A Deep Dive Into Cautionary Characters

death tragedy reconstruction deconstruction sadness and regret a cautionary T to put is simply is a story with the message of warning the viewer of a specific danger this could be the danger of greed Pride love Revenge Bounty and a million different other things and with that logic a cautionary character is simply someone whose own individual story serves as a cautionary T we see this type of characters pop up throughout all sorts of media with some of the most famous examples being Anakin Skywalker Walter White L yogami and more recently with characters like Erin joer and Franklin Saint and let me tell you something I absolutely adore these characters these dark transitions they always have seem so raw and personal to me I relate to them sympathize with them empathize with them to the point that when an opposing opinion comes condemning them it's almost as of a natural instinct in me comes to defend them even as horrible as they are he's bad because he killed all of humanity shut the up you rat piece of don't you dare judge them that's my son that's my daughter that's my Pooky bear okay I got a little bit too deep into that and this feeling seems to intensify by a th% when that character is the very center of the story the main character which is what we're focusing on in today's video seeing the story through their eyes creates a sense of closeness and understanding for these characters that goes far beyond what you would usually get with the villains or sad characters I'd even go as far as to argue that we relate to their struggle more than you would with your typical hero main character but rather than overcoming it they submit to it embrace it and in the end simply become slaves to it I think seeing them devolve in what feels like real time brings out the worst part of us but in the best possible way something that a part of us wants but can never fully realize because you know we're not Psychopaths but it's for that reason that when it reaches the point when they are clearly too far gone there becomes a divide within the audience some are able to let these characters go and appreciate them for what they are whilst others simply can't make that distinction never leaving the irrational defense they feel towards the character however I'd argue that the opposing side of that can be even worse as some people condemn these characters so harshly completely denying the relatability aspect of these characters denying arguably the most important aspect of a cautionary character which is something I'll get into later in the video and this is why these characters are so controversial once again you see this especially after the ending of these stories as it's very common to see criticisms like light should have won I hate Skyla or eron should have done the rumbling or the complete opposite that they should have got a much harsher and brutal fate and the most important aspect of this is that in the end we have a lot of people overlooking the cautionary and simultaneously beautiful message presented in these stories instead viewing it as a personal attack on their own feelings and values and you know you know what I think that's a real shame and this brings me on to the reason why I wanted to make this video today I'm going to be looking at the numerous cautionary characters we've had over the years in an attempt to dissect what exactly a cautionary character is looking at where they stem from The Mask they use parallel they always seem to have the slave and the problem with them and by the end of the video I can promise you a new F found understanding and appreciation for these characters and the hidden beauty that you can find within them all for the sake of trying to make our experience of stories more fun productive and most importantly meaningful and to do this I'd like to go all the way back to the creation of these characters the author I think the beauty of stories is that it's an extension of the artist soul and by far the most interesting scenarios I've come across is an author talking about a cautionary character they've created George Lucas talking about how a huge part of Anakin's character stems from the part of humans that refuse to let go of things the part that fears letting go of things or Steven Knight who talks about how a big part of Tommy Shelby's character STS from the nihilistic part of humans that form throughout their life especially after experiencing trauma now in making this video I looked at numerous examples of authors and their own unique description of these characters now what's really interesting here is the common thing that I found between all of these descriptions the author always writes these characters to be the worst part of themselves a part that they want to see come to light and at the same time get rid of one case I find more interesting than the rest may be a little biased because I do love the story so much is hajim isayama the creator of one of the most impactful series of the last 15 years Attack on Titan in an interview with the New York Times hajim isayama said explicitly that eron is the worst part of himself and that the story of Attack on Titan was about getting rid of that part of himself now based on that statement alone you might not find it that intriguing but I think this thought becomes a lot more interesting when you look at the author's life and Link it to the character and trust me it gets a lot more raw like really really raw raw sayama grew up in the rural part of he City surrounded by huge walls with a desire to always leave his village and see more very similar to the Ambitions of Aaron and Arman at the start of the series prior to this big bastard pulling up eventually he did leave the village to pursue his mangaka dreams where he quickly found success with his first ever manga becoming a huge success Attack on Titan a feat that is beyond insane when you take into account that most popular mangaka had a lot of failed attempts before getting a complete calization let alone it being as popular as Attack on Titan and with that isayama has expressed numerous numerous times over the years just how grateful he is for this I think the somewhat positive outlook he has is reflected when he talks about how at the first half of this manga he related heavily to Arman somebody whose entire character is based around hope curiosity and optimism however just as he said this all changed when when we entered the third core of the manga and the outside world was revealed to be a lot worse than the inside like a lot lot worse a very very disappointing reality for young aarin and it was here a deep desire was born to Simply wipe it all away erasing it from existence I think it's clear to see what the worst part of his sayama was a deep disappointment of the world and an underlying desire to Simply erase it all away a desire to destroy everything in an interview with The formale Alchemist author hu Arawa in 2021 is sayama mentions this deep desire to destroy everything and probably a little bit freaked out she responds by asking him a question as an author does your work reflect your self worth and in response he says that I think it reflects my personal desire to express myself through destroying things I'm not talking about destroying civilization or annihilating mankind but turning the world upside down and I think with that context one of my favorite moments not just in the series but of all time becomes even better becomes even darker and becomes even more personal eron apologizing to a child that he knows he's going to kill in the future I'm sorry I'm sorry you see it's to save the island to save eldia but it's more than that the reality of life beyond the walls was nothing like the world I dreamed about it was nothing like the world I'd seen in alman's book when I learned that Humanity had survived beyond the I was so so disappointed and so deep in my heart I made a wish I wished for it to all be wiped away I'm sorry I'm so sorry I'm sorry to me it seems like ayama is talking to himself here more than he's talking to the viewer his disappointment with the cruelty of mankind the pressure the workload and his own personal suffering gives birth to once again a desire to wipe it all away in an interview with the director of the fourth season of the anime Hayashi he talked about how isayama specifically instructed him to get the viewers hyped up when Aaron approaches Marley with all the Titans however after seeing him apologize to the kid and seeing how disturbing and disgusting his actions were you're meant to feel repulsed by Aon questioning why you were even rooting for him in the first place and that's something that I'll talk about later on in the video that being said this isn't the first time he's expressed this meta kind of relationship with eron he also mentions that in knowing the future and suffering because of it also reflects his own constraining relationship he has with writing attack and Titan having not changed the ending he's had in mind since the first chapter of the series that released all the way back in 2009 now that's not to say that isayama is a nihilist in fact he's very much quite the opposite this isn't all he feels like everybody he has numerous sides to him and every character is a reflection of the author to a certain extent Attack on Titan's main message to me after rule is that the world is cruel but at the same time very very beautiful which is something we see through Arman mea and the rest rest of the scouts all different aspects of a sayama as he's previously mentioned but Aaron was simply the worst part of who he was and it was for that reason he wanted to get rid of it and when you add the context of paradise being under oppression the future being inevitable and a million other atrocities isayama is able to express his desire and urge to wipe everything away in the most extreme and visceral way possible so what does this mean for the viewer well I go back to my earlier statement in the intro it brings up the worst part of ourselves I love to help isayama as a genius Storyteller but at the end of the day he's only but a human and anything he relates to is something that we the audience can also experience and relate to obviously I hope none of you want to wipe out all of humanity but I can definitely relate to him in my own way the stress of University just life in general and a million other different stressful things sometimes I just want to erase it all out of existence and that's why so many of us can sympathize and empathize with eron situation even when it's clear to many of us that he's too far gone I truly believe cautionary main characters are unique and that these are really the only type of of characters that can bring out these visceral and kind of dark emotions that lie within us to such an extreme extent their position in the story Ro time development Etc it's their beauty but that being said not everyone is able to see through this mask and that brings me on to the next section of this video but quickly before we get into the next section i' just like to say that I'd really appreciate if you can give this video a like it helps get the video out to as many people as possible and you know that would be very nice also I try my best to post a video every 10 days so if you would like to see more videos like this one feel free to subscribe I'd really appreciate it also just in general I appreciate you taking the time to watch this video God bless and let's get straight into the next section another common thing that all these characters seem to have in common is that they all have the perfect excuse to do something we'd normally consider bad something that they and some of the audience use to justify their actions and a lot of the criticism I've seen for these characters stem from them arguing that sometimes these reasons seem a little too justifiable negating the entire point of a cautionary tell and with that I say I completely disagree I I think it's actually the opposite the more understandable it is the more effective of a cautionary ta it becomes it's actually genius and I think the best way of illustrating this point is by looking at one of the most iconic cautionary characters of all time Walter White in the very first episode we the audience are given the perfect excuse for why Walter goes and becomes a drug lord cancer not only does he comfortably pay for his treatment but also when presented with an inevitable death he needs a get-rich quick scheme money to help his family this comes off as altruistic yeah we see him get annoyed that Hank is throwing him around students disrespecting him and a friend actively offering him money to help his family but hey you know who cares they're all Pricks I'd probably feel the same way right at the end of the day none of this really negates what seems to be his core and very understandable motivation money for his health and the future of his family this creates a sense of empathy we can justify his actions and that's why throughout the majority of the story we end up rooting for this guy for a lot of people the understanding we have for them develops into a fierce defense of all of their actions rational or otherwise but there's always a time in the story where that rooting needs to to come to a halting stop the further away I get from Breaking Bad the less sympathy I have for water he got thrown a Lifeline early on and if he had been a better human being he would have swallowed his pride and taken the opportunity to treat his cancer with the money his former friends offered him he goes out on his own terms but he leaves a trail of Destruction behind him I focus on that more than I used to when you take all of that into consideration you wind up saying why was I rooting for this guy I think Vince's thoughts on Walter poed Breaking Bad highlight perfectly the experience these characters are trying to Pride the viewer rather than calling their initial reasoning a mask that slowly comes off I think it'd be more accurate to say that it's a mask that slowly gets created by these characters as we get deeper into the narrative only to get crushed at the end of the story the evidence for this is that Walter doesn't stop this cancer excuse may have been the trigger but by the end of the story it clearly wasn't the real reason it was his pride and that's what the genius is here recontextualization we rewatched previous scenes and we can see that from the very first minute where the floor in his character was a prominent example being the one that Vince mentioned the idiocy of him not accepting help from his friend but even after stating all of these examples and a different view of Walter post ending from the very Creator himself it's still not enough to convince people on either side of that he was right or the story was too sympathetic for him category of fans so it brings up the question is this the author's fault do they have a responsibility to show us that these characters are absolutely and unequivocally Wrong by having a video of them burning in the deepest despair of Hell suffering for all of eternity absolutely not there's obious ly a reason the author does this to make the cautionary message more impactful if it was a show where Walter was the straight villain no excuse he just wants money then one I think it be a pretty boring story and two the cautioning message would be a lot less impactful arguably even there the only reason I'm able to question myself is because these courses seem justifiable and that's why I say the more the merrier another example I'd like to give is the one I mentioned earlier in this video when the Titans were approaching Marley the music was playing we were so hyped we wanted to see Aaron kill every single person in the island after seeing an innocent child who was also oppressed and who also wanted a better life for his family and friends get crushed it makes us question why was I rooting for this guy once again the more these characters relate to the reader the more impactful the message becomes when experiencing their downfall we are warned that even if not to that extreme extent we could easily end up like them and that we must be better than this well if you're still not convinced yet the author gives us a character right besides them that show us what the right thing to do is the right path to go down and that brings me on to the next section of this video now in every cautionary character story there's always the character right beside him or beside her that is there to inspire others but opposite of what a cautionary tell is now the author uses these characters to specifically highlight the wrongdoings of the main character this is usually different from your ideal villain versus hero clash as is given to us as a character in the exact same situation but one that makes different decisions and obviously leads to a different outcome and I think the best way of understanding the depth and importance of these characters is by looking at some examples of how these two d Dynamics work and for this video I've decided that light and L and Franklin and Leon highlight this perfectly and I'd like to start the section off by looking at light y the story of Death Note starts with a Bor child whose world gets turned upside down after finding a Death Note where he then uses to try and change the world only to ultimately fail at the end of the story even in that very surface level summary of what Death Note is about you can see the floor and lights character his boredom or to make it sound even fancier the lack of meaning in his life even before getting the death note I wouldn't say like was completely innocent he wasn't your average happy high school kid he was a child that seemed very detached to me lonely he stands above his peir as somebody who's smart handsome physically gifted and very popular a man blessed in almost every regard but it's because of that that he's not really able to find any value in these things now that being said when confronted with a book that can kill almost anybody in the world a lot of people no actually most people would have probably thrown it away most likely because they'd be very scared of it and also because they probably have a good moral conscience but more than anything because they have meaning elsewhere in their life they don't need this but before the viewer gets put with that question an excuse is given light decides to use his power to create a positive impact on the world the author adds complexity to this discussion and it's what a lot of people use to justify light's actions so once again is the author to blame for this absolutely not now to explain this point I can easily go down the route of just showing how light becomes a very narcissistic psychopath by the end of the story with a God complex that isn't real but that's boring and it's probably been done a thousand times instead I'd like to look at his direct parallel l l like light is very detached from society and is also unsatisfied with the world but in the course of his battle he's forced to show his face interact with the police force directly whilst engaging in genuinely one of the greatest mental battles of all time but while light becomes more and more Hollow we see something beautiful happen to El L it builds a connection a connection with the police force and he starts to genuinely have fun with the people around him and finally enough starts to build a bond with the very man who is fighting light but in the end he dies failing to defeat Kira and being met with a grim Smile as light slowly starts to fade away from his eyes so you're probably wondering right hus isn't this section about proving that the author is trying to show that L yogami is bad and he's meant to reward the good guy with a happy ending and well you're probably right you know I was bullshitting this whole time you know this is about showing that Lamy is right if you see a criminal in any way shape or form even if he stole candy from the shop kill him kill him after actually finishing the series is we see LA's life and his inevitable death in a much different light than when you originally saw it do you get it why I keep saying light because light yamy you know he's the main character and what I'm talking about and that's meant to be the joke okay forget L dies a noble death and as much as I hate near his will lives on showing that his life had real world meaning not to mention the implications of there being a heaven and hell and Death Note L made an impact on the world his life meant something and his will lives on through people that he cares about this was the harder path the boring path the whatever you want to call it path but at the end of the day it was the right path he always chose the harder option and in the few years that he did lived he lived a much more fulfilling life than the hollow years that light lived with his book light was handed an easy method on how to deal with the world and it showed in his very flawed approach these easy solutions come with a cost killing serial killers isn't enough you have to move down to lesser criminals and lesser ones and we reached the point where you are killing people that you can genuinely reform and you see the implications of an individual holding so much power he becomes even more detached from society and therefore has no real connections with people around him and when he gets broken and when the God complex gets removed we see how hollow he is and how there was no real meaning in his life outside of the boring section post light's death and only focusing on light's death I thought death not had an absolutely brilliant conclusion however to this day we see people call this ending bad because light went out sad or he should have won and I think it's a real shame that they're not letting his death impact them in any way not letting the message reach them that being said I'll come back to the idea of messages and final say later in the video another example that I think shows us in a different light comes from Franklin and Leon as in this situation they weren't really enemies they were friends now at the start of the story we see that Franklin is genuinely an innocent kid somebody who made it out of his ghetto area and is the only one that managed to thrive in his education whilst Leon gets stuck behind and even with all of that they're still very close friends best friends that being said Franklin gets his hands on a moneymaking method crack cocaine and he brings Leon and the rest of his family into it and long story short over the course of the next five seasons we see Franklin and Leon destroy their own Community going from battling gangs to battling the FBI the CIA and ultimately in fighting between his own family and friends now there are a lot of factors involved in destroying his community the FBI and the CIA is obviously the biggest one but Franklin and Leon were a huge part in helping them but that being said at the peak of the story Leon travels to Africa sees the word for what it is finds pride in helping his own people and wants to bring his community closer together leaving his previous life for a greater person purpose whilst Franklin loses his mind obsessed with money because of his greed until ultimately we reach the final episode between a leon who's become a very respectable young man and a Franklin that just looks like a shell of his former self the creators don't have to do anything more to show you what type of message they want you to take away from this interaction you don't understand yo yo um I got no [ __ ] change on me man and I hope this shows you the importance of having that parallel character to me it's doesn't only serve as a beautiful storytelling method but also serves as a method of strengthening the cautionary message presented in the story but now that I've laid out all of this I really want to get to the core of these characters so what is it that continuously drives all of these characters to the same fate well that brings me into one of my favorite concepts of all time being a slave to yourself so now we've reached the point in the video where I really want to talk about the core of these characters what exactly drives them and when thinking about this concept very deeply there's only one word that really comes to mind slave and I think the best way for you guys to kind of understand how I feel is by reading out one of my favorite quotes of all time Kenny akman speech in Attack on Titan in his last moments he finally understood why he lived his life the way he did why his friend lived his life the way he did and I always found that to be so so interesting sure I don't want to die and I want power but oh I think I just got it why he did that every last person I've seen was the same way whether it was booze woman or even God family the king dreams children power they couldn't keep going unless they were drunk on something they were all slaves to something even him these characters are slaves to their desires this inability to let go of this bad part of themselves which is exasperated by the excuse they get is what leads to their downfall now that being being said when it comes to being drunk on something there is no one who fits that description quite as literally as BoJack Horseman his addiction to alcohol and drugs are much more than just a coping mechanism it's indicative of his greatest flaw the thing that he's a slave to his self-centeredness the existentialism of Kenny's speech can be taken optimistically as something that keeps you moving forward as seen with mik and Arman but it can also be taken pessimistically something that brings us down something that ruins us and in bojack's case is taken pessimistically as something that numbs his pain throughout the series everyone around him tells him that his bad behavior cannot be excused by his troubled life the opening credits of the show visualize the damage he does to the people around him as he forces them along his destructive lifestyle before ultimately drowning as they watch helplessly forced to deal with the trauma that he has inflicted on them and himself Bojack is a character consumed by this self-centeredness one who considers his own pain to be more significant than that of others this comes to a head in the pona episode when he realizes that in his last moment he hurt Di with his final messages forcing her to once more stroke his ego and make him feel important by making her experience his pain he refuses to acknowledge that others are struggling unless he could relate it back to his own pain preferably through taking responsibility for it whil never striving to actually change it's kind of ironic that bojack's self-hatred is actually the most selfish part of himself it's easier to wallow in your self-pity get addicted to drugs and drown in your own self-hatred than it is to actually take the time and effort to improve yourself and actually be a better a person listen of course everyone struggles and needs help but Bojack was given that and much more people who empathized and cared for him opportunities to make amends and start a new but that would require putting himself in a position that would make him uncomfortable one that would not be familiar it was laziness it was ego everyone was happy once Bojack was out of their lives not because he was damaged after all everyone's damaged to a certain extent right but because he could not keep going unless he was at the center of everyone's life at the center of everyone's attention the opening theme that is associated with his La lifestyle was play play at the beginning of every episode except for the one titled escape from La in which he after given a chance to find happiness with his friend and her family refuses to take responsibility as an adult and takes advantage of her teenage daughter and it was at this moment where I really thought Bojack was truly and utterly irredeemable no amount of empathy or sympathy could ever justify that action it was disgusting he refuses to admit to himself that he was responsible and is promptly kicked out the theme song playing as he makes his way back to LA the accompanying visuals are not the familiar opening we know but rather him drinking on his boat he could never Escape LA because he was La sounds kind of corny but you know I think it's the best way of describing bjack now I initially wasn't going to talk about bjack I felt like he was a very hard character to talk about in general but when I was talking about this idea of all cautionary characters embodying the slavery idea my friend Cham went on a rant about how bojak was the perfect person for the section and after he explained it to me I I completely agree that genuinely bojak is the embodiment of what a slave is a slave to oneself and with that he did help me write the section I'm going to put all his links in the description he wrote a much much longer buj analysis which I thought was amazing so if anyone's interested in that go check it out now like I said earlier not letting go of stuff isn't necessarily a bad thing but there is a difference between having a desire and completely being controlled by one having a healthy relationship with a dream for example would be good as long as you're not obsessed with it so much that it destroys everything around you these characters sacrifice themselves to their desires meaning that they eat away at themselves as they get further and further into the hole that their desires lead them down going further and further and further into the abys until we finally see the author's destruction of these characters and it's within this destruction and Beyond the cautionary message presented that I think I managed to find something beautiful and that's what I want to talk about in my final section now we've reached the end of their story the actions finally catch up to them and they can no longer look away from what they've done we've reached the point in the story where they finally self-destruct and honestly one part that always manages to get me emotional is when these characters finally acknowledge the flaws in themselves but at that point it's always too late there's no fixing what they've done and in a way way all they can really do is see their path through to the end whether that means fixing whatever they still can or simply accepting the Fate that's given to them now the cautionary aspect of these characters are very clear to see the worst part of yourself getting lost in an excuse not acknowledging your own actions the character beside them that chooses to do the right thing getting drunk on your own desires what's exactly being explored always varies but these characters warn you that even if not to that extent any one of us can easily become that bad and it's when thinking about what these characters could have been that the cautionary message shines the brightest Walter had a wife that loved him he wasn't rich and he was just a teacher he could have grown old with her enjoyed the Beautiful Moments he had with his son and his newborn child maybe even find Value in being a teacher like many do but he only manages to realize this when he's a wanted criminal and there's no hope of going back so all he can do is accept what he's done and try to fix what's left even light have felt like had a moment of realization or a moment of acceptance I don't know what to call it exactly I'm cheating a little bit here because it is an anime only Edition but this moment of him on the stairs slowly looking up at the light feels to me like a sort of acceptance Franklin became so lost in his own path in his own society that the only way he could ever be free of anything is by losing himself in alcohol and being just like his father the only way that he's not chained up to his own desire but you know what I think there's something more here something along the lines of inspiring but not quite exactly and no I don't mean becoming a mass murderer and I think what it is exactly is that even after these characters have done absolutely horrible redeemable things there's still a little bit of peace they can find some sort of comfort at the end of their lives and I think to fully Express this I'd like to go full circle to the character I started off this video with erino aarin was somebody that spent his entire life looking forward and he kept moving in that direction never turning around and appreciating what he had right in front of him in a story about how the world is Cru and beautiful he only saw one half of it the cruelty and just like shardis said he burned himself to the ground outside those walls once again had he just turned around and acknowledged that alongside all of the cruelty that was in that world that there was Beauty and so much of it then maybe in the four years that he had left to live he could have lived more than some people living their entire life fighting alongside his friends and surrounded by the ones he loves instead all he could do at the end of his life was try and Salvage the horrible actions he committed into a somewhat sustainable future for them but that being said in his final moments sitting in a pool of blood he finally turned around and spoke to his friend Arman and even after all the horrible crimes he committed he found solace through Arman saying that even if it's in hell he won't abandon his friend and Erin in his final moments saw the beauty that he'd been neglecting his entire life in a Meek as of smiling as she puts an end to his life and it's in those final moments that Aaron who had been reduced to a monster and just ahead found some sort of Peace call me crazy but I think that is beautiful a bizarre form of Peace found by one in his last moments these characters absolutely don't deserve it but they still managed to have it inside some way now would this work in real life absolutely not but that's the power of stories I think it's kind of funny how I made an entire video about how these characters are a danger a warning to you and society and now I'm admitting that in some way there is inspiration you can find in them that alongside a fat warning sign there's a beautiful message to be taken away that even the most horrible people and the worst scum of society can have some redeeming quality at the end of their lives just some and I think after that entire explanation you can see what the problem with these characters are when it comes to the audience a lot of people end up focusing on The Wider narrative which I'm not going to sit here and say is necessarily a bad thing you are engaging in a story and you do care about the overall structure what a character's actions mean what the narrative is building up to Etc but I think if more people took the time to look at these individuals how they lived their life and what type of suffering it can lead to I think you can take away a lot more from these characters and a lot more from these stories that's about all I have to say and yeah if you have watched up in until this point once again I really really appreciate you you know I'm very very new to writing video essays and making them so I want to make it as engaging as possible also I do try my best to upload a video once every 10 days sometimes 14 but it is somewhere between 10 and 14 so if you are interested in that feel free to subscribe I'd really really appreciate it YouTube can be a very lonely place and the only real kind of comfort not Comfort but you know love someone can get is by liking um and subscribing and building a little community so so you know once again I would really really appreciate it and if you did find some sort of Newfound appreciation for these characters um you know that makes me really happy it means my video actually did something uh yeah I'm waffling on a bit too much now um God bless I hope you have a good day you know stay positive

Channel: Huss

Views: 157,592

Keywords: Attack on Titan, AOT, Eren, Death note, Light Yagami, Breaking Bad, Walter white, Snow Fall, Franklin Saint, Bojack Horseman

Id: g4hjbPL7EYw

Length: 30min 0sec (1800 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 09 2024