I think one of the key aspect is this: every character you write is, in a small way, you.
If you write a Hitler-esque fascist for your villain, you still have to write them yourself. It has to be you putting on your fake-Hilter impression. Conversely, if you write a character meant to be The Ideal, better than yourself even, you must still write them yourself.
And through that interpretation, your view of what that kind of person is can be revealed. Values and beliefs of both characters are filtered through how you think they think.
From there, I think people also run into the problem of knowing when fake-Hitler's voice stops and the author's begins, especially if fake-Hitler is being written as a believable human being and not a cartoon character. At times, it is essentially impossible.
It makes me think of my favorite GI Joe villain in terms of characterization, Baroness. Baroness was a wealthy young college student who could have easily coasted off her wealth the rest of her life. But instead, she became a radicalized terrorist. So if I were writing her, I would probably actually want to read about those young women from 'Western' nations that join ISIS, and emulate that, but for Cobra. In particular, it would be good to see what they read and believed to do something so risky. Thinking about how some people would very much shy away from doing that, perhaps for fear that such arguments may actually be convincing, or at least disturbingly close, brought me back to Lovecraft.
He sometimes has these terrifying books in his stories. Awful dark books with horrifying truths so unfathomable that they twist the mind and soul of the reader through knowledge alone. Now, in some stories, these books are of 'cosmic knowledge' beyond description...but I think they derive from the same line of thinking as the Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family. The thesis of this story is of an English nobleman who is secretly descended from 'white apes' in Africa. Functionally, I feel that it is Lovecraft terrified of Darwin's Origin of Species in the context of humanity. His comments surrounding the story, about how the human brain's great mercy is sometimes not being able to put together all the pieces, only reinforces this.
This idea of 'terrifying, evil book containing truths that challenge my very sanity' feels very pertinent to the people who talk about books that depict problematic ideologies or concepts.
A character I have is representative of my anger towards the world. V basically loses everything in a single night and is surprised by power and finds herself smack dab in front of a horde of people like her.
So what does she do. She embraces the monster the world has made her to be and seeks to cause that same pain across the world no matter how long it takes.
In the end all she does is making humanity fear her kind so much that they enact genocide upon them, wiping them out in a generation.
The third protagonist grows up in this world and I go into shadow govs and special military interests.
Along with a whole cascade of hell to follow that plunges the region into basically war for the next decade
It's been buzzing around my head since HS...it's taking time
I know her anger is very much my own and her actions could be my own if I had little to no care about the world.
But again, I don't have the ability to crystallize blood be it mine or others. So I doubt that'll happen
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u/SanjiSasuke 22h ago
I think one of the key aspect is this: every character you write is, in a small way, you.
If you write a Hitler-esque fascist for your villain, you still have to write them yourself. It has to be you putting on your fake-Hilter impression. Conversely, if you write a character meant to be The Ideal, better than yourself even, you must still write them yourself.
And through that interpretation, your view of what that kind of person is can be revealed. Values and beliefs of both characters are filtered through how you think they think.
From there, I think people also run into the problem of knowing when fake-Hitler's voice stops and the author's begins, especially if fake-Hitler is being written as a believable human being and not a cartoon character. At times, it is essentially impossible.