I Can Tell I'm Arya-pilled To The Max Because I'll See Other Arya Stans Talking About The Questionable

I can tell I'm Arya-pilled to the max because I'll see other Arya stans talking about the questionable morality of her executing Daeron and I'm just like "That was so Lady of Winterfell-coded"

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I’m glad my shitpost about Daenerys is getting traction but I’m baffled that very few people have noticed that “Revolutionary Be Crazy” pattern, especially in a time when we are swarmed with superhero stuff.

Villains in superhero movies are always driven by “revolutionary” motivations. Thanos is, quite literally, worried about the ecological collapse of the universe. That’s the driving force of the character. He does not even want to be God Emperor of the Galaxy. His underlying desire is the same as a climate change activist, yet Thanos is the genocidal maniac to be defeated and the superheroes NEVER stops once to think whether Thanos’ concerns are legitimate or not.

In Nolan’s Batman trilogy, Bane gives a quasi anarchocommunist speech about how Gotham is engulfed in corruption for the sole benefits of those in power, prisons are a symbol of oppression and the police is shit. Why isn’t Batman the one giving this speech?

I could go on and on with examples.

This is not done solely to give nuance to the villains, because it is pretty much a pattern: the villain wants to break the system, and the hero is called to preserve it. The hero never ever questions the villain’s motivation.

Someone mentioned Star Wars: no, the heroes in Star Wars are not revolutionary. Star Wars, like Marvel movies and generic Hollywood flicks, is just another neoliberal fantasy. It’s standard good vs evil. Luke is just fighting an authoritarian regime (the baddies) and so is Rey, because as heroes, they have to. Because Evil Empire is bad, and we all know is bad. We all know that authoritarian regimes are bad. Luke does not want to break the system for the sake of it, and neither does Rey, even though Rian Johnson managed to slip some anticapitalist lines into the script. Neither Luke, nor Rey, nor any other goodie ever thinks what is going to happen once the Republic is restored and how to get rid of the flaws that caused the Republic to fall twice. In The Last Jedi, Kylo Ren is given the “break the system” lines with his speech to Rey about letting the past die to create a new world. In the prequel trilogy (and supplemental material like The Clone Wars), it was Anakin, the character destined to become Darth Vader, the one pressed because the Republic is shit, corrupted and cannot get stuff done. Padmé and Obi-Wan are “yeah man the system is crap, but do you want a dictatorship?”. Which, by the way, is exactly what happens.

Classic liberal centrist message: you want capitalism destroyed, boy? You get literally Hitler, or Stalin, or whatever. So shut up. Accept the current oppressive system because it could be worse.

Revolution ain’t good.

Revolutionaries are bad.

Status quo is good.

That’s why subversive lines are always given to villains, and why the revolutionaries are always the baddies.

I can think of one subtle exception: Hunger Games. Even though at the end the leader of the Rebellion turns out to be “as bad as President Snow” (lol) and the hero kills her instead of Snow (another lol), I would say the overall message is not pro system. President Snow might be Emperor Palpatine, but as opposed to Star Wars, Hunger Games clearly shows that the rich, the élite and the media enable Snow’s power and the oppression of poorer districts and are pretty much oblivious to their struggles.

Three big pop culture phenomena are ending this year, and they all shows a recurring motif:

Final biggest villain in Avengers is a character worried about ecological collapse.

“Final villain” in Game of Thrones is a character who has talked so many times about “breaking the wheel” and “ending slavery”. She turns into General Hux from The Force Awakens, but instead of blowing planets she’s talking about freeing slaves. The only other character who has lowkey defied the system and befriended demonized outsiders, is exiled.

Star Wars: big bad of the final movie is Palpatine. Whether Kylo Ren is redeemed or not (his redemption implies he gives up on “building the new galaxy” and “letting the past die”), the Republic will be restored anyway, the problems will never be discussed, so it can crash again for Episode X in 2050.

tyrion!

Interviewer: What inspired the Starks? The Stark family in A Game of Thrones was just marvelous!

George: Well, that's a difficult question to answer. I think, partially, I wanted to do a book about a family. I’ve written a lot of novels and I realize that for the most part, the heroes of those novels, the protagonists, are always loners. They're young people who are unattached, or they are older people who have never made attachments. Abner Marsh from Fevre Dream, is a loner, Dirk t'Larien, in Dying of the Light, is a loner. So I thought it would be interesting to tackle a family unit for once.

- George R.R. Martin, Elder Gods' Rave #14 Interview (1999)