Entertainment

What I hate (and love) about superheros.

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Not the first time I’ve talked about this I know, but I actually have found a couple of superhero films that I like, and the new Wonder Woman came out this month, so let’s go for it.

First of all, start with the negative.

What I hate about superhero movies is how darn depressing they are. Seriously, there’s some pscyo villain who has some non-relatable reason for wanting to destroy humanity, and we’re all supposed to sympathize with them, even when they’re point of view makes no sense. And the hero never has a really good answer for them.

At least in the last decade and a half of films.

But when they do it right, the villain is tragic or at least someone we won’t feel sorry for; and the hero is not shaken by the villain’s warped world view.

Not all superhero movies are depressing, they were originally inspiring.

What I like about superhero movies is they can give us a cool story, with plenty of unrealistic action and science and powers; but they keep it grounded in real life. The perfect combination some would say.

In my personal opinion, “The Incredibles” nailed this one in every way. The heroes never stop being normal people with their own quirks and problems to work out.

In contrast, the Avengers never stop acting like superheroes. I have never seen any of them really loosen up and turn off the charm and bravado and wise cracking, and just be people.

The whole idea of a superhero is a person with special powers, who uses them unselfishly. The MCU can’t even decide whether it’s heroes are heroes or villains.

What shocks me is how many people are applauding this, even while many are horrified. People find a movie boring now, if the villain is not just as compelling as the hero.

I don’t mind an interesting villain, but if they aren’t going to reform by the end, I don’t want to get attached to them.

This will sound sacrilegious, but I have never made any connection with any modern superhero except briefly for Captain America. (In his first movie.)

But, what I do like about the superheros I actually connect with, is how they never let anything stop them from doing the right thing.

It’s like Superman says of his friends in one episode of the animated Justice League, he tells the bad guy he’s fighting that none of them will stop fighting as long as they ‘re breathing, and able to move. (I paraphrase.)

I appreciate the teamwork they exhibit. It’s what makes they’re powers are attractive, because the team shows the best of everyone.

But it’ how they are with each other in ordinary life that really makes it work.

I think Guardians of the Galaxy was better in  this regard, even though they all start off as enemies and end up with rather dysfunctional family–friendship dynamic, it worked.

Anyway, there’s no formula for making a good superhero flick…which is the problem. Personally, I find movies where there has to to be a violent action sequence every five minute to be boring.

I’d really start to think superheros just don’t have self control.

At least when Mr. Incredible loses it, there are serious consequences.

I really hope that this new Wonder Woman film sparks a new trend, because I think this genre had a lot of potential if people figure out how to use it right.

In the end, though, whenever you have huge quantities of something, the’res only going to be a few really good products to choose from.

I think some people see it as stuck up to even complain, the masses like the total crud that studios pop out every two years, why not we? What makes our opinion so much better?

Well, I can’t really say. I have my reasons, my concern is that the majority of us don’t use reason when we’re judging a film or any other thing we like. We want to be entertained. Not taught.

(I know folks who won’t even try to hide that this is their perspective.)

And if that’s what you want, than even a really well-made movie is lost on you. Take Frozen as an example. I know for a fact that despite its popularity, not even half of the fans fully understand why it’s a great movie. They like the songs, the cool clothes, the funny scenes, and the wishy-washy message about love; but they miss the real deep message about true love, and the really important stuff the movie is telling us about ourselves.

And many just can’t stomach the format.

Personally, I don’t care about formatting.(Most of the time.) My tastes go from those super-boring-to-most-people real life story movies, to a few of the notoriously bad Christian movies, to Disney, to obscure movies very few people have ever heard of and movies that were supposedly made to sell toys.

I don’t care. I just want the movie to speak to me. Otherwise, what’s the point? Literally.

Now, it is possible to get caught in the trap of assigning meaning where meaning clearly wasn’t intended, which is why I think movie reviewers are important in moderation. Just like book reviewers are. I’d be hypocrite if I said that’s a bad thing.

But I do think there is too much credit given to the movies that are huge successes. Frankly, a lot of them are trash. Except the ones that are not.

But, there are legit reasons people like even the Superhero movies that I despise. A lot of the times they can overlook the flaws because the heroes are just so cool, and I suppose that’s fine to a certain point.

But you can’t just excuse every problem because a movie appeals to your personal taste. Per example, I used to like Pocahontas the best of any Disney princess movie, but though I don’t hate it now, I admit it’s pretty flawed. (Sorry to any fans out there.)

Anyway, I risk shooting the sacred cow just writing this, but I think people will see where I’m coming from.

Until next time–Natasha.

It’s not what you do.

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I’d like to start off by personally thanking all of you faithful readers who keep coming back to this blog, even on days I don’t post, it really is encouraging.

Also, it was finals week, so I had to devote more time to finishing up my project, that’s why I only blogged a couple times, but it’s Summer Vacation time and hopefully that will get better. You other bloggers know what I’m talking about.

So, today’s topic: What’s wrong with Millennials?

Okay, that was kind of a joke.

The thing is, we get criticized a lot, and I can’t be the only one who feels like it’s a problem. People judge us before they even know us.

Movies aren’t helping either, they show us more and more often addicted to our handheld devices, or they show the next generation down (whatever they’re called) addicted even more.

On the other hand, movies at least feature main characters who aren’t typically glued to a screen, because who’d watch that movie? Not me.

But, this is no time to start whining about how nobody understands us.

I actually sympathize with the older generation who thinks we’re throwing away our lives on things that don’t really matter.

They say we’re not mature.

And a lot of us aren’t.

But, it’s not all our doing either.

I notice a constant theme in the material aimed at our generation: Self Discovery.

I like Self Discovery to an extent. It’s perfectly healthy to be independent and creative and try new things.

It is crucial to your development to know yourself.

But I have some concerns about where this train is taking us.

I saw a bit of a show the other day, one of those “reality” shows where they aren’t filming actors, but the lives of real people. And there was a baby shower happening, and some moms were passing around advice. But to my slight horror, all they said was “Let the little things go” and “Don’t worry because you’re going to be a great mom.” Don’t doubt yourself, basically.

Look; it’s all well and good to not be afraid of being a mother, but since when is that all you need to know about it?

Isn’t it kind of selfish to focus on how you feel and not on how your child is going to feel growing up? I think some advice in that area would have been timely.

Plus, “Let the little things go,” is advice most of us aren’t taking. Who is famous for freaking out about every little inconvenience?

Yet, simultaneously, we also are known for going with the flow.

This is not everyone to be sure. It may not even be most of us, but it is what is being made into our image. Thank you, television.

The worst of it is, we are warned about not accepting what the people around us think about us, but not against not accepting what the TV and Movie industry says about us. I find what they say very offensive a lot of the time.

We all should take a moment to ask ourselves who made teenage promiscuity, drinking, and rebellion, cool in the eyes of the culture?

Who made dark and gritty the new face of teen movies and novels?

Who made a mockery of parents?

Beep be deep a deep– The Entertainment Industry.

With a lot of help from other sources of course.

See, it’s not what the majority of people do that makes it a cultural trend, it’s what the majority of people see as normal.

For example, we all have lied. But if it wasn’t accepted as normal, few people would admit to doing it. And less people would keep doing it.

I don’t lie, at least on purpose. The scary thing is that there are kids who, when they hear that, scoff at it.

What have we done?

In all fairness, a lot of blame does go to parents, since it’s not like it’s a law that kids have to watch certain shows, and shows or no shows, it is the parents who set the moral tone of the house.

And the shows warn us that parents don’t understand us, but guess who does? The shows themselves.

But I’m sure you’ve heard all this before.

And I don’t want to make things harder for parents by making them feel guilty.

But we all need to think, hard.

Personally, I’m considering the effect movies with swearing and a lot of sex jokes have on my mind. Just because I won’t tell those jokes, or swear, does it mean it’s not affecting me?

But I’m lucky that the only way I see the corruption of the world is generally through the screen, literally. Most of you probably see it every day, in person. If its’ disheartening to me, it must be worse for you.

It is exhausting to stay positive in a world with so much negativity. But let me offer a small tip before I close.

Remember that comic book I keep referencing?

Well, there’s a very important character in it, Auralie. She’s got only one line, but it’s what we see her doing that is important. It is said of her “Her thoughts are beautiful, she creates beauty with her mind, imagine doing that on a world like Apocalips.”

It’s really not what’s around you that makes you happy or hopeful, it’s what you grow inside you.

For me, that is faith.

And if Millennials and other generations alike choose to focus on growing those good things inside ourselves, then it won’t matter what’s happening around us. I mean, it won’t harm us.

It’s not many who will make that choice, but everyone has the option.

Those are my thoughts for now–Until next time, Natasha.

Hercules and Atlantis–part 2

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Now for Atlantis:

So, meet Milo Thatch, our protagonist. Basically, he’s like Hercules only a geek and not buff.

But he’s also not awkward. Milo is just that right balance of socially out of it and decent, polite person, also pretty lonely since his Grandpa died.

Milo has spent his life trying to find out where the lost continent of Atlantis is, and has finally figured out where the Shepherd’s journal, the key to finding it is, but everyone has decided he’s a fool and won’t give him the chance.

Thankfully, the movie spend only about ten minutes on this boring and over sued plot, and we turn to the far more interesting discovery, that the journal was already found by Milo’s grandfather and that his lifelong friend Mr. Whitmore has just been waiting for the right time to send Milo off to discover Atlantis, with the same crack team that found the journal.

People have said the movie is boring, I say, what movie did you watch? Huge machines that can sink the most fortified submarine ever; a cook who things beans, bacon, whiskey, and lard are the four food groups; and a giant worm. Not to mention one of the scariest and most apathetic villains Disney features to date. (I thought he was scary.) My guess is that the main complaint would be the lack of character arcs, to which I say pfft!

Our cast of characters is memorable, cool, and hilarious. Each different and each will remind you of someone you know, probably. Milo is us, pretty much. And Then there’s Audrey, the  mechanical genius who’s also the youngest person abroad, in her teens; Sweet, the kind-hearted doctor who’s also super funny; Mole, the…mole (digger), and also the person who hates soap; Lenny, the slightly nutty explosives expert; and the old lady whose name I have never remembered but she’s classic grumpy grandma with a good heart; and of course Cookie, the cook.

The movie also features the unusual and sad character of Helga, or Lieutenant, as she’s called most of the time. Helga seems to be the typical tough girl, efficient and non-emotional, and she is– but there’s a little hint that she might have been more. After they find Atlantis (I told you, spoilers, but if you’ve seen commercials, you knew that already,) she tells Rourke aside “There were not supposed to be people down here, this changes everything.” To which Rourke replies coldly “This changes nothing.”

What everything? Well later we find out that ?Milo was the only one who did not know that the purpose of the mission was to steal the power source from the people. He originally wanted to find it, yes, but once he knew there were people there, that thought went out of his mind. He never dreamed anyone would still do that.

It seems Helga had second thoughts, very briefly, and never again does she seem to waver, perhaps she figures she doesn’t know these people and no one will ever find out they even existed. It’s still cold-hearted, but we’re left wishing she had chosen differently, and in the end, she does play an important part in saving the Princess, though it’s in revenge and she dies afterward.

But versus the heartless Rourke, she’s a more sympathetic character, and that’s, in my opinion, the brilliance of the movie. Like with Megara, all our heroes are flawed, (except Milo,) they’ve all done things that, as Lenny says “We ain’t proud of.” But wiping out an entire civilization proves to be more than they can live with, at least after Milo makes an impressive and short speech about it. I don’t think that takes away from it, we all need to be kicked in the pants every now and then before we’ll do the right thing.

We all know that they are not perhaps, role models, most of them were pretty mean to Milo at first, and they turned on him for a while; but in the end they knew he was right and risked their lives to undo the damage they had done.

They still got rich.

And you could say that was lame, but I think it’s fine. They didn’t know beforehand that that would happen, and call me old-fashioned, but I don’t think it’s lame to be rewarded for doing the right thing, it’s just not a requirement in every circumstance.

The verdict:

I find Atlantis very entertaining, and in a kid friendly way, without a lot of gore or on the line humor. Plus, though it hasn’t the deepest message, it has a good one. It’s an adventure and exploration movie, and it was wise to keep it that way and not change the tone with a lot of unnecessary drama or moral dilemma that had nothing to do with the main plot.

Hercules is the opposite in that way because the side plot turns into the main plot in an almost unforeseen way, and it is deep.

Milo does the right thing partly for Kida, his love interest, but mostly because it is the right thing, and who else is going to do it. There’s also a theme of doing the right thing even when it seems like it’s not the smart thing, and how much his grandfather influenced him. Also, don’t be a mercenary, and take that Flynn Rider, (and to an extent Kristoff, I love you guys, but really, you couldn’t help the girl just because it was the right thing–and she’s hot, of course, because they always are.)

Why hate on either of these movies? They weren’t claiming to be cinematic masterpieces. They are exactly what they seem. Atlantis is a cool and classy film with eccentric characters and mysterious forces; Hercules is  zany spin on old myths with a heartwarming message.

Both are making their point pretty darn well in my mind. That’s all for now–Natasha.

Hercules and Atlantis.

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Our story begins before Hercules, many years ago…

That’s pretty much how the Disney version of Hercules starts.

Atlantis starts a little differently: Shouting, someone yells “You fool! You’ve destroyed us all!” A wierd crystal thingy pulls a woman into itself, and a whole city sinks beneath the wave. Fast forward to 1914.

Why am I tackling both movies in one review, well, they’re short. And another reason is that they both get a lot of flack in the Disney fandom, which I think is undeserved. Or maybe it’s in the anti-Disney fandom.

You all know what I think of Disney and how stupid I find most of the criticisms against it, but it’s also a little strange that I like two movies that both have very different ideas of the gods than I do. (I know folks who won’t touch movies like that, you see.)

Well, I do draw the line somewhere when it comes to magic and other religions, but not here. The reason is simple: Hercules isn’t saying Greek gods are real any more than Sleeping Beauty is saying fairy godmothers are real. It’s pretend, and it’s used to tell a story, not to tell us what to believe. Which is very different from other sources which might use the same material. (Like the Heroes of Olympus series. I’m looking at you Riordan.)

Atlantis is a little more iffy, but I go with it because I like the movie and have never had problems with the mystical side. Plus, it’s still not meant to be taken seriously.

It has been awhile since I’ve seen it though.

But essentially, what I like about these movies is the same, they use a more unconventional approach to make a profound point in a way a child can understand and an adult can mull over.

(Spoiler alert.)

Hercules is straightforward: He’s stolen from his godly parents, raised by mortals, goes off to seek his true home, becomes a big shot hero after a lot of training, and ultimately earns back his immortality.

But the person that makes the entire movie for me is Meg, his love interest. At first I never liked her, and didn’t like the movie all that much, but once I got older I started to understand the story better. Meg is working for Hades, the bad guy, and hates it and him; but has no choice because she sold her soul to him to save an ungrateful boyfriend who then left her. Meg is only eighteen so we’ll blame her age for her poor choice of men. But now, more cynical and bitter, she mistrusts Hercules up until his humility and unpretentiousness win her over.

What makes this a little different from the usual girl-learns-to-love-again plot line is that Hercules is entirely honest about being nice to Meg and she knows it. It’s actually her conscience that drives her to the conclusion that she can’t help Hades anymore, only it’s her love that gives her the courage to face him. Things go tough for Meg because though Hades can’t make her choose to obey him, he can bind her and gag her and use her as a pawn, which he does.

I almost cried along with her when Hercules finds out she was helping Hades but doesn’t know she changed her mind and tried to get out of it. In the end Meg figures she’s lost Hercules but goes and get his trainer Phil in order to save his life, and then saves it herself by throwing herself under a pillar and pushing him out of the way.

After Hercules returns the favor and saves her life, she thinks he’s going to be immortal and decides to quietly walk out of the picture, but Hercules decides to stay with her instead. everyone lives happily ever after.

Now, that is fairly predictable, but it’s still plenty of food for thought. Hercules is a bit of a Christ Character. an immortal becoming mortal and being a hero, ultimately laying down his life to save his love, and earning his immortality through that. And the message that a Hero is measured by the strength of his heart is nothing new, but that’s because it’s true.

The movie is smart to point this out, because Hercules becomes a hero to everyone and earns fame, but all he wants is to go home. He starts to get a big head for a brief time but as soon as he finds out all this is not enough, he quickly goes back to being humble and questioning is he’s really such a hero. He has no conflict about doing the right thing, his only weakness being that he’ll sacrifice the greater good to save Meg. If you could say that’s wrong.

Making Hercules humble was the only way to make him heroic, in my opinion, and the movie passes it off believably.

Also that Hercules father guides him and is the king of all the gods lends more weight to the Christ Character idea. I don’t think that was intentional or that the movie needed that, it’s just interesting.

But the way the Christ parallel is actually important is this: Meg, unlike most Disney Princesses, is not perfect or always on the right side. She makes serious mistakes, and even her self sacrifice only makes up for it, it doesn’t erase it. This is a sobering thing to have with out female lead. Meg actually needs forgiveness, she really needs it.

We all know that this would be true of any princess, but we don’t see it with anyone else up until Merida and Elsa come on the scene much later. (Well, in my opinion, Ariel too, but she’s not called on it.)

The fact that Hercules accepts this about her but chooses to believe in her best is what really makes his character.

And that’s where Meg gives us hope, if we let her, the hope that there is forgiveness for your mistakes, and you can be free from your bondage. And that there is someone who will give up everything for you and do it gladly. I hate that some people think Meg would be haunted by that later in life, why, she’s lucky. Few of us get that kind of love in an earthly life.

But Herc is really a heavenly being after all.

I’ll dive in to Atlantis (ha ha) in part two, until then–Natasha.

The Croods

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Okay, this movie was on the list of Movies I will never watch.

Why? Because the name says it all. Or does it?

Well, one of my siblings saw it and said it wasn’t as bad as we expected, then I saw the end of it on TV and thought “This doesn’t seem so bad.” So finally I sat through the whole thing. (At least I think it was the whole thing.)

Now, the whole premise is based off evolution, which I don’t buy in the least, so I kind of had to ignore that. I thought “It’s like any other fiction setting. It’s not supposed to be taken seriously.”

Well, I certainly hope that was the case. Let me just say I never saw so clearly why evolution is repulsive and not a really nice kind of fictional idea. You’d either have to believe it was true, or be utterly disgusted that anyone could hatch such and idea. Or lay such an idea, which came first? Laying or hatching? (Ha ha.)

There is something disturbing about watching human beings act like animals, and not as a joke, but because they are just animals, in that ideology. And once Guy, the one normal person, came on the scene, the contrast just got worse. The one thing that helped was Guy pretty much was speaking for the audience the whole time as he was freaked out by the Croods behavior. Which was sort of funny, sort of.

Guy also is initially afraid of them because they are cave men. Which is interesting. because we don’t usually think of more evolved, i. e. smarter, people being afraid of less evolved people. But brute strength is just that, brutal. And I can understand why he was freaked out. The scary thing about brutality is that you can’t reason with it.

But the Croods don’t turn out to be quite as bad as he (or we) thought. Though the way they eat is truly terrifying to watch, and honestly gave me the same sick feeling as “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs,” did. They are stupid, but it’s clear that the father (I forget his name) cares about his family and is unselfish about providing for them and protecting them. His wife is also a pretty nice mom character. Who sticks up for the other characters when she sees fit. Thunk and the Mother-in-law I have little to say about other than they get better at the end, but are pretty annoying and gross through the beginning and middle of the movie. The baby had one sweet moment when she said her first word, the rest of the time she acted like a dog. Literally.

The most important characters are Eeb and Guy. Eeb is kind of annoying at times, but we feel bad for her because she hates living in the dark and doing the same thing every day. Just surviving. The first real moment of connection between her and Guy is when he says, half pleadingly, “I hate the dark.” At first, Guy doesn’t particularly seem to like Eeb, but since he’s all alone in the world save for his pet lemur–monkey thing, he gives her a shell to signal him with. After all, she is human, and he wants her to live through the disaster he’s seen coming. The disaster turns out to be the Continental Drift. (Ice Age anyone?)

Eeb goes on to tell her family about Guy, which immediately makes her dad suspicious, then their cave gets destroyed and they have to run out into the more fertile and uncharted territory beyond. Of course they immediately get into trouble and Eeb signals for Guy. (And if you’re thinking the Adam and Eve thing was intentional, I totally agree.) Guy, albeit it reluctantly, saves them and gets thanked by nearly being suffocated and then imprisoned in a hollow log. however, after a while Eeb lets him get out because he’s hungry and he offers to let her help him hunt. Since she’s been grounded form tis, her favorite thing to do, she accepts readily.

But this movie never loses an opportunity to be crude, within the PG limits that is. You won’t find any sex humor or half cursing in here, that I remember, and it can be really gross, and also frustrating to watch people be idiots the whole time.

Still, there are some moments where we feel like we’re watching a real family. There’s one important scene in the second half of the movie where Guy and the Dad are both stuck in tar, and Guy finally reveals why he’s alone, this was how his family died. They were clearly more evolved, since he is, but no one knew how to get out of tar. Guy then says the last thing his dad told him was “Don’t hide, live.”

Yep. That’s the whole point of the movie.

And while I’d not say the movie makes it in any brilliant way, the setting does illustrate it fairly well. What better way to show the futility of the survival mindset than with a hypothetical cave man story? I’ll even admit that it probably breaks it down in the easiest to understand way.

The point is profound even if the characters are not particularly so. And for once, the simple, three word way of making it actually works. Especially since the way Guy says it really sells the line as important.

After this, the dad finally accepts that even though Guy is sort of a threat to his authority, he is also lonely and needs a family, even if they are a lot less smart than him. Something Guy himself has realized by this time.

Another really important moment is when Guy is the first to support the dad’s plan to save them all. It is really cool to watch the dynamic of the new guy respecting the father, in the most literal sense, as well as figuratively.

We even get a kind of Noah’s ark reference.

The movie closes with the Croods and Guy all deciding to live out in the open and follow the light. In Eeb’s words.

The verdict?

I neither recommend or discourage seeing this movie. You can get a cool message from it, but you can also be left with a lot of unpleasant images running through you mind. A lot will depend on your tolerance level. There are better movies to watch about really living, but few that will cover it in a simple enough way for kids to understand, so there is that. But I suggest parents screen it in advance.

Until next time–Natasha.

 

 

Black, White, and Grey.

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You all know that you can spell grey with an e or an a? Weird huh?

The spelling of grey is arbitrary, it’s not even a British English vs American English thing as far as I know. (Unlike spelling honor, valor, favor, flavor, and other “o-r” words with an “o-u-r”, which they do in Britain. Or used to anyway. Which is why, I, being the C. S. Lewis fan that I am, still “misspell’ those words sometimes.) How you spell it is entirely up to you.

Doesn’t that just seem fitting? Because we like to say there there’s black and white morality, and then there’s a grey area. The grey area is your arbitrary perception of right or wrong, or your uncertainty thereof.

In simpler terms, the grey area is moral limbo.

Some say there is no grey area. (Gray area?)

Well, I think that there probably is. But I think we need to be more specific about what we mean when we say grey area.

We don’t mean that some things are neither right nor wrong, we mean that some actions are right or wrong in different circumstances, and those circumstances are not always plain to see.

See, I believe in situational ethics, but not what the term means now, but just that different situations call for different actions.

What I don’t believe is that your code of ethics can change with each situation. Just the enacting of it does.

See, if you are a inconstant person when it come to telling the truth, than your ethics are that truth is only important some of the time. So whether you tell it in one situation (where it won’t hurt your case), or hedge it in another (where it will), your ethics have remained the same.

Likewise, if you tell the truth whether it hurts you or not, you ethics are to be painfully honest.

Simple, right?

But that’s more of a black and white example. Or is it?

People would argue that lying is better sometimes in order to save someone’s feelings, I personally think lying is justifiable only when someone’s life is at stake, and that’s a rare situation.

But you see how this black nd white thing can quickly be turned into a grey area.

It’s kind of the inspiration for the title “Fifty shades of Grey,” but I won’t go there. (No, I haven’t seen it, and I won’t if I can help it.)

But this is where all this arbitrariness has gotten us.

Part of the reason I enjoyed Mr. Miracle so much was because in the 70’s, right and wrong could still be cut and dried things. Clearly, Scott was doing the right thing, and his enemies were monsters (literally often enough.) Barda sometimes verges on doing something bad, but she is always stopped or stops herself before it gets to that point.

But look at superhero movies and comics now, our heroes spend more time trying to figure out if they are really heroes than they do defeating the bad guys. Who often try to say they aren’t bad guys. You know, back in Shakespeare’s day, a riveting villain was one who knew they were evil and wanted to be different but had one vice they would not let go of (Read Hamlet.) Shakespeare called it what it was, insanity. There was no grey area. most of his villains don’t even want to change.

Now, we have bad guys who don’t want to change yet we feel sympathy for them because they are more human. Plenty of people will defend to the last this way of treating bad guys.

When this trend started, it wasn’t all bad. Some villains do just need to be shown some mercy. But I would argue they are the ones who are less evil and more confused or bitter. Which would not be the majority now.

Some people are cruel because no one had ever been kind to them, they can change because of mercy.

But some are cruel because no one ahs ever stood up to them. And that is not something mercy is going to fix.

Why should we sympathize with people who have never really been mistreated but decide that it’s their destiny to control everything?

I have both real life and fictional examples in mind, and I’ll bet you do too.

I think this is pretty long, but my word count is not working, so I’ll wrap this up.

We all need to realize that you don’t prevent evil by questioning good. Someone needs to tell the media this. (Of course, sometimes evil masquerades as good.) But when good is apparent, we should not second guess it.

There’s this thing called faith. I like what that one girl in the first avengers movie said after the big New York showdown. The avengers saved her life, so she believes in their intentions.

You see, it’s not the good guys fault that there are evil creatures raining from the sky, but it is their fault that the rain stopped.

That’s all for now, until next time–Natasha.