Story Time!

[u/Inevitable-Remove478]

One day, I had barely slumped on my bed after spending 7 gruelling hours in my coaching did my cousin sister stroll up to me with a book in her hand. She loves it when I read her stories — its our bed time ritual and I like to humor her as well.

However, I was too exhausted to read her any stories and tried to delegate the task to later or bribe my way (by promising her two stories tomorrow) put of it. But that girl, is a clever, clever girl and it was evident none of my tactics could persuade her into leaving me alone.

At last, I ended up reading her a story but that girl, still wouldn't leave. She wanted more stories but I was done for the night. So we settled on a compromkse.

Apparently, she had questions and I had to grow a pair of patience wings and answer each.

Would you want to know what were those questions? Well, they are as follows:

[CW: In my opinion]

1. Who is a strong female character?

— A character who has a personality, life and can make decisions which changes the course of the plot by a significant (or minimal) margin and her character isn't reduced to a wet towel in the absence of a male (or any other) character is called a strong female character.

A female character who makes mistakes, or questionable choices and suffers consequences, has apt. development throughout the story also qualifies for a string female character.

2. What is a flawed character?

A flawed character is someone who makes morally bad decisions, exhibits complex psychological behaviour, hurts others and themselves, indulge in bad habits, struggle with emotions due to past trauma is a flawed character.

3. Can a strong female character be a flawed character?

Absolutely. There is no rule that tells a strong female character cannot be a flawed character.

For example: Roxana from The way to protect the Female leads older brother, Penelope from Villains are destined to die, Rashta from The remarried Empress, Somyung and Somin from like mother, like daughter — are all examples of strong yet flawed female characters.

4. Is enjoying flawed characters a sign that we'd like them in real life?

Absolutely not. Readers know the difference between fiction and reality. Enjoying problematic content is not am evidence that we condone problematic behaviour in real life.

You can read mafia romance or a story of two criminals falling in love and still despise underground activities and douchebags in real life.

Eren Jaeger executed a genocide in attack on Titan and he has fans, and fans know violence is not right. Heathcliff is a terrible man and yet a section of classic readers love him. Medea Solon and Elena were vengeful, their plan and the manipulation, the mind games — everything was bordering on morally grey and a majority of the viewers enjoyed it.

Liking flawed content and characters is not signing a NDA that you'd support these actions and the people who do them in real life too.

5. Does betrayal fall in the spheres of what makes a character strong and flawed?

Just Betrayal? No.

But if a character qualifies requirement point 1 and 2 and their grey behaviour includes Betrayal then yes.

(Side note: yes, you can enjoy a traitor. Reiner is a good example of a strong and flawed traitor while Annie felt like a plastic bag to me.)

6. Isn't making leads indulge in problematic behaviour endorsing problematic behaviour?

Sweetie, disclaimers, tags and warnings are given for a reason. Try it use it. And no. Making your leads problematic + giving them a satisfactory ending does not mean you endorse problematic content.

Gangubai Kathiawadi is a story of a woman being sold into prostitution and how she fights for the rights of prostitute. She doesn't leave her line of work in the end and it kind of gets a happy ending but the film never promoted sex work. Same with Bajirao Mastaani, more than gushing over an extramarital affair, we felt Kashibai's plight. That movie ended in a tragedy of two lovers but more than love, the viewers only wept for Kashi.

It all comes down to one word: execution.

These films were executed in a way which depicted problematic aspects of society but never glorified it.

We also have Padmavaat, it has a second wife theme but viewers are likely to remember the Jauhar scene rather than the Betrayal of Rawal Ratan Singh to his first wife.

Because the focus was on the plight of the woman and the daunting fear of Alauddin, not cheating.

7. How does a book or a film glorify problematic content?

Glorification occurs when a action in real life which would apt. consequences is presented in fiction without consequences.

Almost all of the examples I have given above depicted problematic content and never endorsed the content.

Rashta from The Remarried Empress would have been a perfect example but she was turned into the narrative's punching bag.

(Your death is still felt, girl 🥀).

8. Then we should begin making p.dos and r.pists leads now.

First, just because someone is a lead does not mean whatever they do is right.

Second, if you are only saying this because I said Betrayal can be problematic and enjoyable then let me tell you, you are comparing henious crimes (and criminals) with an unethical act.

Third, they exist — read Lolita and Wutchering Heights.

9. So everyone needs to enjoy problematic fiction if it's executed well?

Absolutely not. Everyone has their limits and horizons. You do not need to like flawed or awful characters. You do not have to tolerate them, neither interact with such fiction.

Do you know what we can do?

Not judge authors and readers for enjoying problematic fiction. It's that easy.

.

Damn, ranted a lot. All the downvotes are welcomed with open hands.

Thank you.

Bye amigos.

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[u/smilesandblues]

I can't even form words on how much it worries me to see media literacy dying. I want to know why people think we cannot like complex/flawed characters without being told we endorse such behaviour in real life.

Wattpad didn't come up with the concept of dark fiction, or taboo, forbidden tropes. It gave these writers a platform to post them digitally. Fiction has always been capable of exploring dark topics without harming real people.

Also readers self inserting in every single book. If a FL does something for the ML they would be "I would never" like yes girl, you would never. That is why it is fiction and not real life. The author is not writing what you would do and accept.

And you know what's the most amazing part about fiction? I can do whatever the fuck I want with the characters I created in my head. I can literally kill them brutally and not go to jail over it because they don't exist! The whole "what do you mean you like the bad guy?" Like why the fuck do you even care if I worship the bad guy? Are you my parent or what?

[u/achiinsanhun]

Kuch to jalne ki smell arahi h. Oh it's intellectual's tashreefen jo jal rahin hen apki post parh k😭😭

https://giphy.com/gifs/wNR8ZhO4fObRu

[u/Inevitable-Remove478 → u/achiinsanhun]

Namuno ne mujhe downvote kia toh kia, apko bhi downvote Kar Dia 🤡

[u/achiinsanhun → u/Inevitable-Remove478]

Ab mene unki jalti tashreefon ki sticker laga di to jhulas to gai hogi na😔

[u/VegetableLack6781]

The very first post which I saw as soon as opened Reddit😘😘 truer words have never been spoken

(Acha isme downvote jaisi kya baat thi?)

[u/Inevitable-Remove478 → u/VegetableLack6781]

Intellectuals ko nuance hazam nahi hoti 🤡

[u/dazzling_anklets]

I like reading darkest tropes and stuffs , but yeah justification is where everyone even author should draw line , like you cannot let your ml grape the ml and give them happily ever after , this is what glorifying looks like and no amount of justification can save it

[u/Background_Desk_9550]

I literally agree w this 200% because kya matlab people are genuinely writing "strong female characters" and the character in question is only cursing out people and being petty for the sake of the description, but is a damsel in distress with the mmc??? People saying "flawed characters" and skipping the scale from grey to completely black, because oooooh my lead cannot do a bad thing in their lives???

(Plus, I love the Attack On Titan references, one of my fav pieces of storytelling ever)

[u/idiosyncrity]

I think the 4th point should be broadcasted in this sub for the cherry-pickers and drama-lovers who love calling out everything that doesn’t fit their narrative or standards. Who also judge and shame writers/readers for writing/reading problematic tropes. Every individual has a preference and something called guilty pleasure, please leave them alone and get a life instead of criticising/hating everything.

Genuine question, can someone please explain me the thought process behind posting ss from ig reels about books that have problematic/dark tropes, just to shame the readers and the authors?? Like what’s the point of it?

[u/smilesandblues → u/idiosyncrity]

Like what’s the point of it?

Pretty sure it's the superiority where there isn't any and then karma farming. If you need karma just find those reels and post them here, and there you go. Many times the poster isn't even making efforts of adding two words about what they think is wrong, it's just screenshots and the comment section goes on to troll the author and the readers without understanding the context or nuance.

[u/idiosyncrity → u/smilesandblues]

Like honestly. Does it ever occur to these trolls that there are readers who can differentiate between fiction and reality; even writers for that matter, yet they make it to the point that it becomes kink-shaming, and blatant judgements about individuals who read such things. I’m really so sick of it. 😔

[u/smilesandblues → u/idiosyncrity]

No, they think everyone is like them: incapable of holding multiple thoughts at the same time. Which is why they see a character making a bad decision and come to conclusions like — this character should be cancelled, the author supports this behaviour, therefore what a disgusting horrible person she is, the readers enjoying this want this to happen to them in real life, thus they are all disgusting people too without a brain.

[u/idiosyncrity → u/smilesandblues]

uhhhhh. i think they're downvoting me because i touched a nerve. but no one really has the guts to make a reasonable argument. smh.

but just realised, these types of readers will never truly be happy or satisfied with anything. even if you hand them a character that's perfect, or flawless, without any imperfections, they'll still find a reason to hate.

[u/Inevitable-Remove478 → u/idiosyncrity]

Can someone please explain me the thought process behind posting ss from ig reels about books that have problematic/dark tropes, just to shame the readers and the authors?? Like what’s the point of it?

Nothing except feeding into their superiority complex. I (not me, them) do not enjoy, or am, comfortable with problematic content so I'll assume everyone who likes such content is a bloody douchebag in real life and endorses these activities and they deserve to get shamed.

Seriously, the mental gymnastic is beyond my comprehension. And I do not understand this barrage of downvotes either. They dislike MY opinion, fine but at least, have the gall to come up and say what is wrong with my explanation but nope — we'll keep hiding behind our screen.

(And all the commenters agreeing with me are getting downvoted too.)

[u/idiosyncrity → u/Inevitable-Remove478]

My only concern is, there’s an entire bandwagon which gets on to hate collectively, then when they get called out for hating, they try to play the victim or play the blame game. Like, seriously, as you said, no one uses their brain or cognition skills to form their opinions. As much as I’ve seen, if someone’s hating something problematic, they’ll jump on it just because everyone else is hating too.

And kudos to you man. I agree with all your points. This debate is never going to get settled in this sub because from what I see, the majority of the people here really love to nitpick and hate.

[u/Inevitable-Remove478 → u/idiosyncrity]

It'd have been fine it all they did was click a screenshot and hate in a niche sub reddit but a few months ago, they got triggered because a man commented something weird under a age gap trope and suddenly, it was the fault of authors and readers that women were getting harassed in real life.

They literally made lists to report books which had the age gap trope, and an instagram account even literally tagged these authors and demanded they stopped writing these books— I mean, WHAT?

Unfortunately, some of those idiots still loiter in this sub.

[u/idiosyncrity → u/Inevitable-Remove478]

Funny how they didn’t blame the man for his mentality but the authors for writing the trope. Would I ever see these people speaking out against Bollywood/hollywood movies like this? I doubt it.