PikMan Posted February 3, 2012 Report Share Posted February 3, 2012 I'm writing a little story as of now, and at one point the main villain crosses the moral event horizon. If you're not a troper, here's what a MEH is. It's when a villain does something so utterly atrocious that it cements him as a villain and puts him beyond redemption. I would like your opinion on this trope, and if it's effective or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blake Posted February 3, 2012 Report Share Posted February 3, 2012 If you want them to be hated and not have any chance at reconciliation, good But don't try to salvage their reputation later on, if you do Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evilfusion Posted February 3, 2012 Report Share Posted February 3, 2012 Thing is, Moral Event Horizon is not a point you should reach lightly. In many cases, this is done more to escalate the seriousness of the conflict, and should definitely not be used for an early point. Unless, of course, the villain is meant to pretty much ALWAYS be that level of maliciousness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirun Wolf Posted February 3, 2012 Report Share Posted February 3, 2012 It really depends on your writing style. I've never really had a villain cross the MEH until the end chapters of my writing. Any villian that is supposedly "evil" generally is generated at a point beyond the MEH from the get-go. In fact, now that I think of it I've only had one character cross the MEH line. I guess I feel it makes the story too transparent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PikMan Posted February 4, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 4, 2012 The reason I'm using the MEH is as follows: The villain has a legitimately tragic backstory, but I don't want him to have a shred of likeability. He crosses the line about 4/5 of the way in, I'd estimate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evilfusion Posted February 4, 2012 Report Share Posted February 4, 2012 [quote name='PikMan' timestamp='1328313710' post='5797445'] The reason I'm using the MEH is as follows: The villain has a legitimately tragic backstory, but I don't want him to have a shred of likeability. He crosses the line about 4/5 of the way in, I'd estimate. [/quote] The general purpose of a tragic backstory is to generate sympathy. A Moral Event Horizon would essentially require the backstory to cease being a "justification" for any evil actions, because once you cross that line, there is little that can ever be done for them in terms of sympathy or redemption. Such a character will be doomed to be utterly loathed. I usually find a villain to be enjoyable to watch in action to be far superior to a villain whose cruelty makes him a (deliberate) festering boil that a reader or viewer would like nothing more than for them to be obliterated painfully. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PikMan Posted February 4, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 4, 2012 Point taken, but I can't have him do horrible things just for the evulz. And yes, i want him to be hated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admiral Tim Posted February 4, 2012 Report Share Posted February 4, 2012 [quote name='PikMan' timestamp='1328317452' post='5797571'] Point taken, but I can't have him do horrible things just for the evulz. And yes, i want him to be hated. [/quote] As a note though, I hate villains that are half good half evil and are constantly pestered by the protagonist to become good until the point where it is almost as if they are tortured between the decisions. It looks sappy and unoriginal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PikMan Posted February 4, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 4, 2012 Well, he's all evil to begin with; It's his crossing the MEH that proves it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrabHelmet Posted February 4, 2012 Report Share Posted February 4, 2012 TropesAreTools; MoralEventHorizon is just like the rest of them. It can be done well or it can be done badly. Nothing you've said suggests that you're going to do it well. The Moral Event Horizon's defining characteristic is that anyone who passes it is forever completely unsympathetic and irredeemable. This is both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. You seem to see why that is its greatest strength; I'll tell you why it's also a weakness. It is its greatest weakness because once that boundary is crossed, any moral complexity or ambiguity is thrown right out the window. Your villain is not likable. Your villain is not funny. Your villain is disgusting. Your villain barely registers as a character anymore - they're not a person, they're a piece of cardboard with a black hat taped on top. That's the price of losing all sympathy - if we can't empathize with you, we can't understand you, and so we can't treat you as human. It also runs the risk of coming across as contrived and artificial. Unless the horizon crossing flows very naturally, it can feel like 80% of the way through the story, the author got worried that the villain was too sympathetic, so they had them kick a puppy and then drown it just to prove how evil they were. And indeed, the things you've said in this thread make it sound like this is the case. You're explicitly doing it because you don't want the villain to have a shred of likability. But a little sympathy for the devil now and then is what makes your villain a person and not literally the devil. Also I've seen your other writings on this forum and they suck, so I don't trust you to handle this well based on that either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PikMan Posted February 4, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 4, 2012 @CrabHelmet- Thanks for the confidence boost. I'm off to the Macy's Day Parade! Grab a rope! But in all seriousness, I appreciate the comment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evilfusion Posted February 4, 2012 Report Share Posted February 4, 2012 Well, Crab managed to capture my entire message, expand on it, and explain the issues more clearly. Thanks for that. It's actually the reason the Moral Event Horizon has to be VERY carefully done. I only recall 2 of my characters to ever do really do it. One of them was never really intended to be likeable or sympathetic, and being viewed as irredeemably evil was part of the character's shtick. In retrospect, it was absurdly amateurish of me to handle the character like that. The second character did it somewhat by accident much earlier on, and I recall DELIBERATELY trying to make him cross a line somewhere. It worked about as well as you can imagine. That is to say, terribly. And I'm actually a decent writer. I should probably avoid the MEH entirely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PikMan Posted February 4, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 4, 2012 I apologize for any rude comments I may or may not have made last post. Looking back on it, I didn't actually create it merely to be a moral event horizon, but when I looked back on it, it seemed to fit the bill OK. I realize that it may or may not qualify. Plus, the supposed crossing is actually VERY relevant to the plot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrystalCyae Posted February 4, 2012 Report Share Posted February 4, 2012 So, in essense... You are creating a villian who you never intend to be likeable. And you're going to make him even more of an unlikeable bum by crossing the MEH and making him completely evil. No MEH is a fickle mistress. Only some have the talent to work with the MEH and a villian. And, honestly, you dont make characters to be hated. If you don't like the character, as with the general audience, they are just a robot with no real felling other than extreme hate caused by *inserted plot device and author's dislike* Villians should be likeable in someway to the audience. You can't just say "Oh imma make a villen and thay gonna be hatedon cuz i wanna tham twooo"(the spelling is a joke. Dont take it seriously) Most villians have a sort of redeeming feature, and, in the case of this villian, they have a redeeming quality they lose after crossing MEH and going pro-evil. Some are smart, which can appeal to some characters. Some are just so powerful they radiate an epic arua of power that can attract a main character. Some are seriously handsome/sexy. Villians usually need at least one goodish quality, so some audience can view that guy/girl with respect. Just my 10 cents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirun Wolf Posted February 4, 2012 Report Share Posted February 4, 2012 People are forgetting something. A lot of the reason for crossing the MEH later in the game is because the author wants to do one of two things to the antagonist: 1. The antagonist is really just a victim of fate. While you find him disgusting, you realize that the events leading up to the point of the MEH crossing were tragically destined to play out the way they did. The antagonist loses that aspect of free will that the protagonist gets. It's been used often and is generally a succesful tactic. 2. The antagonist is neither good nor evil. The antagonist crosses the MEH with such whimsical nature that its hard to even comprehend the thought process (or lack thereof) that the antagonist goes through while making any decision. Generally, the antagonist in this case is simply a force. The MEH is not something that has to be crossed early on. To think that it doesn't have a place in the endgame is to forget a lot of good writing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just Crouton Posted February 5, 2012 Report Share Posted February 5, 2012 For major villains who last long enough in the story, adding the positive trait makes them interesting. Example, in Power Rangers in Space, Ecliptor, the season's Goldar, protects Astronema, the season's villain who is reformed at this point after remembering she's the Red Ranger's long lost sister, from the other monsters who ambushed her and the rangers. In the season finale, he overrides his reprogramming when he finds Astronema dead and admits he loved her like a daughter before fighting the Red Ranger to avenge her. On the other hand, Darkonda, also a main-stay throughout the season, was pure evil. He screws over everybody throughout the season, and kills his and Astronema's master with a planet buster before dying for good (he had 9 lives.) He was an cruel, unlikable snake but likable for being a cruel, unlikable snake. He also trashed the Megazord once. For one-off villains, pure evil isn't a bad idea, and making the reader care for them isn't worth it if their story doesn't continue afterwards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DARKPLANT RISING Posted February 5, 2012 Report Share Posted February 5, 2012 Most of what I'm going to say is already mentioned, but only the antagonist who acts as the ultimate, utterly unsalvagable villian should cross the MEH. Notice I didn't say "antagonists" - this is because no story should have over 2 MEHs. You should either not use it (the better option if you want to leave morals on the antagonist), or use it on just 1 character (the better option if you want to make a character alluring because he/she's so simply evil, and/or you want to add tension to the story). Take [color=#FFFFFF]Steve[/color] from Cirque Du Freak, for instance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PikMan Posted February 7, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 7, 2012 @Darkplant- There are 3 characters considered villains, only one of which crosses the MEH. The other two are redeemed. And looking back on it, I'm not so sure it even qualifies as a MEH. @Kurin Wolf- I went with the former. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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