POTW: A Role Best Played

[Nanophage]

All characters can have depth, however it seems less about the possibility of depth and more about the hibutuality of it. More often then not, stories involving damsels in distress have somewhat mainstream personalities relating to the time they were created and the purpose they serve. For example, Princess Peach from mario used to just be a more or less prize instead of a person, an object that needed to be retrived for a poorly contrived situation. However at the time it didn't matter.

Now you have princesses less like Sleeping Beauty, who was trusting and somewhat... I mean very naive, to someone like Rapunzel in the movie Tangled who is reckless and Naive. Some of the key elements of the character remain but a large portion of the premise changed. Villans can be just as prosthetic as some damsels, however that has been less and less the case over the years.

Both villans, and damsels have developed more since their conception like everything in the world. Recently it seems that there are more villans with justification and purpose then there are damsels to the point where instead of having a person be the target that is rescued it is more an object like it was in the beginning.

So it is sterotypical to have a villain with more personality and depth then a damsel, people usualy fight for a prize, a goal. For the reason of humanities dynamic and chaotic persoanlities it is less likely that they would fight for the person. It is just easier to fight for an object then a person. In most stories where a someone is kidnapped for some reason, it seems the hero's objective to save the person because of love then it is for them to save the person themselves. It occurs for the reason they want to feel the emotion and less directly cause of the person. You will find less people willing to risk his/her life for someone they do not know then for their wife for the fear of losing the feelings that are garnered from interaction with the person.

This is not saying that there are no damsels with depth and not that there is less damsels with depth then there are villans with depth. However it has become more mainstream to have villans with depth then damsels. Someone could clearly argue against this, and there are most definently holes in this arguement. But this is based on the evidence I have seen so its a more uninformed and limited arguement.

Just saying

 

[Kairoga]

Why is it I dont feel safe voting in this pole?

Also i'd like to try a villian but havent had a chance. Seems fun though.

 

[Pirogeth]

I believe that this poll holds quite a bit of say and also not a lot. What I mean to say is this, this poll, when read without reading any of the comments, says that most people will prefer to play heroes. This could be for various reasons, the hero psyche is a simple and well understood objective in our current society, there are far more ideas for heroic looking parts, and you do not always have to be completely heroic. Yet, at the same time the captured person is also easy to play as it respectively gives a few things to the RP'rs here.

One of those things is a sort of freedom from commitment. The hero takes a lead role for the story so they must always be there but when someone is capture it vastly reduces the amount of development that character must make with the hero and there for the rest of the group. However, this also develops a heart felt connection between that person and the hero's group. So in essence a Damsel/dudesel is easy to play and easy to really have time to develop a back story on.

Meanwhile, the villain on the other hand has a bit of a challenging role which most people tend to shy away from. And this is simply because our society currently looks down at what a villain is so we have no real experience behind being the anarchist of the pseudo-society. Instead we have to rely on clichés, hateful opposites, and other developments that we have to make up without feeling. A connection with the villain is harder to establish and there for leaves his/her depth at a lower priority for the writer. Being a villain takes practice but you also need to have an appropriate mind set.

That mind set is something of a "you will lose by the end of this." You have to know when to win and when to lose, and most importantly, how to lose. Some shows and movies have a villain that keep recurring and each time they "die" you lose more and more interest. That's because the question of whether he is alive or not is never a major concern you just wait for him to show up in the next episode or movie. Creating a believable losing character is a challenging experience leaving not a lot for background.

But that is where a professional (debatable) villain player shines. The incorporation of the past to the current plot and evil plans can really build a villain. This history doesn't need to be cliché either and can make for an interesting player. Toying with that history and tweaking it in combination with all these other factors make good villains rare and hard to come by.

And, my answer to the poll I find myself playing villains more often. I do not play damsels/dudesels all that often because I need them to be captured by me. I have to say the most interesting conversations my villains have had are with their captives.

 

[thestarsaregolden]

I love being an evil character.. but then again, its fun to beat other peoples asses...

 

[Leucothea]

That picture.......*dies*

 

[Tetsuri Tokai]

I playing the role of the hero.