Kerry Allen

If you are a member of an Evil Organization (hypothetically speaking, of course…) and you betray the aforementioned Evil Organization, are you now considered:

a. One of the good guys.

b. Even more of a bad guy because in addition to whatever flaws led you to become a member of an Evil Organization to begin with, you’re now also a dirty, stinking traitor to your comrades.

c. Depends on your motivation for the betrayal.

d. What difference does it make? Some sick bastard will draw you into a dude-on-dude lovefest no matter what you do. (Links in order of increasing wrongness. And I didn’t even get into the OMG EYE BLEACH STAT ones.)

(My god, how I hate yaoi. The appeal has been explained to me: “Two yummy heroes for the price of one!” But frankly, one of them’s always kind of a girl anyway, so I still don’t understand the obsession with forcing homosexuality on characters created by others with no obvious homoerotic intent. And it’s usually forced by girls. **meperplexed** Yummy guys uninterested in girls and competing with us for the remaining yummy guys is a desirable thing? Does not compute.)

But back to the topic that got lost way long ago, at what point does the Really Bad Boy become Heroic, or do you never find it believable that a character previously portrayed as a rank bastard could have legitimate reasons for behaving badly and eventually redeem himself?

(In other words, I’m feeling sorry for my villain at this point and whipped out—even with my gimpy hand, I whipped—50 pages of notes for his own quest for twue wuv, and I’m afraid I’ve made him so loathsome in his villain role, he’ll get booed off the stage when he’s the star.)

(Edit: This is completely a rhetorical question, I’ve realized. I have to write what I have to write, and if everybody hates it, that’s the way it is. No one will ever be able to accuse me of selling out, simply because I’m not flexible enough to write to order!)