Alex (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} terra) wrote,@ 2008-04-23 22:26:00 |
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| Entry tags: | fictional evil and how to love it, lezard still beats harry, nash latkje's shoes, vagrant story hates me, valkyrie profile, when memes attack! |
You are what you fangirl.
Firstly: I've been on kind of a serial adding rampage, so hello new people, welcome to my hell :D I don't have an intro post or anything, but it's a livejournal, you know how this works. Also, shogunate, I was going to comment something about my deep secret love of Tokugawa Japan and how this relates to your new username, but it said I was banned from commenting? Which might be a good idea, really, I'm just not sure how intentional it was!
Moving right along with that Top 5 Meme, here are my Top Five Ridiculous RPG Outfits as requested by in_solis. The number one is kind of obvious, but really, there can be only one.
5. Luke fon Fabre, Tales of the Abyss-- 
This one is pretty low-key, but it's a prime example of just how RPG outfits usually go stupid. Something about the snowboard pants, the ridiculous hair, and the needless male midriff baring are just a few ways this outfit says DO NOT PASS GO, DO NOT COLLECT 200 DOLARS. Then, later on, when SPOILERS: Luke cuts his hair for CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, it reveals an unfortunate logo on the back of his shirt that the player has to stare at for the rest of the sixty hour game. Awkward.
4. The Entire Cast of Final Fantasy IV, As Drawn By Nintendo Power This isn't exactly canon, but COME ON. Who can resist the stylings of ARMOR SWIMSUIT KAIN??
Also, this is an appropriate time to point out that Cecil is probably not wearing any pants:
3. Nash Latkje, Suikogaiden Nash, I love you, but lavender is not stealthy nor particularly functional.
There are about fifteen different random buckles, a fastener the in the shape of a donut, and leggings that resemble kneesocks. Then tops that off with his special brand of overcoat-slash-dress and his strange, strange rectangular shoes.
2. Sion, The Bouncer We all knew that Nomura had to rear his primary-colored multizippered head sometime.
It has all the horrible details we've come to...appreciate Nomura for, the garish colorscheme, the nonsensical chokers and huge silver pendants. I also like the billowy shorts layered over the mini-leggings. Classy. Also of note: more jangly bits than you can shake an overlarge fighting implement at.
1. Ashley Riot, Vagrant Story Really, who else could it have been? Assless battleshorts. Assless battleshorts.
It amazes me that to this day I am the only person on livejournal interested in Ashley Riot's hair. It seems there's at least enough material for a college minor there.
That about wraps this one up. And if you were wondering, Melfice, that armor does make your boobs look bigger.
On a slightly more serious note, I was really busy last afternoon not studying for an exam, and so I found myself at TVTropes in the vicinity of the Valkyrie Profile. Somewhere around Misaimed Fandom I stumbled upon this little gem:
Lezard Valeth from Valkyrie Profile was written to be as repulsive as possible, a sexually deviant stalker and violator of natural laws; like Harry Potter grown up terribly, terribly wrong. Some fans eat his character up, and pair him with the heroine of the first game.
Now, as someone with this icon, I think it's pretty obvious that Tri-Ace intended Lezard to be a popular character-- after all, he's a super-special Seraphic Gate party member, with his partners in badass Freya and Brahams. His lechery is played for humor as much as it is for creepiness, and he is a genuinely brilliant free agent in a world overly concerned with destiny. Lezard also has an entire series of official manga to his credit, as well as a prominent role in Valkyrie Profile 2, which may has well have been subtitled Lezard for all Silmeria showed up in that thing. Yes, he is a horrible, horrible person-- but horrible people? In my Valkyrie Profile? When did that one happen?
But it did get me thinking: how does one fangirl evil? I love Lezard because he's such a fascinating character, because in a game full of gods his motivations are supremely human, in a game full of the dead he remains so triumphantly alive. To love, to aspire-- these are passionate, red things, things the gods do not do with any vibrancy, and watching Lezard's quest for knowledge and kindness unmake him is weirdly poignant. His actions are pretty reprehensible, but his worth as character isn't the same as his worth as a person.
Still, I have to admit the appeal of fictional evil. The characters I like in books are almost never the characters I like in life, and vice versa. I don't think this is so unusual; even the good guys can be too brightly colored and brooding to tolerate for periods of more than thirty minutes per week plus commercial breaks.
And yet, the love of villains is so often accompanied by a desire to change them, to make them better. We give them happy endings instead of downfalls. Does erasing fictional sins cheapen the real ones? Probably, eventually, if you decide that Satan is really the hero of Paradise Lost or make Tom Riddle your private pink squishy bear. At the very least, it's hard to make Sephiroth the good guy without insulting Aeris. But more than that, really, by writing off a character's faults we make them less than what they are, not more. I'm not sure what to do with the moral question, or the question of authorial intent versus popular interpretation, but if you take away the worst parts of a character, you usually take away the most interesting.
