Are the "Bad Guys" Actually Bad?

Use this forum to discuss the October 2020 Book of the month, "We are Voulhire: A New Arrival under Great Skies" by Matthew Tysz.
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Pluma
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Re: Are the "Bad Guys" Actually Bad?

Post by Pluma »

One thing I noticed as I read the book was that there were several hints that Voulhire, or the ‘good’ side, is not quite as perfect and right as it looks; therefore, the ‘bad’ side might not be quite as it is portrayed, either. I think it would be interesting to watch what happens with this as the series unfolds. I have a feeling everything is not quite as black and white as it appears, as is often the case in real life as well. It was one of the things that most intrigued me about the book.
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Post by tasteph1364 »

Krista Ash wrote: 03 Oct 2020, 14:25 There is evidence that perhaps Lord Orlin did not actually abuse children. The Riva Rohavi have very righteous reasons for hating Voulhire. Meldorath was never given a proper trial before being imprisoned.

Do you think the antagonists of the story are actually villains? Or are they more honorable than the portrayed heroes: King Wilhelm, Chancellor Maido, and King Saint Idus?
Love these questions! Again, I haven't read beyond the first book, but I was thinking that Meldorath would return as a hero instead of a villain at some point. Seemed to me that there were plenty of hints that Orlin was innocent. I can see Meldorath finding that out and lamenting his actions. Can't figure how one would make Maido anything but a villain...unless he was undercover in the first book :)
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Ruba Abu Ali
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Post by Ruba Abu Ali »

rahilshajahan wrote: 04 Oct 2020, 09:29 Thats actually a fantastic question, Krista! Kudos on the observation. I don't want to give off any spoilers in upcoming books. All I can tell you is that each of the characters you mentioned holds certain morals higher than others and hence, their actions and decisions vary. You will be considered a villain when your morals question your actions. There's no villain as such; there's only you determining whether you are a villain.
Isn't this a testimony to a book that's well-written? Just like real life, the line between good and bad can be hazy, and many actions can oscillate back and forth within the gray zone.
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Post by HannahsReads »

That's an inciteful question! I wondered that while reading. I think there's an excellent trend in fantasy to show things in shades of grey instead of black and white. The Game of Thrones series, for example, has a lot of characters who do terrible things, but the reader gets to see what motivated their decisions and then determine if they are a good, bad, or just human characters.
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Post by Raluca_Mihaila »

Tysz has a way of creating powerful and real characters. He likes to place them in a grey area, where they can balance between good and bad. I think that only when we'll get to the end of the series we'll be able to judge who was the real villain or the real hero in the story.
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Post by [jade] »

The author purposely write the "antagonists" to be not purely evil, but more so having somewhat good motives and evil ways of achieving their goals. All in all, these antagonists are still bad because they commit heinous crimes, no matter how honorable their motive.
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Wordlessly
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Post by Wordlessly »

There are obviously a lot of gray characters like Orlin but I personally do not understand Riva Rohavi's motivation behind their attacks and their overall 'rebel' angle so they come across as evil to me. Chancellor Maido is another gray character to me but Meldorath is still a bit of mystery to me.
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Prudence Emillian
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Post by Prudence Emillian »

Hi Pluma, I feel the same way. I feel that there are no "bad" guys really. Every character has a cause or an ambition. The Riva, for example, were ignored while some were killled by the late King Saint Idus and thus they oppose the growth of Voulhire.
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Post by kparikh »

Truthfully, I don't thing any story has a true villain. There are just people who have been dealt bad cards and took the wrong response. Any villain that has a complex and traumatic past most likely could have been avoided if they had gotten the proper care, if that makes sense.
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Post by Jabril Miller »

Having read the rest of the series I can't say for certain, but most (non-children books at the least) rarely fall under the mantle of blanket good and evil. It's hard to tell exactly what Riva and Meldorath's plans are for instance, but it's unlikely to be malevolence for malevolence's sake, which is (for this reader at least) what evil actually means.

Save for the biomage, which I can't figure out at all...
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Ivana Komel
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Post by Ivana Komel »

This is a great question. I found out that even though certain characters are considered bad and evil, they are not completely like that. That is why this series is great, because characters are not presented in black and white way but fleshed out like real people.
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Post by Reader 05 »

Krista Ash wrote: 03 Oct 2020, 14:25 There is evidence that perhaps Lord Orlin did not actually abuse children. The Riva Rohavi have very righteous reasons for hating Voulhire. Meldorath was never given a proper trial before being imprisoned.

Do you think the antagonists of the story are actually villains? Or are they more honorable than the portrayed heroes: King Wilhelm, Chancellor Maido, and King Saint Idus?
I think this is a really interesting question. I think in order to find the answer you would need to know the characters personality more, and I think the author will unravel this question in his other novels.

I think that all the characters have done something bad, everyone makes mistakes, if a father stole a loaf of bread because he was poor, but gave the bread to his son who was starving to death, is he right or is he wrong?

:techie-studyinggray:
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Post by Dominik_G »

One thing I really liked about this book is exactly the fact that no characters or groups seemed totally "black and white". I haven't read the sequels yet but to me, it looks like the antagonists are just as layered as the protagonists. They seem to have their well-developed reasons for being the way they are. So no, in general, I wouldn't call them "bad".
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Post by NadaGa »

Without giving away any spoilers, I can assure you that I’ve always liked the bad boy type, and somehow favor the menacing mean looking dark haired characters. The bad guys in this book, similarly to many others can be sympathized with, as you start to see their perspective and how they are misunderstood. There is a large character development in this book, where the bad characters shift but so do the good ones.
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Post by a_r_egerton »

One of Tysz's themes seems to be that very few people, regardless of their actions, consider themselves evil. The antagonists thus always have a reason for what they do, and their motive often seems reasonable, if not sympathetic.
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