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Thread: the villain in every story

  1. #1
    confidentially pleased cacian's Avatar
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    Lightbulb the villain in every story

    is there a villain in all of us?
    villain french for baddy
    we insist there is one in every story.
    it may never try
    but when it does it sigh
    it is just that
    good
    it fly

  2. #2
    Maybe YesNo's Avatar
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    I don't know why but I suspect the answer is yes.

  3. #3
    confidentially pleased cacian's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by YesNo View Post
    I don't know why but I suspect the answer is yes.
    any reason you may outline that makes you think the answer is yes?
    it may never try
    but when it does it sigh
    it is just that
    good
    it fly

  4. #4
    Voice of Chaos & Anarchy
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    I think that you would have to make your question narrower to get a valid answer. Whether someone is a villain or a baddy is largely a matter of point of view. Humans by their fundamental nature seek what is good for them, and that may not be what you perceive as good for you, so you might sometimes see others as bad from your perspective. Then again there are the people who go around engaging in violence on others.

  5. #5
    Internal nebulae TheFifthElement's Avatar
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    There are plenty of stories without villains.
    Want to know what I think about books? Check out https://biisbooks.wordpress.com/

  6. #6
    confidentially pleased cacian's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by TheFifthElement View Post
    There are plenty of stories without villains.
    are you able to recommend one?
    it may never try
    but when it does it sigh
    it is just that
    good
    it fly

  7. #7
    confidentially pleased cacian's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by PeterL View Post
    I think that you would have to make your question narrower to get a valid answer. Whether someone is a villain or a baddy is largely a matter of point of view. Humans by their fundamental nature seek what is good for them, and that may not be what you perceive as good for you, so you might sometimes see others as bad from your perspective. Then again there are the people who go around engaging in violence on others.
    interesting i thought bad was a unanimous meaning.
    it may never try
    but when it does it sigh
    it is just that
    good
    it fly

  8. #8
    Internal nebulae TheFifthElement's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by cacian View Post
    are you able to recommend one?
    There are hundreds, thousands probably. Any book by Virginia Woolf, Don DeLillo, Nicholson Baker, Ali Smith, Tove Jansson, Cees Nooteboom. To the Lighthouse; If on a winter's night, a traveller; Hunger; The Mill on the Floss; Kristen Lavransdatter...the list is endless.
    Want to know what I think about books? Check out https://biisbooks.wordpress.com/

  9. #9
    Registered User prendrelemick's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by cacian View Post
    is there a villain in all of us?
    villain french for baddy
    we insist there is one in every story.
    Also means a low born peasant or serf, which perhaps tells us something.
    ay up

  10. #10
    Maybe YesNo's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by cacian View Post
    any reason you may outline that makes you think the answer is yes?
    I agree with PeterL about the relativity of what being a villain means. Take for instance the current Star Wars movie. The bad guy or villain is the one wearing the black helmet, but he probably doesn't see it that way. He probably thinks all those rebels deserve to have their planets blown up. To avoid a complete moral relativism there might be a real good that we are all trying to achieve while stepping on each other's toes.

  11. #11
    Card-carrying Medievalist Lokasenna's Avatar
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    I think it shows great skill as a writer to make villains who are not simply pure evil. I've just finished watching Amazon's excellent The Man in the High Castle, and by the end of series I'm impressed by the fact that I cannot think of any idividual as 'the villain' of the piece, despite having a cast that includes any number of Nazis, racial supremacists and urban terrorists. It's a testament to the quality of the writing that, by the end of the series, one is rooting for people who have committed terrible acts of evil.

    Anyway, everyone loves baddies. They're always the most entertaining thing in a narrative. Give me a Richard III over a Prince Myshkin any day of the week.
    "I should only believe in a God that would know how to dance. And when I saw my devil, I found him serious, thorough, profound, solemn: he was the spirit of gravity- through him all things fall. Not by wrath, but by laughter, do we slay. Come, let us slay the spirit of gravity!" - Nietzsche

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