Should villains be glamorous or disgusting?
I'll see what I can do. What I meant when I wrote that was that the NARRATIVE is focused on showing the villains doing amazing things and hiding the grimmer of their deeds
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Edit: Then you have someone like the Merovinginan (sp?)....again, he's a glamorous villain, but runs the hottest place in the Matrix....with fine....programs...surrounding him and he swears in French for the love of it....
Edit2: In contrast, Agent Smith is the disgusting villain -- you fight or flee from him on sight...
@Texarkana
@Thexder
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
What kind of villains do you prefer to play as, what kind of villains do you prefer to watch movies and read comics about and why?
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No, nothing of the sort, and I'm actually somewhat confused why you inferred that this is what I was saying in light of my repeated insistence that I will only make characters villain-side if they are evil by choice and with full knowledge. Risking this coming off as insulting, I urge you to read my posts again and try to give me a little more credit.
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With that, I might have a better idea of what you are asking.
My knowledge of CoH Lore is not as encyclopedic as others.
Outside of maybe Captain Mako, I can't think off hand of any of the main Villains in game who would fit your definition of "revolting" - some examples here would be welcome.
I assume this conversation has been sparked by the thread from the Open Beta forums, discussing Villainy and the new tutorial.
If so, I don't even agree that the first action you take as a villain in the tutorial fits into the 'disgusting' Villain category.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Villains that fit your description of "disgusting" villains are exceedingly rare in Comics, Movies & TV outside of things like Serial killers and slasher films or limited/one-shot characters who are used only as a plot device (like Doomsday).
Instead, I'll ask you to provide some examples of both types of Villains as they fit your own opinion of your own definitions laid out in the first post. With that, I might have a better idea of what you are asking. My knowledge of CoH Lore is not as encyclopedic as others. Outside of maybe Captain Mako, I can't think off hand of any of the main Villains in game who would fit your definition of "revolting" - some examples here would be welcome. I assume this conversation has been sparked by the thread from the Open Beta forums, discussing Villainy and the new tutorial. If so, I don't even agree that the first action you take as a villain in the tutorial fits into the 'disgusting' Villain category. |
@Texarkana
@Thexder
Hmm..
Sometimes , they just want to watch it all burn.
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. |
The rest of the world sees him as a hero, while he sees himself as a flawed, dangerous, horrible, evil person.
Then there is another one (one of my favorites actually) who is in possession of a demonic sword (kind of the other way around actually). The sword has a need to consume life force from those it wounds. My character found himself the bearer of this sword by accident (ordered a sword on Ebay for his collection and ended up with this one instead). Now, the catch of this parasitic relationship is if the sword goes too long without draining someone's life force, it starts to feed on it's wielder. He can't simply get rid of the sword because it's bonded to him. It either drains life force from others or from him. Now he COULD just let the sword kill him, but he doesn't want the sword to end up in the hands of someone with less ethics than him. So, he's doing the heroic thing by ensuring that if the sword HAS to drain people, they will at least deserve it.
Sure, what he's doing isn't technically good, but it's better than letting this sword end up in the hands of a psychopath, which the sword actively seeks out because it absorbs more energy when it is used on the innocent. The sword is constantly trying to wear down his willpower and turn him into the kind of cold-blooded killer it wants to be wielded by.
(My Broadsword/Dark Armor scrapper)
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. |
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For me, the most enjoyable villains are the ones you can still find "cool" in spite of, or perhaps even because of, their flaws. There needs to be something relatable, something that can make you at least *understand* why they do what they do, even if you don't agree with it.
The commonality I've noticed in my own roster of villains is that they've all been thwarted by life in some way. Trying to claw their way back from ruin, they make the decision to take back control of their own fates, and neither circumstances nor society's rules will stop them.
That doesn't mean that they have no moral or ethical code of their own, just that it varies individually and doesn't fit society's mandate. I hate it when villains are portrayed as having no boundaries at all, just because they're villains. It might make sense for a few rare individuals - psychotics, schizophrenics and complete nihilists with antisocial personality disorders. But most people, good or bad, have things they'll do and things they won't do; it's just that the two lists don't always match up.
Rorschach is a perfect example of a complex character who's so well-written that often people can't agree whether he's a hero or a villain. He works for the common good, but he's also ruthless and brutal. He refuses to follow society's laws, but has his own unwavering moral code. He kills viciously, but only as punishment for the victim's past crimes; he doesn't target innocent civilians. You actually feel *bad* for him at the end of the book/movie.
When you can feel that kind of sympathy for an otherwise unpleasant character, the writer has succeeded.
First, great topic. Allow me to jump into the fray if you will.
Next I want to point out something that I may have skimmed over but I didn't see stated: a hero or villain is not based on a black/white definition but more of a perspective one. A person can be seen as a hero for one action by one society but viewed as a villain by another society.
For example someone who runs a Nazi-hunting organization could easily be viewed as a hero. Hamfat - that's Captain America's bit. However if someone looks at this person who runs a Nazi-hunting group...but expands it to hunting down criminals for a price (and will do most anything other than an assasination) they may be viewed as a villain simply because they use leathal methods or they prefer to be paid for the work they do.
My primary is based on this actually. After a falling out with her family back in Europe - including the leagal rights to her corporation that began as a group of Nazi-hunters founded by her father - she went to the Rogue Isles. She's set up shop to secure funds for a legal battle to regain her company while retaining the original concepts: guns for hire with a predication toward the Council (derived from Nazi/5th column/etc.) as she'll take Council assignments for free.
She comes across as glamorous for the most part, but everyone will have his/her own view of her actions. She personally cares little for the view of others.
Instead, I'll ask you to provide some examples of both types of Villains as they fit your own opinion of your own definitions laid out in the first post.
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A disgusting villain would be the now-infamous Westin Phipps. It's not that what he has you do is so colossally bad or cruel (even though it kind of is) as much as that he's written specifically to shock and horrify. Westin is the response the developer team gave to the people claiming that City of Villains wasn't "evil enough." Again, he's a bad guy, but the point of his story is for the player to be exposed to something really uncomfortable, and all for not a lot of gain.
By contrast, a good example of a glamorous villain is the Nemesis. On the scale of bad things he's done, he's worse than Phipps a thousand times over. Nemesis has wiped out entire worlds, he started the Ritki war, he's killed numerous people, over thrown governments and who knows what else. But Nemesis isn't ABOUT that. Sure, he does bad things, but oh, man! He has an awesome base in another dimension! And he makes ray guns out of steam technology! And he can make psychic robots! And he has taken over entire worlds! Isn't that cool?
It's really not so much how bad a villain is as much as how much time we spend focusing on the cool things he's done vs. how much time we spend focusing on the horrible crimes he's committed. With Westin, torture porn is the point of the entire character. With Nemesis, it's more a case of stupid jetpack Hitler! It's still undeniably bad, but also kind of amazing.
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 building a villain, or any character, really, you have to consider not only what their actions may be, but also their motivation.
Or, consider that the hero 'kind of, sort of agreeing with' the villain's actions is on the verge of becoming a villain themselves.
61866 - A Series of Unfortunate Kidnappings - More than a coincidence?
2260 - The Burning of Hearts - A green-eyed monster holds the match.
379248 - The Spider Without Fangs - NEW - Some lessons learned (more or less.)
Keep in mind that I'm speaking mostly about presentation and narrative, or how a villain's story is being told, as opposed to exactly what that story is...
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Examples from comics include Magneto, Doctor Doom, Lex Luthor and even Cadmus. These are the ones that you want to read more about. Arachnos is certainly in that vein rather than (other than Mako as stated before) the nasty blood-for-blood presentation of the 'Ugly' villain.
Granted that is just my opinion...
Interesting -- I would have supposed that glamorous villains would be far more infrequent than the disgusting ones just from sheer numbers in most media....using either Sam's definition or my proposed revision.
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Here's a good list that I tend to agree with in terms of some of the top villains presented in comics: Top Ten Comic Book Super Villains
Aside from That famous crazy clown, I think the rest of them are what Sam defines as "Glamorous" Villains. Even the Clown is debatable depending on who is writing him.
A disgusting villain would be the now-infamous Westin Phipps. It's not that what he has you do is so colossally bad or cruel (even though it kind of is) as much as that he's written specifically to shock and horrify. Westin is the response the developer team gave to the people claiming that City of Villains wasn't "evil enough." Again, he's a bad guy, but the point of his story is for the player to be exposed to something really uncomfortable, and all for not a lot of gain.
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By contrast, a good example of a glamorous villain is the Nemesis.
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If I'm reading you right, then I think I can say that I mostly play "Glamorous" villains, in that all of my villains have some overarching goal they are trying to achieve and, depending on character, are willing to go to extreme lengths to achieve it (i.e.they act with some measure of ruthlessness) That doesn't mean they occupy every last second of their free time purposefully stomping kittens and puppies into puddles of blood.
I don't play disgusting villains very often, villains like Jason Vorhees or something, because they are as boring as I find most "Knight in Shining armor" heroes to be in that both are fairly 1 dimensional with little actual character.
Ultimately, I think the disgusting/glamourous question has to be more a matter of a spectrum than of two discrete points. Where a character falls on that spectrum then varies by the story being told. For instance, I would characterize Caesura, my Sonic/Traps corruptor, as pretty much the definition of a glamourous villain. He's a mercenary to the core, in it for the money. He gets all the cool gadgets, always gets the girl, has an awesome car, and is generally kind of bad-*** all around.
That said, I have written stories about him specifically to show that he is Not A Nice Guy. He is utterly amoral, and willing to stop at nothing to ensure that he gets his goal. He's often needlessly cruel, resorting often to torture and intimidation when he could as easily get what he wants by other means because he likes the way it makes him feel powerful. If I were to confine the entirety of his character to this aspect of his life and his personality, he would be pretty much the definition of the “disgusting” villain.
Conversely, I think a good example of the other end of the spectrum is the Joker from “The Dark Knight.” I don't think there's any question that he was an Absolute Monster. However, he had just enough purpose, flair, charisma, and dare I say, humour, to make the audience want to watch him just to see what awful thing he would do next.
Ultimately, I think the richest characters are the ones that walk that line between “awesome” and “absolute monster.” I try very hard with all of my villains to make them glamourous enough to be relatable, while remaining “disgusting” enough to be legitimately threatening. If you go too far one way, you end up with the kinds of villainy you get from young childrens' TV shows, where the villain is at worst kind of a jerk, whereas if you go too far in the other direction you get either the stereotypical moustache-twirling villain or you get the raging lunatic who wants to blow up the world for no reason other than the fact that the world needs blowing up. Either way, it tends to make for a rather flat character if all they're doing is acting as a walking talking set piece.
I took a class in dramatic narrative while I was in University and the third week in, the teacher said something that I think frames this perfectly. He said, “To make a good antagonist, the villain in your story is the hero of their own story. If your story is about going down to the corner store to get some beer only to be thwarted by the other guy fighting you for the last case, then you should be able to tell the story with the villain as just another guy who wanted beer and being confronted by you.” I think this comes back at least in part to why you feel the “lunatics” don't work for you, Sam, because it's very hard to convey that in a manner that is relatable.
Maybe Matt Damon said it best in “The Talented Mr. Ripley”: Well, whatever you do, however terrible, however hurtful, it all makes sense, doesn't it, in your head. You never meet anybody that thinks they're a bad person.
My story arcs: #2370- Noah Reborn, #18672- The Clockwork War, #31490- Easy Money
Sartre once said, "Hell is other people." What does that make an MMO?
honestly i see villains as disgusting, or at least focusing on their character flaw, even in their victories.
as for player villains, well i tend to play characters that have one foot in being good but are defined by their character flaw, closer to catwoman than the joker. they don't actively want to harm anyone, but they want what others have, so sometimes someone is going to get non-lethally hurt.
the thing for me was that in light of cov, i didnt really want to play a villain, bu t that was where the content was, so i made the least evil villain possible and ran with it. on both consoles and here i have tried various games that make me a villain, and it aint happening. a sympathetic villain will still be unsympathetic to me because of their character flaw, and the more a author tries to force me to like them(usually as some form of imbedded philosophical commentary of their own) the more their flaw sticks out. as such i tend to be amazed by people who find villains interesting, i cant. no matter how petty or charismatic they are, i see them as pathogens, viruses, nothing more. its cool if people can let that go and make a villain they like, but for me making any villain is simply a reaction to the change in the game's content that i was challenged to adapt to by making a villain that i could tolerate, so i figured a thief was the least reprehensible path to take.
Ultimately, I think the disgusting/glamourous question has to be more a matter of a spectrum than of two discrete points. Where a character falls on that spectrum then varies by the story being told.
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But your example is a pretty good one for what I'd dub a "glamorous" villain. Sure, he's a bad guy, he's possessive, he's insecure, he's violent... But that's not what you focus on. You focus on the fast cars, the pretty ladies, the high life... It's evil hiding behind coolness, rather than than just evil standing behind more evil.
Aside from That famous crazy clown, I think the rest of them are what Sam defines as "Glamorous" Villains. Even the Clown is debatable depending on who is writing him.
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![Smile](images/smilies/smile.gif)
Though, yeah, these are the sort of people that constitute glamorous villains in my eyes. They're evil, no doubt about it, and they're neither redeemable nor sympathetic, and their evil is pretty dang unpleasant... But a the same time they're such cool villains that spend so much time doing such cool things, I can't help but not like them. A little... Secretly...
I agree on Phipps, but I don't really see him as one of this game's Major characters.
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![Smile](images/smilies/smile.gif)
I'd call War Dog "disgusting" for the simple fact that his entire story centres around unpleasant, intentionally revolting business, and his entire character is built to be a damn rotten *******. If ever there were an option to "kill contact," he's one of the few people I'd have used it on.
In fact, the whole of the Praetorian storyline is designed to make you feel dirty for having taken part in it.
If I'm reading you right, then I think I can say that I mostly play "Glamorous" villains, in that all of my villains have some overarching goal they are trying to achieve and, depending on character, are willing to go to extreme lengths to achieve it (i.e.they act with some measure of ruthlessness) That mean they occupy ever last second of their free time purposefully stomping kittens and puppies into puddles of blood.
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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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It is good to see all of you that actually flush out your characters with some thought and design. I hate to say it, but I have so many toons spread across a few servers, I just pick powersets I want to try (usually that may possibly play well with the current PvP mechanics as well as in PvE), draft up a quick backstory for bio purposes and commence to leveling.
The OP has put forth a pretty complex construction epecially when you consider the antivillain and antihero values of the "alignment" spectrum. I mean I wouldn't consider the Wolverine/Punisher archetypes to be either disgusting or glamorous and they're able to murder villains on a regular basis (albeit for the higher good). It really can be difficult categorizing villains into set parameters unless you have a very specific concept in mind.
"Forum PvP doesn't give drops. Just so all of you who participated in this thread are aware." -Mod08-
"when a stalker goes blue side, assassination strike should be renamed "bunny hugs", and a rainbow should fly out" -Harbinger-
You're mistaken. GG only sees the Wardens as the de-facto good guys, not the whole Resistance. I remember her saying so shortly after GR came out.
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look the resistance was originally set up as the ambiguous good guys of gr. they also wanted to show that there were shades of overlap between the two, thats why the resistance has crusaders and loyalists have the responsability path. both do some things that are good and some that are reprehensable. but given what the ingame setup was, yes cole was set up to be bad and those opposing him were the less bad that were working with the earth's heroes. if i recall, player feedback influenced the decisions to have those 2 extra branches, and it was originally to be just loyalist and resistance, likely war dog would not have been there had the extra layers not come in to add the "bad" good guys.
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Or shades of jerk, as it too often transpires.
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 don't think we've seen everything behind Cole's story, and rather than post i21 spoilers here I'll just leave one of my favorite comments from Cole at near the end of the Loyalist arc.
Originally Posted by Emperor Cole
It is not a matter of me wishing, Character, but rather of me hoping. That you would do the right thing is of great comfort to me. I shall deal with Stephen and The Olympian.
I shall have to remind Praetor Berry that he should not grow too prideful. Too many have already forgotten how hubris nearly destroyed us all. |
My opinion is that there is an element of potential gray to the Emperor Cole storyline.
I would prefer my villains to be glamorous. I have to play them after all.
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Even if I give my villains some sort of "defect", often as a result of past battle injury or perhaps a side effect of the event in which they gained their superhuman powers, they tend to be "glamorous" despite it.
For those probably few readers who are familiar with the "StrikeForce: Morituri" comic series from DC, and in particular its follow-up miniseries, "Electric Undertow", I liken my CoH/V supers to folks who have undergone the "M Process". The events that make them into superhumans don't just give them powers, but also magnify their physical and/or personality traits.
Most of my villains are mercenary, and they are significantly, but not utterly amoral. They fit the "rogue" image presented via GR pretty well, and I have left most of them with the Rogue alignment, despite some game mechanical or reward disadvantages of doing so. (It annoys me that those disadvantages exist.) Most would not harm bystanders except by accident, though they would be less remorseful than a truly good person. Most of my villains would take no joy in causing people pain, unless it was for revenge, which they would only seek out for significant affronts.
Honestly, I like the way Rogues are depicted in CoH, as sort of "glamorous villains" much more than I like how Vigilantes are depicted, which comes across as "willing to do anything in the name of inflicting 'justice'". But I prefer either to a "true" villain. I don't want to play someone who is truly evil and who delights in delivering suffering. Someone who is doing bad things for what they think is the right reason I could manage - it's basically a Vigilante who is totally past the thin blue line.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
I don't think we've seen everything behind Cole's story, and rather than post i21 spoilers here I'll just leave one of my favorite comments from Cole at near the end of the Loyalist arc.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
I wonder where trying to conquer the entire multiverse comes in on the hubris scale?
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Do you think Alexander the Great was a hero, or a villain?
Well, like I mentioned before, there's always Doctor Vazhilok. Also, several of the Resistance Crusader contacts, even if they're not quite as "main." Hatchet's as bad as Westin Phipps.
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I find it hard, conceptually, to see villains who are worse than the CoT or the Banished Pantheon cultists.
The CoT regularly cast out the souls of ordinary folks to take over their bodies. In game lore, this is described as the souls being cast into an infinite and awful void, with strong implications that they will never be recovered. This is a kind of death beyond death, an implicit hell of eternal aloneness in an eternal void. As callous as Vahzilok and his minions may be to kill people on the street for their organs, even they don't consign people's souls to such a fate - they "just" kill you.
The Banished Pantheon are either worse or as bad, depending on what is supposed to happen to people they sacrifice to their dark gods. They worship nihilistic beings who's sole interest in the mortal world seems to be the consuming of souls and/or other magic. As far as I know, we don't get a lot of detail about what happens to sacrificed souls, but we do know the Pantheon cultists and their zombies make a lot of noise about their gods' hunger, feeding and so forth. That leaves a lot to the imagination, and none of it is very good.
Few of the game's villains compete with the sheer depth of evil willing doing such things suggests. They may compete with or exceed either the CoT or the BP on sheer scale of suffering they cause by virtue of number of people affected. There are companies that advertise in the Rogue Isles for corpse disposal - life there for mundane or low-ranking folk cannot possibly be pleasant. But for most people, if they die at the hands of these villains, even if they die badly, at least they "only" die. Their souls aren't consigned to eternal damnation or possible annihilation on top of it.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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.
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