There's something I've been thinking about a lot lately. I respect that different people have different ways of thinking, so please understand that I'm not trying to criticize a specific mindset with this thread, but more like throw shade at how it's handled in media.

I'll start by saying I love dark fiction. I've always been drawn to dark fiction, so sad or scary stories are fine with me. I love thinking about "evil" or morally ambiguous characters, and a large majority of my favorite characters probably fall into the latter category, now that I think about it. I'm annoyed when people try to act like all's right with the world just so they can put themselves at ease, and pretend that the problems so many people are afflicted with are "exaggerated" (or even worse, don't exist at all.) Therefore I tend to prefer fiction that at least subtly acknowledges darker aspects of the world, as I find it more realistic and engaging.

!!!HOWEVER!!!

As happy as I am that modern fiction leans more towards skepticism and moral ambiguity than it used to, it's beginning to give off the impression that giving a character a "dark side" is the only way to write them properly, which is something I disagree with completely. While I am definitely tired of the "perfect hero" archetype everyone's seen over and over again, I don't think making a character morally compromised is the only way to make them interesting. There are other flaws a character can be given to make them more relatable or human, like making them prone to envy, or overly dependent on a specific person or idea, or unwilling to accept certain truths in fear of being hurt. There are infinite ways a writer can create a compelling character without making them a bad person. Despite this, a lot of people seem to think that "challenging stale archetypes" exclusively refers to crafting antiheroes or giving a character a tragic backstory to explain their questionable actions. While I'm generally a sucker for both techniques, I am against the idea that they are always indisputably the best ways to write a character. It is entirely possible to write a genuinely kind and cheerful character without having them be two-dimensional.

Unfortunately though, there are a lot less of them these days. The quickest way to earn praise for good writing is making a plot or character that sparks debates about morality, reinforcing that moral ambiguity is thought to be the only type of "complexity" that can be found in fiction. I want to see more characters that retain the "good" moral grounding of older heroes but still manage to twist the archetype through other flaws. An undoubtedly "good" character should not be judged as simple right off the bat, and I think they should be able to return to the spotlight with more lenient judgment. The same goes for plots with more "happy" tones than others. A story is perfectly capable of being profound and meaningful while remaining hopeful in its overall message. 

This brings me to my final point. A new trope I've noticed in modern fiction is the implication that bleak or cynical characters are more "aware" of the world and its harshness than optimistic characters are. Usually they're accompanied with some horrific past that makes them cold, aloof, distrusting of other people's intentions, etc., and therefore "right" about the world's cruelty due to having experienced it firsthand. The bright and cheery characters, meanwhile, are usually depicted as naive and unknowing, having never experienced the horrors of the world and therefore appearing silly or simple-minded. The pessimists are smart, since they "know what's up," while the optimists are ignorant and blissfully unaware. 

I can't even begin to describe how much I'm craving to see a "bright and happy" character completely destroy a cynic. The fact of the matter is, not all people who acknowledge the world's darkness cope the same way. Becoming a distant edgelord is one way, sure, but more often than we think, it's the opposite that happens. There are plenty of people who see what there is to hate in the world, who see what there is to hate in people, who truly understand the absolute worst aspects of humanity, and yet they put on a smile because of that knowledge. They go out of their way to help people, to do good for the world, and to inspire the same optimism in others because of their understanding of what's wrong with the world. They are not optimistic because they ignore the darkness around them, but because they acknowledge its existence so profoundly that they want to go out of their way to combat it and replace it with kindness. That isn't naive in the slightest. It simply combines the "awareness" of cynical characters with the initiative to actually make a difference, which in my opinion is very strong and admirable. They know the world is cold, so they strive to share their warmth as a result. I can't wait to see a character like that temporarily break out of their "nice and happy" demeanor to explain all this to some brooding character who thinks they understand the world better than anyone else.

And that's pretty much it. Thanks for reading, and feel free to share your thoughts on this!

I may deviate a little further from pop culture that you have, but I find this topic interesting, and your opinion agreeable. 

I was thinking about this just a few days ago: It seems that many people who call themselves "realist" are actually just pessimists. I think you can be a realist while also being either a pessimist or an optimist. To use the cliché example of the glass half full/empty, BOTH view are real, but they it's how you view the truth that is important.

I do not read fiction very much, but I certainly have read quite a few novels and enjoy cinema quite a bit. I too find a lot of people think that as soon as a character is an antihero, they are a great character. But characters can be real, they can be interesting, and they can cause ethical dilemmas while being generally good and optimistic. 

There are a lot of interesting philosophical ideas that can be explored with these characters. Like the idea of selflessness, and the greater good. In fact, I think that people who truly know how the worlds is, how much evil there is, and how vile humans can be, is just as likely to be a force for good than evil. 

Take a look at some of the greatest philosophical minds who lived. Socrates, who is the single most influential wise man who ever lived, was also one of the most good man who ever lived. Jesus, regardless of your religious beliefs, changed the world he lived in be preaching about loving everyone. A great many wise, complex people have been good, despite the evil they saw and experienced (Socrates was ordered to drink a poison by a paranoid emperor, and even as he drank it the philosopher was comforting his loved-ones). 

I agree... why not create more stories about people like that? 

An interesting character is Jimmy in the show Better Call Saul. He's a genuinely funny guy who has dreams and treats people around him well. But occasionally, he does con someone he thinks deserves it. If you haven't watched it, I would recommend it for anyone who like good writing.  

Personally, I love purely optimistic works like the typical Walt Disney film, Super Mario Bros., and Sailor Moon. I see that nowadays cynicism and pessimism is commonly mistaken by the media as realism and maturity, and that optimism is seen as baby-ish and weak. I don't read fiction much at all, nor do I watch films much. In fact, most of my time is pretty much dedicated to storyless games like Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Mario Kart Wii. Why I love the typical optimistic story is because the real world is mostly a miserably cynical hellhole and that these stories are a grand gateway away from that horror.

However, sometimes it is a nice change of pace for characters to have some harmful backstory and some angst if handled well, and it's sometimes really neat for some stories to be darker. However, dark stories must always have some glimmer of hope, and like any good story, it must always end on a good note. The prime example of a s***ty dark-toned story is easily Corpse Party, one of the absolute worst things I've ever heard of. Many major characters die, it's convoluted well beyond being a mish-mash of dramatic garbage, it's extremely dramatic and perhaps the most dramatic piece of s*** I've seen in a long while, there's no hope or optimism whatsoever, there's way too much shock value and drama, and it's overall just a miserable blob of Nazi s*** that, like any s***ty work of fiction, lives of excess shock value and drama.

I'm not a real judge on darker fiction since I prefer stories where all the main protagonists are alive and well, but if someone became hospitalized by losing control of a limb or something, that wouldn't be bad since many living people have such a sad fate and it would show that these people aren't ignored at all and they still matter to us.

I also apologize for disliking this thread. It was just a thoughtlessly rash misclick I did before I even read the whole thing. It does suck how you can't revert it, but hopefully you can forgive my carelessness.