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Sol here, with a blog that is not a reaction to a trend or some action some user has done on the site, but something else entirely. Instead this is purely literary...okay not really, but the amount of times this has been a problem, far exceed this site.

Today we're talking about Pathos, also known as 'a character's suffering', and how to do it well, and by 'well' I mean, 'don't do this nonsense'.


Definition and Importance[]

Pathos can be defined as ' a quality that invokes pity or sympathy', in short, what makes us empathize and/or sympathize with a charater or person. I use those two words seperately because too often people conflate the two. Just because I can empathize/pity a villain's tragic backstory, doesn't mean I can sympthazie/ agree with their villainous methods.

Every good character, good or bad, has some degree of Pathos. Kratos from God of War, lost his familiy to the machinations of the Gods, starting his life long hatred of them. Shinjiro felt lonely and disconnected from the people around him at the start of the Manga and yadda yadda (insert tragic backstory) However not ever attempt (and I do mean 'attempt') works, because not everyone can understand that pathos isn't something to be 'forced'.

Pathos can make us root for a hero even more, or round out a villain into more than mustache twirling joke. Knowing this difference is the line between a great hero for people to look up to, and a cringefest of a story stepped in grimdark, so dark it makes grimdark look tame.


The Difference between a Suffering Hero and an Edgelord Writer[]

Too many times people try to make a sympathetic character and just fill their backstory with enough misery and suffering to make the most die-hard nihilist go 'dude...what the hell?!' These people are what I call 'edgelord writers', but most would just call them 'hacks'. This type of writing is rather blatantly an attempt to emotionally manipulate people reading/watching.

Now I have said that all story-telling is emotion-manipulation, however, good story-telling can be compared to a dance between the author and the reader, bad story-telling is like physical assault trying to be disguised as dance moves, and no that's not a joke. The moment the reader realizes that 'hey...this is wrong', and the author is saying 'this is A-Okay', about the exact same thing in the story, is the moment the author is trying to shove something down the reader's throat, and...they aren't having it.

But let us step away from such dour imagery and look at icons of hope and moxy, the suffering hero. Technically speaking all heroes (the good ones that aren't mary-sues) are suffering heroes on some level. This is because all heroism, is decided by how the hero deals with their problems. Heroes are defined by how they deal with their problems, traditional or anti-heroes. The suffering hero is the hero whose journey is noted less for their accomplishments but how much they have overcome to get to those accomplishments or just continue forward.

Another thing about heroes, especially what often seperates them from villains, is that heroes acknowledge their own mistakes, and their culpability in their own circumstances. This is because heroes aren't looking for someone to blame, they go looking for soluations.

Many people know of the Heroe's Journey, but it is an evolution of the Medicine Quest trope. What is that, well the trope is perhaps the oldest and most varied type of story. It is essentially as such; there is a problem, the hero goes off to find a solution. This is especially important for suffering heroes. They don't sit around an brood, they go searching for solutions.

Final Words[]

Please, don't, don't write edgelord nonsense, they are another case of people trying to be cool and 'serious' and going too far and into the realm of sellf-parody and there is little worse than a parody trying to be serious.

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