The Role of Empathy in Regard to Affection and Sentiment (and How it Relates to Geese, Mickey Mouse, Gilgamesh, and Nazis)

I want the audience to develop a sense of affection for my character between the first and last scene, and the narratives I wrote last year do not really accomplish my goal.

While brainstorming with Maria we noticed animations with a similar sentiment for involve the main character enduring injustice.

Der Störenfried vs. Education for Death

Not everyone loves an underdog... At least not historically.
Showing a character enduring injustice as a literary device to engender affection is not a universal thing, and I can't find many historic examples (other than The Bible).

It is not a quality common to the "heroes journey" or in line with Grimm fairy-tales or Beowulf

I think it might be a new thing, or at least not a tactic used in fascist societies. In fact, it is the antithesis of the moral in this Volksgemeinschaft propaganda video.

 

The above video is caricaturized in this satirical Disney short (at 5:39)

These two videos are an impressive microcosm for the shift in narrative ideation coinciding with the end of WWII. 


Further evidence that suggests the idea that enduring injustice is not cross cultural or a historic universal literary device is in the reception of the Vedas (Arya texts dating around 1500 b.c.e.). The Arya were not empathetic or politically correct by modern standards. The Arya were a group of nobility who resided in India, distinguishing themselves from the Dasa (dark colored slaves) with language, tools, social organization, and religion (Patton 182),but the Nazis and several groups of Hindu Nationalists claimed descent to the technologically superior Arya, supporting their perception of racially based intellectual superiority and the propensity for their lineage to fill the role of dominance in the natural order. [1]

1) Derived from Myths of Arya, Varna, and Jati in the Hindu Tradition by Laurie L. Patton