This isn't a case of distinct cultures, it's a case of different values within the same culture.
Where do you draw the line between distinct cultures and behaving/believing differently within the same culture? And why does that distinction matter?
Many of the barriers are the same but since (in our case) we're living in the same country and under the same rule of law, we can have our arguments and our bitter discussions and our elections and our lawsuits without any real fear of causing a war, a major diplomatic incident or other things like that.
Only because of the amount of forcing our government is able to do. I mean shit, Civil War. Many other cultures/governments aren't nearly as good at keeping different values from clashing in explosive ways. The West is an incredibly peaceful place to live, but only recently.
I think it's much like the way members of a family can fight with one another and have arguments where the things said go quite a bit further than an argument you would have with a friend, co-worker or more distant relative and still wind up being a family at the end of it. Not so much with that friend or co-worker, with whom the same level of hostility would very likely permanently end the relationship or sour it beyond all utility.
You can still have an incredibly huge gap between people in the same family though... wars between brothers are quite classic.
I'm not really sure what any of this matters.
We tend to attach importance based on proximity, but that doesn't mean as much when you have teleporters and warp speed.
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited June 2008
In fact, he is wrong about a great many things.
I loved the Emperor for the same reason I love Irenicus. The actor has brilliant voice control and his lines are iconic. I don't know if it is the same actor in 1, 2and 3, but when that actor goes into "emperor" mode in 3, his voice suddenly becomes memorable.
My little green friend.
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c) You are attempting to discredit a very popular (though maybe not major) perspective on morality in an open thread about good and evil which are moral values.
This thread isn't about good and evil, it's about fictional villains and what makes them cool.
Aside from smoking, because smoking makes everyone cool.
According to the topic, this is about good and evil, and according to the context of the thread, it is about good and evil within fiction. Fiction is based, at least partially, on reality. And we relate to fictional beings and fictional events through our realistic frameworks. So, uh, I'd say you are incorrect.
Perhaps "bad" is the wrong word to use - a compelling antagonist. In recent years I tend find myself often hoping that somehow the bad guy of a piece will get to put his plan into action, just because I want to see what it was and what they would do afterwards.
Basically what I'm wondering is, what sorts of opposing forces are interesting to watch? What are some examples of villains or antagonists who actually had interesting ideologies, or at least didn't make the reason the "good guys" should win so obvious?
Notice how it doesn't mention morality or evil at all, and only uses "good" in the sense of "good guys", which is a fictional character model and not a moral judgement call. So I'd say you're the one who's incorrect on this point.
People were discussing Borg morality well before I made a single post. So singling me out as posting off-topic is silly. Also, I think a large part of what goes into good antagonists and protagonists are their moral perspectives. For instance, I wouldn't find Battlestar Galactica half as interesting as I do if different moral perspectives weren't being thrown around, tried, and challenged throughout the series. Don't differing moral frameworks account for much of the tension that exists in fantasy and, especially, sci-fi (i.e. constructing a new framework for situations that may exist in the future but don't today)?
I mean, take Star Wars. Is the empire a collective villain? The movies are shown from that perspective, but I'm not really sure I agree if I zoom out.
Anyway, all I'm saying is that moral perspective plays a large role in what makes a good and believable villain.
Perhaps "bad" is the wrong word to use - a compelling antagonist. In recent years I tend find myself often hoping that somehow the bad guy of a piece will get to put his plan into action, just because I want to see what it was and what they would do afterwards.
Basically what I'm wondering is, what sorts of opposing forces are interesting to watch? What are some examples of villains or antagonists who actually had interesting ideologies, or at least didn't make the reason the "good guys" should win so obvious?
As an assassin who leads an empty life without any emotions, his ideology was that the reason he was the best fighter (that he knew) was because he had given up on other kinds of pursuits like feelings and friendship and hobbies and instead developed his fighting talents.
So when he faces Drizzt he sees someone who is equal to him in fighting skills and still has the time and mental energy to develop friendships and care for others. This is the reason behind his strong rivalry with Drizzt; to admit that they're equal would admit that Artemis wasted his life, so he tries over and over to prove that he's the better fighter.
For this reason, Entreri is one of the best developed antagonists in the fantasy universe, in my opinion.
Whatever happens to Entreri? Doesn't he eventually realize he can never beat Drizzt because of that +2 dexterity racial bonus and just give up on being a master assassin?
Skimmed the thread and didn't see this answered so...
Entreri's storyline isn't finished. He has apparently made peace with the fact that Drizzt is either better or at least equal to him in fighting skill although it's left open with Entreri unsure as to his place in the world at the end of the book. He has also developed a wary friendship with Jarlaxle (as much as either of them are capable of friendship anyways).
Unless another book has come out that I missed Jarlaxle and Entreri are currently wandering the area between the Snowflake Mountains and the coast with Jarlaxle pretending to be Drizzt so that they doesn't have to bothered with murdering every town they stop in.
Not quite!
Just to say that this isn't quite right. There has been another couple of books out with both these characters. Entreri has basically confronted his past, and the book makes it out to look as though he has walked off into the sunset, never to return type thing.
Also, I always preferred Jarlaxle as a villian in those series. He's fairly complex, and is rarely the typical evil drow.
Edit: Also V from "V for Vendetta" has several villian themes, more so in the comic. He is working towards creating a better society, but it's a better society that he has envisioned and he doesn't really have any issues with killing to create it.
I loved the Emperor for the same reason I love Irenicus. The actor has brilliant voice control and his lines are iconic. I don't know if it is the same actor in 1, 2and 3, but when that actor goes into "emperor" mode in 3, his voice suddenly becomes memorable.
My little green friend.
McDiarmid did in fact play Palpatine in all six episodes.
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
I loved the Emperor for the same reason I love Irenicus. The actor has brilliant voice control and his lines are iconic. I don't know if it is the same actor in 1, 2and 3, but when that actor goes into "emperor" mode in 3, his voice suddenly becomes memorable.
My little green friend.
McDiarmid did in fact play Palpatine in all six episodes.
Awesome.
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
I loved the Emperor for the same reason I love Irenicus. The actor has brilliant voice control and his lines are iconic. I don't know if it is the same actor in 1, 2and 3, but when that actor goes into "emperor" mode in 3, his voice suddenly becomes memorable.
My little green friend.
McDiarmid did in fact play Palpatine in all six episodes.
Five, four originally. He doesn't make an appearance in Episode IV and in the original Episode V someone else played the part.
But yeah, he's a good villain. Though I dislike calling him a villain, from a certain perspective he's the good guy of the story, what with plotting to take out a poorly functioning, corrupt government and replacing it with something more effective.
I loved the Emperor for the same reason I love Irenicus. The actor has brilliant voice control and his lines are iconic. I don't know if it is the same actor in 1, 2and 3, but when that actor goes into "emperor" mode in 3, his voice suddenly becomes memorable.
My little green friend.
McDiarmid did in fact play Palpatine in all six episodes.
Five, four originally. He doesn't make an appearance in Episode IV and in the original Episode V someone else played the part.
But yeah, he's a good villain. Though I dislike calling him a villain, from a certain perspective he's the good guy of the story, what with plotting to take out a poorly functioning, corrupt government and replacing it with something more effective.
That's all well and good, but I stop supporting any reformer no matter their effectiveness the second they start cackling as they roast farm-boys with magic electricity that shoots from their hands.
It's just a personal line, no amount of good justifies the old electric cackle party.
I loved the Emperor for the same reason I love Irenicus. The actor has brilliant voice control and his lines are iconic. I don't know if it is the same actor in 1, 2and 3, but when that actor goes into "emperor" mode in 3, his voice suddenly becomes memorable.
My little green friend.
McDiarmid did in fact play Palpatine in all six episodes.
Five, four originally. He doesn't make an appearance in Episode IV and in the original Episode V someone else played the part.
But yeah, he's a good villain. Though I dislike calling him a villain, from a certain perspective he's the good guy of the story, what with plotting to take out a poorly functioning, corrupt government and replacing it with something more effective.
Most villiany is about being effective. Killing a lot of people is very effective form of population control. It's not good.
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I loved the Emperor for the same reason I love Irenicus. The actor has brilliant voice control and his lines are iconic. I don't know if it is the same actor in 1, 2and 3, but when that actor goes into "emperor" mode in 3, his voice suddenly becomes memorable.
My little green friend.
McDiarmid did in fact play Palpatine in all six episodes.
Five, four originally. He doesn't make an appearance in Episode IV and in the original Episode V someone else played the part.
I meant that he played both the Emperor in the OT and the Senator/Sidious in the NT. I'd forgotten that someone else (an actress!) had played the face of the Emperor in Empire, only with chimpanzee eyes.
But yeah, he's a good villain. Though I dislike calling him a villain, from a certain perspective he's the good guy of the story, what with plotting to take out a poorly functioning, corrupt government and replacing it with something more effective.
I dunno, that's the same reason why villains are often Machiavellian to the extreme. Effectiveness does not imply a moral high road unless one is purely utilitarian.
My favorite villains are those that almost convince you to believe that they're the good guys. I only read the first book, but I was really impressed with the villainy in George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire saga.
And this may sound silly, but I was also pretty consistently impressed with Voldemort as a villain. He's the only villain I can think of that manages to simultaneously embody the Sauron-like dark-overlord-at-a-distance vibe while at the same time being a real character with a believable life history. I thought Voldemort made some silly and less-than-badass decisions in HP7, but I was impressed with his philosophy.
Also, Robert DiNero in the movie "Heat" is maybe my favorite film villain.
Edit: the Cylons in Battlestar Galactica are the best villains ever.
My favorite villains are those that almost convince you to believe that they're the good guys. I only read the first book, but I was really impressed with the villainy in George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire saga.
And this may sound silly, but I was also pretty consistently impressed with Voldemort as a villain. He's the only villain I can think of that manages to simultaneously embody the Sauron-like dark-overlord-at-a-distance vibe while at the same time being a real character with a believable life history. I thought Voldemort made some silly and less-than-badass decisions in HP7, but I was impressed with his philosophy.
Also, Robert DiNero in the movie "Heat" is maybe my favorite film villain.
Edit: the Cylons in Battlestar Galactica are the best villains ever.
My favorite villains are those that almost convince you to believe that they're the good guys. I only read the first book, but I was really impressed with the villainy in George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire saga.
And this may sound silly, but I was also pretty consistently impressed with Voldemort as a villain. He's the only villain I can think of that manages to simultaneously embody the Sauron-like dark-overlord-at-a-distance vibe while at the same time being a real character with a believable life history. I thought Voldemort made some silly and less-than-badass decisions in HP7, but I was impressed with his philosophy.
Also, Robert DiNero in the movie "Heat" is maybe my favorite film villain.
Edit: the Cylons in Battlestar Galactica are the best villains ever.
I also love Orochimaru from Naruto for the same reasons you cited about Voldemort.
Hell, with their snake things and everything the two are fucking identical.
Ah, technology as a passive villain, SIMPLY OBEYING ITS MAD PROGRAMMING. Good examples: I, Robot, Ghost in the Shell, System Shock
HAL 9000! C'mon, man. I do love those though. I actually wrote a paper on how and why AI went from servant, to fuck-up antagonist, to antagonist, to fully-featured character in SF. With exceptions, of course.
Dexter is totally not a villain but he's evil as shit. Mr.Brooks is evil as shit and a villain. Hannibal Lecter, Evil, crazy and a villain. I'm trying to think of a good villain but having a hard time, I guess maybe the Empire is imo not all that bad but villainy.
Perhaps "bad" is the wrong word to use - a compelling antagonist. In recent years I tend find myself often hoping that somehow the bad guy of a piece will get to put his plan into action, just because I want to see what it was and what they would do afterwards.
Basically what I'm wondering is, what sorts of opposing forces are interesting to watch? What are some examples of villains or antagonists who actually had interesting ideologies, or at least didn't make the reason the "good guys" should win so obvious?
As an assassin who leads an empty life without any emotions, his ideology was that the reason he was the best fighter (that he knew) was because he had given up on other kinds of pursuits like feelings and friendship and hobbies and instead developed his fighting talents.
So when he faces Drizzt he sees someone who is equal to him in fighting skills and still has the time and mental energy to develop friendships and care for others. This is the reason behind his strong rivalry with Drizzt; to admit that they're equal would admit that Artemis wasted his life, so he tries over and over to prove that he's the better fighter.
For this reason, Entreri is one of the best developed antagonists in the fantasy universe, in my opinion.
Whatever happens to Entreri? Doesn't he eventually realize he can never beat Drizzt because of that +2 dexterity racial bonus and just give up on being a master assassin?
Skimmed the thread and didn't see this answered so...
Entreri's storyline isn't finished. He has apparently made peace with the fact that Drizzt is either better or at least equal to him in fighting skill although it's left open with Entreri unsure as to his place in the world at the end of the book. He has also developed a wary friendship with Jarlaxle (as much as either of them are capable of friendship anyways).
Unless another book has come out that I missed Jarlaxle and Entreri are currently wandering the area between the Snowflake Mountains and the coast with Jarlaxle pretending to be Drizzt so that they doesn't have to bothered with murdering every town they stop in.
Not quite!
Just to say that this isn't quite right. There has been another couple of books out with both these characters. Entreri has basically confronted his past, and the book makes it out to look as though he has walked off into the sunset, never to return type thing.
Also, I always preferred Jarlaxle as a villian in those series. He's fairly complex, and is rarely the typical evil drow.
Edit: Also V from "V for Vendetta" has several villian themes, more so in the comic. He is working towards creating a better society, but it's a better society that he has envisioned and he doesn't really have any issues with killing to create it.
Wait, are you talking after Servant of the Shard?
*go go Gadget Google!*
Huh, I'll be damned. According to Wikipedia I need to hit up the bookstore sometime soon.
The way Lucifer was depicted in The Sandman is my favorite portrayal of him in anything, ever. Physically he's no different from any other angel, he's unbelievably intelligent, and he isn't malevolent. He was given a job to do, and he did it. I think you could argue whether or not he's a villain at all.
On the topic of Sandman characters, Loki is an incredible villain, in the comic as well as basically every time he appears in Norse mythology. He's so good at what he does that he manages to become good enough friends with Odin that Odin declares him an honorary god. For no particular reason he kills one of the other gods, then Odin has him bound in a cave in the middle of the earth, tied up with the entrails of his son, with a snake hanging from a stalactite dripping poison into his eyes. Odin didn't do this for revenge, it was just the only way they could keep that motherfucker from figuring out a way of escaping.
That is some good shit.
Also Dr. Breen from Half-Life 2. He's an aloof intellectual who takes it upon himself to "save" the human race by allowing an alien empire to take over Earth more or less unhindered. He really believes that what he's doing is right.
Also also, the Fishes from Children of Men. In the same vein as Dr. Breen, they did a bunch of repugnant shit because they thought that was the only way to make things better.
So basically, there are two kinds of villains I like: there's the kind that, for whatever reason, just fucks with people in really nasty ways, and is really good at it. Then there's the kind that truly believe that their actions are for the best.
Dexter is totally not a villain but he's evil as shit. Mr.Brooks is evil as shit and a villain. Hannibal Lecter, Evil, crazy and a villain. I'm trying to think of a good villain but having a hard time, I guess maybe the Empire is imo not all that bad but villainy.
I'm pretty sure that destroying an entire planet because it's filled with rebel sympathizers counts as evil. I mean, if the USA decided to cleanse Iraq of all human life because it's filled with al Quaeda supporters, and you check off the box marked "Not all that bad" then you should probably sterilize yourself as a precautionary measure.
Also Dr. Breen from Half-Life 2. He's an aloof intellectual who takes it upon himself to "save" the human race by allowing an alien empire to take over Earth more or less unhindered. He really believes that what he's doing is right.
Breen was excellent because they managed to capture both how his absolute power was corrupting him (he was incredibly smug towards you even right up to the end) but also how we would genuinely believe that it was ok because it was the only right thing to do (he was convinced the combine would flick of a wrist mankind away...the outcome of that I suppose remains to be seen).
I thought about it a little more, and it's possible that even though he's pretty much directly responsible for the death of 90-something percent of humanity, if he hadn't done what he did the Combine would've just killed off everyone, leaving no chance for any kind of resistance. So his intentions were good, at least at the outset, and his direct actions on those intentions were pretty terrible, but indirectly he made it possible for Freeman to fuck up the Combine's shit.
This has already been gone over, but I'm finding that at my age (30) the most intriguing antagonist vs. protagonist stories are where both sides are "good" or where there's at least no obvious bad guy. Watchmen was a perfect example - if you see any "villains" in that story, you flunk college English. Civil War in the Marvel comics did something similar, though not as elegant (too many stories made Iron Man look like "the bad guy" when the story was always supposed to be good guy vs. good guy where nobody's "wrong" but they don't have time to hash it out and tragic things happen).
There's always a place for the kind of "villain" that you love to hate, but my taste has gone toward more complex characterizations. I'm finally reading the Harry Potter series, which actually has a good mix of all kinds of characters. I know it's not the point, but it bugs me that the Dursleys are always portrayed as simply hideous people - I would have liked to see something that tells us they're only acting that way because they don't want Harry to share his parents' fate and just show it incredibly badly. Whereas finding out more about Snape and James Potter and their respective "likeability" is completely the opposite - lots more depth.
And I'm a huge fan of Dexter, but also House, who is in a lot of ways exactly the same kind of "villain" that the oft-mischaracterized "bad guy" of Watchmen or Civil War is, just on a smaller but more frequent scale.
Basically, stories where one guy has to do anything he can to push a button because he knows for sure that it's the only way to save the world, and another guy has to do anything he can to stop that guy because HE knows that pushing the button will actually doom everyone. Except, you know, better...
I thought Keyser Söze was an awesome villain. I liked the way that he used perception to be dangerous. Yeah he was a typical "just evil" bad guy... but the way he conducted himself, I thought was cool. Even without the reveal, it was the way that he was a myth that I found compelling.
Also, I know its a little cheesy, but Magneto, can be a great example of a villain who is just "on the other side". There are times when his motivations are quite understandable.
This has already been gone over, but I'm finding that at my age (30) the most intriguing antagonist vs. protagonist stories are where both sides are "good" or where there's at least no obvious bad guy. Watchmen was a perfect example - if you see any "villains" in that story, you flunk college English. Civil War in the Marvel comics did something similar, though not as elegant (too many stories made Iron Man look like "the bad guy" when the story was always supposed to be good guy vs. good guy where nobody's "wrong" but they don't have time to hash it out and tragic things happen).
A lot of writers of the tie-ins made Iron Man into a scapegoat to push their own thinly disguised commentary on the Bush Administration onto readers. JMS and Paul Jenkins were the two largest offenders in this regard.
Civil War: The Confession absolutely humanizes Iron Man and anyone who reads that and thinks he's a bad guy has no soul.
Personally, I think Dr. Wallace Breen is an absolutely fascinating villain. He's got almost absolute power over all of humanity, but he's also completely, unmistakably screwed. It must have been bad enough when he had to broker a peace with the Combine, who would otherwise be content to render Earth down to its component resources and maybe boot the remaining shell into the Sun because it'd be funny. Breen would have observed most of the world's military forces being comprehensively obliterated by technology so far in advance of anything he'd seen that the Combine might as well have been wizards casting fireballs and summoning demons. He had to make the Combine an offer that they would more than likely accept. Breen's offer?
Humanity.
In all of his wisdom, our dear Dr. Wallace Breen offered the human race to the Combine to do with as the Combine saw fit. He would've observed and participated in the creation of Stalkers, twisted shells of people that are only still human by genetics rather than form or mind. The Overwatch, brainwashed and augmented beyond belief, would in all likelihood have been created with his input, as they serve as his main military force. The suppression field is something else he would've had to have been implicit in instituting. This all had to be done knowing that the Combine could exterminate humanity with the greatest of ease if he fucked up any more than once.
He's an amazing character because he's been driven mad by the dichotomy of what he's been forced to do. He wants to save humanity, but the only way of doing it is completely fucking humanity over. On the one hand he delights in his power, on the other he looks for any way to get out of the Hell he's had no choice but to create. By the time of Half-Life 2, it's clear that he's one of the most evil psychopaths to have ever risen to power, but it's unnerving to remember that without him there wouldn't even be humanity anymore.
Is Dr. Wallace Breen irredeemable? Absolutely, without any doubt. But it is fascinating to see the result of putting so many Faustian decisions in front of an otherwise normal man. Even as corrupt and wicked as he was, he was still ultimately a human character with human behaviour. He raises the horrifying question of whether any person could've done better in his position.
This has already been gone over, but I'm finding that at my age (30) the most intriguing antagonist vs. protagonist stories are where both sides are "good" or where there's at least no obvious bad guy. Watchmen was a perfect example - if you see any "villains" in that story, you flunk college English. Civil War in the Marvel comics did something similar, though not as elegant (too many stories made Iron Man look like "the bad guy" when the story was always supposed to be good guy vs. good guy where nobody's "wrong" but they don't have time to hash it out and tragic things happen).
A lot of writers of the tie-ins made Iron Man into a scapegoat to push their own thinly disguised commentary on the Bush Administration onto readers. JMS and Paul Jenkins were the two largest offenders in this regard.
True, but I think Marvel was overall going for shades of grey where you weren't quite sure who to side with. Maybe it was just me, but even though I really like Iron Man, something just felt wrong about siding against Captain America. I think it would have been easier to accept if the second ant/pro-tagonist was not Capt. America.
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MrMonroepassed outon the floor nowRegistered Userregular
edited June 2008
Guh. My classical theater story structure training rose up in me like a dragon upon reading this thread.
<puts on silly structuralist hat>For what it's worth, the protagonist is not necessarily the good guy and the antagonist is not necessarily the bad guy. Almost always one or the other is the main character, however. The protagonist is the one that undergoes some change in the story, (peripeteia) from high to low in a tragedy and low to high in a comedy.
The easiest example of how the bad guy can be the protagonist is almost every James Bond movie. The evil guy sets up a plan, starts out rich and steadily gaining speed as an evil overlord, but then James gets wind of it and starts opposing the actions of the bad guy, and eventually succeeds in stopping whatever evil plan he had, reducing him to nothing or killing him. (usually killing him. I mean, he's licensed, why not snuff that motherfucker?) The bad guy goes from high status to low status and then death, but James is still the same smarmy, bad-pun making, womanizing, badass duechebag he always was, and his purpose in the story was to antagonize (literally work against) the bad guy and bring him to his knees.
The Greeks were total dickholes about it, of course, and usually had only one protagonist, and very rarely allowed protagonists to antagonize each other, which is what is done all the time in stories like Marvel Civil War. </silly structuralist hat>
This has already been gone over, but I'm finding that at my age (30) the most intriguing antagonist vs. protagonist stories are where both sides are "good" or where there's at least no obvious bad guy. Watchmen was a perfect example - if you see any "villains" in that story, you flunk college English. Civil War in the Marvel comics did something similar, though not as elegant (too many stories made Iron Man look like "the bad guy" when the story was always supposed to be good guy vs. good guy where nobody's "wrong" but they don't have time to hash it out and tragic things happen).
A lot of writers of the tie-ins made Iron Man into a scapegoat to push their own thinly disguised commentary on the Bush Administration onto readers. JMS and Paul Jenkins were the two largest offenders in this regard.
Civil War: The Confession absolutely humanizes Iron Man and anyone who reads that and thinks he's a bad guy has no soul.
Civil War was hampered by the Marvel writers' cowardly love of their universe, and turned out to be a bubbly pile of crap.
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Where do you draw the line between distinct cultures and behaving/believing differently within the same culture? And why does that distinction matter?
Only because of the amount of forcing our government is able to do. I mean shit, Civil War. Many other cultures/governments aren't nearly as good at keeping different values from clashing in explosive ways. The West is an incredibly peaceful place to live, but only recently.
You can still have an incredibly huge gap between people in the same family though... wars between brothers are quite classic.
I'm not really sure what any of this matters.
We tend to attach importance based on proximity, but that doesn't mean as much when you have teleporters and warp speed.
I loved the Emperor for the same reason I love Irenicus. The actor has brilliant voice control and his lines are iconic. I don't know if it is the same actor in 1, 2and 3, but when that actor goes into "emperor" mode in 3, his voice suddenly becomes memorable.
My little green friend.
People were discussing Borg morality well before I made a single post. So singling me out as posting off-topic is silly. Also, I think a large part of what goes into good antagonists and protagonists are their moral perspectives. For instance, I wouldn't find Battlestar Galactica half as interesting as I do if different moral perspectives weren't being thrown around, tried, and challenged throughout the series. Don't differing moral frameworks account for much of the tension that exists in fantasy and, especially, sci-fi (i.e. constructing a new framework for situations that may exist in the future but don't today)?
I mean, take Star Wars. Is the empire a collective villain? The movies are shown from that perspective, but I'm not really sure I agree if I zoom out.
Anyway, all I'm saying is that moral perspective plays a large role in what makes a good and believable villain.
Not quite!
Also, I always preferred Jarlaxle as a villian in those series. He's fairly complex, and is rarely the typical evil drow.
Edit: Also V from "V for Vendetta" has several villian themes, more so in the comic. He is working towards creating a better society, but it's a better society that he has envisioned and he doesn't really have any issues with killing to create it.
McDiarmid did in fact play Palpatine in all six episodes.
Awesome.
Five, four originally. He doesn't make an appearance in Episode IV and in the original Episode V someone else played the part.
But yeah, he's a good villain. Though I dislike calling him a villain, from a certain perspective he's the good guy of the story, what with plotting to take out a poorly functioning, corrupt government and replacing it with something more effective.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/248ipzbt.asp
It's just a personal line, no amount of good justifies the old electric cackle party.
Most villiany is about being effective. Killing a lot of people is very effective form of population control. It's not good.
I dunno, that's the same reason why villains are often Machiavellian to the extreme. Effectiveness does not imply a moral high road unless one is purely utilitarian.
And this may sound silly, but I was also pretty consistently impressed with Voldemort as a villain. He's the only villain I can think of that manages to simultaneously embody the Sauron-like dark-overlord-at-a-distance vibe while at the same time being a real character with a believable life history. I thought Voldemort made some silly and less-than-badass decisions in HP7, but I was impressed with his philosophy.
Also, Robert DiNero in the movie "Heat" is maybe my favorite film villain.
Edit: the Cylons in Battlestar Galactica are the best villains ever.
I'm not even sure who the villains are in ASOIAF.
I also love Orochimaru from Naruto for the same reasons you cited about Voldemort.
Hell, with their snake things and everything the two are fucking identical.
But will you find it funny ten years from now?????
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
I'm a nihilist with an English degree.
Hell I'll probably be recruited to help them get around their programming.
Fear the mighty Incenjuborg!
Say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos.
I just want to echo this.
Villain =/= evil.
Dexter is totally not a villain but he's evil as shit. Mr.Brooks is evil as shit and a villain. Hannibal Lecter, Evil, crazy and a villain. I'm trying to think of a good villain but having a hard time, I guess maybe the Empire is imo not all that bad but villainy.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
Wait, are you talking after Servant of the Shard?
*go go Gadget Google!*
Huh, I'll be damned. According to Wikipedia I need to hit up the bookstore sometime soon.
N, wait; Mazikeen. That is really all.
edit; oh, and Franciska von Karma, because she had actual motivations and that.
On the topic of Sandman characters, Loki is an incredible villain, in the comic as well as basically every time he appears in Norse mythology. He's so good at what he does that he manages to become good enough friends with Odin that Odin declares him an honorary god. For no particular reason he kills one of the other gods, then Odin has him bound in a cave in the middle of the earth, tied up with the entrails of his son, with a snake hanging from a stalactite dripping poison into his eyes. Odin didn't do this for revenge, it was just the only way they could keep that motherfucker from figuring out a way of escaping.
That is some good shit.
Also Dr. Breen from Half-Life 2. He's an aloof intellectual who takes it upon himself to "save" the human race by allowing an alien empire to take over Earth more or less unhindered. He really believes that what he's doing is right.
Also also, the Fishes from Children of Men. In the same vein as Dr. Breen, they did a bunch of repugnant shit because they thought that was the only way to make things better.
So basically, there are two kinds of villains I like: there's the kind that, for whatever reason, just fucks with people in really nasty ways, and is really good at it. Then there's the kind that truly believe that their actions are for the best.
hitting hot metal with hammers
I'm pretty sure that destroying an entire planet because it's filled with rebel sympathizers counts as evil. I mean, if the USA decided to cleanse Iraq of all human life because it's filled with al Quaeda supporters, and you check off the box marked "Not all that bad" then you should probably sterilize yourself as a precautionary measure.
In what way is he really the villain in that?
Breen was excellent because they managed to capture both how his absolute power was corrupting him (he was incredibly smug towards you even right up to the end) but also how we would genuinely believe that it was ok because it was the only right thing to do (he was convinced the combine would flick of a wrist mankind away...the outcome of that I suppose remains to be seen).
hitting hot metal with hammers
I know that's not what you said, but it struck me as going in that direction.
I just want to make this absolutely clear. Not hero.
There's always a place for the kind of "villain" that you love to hate, but my taste has gone toward more complex characterizations. I'm finally reading the Harry Potter series, which actually has a good mix of all kinds of characters. I know it's not the point, but it bugs me that the Dursleys are always portrayed as simply hideous people - I would have liked to see something that tells us they're only acting that way because they don't want Harry to share his parents' fate and just show it incredibly badly. Whereas finding out more about Snape and James Potter and their respective "likeability" is completely the opposite - lots more depth.
And I'm a huge fan of Dexter, but also House, who is in a lot of ways exactly the same kind of "villain" that the oft-mischaracterized "bad guy" of Watchmen or Civil War is, just on a smaller but more frequent scale.
Basically, stories where one guy has to do anything he can to push a button because he knows for sure that it's the only way to save the world, and another guy has to do anything he can to stop that guy because HE knows that pushing the button will actually doom everyone. Except, you know, better...
Also, I know its a little cheesy, but Magneto, can be a great example of a villain who is just "on the other side". There are times when his motivations are quite understandable.
A lot of writers of the tie-ins made Iron Man into a scapegoat to push their own thinly disguised commentary on the Bush Administration onto readers. JMS and Paul Jenkins were the two largest offenders in this regard.
Civil War: The Confession absolutely humanizes Iron Man and anyone who reads that and thinks he's a bad guy has no soul.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Humanity.
In all of his wisdom, our dear Dr. Wallace Breen offered the human race to the Combine to do with as the Combine saw fit. He would've observed and participated in the creation of Stalkers, twisted shells of people that are only still human by genetics rather than form or mind. The Overwatch, brainwashed and augmented beyond belief, would in all likelihood have been created with his input, as they serve as his main military force. The suppression field is something else he would've had to have been implicit in instituting. This all had to be done knowing that the Combine could exterminate humanity with the greatest of ease if he fucked up any more than once.
He's an amazing character because he's been driven mad by the dichotomy of what he's been forced to do. He wants to save humanity, but the only way of doing it is completely fucking humanity over. On the one hand he delights in his power, on the other he looks for any way to get out of the Hell he's had no choice but to create. By the time of Half-Life 2, it's clear that he's one of the most evil psychopaths to have ever risen to power, but it's unnerving to remember that without him there wouldn't even be humanity anymore.
Is Dr. Wallace Breen irredeemable? Absolutely, without any doubt. But it is fascinating to see the result of putting so many Faustian decisions in front of an otherwise normal man. Even as corrupt and wicked as he was, he was still ultimately a human character with human behaviour. He raises the horrifying question of whether any person could've done better in his position.
True, but I think Marvel was overall going for shades of grey where you weren't quite sure who to side with. Maybe it was just me, but even though I really like Iron Man, something just felt wrong about siding against Captain America. I think it would have been easier to accept if the second ant/pro-tagonist was not Capt. America.
<puts on silly structuralist hat>For what it's worth, the protagonist is not necessarily the good guy and the antagonist is not necessarily the bad guy. Almost always one or the other is the main character, however. The protagonist is the one that undergoes some change in the story, (peripeteia) from high to low in a tragedy and low to high in a comedy.
The easiest example of how the bad guy can be the protagonist is almost every James Bond movie. The evil guy sets up a plan, starts out rich and steadily gaining speed as an evil overlord, but then James gets wind of it and starts opposing the actions of the bad guy, and eventually succeeds in stopping whatever evil plan he had, reducing him to nothing or killing him. (usually killing him. I mean, he's licensed, why not snuff that motherfucker?) The bad guy goes from high status to low status and then death, but James is still the same smarmy, bad-pun making, womanizing, badass duechebag he always was, and his purpose in the story was to antagonize (literally work against) the bad guy and bring him to his knees.
The Greeks were total dickholes about it, of course, and usually had only one protagonist, and very rarely allowed protagonists to antagonize each other, which is what is done all the time in stories like Marvel Civil War. </silly structuralist hat>
Civil War was hampered by the Marvel writers' cowardly love of their universe, and turned out to be a bubbly pile of crap.
It could have been so much more.