In Review: A Fool's Goddess - Chapter Twenty-Six

Well, hi! If it isn’t Sunday again, ripe for another review. The last one was pretty thin and quick, but I’ve got a couple extranarrative concepts I’d like to touch on today. No real anecdotes though—I haven’t left my house (besides walking my dogs) in like three months so I’d be hard pressed to find anything interesting to talk about. Unless you wanna hear more about how crappy GBVS’ netcode is…?

No? Fair enough. Let’s get into the chapter then.

This chapter holds the true reappearance of Asa and sets the story’s conclusion into motion. Lior’s conversation with the man is a bit bizarre, partly due to the fact that I realized how painfully underdeveloped Asa was at this point. Because of that, I needed to simultaneously elaborate on who he was as well as describe the sort of man he is after so many years.

I think it turned out better than expected. Frankly, Asa’s personality shines pretty well here and is delightfully contrasted against Lior’s sarcasm. They’re both spiritually obsessed so it was really fun to see them jab at one another while trying to avoid an explicit conflict. Lior is trying to stall for time while Asa wants to remain covert, yet the two can’t stop getting under one another’s skin.

Of course, this scene is still flawed because of how quickly it needs to reestablish Asa as a character and—more importantly—as a villain. He’s been gone for seventeen chapters and received little more than a couple mentions, yet he’s expected to seem sinister at this point. While I think Varnipast did a decent enough job of getting him back into the ring, I would not advise using your villain like this for a full-length novel. It just mucks of weak writing and poor drama.

And so we come to the first of today’s segues: let’s talk about villains.

Full disclosure: I don’t actually like writing villains. Or, more accurately, I don’t think I’m very good at writing them. This is primarily because I don’t like writing characters don’t feel human and understandable, so I often feel the villains in my stories come off as flimsy, perhaps even cartoonish when I try to get them to go all-in on the evil. It just never feels right to me, and I fear my villains aren’t nearly as compelling because of that.

I now try to compensate by writing antagonists who are not necessarily villainous—just guys who run counter to the protagonists. I’m usually much happier with this approach, though it often leaves me stuck navigating moral grays in the storytelling as result. Fine by me; I like debating things with no clean resolution. Mustache-twirlers might be easy to read, but I’m an esoteric asshole who’s keen on wasting your time discussing whether it’s possible to love someone even as you kill them.

…That may have been a not-so-subtle hint at an upcoming novel, by the way.

Getting back on track, I think good villains are characters who can do incredibly fucked-up things without becoming inhuman, i.e. remaining understandable and even relatable. One of my favorite villains is Yoshikage Kira of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part Four. That man is literally a psychopath; he kills women compulsively and has no trouble eliminating children who risk revealing his identity. He’s a monster who needs to be taken down—and yet he’s one of the most interesting and likable characters in Part Four.

Part of that has to do with Hirohiko Araki’s excellent writing. That man might forget half of everything he’s ever written, but by God is some of it pure gold. While Kira is very clearly cast as the villain, there are some later scenes that make him feel like a hero, and I would not fault you if you found yourself rooting for him at those points. It’s true that those are scenes where he’s not particularly acting like a villain, yes, but it’s absolutely fucking absurd that Araki managed to frame a homicidal maniac as the good guy for even a moment.

Of course, Kira is thoroughly established as an evil bastard by the end of the story, but to have opportunities to view the character as both a terrible villain and an unlikely hero was delightful. You want to see him fall, but before his final heel turn, you can almost sympathize with his desire to just live a quiet life. Combine that with all that juicy JoJo’s action and Stand nonsense and you have a memorable, compelling villain.

Honestly, Araki is just pretty good at writing villains in general, but I think Kira is my favorite example (I only watch the anime so I haven’t gotten to experience Funny Valentine yet). Off the top of my head, other stories with villains I enjoyed are AI: The Somnium Files and Katanagatari, though I can’t go into further details without spoiling those.

Lastly, this isn’t to say simple villains can’t be good too. Handsome Jack of Borderlands 2 and Hades in Kid Icarus: Uprising do despicable things for pretty basic reasons, but they’re still entertaining. They go more into that ‘love to hate’ field by just being complete jackasses through the whole story, but that really shows their arrogance and gets you hyped to finally lay the beatdown on them.

At the end of the day, a good villain fits your story’s style. If you want more depth and discussion, make them relatable and human. If you’re blazing forward with action, don’t bog your readers down by making them second guess whether the villain actually needs an ass beating or not. And if you’re telling more of a slice of life story, consider not having a villain at all and just have your cast play opposing forces to one another.

Take advantage of the joyous fluidity of storytelling.

Now, getting back to the novel, I clearly went somewhere between having Asa twirl a mustache and be someone you can sympathize with. He tries to argue his points with Lior, Lior argues back, and eventually we get to that bit where Asa points out that Tornara might have never been real.

Here is segue #2: are the circumstances of your muse more important than the feelings it inspires?

This was a concept that had been bouncing around in my head at that time. I saw someone bashing someone else online for saying that some game had inspired them to make positive changes in their life, with the basher claiming that someone has to be pretty pathetic to let a video game influence their life. My opinion (and apparently the opinion of the many people who responded to Mr. Basher) is that there’s nothing wrong with that because the source of influence is ultimately irrelevant in the face of the changes it inspires.

Let’s say you see a commercial for erectile dysfunction medication. It shows an old man fishing with his grandson for some reason, and this reminds you that you haven’t spoken to your own grandfather in some time. You call him up, have a lovely chat, and end up visiting him for dinner. Your grandfather then tells you that he was feeling lonely and really appreciates you taking the time to visit him. He feels better, you feel better, the world feels better.

Now, is the joy brought to you and your grandfather’s life diminished because it was a scene in a boner pill commercial that made you think about him? Is that joy less valuable than if you had been inspired by a touching scene in a movie or the sight of an old couple walking down the street?

I would argue that it is not.

Let’s try a different example. Two men donate $100 to a charity. The first one does it because he wants to make the world a better place while the second one does so for the tax benefits. Is the first man’s donation worth more because he did it with a ‘pure’ heart?

Again, I’d say no.

What drives you should always be less important than the actions you’re driven to do. If seeing a soppy turd on the side of the road inspires you to help out a soup kitchen, then I’ll ask that we leave more soppy turds on the streets. You shouldn’t have to read all about marine biology or have spent years by the ocean to decide that diving is something you want to try—getting that same drive out of seeing the sophomoric fun of Grand Blue Dreaming is just as good.

With that established, it only makes sense that Lior would disregard the notion of Tornara being fake. Her status as a God is irrelevant; what matters is how she has inspired him to become a sculptor and an asset to Tresety Village. Her image has filled him with love and comfort—are those emotions suddenly worthless because her history might be a lie?

Granted, I can see why some might say, “yeah, it’s pretty pointless to worship a goddess that never existed”, but I feel those thoughts usually come from a detached, unsympathetic view. If you found out that your parents actually adopted you, are they less valuable than the people who birthed but abandoned you? Of course not—you love the people who raised you, not the ones who sired you. The fact that you are not their biological child is irrelevant when compared to how they gave their time and resources to make sure you grew up happy and healthy.

Basically, I’m trying to say that the emotions inspired by your perceptions typically outweigh the context of those inspirations, though it is ultimately up to you to decide if a lie can be just as valuable as the truth.

After all, stories are nothing more than elaborate, entertaining lies.

After Lior decides Tornara’s veracity isn’t important, he decks Asa and somehow lets the man get away. He then chases him out of town, only for Asa to steal a horse and ride away—parting with some foreboding words. Our hero lays in the dirt a moment longer as the chapter comes to a close.

I think I did that chase bit fairly well. I wasn’t as confident in my action sequences back then so I’m glad to see I didn’t stretch it out or overembellish it. It’s quick, gives a sense of momentum, and then ends. Nice and tidy.

And with that, Twenty-Six is all done. As promised, I had plenty of unnecessary shit to say this time so I hope I’ve made up for the previous review’s terseness. I spent more time on this than expected too, and I’m more than ready for some sleep. Which I think I’ll get right on.

Stay safe, reader. I’m hammering away at my next novel, and with the end in sight of this review series, life is sure to have some nice changes around the bend. Hopefully COVID will leave us soon, but if not, I’ll do what I can to make quarantine as fun as possible.

Do your best, chum. I’ve got your back.