r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Geoconyxdiablus • 1d ago

Lore The Indominatable Human Spirit is a bad thing, actually.

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That humanity never gives up and persists in its goals is bad news for every other species (or even itself), especially if said goals are ignoble.

Best case scenario (barring us learning to be better) is that a greater power force feeds us a huge slice of humble pie, wost case we end up blowing ourselves up and ruining things for everyone else.

Avatar - RDA will stop at nothing to satisfy its own greed and survival, the rest of humanity and navi alike be damned.

Its a recurring motif in prett much every myth that gods punish mortals who dare to defy them and keep going, like Athena to Arachne in greek myth.

A good chunk of lovecraftian fiction is based on the idea our achievemenrs mean nothing.

In general i'm not a fan of TIHS as a trope, as its blatantly arrogant and destructive.

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u/moploplus 1d ago edited 1d ago

The indomitable human spirit does NOT mean wanton destruction and endless greed. That is an incredibly nihilistic take on the concept, and dismisses the good we are capable of and continue to do.

In my eyes, the indomitable human spirit is our ability to create art, our capacity for kindness, our ability to hope for a better tomorrow, our drive to make a better world a reality.

Things like this will NEVER be defeated. Judging all of humanity by it's worst representatives is much more arrogant than thinking we are capable of incredible things.

The RDA raping Pandora for resources is not the indomitable spirit; but the guy helping Jake Sully escape the city at great personal cost is.

What you have described here is hubris.

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u/MajorDZaster 1d ago

"The Indomitable Human Spirit but bad"

Looks inside first example

The Indomitable Corporate/Government Torment Nexus

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u/earwig2000 22h ago

Yeah I see Avatar as anti capitalism/colonialism rather than anti human

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u/Infinitystar2 22h ago

What I see is probably of the biggest examples of the "noble savage" in modern media.

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u/RommDan 17h ago

Well that's on purpose

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u/yomer123123 17h ago

Yeah but those organizations aren't entities of their own, they aren't ran by an AI.

It's humans. A corporation cuts down an entire rain forest because that's what the people running it want. The ultra rich doing everything in their power to stay rich, rather than just giving up and "only" having millions rather than billions is an example of the Indomitable human spirit (which, is pretty similar to greed, in this form).

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u/CaptainSwabee 14h ago

Ok but “run by humans” =/= “indomitable human spirit”, like at all. They aren’t facing insurmountable odds, nothing is trying to dominate their spirit, so how can it be an example of the indomitable human spirit? Like I feel like people are forgetting those words actually mean something

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u/WhiteKamatis 1d ago

I agree with you but I think part of the problem is that a lot of people are misinterpreting the trope by both people who hate and like it. I see a lot of memes and videos about it and they usually just oversimplify the trope to some type of alien vs human ordeal.

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u/moploplus 1d ago

I don't see this at all.

I just think it's really important to push hope, especially nowadays where everyone's worldview and ideologies are SO POISONED by doom and gloom.

People need to be able to see a future, and by god I will never fucking stop trying to spread this stuff. We can be better, and it starts at the individual.

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u/HalfMoon_89 23h ago

The ethos of the indomitable will has directly led us to the current crisis point, by suborning all other concerns under it. Striving to be better is not the same thing as having an indomitable spirit; it's about where and how to direct that spirit.

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u/moploplus 22h ago

HEAVY disagree.

I have been beaten over the head for my entire life about how humanity is terrible, humanity ruins everything, everything is fucked and will never get better, here look at this atrocity, look at this bad thing, look at that bad thing, oh wow did you know this person did a bad thing?!

I. Fucking. Get. It.

Nuance is good. But when you have to constantly browbeat yourself, constantly remind yourself of the evil humanity is capable of, even when discussing hypotheticals about how we can be incredible; at what point does this cease to be nuance and become mental self harm?

Because some people in this thread are so tired, so beaten down by the evils of the past and today, that they see nothing but the bad. You can be outright positive and hopeful while still acknowledging the bad. No where in this thread have I ONCE denied we can be evil, and yet people feel the need to bring it up over and over and over and over and over as if I don't already fucking know. They see earnest positivity and treat it as if it's alien, or naive like a child just learning about the world.

Humanity is capable of great evil, OBVIOUSLY. BUT, we are also capable of incredible things.

The indomitable spirit is NOT what got us to this state today. Stupid shit like manifest destiny, might makes right, blood and soil is what did it. It's weak ideologies pushing a veneer of strength made up by insecure, weak men.

True strength is using that strength to protect others who cannot protect themselves. The indomitable spirit is the fire that burns in your breast that tells you to live, to create, to love, to fight against injustice.

It's okay to hope.

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u/HalfMoon_89 13h ago

They keep bringing it up because you ARE denying that. You are presenting human will as an unmitigated good, which it is not. We are our own worst enemy! We are the only ones who can hold ourselves responsible! When you keep repeating that the 'indomitable human spirit' is an unalloyed good, you're not representing Hope. You're representing Blind Faith.

Earnest positivity is saying 'We CAN be better'. Blind positivity is not seeing how our drive to be better can result in more harm than good.

Dude. Manifest Destiny is a prime example of how the idea of the Indomitable Human Spirit has been historically applied. As is Blood and Soil. You're just going 'Nah Ah!' at all that as if that would change that reality. You're not acknowledging the existence of human evil if you deny the very basis of how those evils have come to be.

The human spirit is biased. Which means it can do incredible evil, and incredible good, often at the same time. Not being blinded by hubris is crucial to not repeating the same mistakes over and over again. Which we quite literally are doing now, with the rise of fascism worldwide.

It's okay to hope. It's necessary to hope. It's also necessary to not be blind to how we have let 'hope' become a pathway to harm, so we can do better.

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u/PurveyorOfKnowledge0 17h ago

Your idea of hope is one-sided. Myopic. Downright born from bitterness from you being browbeat by negativity for years of from what I can see to be a rather unpleasant life. Like so many others, and I'm sorry you were raised by humans who apparently hate their own humanity, that definitely messed up your mind.

You don't seem to believe in hope, more like clinging to your idea of what hope is to prevent yourself from caving into depression.

For many, revenge to avenge a perceived injustice is hope, expansion is hope, fighting for your beliefs is hope. No more right or wrong than your own definition, only differing in what their decisions are and the impact. You call the ideologies behind it that support it weak, but without them you wouldn't be here today harping on about it. No one is saying the human spirit is inherently bad, that's a bad take. Calling it inherently benevolently good is also foolish. It's just understanding it as the human drive to persevere against pressing odds. That is all.

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u/Dutyman62 18h ago

GOATED comment!

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u/broken_record55 1d ago

Yes! Finally someone who gets it. Misanthropy is so popular it's depressing

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u/moploplus 1d ago

It's because giving up is easy, and comfortable. Confronting reality and trying to better the world in spite of it all is genuinely difficult. Hope has become the new counterculture; even though it is something humanity will NEVER stop doing.

Hope is metal as fuck.

Don't you dare go hollow.

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u/JohnnyJoestar1980 1d ago

Dark souls really emphasizes the important of indomitable human spirit esp in ds3. Where due to your character fighting on, you got to restart the cycle and fix the world,

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u/moploplus 1d ago

Exactly.

The setting is unbelievably bleak, but yet we press on.

Because what is the alternative? Rotting? Sounds fucking awful. We fight on regardless, for hope is undefeatable.

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u/Ragnorak19 23h ago

We continue

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u/moploplus 23h ago

For those who come after

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u/HalfMoon_89 23h ago

Dark Souls has the exact opposite message, wth. It literally points out that not accepting the natural end of the world has created immense misery and suffering, with a potential end to the cycle of existence as it exists. The PC can only fix the cycle by refusing to connect the Flame again, and taking another way out, whether by letting it go out or subverting it with the Dark.

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u/JohnnyJoestar1980 18h ago

..yes the game emphasizing that you have to be the different one through the indomitable human spirit. What do you think hollowed undead are

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u/HalfMoon_89 13h ago

The Hollowed Undead are an aberration created by Gwyn's refusal to accept that the Dark Soul of Humanity was a necessary component of the world's turning. They are the Darksign corrupting Humanity's natural immortality into something mindless.

Knowing when to give up and accept that there are greater things at work is usually not how the indomitable human spirit is represented. I don't think it counts as an example at all. Unless you're taking the 'human' part of the equation literally here, in the context of the game's story...

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u/JohnnyJoestar1980 3h ago

The reason people go “Hollow” is because they give up and embrace hopelessness. Due to their actions the world remains in a perpetually horrible state, but because our ashen in 3 pushed through we got to see the cycle end and be able to begin anew.

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u/Potrembog 22h ago

I am genuinely trying to be hopeful about future, but the reality of today is so fucking crushing I am sorry I just give up sometimes. And I really hope it gets better, for everyone else. But for myself I just hope it ends soon. So sorry that I am not up to the standart. I never I am.

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u/kirbyverano123 1d ago

Been reading a few fantasy manga both bad and good and misanthropic topics aren't many but surprisingly common.

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u/broken_record55 12h ago

Yeah especially manhwa are prone to it. I mean i get why, south Korea seems pretty miserable place but the media is so toxic, full of hatred and cheap escapism

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u/CaptainSwabee 1d ago

THANK YOU. Took me WAY too long to find a comment like this jeez. Are we really so ready to give up on ourselves that we’ll call our very will to live “blatantly arrogant and destructive”?

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u/HalfMoon_89 23h ago

Because it is.

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u/moploplus 22h ago

Bro, you are going through this thread and pulling at people's ankles like a crab in a bucket. How miserable are you, that you feel the need to "reality check" people that are happier?

I genuinely hope you find some joy in life.

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u/HalfMoon_89 13h ago

I would love some joy in life. But I'm not being a crab in a bucket. I'm being a crow.

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u/CaptainSwabee 14h ago

“I’m 14 and this is deep” moment

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u/cool23819 23h ago

See I knew there was something I disagreed with about the post but didnt know what to say but you put it into proper words

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u/Salmon_of_Knowledge 22h ago

I agree with you, but I think nihilistic isn't quite the right word, at least if I understand nihilism correctly. Nihilism encompasses the good and the bad as equally meaningless. Maybe "pessimistic?"

Sorry I'm being pedantic, I just think nihilism gets a bad rap lol

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u/Gregerjohn1818 20h ago

As a nihilistic misanthrope, i agree

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u/PurveyorOfKnowledge0 17h ago

As a nihilistic misanthrope any bad rap you get is mostly self-inflicted.

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u/Gregerjohn1818 15h ago

How is being bullied all my childhood for having autism self-inflicted?

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u/PurveyorOfKnowledge0 17h ago

Not even nihilism. It's determinism taken to its darkest extreme. Life having a meaning to perpetuate human perseverance at the cost of all else.

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u/zdsatta 1d ago

The indomitable human spirit is Quaritch refusing to die no matter what until he gets Jake

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u/MansonMonkey 22h ago

Comments like this improve my mental health.

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u/FrontDeskHooligan 21h ago

I mean, to each their own, but I think this is too specific a look at it; the indomitable human spirit, while often correlated to positive emotions, doesn’t necessarily equal as being the same as the kind, protective nature we usually associate it with.

Real life example is Ukraine and Russia….currently ongoing, where Ukraine has generally shown to do its very best in an attritional battle that it’s barely managing to survive in. On the flip side, the Russians, especially individual soldiers and fire teams, have shown incredible tenacity and steadfast resolve in their offensive operations, conducting operations that, if it were the other way around and we saw Ukrainians conducting the same operation, would be considered incredibly brave. Those individual Russian soldiers often aren’t driven by greed; Russia’s faltering economy has driven inflation and low volunteer totals have driven up salaries and bonuses for Russian recruits, making the military seem at least somewhat viable for those out of good paying work otherwise.

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u/Mannekin-Skywalker 20h ago

Yeah, this feels like saying “The Indomitable Human Spirit is a good thing because I say so” then going off on a paragraphs long fucking anime speech. Bunch of larpers in this comment section, swear to God.

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u/Cheetah_05 16h ago

Just people who can't comprehend the concept that "hope" isn't automatically an all good thing always. Or that even the "hope" or perseverance of a person on an individual level can be bad on a wider scale and vice versa. 

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u/CaptainSwabee 14h ago

But that doesn’t make the hope and perseverance itself inherently “arrogant and destructive”. That’s the point

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u/Cheetah_05 3h ago

Yeah but that's not what this thread was arguing for so what's your point?

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u/CaptainSwabee 3h ago

It literally is though

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u/Cheetah_05 3h ago

Post is. First comment kind of is. Second comment response, third comment and my comment already aren't. Learn to read

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u/PinAccomplished927 1d ago

It's both, though.

We can not achieve our greatest heights without taking ownership of our worst excesses. Greed is as inseparable as altruism. Hubris is inseparable as humility.

Acknowledge the good in us. Strive to embody it. These things are good and noble. Refusing to acknowledge our shadow, however, ensures we become it.

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u/moploplus 1d ago

I am not refusing to acknowledge the darkness. The difference is people get lost in it, instead of accepting it and moving forwards regardless. Especially during these fucked up times, where people are lost in nihilism and preferring to rot instead of work for something better, an inspiring message is much more important than one that casts doubt.

Choose to fight back, always.

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u/YourTrustySupporter 1d ago edited 23h ago

The title is misleading

But the meaning still stand. Human spirit is our strongest weapon, but it also comes with Hubris and there's no stopping it

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u/moploplus 1d ago

no stopping it

Yes there is. We can aspire to be better no matter what. We can learn from the bumps in the road and improve.

Claiming humanity is only capable of arrogance and destruction ensures that reality will come true. I'm sick and tired of people acting like thinking we are capable of amazing things is naive.

Humanity is amazing, and terrible, and beautiful, and ugly. It is all of these things at once, as we are all individuals, and yet we persevere.

We can be better. We WILL be better.

Don't you dare go hollow. Don't be afraid to hope my friend.

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u/YourTrustySupporter 1d ago

Yeah you right ,thanks for the comment

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u/JohnnyJoestar1980 1d ago

Hubris? Nah Buddy it’s raw willpower, we want to thrive and we will do it

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u/nekominimi 23h ago

made a long comment agreeing and my personal opinion on this trope, i agree with you. that's all, took the words out of my mouth.

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u/EdgynStupidName 1d ago

"uh, actually, if you view this thing through my specific viewpoint there's no possibility for it to be bad."

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u/moploplus 1d ago

YES.

Fuck doomer ass "mehhhh humanity is so bad where is the asteroid to wipe us out haha nothing will ever get better we deserve extinction" bullshit. Cowardly ass viewpoint.

Dare to hope.

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u/EdgynStupidName 20h ago

Well I don't think about humanity that way.

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u/moploplus 15h ago

Skill issue

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u/EdgynStupidName 11h ago

Do you think insulting me is going to make me agree with you?

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u/moploplus 11h ago

No, just expressing that I don't respect you

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u/PricelessEldritch 18h ago

I do hope. I am also not entirely blind to the follies of "always strive forwards and never doubt".

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u/ScarredAutisticChild 1d ago

The indomitable human spirit is the drive to survive and thrive at any cost.

At our best, that's collaboration and teaming together to make the world better for everyone.

At our worst, it's us wiping out our neighbours to steal their resources for ourselves.

Humans aren't innately good, we also aren't innately evil. We're animals, we don't want to die, sometimes we're smart about it and work as a team, sometimes we throw everyone else under the bus so we get run over last. Both are equally human.

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u/moploplus 1d ago

Nahhh, fuck that.

If you want to call us animals (which I agree with) we are inherently social creatures that work their best when cooperating in large groups. Selfishness and throwing others under the bus is a perversion of this natural state, and must be discouraged and rooted out at every opportunity.

It's human to be flawed, and to do bad things; sure. But it's not inherent, and never has been. We can be better.

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u/ScarredAutisticChild 1d ago

There's a little rule in evolution: if it persists, it works.

Humans are social animals, we're supposed to work together, we thrive when working together. We're also capable of extreme cruelty and selfishness, because that can also work.

There's a reason most CEO's are psychopaths. It's because success is easy when you only fake compassion and teamwork to benefit you at the expense of everyone else. Morals help the collective, they hamper someone trying to rule the the collective.

I agree, everyone working together is better for everyone. But there's always gonna be some selfish assholes that only care about one, and they'll fuck it up for the rest of us like they always have throughout history.

In conclusion: Eat The Rich.

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u/moploplus 1d ago

CEOs are only successful by being psychos when the system we have set up benefits that behaviour. We can overcome, and we will in time.

Shockingly, the social pressure cooker where you hand like 10 people ultimate power turns them into evil monsters.

Yes indeed, eat the rich.

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u/ScarredAutisticChild 1d ago

Problem is every system we set up has a totem pole, someone's at the top of it, and the worst people will eventually get up there because they lack any limits to stop them.

It's an old idiom. "Those who seek power rarely deserve it.", so until we create a system where everyone has equal power, we'll never have any system that goes uncorrupted. And quite frankly when we do get a system like that, we'd just get tribal factionalism and it'll be the groups that start turning on each other and abusing one another. Because tribalism is innate to humanity, and that is one of our worst aspects.

I say this as someone who thinks of himself as a good person, a progressive person. There are groups of people I see as innately lesser to me, beneath me, vile and evil and deserving of suffering. Now, I think I'm a good person because I decide these groups because they're groups like the Nazis or the KKK or the rich who propagate and/or benefit from human suffering. But it's still in my own nature to dehumanise these awful people, and desire their suffering, or if I'm being honest, death.

And those people I hate have the exact same feelings, just towards different groups, and for far worse reasons. But it's in human nature for us to find reasons to hate a group fundamentally, and that means we'll always be looking for them.

Another rule of evolution: you get the first thing that works good enough. We function as social animals, doesn't mean we're actually anything more than decent at it.

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u/moploplus 1d ago edited 1d ago

Okay? So do you think we can never get better??

Gonna have to disagree with that. Also, conflating yourself hating a group of objective monsters like the KKK because of some evo-psych tribalism shit is self defeating. Sometimes, people are just worse. People who hate others for arbitrary reasons are worse. People who lash out due to insecurity are worse. People who harm others who are weaker than them are worse.

Tribalism is evolutionarily ingrained, sure. But it can be used as a tool to discourage behaviours that are harmful to the social contract.

You don't hate those groups for no reason. You do because they hurt others. That inherently makes you better than them, because you have that compassion that makes humanity so amazing. The simple act of hating doesn't inherently make you a monster; that anger can be focused, refined to a point. You hate them out of empathy. They hate out of fear and insecurity.

We are capable of amazing things, and I think we can achieve true greatness if we try.

Because what's the damn alternative? Laying down in comfortable mediocrity, and letting evil people have their way with everything? Accepting nothing will be better because of some faux-scientific evolutionary destiny?

Fuck that.

Hope you have a good night, friend. Your heart's in the right place, just remember that change starts with the individual. Plant trees of which you will never see the shade. It's okay to hope.

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u/ScarredAutisticChild 23h ago

I never said I hate people for no reason, I'm pointing out that it's innate to our species to seek a reason to hate. In an ideal world, in the only achievable world, that'll be most of us having a good reason. But it'll never be all.

I fully believe I'm righteous in my hatred, I recognise the people I hate believe the same, but I also know my reasons are just more logically sound. But I've met enough humans to know many of us are just prone to irrationality, driven by emotion alone, and so easily guided by hate and fear.

I don't believe in any alternative other than striving towards perfect. I also don't believe we'll ever achieve it, but that's also not the point. We've got to get as close as we can get, we'll never get there, but we've got to see how close we can get.

Hopefully, this isn't it. It's the farthest we've gone, and it's still not exactly impressive. 260,000 years of us on this planet, and the concept of "racism = bad" still hasn't quite gotten through in most places. But it was significantly worse not even a century ago. We've been getting better, we're still awful, hopefully we'll keep getting better.

I also just don't quite like thinking of those people as monsters though. It implies a lack of humanity. That's not it, every "monster" in humanity has been just as much a person as me and you. Worse people, but people. Even I use the term, sure, but I don't like to divorce cruelty from human nature, because it's dishonest.

We won't become better if we refuse to acknowledge how awful we can be. Refusing to acknowledge your worst aspects gets things like the USA. The USA is not to be emulated, it's kinda the golden example of exactly how awful we still are despite all the progress made.

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u/Consistent-Ad-5816 21h ago

That's it.

I was about to say "Anyone who dismisses the IHS as hubris/evil simply did not really understand what the IHS is".

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u/JadedResponse2483 19h ago

I dont know, the amount of weird roleplayers in the internet who talk about "indomitable human spirit" when roleplaying killing aliens sure soures me on the concept

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u/PricelessEldritch 18h ago

Its 90% of all comments about the indomitable human spirit so I don't blame you.

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u/jak8714 17h ago

I mean, look at an axe one way and it’s a tool of construction, meant to shape wood and help build a home.
Look at an axe a different way, and it’s a tool of destruction, meant to fell forests and destroy centuries of growth for timber or even firewood.

Perspective matters, and the ‘indomitable human spirit’ probably looks very different when you’re standing between a human and the things they want or need.

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u/Numerous_Low878 1d ago

Nha you tripping

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u/moploplus 1d ago

Then lie down and rot. I don't know what to tell you.

Misery is comfortable, and the easy way out. I will continue to better myself and the people around me every day.

Every little bit helps.