Saturday, October 24, 2009

Vigilantes, Anti-Heroes, Villains and Unconventional Characters

First of all, sorry for not posting for quite a long time. I doubt I might continue the Demon Days storyline I wrote. Thanks for those who commented in various websites. For the Punisher storyline idea, a lot of people asked Baracudda but I'm sorry I didn't add him into the story. I wanted a much more traditional nemesis like Jigsaw.

Okay, now for my entry.

Many people have asked me, why do I read books, comics or even watch series about with weird characters and mentally disturbed characters. Why don't I read about characters that much more heroic and if read such stories I tend to gravitate towards the villain or the anti-hero more. I myself tend to ask myself that question. I remember when I was in my room and my roomate walked in. He asked me "Why am I so obsessed with vigilante movies?" I was watching Kill Bill Volume 1 at that time. It was probably the 5th time watched that week.


Then I started to wonder myself. Why am I watching this movie? Then I realized in the same week, I watched Missing In Action, an old Chuck Norris flick a few times and I watched both the Ray Stevenson Punisher and the Thomas Jane version a couple of times in the few weeks. I realized a recurring theme, they were all anti-heroes and vigilantes. They all acted outside of the law for their own brand of justice. Why I prefer to watch these stories rather than much more heroic stories like Ironman or even the famed Dark Knight?

I tried watching other movies which had more heroic elements into and I realized something. I was reading Deadpool and realized that these were the characters I could relate myself to. I couldn't relate myself to heroic or romantic characters because I don't feel that way. I normally act in the sense of revenge. This just shows that how dark is my psyche is. I felt weird at first. Look at this way, I think Adrian Veidt of the Watchmen as a hero because he stopped a nuclear holocaust despite killing millions of civilians but if I were one of the survivors of his doings and found out that former superhero Ozymandias actually caused the death of my family and friends, and I decided to go vigilante on his ass and lash him out what would be the difference between him or me? So there's a whole moral ambiguity in this whole thing.

I tend to gravitate towards morally ambigious things. I don't know why, probably it's my nature. Or maybe I have a huge feeling of hatred inside of me that is lurking beneath me. These characters are the only ones that I'm able to connect to. This goes especially to Deadpool. Despite him being the cheerful guy he tries to be, he tends to get annoying to other characters and inside his cheerful and joke coated attitude, he is such a depressed character who is mentally unstable. I feel connected to those characteristics. I feel a huge inferiority to other people. In order to cover that up, I tend to say all kinds of things. I tend to be cheerful, pretend I lead a happy life but instead I feel very lowly to others and I think I have offended a lot of people. I even made a joke amongst my friends that if I actully become a comedian, I may end up offending people instead of making them laugh. Maybe that is why, I feel connected to such sick and sadistic characters.

Here's a toast to all the unconventional heroes in my life. You made me feel less alone in this world.