On the politics of fictional characters.
Dec. 21st, 2025 07:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lesbocannibalI've come to realize that there are two opposite extremes that I equally despise when people write about their OCs/blorbos' political opinions.
Side 1: "They're evil, so they must be conservative and bigoted!" I often see this applied to characters like Mrs. Blight and Emperor Belos (since the fanbase of The Owl House isn't really mature enough to understand nuance anyway), Shadow Weaver from She-Ra (potentially similar), and I saw it applied to Renee from Pantheon once. (No hexcuse there, to be honest, Pantheon is an adult enough show.) It just straight up doesn't make any sense for the characters from a kid's show that won't even so much as say the word "gay" to be homophobic. She-Ra and The Owl House largely take place in alternate worlds that are pretty much queer creators' dreams of worlds where sexual orientations and gender identities aren't discriminated against. It flattens a character to make them so cartoonishly evil that they hate EVERYTHING good in the world and only believe in HATERED and THE EVULZ. Bad is Good and Good is Bad, so since this character is evil, they must be against all views of the liberal/leftist creator. Needless to say, people are more complex than that.
Side 2: "I love writing about evil characters! What do you mean you write about a conservative/bigoted character? Are you homophobic IRL?" This one just infuriates me. Writing about a murderer doesn't make you a murderer in real life, but this crime is so much more okay to the wider internet than sex crimes ("WTF YOU LIKE A RAPIST? YOURE A RAPIST IN REAL LIFE!") or. strangely, being homophobic. Look, I get it, I hate queerphobes too, we all do, but don't fucking jump down someone's throat for this in all cases, ESPECIALLY if they're queer themself.
To be honest, this is more prickly territory than the last example: there's definitely ways that fans can take this to the extreme. I think this is worse with racial issues since so many fans are white. I wasn't in the thick of it, but this is reminding me of stuff I heard about Sinners. Apparently, a lot of people were huge huge fans of the one white antagonist in the movie and wrote x readers about him. What the fuck???? That's bad. You understand how that's bad, right? Oh, and a lot of fans residing in the imperial core make light of "war crimes" as an abstract thing for their sopping wet cat evil blorbo has done wrong. Stop it. Do you even know what real-world war crimes actually are?
But nonetheless, writing a character with views that you don't agree with can make them more complex and more dimensional. Using my own characters as examples: Cainabeth (horrible horrible woman) is an anarcho-capitalist (horrible horrible political stance) because she's distrustful of the government and believes in the free market. Plus she profits off healthcare, that is a notable thing she does. Roan is a misogynist (miso-femme-ist?) because of his various complexes about appearing strong/Dominant that stem from being bullied for being too effeminate in childhood. Whitney is anti-woke (would bully nonbinary people) but also anti-fascist (would definitely punch a Nazi). Crush AU!Roan is super supportive of the military/veterans because his dad was in the military and Roan really idolizes him. Probably more, these are just off the top of my head.
For chrissakes, stop being so scared of nuance!
Side 1: "They're evil, so they must be conservative and bigoted!" I often see this applied to characters like Mrs. Blight and Emperor Belos (since the fanbase of The Owl House isn't really mature enough to understand nuance anyway), Shadow Weaver from She-Ra (potentially similar), and I saw it applied to Renee from Pantheon once. (No hexcuse there, to be honest, Pantheon is an adult enough show.) It just straight up doesn't make any sense for the characters from a kid's show that won't even so much as say the word "gay" to be homophobic. She-Ra and The Owl House largely take place in alternate worlds that are pretty much queer creators' dreams of worlds where sexual orientations and gender identities aren't discriminated against. It flattens a character to make them so cartoonishly evil that they hate EVERYTHING good in the world and only believe in HATERED and THE EVULZ. Bad is Good and Good is Bad, so since this character is evil, they must be against all views of the liberal/leftist creator. Needless to say, people are more complex than that.
Side 2: "I love writing about evil characters! What do you mean you write about a conservative/bigoted character? Are you homophobic IRL?" This one just infuriates me. Writing about a murderer doesn't make you a murderer in real life, but this crime is so much more okay to the wider internet than sex crimes ("WTF YOU LIKE A RAPIST? YOURE A RAPIST IN REAL LIFE!") or. strangely, being homophobic. Look, I get it, I hate queerphobes too, we all do, but don't fucking jump down someone's throat for this in all cases, ESPECIALLY if they're queer themself.
To be honest, this is more prickly territory than the last example: there's definitely ways that fans can take this to the extreme. I think this is worse with racial issues since so many fans are white. I wasn't in the thick of it, but this is reminding me of stuff I heard about Sinners. Apparently, a lot of people were huge huge fans of the one white antagonist in the movie and wrote x readers about him. What the fuck???? That's bad. You understand how that's bad, right? Oh, and a lot of fans residing in the imperial core make light of "war crimes" as an abstract thing for their sopping wet cat evil blorbo has done wrong. Stop it. Do you even know what real-world war crimes actually are?
But nonetheless, writing a character with views that you don't agree with can make them more complex and more dimensional. Using my own characters as examples: Cainabeth (horrible horrible woman) is an anarcho-capitalist (horrible horrible political stance) because she's distrustful of the government and believes in the free market. Plus she profits off healthcare, that is a notable thing she does. Roan is a misogynist (miso-femme-ist?) because of his various complexes about appearing strong/Dominant that stem from being bullied for being too effeminate in childhood. Whitney is anti-woke (would bully nonbinary people) but also anti-fascist (would definitely punch a Nazi). Crush AU!Roan is super supportive of the military/veterans because his dad was in the military and Roan really idolizes him. Probably more, these are just off the top of my head.
For chrissakes, stop being so scared of nuance!
