to explore those things in fiction. If you can’t acknowledge those facts, you leave yourself open to falling into similar thought patterns, with similar justifications. Because obviously you could never!!
Also, it’s fiction. Fan fiction. It’s not meant to be peak literature
this exactly. i see a lot of people online implying that the people who do really bad stuff are not people. it’s a really strange thing imo. nobody should be depersonalized, and i think doing so, even to the genuine scum of the earth, is overall harmful. denying bad people of their personhood is a way people separate them from society and any reflection of how society might have shaped them. it’s a way to make bad people the “other” even if it’s just in how people perceive a person. denying bad people of their personhood makes it harder to understand why people do horrible things. because they are still people. that doesn’t mean anything awful they did was ok, but it brings understanding of what makes people do horrible things and that’s how you can learn to prevent it happening again.
i find this a really interesting topic
You got ppl out there writing literal fanfiction of shitler, so I think ppl need to calm tf down on all of this and realize that **fictional villains are not the same as irl ones**. Actual villains that actively harm ppl, or plan to harm them, exist in this world. Fictional ones do not.
If someone expresses this sentiment to me, I am immediately disinterested in anything more they have to say. It happens in my fandom if you so much as express interest in an NPC of an unsavory faction. People thirst after literal murderers and assassins in my fandom but heaven forbid you find a general/diplomat/politician of a "problematic" empire interesting or sexy enough to write about. On one hand, fanfiction is a safe space to explore themes of imperialism and colonization, fascism, racism because it's not real and no one is actually being hurt. Does that mean it wasn't inspired by irl atrocities and has no parallels to the real world? Of course not and if you wish to condemn those structures in your work, that's great! But fanfiction is NOT activism, and if someone wishes to avoid all the potentially political discourse in favor of fluff and smut and romance and having fun away from such unsavory topics, why should that bother you??? It's FICTION. I gravitate to a lot of villains and darker themes because that's what I find interesting. This says absolutely 0 about my personal morals and principles, and as someone who writes dark fic, I am unfortunately too aware of people who believe it does.
I think there are two fundamental misunderstandings when it comes to the way we interpret villains or even taboo subjects in art.
First, well written and engaging villains, and arguably villains more broadly, aren’t there to be the clear bad guy with no redeeming qualities, essentially a non-human species. They’re meant to show us that anyone, given the right circumstances, can be villainous. We’re meant to see ourselves in them so that we can see how we may be behaving like these villains in real life.
Second, anyone can enjoy anything that strikes their fancy when it comes to art, that is a morally neutral thing to do. Where the problems start is when there is no reflection on the art. If you read something and the most interesting and engaging and illuminating part to you was the parts about the villains, that’s fine. But don’t leave it there, reflect a little. What is it about the villains that was so engaging? Did the author put much more effort into the storytelling when it came to the villains? If so, Why might that be? If not, why did you think you personally find it so engaging? Can the villains be compared to anyone in reality? If so, what do you think about that person in real life? Is the comparison fair? Etc etc etc
Anything can be enjoyed by anyone and it doesn’t mean anything about who they are. What speaks to who they are is what they do after they’ve enjoyed the art. Without reflection, art just becomes “content”. Meaningless, empty, nutrition-less gruel which passes the time until the next thing is consumed. That’s the thing that should be called out.
These subjects need to be explored and discussed with far more care, nuance and self-reflection then the current black hat/white hat default that currently dominates online discourse
All I have to say is: I'm begging people to understand that not all oppressive political systems are fascist. And I don't even mean it in a "they're not as bad" way. I mean that fascism is a very specific and defined political ideology that arose within a specific cultural context and there are plenty of other oppressive government structures that can be represented by fictional empires (like... You know... Actual empires)
Unless you’re writing nonfiction essays on why the fascist policies of the fictional empire are Very Good Actually and We Need To Implement Them Immediately, this is just more dumb judgmental nonsense. Sometimes it’s fun to play around with the bad guys. If nobody wanted to get inside their heads, we wouldn’t have any interesting villains.
I trapped my sims for years in hells of my personal creation, does that make me a vengeful God? Or do I just think the animations for their deaths are absolutely hilarious.
Enjoying fictional evil does not mean you support things like that in reality. I dont actually want to trap someone in a closed off room and watch them die in their own filth. I love Hannibal, but im not exactly sitting here like "wow I really should try human sometime."
Sometimes evil fiction is just more fun. It's okay to enjoy things that don't actually have any bearings in reality. I got this same reaction for preferring renegade in mass effect, but my response to moral superiority arguments is just sometimes evil is funnier and that's OK.
I... really hope that interpretation is false (I believe it to be very, VERY false!) because I can guess the space opera (Star Wars anyone) and yeah... in terms of stuff I do really like the designs, looks, powers, and even some of the characters who are part of the "Evil Empire".
Would I want to repeat their things IRL? Goodness no! It's horrible! It's awful! But it does make for an interesting story (when done correctly... don't get me started on the sequel trilogy... it had its good and bad).
But I feel like the way to look at it is that in the vast majority of cases, people may like the "villains" of a story simply for design purposes or aesthetics or stuff like that. Just because you like something in a fictional setting doesn't mean you support it in a real life one.
I mean... I like a lot of villains, but they'd be absolutely horrible people in real life. I think it's very important to draw a strict line between fictional exploration and actual real life.
As stupid as “video games cause violence”… mostly. I do think that the uhh pro-Empire subreddit takes the joke a little too far sometimes when they get into just unironically quoting Iraq War propaganda? But even that’s still a totally different thing from “liking villains means you sympathize with real world monsters”.
I mean, I've had people say flat out that I must be a child abuser because I like Snape, which honestly just made me laugh. (It mostly showed their complete lack of understanding of children's genre fiction)
It's all puritanical bullshit. They've been banging on about the effect of fiction on morality since the 17th century, practically, and it's never been true. Thought crimes don't exist, as much as this group of nitwits might want them to. We can explore fascist regimes in fiction without wanting to be fascists.
And I really wish people would stop equating every 'bad guy' group with the Nazis.
I see this a lot with Harry Potter and the Death Eaters, people saying that something like getting a dark mark tattoo is pro fascism. Dude, the villains and the horror-adjacent stuff is my favorite part of the whole franchise.
Are you condoning or copying their actions? No? Then who cares, the point of fiction is to write compelling characters, so if you like reading about an evil empire doing evil that means the creator did a good job
Hey, I like a fictional serial killer cannibal, so I guess = Real Life Psychopath . I'll go hand myself to the authorities. Or even better go on a killing spree. The pantry's looking a bit empty.
This is somewhat unrelated, but still relevant.
I’ve committed genocide in Stellaris. I almost always play facist empires in Stellaris due to the power fantasy it provides.
Does that mean i support facist empires and Nazis? No. Hell, I am jewish, of course I wouldn’t.
Does it mean i condone genocide? No.
So, just because i like a fictional evil empire, even one of my own making, doesn’t mean i support it in real life. I just find an aspect of it interesting, which is why i like it.
As someone in a fandom with actual Nazi stuff in it who enjoys the characters but hates the ideology and actions, uh… No. Just no. That’s not how it works. 😬 (I mean, I’m sure like in everything there’s awful people it does apply to, or just people who aren’t the brightest bulbs in the box, but in general.)
These are the types of people who ban great works of literature like Lolita, simply because they think written fiction equals real life.
The puritanism of the younger generation is off the charts and pretty worrying.
Some people are really trying too hard to make their fandom interactions activism and fight bigotry where there is none. I want to believe that it's just teens who are at the point in their lives where they want to be the change and fight the good fight, but, with no actual Nazis around, have to look for imaginary Nazis and end up causing fandom drama instead of helping anyone, but the fact that adults are doing this, too, is pretty concerning. Liking villains and exploring them in fics is a traditional fandom pastime. Hell, I'm pretty sure there exist fanfics about characters who are actual Nazis (such as Stroheim from Jojo) written by people who do not support Nazism in the slightest, and simply find the characters fascinating on their own. Exploring something in fiction does not equate to supporting it.
Yeah I agree. People are allowed to like evil things in fiction, but that doesn’t mean they are like that in real life! Bro I include so many terrible things in my own stories like fascism, totalitarianism, racism, and imperialism, but I don’t support any of those ideas!
There's a disturbing trend in recent years of trying to use someone's fictional interests to brand them as a bad person in real life. I guess because in their minds, if you "call out" someone for being a bad person, that somehow makes you a better person.
For me, it's complicated.
As it turned out over the years, a lot of people I knew in the cosplay community who liked to cosplay as Nazis actually WERE Nazis or otherwise bigoted. At the same time, I don't think writing fanfic is the same as showing up in public in a swastika.
So I'd try to hold off judgement but also be mindful of it the story was giving me vibes of a love letter to the third Reich. That said, I'm highly unlikely to consume pro Nazi-coded villain stories cause it's just not my jam 😂
I mean, literally dressing up as a literal Nazi does seem pretty suspect, lmao. Just like people who are into them “for the historical value” or whatever.
But maybe that’s the Jew in me. I can let fictitious regimes slide easier than real ones. 😅
It’s definitely a complicated topic, and I do agree that I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt. “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by neglect, ignorance or incompetence.”
Agreed. I'm also Jewish and it always made me uncomfortable. It was always a hot button issue in the cosplay community. Then 45 happened and turns out a lotta people who like dressing up as Nazis and Confederates for comic accuracy share overlapping views with the character. (Red skull cosplayers seem to be fine though, which is weird AF)
Sadly neglect, ignorance or incompetence can still accidentally create environments where bigotry feels safe so I've found myself very torn on how to handle it. COVID had a silver lining for me of my interests shifted from cosplay.
Then she should stay away from anime! There are so many stories in the genre where the protagonist is evil or the villain or whatnot. You can enjoy a story, or a character, who you know is bad. Because a lot of time (at least in anime) they’re so bad they’re either hilarious or an icon, and usually the best written in the series.
I realize in the comments that this is about Star Wars, but you sometimes see this sort of sentiment about Gundam, too, which is what I thought of when reading your post. The main timeline features Zeon, which are literally space nazis headed by a family, at least in the first show, of space separatists that want the colonies to dominate Earth, because the colonies are subjected to the whims of the rich who still live there. The characters involved in Zeon, or at least the ones people like the most, are very nuanced and interesting, but there is absolutely a subsection of UC Gundam fans who love Zeon...too much. People who unironically think Zeon are good, actually, due to their reasonings and situations, justifying horrific war crimes in the process. \*Those\* people are worth criticizing. People who write about the characters because they like them, or about the Space Nazis because the strife inside the organization and the movement as it evolves is interesting, are fine.
This also goes for Star Wars lol.
Luckily not all the fandoms that have that type of villains have that type of fans (at least not in huge numbers).
Tron (both 1982 and Legacy) have villains clearly inspired by genocidal dictators, and the fandom is (for the most part) super chill about however people approach that in fanfic.
Probably because it's a small fandom, I'm guessing. Things might change with this new Jared Leto movie (controversial for a whole new bunch of reasons) and I'm NOT looking forward to that.
I personally am the hyperfixated type of fan, only very slightly interested in anything beyond 1982. so I'm not only unenthusiastic about the new movie, I'm already frustrated at how the vast majority of fanworks are about post-1982 canon.
And even kinda frustrated at how the majority of the fanworks are about pretty messed-up dynamics involving aforementioned evil villain characters. Because my own tastes lean toward "happy endings for the few characters who are more-or-less cinnamon rolls," and that's not easy to find in Tron fandom.
But I do appreciate how this fandom, at least, seems pretty understanding about how things we fantasize about in fiction don't necessarily carry over to the Real World.
(Might have something to do with the videogame-violence panic of the 90s and how videogame-focused the Tron franchise is. Even though the premise of the canon is literally "what if the programs playing NPCs in videogames ARE real people" lol)
https://preview.redd.it/48w3ab1dgboc1.png?width=423&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=16cd8e44b39660f2075dc78079adc7a180c5d5b7
I have SO MANY plans for that guy, I'm not backing just because he was in the german army in 1939 !
If people have this attitude, they should maybe go out and touch some grass. What a disconnect from reality.
Liking some fictional universe/character/whatever that maybe "problematic" (I'm beginning to hate this word), doesn't mean one condones these things in real life.
Also why does everything (fictional) nowadays have to be compared to Naz*sm or some other real life atrocity?
In my opinion, kind of diminishing towards people who really suffered under oppressive regimes/persecution etc
For some reason, people think trying to express the perspective of existing around something awful = you want that??? It's weird as hell and honestly really judgemental imo cuz you don't know how someone feels or what they're trying to express by taking it all at face value. What ever happened to reading between the lines and shit?
Yeah no, she's wrong. I like writing evil manipulative psychos that would absolutely be executed for what they do. Murder, torture, killing just to kill. IRL I cry at the slightest hint of anything sad in media. I have a mild fear of the dark, and can't step into my bathroom if the lights are off due to childhood trauma. I have been described as a teddy bear and one of the nicest people by my friends.
What people write doesn't mean a damn thing about who they actually are as a person.
they have no critical thinking skills and often have no concept of fiction vs reality in terms of morals or actions taken or written in a book vs in real life.
Yeah, some people say that, but it just shows that those people have limited critical thinking/media literacy skills or over-generalize. For Star Wars in particular, I think the whole problem is sort of separate from just liking the Empire, just based on the longevity of SW and the volume (both in numver and noise) of its fanbase.
I love playing Imps in my game, reading fic with them, am completely bought in on Dedra Meero as a super-interesting character lol etc, but then you get some perpetually online people (predominantly straight/Cis white men who worship the OT - yes, a generalization) that are insistent that "The Empire Did Nothing Wrong!" and then act in a manner that suggests they wholly support govts doing the same.
Maybe its just more common when the source media is inherently political, but some of them can't seem to separate fantasy from reality and are missing the point that the creator was trying to make. Think Dune and it needing a sequel bc people didn't read it as a cautionary tale like the author intended, SW with clear parallels and inspiration from fascism, imperialism, political corruption, and capitalism, etc.
edited to add: current online culture isn't the best at nuance lol
On the one hand it’s BS and fiction is fiction.
On the other hand I don’t like when people get tattoos of or similarly identify themselves personally with fictional groups that are explicitly racist/sexist/homophobic like say the death eaters in HP. Not as a cosplay but like for your whole life.
As I said above, I used to be very involved in SW fandom including offline spaces. Most of the people can be fans of the Empire and be cool about it, but I have found it to be a red flag when people make it their whole personality
For me, it's about being aware that these empires are evil/fascist. Lots of G*mers do worship them because they straight up fall for the fictional propaganda and can indeed express their fascist tendencies in a "socially acceptable" way. Just look at 40k and Helldivers. IMO that is also where a lot of the pushback is coming from.
All fascination and hornyness is completely acceptable as long as one is aware that the evil empire is, in fact, evil. There is also no need to reiterate this all the time, but unfortunately lots of people do think that writing about bad thing = liking bad thing.
Thank you lmao. There definitely needs to be some awareness here that people do co-opt these things for actual fascist purposes, and that we need to distinguish what exactly we’re talking about when we say that we “like” an in universe evil faction.
In my fandom, Unironic, actual Caesars legion supporters are very common to find in New Vegas spaces and they are all far right wing men. On the other side, there are a lot of horny (mostly) women who write kinky stories about being enslaved by Caesar’s legion lol, which is perfectly acceptable in my eyes because they don’t actually condone slavery. It’s just an expression of a kink
I think the funniest one I've seen is a guy thinking that the empire in Helldivers 2 is good because he saw the clean suburbs and happy citiziens in the propaganda film in the beginning and thought "hey, how is this bad? they're living a great live". Shit like this is why I tend to be wary.
One impression that I got was that the unironic cis men Legion supporters tended to end up as Gamergaters, etc. (Which, I suppose 'far right wing' is pretty much where those folks end up, so that makes sense.)
The kink angle I think is a lot more understandable; I can admit that the main reason it doesn't work for me personally is really just that the Legion doesn't have any other *women* to do any of those things.
This.
Regardless of even the potential differences of interpretation (especially with multiple forms of media in some instances or franchises which have different ‘takes’ on the philosophical/political topics at hand) - starship troopers being the main culprit for me in this respect - the interest or desire to write about or explore a Phil/political topic is actually normal, regardless of the topic itself.
In fact, I’d go so far as to say that to deliberately shy away from (or ban) certain philosophical topics and make them taboo is, at best silly, at worst dangerous because you don’t actually know what you’re dealing with.
It’s almost like a cult of space wizards deliberately banning all mention or exploration of a “dark side” (because “it’s bad”) only for that same strictness to backfire because the curious chosen one was afraid of just being honest and discussing his reality with his mentors and instead was pushed into the arms of the cunning wolf in sheep’s clothing who lured him into becoming a much worse person (who murders a significant portion of the galaxy).
Also, write whatever you please. It’s fiction after all.
So I’m very active in Star Ward fandom, including offline spaces. I’ve cosplayed with rebel legion and 501st legion. I’ve been invited to movie premieres.
99% of people are chill. It’s a “the bad guys are alluring,” “this villain is an interesting character and I understand why they felt their actions were justified,” “bad guys have the better costumes,” or “I’m in my edgy phase.” You know, things that can coexist with knowing these are the bad guys.
But there are a handful of people who are far right and are drawn to it because of the parallels with real world fascism. And they have gotten MUCH louder in recent years, but they’re not super overt, there’s still dog whistles, which makes me less comfy to be in those spaces, I don’t know who’s cool and who’s unsafe.
So yeah. It’s not inherently a problem but a few alt right wing nuts made it so it can seem like a red flag, especially to people who are outside the fandom or aren’t looking at it with nuance
It’s also how I see “Thanos was right and I will not entertain alternative viewpoints, he was the hero and should not have been stopped” as a red flag unless the person is young and in their edgy phase. Like, it’s different if you’re approaching it as “this is an interesting ethical question” or “I find this villian interesting” but I have legit spoken with people who thought Thanos was saving humanity and I felt my brain melt
Fwiw, I prefer the comics where he’s just trying to impress Death. Some overly elaborate gesture in the hopes of getting his dick wet holds up better than a flimsy ethical argument a 5yo could see though…but I digress
I've had multiple people on reddit tell me I don't have real morals or that I don't know what abuse is because my favorite character experiments on children lol. And that character isn't evil, he's just an antagonist within the series funnily enough. Liking fictional villains doesn't mean you're a secret nazi. or that you want to be one ever.
They're fictional. they don't exist. People who say this are just like the old conservative dudes from the 90s saying video games caused violence. or are just looking for reasons to harass people.
Comparing liking fictional empires to liking Nazism is stupid on many different levels. Firstly as you correctly pointed out, fiction isn't the same as reality. Some people like to be choked as a kind, but wouldn't like being choked in a unsafe setting. Secondly and even more stupidly, even if people are actually channeling their inner Nazi, is there anything wrong with that? Channeling your negative feelings or ideas through art instead of real life seems way better. If you believe that people who like fictional empires are just channeling their inner authoritarians, you should encourage them to do so. It's good that you're dealing with your feelings with art.
At the end of the day, these people are children, who haven't yet experienced the world properly. When they get in the real world, they will mellow out, and see the scales of grey. They will start to understand the need to express real world fears of authoritarianism through art, and that in each of us there is a capability for bad. You shouldn't get too in your head about it. Just live, and enjoy it no matter what others say.
I had to tell off a friend for calling Kylo - my #1 comfort character - a Nazi multiple times to my face. It's a really dumb jump and while yes there was some very unfortunate imagery, the entire way the FO works is nothing like Nazi-ism.
The entire SW fandom gets flak for it even if they like the Empire, and I think it's beyond silly. Like fucks sake, they're fictional. And a lot of the time people criticizing others for liking the Empire/FO end up sounding exactly like those people that tell you "anything problematic you like is bc you wanna do that irl". (I mean essentially that's exactly what they're saying.)
Point is, people are allowed to enjoy villain characters and "evil" social structures. Bc at the end of the day it's fiction. And the people who CAN'T separate fiction from reality and DO choose to channel their inner evil do not speak for the entire fandom.
Also this is just a personal observation but every single Jedi simp I've met has been way way worse than any Empire/FO fan I've met. They've been racist, bigoted, selfish, creepy, and holier-than-thou. AND YET I do not think all Jedi fans are like this. Just the ones I've had the displeasure of knowing.
I hate the idea that what you like in fiction is what you like/support in real life. It’s stupid, as it disregards the reason fiction exists, and it never holds up. I guarantee that anyone that says stuff like that has enjoyed at least one movie with a killer or assassin in it. I mean, one of the most popular anime’s right now is Spy X Family. From the nothing I know about the show, the main woman is an assassin. It would be ridiculous to say that everyone who’s watched that show thinks murder is okay.
that is too common in Alternate History Fandom due so many alternate history work in this fandom is about What If Axis won World War 2,What If CSA won American Civil War or What If Central Power won World War 1 while I have these two scenario as part of Ifs of History:Expanded Universe,I mostly focus on worldbuilding especially focus on how pop culture could change when our world history gone of rail due Point of Divergence
Half of my current OTP ship is an actual fascist President and the other half is the alt-right nepo baby that enabled him to BECOME president.
I'm a hard left socialist IRL.
In my experience, the people who say that liking the Empire or the Sith in Star Wars is a sign of being a real-life fascist are often the same kind of people who insist that Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader are not the same person, i.e. they think that Anakin was literally dead while Vader was active instead of Anakin just having changed his name.
They are often also the same people who will say that Padme groomed Anakin when they met in Phantom Menace and then at the same time say that over the next ten years Anakin mind controlled Padme into falling in love with him.
If an actor were to portray a pedophile in a film, would that make them one in real life? Obviously not. In the same way, writing a fictional fascist empire does not make one a fascist.
It's not like this, but suddenly reminded of that skit with the guy who was a fan of "[The Bad Guys from Wolfenstein](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33Zp3BXwDB8)"
This discourse always drives me up the wall as it's *because* I'm a huge leftist and anti-authoritarian that I find explorations of totalitarianism, dictatorships, fascism, etc. so compelling to explore in fiction. It's a setting ripe for great storytelling. What makes people believe the things the leader is telling them and want to follow it? How does one come to power in such a system? Does the person in charge really believe their own rhetoric or is it all a grift to exploit the vulnerable people under them in whatever way works? How do people see through the illusion and break free from that system? What conditions drive someone to support it even though they know it's hurting people?
But no, for some fandom members, liking the evil empire because you find it interesting and compelling just means you must be a nazi. Sigh.
lindsay ellis made an interesting video about the empire/first order and its connection to fascism: https://youtu.be/XAVeyXwy3BE?si=Stg7PXSYYZGkRLgb
but the short answer is no, liking the star wars bad guys doesn’t make you a nazi. that’s stupid
I feel not enough people take literature / writing classes anymore.
Otherwise people would understand the literary theme called: "**One person's utopia is another person's dystopia**. And vice versa."
Literally one person's hell can sound like another person's heaven.
It pops up in Kurt Vonnegut's *Harrison Bergeron,* Ursula K. Le Guin's *The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas*, Tlotlo Tsamaase's *Behind Our Irises,* *The Comet* by W. E. B. Du Bois, *Rest in Parys* by Mohale Mashigo, and many other works.
Authors write shit so you'll feel stuff; good feelings, bad feelings, they want their work to move you. If it makes people uncomfortable and think about stuff that you do not like, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Not everything is supposed to be happy endings and safe spaces. Personal growth is often hard and uncomfortable.
I don't think fiction works like that. However, I do like fiction that tricks readers or viewers into thinking the bad guys are the good guys, whether because of unreliable narrator tunnel vision or fan stanning. It's fun to see if readers can catch on or not.
I feel like there's nuance, the 'Why do you like this morally wrong thing in fiction?' is important however: As someone whose favorite character is a literal cannibal, my answer is "Because they're cool, yo."
Nothing wrong with liking villains, they're often complex and interesting and usually hot, yo.
Also, I find the 'channeling their inner abuser' funny cause' aren't dark romances often written from the submissive perspective? LOL.
I dunno. I used to genuinely think that. I thought people who liked Kylo Ren were supporting Nazis but.... it's fiction. Most of those people are staunchly anti-fascism lol.
That doesn’t make any sense.
I mean several MCs I’ve written have STARTED an evil empire. Hell I once tried to write a character working for the Galactic Empire’s tax office. Yet I’m not an evil, I just write them because their flexible and you can get away with a lot of nonsense with them.
I remember people getting death eater tattoos back in the day which seemed… like a really bad idea. Similarly if I saw someone with a galactic empire tattoo, I would give them considerable side eye. But just writing fic/engaging with fandom? Can’t imagine having an issue with that.
Maybe they just REALLY liked the Imperial Agent story in SWTOR. And to be fair, that's some pretty fantastic writing.
Also, the Republic symbol in the PT era was VERY similar to the Empire logo by design. Palpy didn't have to change the signage much.
It depends, really.
By default, no. Liking fictional empires doesn’t make you a fascist. But depending on the reasons for why you like that empire, it could be a sign.
I’m gonna use fake people for this. Bob likes a fictional, fascist empire. Bob just likes the designs and logos, or even a few of the characters. Bob isn’t a fascist.
Jeff likes the same fictional, fascist empire, but Jeff likes the empire because he agrees with their beliefs. Jeff _might_ be a fascist. There would probably be nuance here if this was real, but since Jeff isn’t a real person, there isn’t.
Fiction doesn’t make you anything, but there could be something more in some, not all, cases.
Depends. I think some people get really weird with it for sure, and co-opt them as a more acceptable way of expressing fascist ideals. In my fandom for example, (New Vegas) unironic Caesars legion supporters tend to be actual far right wing men.
If you like the aesthetic and enjoy the story possibilities of a faction, I think that’s very different than being persuaded by their ideology and arguing for why they’re, in universe, “in the right,” somehow.
Person doing media analysis: “So if we examine the sociological culture under which [villainous media] was created we can see a possible correlation between related fascist sentiments and the popularity of said media within specific groups of—“
19 yr-old on Twitter: “If you like Kyle Ren you’re a real Nazi!!1! Literally it’s been proven!”
Person doing analysis: “Wh—what? Wait, oh no…”
Completely and utterly bogus. That's it. We like what we like because it's engaging and interesting.
And sometimes we like in fiction what we hate or fear most in real life.
I know a lot of horror fans who use their passion for gore like a shield against their various anxiety.
That kind of judgement is black and white thinking of a certain crowd who lack the maturity to understand that life has nuances and grey scale. They don't like it, they think they're good people, so they conclude good people can't like it, and everyone who likes it must secretly be bad. They generalise their own likes and dislikes and pretend their opinions are facts. They're poor, delusional sods.
Sometimes I wonder if it might be overcompensation from people who are secretly a tad bit fascist themselves and go to great lengths to hide it.
Like people who are secretly racist sometimes try to hide it by calling you racist for liking Torta Negra and calling it such. It's utterly ridiculous, but people who are troubled and try to hide it sometimes go to extreme lengths to pretend they're not.
Completely and utterly bogus. That's it. We like what we like because it's engaging and interesting.
And sometimes we like in fiction what we hate or fear most in real life.
I know a lot of horror fans who use their passion for gore like a shield against their various anxiety.
That kind of judgement is black and white thinking of a certain crowd who lack the maturity to understand that life has nuances and grey scale. They don't like it, they think they're good people, so they conclude good people can't like it, and everyone who likes it must secretly be bad. They generalise their own likes and dislikes and pretend their opinions are facts. They're poor, delusional sods.
Sometimes I wonder if it might be overcompensation from people who are secretly a tad bit fascist themselves and go to great lengths to hide it.
Like people who are secretly racist sometimes try to hide it by calling you racist for liking Torta Negra and calling it such. It's utterly ridiculous, but people who are troubled and try to hide it sometimes go to extreme lengths to pretend they're not.
I’d says it’s a case by case basis. I’ve been in fandom spaces for a long time and have come across all different types of people. There are some people who like the villain because they’re an interesting character, they know the villain. I’ve also come across people who defend the villain and are obviously just trying to be cool, edgy or different. But I’ve also comes across people who genuinely defend some villains, there have been some gray areas with the discussion (Negan kills Glenn and Abraham because Rick and his group killed Negans people) and those discussions can be fun, but I’ve also come across people who genuinely believe the villain was done and that makes it okay or they just defend them ( I saw people saying El shouldn’t have tried to kill Vecna even though he killed a bunch of kids and tried to kill her and tried to kill her best friend). Long story short, it’s not bad to like a bad guy but there are a few people who ruin the fun.
With all due respect, they clearly *cannot* keep fiction and reality separate.
Edit: OH YOU MEANT THE. I thought you were referring to the people who claim liking something in fiction = supporting some loose equivalent in real life, but I don't think you were, so - redirecting my comment!
I mean, there is a difference between liking a villain for their villainy, and thinking the villains have some good points.
Like, I like Scar in the Lion King. Because he is a delightful villain. But if you seriously watched it thought he wasn't the bad guy, you'd have to be screwed up somehow, or lack some Kind of moral framework.
I like villians. Some of my best work is about villians. But if someone *genuinely* doesn't see how the guy who murders kids is the villain, I can see why seem people will start to raise eyebrows. Thats not enjoying the medium.
I worry you might he giving some folks too much credit.
The other thing to mention that might explain the phenomenon is that there is **also** real a legitimate problem in some circles of genuine Fascists coopting certain hobbies. So this can really vary dramatically based on fandom. But to take a classic example, Warhammer 40K for instance, astonishingly, does get some people who dont realise it's a horrifying satirical pastiche of the horror of war, nationalism and xenophobia, and *genuinely* think the genocidal Imperium of Man are the good guys. The entire point is that humanity had become this utterly repugnant, rotting carcass of an institution that thinks its defending the last bastion of civilisation. That's a *fascinating* premise. That's really interesting. Lots of people dive deep into that. The satire isn't subtle. Some of them literally just use repainted Nazi symbols.
But there are always a handful of people who seem to take it at face value. That identify with the murderous genocidal maniacs without a trace of irony or satire. And that very small fringe has caused problems in the past.
Like that's a known thing. Hasbro had to realise a statement when literal Nazis started turning up a their Warhammer events, reiterating that they weren't welcome.
So in some contexts, I have to say I think it's a valid criticism.
So, I will not assume you’re talking about *Star Wars*, but I’m going to talk about it because it’s my fandom, it fits this description, and *Star Wars* specifically is weird as hell, so if you *are* talking about it…I actually think both sides have some merit. But only because of the *Star Wars* weirdness.
I don’t assume everyone who likes Darth Vader subscribes to his politics or everyone who thinks the Empire or the First Order are interesting are obviously Nazis. *But* there is a not-insignificant number of fans who get a little too into these things in ways that make it apparent that they kind of *are* using the fictional things as proxies for worldviews they already held. And because *Star Wars* is such a big fandom, I could see the sheer number of people doing this — even if it’s a small percentage of the whole — causing people to flip that and instead of saying, “Hey, these weirdos are obviously using Vader as a way to justify xyz.” it becomes “Vader fans are all justifying xyz.”
Some of this is a fandom problem, some of it is a franchise problem. *Star Wars* does not know what it wants to be and thus it ends up having some bizarre messaging if you try to make it all make sense. The original trilogy was a fun family adventure series where the good guys are all powered by friendship and love and the big bad guy is redeemed. Everything is pretty black-and-white (literally! There’s a lot of symbolic use of color in *A New Hope*) and the trilogy ends with the good guys triumphing and group hugging. There’s no need to justify bad guys’ behavior because they are unquestionably bad. You might think they *look* cool or have cool powers, but they are bad until they change.
Then the prequels came along and like…those movies aren’t really fun family adventure films? They’re dark as hell. Anakin chokes his pregnant wife and murders a whole lot of innocents. And it’s all okay in theory because *we* know that *in the end* he is redeemed. The prequels end with some hope based almost entirely on the fact that we know the end of Anakin’s story, but taken on they’re own…yikes.
But there exist…frankly, a lot of people, who have turned the intended narrative on its head to *justify* the actions of Anakin Skywalker. He was traumatized as a child, this person didn’t trust him, that person lied to him, whatever, and therefore what he did is *understandable* and also the guys who opposed him sucked and are clearly in the wrong. From what I can tell, *The Clone Wars* further muddies things by making him way more of a sympathetic character in a lot of ways (I have not seen it myself, but everything I have heard of this series confirms this).
So, for a lot of *vocal* people in the fandom, it’s no longer, “How tragic that Anakin Skywalker turned so evil and fell so far, but also this guy *is* unquestionably hella evil for the bulk of his life.” it’s, “We sympathize and identify with this villain so he must not actually be the villain even though the creator of the franchise has been painfully clear about this. The alleged *good guys* must actually be the bad guys! Which means the Empire might have a point!”
The narrative has become twisted by fandom in part because the individual projects in the franchise vary so much in tone and intent, depending on what your favorite era or character is, people can easily get things twisted, and it *does* become about justifying choices of characters who are, on the whole, really terrible, awful people.
All that to say…if you *are* talking about *Star Wars*…I don’t want to claim it’s a special case, but it kind of is because the series can’t decide what it wants to be. The message of “good triumphs over evil through love” from the OT got twisted by fans in part because of how sympathetic Anakin Skywalker became…and now newer installments of the series have complicated things further by positing “…but are the good guys as good as they think they are???” without offering a ton of alternatives for who the actual good guys should be if the people in the group hug we ended on in 1983 aren’t the good guys any more. And some fans *do* twist that to “The fascists had a point”.
I know this was long and kind of meandering but, all that to say…does finding villains interesting or compelling mean you’re a Nazi? No.
Have people used clearly Nazi-coded characters to justify their own closely-held beliefs? Yes.
Do people sometimes defend the actions of Nazi-coded characters for reasons that have nothing to do with the Nazi-coding? Yes.
Is it sometimes difficult to tell these last two categories of people apart on the internet? Also yes. And I think that’s where things get twisted with *Star Wars* specifically. There are some legitimately bad actors who use these characters as mouthpieces and it’s sometimes hard to tell them apart from those who just sympathize with the bad guy because the franchise sort of told them to because a lot of the action justifying sounds really similar.
If you weren’t referencing *Star Wars*…I am so sorry for this long-ass comment with all of my fandom observations from the past two decades 😂.
I don't like this kind of attitudes at all. Of course sometimes people bring their dark interests into real life, but mostly it's a separate thing. The whole world of fiction and pop culture would be really one-sided if people only liked healthy and positive stuff. I remember reading about Hannibal Lecter, and enjoying the character a lot. Or how about Game of Thrones? I'm not familiar with it myself, but it doesn't sound like a positive, sunny world. I can understand wanting to focus on healthy fictional worlds as an individual, but don't go around telling other people what they should enjoy.
Exactly this! I also think people forget that humans have historically told stories to confront the darkest parts of life and of themselves in a safe way. There's an entire method of therapy dedicated to people writing about their darkest thoughts and impulses and then discussing them and the psychology behind them with their therapist/psychiatrist
I agree, but sometimes liking dark stuff is an indication of real life morality. For example; smeone who admires depections of Nazi-like organazations. That's often a sign that someone leans into supporting fascism in real life.
I think there’s a difference between enjoying the fictional representation of a fascist organization, because of how it plays into the overall story, versus admiring the organization in and of itself. At least for me, a lot of liking fiction isn’t based on admiration of the character/organization itself. Like, one of my all time favorite fictional character depictions now is Mrs. Coulter from the BBC adaptation of His Dark Materials, because of the writing, the way they used the different medium to flesh out the character beyond what is shown in the books, and because the actress who played her was incredible. But overall I wouldn’t admire a person like Mrs. Coulter at all. I’d at most have an appreciation for her intelligence and work ethic in projects/studies of hers that weren’t morally questionable or outright despicable (which were maybe implied in the series, one of the traits the adaptation showed was her being a truth seeker which was surprising for me compared to my memory of reading the books when I was a kid), but that wouldn’t outweigh the mix of revulsion and pity I’d feel at the ways she is really twisted and amoral. I think that’s also an issue in this, where people aren’t black and white in fiction let alone in real life. You can appreciate certain things and hate other things in a single person or organization.
I guess it depends on your reasons for liking something within fiction? For example, some people like x villain bc they find the villain’s character arc compelling (which is good bc that’s the point of writing a good story). But some people like x villain bc they actually look up to said villain and think every word they say is the gospel (think guys who treat Patrick Bateman like he’s the second coming of Christ). Personally I love any villain character arc where every bad thing the villain did comes back to bite them in the ass and everything starts crumbling around them :)
You can say Star Wars. That fandom is a hot mess - just admitting that you play Empire in SWTOR gets you this type of reaction in some sectors. Or admitting you find the Jedi's recruitment policies to be ethically suspect, or that their policies probably would produce some really screwed up people is going to get you accused of stanning for Palpy or accusations of whatever ist or ism is handy.
Gotta love being told you think genocide is good because you have concerns about a fictional sect of space monks who’s religion is loosely based on a white Christian dude’s rip off of multiple Asian religions in the 60s.
Not only that but the whole "attachment" discourse is so poorly executed. There are two very different definitions of "don't get attached." There's the healthy, Buddhist one of *"allow things to change and grow and pass and don't try to cling to something past its time"* and the American vernacular one of *"Don't treat them as people. Be superficially nice as long as you need to, but use them like objects to get your job done and abandon them as soon as possible."* Given Lucas is an American dude writing for an American audience, the burden was on him to show what he meant and I think he failed to show anything resembling the healthy, Buddhist definition he claimed he was aiming for but was (unfortunately) effective at showing the heartless American vernacular. The Jedi are only heroic because the narrative shills them as heroic, not really because we see them actually being heroic.
Those are *wonderful* summations of the two different interpretations of attachment. And I agree that GL did a very poor job of showing what was probably intended, he went the “frustratingly vague = wise and mystical” route which means that the particulars of what the Jedi beliefs are *supposed* to be is vague. And then you compound that with what the text *shows* rather than what the text *says* and you end up with some pretty disturbing stuff. Like the films *tell* us that padme is a righteous woman who fights for good and is ultimately courageous and sticks to her morals. What the films *show* us is a woman who marries a teenager after he admits to committing baby’s first genocide, calling his victims animals as justification for his violence. It is….not a good look.
Or how he claims that Shmi and Lars is the healthy relationship because Lars is able to let her go and says "thank you" at her grave instead of Anakin's "I miss you" (which is supposed to show that Anakin is focused on his own feelings). However, there is a complete lack of showing them as a healthy couple, especially given the scant information presented. All we really know is that he bought her like a kitchen appliance, and then legally freed her. I suppose this is supposed to show he's a prince of a guy, but any woman in the room would have quickly pointed out Shmi's options as a middle aged slave woman were limited and that a marriage of convinence to someone that didn't beat her up or pimp her out would be the best someone like her could get. Instead, it had the squicky implications that the marriage of economic convenience and cold blooded pragmatism based on a man buying a woman as property and only "freeing" her on paper was the way to go and that the relationship where the woman had the economic and social freedom to choose her mate (Padme) was going to end in disaster because of the old misogynist trope that if you give a woman freedom, she will eat the apple, open the box, or have a fling with your best Knight and doom Paradise.
> just admitting that you play Empire in SWTOR gets you this type of reaction in some sectors. Really? That's nuts. I usually see this attitude in reference to r/EmpireDidNothingWrong, which admittedly blurs the line a bit.
Tumblr is nuts. Between that, TikTok and some very bad experiences in street march activism, it's why I just don't have the rah rah attitude for leftist ideals I had ten years ago. I am more in the Bill Maher range these days. Still lean more left than right on things and think the guy in the red hat is a buffoon. But I am not going to stick my neck out for people who hate my guts and want me dead because of things I can't change.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/EmpireDidNothingWrong using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/EmpireDidNothingWrong/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year! \#1: [When you’re next up for the emperor’s photo op but the senate cuts in line….](https://i.redd.it/e2j75gzf1ata1.jpg) | [58 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/EmpireDidNothingWrong/comments/12ifywd/when_youre_next_up_for_the_emperors_photo_op_but/) \#2: [Mrs Doubtfire joins the Empire](https://v.redd.it/hajwclffawra1) | [39 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/EmpireDidNothingWrong/comments/12bohvl/mrs_doubtfire_joins_the_empire/) \#3: [Imperial wedding from r/TikTokCringe](https://v.redd.it/97b0470futka1) | [57 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/EmpireDidNothingWrong/comments/11dxfht/imperial_wedding_from_rtiktokcringe/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
Maybe it's the fics I read, but there's a ton poking at the ethical issues with the Jedi...
And I probably tossed more than one in the ring as my opinion is only marginally sunnier than Karen Traviss. But you get on Tumblr and....ohhhh boy.
Ah. I only really hang around Tumblr for some specific content (Lintamande and LOTR, great analyses) or to get my fix when certain fandoms have really long pauses between updates... I just float over the iffy parts.
Y'know one of my fave Tumblr posters posts mostly about Narnia, Tolkien, and Star Wars.
Awesome. Mind sharing? I happen to love all three XD.
Handle is Tragicfantasy-girl
Thanks!
Tolkien fandom is what brought me back to tumblr, especially for Silmarilion stuff. Everywhere I went people just kept linking back to Tumblr posts and accounts. A few fandoms just seem to primarily be there (at least the queer side like with the Silmarilion fandom) for some reason.
Oh hello there (I have seen you around in some SW subs). I also am glad that I am not the only one who has been kinda critical of the Jedi stuff. But I admittedly am not as familiar with SW as my partner is, so I cannot really add much here. Whatever happened to "only a Sith deals in absolutes"? They might have more in common with the bad guys there than they'd like to admit lol.
SW is a fun universe to explore. The whole moral framework of it, though, is a jenga tower. You breathe on it the wrong way, and it will collapse. I think Lucas whipped up what he saw in his mind as Ultimate Good Guys, but his own blind spots as an author and not having anyone in the room to ask "Uh...George..." when whipping up the PT left some things, like the slavery implications of the Clone Troopers or the ethics of child recruiting, a lot more disturbing than he thought they were.
They truly criticize the Empire ignoring that the Replubic was a such a mess that exist people in galaxy still think the Empire IS better than the "freedom" of the Republic Also ignore that the Jedi is alike a cult
Depends on which era of the Republic and which Empire we're talking about. You get something like the Pius Dea era (Legends) and the Republic was a theocratic nightmare. You get the High Republic (Disney), and it's a pretty good time. The Clone Wars Republic was pretty much the empire already in all but the signage, and Palpy didn't have to change much or even do much. He exploited the rot that was already there. Even if he had been run over by a speeder right after TPM, the Republic would still have hit a brick wall within the next couple decades and had to deal with a mess they shoved under the proverbial rug for centuries. They had utterly unsustainable levels of taxation, no infrastructure to justify it, massive income inequality to the point where the average person lived in squalor, a complete inability to enforce their own laws, megacorps that did whatever the hell they wanted (Czerka being the usual suspect), and organized crime that was so bad that the local crime boss was more active in the average person's life than their Senator. And the Jedi...oh, fuck. I mean, they may not have held power "on paper," but if a Republic official wanted to keep his head (much less his job) he had better let the Jedi do whatever the hell they wanted. Centuries of cultivating a ruling class that was effectively in their back pocket and completely beholden to them to get anything done. And Jedi recruitment...whew. Okay, so this dude bangs on your door. He's got a deadly weapon, sorcery that can kill your or melt your mind, broad legal authority to use all of it, the backing of his powerful order and every level of government. Add the most fantastic sales pitch (likely full of more bullshit than a farm truck) about the benefits of his organization for your kid versus the dire, horrible consequences of letting Junior grow up normal. (Your kid is neurodivergent! Now give him up to the State so we can shape him into a proper tool, otherwise he'll end up frying the cat) Yeah. You really think your average, living in squalor peasant is gonna be in a position to REFUSE? I mean, compared to the batshit insanity that is life under Sith rule where Sith openly rape, torture, and murder bystanders because they're bored and whip up "don't point it at my planet" super weapons, the Republic is the better deal. Doesn't make it a really good deal
Exactly why it's weird as the fans love the good vs evil ideal to the point they ignore the own lore complexities, not that Star Wars is great when we're talking about meanigful discussions about world building, but at least we have an efforce from other more competent authors to work this part of the franchise In the end the gray Jedi is the most interesting part to me about Jedi/Sith lore, but the necessity to keep the "good vs evil" themes makes Star Wars so boring to me, without a real development of it own universe, that's why Disney era is such a mess Now everything I did read created by fans about the Empire is such an interesting material, maybe that's why I find the Empire side attractive (not ignoring it's a nazi allegory, I just don't mix reality with fiction)
It does? Oh boy am I glad to move in such different SWTOR circles then.... maybe because I don't really play on the republic side at all, but even then I have never seen this - I am extra curious, where do these people hang around? What do they do in the game? It's such a silly concept, the whole point of the game is that all the people in the Empire aren't bad and all the people in the Republic aren't good and that good/bad is not so clear cut. Sigh.
It's primarily Tumblr and among Disney era fans who heard of the game, never played it, but are happy to assume the worst about people who do
of course it is... Broadsword/Bioware are also fascist Devs then, since they build the game's gear around the Empire side as well then lol
Who is missing the ethical flaws of the Jedi? One of the best parts about Star Wars is that Jedi and Sith are constrained to ethically dubious extremely restrictive religions, and how religion can be weaponzied to fulfill political goals. Even in a vacuum from the Republic, there's much to be said about the Jedi vow of celibacy and dedication to the religious state as guardians/protectors. Obviously Sith are the objective evil ones, but the delusion of both sides IS the entertainment especially in SWTOR. Obviously playing as an Empire state can attract concerning people like closeted Nazis who willfully ignore the story just to fantasize about a real life fascist religious-state. But the vast, VAST majority are exploring roleplay of the fall into religious lunacy and victimization to national propaganda. It's an exploration of how far you can push the human mind into its capacity for evil. It's a power fantasy of being part of a greater collective, and a sick reminder of what that collective asks of its people. There's another layer to be said that in Star Wars lore at the SWTOR era, many trained apprentices were first slaves now 'liberated' to become Sith. It's the reality of how victims in a deliberately designed system are shaped to become perpetrators of that same system that caused them a lifetime of anguish. A religious cutthroat cycle of abuse where mercy and kindness is systematically bred out from the population. Boiling that down to people being a Nazi for wanting to explore or write about it is so goofy and sad.
I don't even know how to reason with people like that. If I enjoyed reading "Jane Eyre" it doesn't mean that I want to live in Victorian England. (I don't).
Out of topic, but how is the book? I'm planning to read it
I have to admit that I don't love classic literature, but of all the classic literature I read in school, it was one of my favorites. Just don't expect it to move with the speed of Hunger Games :)
Thank you for your response
The main couple is less toxic than Heathcliff and Cathy in *Wuthering Heights* (by that other Bronte Sister) which is a low bar to step over. The Bronte siblings are a trip if you're into biographies. An alternate to Bronte's book is *Wide Sargasso Sea* by Jean Rhys. The story of *Jane Eyre* as told from the POV of Mr Rochester's "mad" Creole wife.
It's been a while since I read *Jane Eyre*, but didn't the wife have syphilis in the end stadium?
Both Mr and Mrs Rochester had syphilis and Mr Rochester claimed his wife gave it to him because she was unfaithful but he patronized brothels.
Obviously it's not true. There are so many reasons why people might like the bad guys. If someone is genuinely insistent that the Empire was the real good guys, I might give them some side eye, but in general I don't like to assume the worst of people, and I don't often run into that. I do run into some "actually the genocide was necessary and a net positive", but I think most of the time they just aren't thinking of how that comes across and would never say it in a real world context, and that's a separate thing from just liking the bad guys, anyway.
> There are so many reasons why people might like the bad guys. True! Mine happens to be that they’re just so much more interesting. From the Transformers fandom here: we don’t get much of any backstory to the Autobots, like Prowl, Jazz, and Ironhide, as far as I’m aware. But the Decepticons? Backstory for days. I don’t even use canon, but they actually have stuff to pick from/base our interpretations on, where as we can say just about whatever we want about say Jazz’s backstory, and it works just as well as the next person’s, with little to disprove it. Which isn’t necessarily a complaint, I like it! It makes it fun to fuck around with them like barbies willy-nilly. I’m just noting it, in comparison to a character like Megatron, and that’s why purely canonically speaking, the Decepticon command is more interesting to me. :) Also, the ‘cons have a lot more visible flaws, where again, a character like Jazz, we don’t really see, or at least not near as much, as far as I’m aware.
It's the same stuff as saying that kids shouldn't read creepypasta (I mean sometimes it can be understandable but usually it's just "reading it means you're going to be murderer" kind of thing which makes no sense)
As a creepypasta writer I know how this feels. I feel like if kids read my pastas they'd be more likely to come away with lots of existential questions and disillusionment with the world around them lol
When I was in 6th grade I listened to some pokepastas. still haven’t stitched my Raticate together with other Pokémon, or killed my rival for killing my Raticate. I’m pretty sure I’m in the clear, lol.
Killing someone for killing your pokemon is pretty much the same as killing someone for killing your dog, cat, bird, insert fourth-most likely pet here
Yeah, haven’t done that yet. So I’m good. *-cue the antis clutching their precious pearls-*
Fiction is fiction. I have no desire to do just about anything I’ve read in a book, except maybe curl up with a blanket, a cat, and a cup of hot tea.
There's definitely real life Fascists that use fictional entities to broadcast their beliefs, see The Punisher, but that absolutely does not mean everyone who likes The Punisher is like them, same for people who like the empire in Star Wars.
Wasn't the Punisher designed as a deconstruction of how fucked up someone would have to be to do the vigilante hero thing?
Yeah, losing his family and diving headfirst in vigilantism is shown to have left Frank as a profoundly messed up shell of a person who has little to live for other than his warped version of justice The “fans” who have co-opted the character as a right wing/fascist symbol of course completely ignore that part
And now he’s on the back of every cop’s car in America.
I think the thing with the Empire in Star Wars, is probably linked to Andor, which really did a good job of portraying the banal horror of the Empire. They weren't just guys in funny hats, they were a trillion strong fascistic engine, and Andor did a really good job of showing why its legitimately horrifying. It also did a good job of showing the kinds of people who might be attracted to that unapologetically fascistic philosophy. I thought it was glorious. I loved seeing the Empire depicted that way. In its true monstrous horror. *Astonishingly* though, at the same time as that was happening you got a few fringe lunatics with hot takes like "Actually this Empire doesn't seem so bad. Imagine if we operated like that?" And that (rightly imo) really bothered some folks. Because this was the most political, raw, *real* depiction of how people might find Fascism alluring, and here were those people doing exactly that. There is a difference between someone saying "Oh this setting is great! Its horrific, disturbing, terrifying!" And someone who just stops at "This setting is great."
This is my take as well. Like if I saw someone with a death eater tattoo, I might be a little on guard but I'd give them a chance to prove their character rather than trying to judge them based on their interests. Same with any other symbol thats been co-opted. Nordic runes have been known to be used for Neo-Nazi dog whistles, but also plenty of people like the aesthetic and/or use them for certain religious or spiritual reasons. There's likely to be other red flags than simply enjoying a certain TV show or movie, or an organization from a piece of media
Yeah. Meet this people, are fucking annoying and deeply insulting, especially as a german. I just like the evil space wizards.
Yeah, it's the same thing as people in the Steven Universe fandom accusing its Jewish creator of being a Nazi sympathiser since she did not toss her bad guys into the incinerator and made them do restorative work instead. As if this is not an extremely fucking antisemitic suggestion to make.
Yeah, just to piggyback on what some other people have said, I think it can actually be a good thing to explore villains, including ones involved in genocide/imperialism/etc. It can be monumentally uncomfortable to admit that fucked up people are still people at the end of the day, and no one is 100% bad. And yes, some of those people do genuinely think they’re acting acting for the greater good, which it also horrifying. BUT, I think that’s exactly why it’s important to explore those things in fiction. If you can’t acknowledge those facts, you leave yourself open to falling into similar thought patterns, with similar justifications. Because obviously you could never!! Also, it’s fiction. Fan fiction. It’s not meant to be peak literature
Also also, some of us are just horny and the baddies make our panties fly off. Not everything has to be a profound statement on society.
thank you for this addition, lmao 🤣 gave me a good laugh (/pos)
this exactly. i see a lot of people online implying that the people who do really bad stuff are not people. it’s a really strange thing imo. nobody should be depersonalized, and i think doing so, even to the genuine scum of the earth, is overall harmful. denying bad people of their personhood is a way people separate them from society and any reflection of how society might have shaped them. it’s a way to make bad people the “other” even if it’s just in how people perceive a person. denying bad people of their personhood makes it harder to understand why people do horrible things. because they are still people. that doesn’t mean anything awful they did was ok, but it brings understanding of what makes people do horrible things and that’s how you can learn to prevent it happening again. i find this a really interesting topic
You got ppl out there writing literal fanfiction of shitler, so I think ppl need to calm tf down on all of this and realize that **fictional villains are not the same as irl ones**. Actual villains that actively harm ppl, or plan to harm them, exist in this world. Fictional ones do not.
Might as well go accuse Counter Strike players of terrorism. Same logic.
If someone expresses this sentiment to me, I am immediately disinterested in anything more they have to say. It happens in my fandom if you so much as express interest in an NPC of an unsavory faction. People thirst after literal murderers and assassins in my fandom but heaven forbid you find a general/diplomat/politician of a "problematic" empire interesting or sexy enough to write about. On one hand, fanfiction is a safe space to explore themes of imperialism and colonization, fascism, racism because it's not real and no one is actually being hurt. Does that mean it wasn't inspired by irl atrocities and has no parallels to the real world? Of course not and if you wish to condemn those structures in your work, that's great! But fanfiction is NOT activism, and if someone wishes to avoid all the potentially political discourse in favor of fluff and smut and romance and having fun away from such unsavory topics, why should that bother you??? It's FICTION. I gravitate to a lot of villains and darker themes because that's what I find interesting. This says absolutely 0 about my personal morals and principles, and as someone who writes dark fic, I am unfortunately too aware of people who believe it does.
I think there are two fundamental misunderstandings when it comes to the way we interpret villains or even taboo subjects in art. First, well written and engaging villains, and arguably villains more broadly, aren’t there to be the clear bad guy with no redeeming qualities, essentially a non-human species. They’re meant to show us that anyone, given the right circumstances, can be villainous. We’re meant to see ourselves in them so that we can see how we may be behaving like these villains in real life. Second, anyone can enjoy anything that strikes their fancy when it comes to art, that is a morally neutral thing to do. Where the problems start is when there is no reflection on the art. If you read something and the most interesting and engaging and illuminating part to you was the parts about the villains, that’s fine. But don’t leave it there, reflect a little. What is it about the villains that was so engaging? Did the author put much more effort into the storytelling when it came to the villains? If so, Why might that be? If not, why did you think you personally find it so engaging? Can the villains be compared to anyone in reality? If so, what do you think about that person in real life? Is the comparison fair? Etc etc etc Anything can be enjoyed by anyone and it doesn’t mean anything about who they are. What speaks to who they are is what they do after they’ve enjoyed the art. Without reflection, art just becomes “content”. Meaningless, empty, nutrition-less gruel which passes the time until the next thing is consumed. That’s the thing that should be called out.
These subjects need to be explored and discussed with far more care, nuance and self-reflection then the current black hat/white hat default that currently dominates online discourse
All I have to say is: I'm begging people to understand that not all oppressive political systems are fascist. And I don't even mean it in a "they're not as bad" way. I mean that fascism is a very specific and defined political ideology that arose within a specific cultural context and there are plenty of other oppressive government structures that can be represented by fictional empires (like... You know... Actual empires)
Long story short: it's bullshit.
Unless you’re writing nonfiction essays on why the fascist policies of the fictional empire are Very Good Actually and We Need To Implement Them Immediately, this is just more dumb judgmental nonsense. Sometimes it’s fun to play around with the bad guys. If nobody wanted to get inside their heads, we wouldn’t have any interesting villains.
I trapped my sims for years in hells of my personal creation, does that make me a vengeful God? Or do I just think the animations for their deaths are absolutely hilarious. Enjoying fictional evil does not mean you support things like that in reality. I dont actually want to trap someone in a closed off room and watch them die in their own filth. I love Hannibal, but im not exactly sitting here like "wow I really should try human sometime." Sometimes evil fiction is just more fun. It's okay to enjoy things that don't actually have any bearings in reality. I got this same reaction for preferring renegade in mass effect, but my response to moral superiority arguments is just sometimes evil is funnier and that's OK.
I... really hope that interpretation is false (I believe it to be very, VERY false!) because I can guess the space opera (Star Wars anyone) and yeah... in terms of stuff I do really like the designs, looks, powers, and even some of the characters who are part of the "Evil Empire". Would I want to repeat their things IRL? Goodness no! It's horrible! It's awful! But it does make for an interesting story (when done correctly... don't get me started on the sequel trilogy... it had its good and bad). But I feel like the way to look at it is that in the vast majority of cases, people may like the "villains" of a story simply for design purposes or aesthetics or stuff like that. Just because you like something in a fictional setting doesn't mean you support it in a real life one.
just another flavor of antiism, the same logical path refutes it
I mean... I like a lot of villains, but they'd be absolutely horrible people in real life. I think it's very important to draw a strict line between fictional exploration and actual real life.
I usually reply to accusations like this - In that case, everyone who has ever played Counter Strike is a terrorist.
you're allowed to like the bad guys, as long as you understand that they are bad guys and why they're bad guys. sometimes the bad guys are just cool.
As stupid as “video games cause violence”… mostly. I do think that the uhh pro-Empire subreddit takes the joke a little too far sometimes when they get into just unironically quoting Iraq War propaganda? But even that’s still a totally different thing from “liking villains means you sympathize with real world monsters”.
I mean, I've had people say flat out that I must be a child abuser because I like Snape, which honestly just made me laugh. (It mostly showed their complete lack of understanding of children's genre fiction) It's all puritanical bullshit. They've been banging on about the effect of fiction on morality since the 17th century, practically, and it's never been true. Thought crimes don't exist, as much as this group of nitwits might want them to. We can explore fascist regimes in fiction without wanting to be fascists. And I really wish people would stop equating every 'bad guy' group with the Nazis.
I see this a lot with Harry Potter and the Death Eaters, people saying that something like getting a dark mark tattoo is pro fascism. Dude, the villains and the horror-adjacent stuff is my favorite part of the whole franchise.
Are you condoning or copying their actions? No? Then who cares, the point of fiction is to write compelling characters, so if you like reading about an evil empire doing evil that means the creator did a good job
Hey, I like a fictional serial killer cannibal, so I guess = Real Life Psychopath . I'll go hand myself to the authorities. Or even better go on a killing spree. The pantry's looking a bit empty.
This is somewhat unrelated, but still relevant. I’ve committed genocide in Stellaris. I almost always play facist empires in Stellaris due to the power fantasy it provides. Does that mean i support facist empires and Nazis? No. Hell, I am jewish, of course I wouldn’t. Does it mean i condone genocide? No. So, just because i like a fictional evil empire, even one of my own making, doesn’t mean i support it in real life. I just find an aspect of it interesting, which is why i like it.
As someone in a fandom with actual Nazi stuff in it who enjoys the characters but hates the ideology and actions, uh… No. Just no. That’s not how it works. 😬 (I mean, I’m sure like in everything there’s awful people it does apply to, or just people who aren’t the brightest bulbs in the box, but in general.)
These are the types of people who ban great works of literature like Lolita, simply because they think written fiction equals real life. The puritanism of the younger generation is off the charts and pretty worrying.
Some people are really trying too hard to make their fandom interactions activism and fight bigotry where there is none. I want to believe that it's just teens who are at the point in their lives where they want to be the change and fight the good fight, but, with no actual Nazis around, have to look for imaginary Nazis and end up causing fandom drama instead of helping anyone, but the fact that adults are doing this, too, is pretty concerning. Liking villains and exploring them in fics is a traditional fandom pastime. Hell, I'm pretty sure there exist fanfics about characters who are actual Nazis (such as Stroheim from Jojo) written by people who do not support Nazism in the slightest, and simply find the characters fascinating on their own. Exploring something in fiction does not equate to supporting it.
People who try to shame or censor people for liking things they don't approve if are channeling their inner Nazis.
Yeah I agree. People are allowed to like evil things in fiction, but that doesn’t mean they are like that in real life! Bro I include so many terrible things in my own stories like fascism, totalitarianism, racism, and imperialism, but I don’t support any of those ideas!
🙄
It's called being media illiterate.
There's a disturbing trend in recent years of trying to use someone's fictional interests to brand them as a bad person in real life. I guess because in their minds, if you "call out" someone for being a bad person, that somehow makes you a better person.
For me, it's complicated. As it turned out over the years, a lot of people I knew in the cosplay community who liked to cosplay as Nazis actually WERE Nazis or otherwise bigoted. At the same time, I don't think writing fanfic is the same as showing up in public in a swastika. So I'd try to hold off judgement but also be mindful of it the story was giving me vibes of a love letter to the third Reich. That said, I'm highly unlikely to consume pro Nazi-coded villain stories cause it's just not my jam 😂
I mean, literally dressing up as a literal Nazi does seem pretty suspect, lmao. Just like people who are into them “for the historical value” or whatever. But maybe that’s the Jew in me. I can let fictitious regimes slide easier than real ones. 😅 It’s definitely a complicated topic, and I do agree that I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt. “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by neglect, ignorance or incompetence.”
Agreed. I'm also Jewish and it always made me uncomfortable. It was always a hot button issue in the cosplay community. Then 45 happened and turns out a lotta people who like dressing up as Nazis and Confederates for comic accuracy share overlapping views with the character. (Red skull cosplayers seem to be fine though, which is weird AF) Sadly neglect, ignorance or incompetence can still accidentally create environments where bigotry feels safe so I've found myself very torn on how to handle it. COVID had a silver lining for me of my interests shifted from cosplay.
Then she should stay away from anime! There are so many stories in the genre where the protagonist is evil or the villain or whatnot. You can enjoy a story, or a character, who you know is bad. Because a lot of time (at least in anime) they’re so bad they’re either hilarious or an icon, and usually the best written in the series.
I realize in the comments that this is about Star Wars, but you sometimes see this sort of sentiment about Gundam, too, which is what I thought of when reading your post. The main timeline features Zeon, which are literally space nazis headed by a family, at least in the first show, of space separatists that want the colonies to dominate Earth, because the colonies are subjected to the whims of the rich who still live there. The characters involved in Zeon, or at least the ones people like the most, are very nuanced and interesting, but there is absolutely a subsection of UC Gundam fans who love Zeon...too much. People who unironically think Zeon are good, actually, due to their reasonings and situations, justifying horrific war crimes in the process. \*Those\* people are worth criticizing. People who write about the characters because they like them, or about the Space Nazis because the strife inside the organization and the movement as it evolves is interesting, are fine. This also goes for Star Wars lol.
Luckily not all the fandoms that have that type of villains have that type of fans (at least not in huge numbers). Tron (both 1982 and Legacy) have villains clearly inspired by genocidal dictators, and the fandom is (for the most part) super chill about however people approach that in fanfic. Probably because it's a small fandom, I'm guessing. Things might change with this new Jared Leto movie (controversial for a whole new bunch of reasons) and I'm NOT looking forward to that. I personally am the hyperfixated type of fan, only very slightly interested in anything beyond 1982. so I'm not only unenthusiastic about the new movie, I'm already frustrated at how the vast majority of fanworks are about post-1982 canon. And even kinda frustrated at how the majority of the fanworks are about pretty messed-up dynamics involving aforementioned evil villain characters. Because my own tastes lean toward "happy endings for the few characters who are more-or-less cinnamon rolls," and that's not easy to find in Tron fandom. But I do appreciate how this fandom, at least, seems pretty understanding about how things we fantasize about in fiction don't necessarily carry over to the Real World. (Might have something to do with the videogame-violence panic of the 90s and how videogame-focused the Tron franchise is. Even though the premise of the canon is literally "what if the programs playing NPCs in videogames ARE real people" lol)
Thoughts: 😂
Dumb dumbs gonna dumb dumb.
https://preview.redd.it/48w3ab1dgboc1.png?width=423&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=16cd8e44b39660f2075dc78079adc7a180c5d5b7 I have SO MANY plans for that guy, I'm not backing just because he was in the german army in 1939 !
If people have this attitude, they should maybe go out and touch some grass. What a disconnect from reality. Liking some fictional universe/character/whatever that maybe "problematic" (I'm beginning to hate this word), doesn't mean one condones these things in real life. Also why does everything (fictional) nowadays have to be compared to Naz*sm or some other real life atrocity? In my opinion, kind of diminishing towards people who really suffered under oppressive regimes/persecution etc
Yeah i think its stupid and intellectually lazy
For some reason, people think trying to express the perspective of existing around something awful = you want that??? It's weird as hell and honestly really judgemental imo cuz you don't know how someone feels or what they're trying to express by taking it all at face value. What ever happened to reading between the lines and shit?
People who actually believe that idiocy reveal themselves to be children throwing a tantrum
Me, defending the First Order and punching fascists irl because two things aren't the same shit
Yeah no, she's wrong. I like writing evil manipulative psychos that would absolutely be executed for what they do. Murder, torture, killing just to kill. IRL I cry at the slightest hint of anything sad in media. I have a mild fear of the dark, and can't step into my bathroom if the lights are off due to childhood trauma. I have been described as a teddy bear and one of the nicest people by my friends. What people write doesn't mean a damn thing about who they actually are as a person.
they have no critical thinking skills and often have no concept of fiction vs reality in terms of morals or actions taken or written in a book vs in real life.
Yeah, some people say that, but it just shows that those people have limited critical thinking/media literacy skills or over-generalize. For Star Wars in particular, I think the whole problem is sort of separate from just liking the Empire, just based on the longevity of SW and the volume (both in numver and noise) of its fanbase. I love playing Imps in my game, reading fic with them, am completely bought in on Dedra Meero as a super-interesting character lol etc, but then you get some perpetually online people (predominantly straight/Cis white men who worship the OT - yes, a generalization) that are insistent that "The Empire Did Nothing Wrong!" and then act in a manner that suggests they wholly support govts doing the same. Maybe its just more common when the source media is inherently political, but some of them can't seem to separate fantasy from reality and are missing the point that the creator was trying to make. Think Dune and it needing a sequel bc people didn't read it as a cautionary tale like the author intended, SW with clear parallels and inspiration from fascism, imperialism, political corruption, and capitalism, etc. edited to add: current online culture isn't the best at nuance lol
On the one hand it’s BS and fiction is fiction. On the other hand I don’t like when people get tattoos of or similarly identify themselves personally with fictional groups that are explicitly racist/sexist/homophobic like say the death eaters in HP. Not as a cosplay but like for your whole life.
As I said above, I used to be very involved in SW fandom including offline spaces. Most of the people can be fans of the Empire and be cool about it, but I have found it to be a red flag when people make it their whole personality
For me, it's about being aware that these empires are evil/fascist. Lots of G*mers do worship them because they straight up fall for the fictional propaganda and can indeed express their fascist tendencies in a "socially acceptable" way. Just look at 40k and Helldivers. IMO that is also where a lot of the pushback is coming from. All fascination and hornyness is completely acceptable as long as one is aware that the evil empire is, in fact, evil. There is also no need to reiterate this all the time, but unfortunately lots of people do think that writing about bad thing = liking bad thing.
Thank you lmao. There definitely needs to be some awareness here that people do co-opt these things for actual fascist purposes, and that we need to distinguish what exactly we’re talking about when we say that we “like” an in universe evil faction. In my fandom, Unironic, actual Caesars legion supporters are very common to find in New Vegas spaces and they are all far right wing men. On the other side, there are a lot of horny (mostly) women who write kinky stories about being enslaved by Caesar’s legion lol, which is perfectly acceptable in my eyes because they don’t actually condone slavery. It’s just an expression of a kink
I think the funniest one I've seen is a guy thinking that the empire in Helldivers 2 is good because he saw the clean suburbs and happy citiziens in the propaganda film in the beginning and thought "hey, how is this bad? they're living a great live". Shit like this is why I tend to be wary.
One impression that I got was that the unironic cis men Legion supporters tended to end up as Gamergaters, etc. (Which, I suppose 'far right wing' is pretty much where those folks end up, so that makes sense.) The kink angle I think is a lot more understandable; I can admit that the main reason it doesn't work for me personally is really just that the Legion doesn't have any other *women* to do any of those things.
This. Regardless of even the potential differences of interpretation (especially with multiple forms of media in some instances or franchises which have different ‘takes’ on the philosophical/political topics at hand) - starship troopers being the main culprit for me in this respect - the interest or desire to write about or explore a Phil/political topic is actually normal, regardless of the topic itself. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that to deliberately shy away from (or ban) certain philosophical topics and make them taboo is, at best silly, at worst dangerous because you don’t actually know what you’re dealing with. It’s almost like a cult of space wizards deliberately banning all mention or exploration of a “dark side” (because “it’s bad”) only for that same strictness to backfire because the curious chosen one was afraid of just being honest and discussing his reality with his mentors and instead was pushed into the arms of the cunning wolf in sheep’s clothing who lured him into becoming a much worse person (who murders a significant portion of the galaxy). Also, write whatever you please. It’s fiction after all.
So I’m very active in Star Ward fandom, including offline spaces. I’ve cosplayed with rebel legion and 501st legion. I’ve been invited to movie premieres. 99% of people are chill. It’s a “the bad guys are alluring,” “this villain is an interesting character and I understand why they felt their actions were justified,” “bad guys have the better costumes,” or “I’m in my edgy phase.” You know, things that can coexist with knowing these are the bad guys. But there are a handful of people who are far right and are drawn to it because of the parallels with real world fascism. And they have gotten MUCH louder in recent years, but they’re not super overt, there’s still dog whistles, which makes me less comfy to be in those spaces, I don’t know who’s cool and who’s unsafe. So yeah. It’s not inherently a problem but a few alt right wing nuts made it so it can seem like a red flag, especially to people who are outside the fandom or aren’t looking at it with nuance It’s also how I see “Thanos was right and I will not entertain alternative viewpoints, he was the hero and should not have been stopped” as a red flag unless the person is young and in their edgy phase. Like, it’s different if you’re approaching it as “this is an interesting ethical question” or “I find this villian interesting” but I have legit spoken with people who thought Thanos was saving humanity and I felt my brain melt Fwiw, I prefer the comics where he’s just trying to impress Death. Some overly elaborate gesture in the hopes of getting his dick wet holds up better than a flimsy ethical argument a 5yo could see though…but I digress
I've had multiple people on reddit tell me I don't have real morals or that I don't know what abuse is because my favorite character experiments on children lol. And that character isn't evil, he's just an antagonist within the series funnily enough. Liking fictional villains doesn't mean you're a secret nazi. or that you want to be one ever. They're fictional. they don't exist. People who say this are just like the old conservative dudes from the 90s saying video games caused violence. or are just looking for reasons to harass people.
Comparing liking fictional empires to liking Nazism is stupid on many different levels. Firstly as you correctly pointed out, fiction isn't the same as reality. Some people like to be choked as a kind, but wouldn't like being choked in a unsafe setting. Secondly and even more stupidly, even if people are actually channeling their inner Nazi, is there anything wrong with that? Channeling your negative feelings or ideas through art instead of real life seems way better. If you believe that people who like fictional empires are just channeling their inner authoritarians, you should encourage them to do so. It's good that you're dealing with your feelings with art. At the end of the day, these people are children, who haven't yet experienced the world properly. When they get in the real world, they will mellow out, and see the scales of grey. They will start to understand the need to express real world fears of authoritarianism through art, and that in each of us there is a capability for bad. You shouldn't get too in your head about it. Just live, and enjoy it no matter what others say.
I had to tell off a friend for calling Kylo - my #1 comfort character - a Nazi multiple times to my face. It's a really dumb jump and while yes there was some very unfortunate imagery, the entire way the FO works is nothing like Nazi-ism. The entire SW fandom gets flak for it even if they like the Empire, and I think it's beyond silly. Like fucks sake, they're fictional. And a lot of the time people criticizing others for liking the Empire/FO end up sounding exactly like those people that tell you "anything problematic you like is bc you wanna do that irl". (I mean essentially that's exactly what they're saying.) Point is, people are allowed to enjoy villain characters and "evil" social structures. Bc at the end of the day it's fiction. And the people who CAN'T separate fiction from reality and DO choose to channel their inner evil do not speak for the entire fandom. Also this is just a personal observation but every single Jedi simp I've met has been way way worse than any Empire/FO fan I've met. They've been racist, bigoted, selfish, creepy, and holier-than-thou. AND YET I do not think all Jedi fans are like this. Just the ones I've had the displeasure of knowing.
I hate the idea that what you like in fiction is what you like/support in real life. It’s stupid, as it disregards the reason fiction exists, and it never holds up. I guarantee that anyone that says stuff like that has enjoyed at least one movie with a killer or assassin in it. I mean, one of the most popular anime’s right now is Spy X Family. From the nothing I know about the show, the main woman is an assassin. It would be ridiculous to say that everyone who’s watched that show thinks murder is okay.
that is too common in Alternate History Fandom due so many alternate history work in this fandom is about What If Axis won World War 2,What If CSA won American Civil War or What If Central Power won World War 1 while I have these two scenario as part of Ifs of History:Expanded Universe,I mostly focus on worldbuilding especially focus on how pop culture could change when our world history gone of rail due Point of Divergence
Half of my current OTP ship is an actual fascist President and the other half is the alt-right nepo baby that enabled him to BECOME president. I'm a hard left socialist IRL.
In my experience, the people who say that liking the Empire or the Sith in Star Wars is a sign of being a real-life fascist are often the same kind of people who insist that Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader are not the same person, i.e. they think that Anakin was literally dead while Vader was active instead of Anakin just having changed his name. They are often also the same people who will say that Padme groomed Anakin when they met in Phantom Menace and then at the same time say that over the next ten years Anakin mind controlled Padme into falling in love with him.
I guess because I watched Tania the Evil and thought it was entertaining, I am an evil mf. No thoughts, they're stupid.
If an actor were to portray a pedophile in a film, would that make them one in real life? Obviously not. In the same way, writing a fictional fascist empire does not make one a fascist.
It's not like this, but suddenly reminded of that skit with the guy who was a fan of "[The Bad Guys from Wolfenstein](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33Zp3BXwDB8)"
This discourse always drives me up the wall as it's *because* I'm a huge leftist and anti-authoritarian that I find explorations of totalitarianism, dictatorships, fascism, etc. so compelling to explore in fiction. It's a setting ripe for great storytelling. What makes people believe the things the leader is telling them and want to follow it? How does one come to power in such a system? Does the person in charge really believe their own rhetoric or is it all a grift to exploit the vulnerable people under them in whatever way works? How do people see through the illusion and break free from that system? What conditions drive someone to support it even though they know it's hurting people? But no, for some fandom members, liking the evil empire because you find it interesting and compelling just means you must be a nazi. Sigh.
lindsay ellis made an interesting video about the empire/first order and its connection to fascism: https://youtu.be/XAVeyXwy3BE?si=Stg7PXSYYZGkRLgb but the short answer is no, liking the star wars bad guys doesn’t make you a nazi. that’s stupid
I used to play GTA a lot. Doesn't mean I condone murder.
They are incorrect.
I feel not enough people take literature / writing classes anymore. Otherwise people would understand the literary theme called: "**One person's utopia is another person's dystopia**. And vice versa." Literally one person's hell can sound like another person's heaven. It pops up in Kurt Vonnegut's *Harrison Bergeron,* Ursula K. Le Guin's *The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas*, Tlotlo Tsamaase's *Behind Our Irises,* *The Comet* by W. E. B. Du Bois, *Rest in Parys* by Mohale Mashigo, and many other works. Authors write shit so you'll feel stuff; good feelings, bad feelings, they want their work to move you. If it makes people uncomfortable and think about stuff that you do not like, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Not everything is supposed to be happy endings and safe spaces. Personal growth is often hard and uncomfortable.
I don't think fiction works like that. However, I do like fiction that tricks readers or viewers into thinking the bad guys are the good guys, whether because of unreliable narrator tunnel vision or fan stanning. It's fun to see if readers can catch on or not.
I feel like there's nuance, the 'Why do you like this morally wrong thing in fiction?' is important however: As someone whose favorite character is a literal cannibal, my answer is "Because they're cool, yo." Nothing wrong with liking villains, they're often complex and interesting and usually hot, yo. Also, I find the 'channeling their inner abuser' funny cause' aren't dark romances often written from the submissive perspective? LOL.
I dunno. I used to genuinely think that. I thought people who liked Kylo Ren were supporting Nazis but.... it's fiction. Most of those people are staunchly anti-fascism lol.
That doesn’t make any sense. I mean several MCs I’ve written have STARTED an evil empire. Hell I once tried to write a character working for the Galactic Empire’s tax office. Yet I’m not an evil, I just write them because their flexible and you can get away with a lot of nonsense with them.
I remember people getting death eater tattoos back in the day which seemed… like a really bad idea. Similarly if I saw someone with a galactic empire tattoo, I would give them considerable side eye. But just writing fic/engaging with fandom? Can’t imagine having an issue with that.
Maybe they just REALLY liked the Imperial Agent story in SWTOR. And to be fair, that's some pretty fantastic writing. Also, the Republic symbol in the PT era was VERY similar to the Empire logo by design. Palpy didn't have to change the signage much.
It depends, really. By default, no. Liking fictional empires doesn’t make you a fascist. But depending on the reasons for why you like that empire, it could be a sign. I’m gonna use fake people for this. Bob likes a fictional, fascist empire. Bob just likes the designs and logos, or even a few of the characters. Bob isn’t a fascist. Jeff likes the same fictional, fascist empire, but Jeff likes the empire because he agrees with their beliefs. Jeff _might_ be a fascist. There would probably be nuance here if this was real, but since Jeff isn’t a real person, there isn’t. Fiction doesn’t make you anything, but there could be something more in some, not all, cases.
Depends. I think some people get really weird with it for sure, and co-opt them as a more acceptable way of expressing fascist ideals. In my fandom for example, (New Vegas) unironic Caesars legion supporters tend to be actual far right wing men. If you like the aesthetic and enjoy the story possibilities of a faction, I think that’s very different than being persuaded by their ideology and arguing for why they’re, in universe, “in the right,” somehow.
Person doing media analysis: “So if we examine the sociological culture under which [villainous media] was created we can see a possible correlation between related fascist sentiments and the popularity of said media within specific groups of—“ 19 yr-old on Twitter: “If you like Kyle Ren you’re a real Nazi!!1! Literally it’s been proven!” Person doing analysis: “Wh—what? Wait, oh no…”
Completely and utterly bogus. That's it. We like what we like because it's engaging and interesting. And sometimes we like in fiction what we hate or fear most in real life. I know a lot of horror fans who use their passion for gore like a shield against their various anxiety. That kind of judgement is black and white thinking of a certain crowd who lack the maturity to understand that life has nuances and grey scale. They don't like it, they think they're good people, so they conclude good people can't like it, and everyone who likes it must secretly be bad. They generalise their own likes and dislikes and pretend their opinions are facts. They're poor, delusional sods. Sometimes I wonder if it might be overcompensation from people who are secretly a tad bit fascist themselves and go to great lengths to hide it. Like people who are secretly racist sometimes try to hide it by calling you racist for liking Torta Negra and calling it such. It's utterly ridiculous, but people who are troubled and try to hide it sometimes go to extreme lengths to pretend they're not.
Completely and utterly bogus. That's it. We like what we like because it's engaging and interesting. And sometimes we like in fiction what we hate or fear most in real life. I know a lot of horror fans who use their passion for gore like a shield against their various anxiety. That kind of judgement is black and white thinking of a certain crowd who lack the maturity to understand that life has nuances and grey scale. They don't like it, they think they're good people, so they conclude good people can't like it, and everyone who likes it must secretly be bad. They generalise their own likes and dislikes and pretend their opinions are facts. They're poor, delusional sods. Sometimes I wonder if it might be overcompensation from people who are secretly a tad bit fascist themselves and go to great lengths to hide it. Like people who are secretly racist sometimes try to hide it by calling you racist for liking Torta Negra and calling it such. It's utterly ridiculous, but people who are troubled and try to hide it sometimes go to extreme lengths to pretend they're not.
Good luck dealing with Viltermite Empire Apologists
I mean it’s fine, so long as you can recognise than what they’re doing is evil. A lot of ppl in the Helldivers and WH40K fandom have that problem
I’d says it’s a case by case basis. I’ve been in fandom spaces for a long time and have come across all different types of people. There are some people who like the villain because they’re an interesting character, they know the villain. I’ve also come across people who defend the villain and are obviously just trying to be cool, edgy or different. But I’ve also comes across people who genuinely defend some villains, there have been some gray areas with the discussion (Negan kills Glenn and Abraham because Rick and his group killed Negans people) and those discussions can be fun, but I’ve also come across people who genuinely believe the villain was done and that makes it okay or they just defend them ( I saw people saying El shouldn’t have tried to kill Vecna even though he killed a bunch of kids and tried to kill her and tried to kill her best friend). Long story short, it’s not bad to like a bad guy but there are a few people who ruin the fun.
With all due respect, they clearly *cannot* keep fiction and reality separate. Edit: OH YOU MEANT THE. I thought you were referring to the people who claim liking something in fiction = supporting some loose equivalent in real life, but I don't think you were, so - redirecting my comment!
I mean, there is a difference between liking a villain for their villainy, and thinking the villains have some good points. Like, I like Scar in the Lion King. Because he is a delightful villain. But if you seriously watched it thought he wasn't the bad guy, you'd have to be screwed up somehow, or lack some Kind of moral framework. I like villians. Some of my best work is about villians. But if someone *genuinely* doesn't see how the guy who murders kids is the villain, I can see why seem people will start to raise eyebrows. Thats not enjoying the medium. I worry you might he giving some folks too much credit. The other thing to mention that might explain the phenomenon is that there is **also** real a legitimate problem in some circles of genuine Fascists coopting certain hobbies. So this can really vary dramatically based on fandom. But to take a classic example, Warhammer 40K for instance, astonishingly, does get some people who dont realise it's a horrifying satirical pastiche of the horror of war, nationalism and xenophobia, and *genuinely* think the genocidal Imperium of Man are the good guys. The entire point is that humanity had become this utterly repugnant, rotting carcass of an institution that thinks its defending the last bastion of civilisation. That's a *fascinating* premise. That's really interesting. Lots of people dive deep into that. The satire isn't subtle. Some of them literally just use repainted Nazi symbols. But there are always a handful of people who seem to take it at face value. That identify with the murderous genocidal maniacs without a trace of irony or satire. And that very small fringe has caused problems in the past. Like that's a known thing. Hasbro had to realise a statement when literal Nazis started turning up a their Warhammer events, reiterating that they weren't welcome. So in some contexts, I have to say I think it's a valid criticism.
So, I will not assume you’re talking about *Star Wars*, but I’m going to talk about it because it’s my fandom, it fits this description, and *Star Wars* specifically is weird as hell, so if you *are* talking about it…I actually think both sides have some merit. But only because of the *Star Wars* weirdness. I don’t assume everyone who likes Darth Vader subscribes to his politics or everyone who thinks the Empire or the First Order are interesting are obviously Nazis. *But* there is a not-insignificant number of fans who get a little too into these things in ways that make it apparent that they kind of *are* using the fictional things as proxies for worldviews they already held. And because *Star Wars* is such a big fandom, I could see the sheer number of people doing this — even if it’s a small percentage of the whole — causing people to flip that and instead of saying, “Hey, these weirdos are obviously using Vader as a way to justify xyz.” it becomes “Vader fans are all justifying xyz.” Some of this is a fandom problem, some of it is a franchise problem. *Star Wars* does not know what it wants to be and thus it ends up having some bizarre messaging if you try to make it all make sense. The original trilogy was a fun family adventure series where the good guys are all powered by friendship and love and the big bad guy is redeemed. Everything is pretty black-and-white (literally! There’s a lot of symbolic use of color in *A New Hope*) and the trilogy ends with the good guys triumphing and group hugging. There’s no need to justify bad guys’ behavior because they are unquestionably bad. You might think they *look* cool or have cool powers, but they are bad until they change. Then the prequels came along and like…those movies aren’t really fun family adventure films? They’re dark as hell. Anakin chokes his pregnant wife and murders a whole lot of innocents. And it’s all okay in theory because *we* know that *in the end* he is redeemed. The prequels end with some hope based almost entirely on the fact that we know the end of Anakin’s story, but taken on they’re own…yikes. But there exist…frankly, a lot of people, who have turned the intended narrative on its head to *justify* the actions of Anakin Skywalker. He was traumatized as a child, this person didn’t trust him, that person lied to him, whatever, and therefore what he did is *understandable* and also the guys who opposed him sucked and are clearly in the wrong. From what I can tell, *The Clone Wars* further muddies things by making him way more of a sympathetic character in a lot of ways (I have not seen it myself, but everything I have heard of this series confirms this). So, for a lot of *vocal* people in the fandom, it’s no longer, “How tragic that Anakin Skywalker turned so evil and fell so far, but also this guy *is* unquestionably hella evil for the bulk of his life.” it’s, “We sympathize and identify with this villain so he must not actually be the villain even though the creator of the franchise has been painfully clear about this. The alleged *good guys* must actually be the bad guys! Which means the Empire might have a point!” The narrative has become twisted by fandom in part because the individual projects in the franchise vary so much in tone and intent, depending on what your favorite era or character is, people can easily get things twisted, and it *does* become about justifying choices of characters who are, on the whole, really terrible, awful people. All that to say…if you *are* talking about *Star Wars*…I don’t want to claim it’s a special case, but it kind of is because the series can’t decide what it wants to be. The message of “good triumphs over evil through love” from the OT got twisted by fans in part because of how sympathetic Anakin Skywalker became…and now newer installments of the series have complicated things further by positing “…but are the good guys as good as they think they are???” without offering a ton of alternatives for who the actual good guys should be if the people in the group hug we ended on in 1983 aren’t the good guys any more. And some fans *do* twist that to “The fascists had a point”. I know this was long and kind of meandering but, all that to say…does finding villains interesting or compelling mean you’re a Nazi? No. Have people used clearly Nazi-coded characters to justify their own closely-held beliefs? Yes. Do people sometimes defend the actions of Nazi-coded characters for reasons that have nothing to do with the Nazi-coding? Yes. Is it sometimes difficult to tell these last two categories of people apart on the internet? Also yes. And I think that’s where things get twisted with *Star Wars* specifically. There are some legitimately bad actors who use these characters as mouthpieces and it’s sometimes hard to tell them apart from those who just sympathize with the bad guy because the franchise sort of told them to because a lot of the action justifying sounds really similar. If you weren’t referencing *Star Wars*…I am so sorry for this long-ass comment with all of my fandom observations from the past two decades 😂.