The Only Time Murder is Okay
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- Опубліковано 6 гру 2023
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Who doesn't love a good revenge plot? It's hard not to get behind someone seeking justice... even when they're doing some pretty deplorable stuff in the process?
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Can u make a video about Overlord (by Maruyama)? I find its writing quite unique but can't describe it
Another anime reference? Nice! If we keep up this pace, we might be able to get Talebot to read Literary Stray Dogs manga! XD
Well say if you destroy the entire universe because your favorite donuts were put of stock who will be left decide how evil your actions were?
That's way too specific man
⑨
Stand in the crumbs of a trillion incinerated donuts, and ask the sprinkles if justice matters.
"Do you know who ate all of the donuts?"
You fool! If you kill everyone, you won't be able to get the donut recipe AND you'll have to grow and process all the ingredients yourself!
To play the devils advocate for Dishonored:
You can kill all your targets and still get the good ending. as long as you avoid killing other npcs. Once you kill enough to pass a certain threshold you get a "high chaos" marker for the level. Do so for enough levels and you get the "bad" ending.
I would also like to point out that the game does not label the endings as "good" or "bad", but instead as High and Low chaos.
The logic being that if you kill a lot of people it would naturally make the world more chaotic
That detail seems like it makes the game almost like Princess Bride and Hamlet at the same time, where revenge can be right if carried out in a measured and rational manner, and the real evil of revenge is to become indulgent in creating havoc for its own sake.
Despite that, the high chaos is very clearly the evil ending with the city being overrun by rats. I feel like it would have been better if in high chaos Corvo gets his revenge and clears his name but the rat problem still exists while in low chaos the rats aregone but Corvo is still believed to have killed the empress.
Came down here to see if this clarification was made. Thumbs up
@@RamenBowl2.0 High Chaos doesn't magically become your ending, there's a reason for it. The more people you kill, the more the rats will eat them, the more they'll grow in numbers, hence the more people die from the plague or by becoming their dinner. We see this happening in the game from the start to the end.
I feel its what they were going for, but wasn't achieved. The high chaos ending has the empire overrun by plague, Emily becoming a tyrant and even Samuel being infected. There is one ending that is much more satisfying. Dishonored is amazing, but they clearly wanted players to be more order aligned.
Justice is not the true goal of revenge. It can be a biproduct. Inigo kills the six fingered man for revenge, but in doing so he kills a cruel man with much more blood on his hands and weakens prince humperdink. He didn't care about the grander goals, about stopping corruption, he just wanted to kill one man.
And don't forget that when we first meet him, he's a sellsword. A mercenary who kills people for money.
I lost all train of thought when I read Humperdink
And think of killing as the lesser evil, because otherwise, the greater evil will continue to happen and harm more.
Holy hell I thought you are talking about bill cipher when you mentioned 6 finger man lol
I hate revenge stories when the antagonist is clearly evil, and needs to be gone. But the moral is always “revenge bad” but then when the protagonist decides to be an angel at the last second and spare the antagonists life, it 99% of time bites them in the ass, rendering the “revenge bad” message a moot point, because even after being spared they don’t change, i like revenge stories that instead of making revenge to be bad in and of itself, they say “they may deserve it, but at what cost?” Like god of war, or vinland saga, where you may achieve (or not achieve in Vinland sagas case) your revenge, but what of collateral damage? The people you kill directly or indirectly along the way? What of yourself? Will you truly feel relieved of the anger and hatred? You won’t, if the antagonist is to be spared, the antagonist should 100% show some sort of change, otherwise telling us that “its wrong to kill them” doesnt make sense because then you just have to kill them anyway in self defense… but only after they kill 5 more of your friends because you decided to spare them of course.
You talking about a certain game from naughty dog the released on the ps4 but is now for some reason getting a remaster
Ah, yes that one game were you go on a endless killing spree, but then you suddenly spare the antagonist, because "revenge bad"".
Vinland Saga did a great job making you actually think about the morality of revenge. AOT had a good case too with that one character many hate.
Batman irks me because of that. I get why *he* wouldn't kill, even if it's the Joker (because he's afraid of falling down the slippery slope to villainy) but he actively saves the Joker's life multiple times. Like, why? You know he's just going to kill more and cause you more misery. Just... look the other way and let that one random guy shoot him.
Made me think about the last of us game lol, ellie did all that to spare abby, it also shows how corrupt everything is and that shits messed up
@@MrClickityreminds me of that one comic where joker had a room full of people who he used the joker gas on. When Batman found them they were all dead and I just didn’t do anything to joker other than beat him.
I once heard someone say that Shakespeare liked to create his tragedies by placing contemplative characters where men of action would have been effective and men of action where contemplative characters were needed. Imagine what would have happened if Hamlet and Othello had exchanged stories. Othello, the general would have killed his father's brother early sparing the collateral damage that the uncertain Hamlet created. Hamlet, the thinker would have been able to figure out that his wife wasn't cheating on him, and spoiled Iago's plot. The thing is that by placing the "wrong" man in his stories, Shakespeare probably made his plays more interesting than they would have been if he'd followed my advice. Conflict may be nothing as much as things going terribly wrong for the story's characters.
That is incredibly interesting. To think that, if their fates were swapped, they would be perfectly fine!
I haven't read shakespeare so i can't really speak about it, ut it is not so improbable he did, considering how a lot of famous writters use their own standard interesting story formula while writting some of their stories
The sad truth is that justice is often elusive, even when the system isn't corrupt or broken. Revenge seems more attainable in comparation.
"Justice" is a concept that no being can truly see, touch, or hear but Revenge is something that is so sweet that even those without huge grudges imagine what would happen if they went for it
@@jamescarmody5653 And because it's so sweet, it's easy to lose yourself in the sauce of vengeance.
Also Justice isn't morally good, it is neutral. A balance, not elevating. Justice can and usually is good when enacted but without things like mercy, it is too easily used as a tool for evil.
@@crowdemon_archives "All we're saying is... GIVE SAUCE A CHANCE!!!"
"Cheff's are cruel, and i'm in very touch with my inner Cheff!"
- Saucedowner
@@user-cd5fm3hh9kwhat series or movie are you talking about?
Since you brought up Avatar: The Last Airbender, one of my favorite series, there was another character, Jet, who was also consumed by revenge. Unlike with Katara, though, Jet's revenge was indiscriminate and relentless, attacking Fire Nation soldier and civilian alike, even flooding an Earth Kingdom town in an attempt to eliminate them. There's also a point in Season 2 when Aang, normally the peacekeeper in the group, nearly succumbed to revenge after Sandbenders kidnap his skybison Appa, until Katara was able to calm him down before he did something drastic.
Let's not forget the Puppet Master! She did what Jet did only much creepier and was a parallel to Katara.
I have to point out that in Dishonored, if you kill your targets, and just your targets, and are otherwise very clean about it, you'll still get the good ending or at worst the sorta "meh" ending. It's only when you start to indiscriminately kill anyone and anything in your way that you actually get the bad ending.
When you mentioned revenge via catharsis, it made me think of the poet Dante Alighieri. He was a man who was wrongfully exiled from Firenze, the city he was born in and loved, by his political enemies while he wasn't even there. So what did he do? He wrote an epic poem that condemned these people forever to the depths of Hell. Not just in literature but in the memories of anyone who has read it. The most subtle way of vengeance, in my opinion.
Cue Wendigoon mentioning Florence, please.
Dante completely changed how we consider hell to look, inspiring countless media in the process, all through a self-insert fanfic of the bible where he writes his enemies as bad guys.
@@ultrasquid579 In search of his waifu, no less.
Jackie from the Darkness comics had a great description of his powers. "Using the Darkness is like being at the cinema and watching a superhero movie with you as the mainrole. You watch yourself using all these great powers and getting rid of all the bad guys, but the people around you, they scream in shock. They are watching a horror movie."
A lot of scifi superhero adjacent stuff depicts this. Without the childish wish fulfillment and culture of masked entities acting like neighborhood beat cops, superheroes seem like pantheons of insane gods.
@@Badficwriter Superheroes are pantheons of insane gods even without the attached movie culture, this is wholeheartedly accepted in the comics between Marvel and DC. A lot of the heroes themselves are incredibly dangerous sociopaths who are only tolerated because of the good they usually bring and the utter inability for even military organizations to stop them (such as Tony Stark and Wolverine) at best, or legitimate loose cannons who pose a massive threat to society the moment they go unchecked or steer slightly off their moral compass (The Hulk, Batman, Superman to a lesser extent)
@@MVCx_xB
Ah, yes theses superheroes should serve the government, because the government it totally moral and would never do something immoral.
@@chongwillson972 to be fair it is completely canonical that if batman killed one time ever that he would become a crazy serial killer who kills as his first punishment for any crime
Dishonored is my favourite video game of all time. I think one of the things that make the revenge plot so compelling is that, not only is Corvo falsy accused, he's falsy accused of the murder of the one person he was sworn to protect, whom he dedicated his entire life to protect, and on top of that this person is the mother of his child (even if no one else but the two of them know that). That makes for an incredibly gripping hook. But what kept me invested, what convinced me that his revenge was not only necessary but righteous and that he could not under any circumstance "forgive and forget" is because of Emily.
I think Arkane made a brilliant move in adding Emily. Not only does it fleshes out the relationship between Corvo and Jessamine, adding to the weight of Corvo failing to protect the Empress, but as a player who already failed to protect one person, it gives you an incentive to keep playing. Because after all, if you stop now and abandon your revenge, you leave Emily, not just a child, but YOUR child, to the hands of the men responsible for the murder of her mother and your lover. It's like a ticking countdown in the back of your mind, because "normal" revenge plots aren't on a time crunch. You have all the time you need to complete them (see: le Comte de Monté-Christo, which takes place over decades).
But in Dishonored, you're in a hurry: the longer you take to go through the co-conspirators and men responsible, the longer you leave Emily in a vulnerable and dangerous position. And what ties a bow to the perfection of this revenge plot is the Chaos system. If you try to only kill the men responsible, if you spare civilians and soldiers and watchmen, if you even try to find non-violent solutions to get the co-conspirators out of the picture without killing them, you keep your Chaos score low. The city slowly gets better around you, less guards, less rats, less people sick with the plague. Emily actually responds to your actions, becoming kinder and more compationate.
But if you loose yourself in the revenge, kill civilians, innocents, do massacres in every mission, the city gets plunged into Chaos, literally. Guards everywhere, wearing masks against the plague, piles of corpses ravaged by the sickness, swarms of rats attacking you and devouring citizens and watchmen alike in seconds, gangs taking over the streets. And Emily becomes bloodthirsty, saying "Good" to you when you come back from killing everyone. If you take it to this point, you're putting a child-Empress on the throne who learned from her father and lord protector that revenge solves everything. And if you take it too far, Emily dies at the end, this child who wears white through the entire game killed by your own bloody hands. Man, I love Dishonored so much.
And if anyone reading this speaks French and likes revenge plots and Sci-Fi, I highly recommends "Le Roi Sombre" by Oren Miller. It's a re-imagining of the Count of Monté-Christo but in space in a dystopian Sci-Fi setting and it's one of my favourite books ever written.
I agree completely! The moment you see Emily's drawing of Corvo in his mask is so impactful. The biggest thing Dishonored 2 was missing, in my opinion, was an impactful result from Chaos. That drawing, Samuel's gunshot, or just... something. Jessamine's judgements are good, but not on the same level. The only thing that comes close is showing Sokolov Meagan's body, but the game gives you no incentive to kill her on High Chaos, because she doesn't even reveal her identity! The game needed an Emily, someone that you can see your actions corrupting over time. Oh well, maybe Dishonored 3 will have something like that (if the leaks are to be believed).
@@sithdude2436 Samuels warning shot is easily my favourite high chaos detail. Samuel is just a normal guy helping Corvo to achieve his goal because he believes that doing so will get rid of bad actors and create a more morally just leadership. He only shoots the warning shot at high chaos, because the point of it is to alert the innocent guards so that they can save themselves, and he makes his disdain for Corvos actions known in a last ditch effort to convince him to leave innocents be. Samuel hates Corvo at this point, and he only ferries him there to warn the guards, because Corvo would find a way there anyways.
I notice that movies will often differentiate between "good" revenge and "bad" revenge, based on what the characters do in addition to revenge. For example, in "The Crow," Eric is clearly framed as the good guy, because he comes back from the dead to kill his killers (plus the gang boss's henchmen, who are about to do other bad things), but also cures a woman's drug addiction. In contrast, in "Nightmare on Elm St.," Freddy is clearly framed as the bad guy, because he comes back from the dead to avenge himself against the people who killed him in revenge for having previously murdered (and probably molested) children.
I feel that is a very measured why for writers to approach it, the only revenge that people should show sympathy for is that which is focused against the actual wrong doers and driven by very serious injustices(and yes I don't consider law and justice the same thing as law is just as corruptible as the far more personal option of revenge).
This why vengeance is generally portrayed as wrong in general. It can empower the guilty as much as the innocent. Justice in contrast does not punish, but balances the scales in an emotionless vacuum. Justice does not account for the time the scales were unbalanced, and does not make them unbalanced in the opposite direction for an equal amount of time. However, the only way to get this equal amount of time from reversing the scales is to do twice the harm done by the instigator. In order for vengeance to remain justified, this surplus must not be permanent. It must be able to be righted when the time comes. Vengeance imparts the responsibility of manually accounting for the harm you repay your offenders.
On the topic of choosing Mercy over Violance, there's also Aang, specifically during his final fight with Ozai, specifically how Aand dealt with him and how it could be argued what he did is worse then if he killed him.
See Firelord Ozai cared only for two things, himself and strength, he was proud of his strength and he was proud of what strong people could do, he reveled in being able to force others to do what he wanted and to be able to incite fear.
Aang took his bending from him, the source of his strength, rendering him not but a normal man, which basically takes everything from him, why would his people continue to follow him? he can't make them anymore, he can't fight back against anyone who would take his seat, and no one is afraid of him anymore, it's the worst fate he could imagine, being made weak.
o.o
I feel its a more fitting fate and one that helps undermine Ozai's cruel ideology. It not only removes his power, it undermines the notion that ruthlessness and strength of arms is everything by showing how much that mindset emotionally breaks those who are past there prime/glory days.
@@Wolf-oc6tx Indeed, it also destroyed Ozai's legacy, has Aang killed him he would ave been remembered for the cruel dictator he was and perhaps even had people flock around his banner after his death, but since he was made to live he doesn't get that legacy, instead everyone gets to bear witness to what he has become instead, it's probably the single largest humiliation he's ever had.
@@Nyghtking It certainly is the single largest humiliation he's ever had and a well earned one at that.
something I would love to see is a revenge story with an asshole protagonist, who accidently gets revenge on the wrong person, ruining this innocent person's life and facing the consequences of that - I think it's fine for the protag to later get revenge against their real target, but the important part is either them willingly facing consequences, or have someone else avenge the innocent person and harshly punish the protag
I remember seeing a couple of those, just can't remember the names(
library of ruina has just that, i think
So, Hamlet?
The film "A time to kill" With Samuel L. Jackson and Matthew McConaughey
But dont watch it, it is maybe the ideologically worst movie I ever had to watch
I like to call this "The abused become the abuser" trope. It's a very interesting one, because in a way they do have a reason why they do it, but in the end, they still harmed a person's life no matter how sad the backstory
A film called "Hard Candy" literally depicts a child feign vulnerability so the samed predator that she believes kidnapped and killed her friend would do the same for her so she can trick him and exact revenge.
The remainder of the movie is her torturing him, movking him for his perversions and covering up anytime someone comes by the house. It felt so vindicating watching a fully grown man and alleged predator be tortured and have all his autonomy stripped away just like what happened to his alleged victims.
It's a great movie with a nice if somewhat predictable twist. I reccomend it, but not for the squeamish especially if child predation is something that triggers you.
There still is an important threshold that if crossed, turns the tables from (for example) evil animal of a man - vengeful girl to evil little monster - tormented badman. And honestly, I hate when that happens, because the story turns from us following the righteous hand of justice into us following multiple hellish maniacs fighting for the №1 spot on the "devious acts" competition. And the movie cheers for the sticker one. It's disturbing and disgusting. And even worse is that at the end the hideous protag is still portrayed as the "clean good guy", and we're supposed to cheer for him getting his revenge. And that's about every revenge movie
Isn't Hamlet's revenge seen as "morally correct," IN THE CONTEXT of the setting the story takes place in? The fact that his indecision caused the deaths of others is one thing, but the revenge against his uncle would have been considered the "right thing to do," to honor his father.
Yup, every story has a moral framing that is as moral as the author, or in rarer cases, the narrator choose.
One example that is minor in the series, but still socially relevant: YuYu Hakusho transphobic account of the single trans character in the show, that was, ironically used to show Yusuke doesn't care about gender when fighting, at the same time that he says that will show her "true gender" and assaults her in fight. In the show context is just the right, even though it contradicts logical reasoning, since being transgender or transexual is amoral, with no possible judgement of goodness or badness.
something to consider about Dishonored, is that, especially in a low-chaos playthrough, the people you are targeting are an active threat to the well-being of the city, and the empire. shutting them down isn't simply a matter of personal vengeance, but also of stopping them from causing more harm, and making sure you can undo the harm they've already done. (if in low chaos). it doesn't become a more classic tragic revenge tale unless you throw all morality to the winds and cut your way through everyone in your path, leaving nobody behind to keep the rats and the plague from killing the city.
I especially like that Two lets you take an aggressive approach to combat but still be nonlethal about it, Meaning you don't have to kill your way through everyone even if you do want to bull your way through your problems, and incidentally indicating corvo thought about what happens next time and made sure he and emily have better options in a tight spot than kill everyone around them.
I think revenge is often very understandable but often not moral and that's what I like about it. you have to choose between retribution or acceptance. edit: yoo this is one of my most liked comments, thanks yall! :D
my issue is that often the target of revenge is... literally fucking evil. And so, for whatever reason, you are supposed to... let it go? The guy killed so many people, at this point it's not just revenge, it's justice
@@NoraNekos7 Usually where it gets tricky is that there's almost always collateral damage. You find one of his henchmen, get some information out of him and kill him, but a random woman sees you do it, and is going to call the cops. How do you respond?
@@NoraNekos7It turns into a blood feud were relatives of the person that got killed chase after you and kill you, then your relatives kill that person and relatives of that person kill the person that killed that person… really terrible stuff. People argue over land , one kills the other and cycle starts. This is happening now in Isreal-Palestine actually.
@@Jhaldmer ...we are talking about fiction. Where, as I said, the revenge target is OFTEN A LITERAL VILLAIN
@@RorikH this specific example never happens in the revenge stories iirc. Collateral does happen, but it also happens in non-revenge stuff
Often the semantic difference is about who does it. If the person wronged does it, it's revenge and wrong. If the state does it, it's justice and ok, even if the end result is the same. The demonization of revenge is just used as a means by the state to monopolize it for itself. And, of course, if the state is the only one who can dispense revenge, then it effectively immunizes it against people seeking to avenge themselves against the state, as it is, by that definition, delegitimized.
And that needless to say causes its own problems when and where(not if because that BS happens irl) totalitarian types, religious extremist types and organised crime types get into positions of power.
THANK you
Here's a crazy idea: Maybe the state shouldn't do it either?
@@aff77141 Your welcome.
@@FarseerOfCearath Maybe the state should focus on correcting the situation rather then getting even.
Actually, all those stories where we root for the revenge to happen, even if cruel or disproportional, have one thing in common:
Executing the revenge is most likely to spare more people in the long run by either killing bad guys directly (John Wick, Punisher) or just by presenting a horrifying example of what could happen, if you treat others poorly (Carrie).
So, at the end, the scales of fate might have been tipped in the right direction - even by an act of evil.
One of my favorite types of monsters are revenants, undead who have been resurrected by their by their hatred and desire for revenge on the one(s) who killed them. Revenants are often just a name for a standard undead in media that includes them but the revenge focused one fascinates me and I would love to see it explored more.
I like that the only nonlethal option that isn't particularly cruel in Dishonored is the one against the assassin who actually killed the empress.
As you play, it becomes clear that he was just a pawn and was actually fairly honorable by that world's standards (as well as Not So Different from the player character). So the nonlethal option is to simply pickpocket him. The idea is to send a message: "I'm bettter than you. I could've killed you at any time, but I didn't".
It humiliates him and doesn't give him the warrior's death he wants, but otherwise leaves him be.
It's hilarious. You'd think after Dauds been sweating for weeks, having Nightmares about Corvo coming back and killing him for the biggest sin he's commiyed. Only for Corvo to just sneak the key away and Dip. Real Anti climatic for the poor assassin. Corvo made the biggest statement by not even making Daud worth his time. 😭
Skyrim moment
You can also fight him then spare him. It's less style but he still doesn't cause you any more trouble from what I can tell.
For lady boyle on dishonored, the story doesn't end here, and you can find the following of it in the novel "the corroded men", wich take place beetween the first and second game.
In this book, we learn that the lady you kidnap quickly murdered his kidnaper after their wedding, and inherit a collosal fortune on her own, that she manage alone without problems.
On the other side, one of her sister, who was for nothing on the murder of the impress, fall into madness after the disapering of her sister, and the third sister was forced to condamned a whole wing of the manor cause nothing can bring her to reason. In conclusion, your revenge had a not so bad impact of the target of her, but her whole innocent family suffer a lot of it. The reputation of the family is ruined and one poor woman will finish her life alone and mad because of it.
(the book is pretty wild on the consequence of Dishonored 1, showing too that if the impress was not kill in the beginning of the game, the whole population will have suffer a lot more, with her daughter growing up in a pestilence ravaged city before becaming a tyrant)
When I played Dishonored, I chose the middle path that still got you the good ending. I killed all of my marks yet spared and knocked out anyone else in my way. I made the revenge plot more focused in my playthrough I suppose. Hell, killing my marks seems much more merciful than the "pacifist" alternatives for them such as Lady Boyle.
Yeah, the pacifist optons definitely seemed crueler than simply giving the targets a quick death.
@@MrClickity Atleast in Lady Boyle's case.
@@Wolf-oc6tx the head of the Abbey, too. You literally brand him a heretic (with a brand to the face, no less) so he gets kicked out of his order. When you encounter him later, he was out on the streets and had become a Weeper (plague zombie, basically). So it's safe to say he had a pretty rough time after you deal with him.
For the rich brothers, you cut out their tongues and send them off for a life of slave labor. I'd take a quick death over that, any day.
Even the one where you simply expose his crimes is pretty nasty. He goes to prison, where everyone knows he had the beloved empress killed and turned the city into an Orewllian nightmare. I imagine the guards and other prisoners won't exactly be nice to him there.
@@MrClickity Yikes.
Most people me myself included like to watch revenge shows because we can get satisfaction of the characters getting their revenge that most of us will not get.
This is probably one of my favourite youtube channels of all time, and it's inspired me so much it might have literally rekindled the fire of writing in me, to an extent. It's not perfect, but i try, and I thank you guys for giving me the push with these extremely high quality videos cos like damn
This is the best youtuber ive ever seen so far ngl he explains everything so simply so satisfyingly
And what such great animation he has you are very talented my freind
Originally, I found this creator not to my taste... But his content is so good. It's perfect. Intelligent, creative, insightful, everything I could hope for in educational entertainment
@@mikelopez9071 agreed
Regarding the functionality of revenge, there is part of a quote from Punisher: Year One that works really well here:
"Sometimes the law is helpless to act, even when it identifies the guilty. It follows therefore, that sometimes it is necessary to act outside the law, to shame its inadequacy, to pursue a natural justice. I'm not talking about vengeance. Revenge is not a valid motive. It's a tawdry, emotional response no better than the act that provokes it. I'm talking about... punishment."
Sure, revenge can be awful when its pursuit can bring more harm than good. But when the alternative is to let the person who commited those crimes in the past walk away, most of the times still being the same person as he was before, so there is nothing stopping them from doing what they did again to someone else... is it truly just either? Because there are many stories that seem to just do that.
I think the ultimate revenge story is the count of monte Christo
The Gankutsuou adaptation is also really good in spite of some liberties.
I mean the ending was rather anticlimatic for me but yes
I’m pretty sure you can kill every mark and get the good ending, it’s about doing a lots of unnecessary killing that gives you the bad ending.
Dishonored isn't quite so black and white. The chaos system allows you to kill a pretty high amount of people bwfor being locked into the bad ending. I personally play the game, like an assassin, for the most part. I try to avoid or spare any of the grunts and the like, and only kill the targets, unless the nonlethal route is appealing.
Agreed, you should only spare them when the alternative allows for more _creative_ ways of dealing w/them
The Pendelton Twins non-lethal option is especially appealing.
@@Longardia I disagree. Making them into slaves is rather inhumane, and being evil in games tends to still make me feel. Bad.
Have you ever thought of talking about tonal shifts in stories? Like how Amazon’s The Legend of Vox Machina goes from a raunchy comedy to a full on serious drama.
Hell, the show actually touches on revenge and how it’s affecting one of the main characters.
i wouldnt say that the tone shifts that much, you generally know what youre getting in to. dnd always has laughs and serious story beats
@@MVCx_xB Yeah, but the trailers suggested it was just gonna be a raunchy comedy like Rick & Morty and it does start off that way in the first episode until it gets to the end.
I love revenge stories "The Count of Monte Cristo" is a masterpiece.
"Justice is blind, yet she is not heartless," a quote so well used that I can not find the thenoriginal source easily. The morality of justice may prefer a 1 to 1, yet the act of cruelty may even be justified for more. End of the day, it's what those who seek it, can live with, and what we as an audience to it, can accept
One of the reasons some prefer court justice is that it brings in the community. The community judges, realizes the truth, the victim feels vindicated, and the villain is viewed with contempt. Community justice WITHOUT proving in a court of law is just vigilantism by mob. It can be easily manipulated against the undeserving. It is NOT measured. Internet justice by dogpiling has driven people to be suicidal more quickly than prison.
I’ve been thinking about it recently but I’m an American and a major part of American culture revolves around the concept of revenge. It’s in our history, our stories, our laws. American independence started out of revenge, our navy was founded out of revenge against the Barbary States and the core tenants of the marines was founded in that same instance, every major war we’ve ever been in started with revenge, the war we’re in right now against Hamas is revenge (they killed Americans), America once wiped out half of Irans navy within 8 hours for sinking two American boats in international waters and destroying an oil rig thus increasing gas prices.
Our culture and country is born out of spite.
Hamlet's a weird one to call on. He kills the king outright, Poloneus accidentally. You can make an argument for laying Ophelia's suicide on him but she got a lot of shit thrown at her in a short period and didn't have any support to get through it. R&G are as much on the usurper king as the Prince and the Queen is 100% on Claudius, and you can lay at least part of the blame for Laertes on him too because while he dies in the duel with Hamlet the blow may not have been fatal had it not been for the poison on the blade.
This has always been an interesting topic to me. It always makes me think “is revenge justified in some scenarios?” And often more so; “does justice really exists?” Or “Does it even matter? Humans invented justice, no where else in the universe does this idea of fairness exist”
Along these lines, I would love to see a video about the concept of Grimdark settings such as Warhammer (40k or otherwise) I’d love to see your thoughts on the idea of a setting that has no good guys, just different levels of bad.
I find Warhammer 40K interesting because I'm pretty sure that most factions start out as being (more or less) good, but then as time goes on tragedy and ideology leave permanent scars, and they have to settle for terrible conditions just to survive. All the small ways that people try to make things better become so much more meaningful because they have to work so hard for what amounts to nothing in the grand scheme of things, but they see the value of it and do it anyways.
I think it would be interesting to see a sort of "Grim light" setting, that has all the trappings of grimdark but things start to slowly get better over time. If you have a setting similar to 40K, then there would be a very long time span where all the factions are getting weaker and weaker, some of them die out, and none of them can take the opportunity to become dominant due to infighting and calamity. These conditions cause the factions to disintegrate into their own little states, and allow for people to build good societies. They still have a long ways to go after this, with many societal issues to be solved and wars to be fought, but it would be satisfying to see a good society build up from the rubble.
Edit: the "grimlight" idea seems to be referred to by most as "nobledark"
@@JoeyJohnDoe688 yeah that’s pretty much my draw to 40k too. That and cool space fantasy go brrr
Eh, the way he reacts to & uses Dishonored here, he probably approach it the same way Red from OSP does it.
0:45 there ist 'justice' and there is 'the law' ... those are not one and the same. I learned that from dealing with first grade assholes trying to ruin my every day...
I won in court much later (and the matter was done for for good) but trust me i am NOT EVER going through that crap again. Next time i will just take matters into my own hands and end it on the spot. I rather pay a fine or whatnot than having to deal with that until the law feels like i have
I think why vengeful justice is depicted as more violent than the original crime is because the vengeance includes aftereffect suffering in addition to the specific crime in question.
Most people here probably cant speak german, but the song "Teufelskreis" from alligatoah has an interesting take on killing someone as revenge. The whole story is basicly an endless circle of a man killing another one out of revenge and then getting killed by the son of the murdered one. Because you also have to consider: the murderer might have done something terrible but that doesnt mean he cant regret it and have loved ones as well
I'm so, so tired of "I got revenge and it turned out to be a huge black mark on my soul and was the Wrong Choice, Actually." I want "I got revenge and yeah I burned everything down, but it was worth it and I would do it again in a heartbeat." I don't want to circlejerk myself about being the morally better person for all those times I liked the idea of being someone else's personal karma but chickened out
Yeah I hate when storied try to make revenge seem bad when it was the focus of the story the entire time. especially when they try to let the antagonist go at the end and it backfires on them.
When you mentioned the thing with causalities on road to vengeance, I immediately thought of Undertale Yellow Genocide Route (which I won't spoil more than this)
The Carrie example reminded me of the Joker film. The movie makes it clear that murder is wrong yet as you look at Arther’s life, you can’t help but feel the world was begging him to become a villain. A lot of people were using the phrase “A child not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth”
9:35
One of the critical things here is that the Fire Nation commander changed.
He became a shadow of himself after those years.
Katara wouldn't have killed the man that took her mother's life.
I often see a caveat to this kind of storyline. The seed of the murderer remains inside the shell. Contact with a victim can awaken it, cause them to fight against their own patheticness, and seek to replay their greatest hits with another atrocity. Recidivism is a real threat in real life. In stories, sometimes the forgiving protagonist is punished for foolishly turning their back and underestimating the weak, just as the original villains underestimated the weak. Its probably a trope in action movies. The hero walks away, the villain announces they have the drop on the hero, the hero reveals they set a trap if the villain tried anything.
@@BadficwriterThat trope is because they want the hero to kill the villain without losing the moral high ground. It’s annoying predictable.
@@anubis7457 Its only annoyingly predictable because some writers put it in nearly every action movie they make. Its also fairly realistic(even if often rushed into a far more condensed time then normally happens irl) in the sense that bad guys will exploit good faith and lowering ones guard.
@@Wolf-oc6tx Yeah but most of the time it’s villains that are supposedly clever enough to lead an army, scheme, or so on and yet they IMMEDIATELY try to backstab instead of laying low? It’s just disregarding character for cool factor, which ironically makes the cool factor lessen since it makes the villain inconsistent and effectively weaker.
It works fine when villains are shown to be brutish and impulsive though. It’s still too common of a scene but it fits the character so it’s whatever.
@@anubis7457 Agreed, I feel writers rush it because they don't want to wait tell the sequel to have the backstabbing spring rather then out of trying to portray the villain as less smart then laying low. Also fake surrenders are a irl war crime(as in it caused enough problems irl to warrant banning the practice) but usually carried out by foot on the ground types rather then the leaders of organisations.
I was thinking about Artificer from Rainworld the entire time.
T H I S
your videos are slowly reviving my writing flair
Im also trying to bring back my writing flair i wish you the best.
@@dakelong6047 tysm. All the best to you too!
I believe the case with Dishonored is even more interesting. The “bad” and “good” endings are actually not affected by how you dispose of your target, it is about chaos. What determines the end is how much death and misery you leave behind and how you influence Emily, which she is the literal future. It brings the question of what is right completely personal. Revenge always brings suffering to those stuck in its wheel whatever the decisions are and it breaches by nature this line of morality. The true question of dishonored is how many people will you bring in its wheel of hellfire?
I saw Corvo in the thumbnail. Instant click. Dishonored has a banger of a story
These videos always calm me down no matter how wild a day I've had. Love the channel, thanks to everyone behind the scenes for all your hard work.
Sadly, this video conflates Justice with Vengeance. While they are very similar to the point of being Chiral Pairs, like your hands, they are not the same things. Justice is concerned about making the world a better place and ensuring that the wrongs people do are corrected for. Vengeance is about returning the pain someone inflicted. Revenge Plots are all about that second idea, making someone pay for the pain you feel. Has nothing to do with making the world a better place, fixing wrongs, and making sure no one else has to suffer.
Remember, an eye for an eye doesn't make the world a better place. It just leads to a world where more people have vision problems.
Usually no, because more often than not even villains don't carry through with revenge in media. And you can guarantee a hero and even an anti hero wont do it either, I cant remember the last time i even cane across a sincere revenge plot.
The Princess Pride I think?
Joker had a lot of revenge in it. He wasn't a hero or anything though.
Uhm, he mentioned them. John Wick is a typical one. The Lion King. The Gladiator. Game of Thrones. Just to name a few.
Revenge plots are actually becoming more popular now, particularly in Anime/manga
Gankutsuou perhaps.
Kuroshitsuji
Justice is blind. Vengeance is blinding.
This is why I think revenge and justice should never be seen as synonymous. For me, real justice is about healing what has been broken, not about getting back at the wrong doer.
As someone who has experienced a lot of emotional abuse, revenge has never brought me peace, forgiveness is a gift to /yourself/, freeing yourself from the burden /someone else/ imposed on you.
Revenge is nice, if you can afford it
Thing about Dishonored is that you aren't the good guy, or the bad guy. Everything thing you do, every choice you make, is painted with a grey, amoral brush. The truth difference between the two endings is based in the rats and how Emily percieves your actions. If you kill, she hears about it on the radio, from her captors, in the newpaper and she learns that bloodshed is the answer and will rule with an iton fist aften her rescue. The plague also worsens which is hinted very early in the game as you see corpses unceremoniously dumped in the sewers, feeding the plague rats. If you don't kill, while she hears of your escape from execution and thats it. When you rescue her all she knows is that you saved her without killing people and reasons in her head that kindness and forgiveness will be her rule (even though your actions weren't kind the point is shes left aware and its for the best). On top of that she figures out the best way to deal with the plague rats is to stop feeding them. This is the canon ending going into the second game.
I love how Ciel Phantomhive says to Joker in Book of Circus: *In the end Justice is just a line use by the powerful to excuse their actions. No one is looking for another, if you're careless, you'll be robed*
11:06 Tbh, I find it really annoying when stories do this, like sure you can make a case for some situation being a fate worse than death, but I still think that you go for revenge for yourself, your own satisfaction not because it'll make a difference or you will eliminate a valauble target for a cause or something like that; revenge is the pleasure of the living, is having the person who wronged you, pay _with interests_ for their actions in the most cathartic way for you.
The wave of nostalgia that hit me when I read Ciel's name in your comment! I hadn't thought about that anime in probably more than 5 years
@@anthropomorphicpeanut6160 Still my favourite anime to this day
There is a trope, albeit rare in fiction but very common IRL, that failed to be mentioned in this video (and that I appreciate) : VENGEANCE DENIED. (my favorite being "bad guy dies before protagonist fullfill the revenge")
Can't be mad tho, this shouldn't be a trope list
i think its a good opportunity to reveal more of a character's character. are they frustrated in not doing it with their own hands, or glad that its over? how a character chooses to deal with their pent up frustration is both revealing and a potentially powerful driving force, since the emotions involved usually includes enough anger to murder someone. or the character could feel unexpectedly empty and melancholy after getting a new perspective on their vengeance, just as an example
Good point, that reminded me of Thorfinn
I agree with some of this, but not all. It was definitely an interesting way of looking at the whole subject though-and I’m glad you touched on death penalty to prevent further harm. The Carrie example was really good too!!
I’d argue revenge is a wholly separate thing from justice tbh. Justice imo is more recognition for harm caused and taking steps both individually and societally to prevent further harm. Revenge hinges completely on the helpless feeling of fear, pain, and grief while offering anger as an illusion of power. It gives immediate gratification. It means you can simplify the situation to pure good versus pure evil with your own cause (and any measures taken in it) as righteous. It’s the false-sense of certainty and higher purpose when we never really have those things.
While I have a lot of critiques for the Star Wars prequels, to be honest Anakin’s killing of the Tuskan raiders and subsequent rampages I think is something a SCARY number of people are ready to do. Murder not just those directly responsible for his mother’s death but innocent families and children. Be sadistic about it. And Anakin gets so lost in his anger that he even turns on his beloved wife. He contributes to her death too despite having feared it for a whole film iirc.
Revenge is dangerous af imo. As long as you prioritize inflicting harm and finding personal satisfaction (plus power and control) over protecting what you love… it’s going to turn ugly sooner or later. And tbh while not revenge, going vicious out of fear to protect something can still end horribly if you go overboard or misjudge the danger.
Hope you hit a million this year! Keep up the great work
I have been in the revenge business so long, now that it's over, I don't know what to do with the rest of my life.
With revenge u have to be ready for wt comes after. At least ponder on it. Revenge won't be ur whole character
Have you considered piracy?
@@RorikH As you wish.
I have heard it said that the only difference between a vigilante and a serial killer is the audience's support of them and their cause. A interesting movie in this discussion is "Massacre at Central HIgh" where the school is being run by vicious bullies when the new student/killer comes to the school he defeats them then the formerly bullied become the new abusers of power. The action of the hero and heroine are of note.
Reminds me of this great line in B5: "Life is not fair.. but maybe it would be worse it it was? If all the horrible things that happen to us, happen because we deserve it?"
Something I think about some times
I think revenge becomes immoral when no good can come of you making that thing "right". But if your forgiveness keeps an evil out and about, where it will continue to do harm and you had the opportunity to stop it, I think that might be immoral as well.
In order for morality to work it has to be as much about having good motives and measured methods as it is about end results for ends justifying the means is a very slippery slope.
@Wolf-oc6tx I completely agree. "Ends justify the means" people tend to get dangerous very quickly. Even placing a moral compass over a people is probably quite the slippery slope itself.
John Wick's world doesn't operate like ours does. Everyone there is in some way tied to the assignation industry. Also, for John, it's not so much about the dog and car, but what they represented. His car and his wife were the opposite side of the coin of love in his life. His wife on her deathbed had Daisy, the puppy delivered to him, so that he could have something to love in her place, besides just the car. Something that could love him back. Vigo's son took that car, destroyed John's wife's car, and killed Daisy (the last true link John had to his wife). This is a man who so loved the woman who gave him that dog, that he had defied what should be humanly possible, and effectively laid the groundwork for what became Vigo's empire. What happened to Vigo and his his men was on Vigo's head, as he kept sending them after John, and killed John's friend for not killing John.
I think the man who never would speech from ‘the doctor’s daughter’ in Doctor Who is a good example of a character initially wanting to get revenge and kill the person who wronged them but quickly deciding the forgive
I think you should watch this short animated film called “Fueled.” The emotions shown in it feels a lot of what you discussed, mainly that feeling of revenge. That and it’s a good video to watch.
Ngl the Tale Foundry intro clip is the most well made and visually pleasing intro I’ve ever seen
The Katara story: there's a similar story in Justice League Unlimited. The Question helps the Huntress to track down the man who killed her parents. But then, when she's about to strike, he just asks the question: "Is this what you really want?" Honestly, I would have liked for Zuko to play that role. I really disliked how, after the past couple of episodes trying to prove that he's good, verbally repudiating good.
i really wanted you to talk about tlou part 2.
great topic and video tho!
thanks for putting this much time to your videos
One of my best revenge stories is *Tales of Berseria*
Without going into much spoilers, it is interesting to see how Velvet has this obsessions of avenging her brother and develops as a person throughout the journey
Me when I see a character almost kill someone for revenge: “Don’t do it! Be better than them!”
Also me when a character’s dog is killed: “Make them suffer a fate worst than death”
John Darnielle once said that it is a natural human desire to have a powerful, supernatural friend who loves you dearly and will completely destroy everybody who ever hurt you. Sometimes when I'm very upset and need catharsis I hum a few bars of "In League With Dragons" and it reminds me that someone who called me a rude name probably doesn't deserve to have their flesh roasted by dragonfire. I think it's good for the soul
Gotta love Corvo, probably the best assassin like character that I know
Personally I think revenge is one of those things that if left unchecked and be done out of proportion would very easily lead to massive escalation of violence and the formation of new vicious circles of violence, destroying everyone including the revenge seeker themselves.
yet demonising wishing for revenge or just wishing to right a wrong having been done to you, isn't exactly helpful or even a good thing either. Sometimes a wrong just has to be righted in a violent way, when all other ways of righting it fail or fall short of doing just that or just do not address the underlying ill and caused injustice in the first place. An abuser for example should be stopped from further abusing their victims or at the very least be punished for it. And their victims should not have to forgive their abuser for their abuse as well, or be portrayed as in the wrong for wanting retribution and trying to achieve just that. It would be a pretty messed up thing to force someone to forgive their abuser after all, while said abuser doesn't have to do shit to earn it, don't you think? obviously victims can turn into abusers and abusers into victims, but even attempting to approach the topic of revenge and retribution without that bit of nuance in mind, will more likely than not end up with even more hurt and injustices and also damages, that could've otherwise been avoided.
It has been some time since a UA-cam video made me go into such a deep dive into an aspect of humanity. Good job.
8:32 not to be a musical theatre nerd, but Jean Valjean showing mercy to Javier is also an excellent example of this.
In revenge plots Shine of Justice is cold
Thanks for the great video as always :) for people interesting in the adversity of revenge I could advice "three billboards" a drama-comedy that orbit about the definition of justice and revenge
I follow a few channels who do analysis, each has their own strengths. Your visual style and delivery really is unique. Great video and Katara is a great example, ATLA has so many good stories that could be broken down into concepts.
I don’t feel sorry about my revenge fantasies, so I accept being called out.
Mass Effect 2 had two missions that explore revenge: the loyalty missions for Garrus and Zaeed. For Garrus, you could either let him get his revenge against his traitorous first mate with a well-placed sniper shot or you could find out what really happened - the first mate was tortured into betraying Garrus. Zaeed's loyalty mission plays out differently; rather than a single sniper shot to take out his mutinous first mate, Zaeed sets fire to a refinery and puts the workers' lives at risk. You are eventually given a choice: allow Zaeed to get his revenge at the cost of innocent lives (complete with the sound of the workers screaming in pain in the background, fading out one voice at a time), or deny Zaeed his revenge and save the workers, but risk losing Zaeed's dedication to your mission.
I know it’s a dish best served cold…
it's also said to be sweet...
ergo: revenge is ice cream
"Trauma, Status quo, & perspective." The 3 circles in a Venn diagram for revenge. Revenge is often an emotional need to --return the social status quo to the victim's perspective--. But how each person defines what the status quo is tricky & murky because most fringe events are not explicitly explored. So what is left as examples are the, more frequently broadcasted, primal acts of returning a person's social environment to their perspective of a status quo. The major caveat to this is how Trauma fractures the brain's definition of surviving. PTSD, & sometimes even minor trauma, hijacks the perspective of status quo because surviving is no longer about the social contract but an awareness of those that don't want to help the social contract or want to manipulate the social contract into only serving their needs. Revenge wants to return to some internal status quo.
As an expansion to this topic, i would love to hear an analysis on the idea that "Living well is the best revenge"
Once again I would like to bring up Full Metal Daemon Muramasa with its Nemesis route.
In it the story ends up taking some interesting twists on the concept. While there is some usual stuff with some characters being after the main character for things he had done, one of them however is put on the spot. Is it really revenge if your target is activley seeking punishment? This is the question one character who belives revenge as the only justice has to ponder.
Great episode. Though I'm a little surprise you didn't talk more about the Count of Mounte Cristo.
Berserk is a great revenge story because Guts eventually realizes it’s not the answer and began to make a new life for himself
Inigo also benefits by the audience knowing that the Count invented a new means of torture that he delights in experimenting with, amoung other acts of villainy.
My favorite story of revenge is Kurapika in HxH. He has a really interesting story arc in the phantom troupe that I think deconstructs his vengeance in an interesting way.
o.o
I completrly agree
I like that you brought up that revenge centring on murdering the target is the only way that the cycle ends, because of inevitable unintended harm the scales never even between 2 people
At the start yes. Most of the time they realize that it isn't about them and person X needs to be stopped because they are doing bad to many people. So it slides over to justice were the villain will die while avoiding the heros attempt to bring them in. Or in the last moment when the hero doesn't kill them they try to strike and end up getting killed because they wouldn't stop
The most interesting thing about revenge plots to me is how they inadvertently sympathize the villains or villainize the heroes depending on the morals of the viewer
I've watched quite the amount of your videos, and I must say you sound like the coolest sibling ever! I would really like to talk to you irl in the evening, drinking something while talking, you get the picture
I’m a simple person.
I see a thumbnail with Corvo Attano in it, I click it.
you using a blind folded character to hold the scales of justice is nice cause justice is suppose to be blind only truely striking those who are bad but sometimes it actually hurts those who are good too.
i think of revenge as a sword with no handle, hold it too long and you receive just as much damage as those you use it against, and holding it too long without acting upon it can also do more damage then you received to ignite it.
The opening animation was amazing.
I don’t know why Tale Foundry, but I find your voice calming
I was so surprised to see Corvo on your thumbnail.
I'm reminded of a game I played recently that presents revenge interestingly. It's "Tales of Berseria" and I appreciate the way it handles the whole revenge story plotline. The protagonist wants to kill the villain at any cost because of something the villain did to her. And there's multiple points in the story (mainly near the beginning) where she doesn't really care what happens to the people surrounding her as long as it'll lead to her getting her revenge which leads to some town beings crippled and even people dying.
Of course there is a lot of nuance to her situation that needs to e understood, but I suppose that is the point of revenge stories. We the audience decide whether or not revenge was justified or if the characters took it too far and try to learn something from it, right?
I love the Tale Foundry!
The Dishonored reference is so gooooood