Sword Art Online is kind of infamous for that. I'd go on a long ranty-rant about SAO, but there are certain YouTubers who've done a far more entertaining job of it. (Alas, the language they use is often NSFW.) Of course, that is not to say that SAO doesn't occasionally have its merits, or else I probably just would not care all that much.
Anyway, I just want to clarify: when I'm pondering the "Persecution Fantasy" (for lack of better term) phenomenon, I do not mean, "All stories that have the hero suffer up front" are this. What I mean is, I get the feeling that there is a writer who is probably INSPIRED by some other "suffering hero" story, but completely forgets to set up WHY the hero is suffering -- just as at times I feel like there are cases where an author is trying to make a knock-off Star Wars, but totally forgets to show us that THE EMPIRE IS EVIL and therefore why we should be sympathetic to heroes who undertake guerrilla tactics to fight said Empire.
If the hero is bloodthirsty in defeating his enemies, we need some kind of explanation as to WHY he's bloodthirsty, if we're to see him as a "hero," or else he's just cruel.
If the story is setting up the hero to demand our pity and sympathy by having everyone in the universe pile on him, there needs to be at least some token reason why he got the short straw (and "he's not the only one in the world who got the short straw" can be valid), or after a few coincidental bad breaks it just feels contrived. Or, worse yet, it starts to feel like a fantasy invoked by someone who's delusional.
For instance, I think of the "Gate" anime. It is very, very, "RAH-RAH JSDF!" to the point of feeling jingoistic. The JSDF never loses. In fact, in all the episodes I saw, there was never so much as a challenge. Dragon? KABOOM. Defeated. Army? Mow them down. Easy-peasy, don't even break a sweat. Several nations send black ops assassins to kill the protagonists? They're chumps compared to your goth-loli death-fetish girl. Oh, wait, that's not JSDF, but she's on your side, so ... eh, whatever. But what's more, there's not even an internal conflict to speak of that I can see. The JSDF members are all totally exemplary, totally LIBERATING all these poor medieval towns from their big, bad rulers.
It's like we wanted to imagine we were doing in Iraq ("We'll be welcomed as liberators!"). It's like the Japanese army presented its "adventures" in the mainland in World War II.
So, it introduces into my head a counter-narrative: What if this is the delusion enjoyed by the hero? What if things aren't as shiny and perfect as is being presented?
I also think of that when I watch that paranoia extravaganza called "They Live." Oh, look, only our hero with his magic sunglasses can see that all these people are REALLY skull-faced aliens infiltrating our society and brainwashing us, so he's fully justified in slaughtering what to everyone else looks like unarmed civilians. (Okay, they're unarmed even if they're aliens ... but they totally had it coming, right? Because they're ALIENS!)
Hence, if I'm presented with a story with a little too much paranoia, a little too much conspiracy going on, a little "too bad to be true," (and it's all leading up to the hero being "morally justified" in completely obliterating anyone who crosses him) I can't help but try to see if I can't possible fit a sub-narrative on for size. What if all this persecution is mostly in the "hero's" head -- what if those sinister smirks and the brazen eye-pull is just imagined -- and he's really just a scoundrel? ;)
(Back to Shield Hero: I mean, c'mon ... the girl does the "NYEH" thing with her tongue sticking out, fully confident that nobody else is going to notice or care. Like, "Ha, ha, GOT YOU!" What the heck earned such utter contempt? That sort of thing is usually reserved for someone that you're PAYING BACK for some slight, real or perceived. What the heck could have been perceived as that slight? What was it payback for?)
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2019-01-11 09:45 pm (UTC)Anyway, I just want to clarify: when I'm pondering the "Persecution Fantasy" (for lack of better term) phenomenon, I do not mean, "All stories that have the hero suffer up front" are this. What I mean is, I get the feeling that there is a writer who is probably INSPIRED by some other "suffering hero" story, but completely forgets to set up WHY the hero is suffering -- just as at times I feel like there are cases where an author is trying to make a knock-off Star Wars, but totally forgets to show us that THE EMPIRE IS EVIL and therefore why we should be sympathetic to heroes who undertake guerrilla tactics to fight said Empire.
If the hero is bloodthirsty in defeating his enemies, we need some kind of explanation as to WHY he's bloodthirsty, if we're to see him as a "hero," or else he's just cruel.
If the story is setting up the hero to demand our pity and sympathy by having everyone in the universe pile on him, there needs to be at least some token reason why he got the short straw (and "he's not the only one in the world who got the short straw" can be valid), or after a few coincidental bad breaks it just feels contrived. Or, worse yet, it starts to feel like a fantasy invoked by someone who's delusional.
For instance, I think of the "Gate" anime. It is very, very, "RAH-RAH JSDF!" to the point of feeling jingoistic. The JSDF never loses. In fact, in all the episodes I saw, there was never so much as a challenge. Dragon? KABOOM. Defeated. Army? Mow them down. Easy-peasy, don't even break a sweat. Several nations send black ops assassins to kill the protagonists? They're chumps compared to your goth-loli death-fetish girl. Oh, wait, that's not JSDF, but she's on your side, so ... eh, whatever. But what's more, there's not even an internal conflict to speak of that I can see. The JSDF members are all totally exemplary, totally LIBERATING all these poor medieval towns from their big, bad rulers.
It's like we wanted to imagine we were doing in Iraq ("We'll be welcomed as liberators!"). It's like the Japanese army presented its "adventures" in the mainland in World War II.
So, it introduces into my head a counter-narrative: What if this is the delusion enjoyed by the hero? What if things aren't as shiny and perfect as is being presented?
I also think of that when I watch that paranoia extravaganza called "They Live." Oh, look, only our hero with his magic sunglasses can see that all these people are REALLY skull-faced aliens infiltrating our society and brainwashing us, so he's fully justified in slaughtering what to everyone else looks like unarmed civilians. (Okay, they're unarmed even if they're aliens ... but they totally had it coming, right? Because they're ALIENS!)
Hence, if I'm presented with a story with a little too much paranoia, a little too much conspiracy going on, a little "too bad to be true," (and it's all leading up to the hero being "morally justified" in completely obliterating anyone who crosses him) I can't help but try to see if I can't possible fit a sub-narrative on for size. What if all this persecution is mostly in the "hero's" head -- what if those sinister smirks and the brazen eye-pull is just imagined -- and he's really just a scoundrel? ;)
(Back to Shield Hero: I mean, c'mon ... the girl does the "NYEH" thing with her tongue sticking out, fully confident that nobody else is going to notice or care. Like, "Ha, ha, GOT YOU!" What the heck earned such utter contempt? That sort of thing is usually reserved for someone that you're PAYING BACK for some slight, real or perceived. What the heck could have been perceived as that slight? What was it payback for?)