The Bastard Hero
Sep. 13th, 2007 08:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lesbiassparrowTo get over my tragic disappointment that both my 'Autumn Tale' and 'Loveholics' DVDs did not have any subtitles at all (not even really terrible ones) I am posting thoughts of less than deep variety. (I am also watching, thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
baleanoptera's recent picspam, Robin of Sherwood. So good. So full of attractive men leaping through the greensward. Plus the best Marion ever. How the hell the recent series managed to screw up the Robin Hood legend so badly is beyond me.)
Anyway onto the fascinating subject of this post, the bastard hero. Kdramas are, as far as I can see, almost obsessively fond of this character. They're not alone in that, of course: romance is full of men with less than perfect social skills who are redeemed by the love of a good woman. Normally I roll with this and even enjoy their wankerishness because I know eventually they will have to bend or break to get the heroine.
However, my reaction to both 'My Name is Kim Samsoon' and much earlier to 'Full House' (where I also spent most of the series wanting to smack Rain's character) has made me realize that while I can accept the bastard hero in romance and melodrama I have a much harder time with it in comedy. I guess it's because it's the nature of comedy that the hero will suffer much, much less and thus his nasty behaviour will not reap its due bitter reward. However, in melodrama he will usually have to spend much time suffering terrible angst and emotional pain because of his behaviour and thus my desire to see him be horribly tortured is satisfied by the narrative. In comedy it is not very comic to do that sort of thing to your hero so he usually escapes fairly unscathed despite his record of horrific slights and insults.
In addition, in comedy you don't usually have a tragic past mapped out for the hero that explains his horrible interactions with the heroine. (I think it's not surprising that Draco, who is I think, largely a comic figure in the actual Harry Potter canon as opposed to fanon is usually given a horrifically awful family life in fanfiction. It goes a long way to fit him into a standard byronic model which Rowling's character does not. But that's beside the point). As I am small-minded enough to demand horrible pain and suffering in the past of anyone who is going to be a total jerk I am probably doomed to hate the bastard comic hero. Unless, of course, anyone is going to be good enough to actually have one of them eaten by bears in the final episode.
I am interested to know what bastard hero did or didn't work for you and why and what bastard hero everyone else likes but you can't stand. It would make me feel much less lonely in my hatred for Samshik.
But! (and this point is not connected at all to any of the ones above) you should also go and look atcalixa's picspam of Legend of the Condor Heroes. I can't wait for this one: it looks packed with attractively dumb heroes, fighting, villains, and furry hats. I am also tempted to make it my first wuxia but I doubt I can restrain myself from the genre that long.
baleanoptera's recent picspam, Robin of Sherwood. So good. So full of attractive men leaping through the greensward. Plus the best Marion ever. How the hell the recent series managed to screw up the Robin Hood legend so badly is beyond me.) Anyway onto the fascinating subject of this post, the bastard hero. Kdramas are, as far as I can see, almost obsessively fond of this character. They're not alone in that, of course: romance is full of men with less than perfect social skills who are redeemed by the love of a good woman. Normally I roll with this and even enjoy their wankerishness because I know eventually they will have to bend or break to get the heroine.
However, my reaction to both 'My Name is Kim Samsoon' and much earlier to 'Full House' (where I also spent most of the series wanting to smack Rain's character) has made me realize that while I can accept the bastard hero in romance and melodrama I have a much harder time with it in comedy. I guess it's because it's the nature of comedy that the hero will suffer much, much less and thus his nasty behaviour will not reap its due bitter reward. However, in melodrama he will usually have to spend much time suffering terrible angst and emotional pain because of his behaviour and thus my desire to see him be horribly tortured is satisfied by the narrative. In comedy it is not very comic to do that sort of thing to your hero so he usually escapes fairly unscathed despite his record of horrific slights and insults.
In addition, in comedy you don't usually have a tragic past mapped out for the hero that explains his horrible interactions with the heroine. (I think it's not surprising that Draco, who is I think, largely a comic figure in the actual Harry Potter canon as opposed to fanon is usually given a horrifically awful family life in fanfiction. It goes a long way to fit him into a standard byronic model which Rowling's character does not. But that's beside the point). As I am small-minded enough to demand horrible pain and suffering in the past of anyone who is going to be a total jerk I am probably doomed to hate the bastard comic hero. Unless, of course, anyone is going to be good enough to actually have one of them eaten by bears in the final episode.
I am interested to know what bastard hero did or didn't work for you and why and what bastard hero everyone else likes but you can't stand. It would make me feel much less lonely in my hatred for Samshik.
But! (and this point is not connected at all to any of the ones above) you should also go and look at
calixa's picspam of Legend of the Condor Heroes. I can't wait for this one: it looks packed with attractively dumb heroes, fighting, villains, and furry hats. I am also tempted to make it my first wuxia but I doubt I can restrain myself from the genre that long.
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no subject
Date: 2007-09-14 04:35 am (UTC)I went nuts over Robin of Sherwood at my LJ when I got the DVDs earlier this year myself.
And you know you want to start your wuxia life with the flying carpet death...
no subject
Date: 2007-09-14 04:41 am (UTC)Or the one where the hero woes the heroine with bunnies.
As for the bastard hero, if the heroine has done him wrong or he thinks she is crooked I am far more sympathetic.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-14 04:48 am (UTC)Also in fantasy couple, she gives as good as she gets, if not better.
Like when the secondary girl says "tell oppa thank you for before" she just flat out asks SG if she wants her to thank him, or if SG just wanted to make sure she knew he had done something for SG. That scene holds a special place in my heart.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-14 05:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-14 05:33 am (UTC)And no. There's angst, manpain, manshouts and she spends a chunk of the end near death thanks to poisoning(there's a lot of poisoning in wuxias.) There is minor ripping out of heart, but not on the same level as...say...Young Warriors.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-14 08:06 pm (UTC)As for wuxia, you should probably get the following:
The Little Fairy -- for carpet death amongst many other amazing plot points and Hu Ge's excellent screaming manpain.
Return of the Condor Heroes 2006 -- it's classic, even if the 2006 version isn't the best, it is definitely the prettiest. And all contemporary wuxia fans have to have seen at least one drama with Liu Yi Fei in so you can be sneeringly opinionated when people bring her up in the forum wars.
Sword Stained With Royal Blood -- the fight scenes are intense and of course the bunny courting is absolutely great
Young Warriors of the Yang Clan -- despite the really sad ending, this one is my favourite. It has five different otps, love triangles, otp interlopers, wars, mongols, raccoon hats, betrayal, politics, family drama, spears, everything.
Legend of the Condor Heroes - Duh. It will probably be out this spring, woohoo!
no subject
Date: 2007-09-14 11:20 pm (UTC)This was probably the saving grace of the character for me. He might have been pretty awful (and that dreadful dinner where the four main characters are eating where he calls her screenplay dumb and her stupid without having even read it made me see red) in the end he did stick his neck out for her and take the consequences for his action. And there was a year's worth of having to read scriptures and presumably reflect on his asshatery to satisfy my urge for vengeance.
I cannot wait to watch The Little Fairy. It's that and Sword Stained with Royal Blood first. I want cannot wait for all the delicious manpain, laced with flying carpet deaths and bunny courting. I am also looking forward to seeing Ariel Lin in something where she's not stuck playing a totally drippy character.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-15 12:00 am (UTC)And yay re: Ariel! She is very endearing in The Little Fairy and has great chemistry with Hu Ge so there is also that to look forward to. I still have to finish SSWRB myself, and then I will find more wuxia gems.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-15 04:11 am (UTC)I think he had been spoiled by years of brooding over the wrongs done to him by Hee-Jin and thinking about how he missed being smug and annoying with her.
I think you're right on the Full House front. Rain's character was a bit of a git, but he usually showed all the signs of being really guilty about it. And I don't really expect a 20 year old or so to have the maturity of a 27 year old so there was that.
I am looking forward to seeing Ariel in something decent; she was terrifically cute in Tokyo Juliet but the character just kept sobbing every five minutes over some ridiculous slight. And Hu Ge manpain! I see no down side here.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-16 05:36 am (UTC)