Should villains be glamorous or disgusting?
That's actually the one thing I would NEVER do for a villain, for no reason other than I consider it to be the "easy way out" in making a villain. Why is she evil? She's crazy! Reason enough? I think now. I try to make my villains be willingly and knowingly evil. Evil by choice, rather than evil by circumstance, as it were. Villains who were made into villains but could become heroes if the world would just stop being mean to them just aren't villains to me, not in the sense of characters I'd like to make as villains. If I do make characters like these (and I do) I start them straight onto hero-side.
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An example would be wholeheartedly believing that you are doing a race of people a favor by exterminating every last one of them. And being honestly confused why these people don't love you for it. Genocide is undoubtedly an evil act, but it's even more evil if the person doing it believes they're doing something GOOD.
I hesitate to bring real world examples into this, but Hitler thought HE was the one in the right, and that his domination of mankind was the best thing for the world.
There is also something to be said for different cultures. What you and I see as evil may be seen as not only acceptable, but actually virtuous by a different culture. If you were brought up to believe certain things and found that you were considered the bad guy in a different place for your beliefs, it could cause a significant amount of culture shock.
I try not to pigeonhole my characters into MY idea of what good and evil are, I try to explore the idea that not everyone has the same definition of those terms. I've always found that some of the best villains are those whose idea of what constitutes right and wrong differ from the real world norm.
Sometimes the answer to the question "Why is this person evil?" is "Because your idea of the term differs from theirs."
Also: I've always thought the villains who are knowingly and intentionally evil are a little one dimensional. Evil for the sake of being evil is the most cliched motivation there is, and i lose interest in any story that has a villain like that.
Why is he evil? Because he's just a dick! That isn't any better than because he's crazy. And in my example above, she's not crazy, she's just justified some horrible things to herself in order to be able to live with things. When you are killing "evil" people, it will get easier and easier, until eventually all you need to callously murder someone is the barest hint that they've done something wrong.
Say, something like murdering a single mother on welfare because taking money and giving nothing in return is evil would fall into that kind of justification.
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
Not to do a cop out, but put me in the 'both' camp as well, with an addendum: They must all have a real motivation. Why would a villain waste time stomping kittens? Why would a villain try to destroy the world? Why would a villain devote their lives to doing what society told them not to do?
"Because they're a villain" is to be frank, daft, creatively bankrupt, and intellectually lazy.
The 'glamorous' villain is the easier of the two, and perhaps most relatable. Any suffering they incur is a happenstance or in response to the other party's behavior. They don't go out to find ways to ruin someone's day, though they may well ruin the day of someone who tries to cross them as an example. The motivation is simply selfishness. They want power, money, to 'look good.' They are climbing the societal latter my by force, stepping on people and rules to achieve greater rewards for themselves.
The 'disgusting' villains are far harder to explain. Usually, to be blunt, because no explanation was conceived. These are often the by the book antagonists that are as deep as 'is evil, punch them.' The characters that will take your dear old granny and feed them to their sharks while cackling maniacally. What would motivate someone to do that? That said, when you CAN give motivation to these characters, they can be far more interesting. Joker is about as "this man is evil, punch him" as you can get, but he does the evil as a game. He simply can't even care less about causing death and suffering, he's showy about his evil because it's a provocation to his enemy, who he wishes to destroy out of revenge and frustration.
My villains are power. No one is above them and they'll fight anyone to prove their superiority.
Some enjoy walking in a rain of their enemies' blood. Some just want to crush everything in sight.
My brute who I turned hero in game I still consider very much a villain. He's not a rogue. He doesn't care about saving people. He's in it for himself and himself alone.
I very much play the Lex Luthor style of villain in that I am evil because it fulfills my goals. What those goals are can be seen as fairly shallow since they generally boil down to I'm the best.
See, to my way of thinking, nothing is more evil than the person who commits evil acts in the unshakable belief that they are doing what's best for the people they are committing the acts against.
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The Peacebringers see him as a mass murderer, mad scientist and the twisted paragon of utter unethical evil, a walking blasphemy against the Kheldian way.
Nightwalker sees the Nictus as a flawed evolution of the Kheldian race, a group that have been denied their full potential by the short sighted zealotry of stupid, tradition-bound fools who are too afraid to embrace fully what they could and, indeed, should be. He wants to 'cure' the Nictus of their need for Hosts at all, allowing them to effectively life forever, absorbing power from any being at will.
So convinced is he that he even killed his own partner back on his 'homeworld' (the world he first bonded with a host). Admittedly she was at the time trying to kill him, because she had finally discovered the experiments he was doing at the time. He ended up draining all her life-force to save himself, as the work was deemed too important, too far advanced at the time to give up now.
Ultimately he blamed the Peacebringers, especially one particularly zealous hunter of Nictus called Dictat. Dictat ultimately met his fate at the hands of Nightwalker (then known as Cipher) and his colleague Meridian, who ended up taking Dictat's body as his own as the Nictus Eclipse.
The two now continue their work here on Earth, edging ever closer to the 'Ascendence' of the Nictus race...and the doom of the Peacebringers and their 'misguided' allies.
So, yeah /ramble
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GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Not to do a cop out, but put me in the 'both' camp as well, with an addendum: Them must all have a real motivation. Why would a villain waste time stomping kittens? Why would a villain try to destroy the world? Why would a villain devote their lives to doing what society told them not to do?
"Because they're a villain" is to be frank, daft, creatively bankrupt, and intellectually lazy. |
Cave Johnson, we're done here.
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Well our own AT names sort of break down the general concepts of the basic villain types found in comics, and it does it well even for thematic purposes, but to delve a little deeper into the concept of villainy being grouped into Desgusting or Glam, is interesting.
I think it depends purely on the story behind that character. Currently I am running a corrupter who is both glamerous and yet disgusting. She is looks great, and some woould say attractive. However she is a feeder of life essense. A soul sucking fiend who was driven crazy after being vanished to the nether realm.
Most of the time she is controlable unless she depeletes her energy by using many of her attacks...eventually she starts rotting, and her costume slots allow her to putrify to get that effect.
So I would say she is a combination of both. Young and beautiful, glamorous and calm and then driven to extremes whe she cannot control her hunger. Then she becomes depraved and vicious.
On another note, I have one villain who just became corrupted because of her power and back story. Villainy just came naturally, and sibling rivaly pushed her overboard. Now she works for hire, does bad things, and really does not care what gets in her way. But I would not considder her depraved or sick, nor disgusting. I would not say that her moral compas is facing south to the extreme, but perhaps east or west.
She is driven by power, secret arcane magic, and a lust for material gain. But I would not say she would be disgusting.
Depending on your concept of moral, disgusting can be anything really. Mugging an old blind woman in a wheel chair could be considdered disgusting, as could more depraved acts. It just depends.
I have met many heroes who use their charms, body and authority to do things that I would just deem as perfectly disgusting.
In the "both" camp --
I have a glamorous villain, Razor Blazer, who is a rising star in Praetoria -- the networks love him as much as he loves them. It's all about style, attention, and adulation for him. Do I need to have a back story of neglect or insecurities that coalesced into this db/fire "monster"? Nah.... But his actions are driven by his selfishness...
Arbiter Salazar seeks power -- using technology, magic, wit and the cult of personality, she has manipulated her way onto the destined one list because she sees the height of strength to be the top of the Arachnos organization. Ironically, she has taken a bit of a shine to masquerading as a hero in one particular mission.....A potentially glamorous villainess that may step away from villainy....
And there's "Wicked Jack", a pumpkin-headed, hatchet-wielding Brute who refers to himself in the 3rd person. Wicked Jack is the disgusting monstrosity running around every night in the Rogue Isles, motivation unknown. Can the RIPs talk Wicked Jack down, rationalize with him? Does Wicked Jack care or even respect the Arachnos organization? Maybe Wicked Jack is just looking for the next blood-letting party? I don't consider this to be a cop-out (since I'm the author ; ' ), but there's also the reality that some evil/villainy simply isn't knowable or rationale. I'm fairly sure I'm not a homicidal maniac and, as much as I enjoy immersing myself in story, I also feel no guilt about designing such a character that explores that seeming randomness of the chaotic evil alignment (in case some might wonder...although for the record, I have far more heroes than villains).
@Texarkana
@Thexder
That's actually the one thing I would NEVER do for a villain, for no reason other than I consider it to be the "easy way out" in making a villain. Why is she evil? She's crazy! Reason enough? I think now. I try to make my villains be willingly and knowingly evil. Evil by choice, rather than evil by circumstance, as it were. Villains who were made into villains but could become heroes if the world would just stop being mean to them just aren't villains to me, not in the sense of characters I'd like to make as villains. If I do make characters like these (and I do) I start them straight onto hero-side.
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See, to my way of thinking, nothing is more evil than the person who commits evil acts in the unshakable belief that they are doing what's best for the people they are committing the acts against.
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I while I would agree that explaining a villain's motivation by simply saying "he's crazy" is a bit weak I'd also say there'd never really be a well envisioned villain who would ever say of themselves "I do evil things because I'm 'evil' by choice". I'd consider that kind of self description to be equally weak and implausible.
The methods a villain uses to achieve their goals (either disgusting or glamorous) is somewhat different from whether or not the character "considers" themselves to be evil or not. People will weigh those methods and judge whether or not they consider the person to be villainous or heroic regardless of what the character thinks of themselves.
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As a person who plays this game because it gives me enormous freedom to create interesting characters, I do both, because both ends of the villain spectrum can be equally interesting to me in a literary sense.
I have made villains at the "disgusting" end: my most notable in my opinion is actually my Darkside KotOR II character, who is pretty much exactly what you described in your first post. There's only so many ways to play that character though, and it gets a little boring after a while, so while I wouldn't say I have many of the glamorous Bond- and Batman-villain types you put at the other end (I do have one or two though), I don't have many of the exact character you describe either.
Actually, I don't think that the glamorous/disgusting continuum is a good way to describe it. The glamorous and disgusting categories you describe don't leave room for villains who have big, world-changing goals, powerful PR departments, the uncanny ability to keep coming back, and all the stuff you call glamorous but also have zero regard for human life, dignity, or beauty, and may be using all that power to shore up the empty, evil, depressing shell that you describe the "disgusting" villain as being. Characters like that are everywhere: Lord Voldemort, for instance, is a genocidal maniac and self-styled demigod with a cadre of minions and an obsession with grandeur, who tried to murder a baby because he'd heard that maybe the kid would grow up to be a threat, who thinks love, honor, remorse, and pretty much all concepts associated with good are delusions held by the weak, and who is driven by his own fear of death. I can't think which category to put a character like that in, but I'd lean towards the "disgusting" side. Others like this include the Jack Nicholson Joker (as opposed to Heath Ledger on the disgusting end and Mark Hamill/Bruce Timm on the glamorous end), Doctor Vazhilok (who's not far from what Voldemort would be if he were a mad scientist instead of a wizard), and Jabba the Hutt (you think he commits crime to help him sleep at night? Not unless it's smothering, or eating, a crying baby that's keeping him awake).
But really, what I like to play when I go for "disgusting" is what you call the easy way out: villains that do disgusting, revolting, horrifying things because their minds are not human, so they simply think nothing of it. Ancient undead creatures, infectious sentient mind-control fungus, predatory beasts, and sea demons all do plenty of the despicable, dark, villainous stuff people ask for, and they feel wimpy if they don't. I do have some "glamorous" villains as well, because mad science is so much more fun that way.
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TV tropes might be a good source for something like that.
However, villains can be whatever they want. People will taken notice once that person rounded up enough people into the hospital/causes chaos/sabotages longbow operations/etc.
I do think villains are more interesting, as they are far more different from eachother than heroes are.
See, to my way of thinking, nothing is more evil than the person who commits evil acts in the unshakable belief that they are doing what's best for the people they are committing the acts against.
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When I write a villain, I want this villain's evil to not be attributed to any one factor that can be removed from the character, but rather to be attributed to the character himself. You can treat mental illness (with magic science, if need be), but you can't cure a rotten *******. A person who kills for money, you can given him a stable job with a guaranteed income and he won't have any other reason to kill, but you can't cure a false messiah who KNOWS that his enemies need to die. When I say "willingly and knowingly," I simply mean that who and what the villain is is a result of said villains personal, intentional, aware choice and is not something that can be "fixed" if the villain were just cured or shown the light. These are bad people, not merely good people trapped in bad circumstances.
I've always thought the villains who are knowingly and intentionally evil are a little one dimensional. Evil for the sake of being evil is the most cliched motivation there is, and i lose interest in any story that has a villain like that.
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The thing to remember is that there's a very real difference between giving villains "justifications" for being evil and giving them excuses. "Your world is chaotic and I can rule it better than you can" is a justification. The villain feels that the world needs order of the kind only he can provide. "Mommy didn't hug me so now I stab people," on the other hand, is an excuse. The latter doesn't follow from the former. Instead, this is a person who couldn't handle the former and is doing the latter out of spite.
What I'm saying is I try to make villains who have solid justifications for why they chose to walk down the road to villainy, but specifically and intentionally NOT give them excuses for why it's OK for them to do so and why we should feel sorry for them and sympathise. Every villain deserves a motivation, but very, very few villains (and I dare say none of them) deserve actual sympathy.
This isn't so much about a villain being evil for the sake of being evil, merely a villain whose actions make sense but still cannot be excused or forgiven. That, to me, is what makes for a good villain and where the border between villain and anti-hero is.
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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It actually depends on the villain concept.
Some will be suave, smiling bastards.
Others with be unadulterated brutes of the "Hulk eat Freddie Prinz Jr.'s head and **** Betty bowlegged!" variety.
Some will be complete whack-jobs who simply want to blow up the world, just because they can, or because they're deeply, scientifically curious to see EXACTLY how loud the Earth Shattering Kaboom will actually be.
Some will merely be former heroes who made one teensy little mistake...that just happened to happen in a grotesquely public venue. Now public opinion has gotten them tossed in with the baby killers, whackoids, thugs, and general unsavories because they'd wind up lynched or burnt at the stake (sometimes literally) in more polite society.
I have villains who fit into most of these categories and a few more I haven't mentioned.
There Is No One True Way
No, no, I agree with you. What I'm speaking against is villains whose judgement is somehow impaired or that they are somehow forced to do evil. If the villain is just crazy and doesn't know what he's doing, just nihilistic and doesn't care what he's doing or somehow pressed into evil by circumstance, then that's not really a very interesting villain. Confused/insane/compelled villains can be cured. Take away what's making them evil and they're good people underneath it all.
When I write a villain, I want this villain's evil to not be attributed to any one factor that can be removed from the character, but rather to be attributed to the character himself. You can treat mental illness (with magic science, if need be), but you can't cure a rotten *******. A person who kills for money, you can given him a stable job with a guaranteed income and he won't have any other reason to kill, but you can't cure a false messiah who KNOWS that his enemies need to die. When I say "willingly and knowingly," I simply mean that who and what the villain is is a result of said villains personal, intentional, aware choice and is not something that can be "fixed" if the villain were just cured or shown the light. These are bad people, not merely good people trapped in bad circumstances. I think you misunderstand. When I say someone is "evil," I don't mean anything in particular. When I say "He is evil willingly and knowingly" I merely mean "He is what he is by conscious choice." This doesn't have to be a Dr. Evil type of parody villain who wants to "Rul ze vorld mit science!" who has an otherwise realistic personality. The thing to remember is that there's a very real difference between giving villains "justifications" for being evil and giving them excuses. "Your world is chaotic and I can rule it better than you can" is a justification. The villain feels that the world needs order of the kind only he can provide. "Mommy didn't hug me so now I stab people," on the other hand, is an excuse. The latter doesn't follow from the former. Instead, this is a person who couldn't handle the former and is doing the latter out of spite. What I'm saying is I try to make villains who have solid justifications for why they chose to walk down the road to villainy, but specifically and intentionally NOT give them excuses for why it's OK for them to do so and why we should feel sorry for them and sympathise. Every villain deserves a motivation, but very, very few villains (and I dare say none of them) deserve actual sympathy. This isn't so much about a villain being evil for the sake of being evil, merely a villain whose actions make sense but still cannot be excused or forgiven. That, to me, is what makes for a good villain and where the border between villain and anti-hero is. |
@Texarkana
@Thexder
Actually, I don't think that the glamorous/disgusting continuum is a good way to describe it. The glamorous and disgusting categories you describe don't leave room for villains who have big, world-changing goals, powerful PR departments, the uncanny ability to keep coming back, and all the stuff you call glamorous but also have zero regard for human life, dignity, or beauty, and may be using all that power to shore up the empty, evil, depressing shell that you describe the "disgusting" villain as being. Characters like that are everywhere: Lord Voldemort, for instance, is a genocidal maniac and self-styled demigod with a cadre of minions and an obsession with grandeur, who tried to murder a baby because he'd heard that maybe the kid would grow up to be a threat, who thinks love, honor, remorse, and pretty much all concepts associated with good are delusions held by the weak, and who is driven by his own fear of death. I can't think which category to put a character like that in, but I'd lean towards the "disgusting" side. Others like this include the Jack Nicholson Joker (as opposed to Heath Ledger on the disgusting end and Mark Hamill/Bruce Timm on the glamorous end), Doctor Vazhilok (who's not far from what Voldemort would be if he were a mad scientist instead of a wizard), and Jabba the Hutt (you think he commits crime to help him sleep at night? Not unless it's smothering, or eating, a crying baby that's keeping him awake).
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This, more or less, is where I draw the difference. Is this villain written to thrill and amaze me, or is he written to upset my stomach? And this can vary between writers writing for the SAME villain, mind you. In many ways, it comes down to a fundamental question to the writer in person: Do you actually LIKE your villains, or do you HATE them? Do you want to make your villains awesome and enviable, or do you want to destroy their image and make them hated and reviled? I ask, because I actually do like all of my villains, messed-up as they may be, but I don't get the same sense from everybody I come across.
In some ways, it's like the old dichotomy of "horror vs. gore," and how one isn't necessarily synonymous with the other. There's a reason a new genre was coined recently, dubbed "torture porn," and why people will often complain that true horror no longer exists in movies today. I bring this up because building a decent, non-glorified villain is kind of like making a decent horror flick - you want something that's unnerving and scary, but at the same time exciting and interesting. Go too far in either direction and you end up with schlock.
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Well our own AT names sort of break down the general concepts of the basic villain types found in comics, and it does it well even for thematic purposes, but to delve a little deeper into the concept of villainy being grouped into Desgusting or Glam, is interesting.
I think it depends purely on the story behind that character. Currently I am running a corrupter who is both glamerous and yet disgusting. She is looks great, and some woould say attractive. However she is a feeder of life essense. A soul sucking fiend who was driven crazy after being vanished to the nether realm. Most of the time she is controlable unless she depeletes her energy by using many of her attacks...eventually she starts rotting, and her costume slots allow her to putrify to get that effect. So I would say she is a combination of both. Young and beautiful, glamorous and calm and then driven to extremes whe she cannot control her hunger. Then she becomes depraved and vicious. On another note, I have one villain who just became corrupted because of her power and back story. Villainy just came naturally, and sibling rivaly pushed her overboard. Now she works for hire, does bad things, and really does not care what gets in her way. But I would not considder her depraved or sick, nor disgusting. I would not say that her moral compas is facing south to the extreme, but perhaps east or west. She is driven by power, secret arcane magic, and a lust for material gain. But I would not say she would be disgusting. Depending on your concept of moral, disgusting can be anything really. Mugging an old blind woman in a wheel chair could be considdered disgusting, as could more depraved acts. It just depends. I have met many heroes who use their charms, body and authority to do things that I would just deem as perfectly disgusting. |
Dominator--Their goal is to control society because they think their way is better, and can do a better job running things.
Mastermind--They may or may not want to control things, but have elaborate plans and henchmen to get their goals done, whatever they are.
Brute--The one who love to fight, it fuels them. They get enraged very easily, but it's all for the the fight and as much pain and suffering they can cause.
Corrupter--The love to turn things dark. If they find someone or something that is moral or holy they love to whisper in it's ear till it turns to their way of thinking. There is also the other type of corrupter, who is diseased and wants every else to be like them--abominations, embalmed, the diseased prisoners in the original COH tutorial who's name I forget, etc.
Stalker--Quite literally what it means if you want to go very dark (pervy?) with it. A more nuanced approach--an assassin. Doesn't matter if it takes a week or a year, they will get their target. They will hunt him/her down no matter how long it takes. either by poison or a well placed knife blade, or hit to a vital organ (assassin strike!)
As an aside what did everyone think of the portrayal of the Joker in Dark Knight? Some could say that his bat-shite (heh) crazy wasn't the traditional crazy. The Joker of DK was trying to prove a point about society, while doing some insane things. I don't think that's the same type of Joker as in the comics. I could be wrong though.
And to answer Sam's question, as you can see form what I wrote about the villain ATs above, I think there can be many types of villains, not just the two extremes you wrote.
Also, I find it interesting that Soldiers of Arachnos are the one villain AT that don't fit their name. As per their story line (as short and weak as it is) they are trying to become "the" Destined One (if I understand/remember it correctly), but at the same time prove their independence. If it were up to me I wouldn't have called them Soldiers of Arachnos. I would have given them the title of Infiltrators or Spies or something similar.
They really are not Soldiers of Arachnos in spirit, only in powers. However, if I understand/remember their story correctly, they want to be ANYTHING BUT Soldiers of Arachnos . . . the irony, it burrrrrrrns.
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Well-written and all, but your original question appears to be more about execution of that justification (in a glamorous or monstrous way) and if it should matter how it is done.
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And, yes, my question is sideways of what I discussed there. As I noted, it was a sideways tangent, more or less. I'm trying to patch up holes in my argument as I find them, and it really did seem like I was advocating for villains to be cartoony and one-dimensional with the "villain by choice" comment. That wasn't what I meant
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Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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When I divide villains between "glamorous" and "disgusting," I'm actually speaking more about the way in which they are written than specifically who and what they are.
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Still I think the determination for what makes a character a hero or villain largely depends on what society at large decides to judge them as. The idea of a MMO like this forcing us to "pigeon-hole" ourselves as either villains or heroes at level 1 is a little like putting the cart before the horse. In a more perfect game we'd be able to play a character for like 20+ levels as a "neutral" and have our actions dictate which side we'd be locked into.
Again I think your concern over "disgusting versus glamorous" is an approach to how you judge villains and there's nothing wrong with that. But in a big picture view I don't really think there's a "right" kind of villain as far as that goes. I've seen well written villains be either disgusting or glamorous, and sometimes even both at the same time.
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I personally like villains that are villains, but see themselves as being the good guys for whatever reason. Neither "glamorous" nor "disgusting", though they'd likely drift through both categories on occasion.
Of the villains I currently have, one's a near mindless monster, acting on animal instinct (albeit with a malicious bent). Another is an alien supersoldier, basically a one-man invasion force, who is only doing his duty to remove complications from this planet (though he does have a cruel streak and thoroughly enjoys his job). A third is control personified, someone who cannot stand when things go differently to his plan, he's fairly disgusting for purposes of this conversation though (but he's got the class of any Bond villain). My fourth (and currently only residing in an AE arc) is a lowlife thief with next to zero imagination, misdirected ambition (meaning he could be shooting higher, but doesn't see it) and near limitless power. He's neither glamorous nor disgusting because he's a fool.
Again I think your concern over "disgusting versus glamorous" is an approach to how you judge villains and there's nothing wrong with that. But in a big picture view I don't really think there's a "right" kind of villain as far as that goes. I've seen well written villains be either disgusting or glamorous, and sometimes even both at the same time.
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Choice in villainy is always important, and I enjoy that I can skip both Westin Phipps and Peter Thermai (and Angello Vendetti and Darla Mavis while we're at it) and the option to NOT run the Mortimer Kal tip mission. However, to know what I want to repeat and what I want to skip, I need to know what it is that I'm after, and "gut feeling" isn't nearly as reliable as I'd like.
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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No, I agree, there's no one right way to write a villain... But by the same token, there actually IS one right to write a villain such that I, personally, will want to play it. I'm really not trying to define some universal law here. The truth of the matter is I don't actually comprehend exactly what I want, and I hope to gather the opinions of others, examine them and in those find the inspiration to define what I like for myself.
Choice in villainy is always important, and I enjoy that I can skip both Westin Phipps and Peter Thermai (and Angello Vendetti and Darla Mavis while we're at it) and the option to NOT run the Mortimer Kal tip mission. However, to know what I want to repeat and what I want to skip, I need to know what it is that I'm after, and "gut feeling" isn't nearly as reliable as I'd like. |
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Loth 50 Fire/Rad Controller [1392 Badges] [300 non-AE Souvenirs]
Ryver 50 Ele� Blaster [1392 Badges]
Silandra 50 Peacebringer [1138 Badges] [No Redside Badges]
--{=====> Virtue ♀
Maybe for your purposes it'd be good to re-categorize the game's various legacy mission stories in terms of Hero, Vigilante, Villain and Rogue. No one says you have to like everything the game provides so maybe you can pigeon-hole what you might call "disgusting" as Villainous and what you'd call "glamorous" more Roguish.
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Actually, something of an aside (yet again), but one reason I started this thread was I firmly believe I DON'T like disgusting villains, yet looking down my roster of characters and reading the stories I've been writing recently... They all are!
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Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Again - if it seems like I don't know exactly what I'm asking... It's because I don't. I'm trying to make sense of villains, what they represent and how they should be written. I'm not trying to argue that people are wrong or right in how they make villains, I'm just trying to find a good way to put into words a decent summary of what makes for a good villain that I can play as while at the same time not feeling sick and reluctant to log in a second time.
And, yes, my question is sideways of what I discussed there. As I noted, it was a sideways tangent, more or less. I'm trying to patch up holes in my argument as I find them, and it really did seem like I was advocating for villains to be cartoony and one-dimensional with the "villain by choice" comment. That wasn't what I meant ![]() |
For me, when I see the descriptor "glamor" attached to "villain", I think of the cloak that the villain wraps himself with in order to move freely within society. The disgusting villain is the one we can shoot/arrest on sight whereas the glamorous one technically has society's protection from being treated that way...assuming that person is using an identity and not hiding in anonymity.
@Texarkana
@Thexder
<qr>
There's no "Or" there. Each villain is an individual - just like my heroes aren't 100% Stand By The Flag, Breeze Blowing, Cape Waving, Shiny Goody Two Shoes types, my villains aren't all, or even mostly, one thing or another.
For instance, I've got:
- Egotistical, basically "Rich Spoiled Daddy's Girl" who thinks it should all be hers.
- Spirit that formed from the accumulated wars and hatred in a region of Africa and feeds from misery, creating his warriors from the spirits of the fallen.
- Would-be ex-thief who tried to change and go straight, but had that taken away from her by Wyvern when they killed her fiance (who was a regular civilian,) and is more in a "Fine, if that's who I'm supposed to be, that's who I'll be" - she's resigned to it even if she doesn't like it.
- A poorly programmed battlefield AI who's out for conquest and maintenance. Because those were the two things programmed into him most strongly.
- Undercover hero
- A version of my 50 elec/elec blaster (but an elec/elec brute in this case) that had lost someone thanks to yet another government project gone awry - and decided her world would not deal with that again, essentially conquering and ruling as empress until her world's version of the COT and some resistance managed to trick and forcibly exile her here. Furious, but her whole goal is to get back so her world doesn't fall apart again. (as she sees it.)
Basically, it's the character. Some would run Phipps arc happily. Some would run it and call him a wuss. Others would execute Phipps on the spot, or expose him to the world.
Perhaps consider a revision to your description of "glamorous" villains? I think that might be a bit of stumbling block since you describe as those villains focused on doing amazing things...
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Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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I'm not sure if this is helpful, but it's worked for me, at last.