Song Selection: OK—8 Graves

This is an odd title. To anyone who's reading this, I doubt you ever cared whether I was a good person or not. And honestly, my 'goodness' isn't exactly what I'm writing about.

Recently, I came across a wasps' nest of comments about how authors who write from the first-person perspective of a bad person are "dubious" at best. Or, at worse, these authors are indulging in their own sick fantasies. Of course, I didn't pop my head in and go, 'well, actually,' because when people say that authors who write first-person antagonists are "dubious," there isn't much of an argument as one of those writers I can make without at least reassuring you that I'm not "dubious." Essentially, I have to make the argument that I'm not a bad person. 

Which, uh, I don't exactly feel like making? Not because I think I'm a terrible person, but because I think that can be distracting and fuck, everyone's idea of what a good person is or isn't tends to be different. "Authors who write from the perspectives of bad people aren't bad because I'm not bad' is a pretty weak argument, so I'm going to engage in a couple of different ways with this premise. I'm going to try to convince you that there are good reasons for authors to write from the perspectives of characters they find abhorrent: understanding these people, arguing with these people, and...

...Fuck, three is a cool and powerful number, sure, but sometimes two reasons are enough. You want all the reasons, but if two reasons are good enough to you, fuck, they're good enough; them being diminutive doesn't make them less worthy of discussion (I guess you can see why I skipped AP lang every other class; uh, perhaps you should take my writing advice with a grain of salt).

I already failed this essay. Let's get to more failure, shall we!

PART I: DEFINITIONS AND SHIT

I want to define the difference between a 'protagonist antagonist' and an 'antihero,' before I get into this. Luckily enough, I've written from the perspective of both. However, these distinctions are messy, shaded in gray, and often overlap.  An antihero can also be a protagonist antagonist. More commonly, a writer can create a character with the INTENTION of the character being perceived one way, and have the audience itself perceive it another way. They can be very similar on the surface.

The antihero: Generally, this character might be seen as an antagonist in the eyes of other characters, but what they're doing is generally seen as "good" in the eyes of the audience, even if their methods can be...questionable. From characters I've written, this would be Patrick Lee from 'No Superheroes Allowed.' To the outside world, he's seen as a villain, but hopefully, the audience doesn't see him that way; I wrote him to be a bit more of a Robin Hood figure. He's trying to do "good" things (help build community centers, help people pay rent) with "bad" means (theft)(theft from the filthy rich).

The protagonist-antagonist: This character is an antagonist, the bad guy of the story. The only difference from a normal antagonist is that we see the world from his or her perspective. From characters I've written, this would be 'Masquerade' in the sequel of Blog of a Teenage Superhero. Seventy percent of that story is written directly from his perspective, but the climax of the story surrounds his fight against the "good guys", with the audience hopefully rooting for his defeat. He is trying to do bad things (destroy all people's superpowers) with his bad means. 

Do you see the difference between the two? Good, I'll be defending the latter one, the bad guy.

PART II: WHY

A couple of years ago, I was stabbing a stale biscuit with a fork at the lunch table. Me and a mortal enemy were going at it about crime or something. I remember taking a deep breath and saying, "I don't agree with what they did, but I understand—"

He slammed his fist into the table, clattered my tray. "You shouldn't understand them or you're just like them."

That. That is one of the most frustrating sentiments that I crash up against all the time, both with people I disagree with and those I agree with on most issues. That you shouldn't make any attempts to understand why people you don't agree with think the way they do or you might become "one of them." The thing is, you can understand and empathize with people and still disagree with what they do or say. That's why in an argument, you're supposed to say "I understand ____, but..." That's why when you're on a debate team, often you're asked to argue for the side you personally disagree with.

That isn't to say you can always understand why people do capital 'B' bad things. But with my story told from Masquerade's perspective, the point was to show that hey, everyone's the hero in their own story, everyone feels justified in what they do. That and I wanted to shine a light on the excuses people use to justify their acts, excuses like, "They deserved it" or "fate made me this way/I can't help being a bad person." 

There's this song from 8 Graves called OK, all about being evil. Honestly, it's just alright to me, the kind of song you listen to when you're very pissed or working out or very pissed-ly working out. But there's one lyric that made me pause and shaped the way I wrote Masq.

Maybe I'm just masquerading

As way beyond saving

So I don't even have to fight

That kind of moment of clarity amidst all the angst of the song really got to me. This idea that people say they're "bad" so they don't have to strive to do "good." I've heard so many people do this, fuck, I think like this occasionally, too. "I'm just too sloppy of a person to do this," I'll say, and never try to fix being sloppy. I just am, uh sorry people, I can't like, change or some shit. And I've definitely seen people smirk at me and go, "well, I guess I'm just a bad person" after an argument. 

I guess this is why the authors being "dubious" who write antagonist-protagonists bothers me a little. Because I hope no one thinks I  have the same worldview of every character I write, especially Masquerade. For one, the guy's bigoted, and not like in a subtextual sense, like very obviously, he rants about how supers are abominations and freaks and takes physical action to harm those people.

Also, put a pin in this. I'm going to come back to supers and mutants being used allegorically in works to represent oppressed minority groups. Actually, I'm going to write a long thing about superheroes in general. So just grab a couple of pins and stick them in there.

I hope readers don't associate me with what the character thinks, or think I use him to spout my own ideas, or find me "dubious" or whatever that means. That isn't to say I've written this kind of character perfectly in the past. I think there's been moments where he comes across too sympathetically, but mainly I grit my teeth while I write from his perspective, because writing from the perspective of a bigot isn't easy. 

The leads well into my second point, that writing from the perspective of someone abhorrent argues against the internal language and excuses that they—and we, too—use to justify their (and our) actions. 

I think it's one thing to hear that everyone feels like they're the hero of their own story, I think it's another to read from that perspective, to see that logic put into place. I hope that writing as Masq and showing the audience that his line of thinking leads to his downfall, I hope that's an argument against weaponized internal self-loathing, of bigotry, as opposed to people thinking I'm indulging in my own clandestine feelings or whatever. Basically, I think watching this line of thinking falter is a powerful argument against it, very "show don't tell" as writers put it, and "show don't tell" is one of the most effective tools they (we?) have.

PART III: BUT WHAT IF I AM DUBIOUS

That being said, I know there have been times when I've thought like Max, I know there have been times when my own self-hatred and internalized homophobia/transphobia were whittled into something so fucking sharp that in another life, if I was in another environment, I could've ended up lashing out at my own community, being one of those people, the villains(?) in my story. That thought trips me out.

It would've been very easy. All the people I looked up to and respected, most of the people I called 'friends' in junior high and high school were pretty transphobic. I had to hide a lot of myself and lie. Sometimes what they said to me about trans people stuck, whirled and whirled inside me. As a child, my views on gay people were shaped by very conservative family and fundamentalist literature, so when I struck the queer parts of myself, it really wasn't pretty at all.

The agony of internalized transphobia/homophobia is honestly one of the worst things I have ever experienced. I stopped fucking eating and stuff, it wasn't a good time. And it's hard to put that strange feeling into words, and it's embarrassing, kind of shameful. So, while I absolutely don't share the beliefs Masq does, that angst, pain, and the way I write him is sprouted from real feelings I have had, so maybe I am dubious after all? I guess that's just some food for thought. Maybe I am a dubious writer, and...what?

And that's it. That's the argument. Antagonist-protagonists are cool, they allow you to argue against the excuses people use to justify heinous actions and allow you to empathize with people you normally couldn't, to understand why people do what they do. There are legitimate reasons to write them that don't include being of "dubious character," and even if you are of said character, that doesn't always matter.

There. I did it. I made the argument. 

(We're sticking with this outfit, and he's got a pet that reminds me of my guineas)

Grammarly tells me this essay sounds aggressive, and upon a read through it might be right. My next entry is gonna be a little goofier, I swear, if a lot more raunchy and crude, Ohh boyyy.