Lack of Nice

[Warnings: Triggery stuff, discussion of violence, and spoilers for Gotham.]

I was reading an article giving the usual 'nice guy' lament about how women say they want someone who is kind and good to them, but date jerks. The Nice Guys claim this is proof that women lie and show no judgement about who they are near. In other words, it puts the onus of the situation on the women and not on the men.

I think this struck a nerve because of what went down on Gotham. Nigma's finally got his crush to start dating him, only to finally reveal what a creepy little bastard he is. When she reacted the way any normal person would, he choked her to death, all the while screaming about how he was just trying to protect her from the bad men.

He never realized that he was The Bad Men.

I think a lot of people who think they are nice are pretty delusional about themselves. Nice people don't sit around thinking horrible thoughts about others. Nice people don't lash out at people just because they happen to be of the same gender as the person who wronged you. Nice people don't think they will be happier if the choices, rights, and freedoms of others are limited. Nice people don't judge people as gender (and gender expectations) first and perhaps people far, far past that.

Kristel Kringle could have been a really cool character on Gotham. She was odd and rather demented in her own way. She had a darker side, but could have evolved that into something quite fabulously twisted. Instead, they reduced her down to the object of Nigma's obsession, a Nice Guy justification character (because one of her boyfriends was violent with her), a trophy to be won, and then a victim.

I'm never going to say that people have to write to fulfill an agenda, but I do believe we should write things that aren't boring, typical, and wasteful.