I always like to discuss the concept of sympathizing in writing. I’ve seen people who love it, I’ve seen even people who are scared of it, because they find it dangerous. Like it is somehow dangerous to humanize broken, damaged people. It is exactly what will help us reflect, as a race, I feel. Washing away social constructs requires you to understand them and, yes, even sometimes sympathize with terrible people. Its why I loathe tumblr’s constant hate parades against people sometimes.
Lets use a recent unnamed case for example. Lets say an artist is showing off his defensiveness towards pedophilia or being homophobic. You DO NOT solve this with indifference, but neither with pointing at their flaws or shoving hate and death threats, calling them names. You talk, you understand and you make them understand too. You take away the US vs. THEM mentality instead of fueling it.
Hell, its why pedophilia is such a problem anyways! Because we dont TALK about it, we shove it under a rug, we dont educate our children and we MEDICATE, arresting people who DO IT, instead of PREVENTING it, treating it like it is, a mental/psychological health issues, taking it out by the root. These people, all kinds, are outcasts and they know it. We bring them in instead of pushing them out, because we are oh-so-faulty on seeing the transition between person with problems to person causing problems. Taylor, and Worm, is itself a PERFECT character study for this.
Yeah, I agree with a lot of this.
This sort of thing is part of why I like shows like Steven Universe and MLP:FiM. They both make most of their villains sympathetic but misguided, broken people whose better sides can be brought out, and whose flaws can be mitigated, with a little help from people who care for them. It is a good thing to write your villains as people, in general, which was one thing I praised Interlude 11e for.
Yet, as you mention, it’s something I’ve heard of Steven Universe getting criticized for doing with the “big bads” of the show, even though it’d be straight up out of character for the show to not do it.
(Steven Universe is far better than MLP at executing this. The prevalence of the “evil switch” in major villains is one of MLP:FiM’s biggest flaws as far as I’m concerned, but the core idea is present and prominent.)
I do think it’s important to stay aware when you sympathize with these people, though. I can sympathize with Hookwolf, or Purity, or Coil, but I should keep in mind what sort of people they are while I do so.
Also, I personally think pedophiles are closer to the “person causing problems” end of the gradient, at least if they act on it in some way. Which does not require it going as far as actually having sex with a child. However, “bringing them in instead of pushing them out” might in some cases be a better solution. A lot of things should be treated on a case by case basis, and this might be one of them.
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