Philosophers talk about the "problem of evil" because the world is self evidently bad. Stories are about struggle because everyone has some badness they have to overcome. Suffering is a constant. Fiction that seeks to deny this is, truly, immature.
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This is not the same as endorsing the idea that really bad movies about Superman are actually good, but it's worth considering that maybe, no, Superman is not an inspirational character, he's a depressing one, because no one IRL will ever have that sort of power.
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Replying to @BootlegGirl
That's that old chestnut from Chesterton, fairy tales don't teach children monsters exist, because they already know that, they teach them monsters can be killed
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Replying to @arthur_affect
Right, but I would want to add the important "can be killed by people who aren't born with literally God like power"
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Replying to @BootlegGirl @arthur_affect
Meh. I mean, sure, that's why Captain America is more interesting than Superman, but "hey kids, being good in a bad situation has upsides" is not a bad lesson. And it's true.
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And hey, Spider-Man teaches that lesson better, because it shows that bad things may happen to you and you need to find a way to survive that and not become a total asshole, but I do find value in the "good no matter what" archetype. Which is why bad Superman pisses me off.
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And at this point it's a tired trope. If a storyteller can't find a way to make a guy with crazy superpowers be a semi-decent guy, I'm gonna guess they haven't found a way to be a semi-decent person themselves. All hail Gail Simone, who has this shit *down* for that reason.
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Replying to @MudDude4 @arthur_affect
*shrugs* guess I'm not a semi decent person, because as I said I simply cannot square the idea of a human being whole can hear everything in the world, every murder, child abuse, torture, everything, and not either be evil for not acting, or break down and collapse
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There's a cowardly way out: He doesn't know how to fix all and can't handle that, so he literally tunes it out. (He's been shown to be able to do this to avoid going mad.) That makes him kinda crappy and not inspiring, but not as bad as outright "oh he just doesn't give a shit".
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Replying to @aflintflint @BootlegGirl and
He doesn't have super mental health as a power you know.
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Yeah I feel like canon Superman has to be acutely aware of his own mental health as one of his practical limitations ("the importance of self-care"), especially because he's canonically aware of all the other timelines where he went nuts and killed everybody
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I don't think he can think of a way to "fix everything" that doesn't involve a lot of deaths (because there isn't one, unless you mind control the whole planet) and he can't bring himself to do it so he just banishes the thought. But eh...he could and should do better.
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Replying to @aflintflint @arthur_affect and
Like come on Clark you could read literally all the philosophy that's ever been written in a couple weeks probably. We aren't buying "Simple boy from Kansas" anymore.
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