Lumidaub@feddit.org 4 days ago
You’ll have to explain that. Where Job refuses to have a character arc, staying completely passive, watching people around him die, until the very end (and even then only goes whining to his god), Die Hard dude is everything but passive and even willing to risk his own life for others. What do they have in common?
TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com 4 days ago
The people that sit around telling Job that his misfortunes are because his god hates him are recast as the villains that walk around and tell DIE HARD that he brought these problems on himself.
He loses his family repeatedly and yet at the end they are their. Every thing he could lose is eventually returned on their end of the movie.
TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com 4 days ago
And the combination of events that one human being suffered repeatedly has to speak at some point what did this man do to deserve all that danger and torment ?
Lumidaub@feddit.org 4 days ago
Everything you said is a common storytelling trope you can find in other stories too.
Take the hero’s family being endangered - the difference is that Die Hard dude then jumps into action and does shit, like what you’d expect from an actual hero. Job does fuck all, doesn’t seem to mind too much (at best he’s like “oh bother”) and, worst of all, does NOT get his family back, it’s a new wife and kids and that’s perfectly fine by him.
The villains corresponding to the neighbours is far-fetched in my opinion but even then, common trope to have story elements trying to discourage the hero. You can find that “parallel” anywhere. They also have vastly different motivations: in Job, his neighbours are presumably worried for him, Die Hard dude’s villains are trying to save their own skin.
What did this man do to suffer? Die Hard dude is devoted to his job, his family doesn’t leave for no reason and isn’t endangered for no reason. It’s a moral dilemma that he struggles with, rooted in the hero’s personality and informing his character arc. Job is just there, changes nothing and learns nothing.
In general, there has to be dome motivation for the hero to start his (we’re talking about classic tropes here) journey and people around him and his property (sometimes seen as the same thing…) being endangered is the most convenient one. The interesting part is how he reacts to this situation - which couldn’t be more different between Die Hard dude and Job, as I said above.
Person suffers, then gets happy end - that’s every story ever told by anyone (bad endings are a new-fangled modern thing).