What are you? Hero, Antihero, or Vigilante?

A "Hero" does not seek to serve justice on criminals.  He knows that what is just is determined by the court and a jury of people who hear the testimony and view the evidence.  A "Hero" may bring a criminal to the proper authorities, but the primary objective of the "Hero" is to stop the threat and protect the victim.  Sometimes, this even means letting the bad guy get away.  If your top priority is catching the bad guy, you are not a "Hero".

A "Vigilante" exists to stamp out criminals.  Their focus is not on the victim, but on punishment of the actors of violence.  This person may go to extreme measures to track and capture a suspected criminal, and may carry out violence to apprehend such a person, even with little or no true evidence of their guilt.  It's akin to a "mob mentality", but existing within a single person.  They will freely violate any laws that hinder their ability to do what they perceive is just, or those they feel are simply wrong or outdated.  Many times, "Vigilantes" themselves are victims of crime, and anger and violence has become their fallback solution to every problem.  Looking for situations to use violence in a way they can justify becomes second nature in their everyday lives, rather than just on patrols.

i seem to fit in more as an anti-hero if what you say is true, omen and guage. my main focus is protection but i will carry out missions in the future. and while i don't agree with laws i try my best to follow them, for my own reasons.

Once again I am back into the fire. I need to be very – very careful as to how I speak of this, but I think it would make a great conversation on this forum.

First the background…

I am from the country. I moved to the city when I became an adult. While home visiting, I ran into an ‘associate’ whom I knew when I was a teenager, and we engaged into a conversation about Heroes, Anti-Heroes, and Vigilantes.

I told him about our anthology and he chose to share some of his stories with me.

This associate would go out late at night and kill feral cats and un-owned dogs in various neighborhoods in town. He saw this as a form of heroics and expressed how it helped the neighborhoods, controlled the population of wild animals, and blah-blah-blah…

This was new and different, because it had nothing to do with people, drugs, the homeless, or whatever.

He had a home-made costume/uniform, a fighting stick, which was like a bat, a small bolt-action .22 cal rifle, which shot shortened bullets that popped like small firecrackers and were accurate out to about 25 to 50 yards. He wore a protective face mask (he later showed me), that did an ‘okay’ job at hiding his identity… to be honest, it was mostly for protection.

The conversation was intriguing, because I had NO idea as to how to categorize this guy!

In the country, there ARE some neighborhoods dang-near overrun by feral cats, but at the same time… I felt weird about the idea of him creeping around at night to kill them.

YES, one can call the ‘animal/rodent people’ to do something, much the same as YES, a RLSH could contact a non-profit to feed the homeless or a policeman when they find a crime… but it’s the, ‘do-it-yourself’ thoughts of one that considers themselves different that allows them to say, ‘I am a Real Life Superhero’.

I am refraining from saying whether this guy is Right or Wrong… instead I am interested in how the RLSH community would define him.

-Omen

I think if I was honest myself I'm an antihero as ironic as that may sound. I want to be a good person, but it seems I'm conflicted, I don't have a lot of issues with breaking the law if it's the best choice. Example would be if drivers/riders were routinely endangering themselves and others and police action can't be mandated, I feel slashing their tires is justified. I've been called morally grey but I'm not sure of that; I feel like I have a pretty strong set of morals. There's a time and a place for everything, setting deadset boundaries for yourself is dangerous in my eyes because you won't be ready to do what you have to when the time comes becase youve programmed yourself to hesitate, and in some situation that may get you and everyone arond you killed. There has to be a balance between compassion for others and detachment from moral ambiguity. You need to have blinders on sometimes.

Actually, lol, it alternates. It really just depends on what mood I'm inLike today, I've beenb in a good mood and worked with kids and definitely felt more of the Hero personality. But a few nights ago I was in a really bad mood and I fit the vigilante description a little better, but usually U feel pretty neutral and look at both sides equally and fit more of an anti hero type; not bad but not necessarily heroic. Depends on my mood and the weather. XD

@UA,

Basically, ninja were the covert operatives of feudal Japan. Some were hired for mercenary work, but that wasn't necessarily part of their job. It's sort of an umbrella-term, which encompasses a lot of different aspects of covert ops/black ops. In some cases, that means scouting, spying, deception, guerilla warfare, etc. What makes it "ninja", is the way the job is done. Bansenshukai (or, at least, one partial translation by Roy Ron, which is posted on the Genbukan Tokyo Shibu site,) claims that the essence of ninjutsu is disguise/impersonation, surveillance, covert activity, and intelligence-gathering. In fact, one of the most famous ninja in history, Hattori Hanzo Masanari, was a famous samurai - known as Hanzo the Devil, on the battlefield, - and the head of a ninja unit.

omen wrote:

Once again I am back into the fire. I need to be very – very careful as to how I speak of this, but I think it would make a great conversation on this forum.

First the background…

I am from the country. I moved to the city when I became an adult. While home visiting, I ran into an ‘associate’ whom I knew when I was a teenager, and we engaged into a conversation about Heroes, Anti-Heroes, and Vigilantes.

I told him about our anthology and he chose to share some of his stories with me.

This associate would go out late at night and kill feral cats and un-owned dogs in various neighborhoods in town. He saw this as a form of heroics and expressed how it helped the neighborhoods, controlled the population of wild animals, and blah-blah-blah…

This was new and different, because it had nothing to do with people, drugs, the homeless, or whatever.

He had a home-made costume/uniform, a fighting stick, which was like a bat, a small bolt-action .22 cal rifle, which shot shortened bullets that popped like small firecrackers and were accurate out to about 25 to 50 yards. He wore a protective face mask (he later showed me), that did an ‘okay’ job at hiding his identity… to be honest, it was mostly for protection.

The conversation was intriguing, because I had NO idea as to how to categorize this guy!

In the country, there ARE some neighborhoods dang-near overrun by feral cats, but at the same time… I felt weird about the idea of him creeping around at night to kill them.

YES, one can call the ‘animal/rodent people’ to do something, much the same as YES, a RLSH could contact a non-profit to feed the homeless or a policeman when they find a crime… but it’s the, ‘do-it-yourself’ thoughts of one that considers themselves different that allows them to say, ‘I am a Real Life Superhero’.

I am refraining from saying whether this guy is Right or Wrong… instead I am interested in how the RLSH community would define him.

-Omen

I put him in the vigilante group. I think I do so because I assume people aren't calling out for help on the problem, rather he is taking it into his own hands and making up his own mind that this is a problem and he alone is deciding the punishment for being a feral cat or unloved/homeless pet. Also, assuming he really doesn't check to see that they are indeed what he deems them to be, rather than seeing if they are chipped.

Just my two cents.

I classify myself as antihero. I've done some not so legal things as a way to backdoor the system, so to speak. Example, there was a guy who had beaten his girlfriend pretty badly and was reportedly hiding in the house next door. The cops didn't have proof of him being in there and were barred from going in without proof. I, not being bound by the red tape of being an officer, volunteered to break in and drag him out. They could then arrest me for B&E should they feel the need, but it needed doing. He ended up going to jail that night, not sure if others would see that as anti-heroism, but I do.

Villain.

A hero is defined as someone with remarkable bravery and courage, but in the context of this subculture, a hero seems to be someone who acts within the confines of the law of the land to achieve something that society deems is right. A vigilante is willing to break the law in favor of what society perceives as a greater good, and an antihero is just... a villain with intentions that society deems admirable.

In all of the classifications, it is the society that tends to define them all. classify yourself all you like, but it is the media and the court of public opinion that would ultimately vindicate or vilify a public servant. All three of these classifications are defined by, and in service to, the society in which you inhabit.

I classify myself as a villain because I believe society itself is the problem. Its apathy, carelessness, conformity, bigotry, and institutionalized brainwashing are what I believe to be responsible for the ills that any society faces. I have done the hero thing before, but these days I would rather not waste another ounce of effort to win the approval of a society that refuses to help itself.

Whoa… Defie, ‘VILLAIN’ is a strong term to throw around, as well as to claim.

I understand how you feel about society and its traits, but based on that alone, I would not consider you a villain.

A villain is made up of 2 components:

Evil – wickedness; selfishness at the detriment of others
Criminal – one who breaks the law

One can be evil and not break any laws, as well as one can break the law and not be evil.

A villain is when awareness is added to the combination of both… and the choice is still made to pursue them.

A child can have the traits of a villain, but lack awareness as to what they are, hence many of them end up in juvenile detention with a light sentence instead of prison with adults.

I’ve said this before and I feel this is a time in which stating it again would not hurt, “Whining is complaining without a proposed solution.”

I know that you are upset, but you are upset about something that can’t be changed overnight… and yet, you DO have the ability to influence the speed of the change; you can set an example.

Your choice seems to be detachment, which, of course, is your choice to make, but understand this, a person can lead, follow, or be an individual. Many times, the environment forces the choice, but there are also a few very precious moments in between those mandatory choices, that opens the door for YOU to choose.

These are the times that YOUR choice matters most.

If you truly wanted to detach and be the shrouded, grim, individual that you have projected… would you honestly have wasted your time posting your point-of-view? You posted it because you wanted to vent and be heard. You posted it hoping that it affected and impacted others.

And yet… I am responding.

Know that, when you speak, especially in an environment in which so many are hungry for knowledge and thirsty for wisdom… anything you post is read in hopes that you have made the choice to lead… to inspire… to illustrate with words, a path to change.

Defie, you are NOT a villain… at least, not from the aspect of your post. I have NO idea if you embrace evil and break the law in real life, but I am always willing to see the positive between one’s words as opposed to the message they are pushing to say.

-Omen, “Heroes aren’t made during good times!” – The Elite Forces Division
www.VisualAdjectives.com

This is a story from my teacher. The names have been changed, where appropriate. The trust involved in posting this story indicates that the story be used on a personal basis, to put things in perspective. You don't have a villainous nature; nobody does, until they choose it. Anyway, here's the story...

That feeling you get when you are trying to sneak a little bit of sleep... the summer heat melds with your lack of sleep and your head is resting against something hard and uncomfortable.. and just when your about to slip into deeper sleep.. your radio comes to life .. " Actual to 33. Actual to 33" Your eyes pop open and the rush of responsibility kicks you awake. "33 to Actual. Go ahead." You suddenly become aware of the heat and the sweat on your nose, cheeks, and eyebrows. As the radio begins to speak, everything disappears and duty takes over. "33, we have reports of a......"


Then, the older man asked, "33, you often speak of betrayal. But, do you know anything about such things beyond the manuals you read?" 33 let out a small sigh as a rush of memories channeled through his veins. "Yes, I do speak of betrayal frequently. It truly is an effective and psychologically damaging technique. A single betrayal can cripple even the strongest of leaders." Memories continued to rush through 33's mind. In particular, sadness. The old man squinted his eyes and leaned forward. 33 was caught with his eyes to the floor, half lost in memories. "But, what do you really know about betrayal 33?" 33's eyes lifted. "I know that the nature of this world is sadness and the nature of betrayal is sadness. As such, betrayal is the technique most aligned with the natural order of this world." The old man leaned forward more and asked, ".. and is that all 33? " 33 broke eye contact, concerned that his memories would leak from his eyes. " How do you really know the Betrayal techinque ?" the old man asked him. 33's eyes watered. The old man felt 33's chi tremble with old memories. The old man continued, "It seems to me that you know betrayal because betrayal has found its way into your own heart. If I am not wrong, I would say that you have tasted the sadness yourself. Am I wrong, 33 ?" 33 knew his memories had betrayed him. The old man laughed and leaned back, "So you know how betrayal feels, yet you embrace the technique?" 33's sense of duty brought him back into alertness and the memories that were clouding his chi instantly vanished. 33's eyes became sharp and 33 responded with a definitive confidence. "Old man, my own short lifetime is nothing. It is the nature of this world to suffer and then die. How can I yell at Heaven for following its proper course?" The old man leaned forward and cut 33's reply short. "33, you teach human beings how to betray other human beings. How can you speak such when you are such a source of corruption." 33 sat back and the old man did not move, yet the old man kept a stern glare on 33. "I am ignorant old man," responded 33, " I do not know my primordial nature and so I am caught in this cycle of illusion. Struggling to find meaning, I have learned how to behave and act in this way. In my own flailing, I have become a man of such technique." The old man relaxed his glare and sat back, "So, 33, you agree that you are ignorant?" 33 nodded, "Ignorant and lost. My efforts to save beings with more noble techniques have fallen flat. These painful methods are the best I have managed in my short time here." The old man again cut 33 off, "And do these broken methods provide you any victory?" 33 leaned forward slightly and replied, "No. There is no victory. I have only managed to buy some time for beings, but I have saved no one." Silence passed. The crackle of the fire and the dance of shadows amplified the lack of words. After some time, the old man stood up and spoke, "Alright 33... you are hired." 33 bowed.

omen wrote:

Whoa… Defie, ‘VILLAIN’ is a strong term to throw around, as well as to claim.

I understand how you feel about society and its traits, but based on that alone, I would not consider you a villain.

A villain is made up of 2 components:

Evil – wickedness; selfishness at the detriment of others
Criminal – one who breaks the law

One can be evil and not break any laws, as well as one can break the law and not be evil.

A villain is when awareness is added to the combination of both… and the choice is still made to pursue them.

A child can have the traits of a villain, but lack awareness as to what they are, hence many of them end up in juvenile detention with a light sentence instead of prison with adults.

I’ve said this before and I feel this is a time in which stating it again would not hurt, “Whining is complaining without a proposed solution.”

I know that you are upset, but you are upset about something that can’t be changed overnight… and yet, you DO have the ability to influence the speed of the change; you can set an example.

Your choice seems to be detachment, which, of course, is your choice to make, but understand this, a person can lead, follow, or be an individual. Many times, the environment forces the choice, but there are also a few very precious moments in between those mandatory choices, that opens the door for YOU to choose.

These are the times that YOUR choice matters most.

If you truly wanted to detach and be the shrouded, grim, individual that you have projected… would you honestly have wasted your time posting your point-of-view? You posted it because you wanted to vent and be heard. You posted it hoping that it affected and impacted others.

And yet… I am responding.

Know that, when you speak, especially in an environment in which so many are hungry for knowledge and thirsty for wisdom… anything you post is read in hopes that you have made the choice to lead… to inspire… to illustrate with words, a path to change.

Defie, you are NOT a villain… at least, not from the aspect of your post. I have NO idea if you embrace evil and break the law in real life, but I am always willing to see the positive between one’s words as opposed to the message they are pushing to say.

-Omen, “Heroes aren’t made during good times!” – The Elite Forces Division
www.VisualAdjectives.com

My actions these days reflect the pursuit of exposing society's hypocracy and laziness. I classified myself a villain because I don't act in societies interests anymore, rather to its detriment.

My ambition, from the very beginning, has been to advocate the individuals pursuit of greatness, not society. Society, historically, has only served to suppress and belittle those who are different. It is responsible for bigotry, apathy, and persecution throughout history, both by its intolerance as well as its inaction toward it.

It's the inaction that bothers me the most. Every single problem that any of you heroes are trying to solve could have easily been resolved from within society, but the masses would rather wait for heroes like YOU to do it all for them. no society ever acts to improve their world because they are always expecting a Police Officer, Firefighter, Politician, or Superhero to swoop in and save the day on their behalf, and as everyone waits for a hero to rise among them, none emerge. Why? Because they are all waiting for that champion; that paragon of leadership to be someone else.

Your post almost made me want to start doing the hero thing again, but I remembered what happens to people when they face an immediate danger. They unite.

The masses tend to cast their apathy aside and work together in the presence of a current threat. The heroes here work to fight against the criminal element and poverty. Most of you have never gotten much traction with the public yet, for many reasons, chief of which is the fact that the public doesn't really care about these things as much as you do. They don't care because they see rape, theft, human trafficking, and the homeless epidemic as some other person's problem. To them, It's just the thing they hear about on the news or on the internet, and even when they do act, its never anything more than donating a few dollars to a cause and saying "oh, well I did my part. Better shut up and go back to work now."

The heroes here combat issues, but give the public an issue and they will want nothing. Give them a Villain, and they will want heroes. Heroes are the magic counterpart to any villain in popular media. It has been trained into our collective subconscious to expect superman to counteract the Lex Luthor, or the Batman to overcome the Joker. We have been wired this way since antiquity, and as much as most of us would rather ignore this fact, the heroes are only one side of the coin. This revolutionary community is, and always will be, incomplete without the contrast between good and evil. The public wants heroes, but it needs villains, and once it has villains, it will need heroes again.

Most people aren't qualified to be superheroes. I wouldn't want a citizen to intervene in a structure fire or even a mugging if all theyre going to do is get themselves killed.

Defie, pardon me if I am off base here, but it sounds as if you are saying that you aren't even so much a villain or hero, but rather, a martyr. Perhaps not even a martyr, maybe a muse? Someone who isn't necessarily throwing themselves into it, but inspiring others to do so.

The Great Pumpkin wrote:

Defie, pardon me if I am off base here, but it sounds as if you are saying that you aren't even so much a villain or hero, but rather, a martyr. Perhaps not even a martyr, maybe a muse? Someone who isn't necessarily throwing themselves into it, but inspiring others to do so.

Something like that. I have no qualms with doing any of this myself, however.

At the end of the day, costumes and code names are all about theater. Acting in film and television has taught me that a show can, and often is, held in higher esteem than life itself. Theater is the most powerful and most influential form of media to ever exist, and we would be crazy not to take advantage of the power of showmanship. We are all putting on a show here, and that show is the anthology of the superhero.

Super heroes are public servants, and carry with them a responsibility to appease the public, as well as act within the best interest of it. The only thing I want to change is the public, and what better way to do that than to put on a good show?

Without an immediate threat, a guy in a costume fighting crime or helping the homeless is seen as some nut. Throw in a fancy super-villain with an English accent, and suddenly the costumed activist becomes something more than that; he becomes the answer. I think a villain is the best possible justification for a superheroes existence, and I have every intention of becoming that justification.

Anyone else reminded of the Magician? No worries, I dont think you're like that, he wanted to put on a show" too and had some alternative views on the community.

Uhm… I would like to be very careful as to how I approach Defie's posts.

I want to be absolutely clear that he is allowed to do and be anything that he likes. If he has made the choice to be a so-called Villain, there is nothing wrong with that. He defined how he interpreted the term and justified his choice for claiming it.

In that sense, I have nothing but respect for you.

Now moving on to some of the other stuff…

I believe that you launched a premise about Society as a whole that is most certainly worth a healthy debate, starting namely with your assertion that…

“Society, historically, has only served to suppress and belittle those who are different. It is responsible for bigotry, apathy, and persecution throughout history, both by its intolerance as well as its inaction toward it.”

This speculation is based upon a point-of-view, and yet you have presented this as a proposition of absolute fact. That in itself is a FALLACY and causes the entire argument to fail.

You cannot apply a single attribute to and entire group and expect it to be a foundation to build upon. It doesn’t hold up, and whatever is built on it will crumble.

Your complaints are focused on the negative aspects of Society without the recognition of the good. Society cannot exist in an individual alone… it always require two or more people. It is a product of culture, the brother to unity, and one of the most powerful tools for growth.

There is NO utopia.

Your complaints about society, while true in some ways, do not hold up when compared to the whole. It is like the argument of water being wet and air being clear. You can taint water and add smoke to the air, but in its purest form they will always be either wet or clear.

There will always be suppression and belittlement. Bigotry, apathy, and persecution are critical when it comes to defining greatness, understanding, and perseverance! Intolerance drives a person to reach deeper into themselves to learn patience and inaction makes the words of one that inspire become ‘Faith’.

ALL of this a simply built around one’s point-of-view.

Throwing yourself on the train track to be a martyr to prove it, does not fix the problem. Being a detriment to a river that won’t change it flow… only makes you a detriment that it will go around.

Holding pride in being a Villain… means nothing.

I am not a Real Life Superhero, nor would I ever expect or hope to join those ranks. I am a writer, I am normal, but I do believe in the existence of ‘GOOD’.

You are an activist in your heart. This is why you share your thoughts. If you were truly the rebel, fiend, villain, or whatever you may think… you would not be here. You would not have the ability to make so many of us come to answer you and your thoughts.

You are just merely negative, right now.

You speak WELL. Your thinking is logical and your desire is so strong, that it pushes you to express yourself even amongst a group that is sitting on the opposite side of, what you perceive as, your moral scale. I am here to tell you, once again…

YOU ARE NO VILLAIN.

Disillusioned..? YES. Frustrated..? YES. Angered...? YES.

Evil..? Nope. Lawful..? Begrudgingly.

Good..? HELL YEAH!!!

In denial..? For the moment.

I will tell you this, I don’t care if you wear a costume of not. I don’t care if you claim the title of RLSH or not. I know one thing, if you would simply sit down and test yourself by finding the positive side to each one of your complaints and nurture them… it would only be a matter of time before a forest of Good would grow in your action and influence all of those around you.

You are struggling so hard to be an individual, while your inherent traits of leadership are screaming to get out.

You can continue to call yourself a Villain, but as long as you are still taking the time to share yourself with us in THIS sub-culture/society… we will treat you as the hero you REALLY are!!

-Omen, “Heroes aren’t made during good times!” – The Elite Forces Division

www.VisualAdjectives.com

You're no villain.

A woman manipulates a mentally unstable girl, for the purposes of her taking care of him and stroking his ego, cutting her off from the rest of the world, attacking her family and friends behind her back, lying to them and harassing them without cause or recourse, roping other villains into doing his dirty work for him.

A villain is a woman that beats her children senseless, feeds them tainted water in rotten bottles, leaves them with dangerous infections from diaper-rash, walks a mile away from where her child started choking to change his diaper, gives her child away to a group of total strangers in a bus station, and still has the gall to try to turn her children against the hero that saves them from a short, painful life with her.

A villain is a man and woman, who team up to beat and rape other peoples' children in foster care, forcing them to keep quiet for fear of the deaths of their loved ones.

A villain is an abusive alcoholic, who sells the car of another man, his son, who's off in another country, fighting a war. A villain is this same alcoholic, who leaves his wife and children to live in poverty, because he refuses to pay child support, and his son has to track him down and turn him in. A villain is this same man, who writes all his children out of his will.

A villain is a woman that abandons her children to fend for themselves, while their father is stationed in a foreign country, so she can run away with a biker gang.

A villain is a man that tries to rape his own daughter on her eighteenth birthday, and when she finally gets it through his head that she's not interested, takes her back home, telling her he didn't care about her anyway, because he didn't consider any of his children to be his.

A villain is a man that marries an abusive 19-year-old girl, and ignores the pleas for help from his sons, as they get beaten down by this woman, who by all rights could have been their older sister.

A villain steals from her senile mother.

A villain is a drunk driver, who drags a little girl 60 feet, on the front bumper of his car, destroying her pelvis and ensuring she can never have children.

A villain is someone who locks his own daughters up in an asylum, for disagreeing with him.

A villain threatens to kill a small child, for standing up to him when he smacks his kids around.

A villain threatens to take a child away from a perfectly good home, because that child isn't placed on drugs to control him... not the kids that harass him every day, but him.

A villain is someone who pimps out psychiatric medications to others, solely for the purposes of a few extra dollars in his pocket, whether they legitimately need them or not, causing their physical and mental illnesses to get worse.

A villain tells a single parent and their children that they all have to be diagnosed with mental illnesses, if they want to stay in that shelter, because "The only reason for homelessness is mental illness", and he makes sure they can't get any help, because he controls the city's charities from behind the scenes, and has the mayor wrapped around his little finger.

A villain drugs a teenaged girl and rapes her repeatedly.

A villain puts drugs on the market that cause cervical cancer.

A villain celebrates the deaths of people that don't deserve to die, because he reads every 666th word of every 666th verse of every 666th chapter of a holy book.

A villain beats his children near death, and hides behind a holy book to justify it, in spite of that book's condemnation of that kind of violence.

A villain uses his position as a political or religious figure to force younger men and women to service him sexually.

A villain dislocates and breaks half the bones in her child's body, rapes her almost 300 times, uses her as a party-favour at parties with her local friends, keeps her drugged up with other kids to be used as sexual objects, starves her child, and keeps the girl from bathing for days on end, locking her away in a basement, chained to a heater.

A villain lets special forces operatives die, because of a personal agenda, in spite of information that indicates imminent danger to their lives, and the lives of countless others.

A villain hatches a plot to control the people through laws that are marketed as being good for them.

A villain kills millions in what is, essentially, a personal vendetta against anybody not like his idea of the perfect human being.

A villain manipulates his followers into killing to start a war, and then pleads innocence, because he didn't commit the crimes himself.

A villain uses his position of authority to beat, rape, kill, and steal from civilians.

A villain kills and eats people.

A villain beats animals to death for fun, and locks up babies and old people to die in hot cars.

If these traits don't describe you... if these traits don't even come close... you're no villain. You were never meant to be. You never will be. That kind of evil isn't in you.

If it outrages you, congratulations, you're as decent of a human being as anybody else has the potential to be.

If you devote yourself, your life, your efforts, and your materials to putting a stop to this evil, any way you can, you're a hero... at least, to somebody. It doesn't matter how you do it; if you fight evil, if you fight for good, you are a hero, not a villain.

I am probably an anti-hero

omen wrote:

Uhm… I would like to be very careful as to how I approach Defie's posts.

Now moving on to some of the other stuff…

I believe that you launched a premise about Society as a whole that is most certainly worth a healthy debate, starting namely with your assertion that…

“Society, historically, has only served to suppress and belittle those who are different. It is responsible for bigotry, apathy, and persecution throughout history, both by its intolerance as well as its inaction toward it.”

This speculation is based upon a point-of-view, and yet you have presented this as a proposition of absolute fact. That in itself is a FALLACY and causes the entire argument to fail.

You cannot apply a single attribute to and entire group and expect it to be a foundation to build upon. It doesn’t hold up, and whatever is built on it will crumble.

I meant to say that more often than not, this is the case. Religious persecution, Salem witch hunts, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, and any other form of intolerance can be demonstrated by both the individual or by a society at large, with one large difference: An individual, without any outside opinion present, would be more likely to change their perspective than a group.



The above video demonstrates what is all to common when a society is met with an individual. Its an example of the "group think" phenomena that has been with man since antiquity.

Society is often what sets the standard for what is morally or ideologically acceptable in any social structure. At one time, slavery, homophobia, racism, and even Eugenics were all widely accepted standards in first world countries not too long ago. Society regarded its stance on these things as what was both good and right; a standard that society tends to defend based solely on the idea that its opinion is convention. Society is always right, merely because society says so. It is this circular logic which I seek to expose if possible.

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Your complaints are focused on the negative aspects of Society without the recognition of the good. Society cannot exist in an individual alone… it always require two or more people. It is a product of culture, the brother to unity, and one of the most powerful tools for growth.

Of course it is. I focus on the negative aspects of society in response to society's almost universal ignorance of it. It's not to say that the good in society doesn't exist, I merely want society to get off its ass and do something to improve itself.

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There is NO utopia.

Your complaints about society, while true in some ways, do not hold up when compared to the whole. It is like the argument of water being wet and air being clear. You can taint water and add smoke to the air, but in its purest form they will always be either wet or clear.

I tend not to deal in absolutes either. That being said, sometimes the water can be too tainted, and there can be too much smoke in the air. When there is no one around to filter your water before you drink it, you have to do it yourself. When there is no one around to put out the fire, you have to do it yourself.

Most are waiting for someone else to act before they do, and the more everyone waits, the bigger the danger becomes. The advent of gods and myths have instituted an almost universal expectation of some bigger, better person coming along and leading the way, but the truth is, there is no bad-ass Cryptonian from outer space, or billionaire philanthropist in a costume leading the way; there is only us. If we don't become better for ourselves, no one will.

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There will always be suppression and belittlement. Bigotry, apathy, and persecution are critical when it comes to defining greatness, understanding, and perseverance! Intolerance drives a person to reach deeper into themselves to learn patience and inaction makes the words of one that inspire become ‘Faith’.

ALL of this a simply built around one’s point-of-view.

When I see a house fire on a cold night, I'm not glad that the fire is warm. I see a problem. Bringing attention to that problem, as well as putting out that fire is what's on my mind. When I see what society has become, I see a problem, and I see very few people addressing that problem. I want to be a part of the solution.

You are right in saying that the problem is perspective. I believe the problem is that the societal perspective is warped. It will most likely assert itself as the de-facto standard if what is just, so much that it ignores obvious problems within it.

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Throwing yourself on the train track to be a martyr to prove it, does not fix the problem. Being a detriment to a river that won’t change it flow… only makes you a detriment that it will go around.

Holding pride in being a Villain… means nothing.

I am not a Real Life Superhero, nor would I ever expect or hope to join those ranks. I am a writer, I am normal, but I do believe in the existence of ‘GOOD’.

Yes, but good is not subjective. Good is merely what benefits someone or something. A hammer is good for driving nails into wood, and air, water and oxygen is good for life on this planet. What is good, however, isn't always what is right and vice-verso. What is right has everything to do with conforming to per-determined rules and those rules can be either good or evil. The SS had been responsible for countless civilian deaths during WWII, but the Nazis were right, if only because the rules dictated that they killed the innocent. Sadly, these rules are almost always set by society, and I believe that a society that can't even lead itself should not be allowed to decide how an individual should be lead.

But perhaps I'm looking at this the wrong way entirely. Maybe the tribal instinct of man dictates that one must rise above the many. Maybe the masses don't want to become heroes, but rather need them to already exist. Maybe there are so few heroes because there that's how things are supposed to be. Perhaps society doesn't want something to do, but rather needs something to support. Maybe this was the way things were supposed to be, and the hero legend itself was the only thing missing.

I believe that legends and mythology is in our nature. The struggle between the powers is merely a reflection of the struggle within our own lives. The mythology of the hero and the villain is just as much a part of humanity as the human mind; each representing something, the way a stock car driver represents its sponsors.

I believe that in order to unite society, the legends need to re-emerge in the real world again, and what better legend to to unite us all than that of the superheroes and supervillains?

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You are an activist in your heart. This is why you share your thoughts. If you were truly the rebel, fiend, villain, or whatever you may think… you would not be here. You would not have the ability to make so many of us come to answer you and your thoughts.

You are just merely negative, right now.

I probably should have said super-villain instead. Villains are just the bad guys, after all. They do bad for bad's sake. The super-villain is an entirely different animal. They always have some big idea about how the world should be and who should run it. More often than not, their goals are much larger than they are, and will stop at nothing to meet these goals.I have no intention of becoming an evil person. I merely want to put on a show. I want to create an epic story to unite the people, as the gods once did.

I want to show them that icons are not just for comics and history books anymore, and once they realize that the struggle between good and evil is not just something you find on television, their world will at last will appear to be, more real to them than ever.

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You speak WELL. Your thinking is logical and your desire is so strong, that it pushes you to express yourself even amongst a group that is sitting on the opposite side of, what you perceive as, your moral scale. I am here to tell you, once again…

YOU ARE NO VILLAIN.

I may not be a villain, but I am an actor. I play bad guys on TV. I see this as a community not only of activists, but performers. Never in my opinion has a performance been more necessary than the one we play when we're out there; making a difference. I am still playing a role, only this time I'm taking it to a level that no one has before.

Within the past five years, the RLSH has enjoyed news media exposure, documentary films and veneration from the public... Sometimes law enforcement. A plateau has been reached, but I believe it's time to start climbing to the next level. The future of the super hero is a bright one, if you chose to climb. I see a the RLSH in a place where they are more than just activists, but Icons.

I have no intention of destroying or saving the world;I want to trick the world into saving itself, and I feel that the best way to do that is for the legends to be real again.

"Act the way you want to be; sooner or later you will be the way you act."

Life is a game of choices.

-Omen

Defie wrote:

I have no intention of destroying or saving the world;I want to trick the world into saving itself, and I feel that the best way to do that is for the legends to be real again.

I hope it works better for you than it did for Anonymous. They tried to get us to all rise up by saying something was going to go down and we kind of all just sat there waiting for someone else to do something.

The Great Pumpkin wrote:

Defie wrote:

I have no intention of destroying or saving the world;I want to trick the world into saving itself, and I feel that the best way to do that is for the legends to be real again.

I hope it works better for you than it did for Anonymous. They tried to get us to all rise up by saying something was going to go down and we kind of all just sat there waiting for someone else to do something.

I thought of that same thing myself. What I've learned from that experience is that the masses never really want something to do; they want something to support.

That experience has tough me that the people will do anything, so long as they are told to for the right reasons. The masses supported anonymous because they were told to support it. They joined the rally's and spread the message because the good guys; Anonymous; told them to do it. But when it came to taking initiative... when it came to society coming up with a creative idea on how to solve its problems, it never does. It's waiting for a threat to unite us, and a hero to point us in the right direction.

The world needs its heroes again. It just doesn't know it yet.

What are you, Hero, Anti-Hero, or Vigilante?

I know exactly what I am...I'm the god damn DarkShadow.


DarkShadow out