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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   3070 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 28, 2022

Be advised; this thread is not for serious in depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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There's some number of "revisionist" fictional works that take a well-known story and portray it from the the villain's side. Ie. Wicked is Wizard of Oz from the side of the Wicked Witch of the West, Twisted does the same to Aladdin from the point of view of Ja'far, The Last Ringbearer is LotR from the side of Mordor etc.

What other stories you can think of where you could actually do this relatively easily? I've seen Incredibles from the point of view of Syndrome mentioned as a potential example (I mean, when you think of it, "When everyone is super then no-one will be" does not sound that villanous by itself), but here's one suggestion: Full Throttle, the classic 1995 Lucasarts adventure game, I suspect many here have played it. It's almost 20 years old so I probably won't be spoiling anything:

For the last decade, Adrian Ripburger has been looking at US becoming a Mad Max society, an unsafe hell where the highways and open stretches of land are ruled by criminal biker gangs. At the centre of it all is Corley Motors, a company that seems intent in not only producing the powerful bikes the biker gangs use but whose "former biker" boss, Malcolm Corley, even relishes in maintaining hostile biker culture of destruction (demolition derby). Ripburger has resolved to change this from inside, almost succeeding in making Corley Motors a normal company producing minivans and other family-friendly vehicles, as a part of a general transformation to a more peaceful society, but is thwarted by Old Man Corley's illegitimate daughter, who is openly in cahoots with one of the premier violent biker gangs, particularly their leader - a man whose idea of a good way to get some information is bashing a barman's head on the bar desk by yanking his nose ring...

The only thing at this point you really need to change is who farmes who for Old Man Corley's murder, and there you go.

Not quite what you're asking about, but Stephen King's N. allows for an extremely fitting alternative explanation where the protective circles are actually summoning circles. Imagine that you're Cthulhu and you can send some mortals nightmare visions trying to get them to summon you: obviously you should convince them that what you want them to do prevents you from being summoned.

Not exactly on point, as it's another example of an actual "revisionist" work, but it's one of my favorites.

The Vampire Tape by Fred Saberhagen is a retelling of Bram Stoker's Dracula from the Count's perspective. One of the constraints on the tale is that Jonathan Harker is an honest narrator in his letters from Stoker's book; it's just that he misinterprets what he sees, jumps to incorrect conclusions, and otherwise presents the Count in a bad faith light...at least, according to Dracula himself. Reading between the lines, Dracula is not nearly so innocent as he protests, but also not the monster that the "courageous...though rather dull" Harker and the "imbecile" Van Helsing describe.

“The vision of Van Helsing as a vampire is one before which my imagination balks; this is doubtless only a shortcoming on my part; he may have been well fitted for the role, since as we have seen he had already the power, by means of speech, to cast his victims into a stupor.”

Biff, a story of a family plagued by time travelers.

More seriously, I wouldn't be surprised if Marvel gave Thanos a PoV movie.

I've always felt that the vice principal from The Breakfast Club would make for a good flawed protagonist. I would also snap if I had to deal with juvenile delinquents who look like they've been held back a year like ten times.

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