This is ridiculous. If everyone is walking into this with different ideas on what constitutes the already nebulous concept of evil then what is the point of this conversation.
Like a few thousand years of philosophy have had a hard time with this. It may be that we just "know" it. But no one has been able to lay it down in language without getting stuck in the weeds for a couple thousand years.
themightypuck on
“Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”
― Marcus Aurelius
I think that's because people have a poor understanding of history. In Xerxes vs. the 300, I don't consider the greeks to be the good guys. The spartans were assholes and had slaves that were brutally treated and regularly murdered, just like Xerxes did.
As for Truman, would it have been more evil to order the invasion of japan with ground forces? More people would have died.
This is ridiculous. If everyone is walking into this with different ideas on what constitutes the already nebulous concept of evil then what is the point of this conversation.
Like a few thousand years of philosophy have had a hard time with this. It may be that we just "know" it. But no one has been able to lay it down in language without getting stuck in the weeds for a couple thousand years.
These are just labels we apply to whether or not something corresponds to our values, which many tend to assume are universal, and that those who disagree are aberrant. But there are multitudes whose values differ greatly from your own, and there is nothing written into the fabric of the universe that makes any of them right or wrong outside their own perspectives.
Moreover, there are the issues of conscious vs. subconscious and intent vs. result. Even simple benevolence vs. malice fails to tell the whole story of one's character.
I think that's because people have a poor understanding of history. In Xerxes vs. the 300, I don't consider the greeks to be the good guys. The spartans were assholes and had slaves that were brutally treated and regularly murdered, just like Xerxes did.
As for Truman, would it have been more evil to order the invasion of japan with ground forces? More people would have died.
That is a legitimate prediction but we really don't know. When you are in a war you need to go all crazy and do crazy shit. Afterwards it ain't going win some morality game. Look at the bombing of Germany. They went for civilians. Look at the numbers. The Germans went for civilians and the Allies gave it back to them ten to one.
themightypuck on
“Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”
― Marcus Aurelius
This is ridiculous. If everyone is walking into this with different ideas on what constitutes the already nebulous concept of evil then what is the point of this conversation.
Like a few thousand years of philosophy have had a hard time with this. It may be that we just "know" it. But no one has been able to lay it down in language without getting stuck in the weeds for a couple thousand years.
I am honestly not sure what you're saying here.
I am admittedly a bit tossed but I think I'm saying that it is a bit naive to expect a discussion of "evil" to be between a bunch of people who agree what "evil' is.
themightypuck on
“Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”
― Marcus Aurelius
This is ridiculous. If everyone is walking into this with different ideas on what constitutes the already nebulous concept of evil then what is the point of this conversation.
Like a few thousand years of philosophy have had a hard time with this. It may be that we just "know" it. But no one has been able to lay it down in language without getting stuck in the weeds for a couple thousand years.
I am honestly not sure what you're saying here.
I am admittedly a bit tossed but I think I'm saying that it is a bit naive to expect a discussion of "evil" to be between a bunch of people who agree what "evil' is.
But the conversation hasn't been about evil per se, it's been about whether or not a character is evil. And how can you possibly argue whether or not a character is evil without even agreeing what evil is?
You get what we have here. Five pages of,'x is evil because y' and the only response being,'I don't think y makes x evil'.
Regarding history - history is always written by the winners, right?
History dictates that the bombing of Hiroshima was necessary while the holocaust was evil. I think most sane people would agree that both are evil.
History is funny like that....
No, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were horrible events, but ones that many agree saved more lives than it took. I don't know because nobody can, but it dramatically changed the outcome of the war, for better or for worse.
Opponents of usage of the atomic bomb point out that at that point in the war, Japan's infrastructure, military presence, and population had already been devastated by conventional bombs and attacks, to the point that the only reason the war was even considered to be continuing is that the Japanese leadership refused to surrender.
The naval blockade that had been in place before the atomic bombing could have achieved the same end.
So...now you get to interpret what he thought? Man, you have no idea what he thought, you only know what he said.
I don't think that's actually fair, but okay. Hitler was a well-intentioned person that lacked compassion. How does this support your argument? I mean, as far as I can tell, this only helps you if I'm not allowed to say Hitler wasn't evil.
If Hitler was, as you imply, a well-intentioned person, he wasn't evil.
You don't think it is fair that I do not let you pretend to know what a dead man thought?
I don't think it's fair that, given that neither of us know for certain what he actually thought, we default to assuming that a politician was 100% honest when stating his intentions and beliefs. Care to make a point?
I already made my point. Killing millions of people is evil, regardless of intentions.
I don't know about that. Take the example of 28 Days Later. An extremely infectious disease erupts in Britain, the vast majority of an entire population of millions and millions of people contract it. To avoid spreading of the disease, the entire island is quarantined off by other nations, condemning the people there to death. Outbound flights are shot down, ships blown out of the water, anyone attempting to leave the island killed without question.
You get what we have here. Five pages of,'x is evil because y' and the only response being,'I don't think y makes x evil'.
Fair enough. I'm wasted and walking into a minefield. Still "evil" ain't easy. It has confounded philosophers for a couple thousand years but every fucker (except those diagnosed as psychopaths) know what evil is. Lex Luther--Evil. Superman--Not Evil.
themightypuck on
“Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
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Bloods EndBlade of TyshallePunch dimensionRegistered Userregular
Well, consider. He did not perpetrate horrors for their own ends. He made plans that minimized loss of life, even for his opponents.
His entire goal was to bring safety and order to the galaxy, and he did not share the anti-alien bias of much of the former Empire. Hell, he even laid plans for the future against even greater threats to the galaxy, should he fail.
Edit: Plus, consider. Do you think the Yuuzhan Vong would have stood a chance against Thrawn?
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Bloods EndBlade of TyshallePunch dimensionRegistered Userregular
Utilitarianism is the most "moral" philosophy but the one most unacceptable to a moral person. Humans ain't easy.
themightypuck on
“Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
edited June 2008
weeeeeeeeeeee..... :rotate:
OK, so apparently, I can't keep out of it.
First, some housekeeping, all the talk of the technicalities of good vs evil is not relevant to ELM's original question of what makes a compelling villain (but, I will get to that later).
A villain is best understood as the antagonist of a story opposed to the protagonist (at least, in the context of ELM's original question) - so villainous protagonists aren't exactly a good answers. The villain is the one who is constantly interfering with the protagonists's own plans and devices, with whom conflict occurs most often and most significantly. I take the question as asking what makes a character a compelling one, despite the fact that we predominantly experience them through the perspective of the character with whom they conflict (and conflict in significant manners). And in answer to that question, I think the most compelling antagonists are those who you eventually discover wasn't actually a bad guy afterall, just on the other side of the fence due to some twist of fate, or the noble bad guy with a sense of honour (Palladium's abberant alignment, IIRC).
Now, as for the nature of good versus evil, and how intentions factor into all of this, then let's first of all observe that both sides have rather over simplified the issue (of course, one side is also right while the other is afflicted by the moon fever but that's another story). Yes, intentions do matter, no, not all good intentions are "good ones" (the latter 'good' refers to quality rather than morality). So far, only the example fro, Warcraft has been a good example of an intention for killing people (lots of people) that actually identifies the act as a good one.
While I'm not familiar with Death Note, from what I have gleaned this Light character definitely doesn't qualify. Kant captured what seems to be a fundamental human intuition, one which Singer shared and applied to animals - in Kant's words - People should not be viewed as a means to an end. You can't trump someone's interest in having a world of peace by your belief that removing them creates a world at greater peace for everyone else. While it might be right to derail a train headed for a bus full of people, killing the driver, it's wrong to derail an unmanned train heading for a bus full of people by throwing a huge fat dude in front of the tracks.
Manifestly unacceptable good intentions are "doing God's work", or "because Jews are ruining the country by stealing our jobs and having funny noses" or "We have to make sure our race is religiously pure and not turned awy from our path". If anyone thinks that the Inquisition wasn't even despite their manifestly good intentions "If we DON'T do this then things will be far, far worse, for everyone") then you're off your meds. Never mind the fact that many people's conception of "a better place" is "me and the social group I identify with have it better, while brown people/people who don't love Jesus/people without as much money as I have/the gays get sold up shit creek" - and they're definitely bad people, and they're actively bad when they move to make this vision a reality, let alone kill people for it.
And honestly, the deity of the bible is manifestly evil one. Seriously, you thought that could possibly be a counter argument to "killing millions of people is bad"? Are you retarded?
Apothe0sis on
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SmasherStarting to get dizzyRegistered Userregular
Good and evil?
Simple deceptions.
Open your heart and mind to the stream of Tao that pervades the universe.
I would have to say one of my favorite villains is Rowan from Eragon, because of his unique quandry: he has to do things because of dark agreements, but he slowly begins to follow the ideology, and puts his own life ahead of others.
Of course that may just be cliche, so I don't know. Not well read people (me) should just shut up.
I might be opening a huge can of worms here, but I've got to say that good people serving bad causes because of a sense of honor are my favorite types of antagonists, and that's a lot of why Rommel is such an interesting historical character to me.
"No, you'll warrant no villain's exposition from me."
-Jon Irenicus
Late game spoiler, since I can only assume you random yobbos with yer "Light's" and yer "Dexters" haven't played this game.
"I... I do not remember your love, Ellesime. I have tried to. I have tried to recreate it, to spark it anew in my memory. But it is gone... a hollow, dead thing. For years, I clung to the memory of it. Then the memory of the memory. And then nothing. The Seldarine took that from me, too. I look upon you and I feel nothing. I remember nothing but you turning your back on me, along with all the others. Once my thirst for power was everything. And now I hunger only for revenge. And... I... Will... HAVE IT!! "
-Jonoleth Irenicus
What makes a good game villian is a great voice actor. He made that spoilered paragraph work even though on paper it's a steaming pile of cliche crap. He made the whole damn game.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
And honestly, the deity of the bible is manifestly evil one. Seriously, you thought that could possibly be a counter argument to "killing millions of people is bad"? Are you retarded?
I always wondered how he pulled it off? I figured it was the God factor.
themightypuck on
“Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”
― Marcus Aurelius
I think people are forgetting one vitally important problem with Light in Death Note.
His plan is completely, unutterably stupid.
Will killing criminals via seemingly omnipresent magic scare some people straight? Probably. However, crime isn't generally done by people who are messed up in their heads and want to do something malicious. Social circumstances play a colossal part of it. For every criminal Light killed that was irredeemable, he was also killing a criminal who only committed a crime because they were desperate or otherwise had no choice. If he sincerely wants to make a better world, which is arguable, killing the desperate isn't going to do it. What he's doing is equivalent to becoming a census official and just writing down the names of everyone in certain income brackets in the Death Note.
Also, he rants and raves about killing people he considers inferior once he's done with the criminals. His simplistic world view pretty steadily goes totally insane after only a few weeks or so of having the Death Note. He starts out as arguably well intentioned, but almost immediately becomes a psychopath. I guess that's what happens when you give a teenager the ability to magically kill anyone they want.
There is one villain that hasn't been mentioned that I think is highly compelling.
Doctor Wallace Breen. He started out as the scientific administrator of Black Mesa: nothing unusual, nothing particularly wrong with him. Hell, for all that's known he could've been a really nice guy by normal standards. He could also have been a huge asshole, but only by normal standards.
Then the Combine invade. Breen is put into the most horrific position imaginable. He's got to negotiate a peace. A peace with an alien race that is unimaginably superior to us, that just wiped out vast portions of the world's population and military as a prelude to vacuum cleaning the whole planet. Breen has to offer something that will make the Combine stay their hand.
He offers humanity. He offers humanity as malleable chattel, with the proviso being that humanity gets to live, after a fashion. Can we breed anymore? Hell no. Do we retain any kind of freedom? Hell no. Do we have any say in being mutilated into serfs or super soldiers? Move along, citizen. Breen has to deal with the fact that he has just been instrumental in saving humanity whilst unutterably fucking everyone over at the same time. He's got to justify that shit in his head, because there's no way he can turn around and tell the Combine to shove it. They'll just march right in and finish the job they nearly finished earlier.
Breen is fascinating because he's a villain by circumstance. He's had to make so many choices where the only options are bad or worse. It's made him unhinged, as even though he's become psychotically evil he desperately tries to look for an out of the hellhole he's had no choice but to dive into. There can be no redemption for dear Doctor Wallace Breen. In the end though, it's hard to blame him for what he's had to do.
I think people are forgetting one vitally important problem with Light in Death Note.
His plan is completely, unutterably stupid.
Will killing criminals via seemingly omnipresent magic scare some people straight? Probably. However, crime isn't generally done by people who are messed up in their heads and want to do something malicious. Social circumstances play a colossal part of it. For every criminal Light killed that was irredeemable, he was also killing a criminal who only committed a crime because they were desperate or otherwise had no choice. If he sincerely wants to make a better world, which is arguable, killing the desperate isn't going to do it. What he's doing is equivalent to becoming a census official and just writing down the names of everyone in certain income brackets in the Death Note.
Also, he rants and raves about killing people he considers inferior once he's done with the criminals. His simplistic world view pretty steadily goes totally insane after only a few weeks or so of having the Death Note. He starts out as arguably well intentioned, but almost immediately becomes a psychopath. I guess that's what happens when you give a teenager the ability to magically kill anyone they want.
Irenicus was great. DT from KOTOR2 suffered from what the game suffered from: lack of finish/closure. She was awesomely great right from the get go and then didn't play out.
themightypuck on
“Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”
― Marcus Aurelius
Ok, it's a link to the website of a presumably conservative US think tank with, I venture, slightly unusual views on the reasons for criminal behavior.
Care to at least adding a little bit of extra information to add context?
Ok, it's a link to the website of a presumably conservative US think tank with, I venture, slightly unusual views on the reasons for criminal behavior.
Care to at least adding a little bit of extra information to add context?
Me bad. I got them from some (IMHO crazy) chick from bloggingheads.tv. I'm up late and a bit loopy. Their views are not right out there in the USA but the USA is indeed right out there in terms of criminal behavior. Who knows why.
themightypuck on
“Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”
― Marcus Aurelius
Whether Light's plans would have worked or not isn't the point. The point is he was trying to accomplish good. Being good requires being well-intentioned but also requires wisdom. He's not good, but if he's well-intentioned, he's not evil, either. He's just a well-intentioned person that misjudged what he was doing.
Hitler had nothing but good intentions.
Keep your Godwin comments to yourself.
...No? He didn't?
He believed he was doing God's work.
Even if true, I don't see how that makes him well-intentioned.
Your inability to understand does not change it.
If you're thinking about the Holocaust, well that wasn't actually planned. The camps they were in were supposed to be labor camps where they built contained communities and then they would work making various items for the rest of Germany, basically worker prison towns. They only turned into death camps because they were running out of the resources to keep all the prisoners alive. I am not trying to be some sort of Nazi apologist here, I'm just relating the facts.
Damn you, I was just coming to post that. An awesome villain.
1) He was extremely intelligent and rational. But ruthless.
2) He could inspire loyalty in his troops, even after he fell from grace and lost his rank and commission.
3) He was working for a greater good: to secure a weapon for his side to win a war they would otherwise lose to a much more powerful, cruel and ruthless alien race.
I think people are forgetting one vitally important problem with Light in Death Note.
His plan is completely, unutterably stupid.
Will killing criminals via seemingly omnipresent magic scare some people straight? Probably. However, crime isn't generally done by people who are messed up in their heads and want to do something malicious. Social circumstances play a colossal part of it. For every criminal Light killed that was irredeemable, he was also killing a criminal who only committed a crime because they were desperate or otherwise had no choice. If he sincerely wants to make a better world, which is arguable, killing the desperate isn't going to do it. What he's doing is equivalent to becoming a census official and just writing down the names of everyone in certain income brackets in the Death Note.
Also, he rants and raves about killing people he considers inferior once he's done with the criminals. His simplistic world view pretty steadily goes totally insane after only a few weeks or so of having the Death Note. He starts out as arguably well intentioned, but almost immediately becomes a psychopath. I guess that's what happens when you give a teenager the ability to magically kill anyone they want.
My basic definition of "evil" applies to actions that are committed with no good intentions. True evil is only committed out of selfishness, or a simple want do to harm. I don't think there are more than a few cases of true evil in all of history.
If the very same act were committed by someone with good intentions, I would call it "misguided" rather than "evil".
But that's just a personal view. The official definition is "anything that is immoral or harmful" which vastly objectifies the situation.
That said, I think the best villains are the ones who make us cheer for both teams. The ones that make us think "oh man, i hope he makes it" and then immediately realize "oh yeah, he can't because hes the bad guy...kind of a shame", even though we still feel relieved that the protagonist won.
The best villains are either heroes from another perspective (even a warped one), or are unstoppable and/or incomprehensible forces of nature.
Watchmen was great for the former, The Joker or The Borg are good examples of the latter, I think.
The Borg (TNG-era, before all that Voyager crap) were unstoppable, but they were not incomprehensible. In fact, they made perfect sense. Like Locutus said in "Best of Both Worlds", they seek to "improve the quality of life for all species" by assimilating them. By a lot of metrics, the Borg society is better than ours: no crime, no poverty, no social injustice or inequality. They realise that and want to improve us to their level, by force if necessary. It's the "we're doing this for your own good" mentality taken to the extreme.
Moreover, the Borg's methods are not evil. They never attacked another ship except in self-defence when they were attacked. And they only destroy ships when they have to: when the Enterprise saucer section was a defenceless and harmless "sitting duck" at the end of a battle with a Borg cube, the Borg spared them. And they created Locutus to "facilitate assimilation" of the Federation, even though they did not need to because there was nothing the Federation could do to stop assimilation. They created Locutus because they thought it would help us accept assimilation, not because they needed it.
The best villains are either heroes from another perspective (even a warped one), or are unstoppable and/or incomprehensible forces of nature.
Watchmen was great for the former, The Joker or The Borg are good examples of the latter, I think.
The Borg (TNG-era, before all that Voyager crap) were unstoppable, but they were not incomprehensible. In fact, they made perfect sense. Like Locutus said in "Best of Both Worlds", they seek to "improve the quality of life for all species" by assimilating them. By a lot of metrics, the Borg society is better than ours: no crime, no poverty, no social injustice or inequality. They realise that and want to improve us to their level, by force if necessary. It's the "we're doing this for your own good" mentality taken to the extreme.
Moreover, the Borg's methods are not evil. They never attacked another ship except in self-defence when they were attacked. And they only destroy ships when they have to: when the Enterprise saucer section was a defenceless and harmless "sitting duck" at the end of a battle with a Borg cube, the Borg spared them. And they created Locutus to "facilitate assimilation" of the Federation, even though they did not need to because there was nothing the Federation could do to stop assimilation. They created Locutus because they thought it would help us accept assimilation, not because they needed it.
I had always wondered where all the "Think of the children!" types were in that show. What with holodecks providing life like Quake games. (Worf's kid even chops up a bunch of guys in one episode!) Apparently they all flew off to become the Borg.
Posts
Like a few thousand years of philosophy have had a hard time with this. It may be that we just "know" it. But no one has been able to lay it down in language without getting stuck in the weeds for a couple thousand years.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
As for Truman, would it have been more evil to order the invasion of japan with ground forces? More people would have died.
I am honestly not sure what you're saying here.
On the black screen
Irrelevant.
These are just labels we apply to whether or not something corresponds to our values, which many tend to assume are universal, and that those who disagree are aberrant. But there are multitudes whose values differ greatly from your own, and there is nothing written into the fabric of the universe that makes any of them right or wrong outside their own perspectives.
Moreover, there are the issues of conscious vs. subconscious and intent vs. result. Even simple benevolence vs. malice fails to tell the whole story of one's character.
That is a legitimate prediction but we really don't know. When you are in a war you need to go all crazy and do crazy shit. Afterwards it ain't going win some morality game. Look at the bombing of Germany. They went for civilians. Look at the numbers. The Germans went for civilians and the Allies gave it back to them ten to one.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
I am admittedly a bit tossed but I think I'm saying that it is a bit naive to expect a discussion of "evil" to be between a bunch of people who agree what "evil' is.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
But the conversation hasn't been about evil per se, it's been about whether or not a character is evil. And how can you possibly argue whether or not a character is evil without even agreeing what evil is?
You get what we have here. Five pages of,'x is evil because y' and the only response being,'I don't think y makes x evil'.
On the black screen
Opponents of usage of the atomic bomb point out that at that point in the war, Japan's infrastructure, military presence, and population had already been devastated by conventional bombs and attacks, to the point that the only reason the war was even considered to be continuing is that the Japanese leadership refused to surrender.
The naval blockade that had been in place before the atomic bombing could have achieved the same end.
I don't know about that. Take the example of 28 Days Later. An extremely infectious disease erupts in Britain, the vast majority of an entire population of millions and millions of people contract it. To avoid spreading of the disease, the entire island is quarantined off by other nations, condemning the people there to death. Outbound flights are shot down, ships blown out of the water, anyone attempting to leave the island killed without question.
Evil? Not so much.
Fair enough. I'm wasted and walking into a minefield. Still "evil" ain't easy. It has confounded philosophers for a couple thousand years but every fucker (except those diagnosed as psychopaths) know what evil is. Lex Luther--Evil. Superman--Not Evil.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
Not a villain.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
I thought that exchange was to be my case-in-point.
On the black screen
Well I rest your case as well. Although with the caveat that I might reopen it when I'm sober.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
His entire goal was to bring safety and order to the galaxy, and he did not share the anti-alien bias of much of the former Empire. Hell, he even laid plans for the future against even greater threats to the galaxy, should he fail.
Edit: Plus, consider. Do you think the Yuuzhan Vong would have stood a chance against Thrawn?
He was blue. And had red eyes.
How is he not a villain.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
OK, so apparently, I can't keep out of it.
First, some housekeeping, all the talk of the technicalities of good vs evil is not relevant to ELM's original question of what makes a compelling villain (but, I will get to that later).
A villain is best understood as the antagonist of a story opposed to the protagonist (at least, in the context of ELM's original question) - so villainous protagonists aren't exactly a good answers. The villain is the one who is constantly interfering with the protagonists's own plans and devices, with whom conflict occurs most often and most significantly. I take the question as asking what makes a character a compelling one, despite the fact that we predominantly experience them through the perspective of the character with whom they conflict (and conflict in significant manners). And in answer to that question, I think the most compelling antagonists are those who you eventually discover wasn't actually a bad guy afterall, just on the other side of the fence due to some twist of fate, or the noble bad guy with a sense of honour (Palladium's abberant alignment, IIRC).
Now, as for the nature of good versus evil, and how intentions factor into all of this, then let's first of all observe that both sides have rather over simplified the issue (of course, one side is also right while the other is afflicted by the moon fever but that's another story). Yes, intentions do matter, no, not all good intentions are "good ones" (the latter 'good' refers to quality rather than morality). So far, only the example fro, Warcraft has been a good example of an intention for killing people (lots of people) that actually identifies the act as a good one.
While I'm not familiar with Death Note, from what I have gleaned this Light character definitely doesn't qualify. Kant captured what seems to be a fundamental human intuition, one which Singer shared and applied to animals - in Kant's words - People should not be viewed as a means to an end. You can't trump someone's interest in having a world of peace by your belief that removing them creates a world at greater peace for everyone else. While it might be right to derail a train headed for a bus full of people, killing the driver, it's wrong to derail an unmanned train heading for a bus full of people by throwing a huge fat dude in front of the tracks.
Manifestly unacceptable good intentions are "doing God's work", or "because Jews are ruining the country by stealing our jobs and having funny noses" or "We have to make sure our race is religiously pure and not turned awy from our path". If anyone thinks that the Inquisition wasn't even despite their manifestly good intentions "If we DON'T do this then things will be far, far worse, for everyone") then you're off your meds. Never mind the fact that many people's conception of "a better place" is "me and the social group I identify with have it better, while brown people/people who don't love Jesus/people without as much money as I have/the gays get sold up shit creek" - and they're definitely bad people, and they're actively bad when they move to make this vision a reality, let alone kill people for it.
And honestly, the deity of the bible is manifestly evil one. Seriously, you thought that could possibly be a counter argument to "killing millions of people is bad"? Are you retarded?
I think we can all agree with that.
Simple deceptions.
Open your heart and mind to the stream of Tao that pervades the universe.
I would have to say one of my favorite villains is Rowan from Eragon, because of his unique quandry: he has to do things because of dark agreements, but he slowly begins to follow the ideology, and puts his own life ahead of others.
Of course that may just be cliche, so I don't know. Not well read people (me) should just shut up.
(Except for me.)
Yes. I think I want one of those Election sigs, with Grand Admiral Thrawn. Nonexistent Photoshop skills, don't fail me now!
might even say he's a great villain
Edited cause I misread what I was quoting.
Steam: Drokmir
On one hand, I get to post it.
On the other hand, you all fail.
[URL="[IMG]http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n208/morninglord21/Jon_Irenicus.jpg[/IMG]"]
"No, you'll warrant no villain's exposition from me."
-Jon Irenicus
Late game spoiler, since I can only assume you random yobbos with yer "Light's" and yer "Dexters" haven't played this game.
-Jonoleth Irenicus
What makes a good game villian is a great voice actor. He made that spoilered paragraph work even though on paper it's a steaming pile of cliche crap. He made the whole damn game.
I always wondered how he pulled it off? I figured it was the God factor.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
His plan is completely, unutterably stupid.
Will killing criminals via seemingly omnipresent magic scare some people straight? Probably. However, crime isn't generally done by people who are messed up in their heads and want to do something malicious. Social circumstances play a colossal part of it. For every criminal Light killed that was irredeemable, he was also killing a criminal who only committed a crime because they were desperate or otherwise had no choice. If he sincerely wants to make a better world, which is arguable, killing the desperate isn't going to do it. What he's doing is equivalent to becoming a census official and just writing down the names of everyone in certain income brackets in the Death Note.
Also, he rants and raves about killing people he considers inferior once he's done with the criminals. His simplistic world view pretty steadily goes totally insane after only a few weeks or so of having the Death Note. He starts out as arguably well intentioned, but almost immediately becomes a psychopath. I guess that's what happens when you give a teenager the ability to magically kill anyone they want.
There is one villain that hasn't been mentioned that I think is highly compelling.
Doctor Wallace Breen. He started out as the scientific administrator of Black Mesa: nothing unusual, nothing particularly wrong with him. Hell, for all that's known he could've been a really nice guy by normal standards. He could also have been a huge asshole, but only by normal standards.
Then the Combine invade. Breen is put into the most horrific position imaginable. He's got to negotiate a peace. A peace with an alien race that is unimaginably superior to us, that just wiped out vast portions of the world's population and military as a prelude to vacuum cleaning the whole planet. Breen has to offer something that will make the Combine stay their hand.
He offers humanity. He offers humanity as malleable chattel, with the proviso being that humanity gets to live, after a fashion. Can we breed anymore? Hell no. Do we retain any kind of freedom? Hell no. Do we have any say in being mutilated into serfs or super soldiers? Move along, citizen. Breen has to deal with the fact that he has just been instrumental in saving humanity whilst unutterably fucking everyone over at the same time. He's got to justify that shit in his head, because there's no way he can turn around and tell the Combine to shove it. They'll just march right in and finish the job they nearly finished earlier.
Breen is fascinating because he's a villain by circumstance. He's had to make so many choices where the only options are bad or worse. It's made him unhinged, as even though he's become psychotically evil he desperately tries to look for an out of the hellhole he's had no choice but to dive into. There can be no redemption for dear Doctor Wallace Breen. In the end though, it's hard to blame him for what he's had to do.
Tell it to the In your island. Stealing your land.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
Darth Traya from Knights of the Old Republic 2 was interesting in terms of not being the usual black or white stereotype typical of Starwars.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
Yeah well I got nothing for that. My avatar. My BRAIN. GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!!!!
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
Ok, it's a link to the website of a presumably conservative US think tank with, I venture, slightly unusual views on the reasons for criminal behavior.
Care to at least adding a little bit of extra information to add context?
Me bad. I got them from some (IMHO crazy) chick from bloggingheads.tv. I'm up late and a bit loopy. Their views are not right out there in the USA but the USA is indeed right out there in terms of criminal behavior. Who knows why.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
I realize I'm kind of late on this one, but this is just soo fucking wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannseekonferenz
And I never heard that Hitler was seriously considering himself to be doing God's work.
On-topic: I really, really liked Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun. I feel he is one of the better Bond villains.
Damn you, I was just coming to post that. An awesome villain.
1) He was extremely intelligent and rational. But ruthless.
2) He could inspire loyalty in his troops, even after he fell from grace and lost his rank and commission.
3) He was working for a greater good: to secure a weapon for his side to win a war they would otherwise lose to a much more powerful, cruel and ruthless alien race.
That show, oh man. Sometimes I'm rooting for L, other times I want a Death Note. I'll put pages in my printer and type in a really tiny font size
Also,
If the very same act were committed by someone with good intentions, I would call it "misguided" rather than "evil".
But that's just a personal view. The official definition is "anything that is immoral or harmful" which vastly objectifies the situation.
That said, I think the best villains are the ones who make us cheer for both teams. The ones that make us think "oh man, i hope he makes it" and then immediately realize "oh yeah, he can't because hes the bad guy...kind of a shame", even though we still feel relieved that the protagonist won.
Watchmen was great for the former, The Joker or The Borg are good examples of the latter, I think.
Moreover, the Borg's methods are not evil. They never attacked another ship except in self-defence when they were attacked. And they only destroy ships when they have to: when the Enterprise saucer section was a defenceless and harmless "sitting duck" at the end of a battle with a Borg cube, the Borg spared them. And they created Locutus to "facilitate assimilation" of the Federation, even though they did not need to because there was nothing the Federation could do to stop assimilation. They created Locutus because they thought it would help us accept assimilation, not because they needed it.
I had always wondered where all the "Think of the children!" types were in that show. What with holodecks providing life like Quake games. (Worf's kid even chops up a bunch of guys in one episode!) Apparently they all flew off to become the Borg.