Ah, my mistake.
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Why do we make excuses for the heroes? Just because they are the protagonists, it doesn’t mean that we have to endlessly like them or worship them. We don’t have to automatically agree with, or root for them because they are “the hero”. It’s too one-sided in my opinion.
I think the labels “hero” and “villain” aren’t nuanced enough because a villain can unintentionally be or help a hero, and a hero can unintentionally be or help a villain.
Nope. Does every hero need a “come to the darkside” arc?
Should we water down good so that it can be understood? Should we water anything down to just “good” and “evil” and “hero” and “villain”? No, I think that it’s more nuanced than that (see below).
Sometimes because if I am being honest, a lot of protagonists are geuinely boring. People don’t want to make them nuanced (and I’m not talking about like an anti-hero).
Like, a hero can do something that they think is genuinely good and for the greater good, but it ends up having devastating consequences. I think that isn’t explored enough, to be honest.
It’s usually too black and white, and played safe in terms of the hero and the villain and that gets boring for me. A hero can do bad things, unintentionally and villains can unintentionally do good things.
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So, write stories with flawed humans only?
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Flawed anything but make them flawed and relatable to the reader. Any character.
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Ever known a flawed character that wasn’t relatable?
Such a thing doesn’t exist.
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Yeah, but can we make them flawed without making them “heroes” or “villains”?
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True, true.
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Bump.
The series of Yellowstone, Peaky Blinders and True Detective(?) are good examples of villains vs even worse villains.
Also, would Jeremy Irons’ character, John Tuld, in Margin Call be considered a villain (lawful evil)?
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I make no excuses for Temulkar… None.
His being is that of his own making. Turning from his ordained reason for being, he chose his dark ways and turned his back on those he would have given his higher enlightenment to bring the world of Men into glorious splendour. To become that of a dominant force to govern all that dwelt in Arillion with fear…
He’s a twat with deity bloodlines, and nothing more…
SD
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So, Temulkar is a deity or something else entirely?
The Gods of Arillion gifted the race of Men three children. They chose the fairest maiden to behold their gift, Mara. Mara was the daughter of a Blacksmith from Redstone. No one special, but she was kind, and loved by all who met her. Some say that she had a beauty that rivalled the wonders of the world. A Daughter of Gods others would say…
She was a virgin mother who gave birth to Temulkar at first, and three years later her second child was born (I have no name yet), and so on three years later she fell pregnant once more… There is nothing more recorded of Mara, or her child in the records of Redstone or Men of that age… Mara vanished from the kingdom of Redstone before her third child was born. Yet many years after her supposed departure from the world, her third son revealed himself to her second child. A strange calling brought him forth to seek his elder siblings, and that is how Temulkar found them also…
The finding of the siblings is something I’m working on, and the corruption of their minds by Temulkar also… I’m trying to find the best way to write it as a backstory of almost six thousand years in the telling… But it is so damn hard when I have much history to weave it into and around.
There is so much in my head right now that I need to get it down or I feel like I will explode thinking about it…
SD
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Sorry about that… 
I’ve done this to myself…
Looks like I’m going to be writing a second book The Children of Mara. Giving a setting of when the Gods ordained their children, right through to the first war against the Dwarves of Mundhlor. This would cover some 7-8 thousand years of history within Arillion… Lots more work it would seem…
SD
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Bump.