The Morality of Loving Bad Boys

Morality in fiction is often hotly debated in the arts, from the morality of enjoying works like Lolita to characters like Christian Gray. Humanity is fascinated by dark and terrible humans. Sometimes a little too much, sometimes we tend to idolise the villain, both as a fun moment in a story (such as Disney villains) or as literal tyrants (such as Miquella from Elden Ring). I want to share my thoughts on this problem, because it is a hot topic among my fellow writers. Understandably so, it’s a peek into flaws that make a monster, it challenges us to confront the limits of acceptable behaviour and actions. It challenges our empathy. How far can we accept someone’s flaws and actions without condemning them? Should we make excuses for them? That is all in the eye of the beholder. And I am that beholder, for this article. Alright, let’s begin.

We can’t handle complex characters.

This video has a fatal flaw in the philosophical argument in favour of difficult or challenging characters.

I do agree with the absurdity that you can’t like characters who are evil or less then ideal in their morality and struggles. We love Disney villains because they are fun and charismatic and bring an energy the protagonist typically lacks. We find the villains in dark romances challenging because they suggest a strong male that can also be an available threat.

There is a thrill to the fantasy of being subjugated and kept safe by a scary man. Astarion is a great example of this bad boy trope. The fantasy of saving a flawed villain and empathising with his tragic backstory. The problem with her argument is that it lacks an endpoint. The ability to empathise with qualities we can relate to has a limit. Astarion is engaging because he is flawed and terrible but the reasons behind it are solid and he suffers the consequences of his actions. He learns and grows to understand just how flawed he is and tries to better himself.

This argument doesn’t fit when you get to the unrepentant, those who are tyrants and unrepentant villains. I don’t think we should love the likes of Miquella or Sauron no matter how good their intentions are. I don’t care how beautiful Christian Gray is. He is a monster and should be treated as such, no matter how tragic his backstory is. The important thing with love and acceptance of villains is when they actively try to better themselves, it is vital that they want to change. This is why when people love bad boys like Astarion, I can understand why they might relate to the struggles he has gone through.

They love his sass, they connect with his desire to be seen as a person as opposed to a piece of meat. I don’t understand the excuses people give when it comes to Christian Gray or Miquella. One is an amoral abuser, and the other is a literal tyrant trying to make the whole world worship him unconditionally. They both have tragic backstories and (to put it lightly) personality flaws. Yet people defend Gray and Miquella.

They claim Miquella had a point or ignore the flaws for the superficial qualities of the characters. This is often due to a failure of media literacy, or an inability for people to be honest with themselves. The first video I have linked does bring up an interesting fact that people cannot separate themselves ethically from the characters they like.

They don’t want to admit that the characters they are fans of might have flaws (or just be bad people) because that could suggest that they are bad people themselves. As absurd as I think this is, I can get the logic. We want to believe that we are good people, that our flaws aren’t as bad as Gray’s or Miquella’s. Admitting it, might force us to consider our perception of reality and ourselves. This failure of media literacy about loving bad boys can result in weird if not creepy interpretations of our favourite characters.

Astarion hates being sexualised, he disassociates from the act when with the twins, suggesting trauma about the act. He hates when the drow woman treats him like a sack of meat. Yet there is so much fan art sexualising and reducing Astarion to a sack of meat. We can talk about how shitty a person Gray is, but he is popular with his fanbase because the fantasy of being wanted, to fix a monster is more important to the fans than Gray is as a character. People are often more interested in fantasy.

This failure of media analysis takes on a sinister quality with tyrants like Miquella. There is a yearning to be ruled by a strong ruler, for the trains to run on time and stability to be assured. I don’t think the Miquella simps even are fully aware of this. But the unwillingness to accept that subjugating everyone with mind control magic is morally wrong and continuing to paint Miquella as a flawed but good ruler makes me question your morality. Yes, terrible people can have tragic backstories, but that doesn’t excuse their actions in the past or in the present. The key difference is how they try to either repair the damage they are doing or accepting responsibility and growing.

Astarion for example, acts like an unrepentant asshole but the more you interact with him, the more it’s revealed it’s an act. A survival tactic and an expression of what he views himself as. A piece of meat designed to be desired and used. Liking terrible people is fine, but you need to be honest with yourself. You need to pay attention and act with consideration to the characters.

Active participation within your media is important to interacting with media successfully. It’s not that we can’t handle complex characters per say, we can’t handle media analysis period. We love bad boys but often in a shallow and incurious way. The lack of emotional maturity to find something we like in bad boys while still admitting they are bad boys is a serious problem.Especially in fandoms.

Fandoms and the morality of loving bad boys.

Spend any time in most fandoms and you will see that media literacy isn’t particularly high. Often it’s completely sycophantic and mindless, often with copious doses of thirst. I do understand that while this is a problem in the fandoms, that doesn’t mean all fans within said fandom behave in the way that I am talking about. I am a fan of BG3 and other fandoms, this is just a criticism of people within the community. I find this particularly egregious in fandoms like Bulder’s Gate 3, I swear the amount of porn made of characters who have suffered through sexual exploitation like Astarion or Gale is uncomfortably plentiful.

Bonus points if it’s Asterion in a sexual scenario where his slavery past is sexualised in some way. The absence of any morality by the fandom when it comes to making porn of literal former slaves or grooming victims is striking. I know people will claim it’s just a fantasy and I shouldn’t take it seriously, or it’s kink or something else. That is fine, knock yourself out, but can we at least consider the morality of fethishizing slavery and sexual trauma when producing the porn. Have the self-awareness to reflect and consider if you are comfortable making this sort of thing.

Christian Gray, both in the fandom and in the book, itself is subject to this media literacy failure. Gray is an abusive monster who doesn’t change, doesn’t evolve and continues to control every single aspect of Ana’s life. Again, people will say it’s part of the fantasy, I get that, but god can we be honest with ourselves? You want to be subjugated by a sexy man and be controlled. Life and fantasy are completely different things and what is fun in fantasy isn’t in real life.

But please, just consider what your fantasy is, and if you are comfortable consuming it. Is it right to love as bad a boy as Gray? That would be something you need to decide, if you are comfortable fetishing abusive assholes. Fandoms like Elden Ring also have a problem with simping for tyrants like Miquella, the inability to realise that worshipping amoral rulers, the absence of morality has a sinister quality to it, as mentioned before. Why are you so eager to excuse and downplay the literal genocide and subjection of a whole group (the Hornsent) because you believe that the intentions are good or the character is hot enough? Where is the morality in loving bad boy tyrants that will subjugate you and force you to love them?

A problem with fandoms is the incuriosity of exploring the deeper meanings or challenging materials. They tend to reduce great stories and characters like BG3 or Dragon Age (and their respective characters) to the shallowest qualities possible. There isn’t an interest in exploring Cullen’s crippling Lyrium addiction but rather his hot body. Shipping is another example of this shallowness in action, wars between grown adults about which fictional characters should fuck regardless of who those characters are, is a profound lack of any media literacy beyond what turns on the respective shipper.

Why else are we shipping the slave with their slave owner aside from the fact that both people are hot enough? It’s the profound lack of morality that I find repulsive, the absence of any thinking out of the base mindless instinct feels disrespectful to the art itself. It’s like claiming Lolita is a love story, something has gone very wrong. And speaking of Lolita.

Shun Loli and Shota out of existence.

Anime had a lot of promise early on. Movies like Perfect Blue and series like Cowboy Bebop innovated on what could be shown in an animated form unthinkable in the west. Indeed, companies like Studio Ghibli and Madhouse have made countless classics that influenced and innovated across genres. Anime unfortunately is not this anymore, the onslaught of the Isekai, the Fate series and cute girls doing cute things (we all know what I am talking about) have caused Anime to turn into a mindless slurry of meaningless escapist art.

Pretty and well animated but utterly empty of meaning or substance. The respective fandoms of these products however, willingly slurp up the slop, and get excited for the next round of meaningless slop, filled with an incuriosity I haven’t seen outside Twitter. The influx and acceptance of Loli and Shota into the anime community is even more troubling.

People love to consume vacuous candyfloss media, but when you add the sexualisation of kids, that is a whole other layer of an absent morality. I would love to get into the cultural and historical buildup to Loli and Shota in Japan, but I feel that would be a waste of time. There is a whole thing about Japanese beauty standards and the intersection of youth as well as the obsession with cuteness. This coupled with (until very recent) legal age of consent being thirteen, and you get the invention of Loli and Shota: the artistic sexualisation of children.

From Boku no Pico to Dragon Maid to Fate and Free! Japan is one of the few first world countries that has normalised the sexualisation of children, beating out the US by a country mile. Loli and Shota are also tragically extremely popular within Japan. An aspect that never ceases to scare me. Now I know that there will be people who will try to dismiss this horrifying reality.

These people will either downplay the very real danger of normalising the sexual abuse of children or just ignore it outright. “It’s just a drawing!” They say, “Nobody is getting hurt from a drawing!” Another classic defence would be “Actually she’s a ten-million-year-old half dragon princess that just happens to have the physical and mental maturity of a ten-year-old.” Wish to abandon all logic and sense? Then look no further than the claim “Pointing out the ages of the people makes you the real paedophile!”

Don’t try to make sense of this, there is no sense to make. While I am relieved at the critical drumming Cuties received from the culture at large, I haven’t seen that sort of rejection, critically or financially in Japan. There are no protests against underage depictions in Fate or Free!. Boku no Pico was an exception but how much of it is a meme is up for debate. The absence of morality in Japanese media, and the most ardent fans when consuming media that normalises the sexualisation of children is stark and shocking. Something that should be shunned and shamed but isn’t within the community.

That is why I feel the absence of morality in that community, anime fans are often wired to the next flashy shiny visual treat, they aren’t thinking deeply about the media they consume because there isn’t anything there to think about. They enjoy the neurological stimulation of seeing an active girl in a bikini, they love seeing the boobies of the girl but never once think about who the girl is, how old she is. She is just the angel that makes them drool and keep watching.

The anime industry is no different from Hollywood, they follow the money, and they know what brings in the big bucks. And it’s not intelligent anime nor is it dark or profound storytelling. It is the mindless, appealing to the animal brain that sparks at seeing young attractive women.

The anime industry is amoral, pumping out worthless shit (for the most part) appealing to the lowest common denominator possible. Sure, great anime can still be produced, some of it even refrains from sexualising underage girls! But against the slop of bland wish fulfilment in a country known for harassment of women, it is still worth condemning.

Media literacy, engagement and the morality of loving bad boys.

You might notice, dear reader, a common thread in all of this, and that is a lack of media literacy and intellectual engagement with the text. While it is important to acknowledge that people often do see the problems in the media they consume and decide to like it despite it, you will often find that many simply refuse to engage with the story over the superficial thrills offered.

Sure, Astarion is hot and all but if all you see is his rippling abs, maybe you aren’t properly engaging with the art? Same with Gray, I love being subjected by a sexy billionaire as much as the next gay man, but he is abuser, no? If another weeb tries to justify the Loli scenes in Fate one more time I will have to start the woodchipper myself etc.

You know what I mean.

I see this absence of morality as a symptom of a lack of media literacy.

An unwillingness to engage with the text or accept a deeper meaning within the text. People don’t want to see themselves in bad people, they are unwilling to accept the risk that people they might relate to are bad. They don’t want to critically engage with the text under the guise of escapism. It’s too challenging to admit that you find Ranni’s plan in Elden Ring compelling, despite the obvious flaws in it, and that Ranni is a terrible person.

They don’t want to admit to themselves that they like the idea of being ruled by a tyrant, they simp for Miquella mindlessly, never questioning, never thinking. I do not want to get rid of Elden Ring or any of the media mentioned here. I just want people to be willing to interact with the media they consume better. I want people to call out questionable content in the media they consume. Reject degeneracy in anime, be respectful to characters, I want them to think. If we don’t engage with the art we consume, then stagnation sets in, and we will never become better as people.

I understand the desire to not think, to just mindlessly engage with the media we consume. To turn our brains off and just smile at the pretty colours and flashing lights. But this apathy can lead to terrible places, the indifference and the deliberate ignorance need to be fought against. Talk about the movies/books/video games you love, think about what is happening, how the story is being told and maybe even be critical.

Media literacy is critically important to the continued survival of our society and culture. If we can’t tell what is real, if we are unwilling to think, we will see ourselves believing that weather control devices are real, and the world is out to get you forever. So, start thinking, start becoming proactive in your consumption of stories. Be woke in the traditional sense.

Let’s go and read some cool books!