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- Hey, quick, the hero and the big bad are dueling. The bad guy's winding up to say something devastating.
- What's he gonna tell our hero?
- "We're not so different, you and I."
- Exactly! Now did you cringe as soon as I said that?
- I know I did, and here's why. It's because whenever that line gets dropped,
- it's either completely untrue or totally glossed over.
- In fact, it's so overused and poorly used that it's almost completely lost its impact.
- The instance that bothers me the most is when the villain is 110% talking out of his ass.
- Usually, this is when the villain's just messing with the hero or trying to get under his skin, which is smart,
- but annoying because the hero always takes him seriously.
- No, dude, just 'cuz you have a backstory element in common doesn't make you like the guy who murders for fun.
- Now, why is this annoying? Because the hero's being stupid, and that's always annoying.
- Now it would be one thing if the hero actually thought this stuff through and realized he was acting like the villain,
- but instead, you get the hero throwing a tantrum until their friends remind them of the obvious. It's weak.
- Now, I can see why this gets used, because if you want to throw the hero off balance,
- comparing them to their nemesis is a good place to start,
- but in a sense, it's empty because it's blatantly not true.
- Sure you can have a hero afraid of turning into the villain and reacting because of that,
- but more often than not, it's played like the thought of having anything in common with a bad guy is breakdown worthy.
- Not to mention, if you've got a bad guy smart and sadistic enough to torment the hero with the prospect of being just like him,
- wouldn't it make sense for him to draw on the hero's actual weak points?
- Because this is never played for real trauma.
- The hero will end up brushing it off as quickly as they accepted it in the first place.
- Look, it-it always goes like this, "We're not so different, you and I." "NOOOO"
- "No, you're not." "I'm all better now." "HNNN"
- If the villain wants to mess with the hero, this is the dumbest way to do it.
- Which is why the trope is much less annoying when the villain actually *is* telling the truth. See, there's a lot that can be done
- with a hero and a villain that mirror each other. Not only are they foils for each other,
- but when the villain's calling the hero out like this, it means the villain is introspective, and the hero usually isn't.
- And that's interesting! Self-aware villains are interesting, and in this case, you got a couple choices.
- Do you make the hero self-aware too?
- Let's pull up an example real quick from one my favorite animes, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood.
- Now pretty early on in the series, oh, uh, spoilers.
- Skip ahead like a minute and a half if you care about those things.
- So early on in the series, there's this alchemist named Shou Tucker who does some very shady stuff with human transmutation.
- The two main characters befriend Tucker's daughter, Nina, and her dog Alexander.
- Now, Tucker became a state alchemist when he managed to make a talking chimera,
- and, coincidentally, his estranged wife mysteriously vanished around the same time; fill in the blanks from there.
- Now he's in danger of losing his state license and the money that came with it if he doesn't do something equally spectacular.
- Long story short, Tucker alchemically fuses his daughter with her dog,
- producing a genuinely horrifying and heart-wrenching creature that can't move without pain,
- but clearly remembers and loves its 'father' in spite of what he's done to it. Now Ed, the protagonist, completely and understandably,
- flips his shit once he realizes what Shou Tucker has done, but Tucker points out that Ed's not much better.
- See, in their backstory, Ed and his brother Al previously tried to use alchemy to bring their mother back to life, which predictably went horribly
- wrong because alchemy's not meant to be used that way, and it cost Ed two limbs and Al his whole body.
- They're both racked with guilt over what they did, and as soon as Tucker plays his "Not So Different" card, Ed goes ballistic.
- Because, you know, even though what Tucker did is worlds worse,
- they did both abuse and misuse alchemy for personal reasons,
- and they both maimed their loved ones in the process.
- In this case, the villain shows how thin the line is between him and the hero,
- and it hits the hero hard because it's true.
- Okay, spoilers done. Basically, when the villain's right, it can mess up the hero for ages.
- And because the hero seeing basically what they could be if they went too far, that's super effective.
- But you know what can be more effective? Having the hero figure that out themselves.
- Because, sure, introspective villains are great, but if you really want to explore your hero, it might do to have them figure something out for a change.
- So here's an example of that kind of characterization. I've mentioned before in the Q&A; how when I was a kid,
- I watched this show called Reboot. Well, a few months back,
- I decided to rewatch it to see if it held up, and it mostly did (except for the earlier animation).
- But I was genuinely surprised at how they characterized the protagonist in season,
- because they did this thing that I hadn't really seen anywhere else.
- See, this protagonist had been a kid for the first two seasons
- and spent the first three episodes of the season basically having to step into the role of protector for his entire system,
- a role that had been previously filled by his childhood hero, who's M.I.A. and presumed dead for most of the season.
- So he's protecting the system against the series' main villain,
- who is so much bigger and stronger than him,
- and just doesn't have to care when he tries to fight him.
- Then the kid ends up getting stuck in a year outside, ten years inside situation
- and grows up in the space between two episodes into a full-fledged adult, and he's a jerk now!
- He's angry and brooding and absurdly strong and he's nothing like the hero he idolized as a child, the hero he wanted to be.
- He's become like the villain he had to fight because that villain was powerful and his hero lost.
- And he recognizes this, by himself.
- He has entire episodes where he argues with himself over whether the sacrifice was worth it,
- and in the end, he realizes that not only would his hero probably hate him now,
- his own childhood self would be afraid of him.
- "But how? You're me!"
- "But you hate me; you must.
- Look at what you've become." He's become too much like the monster that made his childhood hell,
- so he works against it.
- Now the other interesting thing here is how the villain responds, because during their final showdown,
- the villain refuses to acknowledge their similarities.
- He still thinks of this guy as a scared child, no matter how strong he gets.
- But when it gets right down to the wire, and the hero's got him at his mercy,
- the villain is almost fearful. He-he clings to the fact that, no, he can't do this; it would go against everything he stood for.
- He can't have become that much like him because that thought terrifies him,
- and in the end, the hero agrees, and it's a really good moment.
- But the bottom line is, a character who up until this point had been okay at best
- suddenly becomes this intensely interesting and tragic character study;
- an object lesson about he who fights monsters.
- But he's not a tragic figure because he pulls himself out of that.
- And you know what? His whole personal journey would have been way weaker if someone had straight-up
- told him he was turning into the bad guy.
- Having him realize that himself gave him an unprecedented degree of depth.
- And that's one of the ways that not invoking this trope can be more powerful than invoking it.
- Sure, making characters similar is good, making them acknowledge it is good,
- But an externally prompted revelation isn't necessarily better than an internal one.
- And I think part of this ties into the hero's journey, weirdly enough.
- See, in so many stories, the hero just kind of gets dragged along by circumstance.
- Sure, they might have a motivation or two,
- but the only things that can make them deviate from those motivations tend to be external.
- The hero gets pulled from their home, gets pulled into an adventure, gets pulled into their destiny.
- Even their motivation tends to be pulling them.
- Why are you doing this? My girlfriend got kidnapped. And if she didn't? Well, I'd probably still be a farmer.
- There's no internal motivation to do anything.
- It's all external circumstance forcing the character to act, and in a way that feels a little more realistic,
- but it's not. That's not how people work; people have an internal drive to do things, and in stories, that's so often ignored.
- And with more modern flawed characters, they're rarely actually expected to want to improve on their flaws.
- The character's static; they don't work through trauma or repair personality issues, they just are.
- Character development seems to have largely gone out the window.
- There's no drive, no reason for them to do anything unless the plot demands it.
- Having a character figure something out about themselves and work to fix it without external prompting is nearly revolutionary,
- and therefore might carry more weight.
- It's easy to throw a plot twist and drop a character into a situation that prompts them to change in one way or another,
- but having a character change on their own is harder, and therefore rarer,
- and one of the reasons why "Not So Different" feels so weak is because it's structured like a plot twist,
- but it's way too predictable. If two characters are similar, you can probably tell.
- Having one point that out to the other and the other respond with shock feels contrived,
- even if it's in character for them to not have figured it out.
- It's a good literary trick being executed in the least effective way possible.
- It's also worth noting that the "Not So Different" trope isn't always a villain messing with the hero.
- Sometimes it's the hero appealing to the villain, or even just too disparate characters realizing their similarities.
- See, that instance of the trope is used to make two characters closer because that's how real-world friendships work.
- And that version's not annoying because it goes somewhere.
- In its most common instance, this trope is nothing but a waste of time,
- but in this case, it leads to character growth and relationship development,
- and therefore can actually be useful.
- But the villain to hero version doesn't go anywhere in most cases.
- It's just there for momentary shock value, and it doesn't even shock the audience,
- so in its most common instance, this trope is nothing but a waste of time.
- It can be done right, but it so rarely is. So yeah.
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