Why Villains Laugh

It's a staple of most genres, really. Villains have their Evil Laugh, which they use a little too often for any sort of sense-making, but having one is more or less required. As Dr. Horrible said, having a quality Evil Laugh is an important thing.

A lot of guys ignore the laugh, and that's about standards. I mean, if you're gonna get into the Evil League of Evil, you have to have a memorable laugh.

He's right, of course, from a literary/entertainment point of view, but it prompts the question: Why? Specifically, why do they need a laugh, and in what way is it nefarious? Aside from the obvious (and perhaps circular) reason that for a character to be memorable it needs memorable traits, it does seem odd that villains have such a jolly time.

Firstly, it's not always about humor. There are a lot of reasons people laugh, and sometimes it has little to do with funniness. This is more article seed than article proper, so I'll just say this: One big reason villains laugh so much is that the hero-types do the obvious, play into the villains' plans, and are generally irrational and self-impressed. Even when the result (and often, cause) is awful, the blind insistence on doing what obviously won't work sparks the sense of absurd, and laughter follows. It just may not be the laugh of merriment.

Yes, I've been laughing a lot, lately. Why do you ask?

Bad News = Good News

Some of those little discoveries I mentioned yesterday deflate or destroy any number of pretty lies. I could tell people these things up front and their reaction would be either denial or despair, with a big helping of anger at challenging their sacred blankies in the first place. Consider:

• There is no such thing as karma.
• You are neither more nor less than human, and always were and shall be.
• No one can actually empower you.
• Astrology is pretty much nonsense.
• Luck is 100% illusion.
• Fate is bunk.
• You do not have a soul mate.

Things Noticed

It's funny how many people claim to have "leveling the playing field" as their goal when everything they do is about handicapping the players - which is the exact opposite.

A related observation cautions those who would war on reality to first have a close look at reality's nearly unbroken track record of winning, as well as its pitiless treatment of its more determined enemies.

Random Thoughts on a Friday

If you abuse me or my trust, I will punish you for it. You probably won't know right away, but a price will be exacted. Guaranteed.

Especially if you think I don't know.

It finally occurred to me that the people who reliably jump to the "Who are you to judge?" position simply want to be the only ones allowed to judge.

Is this really the world?

Every so often I'm reminded that most people - a technical majority at the bare minimum - are ruled primarily by fear. It's a bit of a jolt each time. Often it's those who say and posture most correctly to be seen as strong and all that show, in their actions and reactions, their decision making processes, that the first and most significant consideration is fear. I don't really hold it against them, as such: they're following a script that isn't working, but somehow can't see that breaking the programming will break through the dread. Besides, some of my most startling revelations have come through people I like and care about, and who seem, from the outside, quite self-assured.

It's just startling to see how widespread it is.

I've labeled this "seed" because there's a lot more to say about this, but I figured I should mention it.

Random Thoughts on a Friday

Sinfest (comic) used to be modestly funny, a bit wacky and once in a while thought-provoking. Never saw it regularly, but came across it a couple times a month. Haven't seen anything in a couple years from it that wasn't flat-out pathetic.

Blatant inconsistency in what people react to - and how, etc. - provides me with some of the most hilarious entertainment I ever get.

Random Thoughts On A Friday

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone. Go remind someone what they mean to you.

I know 2 people who consistently and obviously see everything through the prism of race. One is latino, the other a (rather indeterminate) Asian.

You're not being gaslighted; you're just crazy.

Some people love working out. Not me. I love doing things in a practical or entertaining way, like bicycling, hiking, building, splitting firewood, etc. Going to the gym for the purpose of systematically exhausting myself is rather different, though. Some parts of it feel really good, don't get me wrong. Some groups of muscles just love getting used the way they were intended. But for the most part, it's mere endurance at best, and afterward, when a lot of people apparently feel energized and whatever, I feel pretty crappy for a while and just want to sleep. If the benefits didn't enormously outweigh the nuisance, I wouldn't bother. It wasn't always like this. Maybe some day it'll at least pull even again.

I've caused myself a ridiculous amount of trouble through assuming someone is intelligent and responding as if they were, so as to not insult their intelligence.

There are posts out there (especially on "social media" venues, yes) that are so stupid, so irretrievably mindless, so unshakably narrow-minded and tiny-brained, that all I can do is flip the bird at my monitor and move on.

Some times, I guess you really, really need it. But threats are never good, so do try to contain yourself.

The Olympics are always entertaining. There are endless hours of coverage of some really impressive sports I know vanishingly little about, and for 2 weeks I'm surrounded by commentary on those events by people who know even less about them than I do. Plus, during the winter games, curling. I've had about enough of the Eye of Costas, though.

Dang, I can be clever sometimes. I only wish it were more often, and that it could be done on purpose.

Do more than that.

"Just enough" rarely actually is.

Denial, Denial, Denial!

I'm amused.

It turns out that "Well, nuh uh!" doesn't actually count as a logical argument. Not even a little. But they keep on trying...

More on this later.

Funny Yet Sad

They say they're inspired by such things, but in reality very little offends people as badly as my refusal to live by their set of fears.

Power; Control

People want power. So they say.
People want control. So they show.
Power vs. control. Power or control.

Do they not apprehend that they are opposites?

Sapiosexuality

So, this article and its comment thread are pretty hilarious in general, but this part grabbed my attention:

I find BC all kinds of hot, but it's not about his looks. It's his talent, and his GORGEOUS voice. It does things to me

I am more of a sapiosexual, in that cleverness, wit, and eloquence REEEEEALY turn me on.

Fascinating, he said with a curiously familiar intonation. My understanding of evolutionary psychology, and slowly increasing agreement with many of its concepts, tells me that such a thing was not just a running gag in Real Genius, but a genuine phenomenon. I should probably be less surprised that someone coined a word for it. I'd have gone with sapiophile, but that's just me.

Don't be misled by the commenter's dismissal of Mr. Cumberbatch's appearance: If he looked like Jabba the Hutt or even Quasimodo he wouldn't have nearly the appeal he does. Nonetheless, he is (as he himself says) an odd-looking chap, and not the usual definition of Handsome Leading Man Material. So while we cannot discount his appearance entirely, the "all kinds of hot" that johnnysgrrrl and so many others find in him can definitely be credited to his talent, intellect, and, yes, voice (which I understand to combine both timbre and delivery). Though the cleverness of his acted lines depends on the craft and wit of the scriptwriter, his intelligence shines through in the way he delivers them, and in unscripted interviews and such.

Why in the world does this catch my attention at all, aside from the arguable oddity of the thing? In short, it explains a fair bit of my own history. Though not ugly, I'm also not, nor have I ever been, especially handsome. Sure, I'm tall and reasonably well-formed, and I've learned to present myself better over the years, but generally I'm an unusual one, for better or worse. And yet I've always been able to attract, and pretty well. Once I clued into a thing or two, leading to changes that were essentially dropping some bad habits, it accelerated. But I was not one iota more handsome. To the contrary, actually, as I get older. Busy reversing some of that damage, but that's a different story.

So what's the deal? Why does Mr. Weird Guy attract without really trying, and why does the attraction build over time instead of staying the same or petering out? Well, now I know. I'm intelligent; I have socially interesting talents (music, photography, etc.); and I've a trained bass/baritone voice. Add to that the fact that I'm finally comfortable being me, being this strange-acting and odd-looking guy, not giving a rip about whether I fit in, and you have a combination that really works for some people. Fortunately for me, it's the kind of people I like to be around.

Odds are fairly strong this is another topic I'll return to later.

Pondering Wages Of Virtue

A group of articles I've read in the past few days has coalesced into a notion that links together some things normally discussed separately.

1. Sloth is mostly comprised of short-sightedness. How so? It tends to cause more work later on, whether from things getting atrophied/stuck/damaged or, if the slothful tendencies are ingrained enough to become self-righteous, in complaining that others have too-high standards, or any standards at all. The path that truly involves less work has more to begin with. Short-sightedness therefore leads to both the vice and the thing it attempted to avoid.
2. As a corollary to #1, overcoming the vice early on yields both less work and a better outcome.
3. Most or all vices follow this pattern.
4. Epicurus not only covered this, but objective analysis of the phenomenon is the root of his philosophy.
5. Insisting that others should have no standards at all is not only dumb, self-defeating, selfish, and illogical, it is very, very popular.
6. Approaching virtue as something with rewards aside from itself, which it almost always has, is a very useful way to promote it as a habit or set of habits.

It probably looks like I've been mostly posting up ideas of articles instead of items fully realized. That's because I am. Sort of storing them here for possible later development.

A Report From The Dept. of Duh

I could go into this ad nauseum, but with women's hair, generally speaking, long is good and short is questionable at best. The stylist at that link (who skips my "at best" caveat entirely) says the wackitoff urge is worst for older women, but he doesn't explain why.

Dang. I don't have time for explaining either just now. I'll get to it later. No one's reading this anyway, so why not tell the whole truth?

Strong Characters

Ever notice that for all the lauding of "strong female characters" there is never any mention of strong male characters? The phrase itself never even gets formulated. Ever wonder why?

Yes, of course I know why. I'm asking you.

As an experiment, ask someone what they mean by the phrase when they say it, or what is meant when it's seen in a review (or diatribe, or whatever). Then compare that to the character used as an example, and see how well it tracks. See if it applies to male characters. Ask why it doesn't ever get used for them. Are they all strong? Do no counterexamples (weak male leads) come to mind in a few seconds, or conversely, in a day's pondering? Does it apply to villains, of either sex, and is it a good or bad thing regarding their villainous ways?

Then realize that the answers to the above only set up the real thought that should go into this. The questions that come from those answers are the really interesting part. And some of them don't have easy answers.

I'll probably return to this notion some other time, but thought I'd just toss it out there.