[Captain Cardio]

Alive said: "Big bad wolf" is an interesting term, but let's look at the story itself. The wolf succeeds at eating two of the pigs. The moral of the story is not that wolves are evil and pigs are good, so much as that stupidity is gonna get you killed in the world. The whole story is one of actors taking advantage of other actors; in the end the smartest one eats the not-so-smart one (as opposed to, say, the most good eating the least good--what defineds pig 3 is not moral goodness but cleverness). Literature usually rewards the clever; poets (or folklore itself) seem to like smart people. Motive is irrelevent to the story, method is what matters. Motive is predetermined.

Motives seem to take a back seat role in a lot of media, save CSI style shows. I think they still are part of the overall interpretation a viewer gets from a movie, especially to children, even if the motives are not the intended showcase.

You're right that the motive isn't the stories(the 3 pigs) point, and isn't hovering around the wolf's motives or specifically trying to indoctrine readers with a sense that some people are simply wrong, but the lack of exploring the wolf's side is still there. It's a very minor detail in the story, but that one small detail about the story, combined with that one small detail in a hefty amount of other stories, and you may end up with an effect that makes people prone to assume that small detail in conflicts in their own life.

Alive said: Do you disagree that vanity is a real motive for people acting evilly? Is it really such an unrealistic motive? This story too has nuance, but I'd like to have your answers to those two questions. Many of your examples fall under this category. The evil actors are not evil because they are simply evil, but because of some particular vice, a vice that I think you would agree is a real vice and a real social problem to which the story perhaps contributes something of an attempted solution.

I agree, it is frequently a real life motive. But that real life motive is such a widely used motive in stories, that I believe it may become overused to the point of being unrealistic or harmful.

Captain Cardio said: I know there are people in our world who genuinely do have immoral of selfish motives. The tendancy, however, for us to resort to that label as people's reasons for having different beliefs, or for taking actions we don't approve of, I believe, is harmful. I believe it perpetuates close-mindedness and gets in the way of peaceful communication and understanding.

You've got a good point there, about stories that use human shortcomings as motives, can provide productive solutions. I guess being aware of that, I would just want more stories to convey multiple respectable viewpoints or motives than they currently do. I wouldn't want to completely rewire the media, just increase that proportion of stories that show how people who are disagreeing, could both have respectible, non-selfish or legitimate reasons for their actions.

Alive said: I disagree strongly. Maybe we just watch different movies, but I think even the most straightforward action movies have relatively nuanced views of human motivation which far surpass that of common society. Have any movies in mind?

I agree that most movies convey human motivations. I'd like to distinguish between movies that provide human motivations, and movies that provide legitimate, non-selfish motivations. In both cases realistic human motivations are provided. However, the proportion of those movies that provide those motives, usually give motives that eminate from pride, greed, or some other human shortcoming. Even though selfish motives are a part of our everyday lives, their being widespread in the media, I think, might inadequately prepare people for when somebody they don't agree with, doesn't have a human shortcoming as a motive.

If we come back to the matrix, you're quite right that agent smith has human motivations, but that doesn't make them respectable or legitimate motivations. If in 90% of movies, the enemy is portrayed as taking their 'evil' actions, because they are greedy, vain or some other human flaw, then this might effect people's mentality towards disagreements. Even if the motivations are realistic, the fact that the majority of our media portray human shortcomings as motives, I think, could influence people to take that same mentality into disagreements in their own life. People might not be aware of it, but they could think most times when they disagree with somebody, that the person they disagree with simply has a lesser amount of morality or willpower. Maybe that is actually the case at times or even most times, but if people jump to that conclusion before making an honest effort to figure out why there could be a legitimate disagreement, it starts to have a negative effect.