not just as.
differently bad.
especially if they were pandering to be killed, to let them escape justice, in a sense, getting away with it.
the dead don't learn.
this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2025
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Lefty Memes
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That trope in movies always bugs me. It's such a stupid false equivalency.
Especially after the protagonist has gunned down like a hundred security guards to get into that office.
I was thinking more in the sense of the villain giving their little speech to a protagonist that hasn't ever killed anyone that "If you kill me then your just like me, you'll be equally bad even though I've killed thousands and my death would actually be of benefit to the world."
I can't remember hearing any villain actually say anything like this in a while, though. Which recent movies did so? I feel like society caught on lol. The only time I can think of something sort of like this happening was in Fallout, when
Lucy spared the Ghoul in saying, "I'll never be like you," but even then, the villain never said anything; it came from the protagonist of her own accord. Personally, I thought that was one of the most profound scenes in the entire show in a positive way.
I know it’s a trope and a bit cliche but here’s a personal favorite “Not so different” remark. Love this poster (and the film obviously).
Ah, right, true. I've gotta re-watch that one, by the way!
This always got me in Avatar: the Last AIrbender. Half the last season is Aang fretting about how he'll have to kill the firelord. By this point Aang had already single-handedly sunk an entire naval fleet.
I don't see the problem.
there exists within media a CIA promoted ideal that the working people of a villainous organization don't matter but the head of said organization is a rational and moral actor. when spider-man pummels 100 guards to get to kingpin and then has a conversation about ethics with kingpin and ultimately captures kingpin instead of breaking his spine the way he did those random goons it creates within the mind a pro-hierarchy understanding of the world that those goons were there to be pummeled but that kingpin has access to agency they don't. a truly moral hero would enter the building, create a false dilemma for the guards to solve with their best solution being to leave the building for their own safety, and then beat up the guy with the most agency
Hell, this goes so much further back. I could draw a parallel to the Book of Exodus.
Moses is commanded by God to go to Pharaoh and free the Israelites. He does this by terrorizing the Egyptian populace, a populace that are under the total control of an absolute totalitarian ruler. They literally worship their king as a god. Imagine if Exodus had consisted of Moses telling Pharaoh:
"God says let my people go. If you don't, tomorrow you'll trip and break your left leg. If you don't let them go, the next day you'll break your right leg. The day after that you'll break both your arms. The day after that you'll die of a heart attack at high noon. These same conditions will apply to the next Pharaoh until my people are free."
There. Moses accomplishes his mission, and the only person who has to get hurt is the only person that has any agency in the process. But no, instead God insists on terrorizing the innocent Egyptian populace instead.
Yes, obviously things like wars with non democratic states where the populace is not in favor of a war¹ should be ended with minimal collateral damage by doing whatever it takes to kill the guys in charge of stuff and spare as many conscripts as possible
But goon lives don't matter. Zuckerberg's personal security know what they're doing. The NYPD know what they're doing. I don't see any moral issue with their deaths.
¹so Russia but not the Zionists
Sure, but you and I live by a different code of ethics than the characters who are shown mowing down goons without regard and then letting the head bad guy who manipulated all those goons live. That's the part I'm saying is a problem. You either have to have a character enact a wholly non-violent solution to the problem, or you have to have the character murder their way up the org chart and confront the top bad guy with the same violence they confronted everyone else they encountered with. What we most often see in movies is a confirmation that those with power have power because they are supposed to, which is a fundamentally fascist world view
have a character enact a wholly non-violent solution to the problem
They really tried that with Superman!
True, but I'm saying it makes a lot more sense to be okay with both than to oppose both, in current context
Last of Us 2?
no, tlou2 is ambiguous in many ways but the ellie people are the bad guys.
spoiler
they would sacrifice that one girl for a cure for the entire humanity and she was even ok with it in hindsight, joel was the one to just go up and just kill everyone to get her back because he felt bad at the very last second, dooming humanity in the process. then just fucking off to live his comfy life on this small village. like nice one, dick.
I was more talking about how you kill hundreds, if not thousands, of random dudes and then the game tries to make you feel bad for wanting to kill another one.
oh yeah, that's always a great way to break my immersion but its almost unavoidable 😔
we are the baddies though so it tracks somewhat this time. the game even addresses this contradiction here and there.
I've always thought of it as outright propaganda. You aren't supposed to use the same weapons as the enemy, cus then you are just as bad as them. You can't take power when it's available, else just as bad as them. You must remain pure, or else you'll be corrupted. Oh and off course, the lower of good always triumphs.
It's all propaganda to.mantaim existing power structures by funneling resistance into the least effect strategies, and it works.. it works really fucking well. Its a practical explanation for why leftists groups constantly eat their own. And it's all simplistic TV and movie tropes, but they've been around a long time and there is deep exposure from a very early age.
nail on the head. like our hope friendship and votes will do much against the owners of the entire system, and being as violent as the police to fight back is such a "morally reprehensible undemocratic" thing to do.
And even dumber in real life.
Its what monsters use to protect themselves.
that trope in real life bugs me too
Mr Frog: the early years
Lol this is like the entirety of batmans ethos.
Which is why Jason Todd is such a great character (in the right hands).
Bro literally pulled that gun out of their ass
Eh, I'll live with it.
Self-defense is not excluded from non-violent protest.
Robespierre, this early?
damn i guess being as bad as you isn't that bad bang
Ugh, first webp, now avif? Why can’t people just post a gods damned jpeg?
Because it's an inefficient format. Webp and avif are both a whole lot more efficient.
OK here's the deal if you can make the AI data centers go away I'll start posting webp instead of jpeg
huh...? how are AI datacenters relevant here? I'd make them go away if I was some kind of wizard but sadly I am not
I dunno lol I was pretty caffeinated this morning, and I suppose on my usual soapboxes.
Fair enough. But can we just settle on one? The various formats aren’t much of an issue on desktop. Gets much more annoying when you’re primarily a mobile user and you have to wait for the various apps to support the new format fad.
Unless you want to download it.
Get a real OS or rather a real media viewer LOL
I wouldn't have phrased it so harshly, but I agree, media viewers really should support modern formats.
to me the real problem is that most of us rely on really old protocols that would require standardization to be able to use these new, better, fomats. i can't send my friends webps and avifs if my friends are reliant on mms to recieve what i send them. so it's less a problem with oses and viewers and more a problem of needing to support the least technological protocol in frequent use
Dang, I hadn't even heard of avif yet. I wonder if that's why I just get an error and a little broken image icon instead of being able to see whatever the post's image is.