It's the Death Note conversation all over again. Is righteous violence justified for a great cause, or is lawfulness above any personal brand of justice? A wise woman once said that this was up to opinion.
That upon seeing injustice, one will naturally know where to enact justice. However, what does proper retribution for justice entail? Is there any meaning to balancing a scale will always be unequal?
In literature, the writer's interpretation on justice and the correct usage of violence affects the narrative. The trials, punishments, and even what we consider to be 'equal retribution' plays a big factor to our stories, as it would in real life.
However, what actually happens in real life is that people go above and beyond what we deem to be really 'necessary' in order to enact justice. They will even go as far as breaking an mouth for a tooth.
Let's take Ben Shapiro's propaganda- I mean totally-not-stupid literature as an example of that very issue. In his book 'True Allegiance', we get was supposed to be a 'political thriller' in the form of the main character acting as if anything other countries do are bad and even if his country does the exact same thing, it is fine because it's them.
When you, the biggest cosmic force in your own story, start giving favouritism to your main character and make him exempt from any kind of punishment for his actions, then the whole story turns into a cesspool of bad propaganda.
It's like how the author of Apocalypse Meltdown had double standards where the main character hated that people would kill each other in an apocalypse yet has the gall to do it himself. As if everyone who doesn't help him is at fault but the things he does out of 'rationality' like leaving other people to die is fine because he's the protagonist.
This kind of cosmic double standards is both laughable and downright asking to be hated on.
The worst offender of double standards in literature though isn't the two previous examples I've shown, but the mere fact that the 'killing is bad under all circumstances' philosophy we are taught in the west is translated as the norm in literature.
Let me clarify this: I'm not saying to write gruesome horror and traumatising content.
What I'm trying to say is that: The world you create is filled with characters you know better than they know themselves. Unlike in real life, where you can never believe the words of someone who has been branded a criminal due to lack of understanding of certainty, a character in a story, for better or for worse, is the exact opposite of that for a writer.
They know exactly the kind of people their characters are, but even if you have the most linguistic storytelling that can get across your intent, there will always be one person, naturally pointing out inconsistencies brought forth by the writer not understanding that the reader sees things in a different light. As they can only see what has already been shown an interpret it the way they want to see it, no exceptions to this rule.
Although this blog is called 'Righteous Violence For Justice', the truth of the matter is that what is defined as righteous depends on time, place, and individual choice. Their is no cosmic force in real life that stops violence from happening, and it is more up to the individuals themselves when they feel it is necessary to display violence for 'justice'.
As someone who is truly existential, I also incorporate this into storytelling. Rather than making your characters 'not think' when using violence like a Shounen action protagonist that has been consumed by anger, it is best to make the character actually define themselves from what they view to be their own form of 'righteousness'.
Even in our own reality, their exist contradictions of government labelling 'Execution' as completely different from 'righteous violence'. As if 'lawful violence' where the sin of murder is split among multiple individuals allows it to become justified.
The same could be said for other institutions that that teach their citizens even though in reality, their might arrive a situation where killing is necessary for survival. Even we social animals, humanity, all seem to believe in the idealistic notion that a world without killing can exist as our butcher slice the neck of chickens to become one of our meals.
Why is it that writers seem to forget that they, as the cosmic forces of their own stories, are the ones who get to decide how they portray right and wrong? And why do readers accept the philosophy of the 'justified violence' they see in fiction?
Of course, these two are meaningless questions when thinking about the bigger picture. You, as writers, must come to terms with, whether you like it or not, that you everything you write will carry your own interpretation of righteousness and lawfulness. Everything written by an author is dependant on their own individual philosophies.
Which character's pay for their crimes, and exactly how much is considered 'proper retribution' is up to your own interpretation. However, never forget that the 'crimes' done by that character in fiction are done through your own hands as well.
Do not show favouritism to the main character and realise that each character is your own. They will cry and they will smile, but everything they do will be up to your own cosmic interference. And to think that protagonist is in anyway 'different' as a character to you than your other characters is like an Absolute Celestial Being showing favouritism to one person. No one likes reading that kind of stuff.
Although characters are born unequal, we should treat them with the integrity we would as real people to give them substance as characters. Not letting any one person from hogging the spotlight.
So basically, what I'm trying to say is don't make your character a Mary Sue with innate Deus Ex Machina where their plot armour is so think that any bullsht argument they make somehow makes sense even though it doesn't. Make them bad at stuff they should believably be bad at and don't make him the second coming of Christ when it comes to philosophy, that it just pure asshole-ry.
Template main characters with no personality are only made to be stand-ins for not every human on the planet but those who want to wear your character's shoes, while protagonists who have a personality should show consistency whether it would be likeable to the audience or not. As long as you control what you show in the latter example then even a villainous MC can be endearing...
Writers should lean into the former or the latter if they want to tell a great story. I'll leave it at that.
Thank you all for sharing your time and request me anytime whenever you want me to write a blog~