The Conversation No One Wants To Have: Negative Kwami Concepts
Time for another general discussion of Kwami and their concepts that I'll likely be applying/incorporating into all of my AUs going forward.
This one specifically is something I've never seen anyone actually discuss, and that might be because it's a bit of a controversial and sensitive topic:
Not all concepts capable of having Kwami are good or neutral.
I think we kinda take for granted that Kwami are always going to be based either on something good, or something that isn't inherently bad. But that's just not true. Kwami are based on abstract concepts, and some abstract concepts are bad. Some are downright evil.
This leaves us in something of a bind, as the show always shows Kwami themselves as being essentially good in personality, and basically only being problems when at the whims of evil holders. That's kind of like, an unspoken rule, that Kwami are good. Which I think is why the show has basically just ignored the elephant in the room and been careful to not introduce a Kwami of a negative concept, because that would require a difficult decision to be made:
Either they have to decide that some Kwami are Evil, which has all kinds of implications, or that the literal personifications of bad things are just good people for some reason. It's not really an easy decision, but I feel like if I'm going to continue in writing AUs that take themselves seriously in this world, then I need to figure out the answer for myself.
I think the best way to approach this is to start from the worst concept a Kwami in cannon has, and go from there.
There's really a tie here, between the Monkey's Derision, and the Cats Destruction. Yes there are good parts of, and reasons to, destroy, but Plagg is the personification of all of its elements and traits. The good and the bad.
Derision is just in general not nice and doesn't tend to have a positive spin on it.
Both of these Kwami are annoying and more than a little rebellious. They are trouble makers, and they definitely cause problems, but at the end of the day both of them more or less do what's right. In fact Xuppu can even have respect and kind feelings for people, despite being the literal personifications of looking down on people.
Honestly, if we look at Kwami in general, we can see there concepts don't effect their personalities as much as we might think. Trixx is a little sneaky, Wayzz is maybe a tad protective, but Tikki literally never strikes me as creative or wanting to make things, and you can't even quantify what personality traits "Action" might put on a person.
So, the conclusion I've decided to reach is that Kwami personalities are at least mostly seperate from their concepts. Which makes sense if you think about it, since they've existed for millennia, that's plenty of time to grow and change beyond a default of their concept.
This is actually my reasoning for why Kwami seem to be more or less universally good, or at least not evil: given infinite time to experience, think, and puzzle things out/work through them, I think the ultimate conclusion every being would have to end up at is something that leans more towards being good than evil. Sure you can be selfish, or doom millions to death over and over for your amusement, but eventually that's going to lose its shine. Eventually your going to try something else. Try everything, actually, and it's my personal belief that out of all your options, being kind and good at your core, underneath all your anger and annoyance and whatever else you do, is the superior way to exist.
So, all Kwami end up being, if not good, then at least mostly altruistic. The worst Kwami is just an asshole who insults you, not actually evil or directly wishing most people harm.
Understand though, that this decision has consequences. Because I'm going to list some Abstract Concepts that most likely have Kwami, and we're both going to have to accept that they aren't evil or bad or even particularly toxic(or at least not unreasonably so)
Here we go:
The Kwami of Hatred
The Kwami of Vengance
The Kwami of Genocide
The Kwami of Murder
The Kwami of Despair
The Kwami of Depression
The Kwami of Intolerance
The Kwami of Prejudice
The Kwami of Violence
The Kwami of Starvation
The Kwami of Dictatorship
The Kwami of Communism
The Kwami of Capitalism
The Kwami of Anarchy
The Kwami of Conquering
The Kwami of Enslavement
The Kwami of Despotism
The Kwami of Rage
The Kwami of Jealousy
The Kwami of Betrayal
I'm not mentioning any of these to be funny or to cause problems and raise a stink, I know some of these are so bad we don't want to consider that their personification would be anything but evil. The reason I list these is to kind of hammer home that when we say Kwami can be any abstract concept, we really do mean ANY abstract concept. And I think it's important to accept the good with the bad.
Though admittedly, some of these guys probably do have cool powers. The Kwami of Vengeance is probably pretty awesome honestly. Indigo montoya has taught us it isn't all bad.
Anyways, that's all I got for now. See y'all later
