The Convincing Villainy of Funny Valentine

charisma is a weird thing it's this unclear murky shortly defined quality that in essence gives you power and control over people we often associate charisma as something pleasant something nice even but that's just a thing charisma isn't the ability to make others happy it's the ability to naturally and almost subconsciously entice convince and even control people and their emotions regarding certain ideas and concepts in a way charisma is the closest we humans have to discrete a natural method of mind control and charisma is studied extensively by psychologists all over the world as it is a phenomenon incredibly relevant to management and leadership anin is very commonly utilized analyzed and pondered all throughout humanity even outside of those disciplines between philosophy theology the aforementioned psychology and even business and management charisma is incredibly interesting and insightful to study so naturally it will also come up in various fictional stories as fiction is often a vessel through which we explore reality through a lens of fantasy one story that deals with the concept of charisma way more than some people might realize is JoJo's Bizarre Adventure throughout the series long run Yuriko hockey uses quite a few vessels and characters through which he engages in the study of charisma most of them being do Brando however one of his most successful and arguably most interesting approaches to the idea of charisma came to paper during part seven in the form of the main villain and president funny Valentine [Music] funny Valentine is of course the iconic main villain of JoJo's seven-part silver run as the President of the United States and a powerful stand user he's a formidable antagonistic force our boy Johnny has to face within the story but there is more to him Valentine is one the most popular and generally praised characters in all of Jojo with a decent portion of the fanbase citing him as their favorite villain even goes so far that many readers wonder if Valentine is even a villain to begin with and claim that his goals and behavior were arguably more just and good than even our protagonists and overall I myself consider him to be one of the best characters Iraqis ever written so what is it exactly that makes him work it might be his charisma Valentine is incredibly charismatic due to a few aspects of his personality first of all there is this air of integrity between his promises and his sublime demeanor Valentine gives off this vibe that makes him feel consistent in his words and actions his constant reassurance that he will always keep his promises and his strict and stoic devotion to his country given the kind of honest integrity that many people end up flocking to we as humans often feel attracted and influenced by people who are like rocks among the waves stable consistent and have integrity this is even further reflected in his stand d4c while the ability itself is insanely powerful it is also restricted by some very clear and stringent rules which gives his stand and therefore him a sort of controlled air of integrity and consistency like he has clear rules that he follows and honors and is again something that adds to his charisma and to the air of integrity this is further enhanced by another aspect his confidence in basically every scene he's in Valentine seems 100% convinced that whatever happens his plans will end up working he speaks with a certainty and confidence that makes quite the impression as if once he sets his mind on something it is guaranteed that he will succeed he also isn't afraid of taking charge of his situation personally and betting his own life on the success of his plans this gives us the readers he will completely and utterly believe in himself and know that if he gives it his all he will come out on top and as you know foremost rodent protagonists if a character believes in themselves hard enough we can end up believing in them too and luckily he came back all this confidence and beliefs up with actual competence and ability it's one thing to talk a big game but another to actually deliver and thanks to his monster too powerful d4c ability and his own incredible intellect and creativity he can certainly do that all these aspects however feed into one bigger reason he's liked his conviction resolved in his goal Valentine our Valda Jojo villains probably spends the most time musing about his plans and explaining and justifying them at length the goals he has in mind for himself in his country seem to be born out of a noble integrity and patriotism and are carried out with such confidence and competence that we quickly begin comparing him to our protagonist Johnny and begin asking questions is Valentine actually not a villain are his goals justified is he the actual hero of this story no absolutely not let's look past what Valentine wants to present himself and let's actually properly understand what he does and who he is his grand ideals about protecting America all hinged on him spending a ludicrous amount of money on a risky unresponsible horse race across the continent in the hopes of finding a magical corpse a corpse which is supposed to do what we do end up seeing what Love Train is capable of but for all the years leading up to the events of steel ball run Valentine could only theorize what the Saints corpse would really do he essentially began pursuing a weapon of mass destruction on a whim without knowing what it would bring or do his entire master plan was built on basically nothing but assumptions as we discuss in our last steel ball run video Valentine's entire persona is based on ideals and beliefs he projected onto the handkerchief of his father but because he never knew his father properly those beliefs aren't based on anything but valent own natural tendencies and inherent qualities but he justifies those by attributing it to an external source making it seem more like the world taught him that as opposed to I'll just link this keeping that in mind him pursuing the corpse while basically knowing nothing about it seems very consistent and in character which is surprising because in everything else Valentine is quite inconsistent while he often speaks of patriotism and justice he sure doesn't actually keep those ideals he organizes a deadly incredibly large scale and stupidly expensive race endangering not only countless American lives but the economical security of the United States and he does an occasion indulge in cruelty that has nothing to do with his goals for example that one time he forces himself on his wife only to discover that it's actually a fourteen-year-old girl only to then proceed force himself on her for justice patriotism yeah but probably his biggest failing comes at the end of the part when he actually learns what the corpse really does it basically attracts good fortune and happiness however because the universe seemingly pursues a zero-sum equivalents of good and bad the corpse also pushes misfortune away from it and on to other places and people essentially forcing random disasters and misfortunes on others while the corpse and its bearer bask and only the good of the world and while that together with Valentine's speech might convince you that it is a viable way of insuring America's safety let's think about this for a second as we see in the final art the corpses repulsion of misfortune is rather extreme and basically distorts reality having this go on for a considerable amount of time or forever as Valentine wants it most likely would plunge the world into chaos eventually jeopardizing the u.s. as well and even if America remained completely unscathed while the world burns around them it is nonsense to act as if this is a noble goal patriotism can be noble but certainly not when it's at the cost of literally every other country on Earth Valentine's sees all this happen but he doesn't actually think about whether or not this will have any consequences that will make him a worse person because he doesn't think of himself as a villain he thinks his goal is completely justified and so just push it through with it even though by the time he achieves Love Train it is very clear that this is a cataclysmic weapon that this is not something any person of any nobility or even sound mind would want for the world so no Valentine is certainly not a hero and not a good guy he does some pretty bad and his goals are incredibly selfish and ruthless at best and just straight-up dumb and self-destructive at worst so why why is Valentine did nothing wrong such a common idea why is he regarded with such respect and even considered a possible hero why do we often hear this Oh Johnny wasn't the actual protagonist it was Valentine rhetoric even though if you look at it neutrally you will see that most of his goals and ambitions and actions are actually pretty villainous why do people like Valentine because Valentine is essentially a very well-written and even better presented politician his consistent confidence his ability and competence and his bombastic speeches not only make him very notable but they are also propaganda propaganda not directed at any characters within the story but at us the readers the story takes great care to ensure that Valentine is presented in an incredibly favorable and flattering way his speeches are long and most big panels that the reader will obviously focus on are sent around the Justice of his goals and the meaning behind his actions by comparison the sections showing him doing dirty deeds or otherwise filthy acts are minuscule by comparison almost pushed into the background as not to be seen too much by the reader iraki gives us all the info of Valentine and his goals but he chooses to show off the positive aspects in a bombastic attention-grabbing way while being very low-key about the negative ones this then combines with the natural charisma of Valentine to create a pretty unique effect Valentine's charisma and propaganda have become so effective so selectively impactful that their effect leaves the pages the character lives in and permeates into our real world we become entranced by his charisma and we become convinced by spur Buganda even if his actions looked at closely are very clearly those of a villain we believe in him both because he believes in himself and because both he and the way the story presents him manipulate us into buying into his rhetoric the story embellishes his qualities while sweeping his faults on the rug and by doing that it makes him seem like a way more justified character we become naturally drawn to his ideology and start potentially questioning whether or not he's a villain not because he's more righteous than our protagonist but because both his natural charisma and Araki warp our perception of him into that of a justified hero rather than the ruthless power monger following an idiotic plan that he really is and it's just such a genius and amazing approach because it makes the character not only live on paper but within our real world and brings his charisma in direct contact with us compared estudio Iraqis other foray into the idea of charisma with Dio charisma was simply this magical quality that pulled people towards him and aided them in building an army of loyal henchmen it was the whole do is so sexy he attracts people to work for him but with Valentine his charisma isn't affecting random and him stand users but is instead slowly manipulating us the readers and it's slowly pitting us against the protagonist and I think it's this that makes Valentine such a fantastic character don't get me wrong none of this stuff I criticize about him earlier is to say that he's a bad character he is one of the best things Iraqis ever written and a part of reason for that is that he can be this flawed this bad basically as a person but still be liked so much because of how he's written and interval in the story I really think it's these two aspects of Valentine his charisma and his presentation that lead to him being liked by so many people and with so many people associating him of justice disregarding all the red flags I think this is why we get so entranced by him and his quest I think this is why most people if ordered by him would indeed take the first napkin thank you all for watching consider subscribing and/or supporting me on patreon if you want more content like that take care and be safe and I'll see you all next time bye you

Channel: Oceaniz

Views: 149,888

Rating: 4.9315867 out of 5

Keywords: Jojo, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Araki, Steel Ball Run, Johnny Joestar, Funny Valentine, Valentine, President, Villain, Manga, Anime, Analysis, Character, Oceaniz, Oceaniz96

Id: XHF-kStm8V8

Length: 14min 5sec (845 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 27 2019