Someone I follow linked Policing and woobiefication: two sides of the same coin by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ljwrites and it's one of those posts where I started out nodding, then had some quibbles, and then the more I thought about it the more annoyed I got. So to avoid ranting at ljwrites or the person I follow, here is a long and largely unnecesary argument under a nice cut you can scroll by.
nb I use "hate" vs "love" a lot here but I do realise it's possible to have serious issues with a character or their behaviour without being Motivated Solely By Hate etc. I'm simplifying things for the sake of argument.
So! I sort of agree with their first point: "Fandom policing and villain woobiefication/apologia seem to be polar opposites, but at heart they agree on one thing: That your morality is defined by the wholesomeness of the content you make and consume."
And I agree that fans and haters/anti-fans of characters or pairings can, in theory, be equivalently bad, and often behave in similar ways.
But now for the things I disagree on!
First! They equate woobification, apologia, and stuff like defending real life awful behaviour, when to me those are three different things.
Assume for the sake of argument that we're discussing a character who unambiguously did morally bad things in canon.
Woobification of that character would focus on compassion/pity towards their pain above other aspects of their character and backstory. It is entirely possible to woobify a character and acknowledge any bad things they've done. Also, woobifying is mostly a fictional trope: fic that goes on for chapters about how very sad they are etc. Possibly, how very sad they are about having done terrible things!
If you dislike a character for doing bad things then you'll probably find woobified approaches unpleasant, but that doesn't mean they're arguing in favour of those bad things. And many (if not all) fans of woobifying fic will cheerfully acknowledge that it's OOC or at least ignoring parts of canon.
Apologia is more of a meta thing: arguments about how the character either didn't do bad things, or they did but it's understandable etc. This can often go to a place of defending terrible things, but can also involve arguments like "That was genuinely terrible, but my fave didn't do it, it was a shape shifter disguised as them!" This can be very annoying, but it's still acknowledging that the terrible thing was terrible.
There can also be apologia in the form of fic, but just because someone writes a story where X did nothing wrong doesn't mean they actually believe it. Maybe they just thought it made for an interesting twist on canon. And if they do believe it, the stuff I said about apologia meta applies.
Finally, there is a subset of apologia meta that does whatljwrites is talking about: saying "It was ok for him to kick those puppies because puppies suck and deserve to be kicked" etc. This meta is obnoxious and offensive, especially when it starts justifying real world bigotry, war crimes etc. But it's just a subset of woobification/apologia etc.
Equating this whole spectrum of behaviours is deeply unfair to all the innocent woobifiers and apologisers. They are, at worst, annoying or illogical or have a poor grasp of canon. They aren't all arguing in favour of real life bad behaviour.
Second!ljwrites acts like this stuff is always unambiguous. There definitely are people out there arguing that Voldemort Did Nothing Wrong etc, when canon is pretty clear on those characters having done Many Things Wrong Indeed. But there's also a lot of complex, messy situations where the truth/morality etc is genuinely ambiguous, at least to some extent.
A lot of the time, fannish arguments about these kinds of moral questions are a mixture of "I like them therefore they're in the right" and "I interpret canon in a way which vindicates them, so I like them" vs "I dislike them therefore they're in the wrong" and "I interpret canon in a way which incriminates them, so I dislike them".
It doesn't always go "I like them therefore I think their behaviour was ok in the context of the story". Sometimes it goes the other way around.
And people who dislike a character are exactly as prone to self serving twisting of canon and real world morality to serve their arguments as people who like them. I mean a lot of the time, it's "A did nothing wrong and B is evil" vs "A is evil and B did nothing wrong", where people on both sides are both fans and anti-fans at the same time. It's not just that fandom police and apologisers act similarly, it's that they're often the same people talking about different characters.
The subtext toljwrites's post is that everyone agrees on whether a character did bad things, but fandom police think anyone who likes them should be censored, apologisers want to erase that the bad thing happened, and sensible fans acknowledge it.
But it's not as simple as that. Hate causes as much bias as love. And even when people aren't being blinded by hate/love for a character, it's not always clear. Someone who likes a character can think what they did was immoral while someone else who dislikes them can think what they did was ok. Moral questions are complicated sometimes, in real life and fiction!
And people can be biased for all sorts of reasons. To give a specific example: I'm in [FANDOM REDACTED], which drowns in drama about whether [CHARACTER REDACTED] Was Right. But I'm over here going "I can't tell, because he reminds me of [FAMILY MEMBER REDACTED], and that is both endearing and enraging in equal measure", with my intensely ambivalent take being at odds with most other people's, even other people who are intensely ambivalent. I try to be honest about my bias, but I don't think it make my opinions inherently wrong (maybe if everyone else knew people like [FAMILY MEMBER REDACTED], they'd understand why I'm right!! *cough*)
Third! This is a bit more ambiguous, but I feel like there's some rhetorical sleight of hand going on.
The equivalence here is people who are motivated by love, and people who are motivated by hate. In the context of behaviours we're talking about, there's a continuum:
1: fic which celebrates/attacks X
2: meta about how good/bad X is within the context of the story
3: meta which says offensive stuff about real life people to defend/attack X
4: actively attacking real life people who see X differently to you
I am inclined to see these as broadly equivalent whether motivated by love or hate, though it may differ depending on the specific context. I tend to see 1-2 as generally benign, and 3-4 as generally bad. EDIT: As pointed out in the comments, there are also reasonable arguments that relate to real people/heavy real world stuff etc. But with 3 I'm just talking about the offensive ones. Which again, is subjective!
Whileljwrites seems to be arguing that both sides are equivalent, they do not treat them same way.
For those motivated by love, 1-3 are all morally equated with 3. The possibility of 4 is not brought up, though it does absolutely happen.
For those motivated by hate, 1-2 are treated as the rational state everyone should aspire to. 3-4 are described as "fandom police", but the implication is that 3 is the defining trait, with 4 being bad but relatively rare.
This is unfair.
It's true that "meta which says offensive stuff about real life people to defend X" (eg "kicking puppies is ok") is broadly equivalent to "meta which says offensive stuff about real life people to attack X" (eg "Anyone who likes X kicks puppies"). But the subtext here is that fic which focusses on how sad X is and doesn't focus on the puppy kicking is equivalent to bullying people for writing that fic.
And...no. They are not two sides of the same coin at all.
ljwrites and it's one of those posts where I started out nodding, then had some quibbles, and then the more I thought about it the more annoyed I got. So to avoid ranting at ljwrites or the person I follow, here is a long and largely unnecesary argument under a nice cut you can scroll by.nb I use "hate" vs "love" a lot here but I do realise it's possible to have serious issues with a character or their behaviour without being Motivated Solely By Hate etc. I'm simplifying things for the sake of argument.
So! I sort of agree with their first point: "Fandom policing and villain woobiefication/apologia seem to be polar opposites, but at heart they agree on one thing: That your morality is defined by the wholesomeness of the content you make and consume."
And I agree that fans and haters/anti-fans of characters or pairings can, in theory, be equivalently bad, and often behave in similar ways.
But now for the things I disagree on!
First! They equate woobification, apologia, and stuff like defending real life awful behaviour, when to me those are three different things.
Assume for the sake of argument that we're discussing a character who unambiguously did morally bad things in canon.
Woobification of that character would focus on compassion/pity towards their pain above other aspects of their character and backstory. It is entirely possible to woobify a character and acknowledge any bad things they've done. Also, woobifying is mostly a fictional trope: fic that goes on for chapters about how very sad they are etc. Possibly, how very sad they are about having done terrible things!
If you dislike a character for doing bad things then you'll probably find woobified approaches unpleasant, but that doesn't mean they're arguing in favour of those bad things. And many (if not all) fans of woobifying fic will cheerfully acknowledge that it's OOC or at least ignoring parts of canon.
Apologia is more of a meta thing: arguments about how the character either didn't do bad things, or they did but it's understandable etc. This can often go to a place of defending terrible things, but can also involve arguments like "That was genuinely terrible, but my fave didn't do it, it was a shape shifter disguised as them!" This can be very annoying, but it's still acknowledging that the terrible thing was terrible.
There can also be apologia in the form of fic, but just because someone writes a story where X did nothing wrong doesn't mean they actually believe it. Maybe they just thought it made for an interesting twist on canon. And if they do believe it, the stuff I said about apologia meta applies.
Finally, there is a subset of apologia meta that does what
ljwrites is talking about: saying "It was ok for him to kick those puppies because puppies suck and deserve to be kicked" etc. This meta is obnoxious and offensive, especially when it starts justifying real world bigotry, war crimes etc. But it's just a subset of woobification/apologia etc.Equating this whole spectrum of behaviours is deeply unfair to all the innocent woobifiers and apologisers. They are, at worst, annoying or illogical or have a poor grasp of canon. They aren't all arguing in favour of real life bad behaviour.
Second!
ljwrites acts like this stuff is always unambiguous. There definitely are people out there arguing that Voldemort Did Nothing Wrong etc, when canon is pretty clear on those characters having done Many Things Wrong Indeed. But there's also a lot of complex, messy situations where the truth/morality etc is genuinely ambiguous, at least to some extent. A lot of the time, fannish arguments about these kinds of moral questions are a mixture of "I like them therefore they're in the right" and "I interpret canon in a way which vindicates them, so I like them" vs "I dislike them therefore they're in the wrong" and "I interpret canon in a way which incriminates them, so I dislike them".
It doesn't always go "I like them therefore I think their behaviour was ok in the context of the story". Sometimes it goes the other way around.
And people who dislike a character are exactly as prone to self serving twisting of canon and real world morality to serve their arguments as people who like them. I mean a lot of the time, it's "A did nothing wrong and B is evil" vs "A is evil and B did nothing wrong", where people on both sides are both fans and anti-fans at the same time. It's not just that fandom police and apologisers act similarly, it's that they're often the same people talking about different characters.
The subtext to
ljwrites's post is that everyone agrees on whether a character did bad things, but fandom police think anyone who likes them should be censored, apologisers want to erase that the bad thing happened, and sensible fans acknowledge it.But it's not as simple as that. Hate causes as much bias as love. And even when people aren't being blinded by hate/love for a character, it's not always clear. Someone who likes a character can think what they did was immoral while someone else who dislikes them can think what they did was ok. Moral questions are complicated sometimes, in real life and fiction!
And people can be biased for all sorts of reasons. To give a specific example: I'm in [FANDOM REDACTED], which drowns in drama about whether [CHARACTER REDACTED] Was Right. But I'm over here going "I can't tell, because he reminds me of [FAMILY MEMBER REDACTED], and that is both endearing and enraging in equal measure", with my intensely ambivalent take being at odds with most other people's, even other people who are intensely ambivalent. I try to be honest about my bias, but I don't think it make my opinions inherently wrong (maybe if everyone else knew people like [FAMILY MEMBER REDACTED], they'd understand why I'm right!! *cough*)
Third! This is a bit more ambiguous, but I feel like there's some rhetorical sleight of hand going on.
The equivalence here is people who are motivated by love, and people who are motivated by hate. In the context of behaviours we're talking about, there's a continuum:
1: fic which celebrates/attacks X
2: meta about how good/bad X is within the context of the story
3: meta which says offensive stuff about real life people to defend/attack X
4: actively attacking real life people who see X differently to you
I am inclined to see these as broadly equivalent whether motivated by love or hate, though it may differ depending on the specific context. I tend to see 1-2 as generally benign, and 3-4 as generally bad. EDIT: As pointed out in the comments, there are also reasonable arguments that relate to real people/heavy real world stuff etc. But with 3 I'm just talking about the offensive ones. Which again, is subjective!
While
ljwrites seems to be arguing that both sides are equivalent, they do not treat them same way.For those motivated by love, 1-3 are all morally equated with 3. The possibility of 4 is not brought up, though it does absolutely happen.
For those motivated by hate, 1-2 are treated as the rational state everyone should aspire to. 3-4 are described as "fandom police", but the implication is that 3 is the defining trait, with 4 being bad but relatively rare.
This is unfair.
It's true that "meta which says offensive stuff about real life people to defend X" (eg "kicking puppies is ok") is broadly equivalent to "meta which says offensive stuff about real life people to attack X" (eg "Anyone who likes X kicks puppies"). But the subtext here is that fic which focusses on how sad X is and doesn't focus on the puppy kicking is equivalent to bullying people for writing that fic.
And...no. They are not two sides of the same coin at all.
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I am inclined to see these as broadly equivalent whether motivated by love or hate, though it may differ depending on the specific context. I tend to see 1-2 as generally benign, and 3-4 as generally bad.
*nods*
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My continuum is very simplified, and I think what you're talking about is a little to the side of 3: an argument which implies things about real life events but not in a offensive way. Which I do agree is possible, even though I can see how my post might give the impression I don't. To give a basic example, saying "Chizuru was right to stop her father, because genocide is bad" makes a comment on a very serious and fraught world world issue, but not in an offensive way. But if it's not offensive, then it's not 3, because I defined 3 as being offensive ;) *takes off pedantic ex-mathematician hat*
Also, with your specific example: I feel like what Demon's Bond is doing is more like 1: the narrative of the Kazuya path may vindicate (their version of) Tokugawa, but the other paths have different narratives, and it's not clear that the Demon's Bond writers would ever seriously argue in favour of Tokugawa's actions outside of fiction. They might! But they might not.
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I absolutely agree and it's one of the reasons I think they handled it in a very clever and nuanced way.
But if it's not offensive, then it's not 3, because I defined 3 as being offensive ;)
That is very logical. ::nods::
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Right, I think it's a very good example of a narrative which plays with the ideas around "What if X was in the right" without being intended as a straightforward argument for X actually being entirely right. If anything, I think the actual message of these games is that these kinds of moral questions are complex and have multiple equally valid points of view.
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It's interesting how this really kicks up in some fandoms and not so much in others. I mean being someone who has unabashedly loved Severus Snape, Loki, Hisoka and Illumi and plenty of other villains, I'm used to sort of being around and seeing a lot of these sorts of arguments, and...they are complex and there are complex layers to it all. Anyway:
But the subtext here is that fic which focusses on how sad X is and doesn't focus on the puppy kicking is equivalent to bullying people for writing that fic.
This is a really disturbing false equivalence, honestly. :/
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Good choice, it is best forgotten. redacts it again
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It's SUCH a slight of hand and from someone with a history of fandom bullying. As far as I can tell, by saying writing a "Character X did no wrong!" post is the same as harassing someone for writing that post, it's more or less setting up justifiably targets for bullying all over again. "Well they're just as bad as us!" goes the cry.
No. They aren't. Writing a long post about how no puppies were kicked does not equate to sending anon hate calling someone a paedo, then getting all their friends to black list them, then doxxing them to their work. Which are all popular "fandom police" tactics. One's sloppy logic. The other is harassment.
Do you mind if I link this post?
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Yeah, I didn't realise they had such a history of bullying when I wrote this post, only a vague memory of having heard they were bad news. It makes the sleight of hand a lot nastier in context. You're right, this does feel like a "both sides are just as bad" argument that can then be used to justify being awful.
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Apparently! I was not aware of this when I wrote the post, asides from some vague bad associations with the name.
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(also here by network!)
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Yeah, I do hope she's learned to stop harassing people, but "No longer harasses people" is a low bar.
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Thank you!
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It doesn't always go "I like them therefore I think their behaviour was ok in the context of the story". Sometimes it goes the other way around.
Yes! "Oh you just want to bang Actor" is frankly a thing that I mostly see antis say, so it was offputting to see it positioned as liberating. And it totally ignores the fact that most of the time, writers and actors are aspiring to a level of nuance at least somewhere north of Cruella de Vil. There are *supposed* to be interesting things about the villain. (As well as characters that aren't meant to be villains at all that anti-dom writes off as such, and I wasn't sure how they fit in this either-or paradigm.) If someone doesn't think the villain is interesting, that's their right. Happens to me all the time. But just maybe other people are genuinely responding to things actually in the story--even if they blow these elements out of proportion like fans often do with many things, for fun--and aren't just clueless beings ordered about by their loins and refusing to admit it. Which, have I mentioned, is mostly a thing that antis say.
Thanks for letting me get this off my chest, ha.
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Oh, yes, that's a good point, there is such a nasty undercurrent of judgement that goes along with the whole "just admit you think they're hot" argument. I mean I think there is a general tendency for people to feel more positively towards characters they find attractive, but it's by no means guaranteed, and not the only relevant factor by a long shot. And a lot of anti-ish arguments have this really prudish "if you are at all motivated by sexual feelings, everything you touch is tainted" subtext.
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I’ve interacted w
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Yeah I scrolled through her dreamwidth to try and figure out that "I vaguely recall bad things" feeling, before I saw comments explaining, and the stuff she says is mostly pretty reasonable, you wouldn't guess.