A Tip Of The Iceberg Ramble Addressing My Love Of Angry Characters

It's not a clean song but it fits perfectly.

Now to clarify before I continue further, when I say angry, I don't mean the psychopathically self-entitled anger that feels twisted, gross, and just wrong, but I do love rage on it's own. I love characters that are broken, fighting, confused, hungry, messy, angry, complicated...There's something very cathartic about it.

There's something about a deep running kind of anger that captures my attention. A bone deep kind of anger, not the 'I waited too long for my food, I kinda want to punch a wall now' type of anger. There's a sort of reclaiming honesty to it. Female rage for example, and not the the cheap kind that feels pandering.

I love blood covered characters, standing there panting, shaking, angry, screaming even, and annoyed with it all. I love it in it's messy grotesqueness. It's beautiful. Just yes to everything about it. The wild, feral, guttural, honesty of it. Sometimes my appreciation for blood-covered characters isn't that deep, it's just one of those things that I see and I go 'YESS!!' but still.

Sometimes I think we seem to love a character that has sharp edges but then we tend to try soften/water them down to justify it. But the thing is, we liked them when they were at their harshest. It's not that you can't redeem the character or they can't change, but it has to fit their character in their truest form, and not become a watered down version. Because we loved them when they were a beast, we shouldn't be shocked when they do beastly things. And when they change for the better, they still have the capacity to be a beast. Just because they become better doesn't mean they don't miss it, struggle with it, or don't still have the capability to be one. 

On the topic of 'better characters' sin-sick characters are usually struggling little balls of cynicism and anger, disgust, and I love them. (edit: I was going to do a more in-depth sin-sick character post, but in the possibly that I don't get to it, I should credit Megan Chappie  for the word 'sin-sick' in her post for 'A List of Sin-Sick Characters of Which I Am Prodigiously Fond' . I didn't know what the word was for it and it's changed my life.)

And on the flip side, we all love a good old-fashioned villain. We love a villain that is perfectly content being exactly what they are, no apologies made. They take their own self-justified rage (and sometimes full unapologetic awareness for whatever monstrous thing they're doing) and run with it. (Count Olaf as an example anyone?) We have so many nice characters, sometimes it's nice to have characters that aren't 'nice'. 

I love angry characters that also love soft things. For whatever reason, these angry sharp-edged characters make the soft thing feel even more meaningful and ironically purer.

Rage can be beautiful. It can be messy, it can be protective, it can feel like self-respect and it can be healing in the weirdest way. Rage can also be colder than ice. Characters that have hit that point and are out for blood can be some of my favourites. It's part of the reason why I adore the 'Final Girl' trope so much.

Sometimes loving the harshness and anger of these characters also makes you appreciate the soft ones even more. And once again, sometimes you don't have to choose between a character having an edge to them or simply be soft. You can have both. Sometimes the softest ones are the angriest of them all and sometimes they're not. 

Sometimes my love of angry characters is not that deep. It's just fun to watch and they add so much to the story. Rage-filled characters who aren't rage-filled in an inspiring way, are amazing too.

To sum up, I love characters filled with rage. They're not the only characters I love obviously, but sometimes the angry ones need more appreciation.