"Cheap hack of a writer's guide to creating a morally ambigous antagonist:". >Have a character be a smug self-centered asshole for 80% of the story. >Have him ally with the main baddie and commit some war crimes. >Have him turn o

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File: 1774281896518.png (105.64 KB, 300x171, SnapeDying.png)

Anonymous 23-03-26 16:04:56 No.29965

"Cheap hack of a writer's guide to creating a morally ambigous antagonist:"
>Have a character be a smug self-centered asshole for 80% of the story
>Have him ally with the main baddie and commit some war crimes
>Have him turn on the main baddie after realising that the main baddie had killed their favorite dog (or is going to kill their favorite dog soon)
>Help the main characters for one or two scenes and then be killed by the main baddie
>The main characters in the epilogue are shown standing besides his grave and musing "He wasn't a bad person, after all. Such a tragedy!"

Post examples of this which had annoyed you the most. Shounen genre specifically is ripe with them, isn't it?

Anonymous 23-03-26 16:07:12 No.29966

>>29965
also the monk/teacher trope with this and their backstory being tied to the main character
i don't know what this trope is called but it's so common and lazy

Anonymous 23-03-26 21:31:01 No.29969

File: 1774301461277.png (16.89 KB, 188x389, flGAd37.png)

Vegeta was kept alive after Saiyan Saga due to editorial and fan pressure. This historical event gave birth a terrible precedent.

Anonymous 23-03-26 22:23:36 No.29970

>>29969
Vegeta isnt really a morally ambiguous character, he is by any measure an evil person, just has a couple people he personally cares about.

Anonymous 23-03-26 22:34:18 No.29971

>>29969
It's still more work to redeem an evil character through efforts rather than kill him off to do it instantly, the worst part of stories is having the payoff immediately after the setup with nothing in between

Anonymous 24-03-26 13:30:04 No.29974

>>29969
it was fine then because dragon ball isn't that serious. it also directly influenced the entertaining moral insanity of hunterxhunter. it's really when shonen writers started being for better or for worse the dickenses of our age that shit started going downhill

Anonymous 06-06-26 04:15:01 No.30199

File: 1780719300952.jpg (135.15 KB, 553x595, this is fucking dumb.jpg)

>>29969
>Sasuke
I dislike Sasuke, but that is a fucking reach. Technically the most Sasuke did was kill Danzo (a dirtbag glowie) and he was essentially gaslighted into wanting to destroy Konoha because his entire family was wiped out, (not to mention general psychosis spiral). Also him being redeemed was an inherent crux of the intended theme of the story, it's idealistic, but that was the point. Vegeta was an asspull but it's fucking DBZ, half the story is an asspull. He also literally dies (and the first time he only gets revived by accident) and essentially turns to the good guy side. Goku mourning Vegeta's death on Namek was a sort of respect

>>29965
Generic ass over-simplification with absolutely no understanding of the POINT of morally ambiguous or anti-hero characters. This is the youtube 'critic' school of writing critique.

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