why is it so hard for some people to understand that the reason we’re more forgiving of villains’ flaws is that the narrative is up front about them & punishes them, & we’re hard on heroes when they fuck up because generally the narrative coddles them for it/ignores what they did

this is a broad generalization that applies to so many stories but an example is yeah I know Ben killed his dad, and we literally watch him suffer in misery for it for 3 movies, meanwhile Luke dropkicked him off a cliff into the dark side and goes to force ghost heaven unbothered

this is another thing that bothered me about how t100 treated Clarke for 98% of the show, even when she did horrible things or immediately escalated the situation to killing when it could’ve been avoided, the NARRATIVE was always telling us (until the last ep) that she was right

and I WANT flawed heroes! I don’t want boring perfect heroes. I want heroes who are just as flawed as the villains, even if they have better intentions, but to do that the narrative needs to acknowledge those flaws and give them consequences and resolve them!

in so many stories it’s like the author wants to have their cake and eat it too, they want to pat themselves on the back for making a flawed hero but then they also want to pretend like the ends justify the means as long as it’s the “good” character doing it

and that kind of attitude is exactly how you end up with audiences who have bizarre readings like “it’s mind-rape if the villain uses mind reading but if the hero mind-reads and also forces people to do things against their will it’s totally fine because they’re Good”

another example bc I’m still livid about this, Ben kills Han and it’s framed the whole time even in his own eyes as the horrible act that it is! meanwhile Rey thinks she killed Chewie and everyone is like lol it’s okay it was an accident! as if the end result wasn’t the same!