Does evil ever win? Should it?
By
baron_inferno,
Posted on: 2009-06-02 04:41 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Done before - Robin Hood comes to mind.
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When was the last time the government were the GOOD guys?
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Hmmm - King Arthur comes to mind, and prior to that the state (or one's favored faction in the state) tended to be writing - or at least funding - the legends (Homer, the Song of Gilgamesh, Livy's History of Rome, etc). But with more recent legends, government's role tends to be more questionable, even when it is not the flat out bad guy.
May be one reason Plato argued for outlawing poetry ;-)
My scrapper doesn't need an AoE. She IS an AoE.
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The thing is... there is no final battle. Neither Heroes, nor Villains truly win anything but the ability to fight another day, and if they lose, they get to inspire someone else to fight another day, or be forgotten and sink to anonymity.
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When I said villainy, I didn't mean only notoriously evil acts. You're right, the battle of good vs evil is ongoing and a true winner can never be determined but individual acts of villainy are different. We see it everyday and we get away with it as well. Things like shoplifting, cheating on taxes, animal abuse and so on are all technically evil acts, however minor, at least in the eye of the law. The law even protects people from prosecution after a certain period of time (statute of limitations). In my book, if you commit an evil act and get away with it, that can be considered a victory.
Fallen is a great example of a movie where the villain wins in the end.
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Bad Villain Mission:
Contact: I'm a brilliant guy with lots of plans. I need a stupid thug to carry out a robbery for me. You are a stupid thug. Do this for me because you are too stupid to come up with your own plans.
Acceptance: You're right, I'm pathetic. I'll do it.
Good Villain Mission
Contact: Boss, I did as you said. I've been watching the warehouse for you. You were right, of course, they brought the gold shipment there. Now you can put the rest of your brilliant plan in motion and get the gold.
Acceptance: While I go steal the gold, you go do my bidding to prepare for the next phase of my brilliant plan.
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And that's why I rather dislike most of the villain content, to be honest. Because that's almost exactly how your contacts treat you: as a dumb thug that they're hiring to do the scut-work they don't want to bother with.
What makes it even more irritating is when they threaten you, and use the tired old "I'm a memeber of/have friends in Arachnos, so you can't touch me, nya nya". Arachnos. Right. The guys I kill by the bucket load on any given afternoon.
Then you have other contacts that outright insult you to your face, or threaten you, and the only response you're allowed within the storyarc is "Gosh, sorry sir, I won't stand up to you again, sorry, I'm a worthless peon, yessir, I'll get right on it sir."
What. The. ****.
Oh well. That's one of the main reasons that one of the MA arcs I'm working on has your contact as your henchman. His name is even "Henchman". He updates you on YOUR plan that you're carrying out, and while he's extremely helpful (and competent at what he's doing), he tells you several times that he knows you're going places, and he wants to ride your coattails.
It always astounds me when contacts treat you like crap, even when you've gone toe to toe with some of the "big name heroes" of the game (Vindicators, Freedom Phalanx), and think you'll just bow down and kiss their feet. Grr.
*runs around the Isles killing random contacts and laughing maniacally*
The Mastermind Project
Leveling every primary/secondary to 50!
50: Bot/FF, Bot/Dark, Ninja/Trap, Merc/Pain, Necro/Dark, Thug/Dark
Works in Progress: Thug/TA, Merc/Poison, Thug/Pain, Ninja/Pain, Thug/Storm
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you are comparing apples to oranges. each of those changes was either a part of a greater change set up by developers or the focus of an entire issue. we are talking about something that you personally going through content would trigger, we have no evidence about that. Full dynamic content is something i certainly would not say no to, but you drastically downplay how much work it woudl really take. MA are entirely consequence free, heck, you cant even set contacts or missions out of the limited area, having real dynamic content would be a great deal more than that. I would love it myself, but the years have made me a pragmatist.
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Call it grapefruits and oranges. A fully dynamic world, where every action has a consequence, is just a matter of scale. Making the world SO dynamic that you could trash Atlas Park, literally, would probably be poor game design because the people who like Atlas Park the way it is would no longer find it fun to play there.
You're correct that a fully dynamic world, where every action has a consequence would be a lot of work to shoehorn into a static framework. You'd have to have it designed in from the beginning for it to work well.
BUT...
There IS an acceptable level of dynamicism that leaves the world intact while still causing tangible effects upon the community, and that's really what people mean when they say "I want to have an effect on the city."
As a for instance - We already have the city info terminals that track things like who defeated the largest number of skulls this week and thus and such. I presume there's a villainous version that tracks who robs the most banks, etc... I can easily imagine wanted poster hanging on the wall of every train station in Paragon City that changes the name and portrait of this week's most wanted based on the Rougue Isles Tracker. I can imagine a mission with a police contact who opens the dialog with "Thanks to the activities of $Villain we're short-handed. We need you to do this other thing over here while we deal with $Villain."
That's a really basic level of dynamicism that makes notoriety actually valuable.
Mostly, though, I'm talking about simply giving us smaller doses of content and making it episodic. Leave the rest of the world just like it is. Use the developer version of the MA tools to put out some "short stories" that run 2-4 episodes and when they're done, they're DONE. Gone. Replaced by a new story. Let the activities of the players influence the outcomes and the progress. Hold contests on the websites. Invite some of those Guest Writers to contribute a story.
Make the world a living, breathing place instead of having it be frozen in time. Move the story forward and let the players have a hand in influencing the story and maybe getting their own characters their fifteen minutes of fame if they perform really well.
The Mission Architect means that the cost of creating missions has been drastically reduced, especially if the missions do NOT require any special coding or cut scenes by the programming department. The argument that resource cost is prohibitive is no longer valid.
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Fallen is a great example of a movie where the villain wins in the end.
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Bad Villain Mission:
Contact: I'm a brilliant guy with lots of plans. I need a stupid thug to carry out a robbery for me. You are a stupid thug. Do this for me because you are too stupid to come up with your own plans.
Acceptance: You're right, I'm pathetic. I'll do it.
Good Villain Mission
Contact: Boss, I did as you said. I've been watching the warehouse for you. You were right, of course, they brought the gold shipment there. Now you can put the rest of your brilliant plan in motion and get the gold.
Acceptance: While I go steal the gold, you go do my bidding to prepare for the next phase of my brilliant plan.
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And that's why I rather dislike most of the villain content, to be honest. Because that's almost exactly how your contacts treat you: as a dumb thug that they're hiring to do the scut-work they don't want to bother with.
What makes it even more irritating is when they threaten you, and use the tired old "I'm a memeber of/have friends in Arachnos, so you can't touch me, nya nya". Arachnos. Right. The guys I kill by the bucket load on any given afternoon.
Then you have other contacts that outright insult you to your face, or threaten you, and the only response you're allowed within the storyarc is "Gosh, sorry sir, I won't stand up to you again, sorry, I'm a worthless peon, yessir, I'll get right on it sir."
What. The. ****.
Oh well. That's one of the main reasons that one of the MA arcs I'm working on has your contact as your henchman. His name is even "Henchman". He updates you on YOUR plan that you're carrying out, and while he's extremely helpful (and competent at what he's doing), he tells you several times that he knows you're going places, and he wants to ride your coattails.
It always astounds me when contacts treat you like crap, even when you've gone toe to toe with some of the "big name heroes" of the game (Vindicators, Freedom Phalanx), and think you'll just bow down and kiss their feet. Grr.
*runs around the Isles killing random contacts and laughing maniacally*
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This is why I like Willy Wheeler. You betray him. Of course, it's because you don't want Arachnos to be mad at you (oh no, what are they going to do? Shoot at me even more?) but still, at least you end up being the one who decides to do something for once instead of doing what your contact tells you to do.
this is what i personally believe:
evil cant win because of the definition of good and evil.
good is defined as what those in power favor and make law, while evil is what they frown on. if evil wins, it becomes the ruling class and it's rules become the new good.
there is no universal good.
The question of "winning", regardless of alignment, is a question of goal-setting and achievement. Heroes are, by definition, interested in the greater good. (Yeah, I'm hand-waving around anti-heroes and selfish people.) That makes them easier to write for, because any threat at all is something that's part of their charter. A hero might have an agenda, but she is generally willing to pursue it "off-screen" if there are more pressing matters currently coming up in the script.
Villains are, generally, self-centered and ALWAYS working for their own agenda. (Again, hand-waving around villains who want the greater good and see themselves as willing to do what nobody else is clever/insightful/brave/whatever/unconventional enough to do.) A villain wants to "feel villainous" by choosing a goal, making a plan to achieve the goal, putting the plan in motion, and making the attempt. Winning or losing isn't really what it's about, though clearly winning is the superior outcome. The Plan and the ability to execute it with some chance of success is really what it's about. While its true that some villains want to taste dead, burnt bodies and veins in their teeth to feel "evil", most prefer a bit more panache with their schemes.
In fact, I'd say that one of the overriding factors in "feeling villainous" is the ability to HAVE a scheme in the first place.
Disagreements?
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In fact, I'd say that one of the overriding factors in "feeling villainous" is the ability to HAVE a scheme in the first place.
Disagreements?
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That reminds of an old idea, one I am going to call the "Scheme" story arcs for now.
You'd have a different scheme for each origin, and a new one for certain level ranges. 20-30, 30-40. Anyway, they'd be things your character wants to do. Tech origin could build a giant robot in temp power form, magic origin could summon a demon or something. Whatever.
Point is, they'd be things for your character to do on their own because they want to.
Maybe one final scheme to dethrone Lord Recluse. Your reward would be all Arachnos enemies never attack you unless you attack them first.
I submit that The War of the Spider Queen has the villains winning quite solidly. The series simply couldn't exist if the good guys won, and the bad guys lost.
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The question of "winning", regardless of alignment, is a question of goal-setting and achievement. Heroes are, by definition, interested in the greater good. (Yeah, I'm hand-waving around anti-heroes and selfish people.) That makes them easier to write for, because any threat at all is something that's part of their charter. A hero might have an agenda, but she is generally willing to pursue it "off-screen" if there are more pressing matters currently coming up in the script.
Villains are, generally, self-centered and ALWAYS working for their own agenda. (Again, hand-waving around villains who want the greater good and see themselves as willing to do what nobody else is clever/insightful/brave/whatever/unconventional enough to do.) A villain wants to "feel villainous" by choosing a goal, making a plan to achieve the goal, putting the plan in motion, and making the attempt. Winning or losing isn't really what it's about, though clearly winning is the superior outcome. The Plan and the ability to execute it with some chance of success is really what it's about. While its true that some villains want to taste dead, burnt bodies and veins in their teeth to feel "evil", most prefer a bit more panache with their schemes.
In fact, I'd say that one of the overriding factors in "feeling villainous" is the ability to HAVE a scheme in the first place.
Disagreements?
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everyone does everything for their own benefit.
heroes usually have some secret character flaw or trauma hat forces them to see saving people as beneficial for themself. imo, the reason people see comics as childish is because of this immaturity in the subject matter dominating public perception of their content. you can show nudity and murder all you want but as long as the story is about some "greater good" superhero only kids and comic book geeks will take them seriously as literature.
lately there has been alot of storylines about society turning against it's heroes. if you look into alot of the ways writers have chosen to have the heroes respond, you'll see that the hero becomes a villain(even if only briefly) because his values are no longer centered around helping people. often times, the hero teams with his nemesis because their values are all of a sudden one and the same, once the broken character trait of blind service/heroism is removed.
ignoring super powers and such, can you honestly name any person in the world who could truly be defined as a hero using your(not necessarily you personally but the accepted opinion of it) definition of the ideal? even your parents(again, not personal) only want you to suceed because it makes them look better.
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even your parents(again, not personal) only want you to suceed because it makes them look better.
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I'm going to reply with examples from my own life, so I'll state up-front that I understand that the post I'm replying to was speaking in the general and not specifically to any one poster in the thread.
Rather cynical view of life, IMO. Without speaking to any other parents' motivations, I can say quite honestly that making me "look better" has never entered the equation of my parenting values or methods. I want my kids to succeed and do better than me because I want them to have good lives and avoid my mistakes. I've made some decisions for the benefit of my kids that made me look rather bad to certain people, in fact.
I want them to make ME proud. Now, you can deconstruct that to be a selfish motive if you want, but at that point you're deconstructing life itself to be self-serving. It's like that episode of _Friends_ where Phoebe gets $2000 as a settlement because she found a finger floating in her soda can, and she can't stand the idea of profiting off of someone else's misery. She can't figure out any way to give the money away, though, because every suggestion she makes is shot down by Joey as being self-serving in some fashion, even if it just comes down to her feeling good about herself for the donation. (She ends up spontaneously offering the money to Chandler if he'll quit smoking.)
My brother is a fireman. He fits the bill of "hero" as society defines it, to the best of my knowledge. The cynic would say "He takes pride in his training and ability, so that's sinful" or "He gets paid to be a Captain and run a fire house so that's self-serving." Like I said, at that point you've taken cynicism to the point that every possible action is self-serving and there's no way to win, no matter how many burning houses buildings he goes into in order to rescue the people trapped inside of them.
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heroes usually have some secret character flaw or trauma hat forces them to see saving people as beneficial for themself.
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This statement seems to me to be basically false. The Peter Parker formula fails for most other usages simply because it becomes trite really fast. It's certainly untrue for any of the heroes on my CoH account. I guess I can't speak to the current crop of comics, but I'm betting that you would have a difficult time actually proving this statement with more than a handful of heroes in print today.
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Some folk like to whinge about how their villains don't feel 'bad' enough or how they're fed up of being Lord Recluse's stooge.
I was wondering about what sort of storyline endings these types would like to see, which got me to thinking about villains in books, movies, other games, and also to some extent reality.
Can anyone think of examples in other media of villains being evil and winning through at the finish?
Behaving badly and either getting away with it or being rewarded for it in RL seems to happen fairly often (serial killers getting away with it for decades or even not being caughtc at all, company CEOs willfully mismanaging and getting huge pension payodfs etc), but I'm not sure I'd describe those as narratively satisfying.
Any ideas?
Eco
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1. The enite mini-series Empire . Its about what happens when a Dr.Doom type villain actually does kill all the heroes and take over the world. One of my ALL time fav comics too. Very good read.
2. Task Master when he had is own comic came out on top.
3. Deadpool is in a lot of ways a villain despite some runs in his comic where he tries the whole hero gig out. But at the end of the day the man would kill some one for a stick of gum if he wanted it. But he is just so wacky and lovable aint he?
4. Norman Osborn is doing pretty good for him self in Marvel atm. Though I'm sure he will eventually get his come up ins.
5. The Boys In that series the good guys are actually the bad guys. But them seem to be getting away with it pretty well so far. But again i'm sure at the end they will get their come up ins.
6. Darth Revan *SPOILER* If you get the bad ending in KOTOR it ends pretty gods dam well for you imoh. Or if you get the good ending it ends well for you too, even though you are not evil anymore...so that one doesn't count.
7. Darth Bane seems to be having a good time so far in his novels. At the end of "Darth Bane the Path of Destruction" and "The Rule of Two" he comes out on top. But sadly as is the inevitable end to all Sith Lords reign of power they will eventually die. Until one can finally perfect the arts of never ending life. Dam Palpatine aka Darth Sedious you came so close.
8. Any game with a good/bad plot. 99% of games that have a good/bag choice in them ends well for the bad guy if you so choose to be. Though a few do seem to enjoy punishing you for all your evil deeds which i never like.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
LONG LIVE EVIL!
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Like I said, at that point you've taken cynicism to the point that every possible action is self-serving and there's no way to win, no matter how many burning houses buildings he goes into in order to rescue the people trapped inside of them.
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It's not that black and white for me. I don't think altruism exists. Some people help others only because they couldn't live with themselves if they didn't. Does this make them evil?
Absolutely not. I don't find enlightened self-interest evil at all.
Here's the setup: I see my lady about to be run down by an out of control truck. I dive out, pushing her to safety and die in the process.
So am I selfish because I'd rather die than watch her die? Or am I a hero for making the ultimate sacrifice to save someone I love?
Or are both statements equally true? For me, they are both true. I'm horrifically selfish in that I know my lady wouldn't want to see me die but I'm taking that choice from her by saving her at the cost of my own life. I'm also a hero due to the whole sacrifice thing.
Good and evil are a myth. They are nothing but subjective descriptors of an event/motive.
Be well, people of CoH.
Surprised 1984 hasn't been mentioned yet.
I think the Biblical Jacob may possibly be the most celebrated self-serving and nefarious character to somehow escape the "villain" label.
Henry VIII?
The Strangers?
Just about any character -except- Raziel in the Legacy of Kain series. I think Raziel may have been the only idiot in the entire game world/village. Between Kain, Mortainius, Nupraptor, The Elder God, Vorador and so on there was a fantastic collection of relatively successful villains, with Kain (and to a certain degree, Mortanius) coming out on top. Whether you consider those two to be villains per se depends on how you view 'ends justify the means' I guess.
The Pet Semetary definitely won that encounter.
All I can think of off the top of my head!
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Good and evil are a myth
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this.
society needs labels like this so that only a few people need to think for the whole system to work.
also Slick good reply, thanks for not taking it personal. im not all that wordy but i love philosophical discussions, i tend to offend people so i was trying to be cautious.
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Good and evil are a myth. They are nothing but subjective descriptors of an event/motive.
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While this is a true statement, it overlooks the fact that life itself is a subjective experience. If you want to find any meaning in anything at all, then you either apply the meaning yourself (in which case other subjective definitions become meaningless or at least peripheral) or you look to society to provide the meanings.
There was no objective meaning to Jeffrey Dahmer. He was simply a creature following instincts that satisfied his basic urges and actualized his pleasure. The lives he terminated were equally meaningless - simply the cessation of biological machinery and the conversion of organic material into other forms of organic material.
Once you start down the road of deconstruction, claiming that there is no morality, or even an objective reality, you really don't stop until you end up with the universe being devoid entirely of any sort of structure or meaning. It's all just an unimaginably big quantum mechanical chain reaction. The Buddhists have it right, essentially. Whatever meaning we attribute is nothing but sensory impressions of the veneer at the top of the true reality, which is nothing at all.
If you're going to have a society of any kind, then good and evil are not going to be mythical, even if they're not objectively definable. That is, if you throw yourself in front of a bus to save your fiancee, others will say "Living is desirable over dying. I would want someone to save me in that fashion if I was in that situation. I will laud this behavior as desirable behavior. This is Good."
The fact that a Catholic priest might say "That was tantamount to suicide, a very bad thing. That was evil." does not make it any less significant. It just means that from one perspective it's good, and from another it's evil. (For the record, I don't imagine a Catholic priest would actually say that, it's just what popped into my head at that moment.) Subjective, yes. Meaningless, no.
Therefore, the context is what matters.
For our purposes, the context is "Comic Book Morality".
There isn't 100% agreement on just what all the fine details of Comic Book Morality are. We have general agreement on the gross details, though. Heroes work for the common good. Villains work for their own agendas and their own personal power. Heroes follow a moral code, however loosely defined. Villains follow whatever code suits their backstory and their purposes. Heroes limit their damage to the punishment of the villainous. Villains inflict punishment on anyone for any reason that makes sense to them.
It doesn't matter if that's how things work in real life or not. We're not playing a game in a real life simulator. Moral ambiguity is only useful in Comic Book World as a temporary dramatic gimmick in most cases. Ultimately, a hero who is not "good" and a villain who is not "evil" are unsatisfying and unfulfilling to the people experiencing their stories.
Satisfying stories is what it's all about, in the end. Except for the achiever types who just like seeing big numbers roll up until they hit the level cap.
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Good and evil are a myth. They are nothing but subjective descriptors of an event/motive.
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While this is a true statement, it overlooks the fact that life itself is a subjective experience. If you want to find any meaning in anything at all, then you either apply the meaning yourself (in which case other subjective definitions become meaningless or at least peripheral) or you look to society to provide the meanings.
There was no objective meaning to Jeffrey Dahmer. He was simply a creature following instincts that satisfied his basic urges and actualized his pleasure. The lives he terminated were equally meaningless - simply the cessation of biological machinery and the conversion of organic material into other forms of organic material.
Once you start down the road of deconstruction, claiming that there is no morality, or even an objective reality, you really don't stop until you end up with the universe being devoid entirely of any sort of structure or meaning. It's all just an unimaginably big quantum mechanical chain reaction. The Buddhists have it right, essentially. Whatever meaning we attribute is nothing but sensory impressions of the veneer at the top of the true reality, which is nothing at all.
If you're going to have a society of any kind, then good and evil are not going to be mythical, even if they're not objectively definable. That is, if you throw yourself in front of a bus to save your fiancee, others will say "Living is desirable over dying. I would want someone to save me in that fashion if I was in that situation. I will laud this behavior as desirable behavior. This is Good."
The fact that a Catholic priest might say "That was tantamount to suicide, a very bad thing. That was evil." does not make it any less significant. It just means that from one perspective it's good, and from another it's evil. (For the record, I don't imagine a Catholic priest would actually say that, it's just what popped into my head at that moment.) Subjective, yes. Meaningless, no.
Therefore, the context is what matters.
For our purposes, the context is "Comic Book Morality".
There isn't 100% agreement on just what all the fine details of Comic Book Morality are. We have general agreement on the gross details, though. Heroes work for the common good. Villains work for their own agendas and their own personal power. Heroes follow a moral code, however loosely defined. Villains follow whatever code suits their backstory and their purposes. Heroes limit their damage to the punishment of the villainous. Villains inflict punishment on anyone for any reason that makes sense to them.
It doesn't matter if that's how things work in real life or not. We're not playing a game in a real life simulator. Moral ambiguity is only useful in Comic Book World as a temporary dramatic gimmick in most cases. Ultimately, a hero who is not "good" and a villain who is not "evil" are unsatisfying and unfulfilling to the people experiencing their stories.
Satisfying stories is what it's all about, in the end. Except for the achiever types who just like seeing big numbers roll up until they hit the level cap.
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I like candy too.
Plus that's why we cant ever let robots run the world as explained in just about any story with robots in them. They see the world as 1's and 0's the "true" world. And in a world of simple cause and effect humans are a parasite, and parasites need to be eliminated for everyone else to live.
Another side thought.
Not everyone who's "evil" believes that they are. We have more than a few historical/literary references where the "Villain" is doing what they do because they believe that they're acting for the greater good.
For Example: Lenin and company started a revolution that overthrew a government they felt was corrupt. Were the Communists evil?
History has shown us that the system became corrupt and collapsed but they did not consider themselves evil.
In comics, villains like Dr. Doom feel that the world would be a much better place under their rule. They are obviously superior (they believe) so they should be the ones making the decisions. It's only their methods for achieving this that define them as evil.
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
Evil cannot ultimately triumph in an ongoing game, because once it does, the game is over; roll the credits.
"I conquered the world and eliminated everyone who could possibly challenge my might! Bored now."
Basically, if you look at the bio of most evil characters (if you can find one with a bio) they fall into a couple of categories:
1) A mercenary, basically ready to do any job so long as you keep me in booze and women. The game fully supports this guy.
2) Doctor Doom/Lex Luthor/Lord Recluse: this guy can never win, because for him to win means plunging the entire world into eternal post apocalyptic chaos, or a 1984-style police state.
But evil should be allowed to make advances, win property, and alter the face of things for the worse, up to a point. I'd love it if you could 'take over' a certain % of the spawn points in an open zone so that your custom critters spawned there, for instance.
But at least now via the MA you can write the arc where your villain wins at last.
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
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There isn't 100% agreement on just what all the fine details of Comic Book Morality are. We have general agreement on the gross details, though. Heroes work for the common good. Villains work for their own agendas and their own personal power. Heroes follow a moral code, however loosely defined. Villains follow whatever code suits their backstory and their purposes. Heroes limit their damage to the punishment of the villainous. Villains inflict punishment on anyone for any reason that makes sense to them.
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so we'd be in agreement then that people read comics as a form of escapism because deep down we all know thats not how real life works.
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Good and evil are a myth. They are nothing but subjective descriptors of an event/motive.
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I think that's overstating your case. Or at least, the word "myth" is poorly chosen. Good and evil are certainly not myths even though they are almost certainly subjective descriptors of event/motive.
You could describe lots of things this way - active parts of our lives, certainly real, and probably evolved, though not physical or clearly definable - just emergent patterns, interactions between disparate parts that create a greater whole, spontaneous order, etc.
/lighter in the air
what were we talking about?
bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonner-
ronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenth ur-
nuk!
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But evil should be allowed to make advances, win property, and alter the face of things for the worse, up to a point. I'd love it if you could 'take over' a certain % of the spawn points in an open zone so that your custom critters spawned there, for instance.
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Recluse's Victory physically changes in those ways when you capture pillboxes.
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2. Task Master when he had is own comic came out on top.
3. Deadpool is in a lot of ways a villain despite some runs in his comic where he tries the whole hero gig out. But at the end of the day the man would kill some one for a stick of gum if he wanted it. But he is just so wacky and lovable aint he?
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Deadpool is also certifiably insane. Rather than evil, he's pretty much the embodiment of Chaotic Neutral.
Besides, Deadpool and Taskmaster are small-time. They don't have any grand sweeping plans for world domination. They're just out to make a buck. So they're allowed to win sometimes. Also they are cool.
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Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
Kain in the Legacy of Kain series. He reigned triumphant in Blood Omen, then proceeded to destroy the pillars that held the world in check. For centuries, the world then proceeded to destroy itself while he just sat there.