Hapless heroes, pathetic bad guys

Jagi Lamplighter explains why the degenerate Left can’t create memorable characters anymore, not even interesting villains like the bad guys of yore:

It is not enough to have an evil snow queen or rat king, the good little man who was kind and loving must be warped beyond recognition into something vile, lest the villain be anyone who we might accidentally admire.

The same thing happened in Disney’s Maleficent.

Disney cartoons feature many fine villains, but none stand out for their force and majesty as much as Malificent, the wicked fairy who is so angry that she has been slighted at a christening that she curses the family and tries to kill the child.

Malificent is impressive. She is funny. She curses an innocent child, just because she is miffed. When, sixteen years later, she leanrs that her minions, goblins and gargoyls,  are still looking in cradles for a missing baby– instead of a young lady who has grown up–Malificent utters her eerie, silvery, laugh. Then she blasts them with a lightning bolt from her magic wand and declares: “Oh, they’re hopeless. A disgrace to the forces of evil!”

But Malificent herself is no disgrace. When it comes time to fight the prince she turns into a gigantic dragon and calls up on the most infernal forces of all.

This gives her a majesty that fits with the evil magnificence of her name. She was spectacular in her villainy.

Too spectacular for the Degenerati, apparently.

In the original Sleeping Beauty – in some ways the most beautiful of all the Disney cartoons – the backdrops were done by a well-known painter. ( I used to sell his works when I worked at a gallery.) – Malificent curses king Stephan, a man who is both a kind king and a loving husband and father. His only crime is that he left the evil fairy off his guest list. He is good, and he is innocent. The horror that befalls his nation is appalling, and he is undeserving of this terrible fate.

In the recent movie about a being who happens to have a similar look and name to our magnificent villainess, the main character, Faux-Malificent, is not majestic.  She is weak and innocent. She falls in love with a man, and this dastardly individual betrays her sweet love and cuts off her wings, leaving her bereft, a victim.

How sad. How tragic. What a victim she is. No wonder she grew up to be such a…unpleasant fairy creature.

In the movie, that man is…the future King Stephan.

It is Geppetto all over again. Big-hearted Geppetto cannot be kindly, he has to be an evil mastermind. Good-hearted King Stephan cannot be innocent, he has to be the cad who screwed over the future villainess.

In modern stories, good men become cads and creeps so that the bad people, like Malificent and the Big Bad Wolf, can be misunderstood, pathetic.  What effect do these changes have on the story? They mitigate the wickedness. If the villain is now a victim, then the villainy is now justified.

This is why Arkhaven is eventually going to surpass Marvel and DC. They cannot bear to address either virtue or wickedness.