Seriously though the Bragman thing is absolutely the outgrowth of what kids from (any mainstream alignment that would be called "liberal" today) middle and upper class households were in fact taught - this trite idea that "cartoons lied to you, there are no bad guys"

It really is this simplistic worldview where not only can any action be explained by a simple "understanding" of where someone is coming from, but where people who do bad things are ALWAYS victims

I honestly think it does grow out of what I suppose is a needed aversion to something that was true in entertainment media at some point, that kids were getting fed black and white propaganda that kept them from empathizing with people who were different

But like, that era was over by the time I was *born*, and if I was a Normal Economically Productive Cishet I'd have 8-10 year old kids myself by now so that was a while ago

I mean *Star Wars* sold us fascist redemption narrative when I was -5

I honestly can't come up with an unapologetic example of a "good guys kill bad guys" story that doesn't qualify that in some way. And I love fictional nuance!

BUT this is literally like I joked about, like if the whole second part of TLOU2 was just about how Abby was poor

Of course there's the added element of the recent cultural proliferation of superheroes/villains, and the increasing convergence between "everyone on the political Right" and "actual supervillains" which is why "the ethics of kidnapping the f*cking Governor" is on the table

Like, a big reason something like Bragman's take could even seem remotely plausible has to be how outlandish this all sounds and how we've really only been taught to think about this level of civil unrest in fictional, pulp-y terms