Moral Writing: An Essay · 2:23am Nov 7th, 2019
Moral Writing
An Essay by That Guy Who Thinks Too Much
A series of unrelated and largely unimportant events have gotten me thinking lately. About writing in general – not just fanfics, but all fiction. When we write stories, inadvertently or not, a theme comes with them. In the case of stories attempting to emulate the show, this comes through very obviously in the form of some kind of moral. Do not cheat, do not steal, don’t flake out on your friends on group project day, that sort of thing.
However, as many of our high school English classes loved to point out, every story that is ever written has a theme of some sort. If something is written and we read about it, it can often change the way we think about, see, or observe things. There’s no such thing as a story that doesn’t affect the reader at all. Even bad fiction leaves a taste in the reader’s mouth, and boring stuff often reinforces already preconceived notions. Other stuff just makes us angry.
The point is, stories are formative. They change who we are with the ideas behind them. The best stories challenge us in deep, personal ways, but this doesn’t mean random joe’s comedy snip written in a half-hour without thinking doesn’t carry a theme. Even stories of complete randomness carry with them ideas and pre-conceived notions of the author. Good characters act how the author perceives good, bad characters the opposite, and complex characters have nuance where the author feels nuance is important. We write what we think.
And we change based on what we read. And I’m not talking about that one legendary story that won’t let you stop thinking about it, I’m also referring to little stories you read and forget about. The thing is, you don’t really forget about them. Read enough tiny stories about Friendship is Magic and, eventually, you’ll believe it, or at the very least the idea will be embedded into your brain.
For things like the morals of FiM, this is a great thing. The stories lodge into your brain and tell you how to be a better person. For the most part, FiM tends to go for pure morals that can’t really be argued against, so you can’t really find fault in it except for perhaps being overly idealistic. (And even then, overly-idealistic thoughts in the back of our mind might just make the world better.)
But then we get to this site, with all these fanfics. Sure, there are a lot of fics just like the show, but I’m sure I speak for a lot of us when I say we’re here for the fics that aren’t like the show. Fics that deal with darker topics, grander adventures, and break past the themes the show itself had, sometimes even brazenly going against the morals of the show. And we, since we spend a ton of our time on this site reading all sorts of things that make their way to the front page, we are formed by this as well. And some of these may not be so good.
I could go the obvious route of bashing on porn stories and how they change the way we think, but I don’t think I need to in order to make my point. Furthermore, I don’t really read those stories, so perhaps it’s not the best point for me anyway. (That said, what I’m about to say definitely applies to them too.) How about… well, violence? An aspect of storytelling I myself have dabbled into some pretty extreme measures, to be sure. By writing a lot of violence, we may not cause violence directly, but we certainly make people think about it more. And by solving problems in our stories with violence, we’re endorsing the idea that ‘violence is an acceptable solution to certain problems.’
Let’s ignore for a moment the question of if violence is or isn’t acceptable in certain situations. (I believe it is, but definitely not in all the ways I’ve shown it or it is shown on this site, and I wonder if even I have crossed the barrier of what is acceptable at times). The fact of the matter is, by writing it in a positive light, or even a glorified light, we place that idea in people’s heads. Will they go out and start beating people up? Probably not. Will they be more likely to resort to violence rather than diplomacy in a tense situation? Probably. If they read enough stories like that with that theme, the ideas in their head get reinforced.
As I’ve read lots of stories on this site, I’ve noticed how their themes change me and the way I think. Here’s a list of changes I’ve observed in no particular order, and no indication of if I think any of them are good or bad. Trust me there’s some of both in here.
Violence, friendship, harmony, equality, sexuality, rude behavior, trolling, jokes, mocking, grammar traditions, meaning, escalation, revenge, romance, adventure, punishment, death, escapism, democracy, etc.
No matter who you are, some of those up there probably ring ‘ah, that was a good change’ in your mind and some probably ring ‘ah, that was a bad change’ and some probably made you uncomfortable since you’re still wrestling with it. I know that list feels that way to me.
Now, I believe there’s an absolute good and evil in the world, so when I look at that list I see both good and bad things and think that applies to everyone. However, once again, I will ignore that, since what I’m about to say applies even to those who subscribe to subjective morality and self-definition.
We need to write morally. Some of us may feel inclined to write a story about a terrible person getting what they want just because it’s fun… but what kind of message does that send? Some people may think of it as a joke, yes, but the idea of the story still sticks in the back of their mind. The theme of that story is ‘be rude and obnoxious and laugh a lot and you’ll get everything you want in life.’ No matter how well it’s written, or how amusing it is, I find myself wondering if that kind of story is good.
My conclusion is that it’s not. Celebrating evil and monstrosity without some kind of pushback somewhere within the work itself… What kind of effect do you think that is going to have?
Sure, it might make people laugh, or get them interested. But what about the other cost? Think about what violence-celebrating gore-fests do, or stories about the perverted sleeping-around maniacs who are treated as loveable dorks, or the intelligent masterminds who conquer worlds without emotion, or… there’s so many ideas here found in both high and low-quality writing.
Of course, this gets us into a quandary. If showing evil is wrong, how do we build conflict? How do we build an interesting story? We need villains, we need characters with flaws, and we need to write characters that don’t agree with our own personal philosophy! It doesn’t matter if your personal philosophy is right, if you’re writing realistically, virtually none of your characters should be carbon-copies of you. Humans don’t agree, characters don’t agree, that’s the thing.
This brings us back to, I think, the answer. Theme. Our characters can do and say whatever they’ll do, but we have to ensure the theme stays on track. There can be a story about a horrible, nasty, disgusting person – so long as we don’t celebrate his nastiness and horrendous ways. The story needs to show, through its theme, that this man’s actions are not acceptable and that they’re wrong. Even if he wins, the story should leave a disgusting taste in the back of the reader’s mouth, a horror about human nature. It can even show that the horrendous man has a good side – as long as that good side is shown separately from the bad. (In fact, I think this latter one is one of the best stories: complex characters who are neither good nor evil living in constant conflict between their desires and two different spotlights, if not more.)
Theme is the responsibility of the writer. We must be careful not to give bad themes in our works – we don’t want to be responsible for worsening the people around us. Yes, I understand, some of us just want to write random romps through space where lasers shoot and ponies laugh. But, the fact of the matter is, our writing affects people. And that can be both positive and negative, both good and bad. And while we can’t think of every person we affect individually (there’s just too many) we can think about what kind of themes we’re spreading into their minds.
This is why I treat some characters differently. Some of you were quite upset with the way I handled Rick… But I couldn’t bring myself to treat that kind of a human being as something worthy of respect. He’s terrible. And because he’s terrible, I will use him, but I will not glorify him. If he’s ever the hero, I need to make sure there’s a bad taste in the reader’s mouth so they don’t try to emulate him. Given how some of the readers I got attempted to defend that his way of living life was the best, I’m concerned his portrayal in his own show is giving off some bad themes of its own.
For a different example, take Mattie. She’s a horrible messed up person who takes advantage of others and while her ‘promiscuousness’ is comedic a lot of the time, they cause the others to look down on her. What she does is not portrayed as okay, and in a few places it’s even portrayed as dangerous. But she’s still allowed to be the hero sometimes, still gives out wisdom… because she’s a complex character with depth who has many different things to say. I appreciate her existence because she offers a very different perspective from someone very, very imperfect.
But I have not always adhered to the principles of theme, and, in a way, my failure is what brought this essay about. Somewhere in the LSB, there is a character – I won’t say who, out of respect for the other adventures taking place around the character in fics written by other authors – but there is a character whose lifestyle is portrayed in a positive light. A lifestyle I believe is immoral and gives the wrong idea. And now my name is currently associated with this character, in one way or another. And by not pushing back, by not refusing to let it happen, I have done wrong. I failed to uphold moral writing.
Even though anybody affected by it won’t know, or might not even think it’s wrong, I’m still sorry.
We, as authors, need to be careful. The more influence we get, the more it goes to our head – but the more power we have. And the more power we have, the more our actions affect people. Real, human, people. Suddenly, our work isn’t just for our own personal enjoyment, it gives a message to everyone we give it to.
We have to constantly ask ourselves if the message we’re sending is a good one.
Writing has the power to change the world, or just a few people. And that… is a scary responsibility.
I know it scares me.
I’m not going to stop. I’m going to continue on forward.
But I’ll be more careful from now on.
-GM, master of thinking too much.
This is a very evocative essay, GM, and definitely a brave one to put out. I applaud you for it, and hold you in definite high esteem for your continued work. People may decry you for it, but morals are an important facet of people that we tend to neglect. I can fully imagine how draining this was, but you have immense spirit to put it out. So thank you for being you, my friend, and godspeed.
Nah the thing about Rick is that he is an asshole, he's a jerk and a terrible person. But he's also entertaining to watch even when he does terrible things because it's never done out of malice. Rick doesn't set out to hurt others it just often a possible result (and the worst things that happen on the show are usually someone else's fault). It's not that he sets out to kill someone but his actions may lead to others trying to kill him at which point he will defend himself by any means necessary because why should he care about the people trying to hurt him? His way of viewing things makes sense but even though most of us could never see things like him it's interesting to see his way of thinking play out and contrast with Morty's who more often than not has a more normal point of view.
But at the same time Rick is alone, he's unhappy and often contemplates suicide. We sympathize with him because we know he's a miserable person who seems incapable of being happy. We sympathize with him, which is why it's hard not to take issue with your portrayal of him because there is nothing sympathetic about him, nothing human. If you take away that human aspect of the character then, of course, you won't like what's left, but that stuff is just a part of Rick it's not all he is.
Basically you removed all complexity from his character and just made him a villain which seems to miss the point of his character, to begin with. Because Rick isn't evil he's just selfish and apathetic.
Now I'm going to wonder which character your talking about. Thank you for this essay.
I would give you a Gold if I could. But this isn't reddit, so instead...
...finally, someone who gets it!
Fer tha record:
Kalyani "Chryssy" Chrysalis is very much designed to be an ambiguous character. She's heroic in a sense that her actions achieve freedom and justice for a great portion of the population and she genuinely cares for everyone, but her philosophy of 'Everyone is flawed and we exist to fill each other's flaws to become a greater whole' is at least partially rooted in a past of poverty and severe abuse from an employer. She encourages everyone to be themselves, and dang the consequences, because she knows full well that most people are genuinely decent and the few that aren't will be overrun with extreme prejudice if their crimes are ever exposed. Basically, she follows her heart, and it's mostly a good heart, but when it says 'F that guy though' in any way she'll just nod and do that.
one of the things that make YOUR writings to be held in high regard in my mind is because, I don't know why, but you tend to actually "get" the characters you write about (and by "get" I mean that they pretty much behave and are the way I get glimpses of through my connection to the version of me actually interacting with them.) In the case of Rick Sanchez, your portrayal was pretty much spot on, I would dare to say even better than that of the "creators" of the show, but honestly, they are limited by the network, their own upbringings and even the medium itself where the story of Rick was chosen to be portrayed, or at least that's the impression I get from my other self's limited interactions with Rick, of course, I could be wrong.
For me in particular, writing is like fighting games, while in the fighting games I can let my own aggressiveness and other negative emotions go without resorting to massacring every other human being around me too much (God knows I've been an asshole with my sisters, another thing the Poncho I write about and I differ.) writing lets me let out of the glimpses of other Universes I see, otherwise I'd go insane!
Now, regarding the topic of "writing morally", I must say, that's the last thing that's on my mind. I'm painfully aware of my other self's mission (to keep everything in creation balanced with the balance slightly tipped towards "The Greater Good") I can honestly say, We Alfonsos Rodriguez aren't morally upstanding people. We try to do good, which I hope I can convey in my writing, but we all know that our fate is, unless God decides otherwise, to go to hell.
alas, I hope that whatever I write can entertain people, and help them be better people, that's why I do write: to be relieved of the burden of "Knowing too much" and to help my fellow humans to be better, whether I succeed or fail, I'm not sure. there are many writers that are far better than me (Tatsurou, the late Mythril Moth, you G.M., WandererD and many others Just on this site, and just writing fanfiction) I'm only sure of one thing: I need to write what I see, for my own health mostly (though I'll never write the hardest stuff, like in that other universe where I killed my older sister, or can't really write about the first time that other version of me died, or even the death of the love of his life on his universe.).
now if you'll excuse me, I need to go cry the memories off, especially that last one...
Poncho
Hmm, bad portrayals, eh? I suppose even if people don't particularly read my work, this would be a good place to see if I follow themes and give off characters that would negatively affect others.
Ghost Hunter Twilight.
This seems like the best place to start, my characters in this one are meant to portray the sort of assholes you'd meet in an alleyway or the like. Inner city decay and how life is unfair no matter how hard you try. Now, how does each character match up.
Twilight: She's a bitch, plain and simple, she hates most ponies that walk past her and isn't afraid to tell you everything wrong about you, she seeks misery in order to fill some kind of void in her soul, she often resorts to punching things when she's angry and she doesn't even consider those closest to her to be her friends. In many ways she's universally hated. Now how she portrayed? I feel like I handle her well, things regularly go wrong for her, her 'friends' treat her poorly and even the one she's dating questions why. She's the protagonists and I do give good things her way, but not to the point of envy in the reader, in fact most readers don't like her or enjoy seeing bad things happen to her. I feel like the theme I've given her is the one I regularly give to my protagonists which is "never give up" And when looked through that lens Twilight, even though she acts horrible, still tries to do good, at least in the grand scheme of things, not on the small scale. I feel like I could probably make her more redeemable, but on the whole it sort of works that she isn't. And that even though she's the scum of the earth, no one wants to *be* like her or even appreciate her on a personal level.
I think I get a check mark here.
Pinkie: She's worn down, an intellectual that her neighbours treat poorly because she's different. She tries to be friendly with those that actually like her, but consequently she doesn't stop herself from disliking or outright hating those have have been rude to her. She very much sums up a person that gives as much as she gets, which means in the case of her relationship that as she knows Twilight longer she dislikes her more and is somewhat taking advantage of her in the relationship. Pity, I think, is the strongest feeling Pinkie has for Twilight, at least as they know each other longer. I feel like I portray Pinkie positively despite her faults, which can be seen as forgiving her shortcomings, but also it's been outright stated it comes across as jarring so perhaps this one needs a closer look. Overall as a character though I think I've done well with pinkie, she wants to be positive but has a lower patience with each pony she encounters.
No check mark, but no cross either.
Applebloom: She's a schemey kid that likes being antagonistic, primarily to protect her friends and her own interests. She's not a nice person except for a select few she herself has chosen. She's quick to full on planning murder and treats those around her like pawns to control. I feel as though perhaps I've been too positive with her portrayal, not glorifying her per say, but definitely not vilifying her as I probably should. She's homeless of course and is afraid of how other ponies perceive her, but not to the point of actual consequence. Now I don't ignore her antics, and her brazen attempts to remove Twilight are shown to have consequences. Twilight basically beats her up, but due to the context of the reader not liking Twilight this could seen in the wrong light, and not only that, Applebloom is saved pretty quickly by an all-knowing force that empathizes with Twilight. It's a complex mess that could be seen in a positive light for Applebloom. I continue this trend in the sequel and have Applebloom's worldview shaken, but seeing as that isn't written yet, it doesn't exist.
I get a minus sign here, not a full blown cross, but I could probably do a lot better.
Spike: He’s an underhanded thief and con artist, as well he’s violent s a pretty early resort. I treat portray him well, but I definitely don’t showcase any consequences for his actions or personality. There is slated consequence for his actions in the sequel, but again, this doesn’t count yet. Spike is more of a background character and thus gets less focus as a character, this is however no excuse for how he acts. Things don’t go his way, but they don’t go poorly either. Essentially for how underhanded he acts, there seems to be no reaction of any kind, which could be even more dangerous than portraying it as good or amazing. If you steal from somebody and no one reacts you might be inclined to do it again.
I get a cross here, no excuse for how he acts.
Rainbow Dash: This character is possibly the only primarily positive character. She’s friendly, passionate about her interests, and wants to be friends with the other characters. I don’t delve too far into her character until the sequel, but even then she doesn’t do much unbecoming or antagonistic to the others, if anything the other characters constantly mock and ridicule her despite her positivity. This could have the opposite effect of the other characters, where I portray friendliness as a problem or ‘stupid’ Which given the fanbase I doubt will be taken seriously, but is still worth noting. She’s displayed as lazy and unemployed, but only by the other characters. I don’t give her enough spotlight and could probably do more with her.
No check mark here, it seems I’m off to a poor start, XD
The Whisperer: The allknowing and omnipotent voice of all things order in the setting. She’s shown to like positivity and dislike the darkness and seedy setting she’s in, and while she mostly stops from interfering directly, she has sown that good is the goal. Even if she is protecting Applebloom and excusing bad behavior, she still sees what Twilight wants to accomplish as something worth celebrating, and has been stated by a reader as being good.
I feel as though I get a checkmark here.
The Advisor
This is a short one chapter fic, but it’s reached quite the audience so it needs a looking at.
Celestia: I don’t feel I differed much from the show, but the key difference here is that instead of her being all knowing, she’s following what somebody else says. This could be good or bad, in this story itself it’s lead to plenty of good, but blind obedience is something I consider bad. This is why even though she knows the end result will be good she questions things. As also complains about how ponies see her and what she’s actually meant to do.
I feel pretty check mark here.
Mark: He’s a human that has seen the show of Friendship is Magic and uses that knowledge to advise Celestia about which decisions to make. He likes the attention and being cheeky, but ultimately he has good intentions. The show turns out good, after all, and he likes it enough to stick to script so to speak. He can be seen as arrogant and even though he’s doing good, he could be nicer about it, but I also have Celestia call him out and dislike his behavior, so things are good there.
Another check mark.
Dear Feather Fall
This was my attempt to write a fluff fic, something specifically positive to help people feel better about themselves, that was the intention, thus this one may be skewed somewhat, but it’s still worth scrutinizing.
Forever: Not sure I need to say anything here. She’s a beacon of positivity, she’s had a hard history and has mental problems, but puts them aside to spread as much happiness as she can, characters react to this in story being liking her, and even if they start off hating her they change as the story goes on. Forever tries her hardest, even if she’s unable to succeed and does it with the intention of being friendly. She’s my portrayal of what everyone in the world should be, so I may or may not be biased, but I feel like she passes.
Big check mark here.
Sun: This character is rough around the edges, she’s openly admittedly to hurting ponies and treating lives like they’re irrelevant, at the very start she outright tries to kill the protagonist and plotted against her, but she regularly fails and the story doesn’t punish her directly, but she herself spots what’s wrong and expresses desiring to change, then executes some of that change at the end, which is met with a positive reaction by the other characters.
Another check mark here.
Hard Edge: Another bad character like Sun, she’s shown as wanting to experiment on the main character, but quickly changes her mind. I don’t explore her much, but she’s shown as wanting to protect Forever for being such a beacon of positivity, which is admirable I think.
No check mark here, but no cross either.
The Government Agent: This is probably the closest thing I have to an antagonist in the story, he’s on the side of ‘good’ but regularly acts negatively, ignoring Forever’s attempts to be friendly and being single-minded in his goal of arresting Sun of her past actions. This could be me seen as punishing trying to do your job or just straight up good. He redeems himself by the end, which is views in a positive light, so my portrayal is somewhat varied here.
No check, no cross.
Feather Fall: He’s not in the story long, but he’s built up the entire time as a good friend, somebody supportive and nice, I deliver on that at the end during his appearance. He’s shown in a positive light for being supportive of Forever. It’s said that he doesn’t love her but wants the best for her anyway.
A check mark here.
Unblinking
This is a continuation of another story, so I was working with a limited set of parametres for character design, but I feel like I did enough differently that I can make this list.
Twilight: She is attempting to recover from a traumatic experience, she’s shown as friendly and hard working, but haunted. She’s done things in her past she isn’t proud of and her guilt is punishing her for it. I feel as though my portrayal is well done considering the source material, She’s doing her best to get her life together despite the literal ghost of her past telling her to give up and die.
I feel I’ve earned a checkmark here.
I have other stories, but they aren’t really on fimfiction or well known enough to be worth giving a closer look at.
Ok, this actually touches upon quite a few videos that I've watched over the past couple of years, so I'll link them below to provide visual aids:
On how "Rick being a callous prick isn't a problem, but ALWAYS portraying him as intellectually correct BECAUSE he's a callous prick" is bad, and how "It doesn't MAKE people callous pricks, but it normalizes ideas that callous pricks already believe and espouse":
https://m.This one discusses the responsibility of using a media platform to avoid sensationalism just to get outrage clicks (fair warning that the subject is on out-and-out IRL politics, but the point of "we need to phrase our beliefs carefully, because of the influence it has on our audience whether we intend it or not" should still stand):
https://m.And finally, a video that, while covering the history of censorship (for multiple forms of media, but videogames especially), also includes a final section on how some actions are more or less likely to be replicated based on A) relative realism of the action and B) a lack of actual knowledge on the subject (i.e. Nobody can rip someone's heart out bare-handed like in Mortal Kombat even if they try, but kids HAVE accidentally killed others by replicating WWE-style wrestling moves on each other due to thinking it's doable from being filmed, but not knowing how said moves are both rehearsed like crazy, and how the wrestlers take a ton of steroids and/or painkillers on top of already bigger and more physically fit than the average middle schooler):
https://m.Now, there are some things I respectively disagree with you on this. Namely how, while there are definately moral goods and ills, saying there's an ULTIMATE good or ULTIMATE evil edges close to Black And White Insanity (i.e. Thinking any measure, no matter how extreme, should be used to uphold "good" or punish "evil"), and framing promiscuity itself as a grave sexual sin (one juxtaposed with spree killing as if they're relatively equal no less!) instead of, for example, violating CONSENT, or inflicting ABUSE of a physical or emotional kind (which I feel are more deserving of moralizing than sleeping around, assuming the sleeping around is done consensually - and if it isn't, it's the violation of consent that's the FAR larger problem there). But besides those relatively minor disagreements, I feel this overall message of "Be careful with what you write" is a good message overall.
Oh boy, this brings to mind MrNumber's Hellblog and the shitstorm it burned for weeks.
The difference is that you didn't advocate for better porn.
A similar issue happens when something was written to be a satire and then people miss the satire or forget it is there. As an example of this you will find Warhammer 40K or Watchmen where they are originally written with satire in mind but you will find people that think you are supposed to read it straight.
As a flip side of this it is funny when you realize that the movie "Starship Troopers" is a satire but the original book is most certainly not but you will find people that take the movie at face value too and they have not even read the book which is sadly kind of a scary thought.
I am not that knowledgeable of Rick but from what I have seen the show does show that he is actually not a good person and that he is a problem for himself and his family. At the same time it makes him a compelling character and you can see glimpses of things that make you wonder if he could be better so it compels you to watch more (if you care about that sort of thing of course). That being said I can easily see this as being something that is easy to miss in the show and you might think you are supposed to agree with him all the time rather than how I think the show is trying to show that Rick has and is a problem.
I think that sufficently large amounts of joy from reading a book with a wrong message can sometimes offset the results of the wrong message being spread.
And I also think that people, in the end, should be allowed to write whatever they want to (as long as it's not an outright provable manipulation) .
But I would definitely agree that people need to be at least concious and just a little bit wary about the messages they are spreading or recieving.
I kinda feel like this blog was partially my faultThat said, I like what you're saying here, but disagree with it. The world we live in is one where morals are often not considered in the moment. What's moral, what's right, and what's good, I think, are often different things.
In writing, I believe evil should be shown as it is, for what it is, in it's purest and most disgusting form, and the same should be shown for good. But for writing to be moral, you cannot write a Satanist. For writing to be moral, you cannot write Hitler. You can't depict or describe ultimate evil without trudging to the depths of the darkness yourself and splashing it on a wall for all to see, and covering yourself in that darkness to show it to others, is not moral. To let yourself think of all the horrible things you could do to another person or several people is against morals. However, writing evil to show evil, I think can be good, and I think it can be right.
For example; in a world where treating everyone equally is wrong, like ours, then you have to consider why that is. You cannot treat men like women, and you cannot treat women like men. Different creatures that coexist which are both classified as 'human,' but cannot exist without each other. They grow differently, they develop differently, they think differently. They cannot be the same because they are not the same. If a young boy came to his father and asked how to deal with a bully, he'd probably tell him to hit the bully back. That's not moral, but is it right? Honestly, I believe so. But it's also not good. The truth of the matter is, respect is earned. That's not moral, but that's the world as it is.
However, the math changes if the father finds out that he's being bullied by a girl. On the opposite side, a mother wouldn't likely tell him to fight back but resolve things diplomatically. Flip it again, a girl being bullied by a boy, the father will give one answer, the mother will give another, and both can be right, and one answer might be good, and one answer might be moral. I believe that it is only in the rarest cases where an answer can be good, right, and moral all at the same time. A world where every choice has a best outcome that meets all that criteria, however, is not the one we live in either.
What I think writing should do, even in fantastical stories, is to show reality as it is; the truth. Dark and murky with a light at the end of the tunnel, and bright spots and dark spots along the way. We don't live in a utopia because there is no world where everyone always makes the moral choice. We've been trying to encourage such a world since the dawn of western civilization going all the way back to ancient Greece. But because we have not achieved it yet, I don't believe that humanity alone is capable of doing so. To show a moral world where people always make the right decisions is to show a fantasy that we can never attain. But to show a gray world filled with good and bad people where the good people are the ones who are right but suffer at the hands of those who do evil, until finally, good ultimately succeeds in the end? That is to show reality, to show the truth. What I think we've lost, and why I think the messages we send are so easily confused, is that we like to reject the cold, cruel reality we live in and pretend that the world isn't the way it is.
The most important thing I want in a story is a depiction of truth. The greatest truth that we've ever been given, the greatest story that was ever told has a simple message, and not a day goes by where it proves false.
"If you tell them the truth, they'll kill you."
This essay needs a Gold Star stat
I'm gonna take it into consideration while working on my own stories. Thank you.
5151732
I think you missed the main point there, bud.
5151855
I don't think I missed the point, I just disagree with it. I don't think writing has to or even needs to be moral, I think it needs to be true to life. Those things are often in conflict with each other, so I'd rather have the truth instead of what's moral.
5151865
Then you definitely missed the point. He wasn't saying that things always have to be moral, he was talking about how writing is thematically framed. As an example compare and contrast Rick and Morty to Bojack Horseman, at it's most basic both series star an apathetic asshole who thinks he's better than everyone else. The difference though is how their actions are shown in the series. Whereas Rick is almost always shown as right and correct, Bojack tends to portray his arrogant self-centred actions as bad by the rest of the characters in the show itself.
The point isn't and never was about showing only good (or moral, I don't know, I honestly don't full grasp your differentiation of the three words) The point was that those bad acts are seen as 'cool' or 'right' when that is really just giving real life assholes justification to continue acting they way they do. Not celebrating these traits, but normalizing them.
The entire Essay is not about what is written but *how* it's written.
5151880
Maybe I didn't say it right the first time, but this essay leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It sounds good, but something about what's declared here feels wrong, and makes me feel like it's more about controlling what we say than it is about writing stories for the betterment of people.
So, here is what my definitions are for those words
Moral: What aligns to virtues. What is moral is how things should ideally be.
Right: What is correct. What is the best decision in a situation.
Good: What leaves a positive effect. What has the least consequences for all parties.
Between these three things, you have what caters to society, what caters to you, and what caters to the 'local everyone.' (more than one person that is involved in your personal life)
An execution of an insane murderer is Right and Good, but it may not be Moral. (i.e. Even if killing him is the best option for everyone involved, somebody has to be the executioner.)
Fighting the bully back and standing up for yourself is Moral and Right, but it may not be Good. (It's the right thing to do and it's virtuous to protect and defend yourself, but one way or another, somebody is going to suffer for it)
Taking substances to be more normal around others might be moral and good, but it may not be Right. (It'll make you tolerable, feel better, and more personable, but it will destroy you over time.)
When I think of 'Moral' writing, or writing to be moral, I think of Puritan, marshmallowy, happy writing and stories, and really just not good ones.
When I read the line,
I think that means that I should be on my toes while writing, and always know what I'm saying. If that's the case, there's no way I'm even capable of doing this because I figure things out after writing what I'm thinking about. I write and read my own work to understand what's going on in my head, and I am not the only one.
When I read this,
It makes me think that I, by virtue of writing, am responsible for the thoughts of others. Good or bad, it comes back to me, which is just not true. I don't think it's your fault that a person thinks one way or another based on your work, or even your job to care if they do. People are going to be people no matter what we put out there, and if you write a bad guy at all, even if there is pushback in the work, somebody is going to see that as cool or acceptable.
If there is an ultimate good and an ultimate evil, and humans are capable of understanding that, then at some point, a person who sees something wrong should be able to say that 'this isn't true,' whether its celebrated, portrayed as the best thing ever, or whatever. What this essay tells me is that I should give people less agency to find the truth for themselves, and not expect them to know what is moral, which I don't think is right, good, or moral. Write what we want with reckless abandon and we'll show the truth of what we believe. Write carefully and restrained and you're missing a component of being human, the truth of humanity.
5151930
And while this is all good in theory in practice things are messier than that. You can expect your readers to pick the good from the bad, or you cannot, but the fact of the matter is different people are going to take things in separate contexts not only from what you write or intend, but also from each other.
Reasonable, rational minds aren't what's wrong with society, it's the ones that already have a problem that cause concern. So when i write a bad character or bad situation or anything controversial, I know that a large majority of the people absorbing that content will walk off and be fine. They may change they may not, but they won't suddenly do anything they wouldn't have already. It's the loners, freaks, creeps, and scum of the earth that will perpetuate problems.
That's why it's important to differentiate between text and subtext. To know WHAT you as an author are saying is the subtext and HOW you say it is the text. And that the text itself is generally what people will take away from your writing.
No you can't control the way people interpret what you do, that's quite impossible, but you can control the way you act and do things. And you can encourage, discourage, or disengage any form of behaviour related to your work. You can write cute fluff with deep impactful messages, you can write ultimately empty adventures with good and evil, and you can write anything at all in between. But there's something to be said for the Rick and Morty show being a place that unfortunately allows entitled assholes to feel justified in their self-centred activity where shows like Always Sunny and How I Met Your Mother being fandoms that are calm cool people (This isn't a blanket statement, I am referring to specific cases and not using it as a definition for everyone who likes RaM, I love Rick and Morty, it's fucking hilarious)
Thank you for defining what you consider to be the difference between the words, I don't agree with the examples you've provided (especially the fighting back against bullying thing, there's *far* better channels then simply fighting) For me moral is a personal structure of how to conduct yourself, the actions that if broken leave a bad feeling inside you, by that definition it's subjective by person. 'Good' and 'bad' as I see them are social constructs of the time you look at, it used to be good to burn witches at the stake, it used to be bad to love a woman and man the same way, and it used to be good to sacrifice people to certain gods. What's 'right' is closer then to a factual recounting of events, if you were to tell me I've spent at least five minutes responding to you, you'd be right, or 'correct'. Thus makes my definition of right partially synonymous with truth, but that's an entirely different subject of discussion.
As for you feeling like you should be on your toes while writing, well, I mean yeah. There's two different types of writing, personal and public. For personal writing you can do anything and everything you want, be racist/sexist, literally anything, it's true freedom, I have an entire folder filled with personal writing I never intend to share, it's for me and me alone. Where writing becomes public is when you as a person decide to post your work with the intention of others seeing, thus you need to hold yourself to some standards and limitations for the sake of the people you want to read it. Not to the point of sacrificing your message, but at least to the point of adhering to what the void of potential masses may think. Shurg honestly I don't see it as limiting or controlling, it's just what you should do, when you post your work for other then you should think of them and how it affects them.
That's all I have to say at the moment though, looking forward to your response.
5152017
and those who don't believe in nothin'!
If it's only these people causing problems, then I can't see how you could place blame on any one thing for it, and not the people themselves. If I'm being completely honest here, I'm not concerned about these people because, just like everyone else, they will keep on keeping on regardless of the time period. With as wide and varied as humanity is, we'll never not have our outliers.
At what point does the narcissist not feel justified? Are we condemning a vocal minority for liking a thing and trying to be a bad guy that the majority of people recognize is a bad guy? Or are we picking on a specific group here? Because the more you talk about this particular fandom, the more I think of the gross side of every fandom, which was initially present in its worst incarnation before /mlp/ started getting moderated within our own fandom. It's not as if these people just pop out of thin air, I think they've always been there, and this was just the unfortunate place they grouped up together. I never got the sense that Rick was always portrayed as 'right' in the show, and often times, things were his fault and he just refused to admit it or take ownership. He's cold and cruel and logical, he does bad things because they serve him best, but that doesn't make them right. Recognizing that he's just as much a piece of shit as everyone else in that show is part of why the 'certain IQ' meme exists. Much like satire, there's a grain of truth buried in the joke, which is what makes it funny. You laugh at the absurdity of life and the contradictions there of.
The rest of this paragraph
In a world where ultimate good and ultimate evil exist, I don't think Good/bad moral/amoral are subjective. Cultural beliefs at the time or not, ignorance is not a valid defense in the court of law. Just because you don't know something is good or bad, moral or amoral, does not make it any less of either of those things. What changes as society evolves is not whether things are okay, its how luxurious we can be with our morals. At what point does it become feasible for humanity to not need every woman to play her gender role? At what point can we have men that don't fend for and protect the family? We're made a certain way so that we can survive at the most basic level and continue to procreate. When we move beyond the level of 'survive' then we don't need to be as primitive as before and we can start living in a better, safer, world. I also disagree with the 'better channels than fighting' because there are times when you have to take that option, and I don't know what you mean by the love comment.
Hard disagree. I don't care what the masses think, and my standards are something that I'll live by regardless of whether or not I publish something. Publishing something specifically for it to be seen feels like a soulless, corporate idea. If you just want it out there to sell, then by all means, more power to ya. But to me, writing is an art form, and the point of art is share an emotion that otherwise cannot be communicated properly. I would rather hit a smaller audience to get the purest form of what I want to communicate out there than restrain myself for a broader audience. Coming back to it, not sharing what you believe as you believe it doesn't ring true to me, and I don't want anything less than the truth.
So, unless I'm reading this wrong, you said that morals are subjective. If that's the case, then why should I do anything, in the event I don't subscribe to the same morals as you do? If good and bad are the product of a social era, does that mean that society will one day change to become something that doesn't resemble today's world in any shape or form? If moral and good can change shape over time to suit the era, then how is anything nonphysical, true?
Side note, this should probably move to PMs if we continue the discussion. This is a blog comment section afterall, we're not the only ones getting notified that there are new messages here.
5152031
I know GM likes seeing discussions like this, but you're right, cluttering is a genuine concern. My reply will be in the form of a mail sent to you. Scrolling up and down to reference what you said every few seconds was getting kind of annoying anyway. XD
I disagree with literally every single thing in this essay. I disagree with the premise, and I also disagree with each individual point that you raised. Please don’t interpret this as an attack on your character. I think you’ve done a very valuable service, in fact, by laying out the argument for didacticism, which will make it easier for me to demonstrate why I’m so strongly against it. I’ve argued with people on SpaceBattles about this, but they weren’t so blatant about their didacticism as this essay is. They were generally more subtle in their demands for moralizing fiction while broadly castigating those works that they deemed immoral.
First off, Edgar Allan Poe wrote an entire essay against this practice over a century ago:
https://poets.org/text/heresy-didactic
When an author invokes a theme in a work, the goal is not to teach the audience anything, but to impart a feeling of transcendence to the audience. If depicting extreme violence or immorality gets the audience closer to the ineffable and unsayable, to the rapture of divine and transcendent beauty, then it is acceptable. The goal, generally speaking, is not to replicate anything real, but to get the audience to feel like they’re floating on a cloud of surging emotions as they read of things that surpass everyday, humdrum occurrences. This is what is meant by creating art for art’s sake. Transgression is merely another tool to achieve that state of lightheaded ethereal wonder in the audience.
Let us apply shallow didacticism to some great pieces of literature and see why it’s wrong:
1984: The totalitarian state will win in the end, so there’s no reason to fight against it.
A Clockwork Orange: It is better to indulge in one’s baser nature than to allow oneself to be brainwashed into being moral.
Lolita: When the underage object of your perverse desires is stolen away by another man, you should shoot him.
Metamorphosis: If you should happen to turn into a giant bug in your sleep, your family will neglect and abandon you.
A Rebours: When you’re feeling under the weather, it’s perfectly fine to retreat to a dark and solitary villa in the middle of the countryside and kill a tortoise by weighing it down with jewels.
The purpose of a theme is primarily to give the audience a sense of aesthetic pleasure. This is true for both visual and textual themes, depending on the medium. I say Blade Runner. What immediately comes to mind? Dark, smoggy, neon-drenched cities with towering, monolithic, impersonal buildings. I say Mad Max. What immediately comes to mind? Deserts full of gearheads with guns, desperate for gasoline to power their rides. These are more than just themes. They are aesthetics. Their virtue comes not from any morality they depict, but from their ability to transport the reader into an outer realm that is different from our own, and yet somehow similar. Any teaching that occurs is a secondary goal, and the effect will differ depending on who’s reading or watching whatever it is and what their pre-existing values are. This is why depiction isn’t endorsement. Let’s say you have two people play Red Dead Redemption 2. One is a hunter, the other is a PETA member. What do you think their respective reactions to skinning a bunch of animals would be? It’s completely relative. What arouses disgust in one audience member may not elicit the same reaction in another.
Every experience of fiction is individual and personal, not collective and societal. Merely showing something to the audience will not make them automatically accept it as a moral good, and the very idea quite frankly implies that audiences are too shallow and stunted to show any kind of moral discernment of their own accord and the author must take the reins of their morality away from them. There is nothing more antithetical to art than censorship, or self-censorship. The Comics Code Authority was created with generally the same intent as you’ve articulated here, which is to avoid the creation of fictional works deemed immoral and harmful to the public interest. The result? Formulaic superhero comics.
If every story were to follow the principle that villains must get their comeuppance and heroes must receive their just reward for their virtuousness, then they would be following a formula. Authors of such works would not be attempting to create art of any kind, but propaganda pamphlets. The argument of didacticism, essentially, is that all art is propaganda and that if you’re going to create propaganda, it may as well be propaganda for the “correct” side. I argue that this premise is false. Art is only propaganda when it is constrained to a very small set of values—a small set of rules to follow.
Because of the rising influence of didacticism, I am seeing an increasing number of works with villains that aren’t even particularly villainous. Compare Mass Effect: Andromeda to Robocop. In ME:A, the main baddie, the Archon, is a giant wuss. He never does anything very cruel, he never twists the knife or takes joy in villainy, and frankly, he doesn’t have much of a character at all. He’s just this cardboard stand-up for you to knock over. He’s a boring despot whose only concerns are practical, with no real personality other than his obsession with the Remnant. Now, let’s look at Clarence Boddicker, the main villain of Robocop. This is a guy who delights in evil, and in torturing and murdering people. He’s rude, crass, vulgar, ill-tempered, and as much of a hazard to his own allies as he is to his enemies. Which of these two is the more convincing, more fleshed-out character? Which one was allowed to actually be a villain, and which one was not?
There’s an MLP fic I’m writing right now. The good guys are bad; they commit war crimes, abuse narcotics, and use WMDs like nerve gas and nukes almost without reservation, and one of the main themes is investigating how this has affected them psychologically. The bad guys are even worse. They’re a motley assortment of rapists and slavers and slave-rapers. If we were to accept your argument that didacticism is the case, then everything we write must be morally justifiable. This would, overall, prevent us from depicting injustice, cruelty, and error, which would lead to works being whitewashed of any such themes.
I think, ultimately, not showing evil to the audience is actually worse than showing it. When people are exposed to a steady diet of bowdlerized fiction and allowed to indulge in an excess of optimism, they become naive and pliant and assume the best of intentions in their fellow man. This makes them easy to exploit and victimize. It is very convenient for the power-mad despots who rule our world if people assume that such despots have their better interests in mind, and superficially moral fiction is a good way to brainwash people into ignoring cruelty, vice, and excess.
It’s gotten so bad that there are people out there who don’t even know what actual cruelty looks like. Last year, a bunch of cyclists decided to take a bike-ride through Afghanistan, heedless of the danger. They were rammed into with an SUV, and then, the occupants got out and descended upon them with knives and stabbed them to death. Do people have any idea what the life of a sicario working for a drug cartel is like? There are people on this planet who, if they get their hands on you and happen to be in the mood, would have no compunctions against grabbing a machete and taking an ear, or a finger. In fact, they will laugh with honest, childlike glee while they do it. Which do you think is worse; for someone to read grimdark fiction and become paranoid of being victimized, or for someone to read utopian nonsense and take stupid risks that end in them getting killed? If you’re going to make a didactic argument, it is equally arguable that immorality in fiction is as much a warning as it is anything else.
I don’t think that depicting idealized, whitewashed fictional worlds will make the real world a better place. I think it’ll just make people naive and more easily blindsided by real-world immorality and injustice. Another thing is that grimdark fics have a fairly well-proven healing effect on some people. Reading about evil, transgression, and error can be cathartic. It can make you feel better about yourself, even if you feel like you don’t measure up. Case in point, look at all the people who read Project Horizons, for instance, and claimed that it helped them cope with their depression. Blackjack isn’t a good character to emulate. Her favored method of coping is to do drugs and kill people. Anyone who would copy her behaviors would be setting themselves up for a life of absolute misery. And yet, she can be fun to read about.
I take a very, very dim view both of didacticism and of people’s attempts to scrub evil and cruelty from fiction and replace it with heavy-handed moralizing instead. Whenever I’m in a dark place, mentally, I turn to dark fiction to heal me. Imagine if someone told you “we don’t like your medicine, so we’re going to take it away and leave you with nothing”. Every time someone suggests that fiction ought to be “moral”, that’s what I hear.
5152052
Awwwww....
-GM, master of liking reading these.
I think, in summary, what I’m trying to say is that tropes and themes are not thought viruses. It’s up to readers to decide which ideas to accept and which ones to reject. Authors of fiction cannot hold themselves responsible for what readers believe, because that’s a ridiculous burden to accept; it gets in the way of creating art for its own sake. No two people will ever read the same text exactly the same way. What is offensive to the sensibilities of one person may pass unnoticed to another.
So, for instance, Kathryn Bigelow was accused of depicting gratuitous violence because of the torture scenes in Zero Dark Thirty:
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-xpm-2013-jan-15-la-et-mn-0116-bigelow-zero-dark-thirty-20130116-story.html
Her rejoinder was pretty much perfect:
If you want to show the audience that the world they’re watching or reading about is a hostile environment fraught with danger, then you need to be willing to depict evil. Take the controversy over Goblin Slayer, for instance, because the very first episode has a gruesome rape scene. What does that scene accomplish? Well, it tells the audience that the world in question is not risk-free; the stakes for losing against the goblins are awful.
Dan Olson did a video once about the “Thermian Argument” where he complained that people would defend scenes like this (his vid predated the publication of the work in question, but his example was eerily similar) using in-canon arguments. Like, if you write a scene with rapey orcs or whatever, and someone criticizes it, then someone else might come back and defend it by saying “but orcs do that because they follow a dark god of evil”. In other words, he’s arguing that Doylist explanations for the inclusion of a theme are more useful than Watsonian ones, and, ultimately, an author is solely responsible for what they put into their work, so if they really cared to, they could just choose not to depict something upsetting or immoral. I disagree with this idea. The diegesis is important and cannot be ignored. As a writer, it is possible to paint oneself into a corner by setting certain rules from the outset. Everything in a work of fiction must relate to something else. The rules of the diegesis must be followed.
Let’s say we have a story where the bad guys are mercenaries. Would it make sense if we showed them doing everything for free? After all, let’s assume Dan Olson is correct and authors are not bound by the rules of the diegesis. Let’s say the author has unlimited power. We could just throw in mercenaries who work for free.
No. Once we choose to depict mercenaries, it stands to reason we will also depict them showing a keen interest in money, and perhaps doing immoral things for more money. In this way, stories are collections of facts about the fictional world they’re trying to represent. When people come along and say that they take issue with the facts of a story—not for being incongruent or improperly-handled, but just for being distasteful—they’re not even really criticizing that story. They’re complaining that it’s not a completely different story. It would be like if I started reading Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss and then whined that it isn’t War and Peace by Tolstoy. It’s not a criticism. It’s a whine.
5152083
If that's all you hear then you were biased coming in, the above essay had nothing to do with whitewashing at all, showing evil is fine, showing atrocities is good, but not by characters that are shown as cool or the right way to be. Your Afghanistan argument made a lot of sense and was inpactful. Tell me, how would you write such evil characters? What depiction would you go for? If somebody is a rapist would you try to normalize their actions or would you vilify them?
5152270
I honestly think that humanizing a rapist would be one of the most difficult tasks an author could attempt. It's not like it hasn't happened before, though. Ever see High Plains Drifter? Yeah.
The thing is, if we take the sort of shallow didacticism espoused in this essay as a given, then it becomes impossible to depict particularly dark anti-heroes, or villain protagonists. We couldn't have anything like Death Note or Dexter, obviously. That would be immoral.
5152275
It's only immoral if you frame their bad actions as something to emulate, because it's any variety of cool or something to strive to be. I did a character study of the more well known things I've written on fimfiction and I gave a pass to one character I personally think is a giant bitch, but didn't give a pass to a character that's mostly 'good' not because of what the characters do, but because of how i depict them in my works, what consequences they get if any, how other characters react to their actions, and how their ultimate goals work out for them.
What I'm mainly saying is that I think you read something in the essay wrong and it painted in your head something that it isn't actually about. Not because of the actual content of what's written but how you interpreted it.
5152324
The position espoused in this essay is what’s called didacticism. It is the view that fiction is supposed to teach rather than merely entertain. If we assume that a story is supposed to teach us a moral lesson, then that will unfairly constrain authors to a few select allowable themes for their work. That, in turn, is antithetical to art and literature, which is all about exploring possibilities, no matter how extreme, obscene, or, indeed, immoral. Fiction is not merely educational, and if it were, it would be very dry and boring. If an author has to stop writing every few minutes to contemplate whether or not they’re teaching their audience the wrong lessons, they will never be able to create actual art. Do you think the Marquis de Sade would’ve been able to write much of anything if he did that?
Let me give you a ... I guess I'd call it a response, not sure what else to say.
Lets say you want to write a story about someone who does not believe in the behavior of the government, who wants to overthrow the people in power. Who is a terrorist, attacking a military base, and destroying it. Killing not just soldiers, but all the technicians, mechanics/repair people, all the scientists doing whatever data collection they are doing, etc. As well as destroying years worth of work and construction from taxpayer dollars.
Lets say you are writing a story about someone that does not believe that, as the prevailing wisdom is, that you are born into a role in life, and should follow that role. Your parents are farmers, you should be a farmer. Farms are, after all, necessary for society.
Lets say you are writing a story where your hero does not believe in doing their chores, but just wants to go into town and play with their friends.
How would you make this sort of person into a hero to be followed as a good example?
Doesn't want to do chores unless forced.
Seen failing to follow the proper rules for safe handling of equipment on the farm.
Doesn't want to be in their proper place in an orderly society
Becomes a member of a group that is attacking military installations.
Frees prisoners from captivity
Leads the final assault on, and destroys that military base.
I'll give you my answer in about 24 hours unless someone else figures it out.
5152673
What you're describing is the difference between a slingshot and a sniper rifle. Both have the purpose of launching a projectile forward away from the shooter, it's just that one has low impact and the other is taking things quite a bit too far. Authors don't have to stop every few seconds to consider what they wrote, just give a read through afterwards and see what you find. It's really not as an extreme of an idea as you keep implying.
And even if it is, who really cares? at this point it's just a discussion about a thing you read on the internet, not that big of a deal.
So I finally got around to reading this...
I see a good example of what you're talking about in... sigh, Starlight over Detrot. yes, I talk about that fic too much, but I think it's a good example of what you're talking about.
Characters can make the wrong decisions sometimes, or do bad things for the right reasons. The main character of SoD is absolutely destroying himself with the toil and struggle of fighting against a higher power... and he knows it. And yet he keeps fighting on, anyway. He's not a bad person, but he is making pretty self-destructive choices all the same. Is this acceptable, essentially telling the audience it's okay to be killing yourself to save the world? And maybe the answer to that is yes.
Contrast this with, say, My Hero Academia. That grape kid, Mineta, constantly attacks and harasses the female members of the class, and yet...he's treated fairly when he's not obviously being a creep, and he gets away with nothing more then a slap, usually. Peeping, touching, drooling, he does it all and hasn't been kicked out or reprimanded. That kid, no, almost adult, has gotten away with all of it. Is that an example of indirectly saying, "being a pervert is just a mildly annoying quirk and not deplorable"? Maybe the answer to that is also yes.
But ultimately, I don't think the author is actuallyendorsing either. Characters can be pieces of shit, self-destructive, morally wrong. There have been great characters that are also complete schizos or just morally out of whack. I've watched Fight Club recently, and that's a good example. If you haven't watched, I'll try not to spoil, but two guys get together and start a fight club, trying to re-embody manliness in what they see as a decadent and weak society. They break the law, hold brutal fighting rings, commit assault. Those people are wrong, but they are depicted anyway, and some people might come away with the wrong message (and have... if anybody tells you they want to be like Tyler from Fight Club, stay far, far away.) Grave of the Fireflies is another example of a movie that doesn't send a "good" message. Children die in that movie to nothing but the uncaring hand of the world, people, and the industrial war machine. Some people (in fact, probably most) will not enjoy that experience. But, in my opinion... that's okay.
These films, ultimately, are meant to evoke either thought or emotion. "Does this guy have a point, and if so, is he acting on that point in the right way?" or "God damn, that's sad... damn." Really, they are up to the viewer to interpret. They are windows into other worlds, other lives, but they can also be windows into ourselves, how we interpret things, how we react to it, and how we might act just the same or infinitely different from these fictional characters. Even if every piece of popular media was as saccharine and pure of morals as FiM, humans would still interpet them differently, whether intended or not. And, well, I don't know, completely. But isn't that just...humans?