THREAD The decline of the loveable rogue. The only good men are loveable rogues. Popular culture has Han Solo. This man is a player, a womaniser, doesn’t “respect” women, a smuggler, a murderer, a petty crook, and probably leaves the toilet seat up.
You have to kill and be an arsehole to survive in life (don’t pretend your country isn’t based on the use of lethal force, all countries are). But there’s a way to do it, a question of style, that minimises the damage of doing the necessary. Don’t take it too seriously.
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People, fans particularly, end up idealising these characters and forget that their appeal was their jerkiness. Fans, by definition, take things too seriously—like children’s films. They lose the essence of a story.
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This is why subsequent Star Wars films become dead and lifeless. The characters that used to be rogue become stone-cold serious fanatics, like the fans. They become “too good”. The Solo character thought that “the force” was a load of bullshit originally.
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Unlikely a character like that would be written now. It’s all taken too seriously, and consequently the fun of a charming series of children’s films is destroyed. So the humourless fanaticism of the “dark side” is at work, even in the real world.
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The “loveable rogue” is an archetype found in Dirty Harry, Die Hard, Harry Flashman, and King Solomon. He is the best type of hero. And it is also found in life. Trump is basically a loveable rogue, an arsehole and pragmatist—but not a fanatic.
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Obama was a humourless fanatic. His archetype that of the preacher or moralist. Clinton also falls into this category, although as the hectoring & ineffectual schoolmarm. People who make a big show of being “good” & “correct” rarely are.
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Conclusion: Cultivate your inner jerk. Tell people you’re wonderful and superior (they think they’re wonderful and superior too, but they’re too afraid to say so). Have a roving eye. Be a pirate (Solo is specifically called that; he’s like Long John Silver in space).
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