IS MR. BLOCK REALLY A VILLAIN?
Hello again to everyone!
So, starting today, in addition to other fanart works of Milo Murphy’s Law, I’m going to write some words about Mr. Block. Despite the widespread contempt of this character (and personality type), I regularly felt the wrongness, anguish, and injustice towards him of many fans.
It appears to be that Mr. Block is a representative of an evil boss who disparages his subordinates. In my opinion, Dan and Swampy use it as a mockery of the deep-rooted stereotype of a “bad boss” since a lot of working people often see their bosses like that. And this is quite normal and understandable. On the one hand, this is humorous. On the other hand, it is not clear why fans frequently take this obvious irony and ridicule so seriously. And when I speak seriously, I speak of rather vague and cruel things.
Being a big fan of the agents from the future, I carefully watched every character from 2175. Undoubtedly, the pictures of Dakota and Cavendish warmly respond to the heart at their mention. However, many authors tend to take only one particular side (either good or evil). These are too ambiguous philosophical concepts, so it makes no sense to review them. Though it makes sense to discuss and criticize those character portraits that the fic writers recreate in their works when they inevitably take one of the sides of morality.
I have to accept the fact that Block does not draw on Mr. Benefactor. And I can understand the emotional reasons to construct his concept in fan works as a villain. Unfortunately, the authors' attempts to make positive characters even more positive will not work if they do not darken other characters.
It is worth going over the points of the representation of Mr. Block and figuring out why this character earned so much dislike:
• general irritation accompanied by a loud emotional speech
• rough, evil sarcasm and endless mockery
• the creation of favourites
• character visualization: gloomy facial expression, the predominance of dark tones of clothing and hair, ice blue eye colour
It's not surprising that in the overwhelming number of fan fiction this character is wicked bastard. Thank God he is not a rapist. The appearance of Mr. Block in fics stocks a sharply negative guise, risen aggressiveness, and sincere immorality, against which our beloved heroes look innocent and regrettable. For example, one of the most usual appropriated fan traits for Mr. Block is open blackmail.
In the before-mentioned works, Mr. Block is a ruthless dictator, a murderer (in one work, of the parents of one of the protagonists), manipulator, and just gross shameless idiot. But the thing is that there is no excuse for this kind of behaviour. He is sometimes so evil that the pistachions can nervously smoke in the yard. Not supported by any effort to explain the character’s logic of actions such stories help build one concept at the expense of another, which is a poor-quality study of the plot.
Villains often drive the storyline, their words and actions prompt the heroes to responses to antagonist's aggression, revealing the best in their characterization. It’s one thing when a character is just an asshole and the plot does NOT need him/her to be a full work. But when the author moves his plotline with his/her meanness, this is hypocrisy.
I wanted to share these thoughts not to prohibit the authors using Mr. Block as an evil plot figure but to encourage all the fic writers to first think about the character’s motivation and logic of actions (answering the question why is he doing this?). If you want to write a heavy text that should reflect all your emotions and thoughts, ideas, then develop a character, if you write in a humorous, mocked, and parody tone, then do not declare the weight of the work.
It is not angst that makes the picture hard and serious but the actions and thoughts of the characters.