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The missing understanding is that there is no excuse for anyone's actions. There is always a reason people do good and bad things, always. And we should empathize with everyone's pain, but everyone has to be responsible for their actions. Smallville is a drama so they draw out the moral gray area, but even in real life no one is bad and those terrible people have some excuse in their deranged head for why they did the things they did. That's what a sociopath is, by modern standards it is believed that psychopaths and sociopaths are beyond rehabilitation, but it seems the deeper psychology gets, the more they realize that no one is irredeemable. (Of course it takes massive resources to help these people). That's what the sopranos is about, that's what Dexter is about, thats even what Memento and Unbreakable are partially about.
Off Smallville a bit but, Any reasons someone acts bad is no excuse you do something bad you did it and that's that blame your childhood, your life God but you lose all understanding and the people hurt are still hurt.
No one is pure good or pure evil, even Darkseid has his good qualities. If you read Kingdom Come they show that Orion, who hated his father, had to act almost identically when put in the same position and in Super TAS, we see how his people view him. It's not some gimmick that's been done before, it's simply the truth of the matter. Mainstream television is now starting to incorporate it because it's at a place where the common level of enlightenment of the audience should be receptive (they hope) to this type of deeper understanding of psychology. But the greatest works posed this level of understanding a long time ago, like Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock. Another great two movies in recent years are No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood.
I think Darkseid's true colors are his hatred for everyone he seeks something called "The Anti-Life Equation" and the amount of evil he had in Final Crisis is the best example of what he is, and old evil God not a man. Even psycho is based on Ed Gein and all his tragic background means nothing to the amount of evil he did to me these comic villains are exaggerations of the real world evil and there are plenty terrible in the real world.
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There is a difference between not writing someone complex, and writing a simple villain who everyone can feel justified in persecuting. The reality is, no one should be persecuted but everyone should be held resposible for their actions. Villains are just derranged and disturbed individuals who's cry for help is viewed as a deliberate offense by the ignorant. These cries for help get worse and worse until they think it's ok to kill people.
As I said Mark Waid's Empire and a Alan Moore Clayface story are some of the best examples that the villain is complex but it does not treat them as anything more than a burden they do terrible things without regard and in the comics world the threat is usually more than the real world.
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I want to clarify that I'm not backing Smallville's writing though. I enjoy the show a lot, but it is not a quality piece. It is designed to be an emotionally manipulative drama along the lines of Twilight and Gossip Girl. I love that stuff and eat it up and that's why I watch the show.
They are trying to bring this more complex idea to that lower level of show. Shows like The Shield, The Wire, and The Sopranos incorporate this idea without it feeling forced, but that's impossible when you dumb your show down to be a teenage angsty drama.
So I agree it's annoying the way they do it, but I feel its neccessary to point out that it is just ignorant when they don't. That is, it is very obvious they are ommitting certain characters motivations and characterization, to have someone who is "just EVIL" means to just have a plot device that the good guys team up against.
Off Smallville a bit but, Any reasons someone acts bad is no excuse you do something bad you did it and that's that blame your childhood, your life God but you lose all understanding and the people hurt are still hurt.
No one is pure good or pure evil, even Darkseid has his good qualities. If you read Kingdom Come they show that Orion, who hated his father, had to act almost identically when put in the same position and in Super TAS, we see how his people view him. It's not some gimmick that's been done before, it's simply the truth of the matter. Mainstream television is now starting to incorporate it because it's at a place where the common level of enlightenment of the audience should be receptive (they hope) to this type of deeper understanding of psychology. But the greatest works posed this level of understanding a long time ago, like Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock. Another great two movies in recent years are No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood.
I think Darkseid's true colors are his hatred for everyone he seeks something called "The Anti-Life Equation" and the amount of evil he had in Final Crisis is the best example of what he is, and old evil God not a man. Even psycho is based on Ed Gein and all his tragic background means nothing to the amount of evil he did to me these comic villains are exaggerations of the real world evil and there are plenty terrible in the real world.
----- Added 2 Minutes later -----
There is a difference between not writing someone complex, and writing a simple villain who everyone can feel justified in persecuting. The reality is, no one should be persecuted but everyone should be held resposible for their actions. Villains are just derranged and disturbed individuals who's cry for help is viewed as a deliberate offense by the ignorant. These cries for help get worse and worse until they think it's ok to kill people.
As I said Mark Waid's Empire and a Alan Moore Clayface story are some of the best examples that the villain is complex but it does not treat them as anything more than a burden they do terrible things without regard and in the comics world the threat is usually more than the real world.
----- Added 9 Minutes later -----
I want to clarify that I'm not backing Smallville's writing though. I enjoy the show a lot, but it is not a quality piece. It is designed to be an emotionally manipulative drama along the lines of Twilight and Gossip Girl. I love that stuff and eat it up and that's why I watch the show.
They are trying to bring this more complex idea to that lower level of show. Shows like The Shield, The Wire, and The Sopranos incorporate this idea without it feeling forced, but that's impossible when you dumb your show down to be a teenage angsty drama.
So I agree it's annoying the way they do it, but I feel its neccessary to point out that it is just ignorant when they don't. That is, it is very obvious they are ommitting certain characters motivations and characterization, to have someone who is "just EVIL" means to just have a plot device that the good guys team up against.
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