This seems to be a popular literary trick, a means of dilineating just how bad a bad guy (or good guy!!!) is.  

Frankly, I think it sucks donkey balls.  Think about it for a moment. Leave aside any particular religious notions you might cotton too.

The current beneficiary of this particular atrocity of modern mythmaking is Barbarossa of Pirates of the Carribean. Perhaps it was some hack waxing poetic in describing the character, rather than an attribute of the third (and hopefully final...) installment of the film. Not to pick on Barbarossa in particular, mind you, but the idea itself.

So. B wasn't so bad a guy really. Did Kiera Knightly get raped? Or eaten whilst still alive? Or any other number of terrible deeds that men have done to one another in the last few millenia?

Not really. A bit treacherous and willing to kill for selfish reasons, certainly.  


Just how bad does someone really have to be to be rejected by hell as 'too evil'.

Pretty fucking bad, really given the lows they have to sink below to really get that far down.  The list of crimes for your typical sinner include pedophilia, fratricide, patricide, treachery, cannibalism and mass murder.  Our hypothetical villian has to be worse than all those combined and then some. What exactly can he have done, then?  

I could point out how this goes along with my personal perception of how good and evil theoretically work, but I don't want to side track discussion before it even begins.


The grand-daddy of this concept is, I believe, Jack o' the lantern. The thing is, as I recall, Jack wasn't such a bad guy. In fact, he found that weird twilight area where he was just a bit to evil for heavan and just a bit too nice/good for hell, thus escaped Death by having no where to go.  You might admit that is a horse of a different color.

So, Barbarossa, if we want to keep using him, isn't such a bad guy as Pirates go. He got the bad PR, but apparently he was just good enough inside to not get the full monty of hell.

Or better yet, some jackass hack writer could get it through their shrivled, twisted little reptile brains that being 'too evil for hell' is stupid and just not use it.


That is all I got to say about that...

Please, it's Barbossa. No relation to the sleeping king.

And you're getting rather worked up about a Disney movie. He probably violated some copyrights...

Its just Pirate PR, man.

 Its like the High School that I graduated from in 198s - it was 80% african-American. Had a reputation for being a "brutal" and rough school. I was taking English AP, European History AP classes.  Everybody studied the same Shakespeare books and History books  as the other high schools.

 My friends at the school used to tell me if people I knew from my old neighborhood gave me a hard time...then I was supposed to threaten them with my new Woodward bulldog friends.

Its all  PR or a cover story to intimidate with.

- Ed C.

just ignore the stupid shit like that and enjoy the swashin' and the bucklin'

:duel:

:jollyroger:

arr!

Like I said when I brought him up: I don't even know if it's offical story material or over eager ad copy. The phrase/concept isn't knew and hardly limited to Barbossa (did I get it that time?).

It's just annoying in general.  Like I said, it really implies that he wasn't actually evil ENOUGH for Hell.  Heck, the worst thing he did to the lovely, if chinsome, ms Knightly was laugh evilly while spilling wine down his chest. Or through his chest if you like.

He was just the lastest hapless goon to be tagged with the egregious phrase.

So cliched even Terry Brooks wouldn't write him?

Doesn't quite have the same oomph, does it?

Most of the times, there's not much overlap betweenmovies where someone's really "evil" and movies that mention hell. Really scary stuff is beyond most guys who use the child-like simplicity of the heaven/hell duality.

What was so scary about that gunslinger guy from the Preacher comics?

Quote from: SosthenesMost of the times, there's not much overlap betweenmovies where someone's really "evil" and movies that mention hell. Really scary stuff is beyond most guys who use the child-like simplicity of the heaven/hell duality.

I think it's because traditionally hell has been seen as a place of punishment and torture rather than a spawning point for bad guys. Sometimes it can be pulled off-- Peter Stomare's Satan in Constantine was spot on, and elevated an otherwise shitty adaptation --but in the main evil that exists purely as a force unto itself is too psychologically simplistic for modern western audiences. By comparison Dennis Hopper as Frank Booth in Blue Velvet is a brilliant example of 'secular evil.' The audience doesn't need any kind of metaphysical framework to see just how fucked up and vicious the bloke is.

Well, hell as a place you can enter and possibly even come back isn't that new.  The greek did it, Dante did it, new age cosmology just regards it as another plane etc.

But I agree that it's a lot easier for authors to concentrate on a person being evil, without some cliched moral background. It's much scarier if the devil didn't make him do it. Much, much scarier if he doesn't get punished for eternity.

Well, I don't recall the greeks ever suggesting that people escaped Hades because they were too evil for the place. Escaping hell is all well and good. It's the 'too evil for...' part that torques me.

I did rather like Peter Stormare's Lucifer in constantine. It's my secret shame that I sort of like the whole movie anyway.  Not because it's good, but because of all the ways it could have been so very very good. Too much time spent on The Log, not enough time spent on everyone else.  There was some good metaphysical mythmaking going on in the background.... damnit!

Wasn't the "I heard he was so evil that hell itself spat him back out" phrase, or something to that effect used in one of the movies already by some awestruck nobody, only to be later debunked? Am I thinking of a different movie? It's been a while, but it just sounds too familiar.

Mullroy:"Well, there's no real ship as can match the Interceptor."
Murtogg:"The Black Pearl is a real ship."
Mullroy:"No, it's not."
Murtogg:"Yes it is, I've seen it."
Mullroy:"You've seen it?"
Murtogg:"Yes."
Mullroy:"You haven't seen it."
Murtogg:"Yes, I have."
Mullroy:"You've seen a ship with black sails that's crewed by the damned, and captained by a man so evil that Hell itself spat him back out?"
Murtogg:"No."
Mullroy:"No."
Murtogg:"But I have seen a ship with black sails."
Mullroy:"Oh, and no ship that's not crewed by the damned and captained by a man so evil that Hell itself spat him back out could possibly have black sails, therefore couldn't possibly be any other ship than the Black Pearl. Is that what you're saying?"
Murtogg:"No."
Mullroy:"Like I said, there's no real ship as can match the Interceptor... HEY!"

I've always like "Heaven dosn't want me and Hell's afraid I'll take over." That's a good bad-guy statement.

I've always been fond of "better to reign in hell than serve in heaven". On the other hand, I've always found "The Devil Came to Georgia" a guilty pleasure, so my brow seems to be about mid-level.

Quote from: WerekoalaI've always like "Heaven dosn't want me and Hell's afraid I'll take over." That's a good bad-guy statement.

No qualms there from me. Or on Sos's follow-on comment.

To translate the initial statement in a way that might illuminate my perspective on it.

Too Wet for the Ocean.  


Yeah. I'm not exactly winning pulitzer prizes for that one...