- "Don't kill him or you will be just as bad!" - "Uh, no I won't? [STAB]" And then he proceeded not to be, and everyone who was still alive lived happily ever after.
Someone REALLY needs to show this to Batman so he can stop letting the Jester kill hundreds and hundreds of innocent people whose blood is on Batman's hand for allowing it to happen.
@@mekingtiger9095 Yes, I have little enough respect for modern Batman that I enjoy coming up with different names for the characters sometimes. And hey, you understood what I meant so no harm no foul.
@@Shenaldrac Lol, that's okay. Besides, Jester doesn't sound like a bad name for Joker in my opinion. But yeah, I also have the problem that this is the case with superheroes in general. I can understand wanting to spare some villains lives and not go on a murder rampage, but jee, there are some villains out there who just don't deserve this second chance and are just _too_ dangerous and out of redemption out there.
imagine you are a soldier who almost dies and watching the protag kill all of your friends. but protag spares your boss (who held responsibly). if the soldier wanting to get some revenge against protag because he lost everything, thats make a better story. because he won't spare protag.
Personality, I like the idea of the soldier just finishing the job. Unless this person was 110% loyal to the evil cause, the solider is going to look around, see who stated this war and take his revenge on the boss. And then the hero.
"Bruh, I've already spilled enough blood to fill an Olympic sized swimming pool. Whether I kill him or not it's too late to go back, and he's not gonna stop being a criminal if I just le-EUGH !" "Haha ! you were too busy monologuing to notice my blade ! Prepare to die !" "You cant kill him, you'd be just like him" "... What ?"
You know, I actually GOT revenge on a teacher once. After suffering through an entire semester of shit teaching, a final project that had nothing to do with what we were learning, online "quizzes" that were loaded with trick questions and typos, about which he said "don't bother studying, you either know the material or you don't", long-winded rants about how all internet stuff especially gmail and the school's Moodle System for classes was "unsafe and easily hacked, which is why you should only trust MY website for this class which is safe on the university's secured engineering server", and how he was special for knowing the guy who invented the first search engine at CERN, which was stolen by google in an act of corporate espionage, AND him being super rude and condescending when we asked for clarification on the project because his "this is what you're graded on" thing was LOADED with typos... A friend who was taking the class with me mentioned that on a whim he'd tried doing a basic MySQL Injection into the login page of the website and got in as the Admin. My dad also happenned to play friday night hockey with one of the university's network security guys. I just connected those two dots. I just wish I had been in the room to see the guy get reprimanded. Apparently his tenure was secure enough for him to not lose his job, but it was still a VICIOUS teardown, because the guy had LITERALLY created a backdoor into the otherwise secure engineering server, and put the entire system at risk. XD
The worst part about badly written revenge stories is when someone's about to get revenge and another character says "It won't bring them back." Vengeful people don't think they'll resurrect the person or people they're avenging.
I loved how _Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga_ tackled it: SPOILERS I loved Dementus’s speech in the ending after Furiosa chases him down for killing Mary Jabassa (her mom) and Praetorian Jack (her lover). Sure, they do tackle the “killing won’t bring your parent back” bit, but it explores through Dementus why the trope is like that, that murder is only a distraction and doesn’t make up for murder, that Furiosa will soon expire just like Dementus, just like Praetorian Jack before them, Mary before him, and Dementus’s family before her. And so, Furiosa uses the peach pit that her mother gave her, and uses his body as compost for the tree, in which she gives the peach that it grows from to Immortan Joe’s wives, symbolizing her place of being the person who will light the way for the less fortunate. Death won’t balance death, but life will. Through this, George Miller turns the message from “revenge is bad” to “revenge should be done in a way that betters you”.
MC: You killed my [insert loved one here] Villain: Well you killed alot of my henchmens, and guess what most of my henchmens also have [insert loved one here], so your revenge won't make you better than me. MC: I'm not trying to be better than you, I'm trying to kill you! Villain: Hmm... That's fair go ahead then. MC: K thx :) *Bang*
How many times we just watched the villain hanging in a cliff in the end of a fight, then the hero tries to save the villain by offering him his hand. Then, the villain says "No! Never would want your help! ". Then, the villain just throw himself out of the cliff/building.
Hi! It pains me to point this out, but you left the Hello ( One doesn't simply present themselves without a polite greeting) Anyways, big fan! I love It when I come across a random video and see that you've already commented, thank you!
Love interest: Don’t kill him or you’ll be just like him! The thousands of henchmen and minions the hero killed: DoN’T KilL hIM Or YoU’lL bE jUsT lIkE hIm!
Always seen, rarely makes sense. If you've killed a legion of baddies, would you be stopped by this? After all the death wails and last second pleading you've heard, would you still be human enough to care? Also a bad @$$ "Then I'll be the villain just for today!" Would lend some actual moral complexity to hero's instead of the usual stale trite arc.
I find that argument shallow we didn't let Osama Bin Ladden live because he was a terrorist that doesn't make us terrorist I'm not saying that revenge us always justified but please don't bring up that counter argument
@@Breakaway-ic5gj It wouldn;t make sense since he still killed those hundreds of henchmen and din't feel depressed. Or maybe specify it came because he felt that because he killed so many he thinks he's a war criminal.
Villain:Who are you? Protagonist: You killed my father, prepare to die. Villain:Oh, no, my once best friend was the one who murdered your father. I cannot tolerate murders in my organization, so put him in jail.
I could see a villain who does horrible stuff all day but like something as small as one guy as his favorite festival flipping him off and not apologizing for it setting him off. Like have it be implied it was the fact someone defied him and lived is what really does it and you have the perfect story of a villain essentially destroying themselves and their empire over the pettiest shit in the world while still making sense.
Alternatively, when the main protagonist gets revenge you must show the audience how it's completely justified! Even when the protagonist gets it by beating someone's loved one to death right in front of them! But when anyone else tries it, you must show the audience how horribly wrong it is that they pursued revenge! They should suffer in every way imaginable, and end up a broken husk of a person!
Well if you must make the protagonist sympathetic, you can always have your protagonist save a young kid from a group so hilariously evil that it kills any of the moral grayness that the franchise was famous for and that you were going for yourself. I guess you can make that kid always just part of an already discriminated demographic, just to prove how heroic your protagonist is. You don’t even have to bother writing a storyline including the minority character that isn’t about them being part of that minority and that they are always just a victim. Twitter will hail you as progressive anyways, even if that character is an even bigger Damsel than Princess Peach.
@@frankwest5388 Huh, I wonder what you could possibly be refering... Jokes aside...they could have done that SO much fucking better...I think one of the biggest issues I had with the series was how the other girl (Whats her face?) just suddenly seemed to be over her revenge despite obviously never learning anything from it. She starts preaching like crazy at the end despite having tortured Joel to death and obviously enjoyed every second of it. Had they taken a more..believeable approach to it with her hesitating a bit to kill him after being saved by him I could have believed it a bit more but she went out of her way to hurt him as much as possible yet NEVER got angry at Ellie for killing her friends over and over again?! Really?!
@@bibbobellaThere's a writer who came up with a detailed critique and his own redo of TLOU 2 that I found quite good. Here's a link in case you want to see it ruclips.net/video/MvTFF-E5wkw/видео.html
I do like to see when stories take the "kill them all" approach. "My father had a saying. Never wound a foe when you can kill him. Dead men claim no vengeance. 'Their sons do.' "Not if you kill their sons as well".
I made a character who's basically a galactic level assassin who is sent to take down entire organisations who are creating too much trouble for negotiations or official action. The character has this similar philosophy of just killing everyone, no matter who is who, because it's just more efficient to spare them the pain and suffering that would result otherwise. Naturally they are reviled as a monster, but many can't help but notice the sheer cold efficiency in these actions. The assassin is never cruel, only detached.
You know, it really pisses me off whenever the moral of a revenge story is "Don't seek revenge." I mean, I always took the moral to be "If you treat other people like trash and don't consider how your actions effect them, you will come to regret it." I think that's a way better moral lesson than what is essentially "Be a doormat and let anyone do whatever they want to you and your loved ones, because revenge is bad, so just let the monsters who wronged you get away with it. I'm sure a lack of consequences for their actions totally won't just ensure they continue this behavior!"
what if a revenge plot displayed both, like teach the revenge seeker to not be overly obsessed with revenge that he either destroy himself or becomes unable to feel anything but pain and anger in his life like a character makes him forget about his obsession, but despite that they'll still seek to forfill said revenge be it that the person they hate is a good or bad guy while also think of ways to counter ways forfilling his revenge can effect the rest of the world
As JP points out, we have something which is designed to stop people from taking revenge, and it's called the justice system. So, the even better moral lesson would be to have the protagonist organize the arrest of the villain, instead of murdering him in secret.
@@legrandliseurtri7495 Mmhmm. I mean, there *is* a reason that people seek out revenge in spite of the legal system. They may live in an area without such a system, a very unstable region where such systems just aren't there. Or it could be there's heavy corruption, and so relying on that system wouldn't get results. Or perhaps the antagonist has an alibi that the protagonist knows is bogus but no one will believe. So there's definitely ways to make getting revenge make sense even in places with a robust legal system.
@@Shenaldrac I agree with all that. Yeah, there are conceivable circumstances where the legal system won't do the job. If there is that option, however, I don't see why you wouldn't take it.
@@legrandliseurtri7495 Yeah. It's why a lot of revenge stories give those reasons. Like in John Wick where the guy who kills his dog is the son of a rich and powerful dude. There's no way the law would be able to touch him, but Jonny boy can.
I always hated when the main guy have no issues killing henchmen but when they beat the big bad guy, they say "If I kill you I would not be any better than you"
@@joaobordini3903 It also technically have refrigerator moment. This game is such manipulative waste of potential! Worst part is that witch small changes it could work! Elly leave Joel after disagreement, then is saved by Abby. Girls become fends and on the way exchange info so we learn that Abby seek some bastard who hurt her (it could be Abby section). Then girls are split so Elly back to home to ask for help. But then we see Abby and her team, who we care about. Kill Joel "the bastard" who we also care about. Then the final is hart breaking revenge on people we actually do know as Elly believe that Abby betray her and she herself could be responsible for Joel death, because se said too much. With final actually making a sense in this context. Good emotional stuff, instead learning that killer dog was good poppy BS 0_0 Ugh, this game is such waste!
I hope he doesnt remember my loose criticizing comment before , i mean my puppy sddenly was found murdered with a love triangle similar to jpd in blood there , but no worries😛
"It's not as if revenge stories are character driven." Character driven? I thought they were driven by blood and skulls or something. Pure edginess, maybe?
We’re all forgetting forgetting the most important part; the villains need to be irredeemably evil with no real reason other then they’re evil. How else are you going to make your psychopathic monster of an MC look good?
I admit, in school I fell prey to the "My character needs the higher moral grounds, so I'll make my bad guy be a backstabber to make my hero look better" pitfall. But I know better now!
Same. Nowadays I avoid this problem by making my protagonist the emissary of the angel of vengeful justice, so I can shove any criticism of moral black and white away by just claiming that “he never had a choice”. Because deflecting blame is the same as being deep and smart. I’ve learned that one from war films
Giving your protagonist the moral high ground can work. It just doesn't work AFTER they cut a blood-stained trail a mile wide to get to the villain. Just like Batman's "I don't kill" rule can work as long as he isn't hospitalizing or killing all the grunts.
@@mekingtiger9095 I sincerely hope Wayne Enterprises donates A LOT to the local hospitals, because Batman is probably the direct cause of like 5% of the ICU patients in Gotham. ruclips.net/video/seBpXt8_6xs/видео.html
There are ways to do anything well. It just depends on context and execution. I mean the final fight in part 2 between Goku and Frieza ended in a similar way, but due to the circumstances it made sense and still had meaning.
The strangest revenge story I have ever read is from a ongoing manga where a main character was executed by the princess for rejecting her advance. And then he successfully seduce the goddess to resurrect him and start tormenting the princess and killing all the evil nobles of the country.
I love how the "just like them" thing appears in Goblin Slayer and he's like "good, I want to be the monster to the goblins that they are to me and every other undefended village". Having a character willingly become a monster to slay monsters is good.
Thing we learned in the last 10 years. If a story has a villain kill a guy's family the audience will be all "Don't kill him you'd be just as bad as he is." But if a story has the villain kill a puppy the audience will be all. "That guy in the corner is still breathing! Fix that!"
Personally I hate 'cycle of revenge' stories because they're always one-sided in terms of morality. Hero: "You murdered my daughter! Prepare to die!" Villain's Daughter: "You killed my father because he murdered children! I demand revenge!" Just once I'd like to see a revenge story where the villain's children admit that their evil father deserved to die.
I mean, without spoiling I would vaguely point at Attack on Titan for an interesting spin on the whole topic. Apart from that, admitting that your parents are objectivly evil is a lot less realistic than some might think
The Old Man Logan comic, had the Hulk's son try to kill Wolverine as revenge his dad's death. He knew his dad was a piece of shit for killing Logan's family but he didn't care
A well written cycle of revenge is always depressing as it mirrors real life too much, because the cycle never ends. I do like the movies Bruce Lee was in, because his character would gain their revenge but then get arrested or shot by the police as no one is above the law.
1. That happens a lot actually 2. They’re actually not very one sided. There are plenty of stories where the villain isn’t a child murderer, or some sadist, and what they did was very justified, so of course their loved ones want revenge on the protagonist
I have to watch telenovelas every night because of my mother assuming control of the TV while I have dinner, and yeah, I can confirm. Brazilian telenovelas are somewhat predictable at this point for me.
@@mekingtiger9095 If you want variety you got to watch telenovelas from different countries. Each country follows about the exact same formula with every new show they make, it makes them money so why change it, lol.
That shit annoys the fuck out of me. Killing isn't black and white, the reasons for it can be just as complex as general behaviour, or at least fairly complex. Killing someone to defend your family and friends is very different from killing for fun for instance.
I think it depends. If killing them is very clearly going to assist the world because they are still committing wrongs and/or there is no easy way to get the justice system involved, then I think it's a moral decision. If it's just pure vengeance, then I would have to still disagree with it, no matter how awful what they did was.
The guest characters of the crossover will be an annoying bunch that caused the conflict of an episode and received no consequence. Bonus points if it's a crossover no one asked for
If there's one thing I hate more than a love interest and some romance shoved into my stories, its when writers decide to do it anyway and can't even commit to doing it properly. So, I say bring on the dead wives and pets.
Saaaame, it shows how much the protagonist loved his wife or pet. It's a hell of a lot better than, this guy killed my family, plot for the 1000th time.
Its probably more problenativ but why mot a murdered husband? I mean itd diverdity, and making iz a hate crime of some really terrible people could naybe give carthasis. And you can still have sexscene flashbacks. Or and a murdered polycule who could even a surviving love interest and their maybe overcominh or alienating due the revenge And pets, just gove the pets a character,
@@marocat4749 It's not so much problematic as much it's laziness. 95% of the time, revenge plots are for teenage boys that want to fantasize about killing people non-stop and somehow still being the right. Making the lead for this type of story into female would mean put in the extra leg work into making her into an halfway decent character and not just a vehicle.
Romance is the hardest genre to write. That's why Sturgeon's law is at full effect on romance novels. I can't write romance, so I don't even bother. All my characters are asexual by default.
One type of revenge plot I don't get enough of is when the main character wants revenge not on someone, but some THING. Like a force of nature, a system or an ideology. For example: protagonist's wife died because of a plague, the protagonist obsesses with the disease, treating it almost like a person, so now he wants to find a cure to erradicate the plague.
It's NOT without foreshadowing at all because that's the entire point, but this is why I stopped reading Iain Banks after I tried Use of Weapons from the culture novels. It doesn't matter how much the information pointed to him being responsible for his sister's torture and an entire dictatorial mass murdering regime. It's the fact he's SO FULL of regrets and trauma over his own fucking actions that made me pissed off when the book turned into him being this overwhelmingly evil villain all along. There was obviously all the foreshadowing needed logically, but emotionally it's like I'm pretty tired of this road to redemption where every mass murderer has overwhelming crushing guilt and feelings of responsibility after the fact.
@@dermenore7162 well orcs and aliens aren't always evil and there are actually cases of real world mythology and religon where demons aren't necessarily evil
@@mohammedyousef4005 You know, I totally agree with the original post intention, which is, I think, that even goons have feelings and that story should consider it. :) It's just that the formulation "even the bad guys" are humans that make me smile because, well, if they are orc (or aliens, etc) they are for sure not humans. The temptation for an easy jock was too great to resist. :D But like you said, it's not because they are orcs, demons, etc that they can't have feelings too and that story would gain to take that into account. :)
I know this is called “terrible writing advice”, but this video actually made me think of a plot where the protagonist’s dead love interest was summoned because her unfinished business was to take revenge on the killer, but needs the physical assistance of the protagonist to help with the deed. The two get along really well, in a kind of nostalgic way back when his love interest was still alive, until the protagonist has to let his love interest go once her business has been finished, having to accept the long lasted separation until way after the story where he inevitably dies.
Try reading "The Count of Monte Cristo". One hell of a good revenge plot in which ecerybody's life sucks at the end. Except maybe like two characters at most, maybe three. The story revolves around out main protagonist, Edmond Dantes. A young, happy, naive man who was going to get al lthat he could desire a cute, young happy wife, and his dream job. Nothing could go wrong, until it does. He gets arrested on his wedding day, accused of a crime he didn't commit and get sent to prison to rot in their for life. During that time he meets an old man and they bond. To Edmond, that old man was like a second father figure to him. He taught him so many things and enlightend his mind on the academics and was also the one to reveal the mystery as ti why he was sent to prison. Edmond vows to seek revenge on those who did him wrong. I know my summary is pretty shit, but of it's a good revenge story you want, The Count of Monte Cristo is one that always come to mind. Some events might not make sense at the beggining, but as the story unfolds everything starts to tie itself back together.
@@bryantguevara183 I would actually say that in The Count of Monte Cristo most characters, besides the targets of the revenge plot, end up noticeably better and happier thanks to the Count's actions. If anything one of the remarkable things about the book is that instead of condemning revenge, it actually somewhat endorses it as a valid way of pursuing justice (as long as its proportionate, the Count goes so overboard with one of the plots even he recognizes his actions as cruel).
@@pascalausensi9592 Well, most of the characters fates are left ambiguous and the ones I could say do end up happy and better overall are the lesbian couple, Maximillion and Valentine. You could make an argument that the Count is left better off than before, to some extent. That man has suffered too much because of a wrong commited to him. He then gets the chess pieces moving to strike at his enemies. The guy makes mental gymnastics and believes to be an Agent of God as a way to justify his actions. It was after the death of an innocent that had nothing to do with Count's schemes that his whole Agent of God schtik crumbles and realizes that, no, God wont neccesarily be on your side the actions that one makes are ones own. It's an act of man, not God. Two of his enemies are dead. One is left alieve with nothing, with almost no chance of regaining everything he has lost. His former lover left with nothing, wasn't able to do anything to change her fate or an outcome of a situation, is left in stagnation and her only hope and solace is that her son can do something with his life. And many people get screwed over because they got caught up in Edmond's plan of vengance. He is aware of this and it haunts him to his very core. He found love through his former slave again, he can never be happy, he can only find solace by letting go of his hate and living out the rest of his days with his new found love. I may have missed some very important details of the story and of what makes so great. I will admit I am not brightest individual, but to me the Count of Monte Cristo shows that, yes revenge is a way to make right of those who did you wrong, but as you walk down that path, and as you destroy your enemies, you inadvertenly end up destroying yourself. That is my interpretation of the book.
6:03 I hate the "If you kill him you'll be just like him" trope. I understand heroes not killing villains who still have good in them, redeeming and sympathetic qualities and who try to make up for their actions. But that trope is only used so the writers don't have to permanently kill off popular villains.
The only way I’ve ever seen the “bad guy instantly betrays the hero after they spare him” trope done well is in The Wolf Among Us, where if you spare the Crooked Man, he actually does bide his time and try to convince the people of Fabletown that he’s done nothing wrong in a fair trial. It’s only when he’s lost that trial and is seconds away from certain doom either behind bars or down the witching well that he attacks Bigby when his back is turned. It’s a believable thing for the villain to do because it was an act of desperation, and therefore inherently shortsighted.
Maybe it's just me, but I think revenge stories generally work best for me when it's motivated by a deep personal betrayal. Death of a loved one is way less interesting by comparison, imo. Sure, death of a loved one MIGHT be an act of personal betrayal if the murderer is a trusted friend/family member, but still, death isn't necessary for a good betrayal, I think. I mean, take a look at Count of Monte Cristo. Guy's friends get him arrested and imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit just cause they are jealous of him and so one of them can steal his girlfriend/soon to be wife. That's some mega betrayal, right there. A great motivation for revenge.
Yeah, I have been trying to do same thing by having the love interest actually be the protag's revenge target and ultimate arch nemesis, but I guess I realized I probably suck at this and can't really make a deep and lively dynamic between the two, lol. Trying to laugh to not cry here...
I was trying to develop a character that wants revenge on a Cultist Leader for deceiving him and bunch of people of his race. The Cultist Leader has been recruiting people of his race for a special ability they have that can benefit him in his evil plan. The Cultist Leader would be very kind to them. He would give them support and teach them ways to defend. While he was doing this, he would also tell them that other races hated them and that they need to take revenge. By the time the character found out he was being manipulated, the Cultist Leader had him be exiled and persecuted by them. The character feels dumb for not realizing this sooner, so he started to work on ways to take him before he does more harm. I still feel like I need to develop it more.
@@mediatorraptor3349 Well, good on you that you at least have this more solid base for your characters. I barely even know what to do with mine. The only good thing is that I have other stories to work with as I try to develop that one I've mentioned above. ... That's it. That's the only good news.
LindeyBeige began slowly plotting the demise of TerribleWritingAdvice for insulting his favorite color. There would be blood, dog murder, and murder with dogs. And lots of other dog related things that totally isn't bizarre to add in. First, LindeyBeige would paint his face Beige before murdering all of the subscribers to TWA. But before he could murder TWA, he was hit with a cliche that would stick in his mind: By murdering all of TWA's subscribers, doesn't that make Lindy just as evil? Then they held hands and sung Let it Go. The End, now please publish.
Ah, revenge plots, with the deepest and most profound character arc- where the hero/ine learns the life affirming lesson:- KILL EVERYONE WHO DIDN'T HURT YOU, BUT SPARE THE ONE WHO ACTUALLY DID! 😡
In Hamlet he at least does kill Claudius but only after inadvertently getting everyone else killed as a result of his convoluted revenge plot. And Shakespeare was deconstructing Amleth by Saxo Grammaticus wherein a similar revenge plot goes off without a hitch.
@@MegaPokefan97 Not really. TLOU2 is one of the stories that actually makes it work. To Quote LordSkreddle who sums it up: "I think that this is a really humane ending, where they both manage to see the other person as more than the villain of their own story. I think this is why Ellie hesitates in the beggining of the fight, but then forces herself to go through with it, because she thinks that killing Abby will put an end to her traumas. When she is finally at the point where she is in control of the situation, she realises that killing Abby won't do anything. The pain is still there, so she stops it. That final shot at the beach is what really got me. She just sits there so destroyed and disgusted by her own actions, and the realization of the revenge not solving her problems."
@@mekingtiger9095 I disagree. The game spent its entire runtime building to it. We get Ellie’s side and how she’s forcing herself through it in a misguided attempt to “overcome her trauma”. And she’s frequently horrified by her actions along the way. Abby’s whole deal is inadvertently entering Joel’s shoes without realizing it through Lev and has lost her entire life in the process so she has moved on it. Bring it together and it can’t end in any other way. The characters don’t want to fight each other.
Simple Weirdo Sounds like you’ve got a chip on your back over that, especially regarding the 4th reason. Maybe if TLJ was a revenge story the comment would be fitting but you just described the fan reaction, while the OP was referring to the story itself
There is just so much from this channel that Neil Druckman unironically put into his story 1. Revenge cliches 2. Not one, but TWO love triangles! 3. Resorting to every cheap trick imaginable to draw emotion (killing puppies, pregnant women etc.) 4. Characters somehow constantly being saved by a last minute save. The list goes on
Berserk is the best revenge story. You have ample time to see all of the characters motivations, how they intersect, and ultimately what kicks off the main plot. It also keeps the tone consistently dark despite lighter moments
"We can't have the antagonist have an understandable motive" Good Lord this trope frustrates me to no end. How dare authors HUMANIZE the villain and make the reader/protagonist question things?!
A large part of that could be the constant confusion of "understandable" with "justified" Like how Martin has Littlefinger looking to groom a teenager. "But it's all morally gray and Littlefinger is a total sweetie, because Catlyn rejected him when he was young. Also he's hawt." Just because something makes emotional sense to a person doesn't mean it's good.
As a dishonored player who is committed to low chaos levels and fatal eliminations I still need to see someone publish a story where the hero only (intentionally) murderises the villain, its very satisfying, and only marginally more absurd than a group of five people toppling a kingdom by killing a king
IMO Dishonored written revenge story very well, hell even in the trailer its say "revenge is solution" or something like that. And in the story the conspirator that trying to make emily as puppet queen for them failed because of their personal agenda just like real world.
* The 1st step is to get the readers to care about the revenge(care about both the protag & his reason for revenge). There are 2 way: _ Show the protag interact with his love ones a while before the villain show up(can get a little boring) _ Start in medias res to then show the back story: + If it's short, show out of order flashes(from the key moments to the detail)-> make the viewers pay more attention, engage the audience + If it's long, do it normally(there are too many details & plot point for the viewers to memorize if you show it out of order) => More exciting, but you must have already written down the back story before hand or it'll come off as mystery bait, contradictory, messy & tonaly incompatible with what came before * The you will become a monster like him only work if: _ The MC start to do the same stuff the villain did to get to him + If the villain has a reason to do the bad stuff to the protag, the the revenge itself will slowly make the protag just like him(doing bad for a "good" cause) + If the villain is just evil, the MC must also do objectively evil acts for this to hit home _ The timing of the warning: + Before he goes too far: It become a heroic story + Too late: It become tragedy of "He who fight evil" => You cannot have him suddenly not kill the bad guy to preserve his morality after already killing a bunch of(likely less guilty) people to get to him
I was pretty much _looking_ for this comment! X^D In SEGA's defense, given JP's *"all the time"* comment at 4:11, I only remember Shadow saying it *once-* twice if you count the "vengeance" line during that confusing "Last Episode: Wishes are Eternal" scene. -Don't try drinking every time he says the word "promise" or the name "Maria" though. It's too dangerous.-
I think the manga series Berserk is a really strong example of a properly written revenge storyline. It does an excellent job at making the main character, Guts, feel sympathetically evil. That, while he absolutely is 100% going about this the wrong way, you can also clearly tell that he is only going as far as he does because he is so utterly terrified of the past betrayal that he is using rage to try and run from the problem even years later. It also does a good job at making the "evil traitor" character, Griffith, despicably correct in return, where make no mistake he did many extremely fucked up things and absolutely needs to be brought down several dozen pegs, but at the same time he is greatly improving the well being of most of the region in the process. It also does an interesting detail with their specific relationship, as Griffith is quite literally a godlike being now, and is so infinitely beyond Guts in terms of power that Guts is effectively forced to change his desire for rage-fueled vengeance, into a desire to protect his remaining loved ones from future harm. There is no real way Guts could ever kill Griffith on his own, so he has to learn to team up with others, which in turn forces him to start realizing how problematic his quest is and shows him he needs to change. RAther than a generic "revenge is bad" theme, it uses a more nuanced "hollow revenge for it's own sake is bad, but a honest revenge intended to get justice for a wrongdoing can be good when done properly" What started out as probably one of the most iconic "edgelord revenge" stories in manga ends up turning into one of the most well written "quests for justice" the industry has seen in decades. Rip Miura, it's a tragedy that he was never able to finish the story. I hope that he left behind his future storyline since we were relatively close to the final arc, and so the story can at least have an ending rather than end with an eternal hiatus.
One could also go to the opposite end of the spectrum and make the hero do absolutely heinous things for his revenge, and then justify it with "the other guy is a little worse." This will always work, even if the protagonist's revenge involves breaking the fingers and ****ing their tormentor before brainwashing them to join his harem. I can't see anything in there that will make him unsympathetic!
I think the point was that everyone is unsympathetic, and the purpose of "that show" is nothing but indulgence, pure and simple. Everyone is awful and does awful things to each other, for purely selfish reasons. I'd still be on the protags side tho, so long as it didn't end up involving innocents or 3rd parties. Wouldn't know, didn't watch that garbage.
For time travel, make sure you have pages and pages of text explaining the rules of time travel, but don't let it stop you from breaking them anyway. On the other end, one could never make it clear how fragile time really is. People definitely won't get confused if killing a butterfly prevents one's birth but killing Hitler does absolutely nothing! For the parents, simply kill them off before the story begins! Parents only get in the way of the protagonist doing cool stuff, so it's best to kill them off so we don't have to waste time with them. As a bonus, it gives the hero something to angst over. Just don't dwell on the fact that they'd most likely be traumatized from losing their parents. I can't see any reason why the death of one's parents would affect their personality or perception of the world!
Vinland Saga: “My mindless obsession with getting revenge for my father made me an empty shell of a man, a merciless killer, and an accessory to horrifying acts of mass violence? Oh sh--“”
Revenge story: Love interest is killed immediately. The partner goes on an epic quest for revenge. By the time said person gets to the murderer it's made clear that the love interest possessed their partner.
7:50 Remember kids, real vigilante justice is super good and the only form of law enforcement that works! It’s not like having one sole individual serving as judge, jury and executioner could lead to innocent people being killed just because the vigilante thought they looked suspicious or they wanted indulge a personal grudge! They’re totally always seeking justice! (Seriously though, there’s a reason why Batman works with the police; he can’t be the sole arbiter of every thug.)
Is that also why Batman keeps letting go of the Joker, which means letting him kill hundreds mote innocents and repeat the whole thing over and over and over and over and over again?
Boring generic revenge: They killed my whole family and my little sister I loved so much. Bad guy will pay for that! Doom: I will slaughter every single demon for killing my Daisy
I kind of like how Star Wars handles the "if you kill him, you'll be just like him" concept. It's not that killing tyrants makes you morally equivalent to the tyrant. It's that killing someone out of anger or hatred only feeds those negative traits, making you more prone to violent outbursts in the future, even against those who may not actually deserve it. Killing Emperor Palpatine was absolutely the thing that needed to be done to liberate the galaxy, but during Luke's fight with him on the Death Star, all he could think of was his personal hatred of Palpatine. If Luke didn't have that anger, yet still understood that killing Palpatine was necessary, he totally could've done it without losing his moral high ground, at least by Jedi philosophy. It's kind of hard to explain, and I don't know if the movies conveyed it super-well, but I think it's an interesting perspective on what's normally a reductionist ideology.
So basically, if I killed an objectively villainous character out of duty, it would be justice, but if I did it out of personal reasons, it would be vengeance
The best way to make sure the audience knows they shouldn't root for the hero getting his revenge is by showcasing that the villain is a sadist that hurt millions as well as a compulsive liar!
Also, make sure that keeping the villain alive is not only highly impractical, but very dangerous. LOOKING AT YOU, X-MEN: FIRST CLASS. WHAT COULD THEY HAVE POSSIBLY DONE BESIDES LETTING ERIK KILL SHAW? SHAW, WHO HAD PREVIOUSLY BEEN SHOWN TO BE ABSORBING ENERGY FROM A NUCLEAR REACTOR SO HE COULD BLOW EVERYTHING UP.
What? Why does everyone act like this game is super hypocritical all the time? Sure Abby starts the whole thing, by attacking a group that they last had contact with 4 years ago, starting the flames of a died out conflict. And yes, she had literally dozens of more important imminent problems going on, meaning she wasted everyone’s time and risked their lives for her own petty issues. And yes, she did torture a the previous protagonist to death, in what would be considered the most bloody and dragged out murder a main character has ever done. And yes, she doesn’t see the hypocrisy of wondering why the loved ones of the guy she murdered would want to take revenge. And yes, she seems to take sadistic pleasure in killing a pregnant woman. And yes, she does get to end the story as a hero, which means that the narrative considers her morally superior to Ellie, who ends the story alone broken and punished, despite showing more compassion and mercy a long the way. But really, this games revenge plot was otherwise perfect and the whole cult storyline wasn’t just filler, meant to drag out the games play time and making Abby a hero. Why were people even complaining?
@@frankwest5388 the cult? You mean the one she rescued Lev from, causing her old group to be in danger and she turns on them when they try to take Lev. Just like Joel when he killed all the Fireflies? No hypocrisy here
@@Melferas what? No, I am just someone, who loved it when I had to go on a 4 hour excursion to get medical supplies for a girl that had been just introduced and have her die almost immediately after, without even interacting with the second protagonist once. Who’s only real contribution is to be a relative of another secondary character that only exists to make the mostly angry vengeful seem like a hero. Because a well written plot with two protagonists in the same time frame, always has characters that only one character ever interacts with for extended period of time, that is completely unrelated to the major connected storyline.
@@frankwest5388 it's one of everyone's favorite moments, I especially love how the two parts of the game are not related by even the slightest making the 2nd half of the game extremely unrelavent, it was truly masterful. Or how about the fact that Abby completing her revenge plot isn't shown to affect her at all and doesn't change any of her actions in a meaningful way. Not does the fact that joels first interaction with her was saving her life, something that could have been a strong start for a redemption story. I think nuanced motivations are what the game did best you know.
Really is not even revenge, since he goes back in time before they did the bad things to him. Meaning he just brutalizes people for crimes they didn't commit, aka Minority Report if it was just a sleazy snuff film that makes other snuff films gag.
@@tealdeal9523 Is it really rape if he willingly walks into it? I mean he doens't just go back in time he willigly let's things play out exactly the same way so he can be 'sure' that they will do that so he can get revenge on them for doing the thing that he knows that they would do to him. Does that sound really weird or dumb? That's cause it is. If you knowignly go with a known rapist and abuser and expect them to do just that? At that point it's your own fault and you can't really blame them. He's just calling it revenge when really it's just him making up excuses for his actions. As long as someone hurts him first or tries to it makes everything he does ok in turn. Even if he wants them to do it to justify it to himself.
@@tealdeal9523 Like you said. he could just run away. It wouldn't be hard to. He really could easily just run away and avoid anything they do to him. But he doesn't. He littearly wanted them to hurt him so he could justify his 'revenge'. And While he does seem to hold a grudge, he only ever acts on stuff done to him in the currnet timeline. So in other words he wants people to hurt him so he can get 'revenge' on them when it's what he wants them to do to begin with. So he can tell himself that it's ok to get revenge. See how ridicoulous this sounds when you say it out loud? He will even let innocent people get killed right in front of him...he's proven he doens't care during the massacre in the city. He only got involved cause one guy who was nice to him died. Aside from that he would of just let everyone die cause it wasn't a direct threat to him. Or how he did everything neccecary to provoke sword hero so she would attack him so he could get revenge on her.
TWA never fails to make me feel better about my own writing. For instance, the novel I'm working on now is a revenge story, and it handily avoids all of the cliches mentioned here.
Yes, the protagonist should definitely give up on their final revenge right at the end. Even if they've already killed basically everyone that the villain knows and loves and have effectively left them in a miserable life anyway.
Also don’t forget edge is your friend. The edgier the better and make absolutely sure if at some point you acknowledge that maybe the protagonist is worse then the villains that it’s immidiatly forgotten like it never happened. Maybe even reward the protagonist for being a horrible person in every way.
On the other hand "The Cask of Amontillado" is arguably the best revenge story of all time, and the motive for that was the guy "insulted" the protagonist.
You skipped the lifetime movie version where the antagonist is killed by either clumsiness or their own weapon after being spared or eluded long enough to fill the time slot.
The cycle of revenge is a cycle unto itself. An endless retelling of the same moral with the same depth as Mt. Everest. I must finally show them how a revenge story ought to be written. Yes, then I shall finally lay claim to my vengeance.
Don’t forget when you are killing the minions of the Big Bad Evil Guy/Gal always do something “cool” or crack a joke because that will prevent the loved ones of that minion from seeking revenge or going to the cops.
I recently watched Promising Young Woman, and I think it does a great job of avoiding and subverting most of these tropes. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, but I recommend it if you want to see a revenge-centered comedy thriller done well.
Hero: I'd be just like the bad guy if I do this for revenge? What if I did it in the name of justice? Sidekick: Well, all societies have justice systems of some kind. Hero: Then for justice. (Shoots bad guy).
*A quiet GRIFFIIIIIIITH! echoes in the distance.* *A one-legged captain nods and grasps a harpoon.* *A grim man claims that he never asked for this.* *A well-dressed gentleman roars "KUZEEEEEEE!"*
Let's say one wants to write a revenge story that ends with the hero sparing the villain, a story that portrays revenge as something bad How should one go about the villain? Show throughout the story his better side, where he actually has some good in him, or has someone that would mourn him? Maybe show that he regrets his actions and desires to redeem himself? Suggest that his actions were a necessary evil, needed to keep something even worse out? Imply that his death will cause more harm that good for the world? Or let the hero self-reflect and see that he goes through the same process the villain went through ages ago? Of course not! Better make the villain as unlikable, irredeemable, cartoonishly evil and edgy bastard as you can and make sure to establish that killing him is the only real way to stop him from hurting anyone else. Then make the hero spare him anyway because "muh morals"
I did start a story where one of the murderers regrets his actions, and let's say that, out of guilt, he tries helping one of the victim's loved one without her knowing his identity. So, when she finally discovers the truth, it obviously makes her feel a bit hesitant on the whole revenge thing. Writing during the pandemic is super unmotivating, however. I was writing more in one month before the pandemic then the entire time since it started.
This doesn't have much to do with the video, but when I was a stupid kid, I named one of my dogs Vendetta cause I thought it sounded pretty. My mom questioned me and now that I know the meaning, I get why.
"I won't kill you because it would make me just as bad", the hero says after murdering an entire warehouse worth of henchmen.
*cough* The Last of Us 2 *cough*
@callmecatalyst you are refering to the one with the steamroller right.
@@paulovinasrocha6166 That deleted scene is great. There’s also one for one of the henchmen that was killed by an ill-tempered mutated sea bass.
Kiryu never killed anyone
Star Wars - The Rise of Skywalker
Can't forget, the Revenge Story Protagonist MUST have the voice of a man that eats gravel for breakfast every morning
Or the most whiney annoying one to ever exist.
That is if they say anything at all
without any milk.
Or he's just the most basic edgy teenager ever seen, but *a n g r y*
Nothing says dark and gritty like a man who sounds like he deep-throats sandpaper.
- "Don't kill him or you will be just as bad!"
- "Uh, no I won't? [STAB]"
And then he proceeded not to be, and everyone who was still alive lived happily ever after.
Someone REALLY needs to show this to Batman so he can stop letting the Jester kill hundreds and hundreds of innocent people whose blood is on Batman's hand for allowing it to happen.
@@Shenaldrac "Jester"
You mean the Joker?
@@mekingtiger9095 He's been called a court jester at least once.
@@mekingtiger9095 Yes, I have little enough respect for modern Batman that I enjoy coming up with different names for the characters sometimes. And hey, you understood what I meant so no harm no foul.
@@Shenaldrac Lol, that's okay. Besides, Jester doesn't sound like a bad name for Joker in my opinion. But yeah, I also have the problem that this is the case with superheroes in general. I can understand wanting to spare some villains lives and not go on a murder rampage, but jee, there are some villains out there who just don't deserve this second chance and are just _too_ dangerous and out of redemption out there.
imagine you are a soldier who almost dies and watching the protag kill all of your friends. but protag spares your boss (who held responsibly). if the soldier wanting to get some revenge against protag because he lost everything, thats make a better story. because he won't spare protag.
Personality, I like the idea of the soldier just finishing the job. Unless this person was 110% loyal to the evil cause, the solider is going to look around, see who stated this war and take his revenge on the boss. And then the hero.
@@ligtningdog6399 I enjoy this premise please do something with it
Sharkface from RvB is close to what you're going for
@@dontburstmybubble686 i wish i know how to sell book. 😕
@@ligtningdog6399 do u know how.propaganda works ??
tje soldier will see the protag as a terrorist and his action will be justified
"You cant kill him, you'd be just like him"
_freezes on pulling the trigger_
_fires it a second later_
"Bruh, I've already spilled enough blood to fill an Olympic sized swimming pool. Whether I kill him or not it's too late to go back, and he's not gonna stop being a criminal if I just le-EUGH !"
"Haha ! you were too busy monologuing to notice my blade ! Prepare to die !"
"You cant kill him, you'd be just like him"
"... What ?"
@callmecatalyst Fuck I did it right in the first one
*Bang* There, now I just need to make sure not to die, and there will be a very clear and distinct difference between us. XP
I mean if it ends wizh his love interest, best froend, whoever close there leaving them to leave them alone , that could work.
Or you can pull a deadpool and shoot the villian mid 'be a better man' speach.
I'm planning a revenge plot for my teacher cause she insulted me in all CAPS LOCK.
Justified
*gasp!
oh no she didn't!
You know, I actually GOT revenge on a teacher once.
After suffering through an entire semester of shit teaching, a final project that had nothing to do with what we were learning, online "quizzes" that were loaded with trick questions and typos, about which he said "don't bother studying, you either know the material or you don't", long-winded rants about how all internet stuff especially gmail and the school's Moodle System for classes was "unsafe and easily hacked, which is why you should only trust MY website for this class which is safe on the university's secured engineering server", and how he was special for knowing the guy who invented the first search engine at CERN, which was stolen by google in an act of corporate espionage, AND him being super rude and condescending when we asked for clarification on the project because his "this is what you're graded on" thing was LOADED with typos...
A friend who was taking the class with me mentioned that on a whim he'd tried doing a basic MySQL Injection into the login page of the website and got in as the Admin. My dad also happenned to play friday night hockey with one of the university's network security guys. I just connected those two dots.
I just wish I had been in the room to see the guy get reprimanded. Apparently his tenure was secure enough for him to not lose his job, but it was still a VICIOUS teardown, because the guy had LITERALLY created a backdoor into the otherwise secure engineering server, and put the entire system at risk. XD
absolutely unforgiveable
@@AegixDrakan, that's rad. I love it
Main character fiance's just died.
Comic relief: z a p p e r s
Dude don't call out all of Marvel like that
"Zappers, Marty Stu! Princess Princess got mangled, snarf snarf. Eeeeyyy!"
@@otterbaby7769 lol
And so began my long and complicated revenge plot against the comic relief...
@@kin-3877 NEVER BEFORE!! HAVE I BEEN SO OFFENDED!!! BY SOMETHING I 100% AGREE WITH!
Revenge stories are like a semi complete love triangle tale.
And yet they STILL have a-
Revenge plots are the evil uncle of the love triangle, who must be slain to avenge my father and reclaim my kingdom
Well, Redo of Healer is both a revenge story and a love polygone
@@matyaspiller3942 its trash
@@draconic1922
“Well, that’s, like, your opinion, man”
The worst part about badly written revenge stories is when someone's about to get revenge and another character says "It won't bring them back." Vengeful people don't think they'll resurrect the person or people they're avenging.
Exactly. I don't know what Gwen was thinking when she said that to her father.
Yeah, it’s like “No shit! I’m not trying to bring them back. I’m trying to make you pay!”
Yeah, my character wouldn't have burned the corpse if she thought she could bring her back.
I loved how _Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga_ tackled it: SPOILERS
I loved Dementus’s speech in the ending after Furiosa chases him down for killing Mary Jabassa (her mom) and Praetorian Jack (her lover). Sure, they do tackle the “killing won’t bring your parent back” bit, but it explores through Dementus why the trope is like that, that murder is only a distraction and doesn’t make up for murder, that Furiosa will soon expire just like Dementus, just like Praetorian Jack before them, Mary before him, and Dementus’s family before her. And so, Furiosa uses the peach pit that her mother gave her, and uses his body as compost for the tree, in which she gives the peach that it grows from to Immortan Joe’s wives, symbolizing her place of being the person who will light the way for the less fortunate. Death won’t balance death, but life will.
Through this, George Miller turns the message from “revenge is bad” to “revenge should be done in a way that betters you”.
my character wouldn't have slaughtered half a country if his boyfriend could come back
MC: You killed my [insert loved one here]
Villain: Well you killed alot of my henchmens, and guess what most of my henchmens also have [insert loved one here], so your revenge won't make you better than me.
MC: I'm not trying to be better than you, I'm trying to kill you!
Villain: Hmm... That's fair go ahead then.
MC: K thx :)
*Bang*
You should have added Clang, not Bang
@@alinastanescu4430 I heard a Slice personally.
How many times did we have to witness the villain get spared for no reason and then beg to get killed in self defense by accident with no reason...
But then how is the villain supposed to die without making the protagonist look bad
@@munken7673 people don't hate John Wick do they?
@@juancena6909 Well the villain in John Wick killed a dog so John dosen’t need to be too Nice
@luxurious orc sounds like Red hood
How many times we just watched the villain hanging in a cliff in the end of a fight, then the hero tries to save the villain by offering him his hand. Then, the villain says "No! Never would want your help! ". Then, the villain just throw himself out of the cliff/building.
My name is Fledgling Writer. You killed my story. Prepare to die!
Hi! It pains me to point this out, but you left the Hello ( One doesn't simply present themselves without a polite greeting)
Anyways, big fan! I love It when I come across a random video and see that you've already commented, thank you!
How are you commenting on like every video on RUclips
Is that a Avatar abridged reference?
@@AvatarbeePrincess Bride
Lol. Also hi. *Again*
"You like revenge, right? Everyone likes revenge!" -GLaDOS, Portal 2.
I am the most famous man on YouTub! This is not bragging! This is the truth! The truth will set you free, dear pi
The writing in Portal 2 is better than the writing in 99% of all the movies and TV shows I've seen in my entire life.
I don't.
Insert Portal protagonist being apathetic and uncaring towards anything and only focus on escaping.
You dangerous. Mute. Lunatic
Love interest: Don’t kill him or you’ll be just like him!
The thousands of henchmen and minions the hero killed: DoN’T KilL hIM Or YoU’lL bE jUsT lIkE hIm!
Always seen, rarely makes sense. If you've killed a legion of baddies, would you be stopped by this? After all the death wails and last second pleading you've heard, would you still be human enough to care? Also a bad @$$ "Then I'll be the villain just for today!" Would lend some actual moral complexity to hero's instead of the usual stale trite arc.
What if the hero kills the villain, and then has his depression arc or whatever, how's that ?
I find that argument shallow we didn't let Osama Bin Ladden live because he was a terrorist that doesn't make us terrorist I'm not saying that revenge us always justified but please don't bring up that counter argument
The only revenge story that is so good to the point that I say it's a fucking masterpice is Berserk
@@Breakaway-ic5gj It wouldn;t make sense since he still killed those hundreds of henchmen and din't feel depressed. Or maybe specify it came because he felt that because he killed so many he thinks he's a war criminal.
Villian: Who are you?
Protagonist: You killed my father, prepare to die.
Villian: Do you have any idea how little that whittles it down?
That sounds like 2 references.
Batman Beyond!
Alternate take:
Villain: Who are you?
Protagonist: You killed my father, prepare to die.
Villain: No. I am your father.
*narrows
Villain:Who are you?
Protagonist: You killed my father, prepare to die.
Villain:Oh, no, my once best friend was the one who murdered your father. I cannot tolerate murders in my organization, so put him in jail.
I think "Tragica Diesoon" Might be my new favorite character name.
I can’t decide whether to laugh or press F so I did both
Tragica F. Diesoon
The “F” stands for “Fatality.”
Ace Attorney would be proud of this one.
What about Scheming Von Knifenback?
@@webbowser8834 how about Gill T. Parti
Step one of making revenge: Make it so the antagonist does the most horrible stuff but only one small inconvenience drive them for complet revenge
So, like that one oversimplified video where Hitler say "My father used to punish me severely"?
I could see a villain who does horrible stuff all day but like something as small as one guy as his favorite festival flipping him off and not apologizing for it setting him off. Like have it be implied it was the fact someone defied him and lived is what really does it and you have the perfect story of a villain essentially destroying themselves and their empire over the pettiest shit in the world while still making sense.
So, they're a Totally Spies villain?
Like losing a toy train
@@majorblitz3846 If only. Most antagonist for a revenge plot do bad things because it's Monday.
Alternatively, when the main protagonist gets revenge you must show the audience how it's completely justified! Even when the protagonist gets it by beating someone's loved one to death right in front of them! But when anyone else tries it, you must show the audience how horribly wrong it is that they pursued revenge! They should suffer in every way imaginable, and end up a broken husk of a person!
Ah, Abby's Golf
Well if you must make the protagonist sympathetic, you can always have your protagonist save a young kid from a group so hilariously evil that it kills any of the moral grayness that the franchise was famous for and that you were going for yourself.
I guess you can make that kid always just part of an already discriminated demographic, just to prove how heroic your protagonist is.
You don’t even have to bother writing a storyline including the minority character that isn’t about them being part of that minority and that they are always just a victim.
Twitter will hail you as progressive anyways, even if that character is an even bigger Damsel than Princess Peach.
10/10; 5⭐; Game of the Year.
@@frankwest5388 Huh, I wonder what you could possibly be refering...
Jokes aside...they could have done that SO much fucking better...I think one of the biggest issues I had with the series was how the other girl (Whats her face?) just suddenly seemed to be over her revenge despite obviously never learning anything from it.
She starts preaching like crazy at the end despite having tortured Joel to death and obviously enjoyed every second of it.
Had they taken a more..believeable approach to it with her hesitating a bit to kill him after being saved by him I could have believed it a bit more but she went out of her way to hurt him as much as possible yet NEVER got angry at Ellie for killing her friends over and over again?! Really?!
@@bibbobellaThere's a writer who came up with a detailed critique and his own redo of TLOU 2 that I found quite good. Here's a link in case you want to see it ruclips.net/video/MvTFF-E5wkw/видео.html
I do like to see when stories take the "kill them all" approach.
"My father had a saying. Never wound a foe when you can kill him. Dead men claim no vengeance.
'Their sons do.'
"Not if you kill their sons as well".
I made a character who's basically a galactic level assassin who is sent to take down entire organisations who are creating too much trouble for negotiations or official action. The character has this similar philosophy of just killing everyone, no matter who is who, because it's just more efficient to spare them the pain and suffering that would result otherwise. Naturally they are reviled as a monster, but many can't help but notice the sheer cold efficiency in these actions. The assassin is never cruel, only detached.
@@1nva0er55that’s cool as hell
You know, it really pisses me off whenever the moral of a revenge story is "Don't seek revenge." I mean, I always took the moral to be "If you treat other people like trash and don't consider how your actions effect them, you will come to regret it." I think that's a way better moral lesson than what is essentially "Be a doormat and let anyone do whatever they want to you and your loved ones, because revenge is bad, so just let the monsters who wronged you get away with it. I'm sure a lack of consequences for their actions totally won't just ensure they continue this behavior!"
what if a revenge plot displayed both, like teach the revenge seeker to not be overly obsessed with revenge that he either destroy himself or becomes unable to feel anything but pain and anger in his life
like a character makes him forget about his obsession, but despite that they'll still seek to forfill said revenge be it that the person they hate is a good or bad guy while also think of ways to counter ways forfilling his revenge can effect the rest of the world
As JP points out, we have something which is designed to stop people from taking revenge, and it's called the justice system. So, the even better moral lesson would be to have the protagonist organize the arrest of the villain, instead of murdering him in secret.
@@legrandliseurtri7495 Mmhmm. I mean, there *is* a reason that people seek out revenge in spite of the legal system. They may live in an area without such a system, a very unstable region where such systems just aren't there. Or it could be there's heavy corruption, and so relying on that system wouldn't get results. Or perhaps the antagonist has an alibi that the protagonist knows is bogus but no one will believe. So there's definitely ways to make getting revenge make sense even in places with a robust legal system.
@@Shenaldrac I agree with all that. Yeah, there are conceivable circumstances where the legal system won't do the job. If there is that option, however, I don't see why you wouldn't take it.
@@legrandliseurtri7495 Yeah. It's why a lot of revenge stories give those reasons. Like in John Wick where the guy who kills his dog is the son of a rich and powerful dude. There's no way the law would be able to touch him, but Jonny boy can.
Dont forget the kill everyone but the main villain bc the main character says that "its not worth it lol"
I always hated when the main guy have no issues killing henchmen but when they beat the big bad guy, they say "If I kill you I would not be any better than you"
@@paradoxzee6834 That is what we call lack of self awareness...
The Last of Us 2™ called, they want their script back
@@joaobordini3903 It also technically have refrigerator moment. This game is such manipulative waste of potential! Worst part is that witch small changes it could work!
Elly leave Joel after disagreement, then is saved by Abby. Girls become fends and on the way exchange info so we learn that Abby seek some bastard who hurt her (it could be Abby section). Then girls are split so Elly back to home to ask for help. But then we see Abby and her team, who we care about. Kill Joel "the bastard" who we also care about. Then the final is hart breaking revenge on people we actually do know as Elly believe that Abby betray her and she herself could be responsible for Joel death, because se said too much. With final actually making a sense in this context. Good emotional stuff, instead learning that killer dog was good poppy BS 0_0
Ugh, this game is such waste!
If Joel alived and under the same writer he will kill abby and her gang because she killed his brother
Maybe the real revenge were the friends we made along the way
Oof, i'm too late
That also make it Way easier to forgive the villain
This revenge cost me twenty thousand dollars, I was a *real* reward not this fake emotion BS.
No o want my vengeance
Maybe the real revenge was the lives ruined along the way?
The Triangle man is back!
Love Triangle
*we were all missing the endless love triangles glad he's back*
Illuminati confirmed
Illuminati
I hope he doesnt remember my loose criticizing comment before , i mean my puppy sddenly was found murdered with a love triangle similar to jpd in blood there , but no worries😛
The hero has an epiphany and looking into the villains eyes he says
"I learned that violence is never the answer, now die!"
You're wrong, utterly and disappointingly wrong. Violence is never the answer, it's a question.
*And the answer is yes.*
@@sammyboi8938 violence is a requirement.
Murderhobo
Violence is like fast food, and I order your head.
"It's not as if revenge stories are character driven."
Character driven? I thought they were driven by blood and skulls or something. Pure edginess, maybe?
Blood and skulls??? I thought they were driven by cool explosions and action scenes! I've been lied to my whole life!
We’re all forgetting forgetting the most important part; the villains need to be irredeemably evil with no real reason other then they’re evil. How else are you going to make your psychopathic monster of an MC look good?
@@mekingtiger9095 I thought revenge stories were driven by "Blood and Guts"
I don't even write books I'm just here because it's entertaining lol
90% of people here are
@@hexcodeff6624 correct
I just love the comments more then the video
So am I
I use TWA to improve my RUclips comments and shitposting.
I admit, in school I fell prey to the "My character needs the higher moral grounds, so I'll make my bad guy be a backstabber to make my hero look better" pitfall. But I know better now!
Same.
Nowadays I avoid this problem by making my protagonist the emissary of the angel of vengeful justice, so I can shove any criticism of moral black and white away by just claiming that “he never had a choice”.
Because deflecting blame is the same as being deep and smart.
I’ve learned that one from war films
Giving your protagonist the moral high ground can work. It just doesn't work AFTER they cut a blood-stained trail a mile wide to get to the villain.
Just like Batman's "I don't kill" rule can work as long as he isn't hospitalizing or killing all the grunts.
@@atk05003 Pretty sure he is okay with hospitalization, though.
@@mekingtiger9095 I sincerely hope Wayne Enterprises donates A LOT to the local hospitals, because Batman is probably the direct cause of like 5% of the ICU patients in Gotham.
ruclips.net/video/seBpXt8_6xs/видео.html
There are ways to do anything well. It just depends on context and execution. I mean the final fight in part 2 between Goku and Frieza ended in a similar way, but due to the circumstances it made sense and still had meaning.
The strangest revenge story I have ever read is from a ongoing manga where a main character was executed by the princess for rejecting her advance. And then he successfully seduce the goddess to resurrect him and start tormenting the princess and killing all the evil nobles of the country.
@@sorelooser6511 **The hero who seeks revenge shall exterminate with darkness**
@@dennisz1252 gotta love those long ass titles
What?!!
So basically redo of healer without the healer part. Fun. I’m already seeing so much of myne and freiya in the princess in the first chapter.
@@rhaeasoul8531 does that not include a lot of raep? (Misspell to avoid deletion)
I love how the "just like them" thing appears in Goblin Slayer and he's like "good, I want to be the monster to the goblins that they are to me and every other undefended village". Having a character willingly become a monster to slay monsters is good.
"Don't do it, or you'll be just like me..."
"Eh... I can live with that..."
**Proceeds to kill him**
Thing we learned in the last 10 years. If a story has a villain kill a guy's family the audience will be all "Don't kill him you'd be just as bad as he is." But if a story has the villain kill a puppy the audience will be all. "That guy in the corner is still breathing! Fix that!"
Personally I hate 'cycle of revenge' stories because they're always one-sided in terms of morality.
Hero: "You murdered my daughter! Prepare to die!"
Villain's Daughter: "You killed my father because he murdered children! I demand revenge!"
Just once I'd like to see a revenge story where the villain's children admit that their evil father deserved to die.
I mean, without spoiling I would vaguely point at Attack on Titan for an interesting spin on the whole topic.
Apart from that, admitting that your parents are objectivly evil is a lot less realistic than some might think
The Old Man Logan comic, had the Hulk's son try to kill Wolverine as revenge his dad's death. He knew his dad was a piece of shit for killing Logan's family but he didn't care
A well written cycle of revenge is always depressing as it mirrors real life too much, because the cycle never ends.
I do like the movies Bruce Lee was in, because his character would gain their revenge but then get arrested or shot by the police as no one is above the law.
@@carolinelabbott2451 one story had Spider-man kill the Kingpin but gets arrested for all the people he killed to get there
1. That happens a lot actually
2. They’re actually not very one sided. There are plenty of stories where the villain isn’t a child murderer, or some sadist, and what they did was very justified, so of course their loved ones want revenge on the protagonist
If you’re in a telenovela, don’t forget the obligatory slap fight
Also hair-tweaking. Bonus if they get slammed into walls and furniture. Better if they're riding an escalator.
Also the prison/hospital bed scene
¡Malidita Lisiada!
I have to watch telenovelas every night because of my mother assuming control of the TV while I have dinner, and yeah, I can confirm.
Brazilian telenovelas are somewhat predictable at this point for me.
@@mekingtiger9095 If you want variety you got to watch telenovelas from different countries. Each country follows about the exact same formula with every new show they make, it makes them money so why change it, lol.
“The recycle of revengeance must end”
- Doctor Bulbous Baggs the Wise
"Whadyu bring me?"
-Bigideas
"We must stop the recycle of violence"
-HISTORIAN, Internet
@@starkillersneed first you need to find the root cause of the cycle so you can end it. Plus cycle of revenge or hatred trope is stupid.
@@redd-qh4xn in fiction yes, but irl, not so much
*Thank you* for calling out the nonsensical "if you kill him you'll be just like him"
@preyr631what happened??
Hate the whole "kill and you'll be just like them." No, no the hero won't be evil for killing slave traders and tyrants!
That shit annoys the fuck out of me. Killing isn't black and white, the reasons for it can be just as complex as general behaviour, or at least fairly complex. Killing someone to defend your family and friends is very different from killing for fun for instance.
HAHAHAHA The ending to Steven Universe.
I think it depends. If killing them is very clearly going to assist the world because they are still committing wrongs and/or there is no easy way to get the justice system involved, then I think it's a moral decision. If it's just pure vengeance, then I would have to still disagree with it, no matter how awful what they did was.
heres bushido's view on revenge
you can get your own retribution
if you don't go far to lengths of extreme crueltry
Obligatory suggestion to do an episode on crossovers
Also what terrible ideas do any of you have for an episode on crossovers
Cool
You are worthy to be the top comment... * bows down *
A crossover
The guest characters of the crossover will be an annoying bunch that caused the conflict of an episode and received no consequence.
Bonus points if it's a crossover no one asked for
Crossover with OSP, On Wring, or Shadiversity
"Revenge is good. Bastards need punishment."
- The Captain, Castlevania Season 3
Close enough
Best character of season 3, put edgelord Isaac in his place.
One of the best characters.
If there's one thing I hate more than a love interest and some romance shoved into my stories, its when writers decide to do it anyway and can't even commit to doing it properly. So, I say bring on the dead wives and pets.
Saaaame, it shows how much the protagonist loved his wife or pet. It's a hell of a lot better than, this guy killed my family, plot for the 1000th time.
Its probably more problenativ but why mot a murdered husband? I mean itd diverdity, and making iz a hate crime of some really terrible people could naybe give carthasis. And you can still have sexscene flashbacks. Or and a murdered polycule who could even a surviving love interest and their maybe overcominh or alienating due the revenge And pets, just gove the pets a character,
@@marocat4749 It's not so much problematic as much it's laziness. 95% of the time, revenge plots are for teenage boys that want to fantasize about killing people non-stop and somehow still being the right. Making the lead for this type of story into female would mean put in the extra leg work into making her into an halfway decent character and not just a vehicle.
Romance is the hardest genre to write. That's why Sturgeon's law is at full effect on romance novels.
I can't write romance, so I don't even bother. All my characters are asexual by default.
@@DonVigaDeFierro _All my characters are asexual by default_
Same.
One type of revenge plot I don't get enough of is when the main character wants revenge not on someone, but some THING. Like a force of nature, a system or an ideology.
For example: protagonist's wife died because of a plague, the protagonist obsesses with the disease, treating it almost like a person, so now he wants to find a cure to erradicate the plague.
Hey Jp you should do "The hero turning into the villain with no reason or foreshadowing whatsoever" for a video idea
Fallen Heroes/Villain Redemptions I think would make for a good one.
@@GamersHolyArmy yeah
Glares at David Benioff and D.B Weiss.
It's NOT without foreshadowing at all because that's the entire point, but this is why I stopped reading Iain Banks after I tried Use of Weapons from the culture novels.
It doesn't matter how much the information pointed to him being responsible for his sister's torture and an entire dictatorial mass murdering regime. It's the fact he's SO FULL of regrets and trauma over his own fucking actions that made me pissed off when the book turned into him being this overwhelmingly evil villain all along. There was obviously all the foreshadowing needed logically, but emotionally it's like I'm pretty tired of this road to redemption where every mass murderer has overwhelming crushing guilt and feelings of responsibility after the fact.
God that hit hard.
The “evil empire” doing a 21 gun salute and a crying widow and orphan.
We’re all human, man. Even the “bad guys.”
The one thing he didn't miss was our heart. Godspeed disposable goon n°3764
Except if the bad guys are, orcs, demons, aliens or something like that.
@@dermenore7162 well orcs and aliens aren't always evil and there are actually cases of real world mythology and religon where demons aren't necessarily evil
@@mohammedyousef4005 You know, I totally agree with the original post intention, which is, I think, that even goons have feelings and that story should consider it. :)
It's just that the formulation "even the bad guys" are humans that make me smile because, well, if they are orc (or aliens, etc) they are for sure not humans. The temptation for an easy jock was too great to resist. :D
But like you said, it's not because they are orcs, demons, etc that they can't have feelings too and that story would gain to take that into account. :)
@@dermenore7162 ya I agree with you my problem with pure evil species is that fact that they make for some questionable world building
I know this is called “terrible writing advice”, but this video actually made me think of a plot where the protagonist’s dead love interest was summoned because her unfinished business was to take revenge on the killer, but needs the physical assistance of the protagonist to help with the deed. The two get along really well, in a kind of nostalgic way back when his love interest was still alive, until the protagonist has to let his love interest go once her business has been finished, having to accept the long lasted separation until way after the story where he inevitably dies.
I like how many good story ideas come about while watching stuff like this
Bruh, I thought of one of Phoenix Wright's early case with that description, minus the "love interest" part of course.
I wish I knew of some more stories where a person just takes revenge and we're not preached about how wrong it was, like John Wick
I'd say Afro Samurai, but I'm not sure it was played out exactly, Especially with how Afro killed Justice.
Try reading "The Count of Monte Cristo".
One hell of a good revenge plot in which ecerybody's life sucks at the end. Except maybe like two characters at most, maybe three.
The story revolves around out main protagonist, Edmond Dantes. A young, happy, naive man who was going to get al lthat he could desire a cute, young happy wife, and his dream job. Nothing could go wrong, until it does. He gets arrested on his wedding day, accused of a crime he didn't commit and get sent to prison to rot in their for life. During that time he meets an old man and they bond. To Edmond, that old man was like a second father figure to him. He taught him so many things and enlightend his mind on the academics and was also the one to reveal the mystery as ti why he was sent to prison. Edmond vows to seek revenge on those who did him wrong.
I know my summary is pretty shit, but of it's a good revenge story you want, The Count of Monte Cristo is one that always come to mind. Some events might not make sense at the beggining, but as the story unfolds everything starts to tie itself back together.
Damn. I just remembered that we're never going to get Kill Bill vol.3
@@bryantguevara183 I would actually say that in The Count of Monte Cristo most characters, besides the targets of the revenge plot, end up noticeably better and happier thanks to the Count's actions. If anything one of the remarkable things about the book is that instead of condemning revenge, it actually somewhat endorses it as a valid way of pursuing justice (as long as its proportionate, the Count goes so overboard with one of the plots even he recognizes his actions as cruel).
@@pascalausensi9592 Well, most of the characters fates are left ambiguous and the ones I could say do end up happy and better overall are the lesbian couple, Maximillion and Valentine. You could make an argument that the Count is left better off than before, to some extent.
That man has suffered too much because of a wrong commited to him. He then gets the chess pieces moving to strike at his enemies. The guy makes mental gymnastics and believes to be an Agent of God as a way to justify his actions. It was after the death of an innocent that had nothing to do with Count's schemes that his whole Agent of God schtik crumbles and realizes that, no, God wont neccesarily be on your side the actions that one makes are ones own. It's an act of man, not God.
Two of his enemies are dead. One is left alieve with nothing, with almost no chance of regaining everything he has lost. His former lover left with nothing, wasn't able to do anything to change her fate or an outcome of a situation, is left in stagnation and her only hope and solace is that her son can do something with his life.
And many people get screwed over because they got caught up in Edmond's plan of vengance. He is aware of this and it haunts him to his very core. He found love through his former slave again, he can never be happy, he can only find solace by letting go of his hate and living out the rest of his days with his new found love.
I may have missed some very important details of the story and of what makes so great. I will admit I am not brightest individual, but to me the Count of Monte Cristo shows that, yes revenge is a way to make right of those who did you wrong, but as you walk down that path, and as you destroy your enemies, you inadvertenly end up destroying yourself. That is my interpretation of the book.
6:03 I hate the "If you kill him you'll be just like him" trope. I understand heroes not killing villains who still have good in them, redeeming and sympathetic qualities and who try to make up for their actions. But that trope is only used so the writers don't have to permanently kill off popular villains.
theres also where the hero goes too far like redo in healer example.
The only way I’ve ever seen the “bad guy instantly betrays the hero after they spare him” trope done well is in The Wolf Among Us, where if you spare the Crooked Man, he actually does bide his time and try to convince the people of Fabletown that he’s done nothing wrong in a fair trial. It’s only when he’s lost that trial and is seconds away from certain doom either behind bars or down the witching well that he attacks Bigby when his back is turned. It’s a believable thing for the villain to do because it was an act of desperation, and therefore inherently shortsighted.
AMONG US
Maybe it's just me, but I think revenge stories generally work best for me when it's motivated by a deep personal betrayal. Death of a loved one is way less interesting by comparison, imo. Sure, death of a loved one MIGHT be an act of personal betrayal if the murderer is a trusted friend/family member, but still, death isn't necessary for a good betrayal, I think.
I mean, take a look at Count of Monte Cristo. Guy's friends get him arrested and imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit just cause they are jealous of him and so one of them can steal his girlfriend/soon to be wife. That's some mega betrayal, right there. A great motivation for revenge.
Yeah, I have been trying to do same thing by having the love interest actually be the protag's revenge target and ultimate arch nemesis, but I guess I realized I probably suck at this and can't really make a deep and lively dynamic between the two, lol.
Trying to laugh to not cry here...
Or Guts with Griffith
I was trying to develop a character that wants revenge on a Cultist Leader for deceiving him and bunch of people of his race. The Cultist Leader has been recruiting people of his race for a special ability they have that can benefit him in his evil plan. The Cultist Leader would be very kind to them. He would give them support and teach them ways to defend. While he was doing this, he would also tell them that other races hated them and that they need to take revenge. By the time the character found out he was being manipulated, the Cultist Leader had him be exiled and persecuted by them. The character feels dumb for not realizing this sooner, so he started to work on ways to take him before he does more harm.
I still feel like I need to develop it more.
@@mediatorraptor3349 Well, good on you that you at least have this more solid base for your characters.
I barely even know what to do with mine. The only good thing is that I have other stories to work with as I try to develop that one I've mentioned above.
...
That's it. That's the only good news.
@@mekingtiger9095 Don't worry, it takes time to develop stories. Take your time and soon you came up with an amazing story.
“Bland as beige...”
*LindeyBeige screaming in the distance*
At least he didn't say "Vanilla"... ;o)
LindeyBeige began slowly plotting the demise of TerribleWritingAdvice for insulting his favorite color. There would be blood, dog murder, and murder with dogs. And lots of other dog related things that totally isn't bizarre to add in. First, LindeyBeige would paint his face Beige before murdering all of the subscribers to TWA. But before he could murder TWA, he was hit with a cliche that would stick in his mind: By murdering all of TWA's subscribers, doesn't that make Lindy just as evil? Then they held hands and sung Let it Go. The End, now please publish.
Ah, revenge plots, with the deepest and most profound character arc- where the hero/ine learns the life affirming lesson:-
KILL EVERYONE WHO DIDN'T HURT YOU, BUT SPARE THE ONE WHO ACTUALLY DID! 😡
Last of Us 2 be like
In Hamlet he at least does kill Claudius but only after inadvertently getting everyone else killed as a result of his convoluted revenge plot. And Shakespeare was deconstructing Amleth by Saxo Grammaticus wherein a similar revenge plot goes off without a hitch.
@@MegaPokefan97 Not really. TLOU2 is one of the stories that actually makes it work.
To Quote LordSkreddle who sums it up:
"I think that this is a really humane ending, where they both manage to see the other person as more than the villain of their own story. I think this is why Ellie hesitates in the beggining of the fight, but then forces herself to go through with it, because she thinks that killing Abby will put an end to her traumas. When she is finally at the point where she is in control of the situation, she realises that killing Abby won't do anything. The pain is still there, so she stops it. That final shot at the beach is what really got me. She just sits there so destroyed and disgusted by her own actions, and the realization of the revenge not solving her problems."
@@FraserSouris I just think that final scene was a pretty rushed character development.
@@mekingtiger9095 I disagree.
The game spent its entire runtime building to it. We get Ellie’s side and how she’s forcing herself through it in a misguided attempt to “overcome her trauma”. And she’s frequently horrified by her actions along the way. Abby’s whole deal is inadvertently entering Joel’s shoes without realizing it through Lev and has lost her entire life in the process so she has moved on it. Bring it together and it can’t end in any other way. The characters don’t want to fight each other.
7:29 Ah, the _The Last of Us 2_ method. That game won awards. Especially for its writing. Yeah.
Except Player’s Choice
Simple Weirdo Sounds like you’ve got a chip on your back over that, especially regarding the 4th reason. Maybe if TLJ was a revenge story the comment would be fitting but you just described the fan reaction, while the OP was referring to the story itself
There is just so much from this channel that Neil Druckman unironically put into his story
1. Revenge cliches
2. Not one, but TWO love triangles!
3. Resorting to every cheap trick imaginable to draw emotion (killing puppies, pregnant women etc.)
4. Characters somehow constantly being saved by a last minute save.
The list goes on
"Into the refrigerator you go!"
"Unrelated ad saving puppy, think happy thoughts"
I love this video, great analysis and hilarious writing as always!
""Vengeance! Ahhhh!!"
-Anne Boonchoy
Berserk is the best revenge story. You have ample time to see all of the characters motivations, how they intersect, and ultimately what kicks off the main plot. It also keeps the tone consistently dark despite lighter moments
RIP. We lost a legend.
Taking this advice literally is basically the plot of Redo Of Healer.
"Why waggle my sixth finger and all me ishmeal."-Best quote of the year
"We can't have the antagonist have an understandable motive"
Good Lord this trope frustrates me to no end. How dare authors HUMANIZE the villain and make the reader/protagonist question things?!
A large part of that could be the constant confusion of "understandable" with "justified" Like how Martin has Littlefinger looking to groom a teenager. "But it's all morally gray and Littlefinger is a total sweetie, because Catlyn rejected him when he was young. Also he's hawt." Just because something makes emotional sense to a person doesn't mean it's good.
As a dishonored player who is committed to low chaos levels and fatal eliminations I still need to see someone publish a story where the hero only (intentionally) murderises the villain, its very satisfying, and only marginally more absurd than a group of five people toppling a kingdom by killing a king
IMO Dishonored written revenge story very well, hell even in the trailer its say "revenge is solution" or something like that. And in the story the conspirator that trying to make emily as puppet queen for them failed because of their personal agenda just like real world.
* The 1st step is to get the readers to care about the revenge(care about both the protag & his reason for revenge). There are 2 way:
_ Show the protag interact with his love ones a while before the villain show up(can get a little boring)
_ Start in medias res to then show the back story:
+ If it's short, show out of order flashes(from the key moments to the detail)-> make the viewers pay more attention, engage the audience
+ If it's long, do it normally(there are too many details & plot point for the viewers to memorize if you show it out of order)
=> More exciting, but you must have already written down the back story before hand or it'll come off as mystery bait, contradictory, messy & tonaly incompatible with what came before
* The you will become a monster like him only work if:
_ The MC start to do the same stuff the villain did to get to him
+ If the villain has a reason to do the bad stuff to the protag, the the revenge itself will slowly make the protag just like him(doing bad for a "good" cause)
+ If the villain is just evil, the MC must also do objectively evil acts for this to hit home
_ The timing of the warning:
+ Before he goes too far: It become a heroic story
+ Too late: It become tragedy of "He who fight evil"
=> You cannot have him suddenly not kill the bad guy to preserve his morality after already killing a bunch of(likely less guilty) people to get to him
Nice thoughts!
This man said the exact opposite of what jp said.
@@silverprimus321boi9 Because it's Terrible writing Advice. When he is serious our points are very similar
thank you so much! i have a terrible time understanding sarcasm!
"I promise you....REVENGE!"
Maria: "😓"
I get that reference
*amnesia suddenly goes away*
"Oh wait, Maria didn't actually want revenge on humanity. Guess I'll be a good guy now."
I was pretty much _looking_ for this comment! X^D
In SEGA's defense, given JP's *"all the time"* comment at 4:11, I only remember Shadow saying it *once-* twice if you count the "vengeance" line during that confusing "Last Episode: Wishes are Eternal" scene.
-Don't try drinking every time he says the word "promise" or the name "Maria" though. It's too dangerous.-
I never realized that villains were practically Karens who liked black leather and spikes instead of essential oils
I think the manga series Berserk is a really strong example of a properly written revenge storyline. It does an excellent job at making the main character, Guts, feel sympathetically evil. That, while he absolutely is 100% going about this the wrong way, you can also clearly tell that he is only going as far as he does because he is so utterly terrified of the past betrayal that he is using rage to try and run from the problem even years later. It also does a good job at making the "evil traitor" character, Griffith, despicably correct in return, where make no mistake he did many extremely fucked up things and absolutely needs to be brought down several dozen pegs, but at the same time he is greatly improving the well being of most of the region in the process.
It also does an interesting detail with their specific relationship, as Griffith is quite literally a godlike being now, and is so infinitely beyond Guts in terms of power that Guts is effectively forced to change his desire for rage-fueled vengeance, into a desire to protect his remaining loved ones from future harm. There is no real way Guts could ever kill Griffith on his own, so he has to learn to team up with others, which in turn forces him to start realizing how problematic his quest is and shows him he needs to change. RAther than a generic "revenge is bad" theme, it uses a more nuanced "hollow revenge for it's own sake is bad, but a honest revenge intended to get justice for a wrongdoing can be good when done properly"
What started out as probably one of the most iconic "edgelord revenge" stories in manga ends up turning into one of the most well written "quests for justice" the industry has seen in decades.
Rip Miura, it's a tragedy that he was never able to finish the story. I hope that he left behind his future storyline since we were relatively close to the final arc, and so the story can at least have an ending rather than end with an eternal hiatus.
funny how your "generic protag" looks like a bootleg version of Guts from Berserk, one of the most deep and multi-dimentional revenge stories
Pretty sure thats just guts lookin like an average hunk dude with black hair
Rip kentaro miura
He’s inspired by Guts,
He's mimmicking the hundreds of generic anti-heros who stole Guts' design
In his Antihero video, his first comment was that he based his antihero on Guts
One could also go to the opposite end of the spectrum and make the hero do absolutely heinous things for his revenge, and then justify it with "the other guy is a little worse." This will always work, even if the protagonist's revenge involves breaking the fingers and ****ing their tormentor before brainwashing them to join his harem. I can't see anything in there that will make him unsympathetic!
I think the point was that everyone is unsympathetic, and the purpose of "that show" is nothing but indulgence, pure and simple.
Everyone is awful and does awful things to each other, for purely selfish reasons.
I'd still be on the protags side tho, so long as it didn't end up involving innocents or 3rd parties. Wouldn't know, didn't watch that garbage.
@@14megasxlr im pretty sure they talking about redo of a healer
But my "DARK GRIMM" story!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@@14megasxlr that is basically what JP described in his video about Grimmdark, still terrible writing without making any point other than an edge fest
what show are we talking about here
As someone writing a fantasy series where the main character’s core motivation is revenge, I have never clicked on a video fast enough.
I could definitely use one on both time travel stories and parents
For time travel, make sure you have pages and pages of text explaining the rules of time travel, but don't let it stop you from breaking them anyway. On the other end, one could never make it clear how fragile time really is. People definitely won't get confused if killing a butterfly prevents one's birth but killing Hitler does absolutely nothing!
For the parents, simply kill them off before the story begins! Parents only get in the way of the protagonist doing cool stuff, so it's best to kill them off so we don't have to waste time with them. As a bonus, it gives the hero something to angst over. Just don't dwell on the fact that they'd most likely be traumatized from losing their parents. I can't see any reason why the death of one's parents would affect their personality or perception of the world!
Vinland Saga: “My mindless obsession with getting revenge for my father made me an empty shell of a man, a merciless killer, and an accessory to horrifying acts of mass violence? Oh sh--“”
Revenge story:
Love interest is killed immediately.
The partner goes on an epic quest for revenge.
By the time said person gets to the murderer it's made clear that the love interest possessed their partner.
Hero: "You killed my father!"
Villain: "I don't even know who you are!"
"Do you know how LITTLE that narrows it down?"
-Some guy from a DC show, idk, I only know the meme
@@gamernub2020 Or the Dr. Cortex version: "I've ruined the lives of so many - I can't be expected to remember them all!"
@@gamernub2020 his name is Blight, I believe.
7:50 Remember kids, real vigilante justice is super good and the only form of law enforcement that works! It’s not like having one sole individual serving as judge, jury and executioner could lead to innocent people being killed just because the vigilante thought they looked suspicious or they wanted indulge a personal grudge! They’re totally always seeking justice!
(Seriously though, there’s a reason why Batman works with the police; he can’t be the sole arbiter of every thug.)
Is that also why Batman keeps letting go of the Joker, which means letting him kill hundreds mote innocents and repeat the whole thing over and over and over and over and over again?
@@louisarius9672 no thats because Hell literally kicked him out.
@@louisarius9672 Thats not his place Batman has literally said he would let any court do the deed but not some other fuck wit.
jp: does a video on revenge plots
tlou2: *heavy sweating*
you do know there are more cliche revenge plots than hust TLOU2 right.
@@paulovinasrocha6166 that doesn't make less funny the joke
@@cardeselmalevolo4014 just naming a game with a certain situation is no joke. and if you think it does than you are very easily entertained.
@@paulovinasrocha6166 yep, i am, helps a lot against boredom
@@cardeselmalevolo4014 go ahead then. it was not meant as an insult.
bu i need more than just seeing the same jokes over and over again.
Boring generic revenge: They killed my whole family and my little sister I loved so much. Bad guy will pay for that!
Doom: I will slaughter every single demon for killing my Daisy
redo of healer followed every single one of his advices! Such a well written work, it does not make me want to vomit at all!
For the first 6 days JP rested and on the 7th day he realized his deadline was upon him! Quickly must upload at 1am
Boy do I just love time zones.
Where he from?
I kind of like how Star Wars handles the "if you kill him, you'll be just like him" concept. It's not that killing tyrants makes you morally equivalent to the tyrant. It's that killing someone out of anger or hatred only feeds those negative traits, making you more prone to violent outbursts in the future, even against those who may not actually deserve it. Killing Emperor Palpatine was absolutely the thing that needed to be done to liberate the galaxy, but during Luke's fight with him on the Death Star, all he could think of was his personal hatred of Palpatine. If Luke didn't have that anger, yet still understood that killing Palpatine was necessary, he totally could've done it without losing his moral high ground, at least by Jedi philosophy.
It's kind of hard to explain, and I don't know if the movies conveyed it super-well, but I think it's an interesting perspective on what's normally a reductionist ideology.
So basically, if I killed an objectively villainous character out of duty, it would be justice, but if I did it out of personal reasons, it would be vengeance
@@creativeguy1martinez693 Imagine if you go both ways at once. Kinda like Chris Redfield did with Wesker
Who uploads a video at 1 in the morning?!
JP: OH BOY 1 AM!
I love timezones!
I do, not I am. Sorry, I had to
@@couldntcareless7884 oooh
"Soon he will meet the one who wronged him and there is only one way this will end...IN A LOVE TRIANGLE." I should NOT have been drinking something.
The best way to make sure the audience knows they shouldn't root for the hero getting his revenge is by showcasing that the villain is a sadist that hurt millions as well as a compulsive liar!
Also, make sure that keeping the villain alive is not only highly impractical, but very dangerous.
LOOKING AT YOU, X-MEN: FIRST CLASS. WHAT COULD THEY HAVE POSSIBLY DONE BESIDES LETTING ERIK KILL SHAW? SHAW, WHO HAD PREVIOUSLY BEEN SHOWN TO BE ABSORBING ENERGY FROM A NUCLEAR REACTOR SO HE COULD BLOW EVERYTHING UP.
I’m not sure whether he’s specifically thinking of The Last of Us: Part 2 starting at 7:30.
What? Why does everyone act like this game is super hypocritical all the time?
Sure Abby starts the whole thing, by attacking a group that they last had contact with 4 years ago, starting the flames of a died out conflict. And yes, she had literally dozens of more important imminent problems going on, meaning she wasted everyone’s time and risked their lives for her own petty issues. And yes, she did torture a the previous protagonist to death, in what would be considered the most bloody and dragged out murder a main character has ever done. And yes, she doesn’t see the hypocrisy of wondering why the loved ones of the guy she murdered would want to take revenge. And yes, she seems to take sadistic pleasure in killing a pregnant woman. And yes, she does get to end the story as a hero, which means that the narrative considers her morally superior to Ellie, who ends the story alone broken and punished, despite showing more compassion and mercy a long the way.
But really, this games revenge plot was otherwise perfect and the whole cult storyline wasn’t just filler, meant to drag out the games play time and making Abby a hero.
Why were people even complaining?
@@frankwest5388 the cult? You mean the one she rescued Lev from, causing her old group to be in danger and she turns on them when they try to take Lev. Just like Joel when he killed all the Fireflies?
No hypocrisy here
@@frankwest5388 Oooh this was sarcasm, it was a tough read the first time through.
@@Melferas what?
No, I am just someone, who loved it when I had to go on a 4 hour excursion to get medical supplies for a girl that had been just introduced and have her die almost immediately after, without even interacting with the second protagonist once. Who’s only real contribution is to be a relative of another secondary character that only exists to make the mostly angry vengeful seem like a hero.
Because a well written plot with two protagonists in the same time frame, always has characters that only one character ever interacts with for extended period of time, that is completely unrelated to the major connected storyline.
@@frankwest5388 it's one of everyone's favorite moments, I especially love how the two parts of the game are not related by even the slightest making the 2nd half of the game extremely unrelavent, it was truly masterful.
Or how about the fact that Abby completing her revenge plot isn't shown to affect her at all and doesn't change any of her actions in a meaningful way. Not does the fact that joels first interaction with her was saving her life, something that could have been a strong start for a redemption story. I think nuanced motivations are what the game did best you know.
Redo of Healer has given me ptsd when it comes to revenge plots.
*This anime is cursed and should not be mentioned when talking about "revenge" plots*
Really is not even revenge, since he goes back in time before they did the bad things to him. Meaning he just brutalizes people for crimes they didn't commit, aka Minority Report if it was just a sleazy snuff film that makes other snuff films gag.
Nah idk that one's a straight up sadistic power fantasy
@@tealdeal9523 Is it really rape if he willingly walks into it? I mean he doens't just go back in time he willigly let's things play out exactly the same way so he can be 'sure' that they will do that so he can get revenge on them for doing the thing that he knows that they would do to him.
Does that sound really weird or dumb? That's cause it is. If you knowignly go with a known rapist and abuser and expect them to do just that? At that point it's your own fault and you can't really blame them.
He's just calling it revenge when really it's just him making up excuses for his actions. As long as someone hurts him first or tries to it makes everything he does ok in turn. Even if he wants them to do it to justify it to himself.
@@tealdeal9523 Like you said. he could just run away. It wouldn't be hard to. He really could easily just run away and avoid anything they do to him. But he doesn't. He littearly wanted them to hurt him so he could justify his 'revenge'. And While he does seem to hold a grudge, he only ever acts on stuff done to him in the currnet timeline.
So in other words he wants people to hurt him so he can get 'revenge' on them when it's what he wants them to do to begin with. So he can tell himself that it's ok to get revenge.
See how ridicoulous this sounds when you say it out loud?
He will even let innocent people get killed right in front of him...he's proven he doens't care during the massacre in the city. He only got involved cause one guy who was nice to him died. Aside from that he would of just let everyone die cause it wasn't a direct threat to him.
Or how he did everything neccecary to provoke sword hero so she would attack him so he could get revenge on her.
TWA never fails to make me feel better about my own writing. For instance, the novel I'm working on now is a revenge story, and it handily avoids all of the cliches mentioned here.
Yes, the protagonist should definitely give up on their final revenge right at the end. Even if they've already killed basically everyone that the villain knows and loves and have effectively left them in a miserable life anyway.
Also don’t forget edge is your friend. The edgier the better and make absolutely sure if at some point you acknowledge that maybe the protagonist is worse then the villains that it’s immidiatly forgotten like it never happened. Maybe even reward the protagonist for being a horrible person in every way.
On the other hand "The Cask of Amontillado" is arguably the best revenge story of all time, and the motive for that was the guy "insulted" the protagonist.
The king has returned
Always love some good, honest writing advice from my trusted source J. R. R. Benadryl. Glad to see a new upload.
You skipped the lifetime movie version where the antagonist is killed by either clumsiness or their own weapon after being spared or eluded long enough to fill the time slot.
The cycle of revenge is a cycle unto itself. An endless retelling of the same moral with the same depth as Mt. Everest. I must finally show them how a revenge story ought to be written. Yes, then I shall finally lay claim to my vengeance.
Cool! So a book series.
Don’t forget when you are killing the minions of the Big Bad Evil Guy/Gal always do something “cool” or crack a joke because that will prevent the loved ones of that minion from seeking revenge or going to the cops.
"I've been so consumed with getting revenge that I never thought about what I'd do once I got it."
"Have you considered piracy?"
I have not seen content from this channel in like a decade! This is going to be great!!!
I recently watched Promising Young Woman, and I think it does a great job of avoiding and subverting most of these tropes. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, but I recommend it if you want to see a revenge-centered comedy thriller done well.
The only channel where I actually bother watching the sponsorship ad. Good job TWA!
"don't kill him you'll be just like him"
the 100s of dead goons behind : *bruh*
I'd love to see a criminal/thief/Assassin etc stories JP. Unironically they teach me lot more than people aiming to teach.
When I saw that dog, I immediately thought Jojo's Phantom Blood lol. R.I.P Dany and Sadisitic Dio
Hero: I'd be just like the bad guy if I do this for revenge? What if I did it in the name of justice?
Sidekick: Well, all societies have justice systems of some kind.
Hero: Then for justice. (Shoots bad guy).
Anyone else think that this guy's voice is amazing for what he does. Like if anyone else did this show then it wouldn't feel quite right.
*A quiet GRIFFIIIIIIITH! echoes in the distance.*
*A one-legged captain nods and grasps a harpoon.*
*A grim man claims that he never asked for this.*
*A well-dressed gentleman roars "KUZEEEEEEE!"*
Ok, I had to google the last one.
An old Admiral screams "Khaaaaaaaaaaaaan"
Was the 4th one a Yakuza reference?
I'm a really simple man. I see Yakuza, I click like.
@@maninanikittycat4238 Indeed! Yakuza 0, specifically.
Let's say one wants to write a revenge story that ends with the hero sparing the villain, a story that portrays revenge as something bad
How should one go about the villain?
Show throughout the story his better side, where he actually has some good in him, or has someone that would mourn him? Maybe show that he regrets his actions and desires to redeem himself? Suggest that his actions were a necessary evil, needed to keep something even worse out? Imply that his death will cause more harm that good for the world? Or let the hero self-reflect and see that he goes through the same process the villain went through ages ago?
Of course not! Better make the villain as unlikable, irredeemable, cartoonishly evil and edgy bastard as you can and make sure to establish that killing him is the only real way to stop him from hurting anyone else. Then make the hero spare him anyway because "muh morals"
I did start a story where one of the murderers regrets his actions, and let's say that, out of guilt, he tries helping one of the victim's loved one without her knowing his identity. So, when she finally discovers the truth, it obviously makes her feel a bit hesitant on the whole revenge thing.
Writing during the pandemic is super unmotivating, however. I was writing more in one month before the pandemic then the entire time since it started.
"la venganza no es buena, mata el alma y la envenena" - Don Ramón
I wrote a story where the protagonist doesn't WANT to seek revenge, but unfortunate circumstances pretty much force him to.
This doesn't have much to do with the video, but when I was a stupid kid, I named one of my dogs Vendetta cause I thought it sounded pretty. My mom questioned me and now that I know the meaning, I get why.