AnimeSuki Forum - View Single Post - Why personality has more impact than purposes?

***relentlessflame*** · 2017-11-29, 04:02

If someone is basically a "good person" doing the wrong thing, you're more likely to give them the benefit of the doubt. Even if they're doing the wrong thing, you might believe their heart is in the right place and their decisions were forced upon them or are a consequence of their circumstances. Typically people would expect that, given time, this person would see the light and come to their senses.

If someone is a "bad person" doing the wrong thing, you don't typically give them the benefit of the doubt because you have a strong negative emotional reaction to them. Even if they do something for a logical reason and arguable "good," you're more likely to assume there's some sinister motivation behind it that we're just not seeing yet.

Basically, it's hard to judge actions/motivations without judging the person performing the actions (and their visible attitude/behavior). Because we're trained to look for these sorts of common "tells" about people, viewers are less likely to second-guess their gut feelings about "evil" characters.

That being said, there are of course a lot of examples of stories where someone goes from "good" to "bad," or sometimes from "bad" to "good," as part of their character development. Being able to pull that off well, and make it believable to the audience, is tricky -- particular when you're dealing with a medium cut short for time (like a movie, or a light novel series adapted for TV anime).

I'd also add consideration for cases where an antagonist isn't actually evil but just seemingly opposed to the protagonists and their goals -- sort of like a stumbling block or hurdle. These are cases where the audience is supposed to feel conflicted because they realize on some level that the antagonist probably isn't a bad person and may have valid reasons for their actions. You see this a lot in anime with school-aged protagonists and adult "villains" that get in their way; nigh-inevitably there's a moment near the end of the story where we come to see how they were just looking out for the protagonists all along and showing "tough love" or whatever.

2017-11-29, 04:02	Link #5
*relentlessflame* 　 Administrator Join Date: Dec 2003 Age: 41	If someone is basically a "good person" doing the wrong thing, you're more likely to give them the benefit of the doubt. Even if they're doing the wrong thing, you might believe their heart is in the right place and their decisions were forced upon them or are a consequence of their circumstances. Typically people would expect that, given time, this person would see the light and come to their senses. If someone is a "bad person" doing the wrong thing, you don't typically give them the benefit of the doubt because you have a strong negative emotional reaction to them. Even if they do something for a logical reason and arguable "good," you're more likely to assume there's some sinister motivation behind it that we're just not seeing yet. Basically, it's hard to judge actions/motivations without judging the person performing the actions (and their visible attitude/behavior). Because we're trained to look for these sorts of common "tells" about people, viewers are less likely to second-guess their gut feelings about "evil" characters. That being said, there are of course a lot of examples of stories where someone goes from "good" to "bad," or sometimes from "bad" to "good," as part of their character development. Being able to pull that off well, and make it believable to the audience, is tricky -- particular when you're dealing with a medium cut short for time (like a movie, or a light novel series adapted for TV anime). I'd also add consideration for cases where an antagonist isn't actually evil but just seemingly opposed to the protagonists and their goals -- sort of like a stumbling block or hurdle. These are cases where the audience is supposed to feel conflicted because they realize on some level that the antagonist probably isn't a bad person and may have valid reasons for their actions. You see this a lot in anime with school-aged protagonists and adult "villains" that get in their way; nigh-inevitably there's a moment near the end of the story where we come to see how they were just looking out for the protagonists all along and showing "tough love" or whatever. __________________ [...]