Should villains be glamorous or disgusting?
I tend to go for "lovable rogue" types for Villains, who will invariably have nice shiny stuff - cars, clothing, gear - because being bad, for them, is all about fun. Where their idea of fun usually stops is mass murder (which also makes cleaning that nice new slinky burgling outfit all kinds of hell) or where doing good becomes more fun/profitable.
So they'll often end up on the side of good, getting more credit than the workaday-Joe Heroes whose actual job it is to save the day, and looking hotter as well.
It's kinda having your cake and eating it, true... well, somebody's cake. It was just lying there looking all sorta delicious. Think they'll mind?
Is it time for the dance of joy yet?
![](http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/FPS/DrAmyWeaver.png)
That's part of the reason I feel that they should allow 'side' swapping without actually having to change alignments. Why can't player villains take up residence and career within Paragon (is Paragon City sooo pristine that it can't have brokers of mischief and mayhem). Why can't player heroes decide they can do more good as residents of the Rogue Isles; trying to improve living and working conditions, a little at a time, by day; donning their glorious pair of undies to PJ party it up with the baddies at night? - That was kind of the gist behind Day Jobs, wasn't it?
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Well, what you describe seems to me like a pretty rational villain. There's a difference between being "misguided" and flatout being "wrong," is where I draw the line. A misguided villain lacks the ability to perceive the world correctly, or the ability to think clearly. What you describe is more a villain who's well aware of the world around her and who has made her choices consciously and rationally. If I were a person living in her world, I'd argue that she's wrong, but I wouldn't argue that she shouldn't be allowed to form her own opinions.
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When I say "misguided," I more mean... Let's use an ad-hoc example. A character's parents were murdered by criminals, but he thinks they were murdered by heroes, so he hates heroes and wants to kill them. Society cast him out because he was a murder so he had to live homeless on the streets and believes it's their fault. This obvious villain can be reformed if you reveal the truth to him and give him an opportunity to save a city or two. Instant hero. |
I'll agree the potential to reform exists, but that doesn't mean every villain will necessarily act on it.
Someone spoke about "goals" and "purpose" before. I guess that's where the "glamour" aspect comes in. If a villain has a purpose and sticks to achieving that purpose, as opposed to stopping to commit every unthinkable travesty along the way and savour the malice, that is a cool villain. So long as the purpose itself is glamorous, or at least not disgusting (rule the world vs. kick puppies, destroy all existence vs. torture people, etc.), the villain comes off as "glamorous" by my definition... I think ![]() |
Speaking of...hey, look over there! *yoink*
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
Opinions are one thing, acting on them is another. If I think you're weak, and don't deserve to live as such, and Cosmic Burst you in the face, figuring it'll either kill you because you were too weak to live or make you stronger, would you agree with my right to do so?
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P.S. "You" here refers to the villain in question, and I'm just following the quote wording. Just thought I should mention that
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I'll agree the potential to reform exists, but that doesn't mean every villain will necessarily act on it.
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What I mean is more a question of scales. If a villain is a villain because of some reason that appears to be fixable to a casual observer and the story doesn't make it a point to explain why that CAN'T happen, then said villain comes off like a broken hero who could be fixed. Not only does this undermine the villain's presence, dignity and believability, but it also serves to make it even more absurd when said villain keeps killing people, blowing up countries and kicking puppies.
This is personal taste talking here, I admit, but I actually have a problem with "misunderstood heroes" acting as consistent villains, because it eventually makes me hate the WRITER. A misunderstood villain is someone you more or less end up sympathising with, because he CAN be fixed. But how many times can he violently murder the good guy's family and still be sympathetic? Not many. At which point you end up with a villain with a flimsy justification for being a villain, yet who is no longer sympathetic or redeemable, and the story just turns mean-spirited all around. This is probably my own failing as a member of the audience, but I have a fairly low tolerance for stories actually being uncomfortable. Since I always have a chance to just stop reading/watching/playing, if a story puts me in a position where I don't want to go on... I don't. And a that's one of the types of villains that make me fast-forward to see if there's any resolution and eventually give up altogether.
See, the problem with these is... They're not "glamorous" in the least, partly because I define "glamour" in large part as a villain's self-consciousness, presence emotional stability. This is probably a thread I want to pick up, actually. Good idea!
![Smile](images/smilies/smile.gif)
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I value emotional stability in a villain more than most other things. Sure, mad, schizophrenic, confused, possessed, brainwashed and suchforth villains are dangerous, threatening, scary, etc., but... I can't really respect them as much. A lot of the time these guys are villains because of their problems, and even more often said problems come off as, if not sympathetic, then at least pitiful. This is actually my problem with City of Villains, as well - our villains operate in humility. They're wretched beings only worthy of pity.
Now contrast this with the stable, secure, comfortable villain who understands his own psyche and is comfortable in his own skin. You tell him of all the things he's done wrong and he pretty much agrees with you. You tell him how repugnant he is and he just shrugs his shoulders. You tell him he should stop, and he says "No." then proceeds to explain - at length or in a few words - why he simply chooses not to. Yes, he hurts people, yes he causes indescribable damage, yes what he does has turned him into a reviled individual. "Yeah, and?"
To me, any villain who has the emotional stability to accept who and what he is and the dignity nevertheless respect himself and still believe in what he's doing without doubt or second-guessing is already well on the way to being glamorous, even if he doesn't have money, lairs and armies. That's actually a lot of what makes people like Dr. Doom, the Kingpin, Lex Luthor and the others on that list so cool. These guys strike a balance between being comfortable in their own skins and not shy of brutality, yet at the same time not specifically taking any manic enjoyment in the pain they cause, aside from that of a few specific "rivals." These are guys who do evil, they recognise that the things they do hurt people, but they still do them because they feel they have to, not out of some sense of perverse satisfaction.
Any stable, dignified, self-controlled villain is a villain I'd class as "glamorous" in at least that aspect of his personality.
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 apologise for the double post, but there's something else I thought of on the way home that I've only touched on but not really said much about, and ironically enough, it's another question: Do you prefer villains you can like or villains you can hate?
It transpires that much of I6's CoV content is written by someone who appears to believe that villains should ultimately be hated and reviled, and so the content that comes with them ends up being depressing, dark and unpleasant. In any good story, the good guys win and the bad guys lose, so villains couldn't and indeed wouldn't be allowed to win over the heroes, in the rare instances when they did, it was always a hollow, Pyrrhic victory. In essence, villains almost always lost, and even when they won, they still lost. Kind of like an inverse Nemesis, come to think of it
Content these days is a little more diverse and, say what you will about its quality or direction, does actually lend itself to villains we can like and be proud of. Villains who can be awesome, or failing that, meaningful threats at the very least. However, looking back even into the most evil of arcs like that of Westin Phipps, a lot of villain content still seems to be written by someone who disliked villains and wanted us to dislike our own creations, as well. I forget who it was that said this recently, but back when CoV went live, there was never the feeling like the writers felt that playing villains was a legitimate choice. On the contrary, it felt writers believed that playing villains was the WRONG choice and were doing everything they could to demonstrate just how wrong it was to be evil.
This sort of brings that original very pertinent question to the forefront: Should we really be allowed to actually and literally LIKE our own villains? What about those of other people or those canon to the game? I know some will say "no," because no-one really sees himself as evil and no-one really wants to root for the bad guy all the time, but when we're having to play these guys and gals for hundreds of hours... Shouldn't we kind of want to like them and enjoy playing them?
When I say "glamorous" or "disgusting," what I'm realising I really mean is "villains I can like" and "villains that disgust me." And, more than just who and what a villain is, how that villain is written really defines that. And you can often tell if a writer really likes or really hates his villain. If the writer likes the villain, typically he'll let his readers enjoy the villain, as well. On the flip side, if the writer hates his villain, then he'll make sure to do everything in his power to make the audience hate that villain's guts and rub all of his horrors, dirt and unpleasantries in our faces. An, honestly, a lot of CoV content is written exactly like that.
I look back across my villains and I realise that, rich or poor, high-brow or low-brow, honourable or vile... I like all of them. I mean, it makes sense in practice - I made these people, OBVIOUSLY I'm going to like them - but it's not quite as obvious when you stop to think about it. Quite a few people make villains that they expressly hate just to serve as an antagonist and intentionally so that they can serve as an object of hatred. It should be obvious that we should like what we make, but not all that rarely, we make things specifically because we hate them.
In simple terms, I know that I'd never make and play a villain if I didn't like said villain AS a villain FOR being a villain, not in spite of it. How about you?
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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Glamorous vs. disgusting?
This seems incredibly binding - variety is so much broader; Vader, Joker, . Or maybe it is an issue of definition of the terms glamorous and disgusting that is the issue. Scanning the discussion, I see that there is some agreement with my reaction.
I would agree with the comment I read that said a villain must be entertaining. And the paths to (and outcomes from) that are many, and varied.
But maybe I'm misunderstanding the thrust of the question...
In terms of CoH, my most "evil" villain has no glamor, and I wouldn't describe as disgusting. He was blended genetic material for the Paragon Protector program, stolen by Arachnos from Crey and then raised within the ranks of Arachnos. He has been, and remains, devotedly loyal to defending the Isles from all "meddling do-gooders". He considers himself a merciless soldier/officer in the service of Recluse. He has developed a strong desire for personal achievement, and certainly that may be at the cost of others but never at risk to Arachnos.
I think D&D alignments don't really match the difference here. Jayne from Firefly is arguably Chaotic Evil, but he's never needlessly cruel and certainly has style.
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Jayne is probably the definitive Chaotic Neutral.
A misguided villain is just a face turn waiting to happen, because the villain isn't really a villain, but actually a good guy forced to be a villain. Remove the compulsion and he'll return to his natural state of not being evil. |
Misguided basically means you are making your decisions based on misinformation, or flat out lies.
Now, if you were indoctrinated from a young age to believe a certain thing, and also told the entire time that anyone trying to convince you otherwise is your enemy, you are going to be VERY resistant to ANY kind of change of heart. The harder someone tries to show you the truth, the more convinced you will become that everyone is lying to you and that the people who were indoctrinating you were right.
It is entirely possible to have a misguided villain who will NEVER change, no matter how much truth they are shown.
And Tex was right. We shouldn't break down villainous characters into only Column A and Column B, because that leaves out millions of possibilities that fall between the columns.
You say that the villain who just IS is distasteful to you. Well, unfortunately sometimes that's REALLY how it is. Sometimes the villain himself couldn't tell you WHY he's a villain if he tried. Alfred said it best in the Dark Knight "There are some who just want to watch it all burn."
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. |
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow villains should ultimately be hated and reviled |
Is a man a villain because he kills? Certainly to some. Others may continue to look at him. Some will see him as a villain, others may see him as a vigilante or even a flat out hero.
Labels can be spun in many ways. Change the country of origin, the target, gender, etc. and different people will see different things. That's why I feel that *if one considers someone a villain* they certainly could treat them with disdain...but I don't feel it's that cut & dry.
As always, just an opinion.
It is entirely possible to have a misguided villain who will NEVER change, no matter how much truth they are shown.
And Tex was right. We shouldn't break down villainous characters into only Column A and Column B, because that leaves out millions of possibilities that fall between the columns. You say that the villain who just IS is distasteful to you. Well, unfortunately sometimes that's REALLY how it is. Sometimes the villain himself couldn't tell you WHY he's a villain if he tried. Alfred said it best in the Dark Knight "There are some who just want to watch it all burn." |
I say this to give context to the following: I don't roll that way. When I plan stories, I plan them on speed dial. What things could potentially happen have already happened, what changes could have occurred have already occurred and the characters I make start their gaming careers with their entire story already written. As such, if a villain's concept has any room for redemption, then I'll have handled that in his backstory and had him already redeemed. To leave said villain with a redemption hook and NOT have it followed up on in backstory bugs me.
In a much bigger way, leaving a villain with a redemption hook and simply not using it is about the quickest way to sour me on an whole story. Personal taste talking here, obviously, but a redeemable villain who is simply never redeemed bugs me. I can't hate him because he's redeemable, I can't like him because he's a villain, and if the story does manage to get a rise out of me, I end up hating the AUTHOR, instead. Oh, hey! Easy example!
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Naruto: If you're not a fan, skip this paragraph. If you end up disagreeing with me, then that's OK. But to me, kind-of-sort-of fallen hero/redeemable villain Sasuke is the single WORST, most damaging aspect to that entire show, and has been a boat anchor around its plot for... Damn... Four years? Five years? I've lost count. At one point, he was a sympathetic character - he lost his way and turned to the dark side, but he could be saved. Then he spent the next five years being emo and yet managing to stay both just redeemable enough to think it's possible and yet just evil enough to be considered a pariah. In the end, I'm sick and tired of hearing about the ******, I'm sick and tired of watching Sasuke Shippuden and I'm sick and tired of that stupid loose plot thread dangling in front of my nose YEARS now. That one single "misunderstood villain" was enough to sour me on the entire show, and that's after surviving 150 episodes of straight filler without complaining once.
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Example done, all I'm really saying is that I don't like redeemable villains used as villains in much the same way as I don't like anti-heroes used for legitimate heroes. They're fun once, they're tolerable for a while, but they grow old FAST. And if I'm going to spend 750 hours of my life playing a character (like I did with my primary villain), then I'm going to want a character I can like for the long run and a character who can stand the test of time, at least in my eyes. And the only ones who manage that are the stable, confident ones that don't flip-flop between alignments and don't constantly hint that maybe they can be saved.
Again, this is all personal opinion here, but that's just what I pick for my own villains and usually what I pick my stories by.
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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Example done, all I'm really saying is that I don't like redeemable villains used as villains in much the same way as I don't like anti-heroes used for legitimate heroes. They're fun once, they're tolerable for a while, but they grow old FAST. And if I'm going to spend 750 hours of my life playing a character (like I did with my primary villain), then I'm going to want a character I can like for the long run and a character who can stand the test of time, at least in my eyes. And the only ones who manage that are the stable, confident ones that don't flip-flop between alignments and don't constantly hint that maybe they can be saved. Again, this is all personal opinion here, but that's just what I pick for my own villains and usually what I pick my stories by. |
Give me some variety. Give me someone who's committed. Dont make Frank Castle turn over a new leaf - that's part of his character. Mix in a few folks who either don't feel they're wrong to begin with (Dr. Doom, Lex Luthor) with the occasional psycopath (Typhoid/Bloody Mary, Jason) along with someone who could be redeemed.
Villains that only come in 2 flavors are not interesting to me personally...and they rarely make me appreciate the hero. However somone like Lord Arachnos makes for a decent foil...because he sets the landscape in which all the other villains grow & interact.
Were they all little clones of him, that would lack quality.
Granted just an opinion...
I apologise for the double post, but there's something else I thought of on the way home that I've only touched on but not really said much about, and ironically enough, it's another question: Do you prefer villains you can like or villains you can hate?
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As for villains I can actually like, those tend to fall into either the Rogue category or the over-the-top comic book supervillainy, with death rays and space lasers and such. In the first case, nobody who doesn't deserve it gets hurt too badly, and in the second case the actual living human beings getting vaporized by the death ray are glossed over because the death ray is just so freaking cool.
However, looking back even into the most evil of arcs like that of Westin Phipps, a lot of villain content still seems to be written by someone who disliked villains and wanted us to dislike our own creations, as well. |
This sort of brings that original very pertinent question to the forefront: Should we really be allowed to actually and literally LIKE our own villains? What about those of other people or those canon to the game? I know some will say "no," because no-one really sees himself as evil and no-one really wants to root for the bad guy all the time, but when we're having to play these guys and gals for hundreds of hours... Shouldn't we kind of want to like them and enjoy playing them? |
Quite a few people make villains that they expressly hate just to serve as an antagonist and intentionally so that they can serve as an object of hatred. It should be obvious that we should like what we make, but not all that rarely, we make things specifically because we hate them. |
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
I say this to give context to the following: I don't roll that way. When I plan stories, I plan them on speed dial. What things could potentially happen have already happened, what changes could have occurred have already occurred and the characters I make start their gaming careers with their entire story already written. As such, if a villain's concept has any room for redemption, then I'll have handled that in his backstory and had him already redeemed. To leave said villain with a redemption hook and NOT have it followed up on in backstory bugs me.
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My Broadsword/Dark Armor scrapper that I mentioned earlier in the thread is a good example. When I run tip missions with him, I'm not just going for Hero Merits, I'm actually deciding which side of that mission to run based on what the character would actually do. He will eventually end up a vigilante because that's the way his choices will lead him, but he doesn't agree 100% with all the vigilante missions, so it's not a quick shift.
Conversely, I have a villain (SS/EA brute) whose sole reason for continued existence is the absolute annihilation of the human race. He's a brain that was placed inside a robotic body against his will, and he's decided that any race who has even one member capable of such a thing deserves to be wiped out of existence. And he has set the goal of killing every last human being personally, one at a time. With his power source having a half life of just over 5,000 years, it is an eventually achievable goal. Since the scientist who put his brain in the robot neglected to add any means for him to hear anything, it is pretty much impossible to divert him from his course (can't talk someone out of something if you can't communicate with them).
Then there's my stalker. He has the singular mission of tracking down my main hero and killing him, because he hails from a future alternate dimension in which my hero was the catalyst for the end of the world. He doesn't know that he also shifted dimensions when he traveled back in time, so he views anyone who protects a man he sees as a monster as his enemy. He's an example of a misguided villain who is unlikely to change, since the event he's trying to stop hasn't happened yet, and he doesn't see the fact that it hasn't as proof that it won't. He's unlikely to change because he sees anyone allied with my hero as part of the problem. He's convinced that HE is the good guy, and the rest of the world is just being duped by his target. (and since my main hero is effectively immortal, he is extremely unlikely to achieve his goal) The end result will be he will end up as a Rogue, because he's mostly trying to achieve one goal and isn't really interested in world domination or robbing banks and such.
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. |
I like to play as the ones that are more complex than the black and white 2 dimensional options you presented.
You seem to have separated "Villains" into 2 categories A) Villains that aren't really Villains, and are more Anti-hero. |
She sleeps on a king sized down mastress with silk sheets every night with her husband.
I think of Glamorous villains as, as the meme goes, Livin' the Dream.
Though I think Sam should consider adding a third caste, which is, The Tragic Villain. Characters like Wretch who lost everything and are only holding on because of a sense of honor, or those like Scirocco who are forced into evil from without rather than their own will.*
*Despite what Daos suggested, Manticore did confirm before he left that Scirocco was indeed cursed. This also kind of makes Serafina a witch with a capital 'B' given that Scirocco only stole the mantle in the first place to try to bring peace and stability to the region.
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the actual living human beings getting vaporized by the death ray are glossed over because the death ray is just so freaking cool.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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.
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 sit in my zen of not being able to do anything right while simultaniously not being able to do anything wrong. Om. -CuppaJo
It is by caffeine alone that I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shaking, the shaking becomes a warning. It is by caffeine alone that I set my mind in motion.
The Daleks of Doctor Who could fit that description, if only partially. They honestly believe the UNIVERSE would be a better place if all life but pure Daleks were left. Even impure Daleks willingly kill themselves to help further that goal.
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An individual knows that an extra-terrestrial threat is coming - so this individual believes tha the best way to protect the earth is to become it's sole ruler. They plan to begin a WWIII scenario w/o nukes after years of cultivation with the goal being that once that's done there will be a united society (not neccesarily a nice one) that can work to prepare for the onslaught from above.
Most would consider her a villain.
Probably a double post incoming, for which I apologise, but there's something I want to talk about before I forget what it was:
In this thread, quite a few people have said that they enjoy all kinds of villains, from the cleanest to the most revolting and that it just depends on the concept. Instinctively, I've agreed with these opinions as I want to respect everyone's right to preference. But thinking about this just now, I have to say... No, not ALL kinds of villains work. And I'm not speaking about opinions here, or about likes and dislikes. There's a very real "upper limit" as it were about what the game's rules will actually allow you to make. I may or may not talk about my train of thought behind this, but think back on the things we've actually seen here in City of Heroes.
Once upon a time, a player complained that his character - something along the lines of "Daddy Wifebeater," called this because of the tank top he wore, supposedly - had been made generic. The player's conduct made it apparent that he was using the double meaning as an excuse, and a GM had apparently seen it the same way. Years after this, SkunkWerks had one of his characters called "Die Fuchs" - according to him, German for "The Fox," though I don't speak German to verify - made generic, with a GM explaining to him that it sounded too close to the phrase "Die *****," which will most likely get censored but you know what I mean.
Granted, these are just name disputes, but think about it a bit more broadly. Or better yet, think about it hypothetically - consider you wanted to make a character based around racial hatred or **** or some other kind of universally unacceptable behaviour. Now try and imagine how long this character will last before someone reports it and a GM axes the name, costume and bio without a second thought. I wouldn't want to suggest actually trying that (please don't), but I'd have my money rolling on "not very."
What I'm trying to get at is that even if we want to argue that really, it's all about story and all about what that character calls for, there are still certain boundaries that even the most liberal-minded big business isn't going to cross for the sake of "art," and I say this as a supporter of the arts. If PlayNC and Paragon Studios and Cryptic before them are willing to draw a line in the sand as to just how... "Offensive," let's say, a character can be, then I'd say we could technically draw our own lines, and possibly much lower down.
This is where I cross over into personal opinion, because what level of tolerance each of us has for things that disturb and disgust us is really very individual and, ultimately, a matter of opinion. All I'm really saying is I don't think we should be discussing "villain disgust" on quite as open-ended a scale, because even at the best of times, we're still being constrained by outside forces.
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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Probably a double post incoming, for which I apologise, but there's something I want to talk about before I forget what it was:
In this thread, quite a few people have said that they enjoy all kinds of villains, from the cleanest to the most revolting and that it just depends on the concept. Instinctively, I've agreed with these opinions as I want to respect everyone's right to preference. But thinking about this just now, I have to say... No, not ALL kinds of villains work. And I'm not speaking about opinions here, or about likes and dislikes. There's a very real "upper limit" as it were about what the game's rules will actually allow you to make. I may or may not talk about my train of thought behind this, but think back on the things we've actually seen here in City of Heroes. Once upon a time, a player complained that his character - something along the lines of "Daddy Wifebeater," called this because of the tank top he wore, supposedly - had been made generic. The player's conduct made it apparent that he was using the double meaning as an excuse, and a GM had apparently seen it the same way. Years after this, SkunkWerks had one of his characters called "Die Fuchs" - according to him, German for "The Fox," though I don't speak German to verify - made generic, with a GM explaining to him that it sounded too close to the phrase "Die *****," which will most likely get censored but you know what I mean. Granted, these are just name disputes, but think about it a bit more broadly. Or better yet, think about it hypothetically - consider you wanted to make a character based around racial hatred or **** or some other kind of universally unacceptable behaviour. Now try and imagine how long this character will last before someone reports it and a GM axes the name, costume and bio without a second thought. I wouldn't want to suggest actually trying that (please don't), but I'd have my money rolling on "not very." What I'm trying to get at is that even if we want to argue that really, it's all about story and all about what that character calls for, there are still certain boundaries that even the most liberal-minded big business isn't going to cross for the sake of "art," and I say this as a supporter of the arts. If PlayNC and Paragon Studios and Cryptic before them are willing to draw a line in the sand as to just how... "Offensive," let's say, a character can be, then I'd say we could technically draw our own lines, and possibly much lower down. This is where I cross over into personal opinion, because what level of tolerance each of us has for things that disturb and disgust us is really very individual and, ultimately, a matter of opinion. All I'm really saying is I don't think we should be discussing "villain disgust" on quite as open-ended a scale, because even at the best of times, we're still being constrained by outside forces. |
I once again point back to my posts on perspective.
I should note that a lot of the things I don't quote I actually agree with, but just have not much to add or expand on.
Honestly, I wish Westin Phipps would stop being held up as an example of the ultimate "despicable" villain. When he was a kid he was a wannabe bully who wasn't big enough to take anyone's lunch money so he blackmailed the bigger kids into doing it for him. He's pathetic. If he lost his cushy job he'd be huddling in a corner going "not in the face, not in the face." Peter Themari is a better villain, IMO.
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I mostly bring Phipps up to illustrate that the original City of Villains writers really did see villains as repugnant and made their stories accordingly. I6-I7 City of Villains IS Westin Phipps, because it's just one giant depressing, dirty, repulsive, unpleasant experience as though purposely designed to make people regret ever choosing to play it. It's like the authors wanted to tell is "Evil is bad! Don't be evil! Don't support evil! See how unpleasant it is!" but it ends up sinking the entire gaming experience because to get the point across, they had to make all of CoV unpleasant.
Contrast this to City of Heroes, where even in the lowest of points - the death of Sefu Tendaji, the transformation of Terra, the ruined life of Melvin - the game is still positive and satisfying. Even at its darkest, City of Heroes is still more positive than almost all of City of Villains at its brightest. Save for a small handful of stories, that is: D-Mac/Leonard, Time After Time, Vincent Ross and I'm out of ideas. Pretty much everything else is, if not intentionally designed, then unintentionally made to depress us and make us regret playing though content.
And that's precisely what I DON'T want to get out of playing a villain.
I don't want to give Ghost Widow her body back so we can do our nails and talk about boys, I want to do it to see what she'll do next.
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Yeah, those are cool for a bit, but in the long run? Nah. In a simplistic sense, sure, the Rikti as evil alien invaders are fun to beat the tar out of, but their story would get really boring really fast if there wasn't a C'Kelkah among them to show that there's more to the race (and before the RWZ "the Rikti" as a group was the villain) than just "destroy all humans."
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However, these are NOT something I want to play as, especially for long periods of time. That, really, is the fine line I'm trying to trod: What I'd accept as someone else's antagonist and what I'd actually make as my own player-controlled character.
See, the addition of Going Rogue to the game now allows for the ability to redeem a villain in the course of the game.
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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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And I honestly respect that option. I simply choose to not use it. This is purely me talking here, purely personal opinion, but I keep my writing and my gameplay separate. When I write for my characters, I typically do that once, either before I make said character or soon thereafter, and I tend to stick to what I've written. If this sounds limiting, it's because it is, but we all choose how we play, after all. I paid for GR, and I simply choose to not use all of it. Like Incarnates
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My main, Claws and Effect, barely even resembles the character he started as. He has developed both a more maniacal berzerker side and a deeper sense of honor simultaneously. And if anything his hatred of Crey has grown stronger.
If it comes to pass that Crey is ever considered the good guys, he will cross over to becoming a vigilante at the least, if not a true villain, simply because he knows that Crey is irredeemably corrupt.
As things change in the game world, or new things are introduced that are relevant to their history, my characters can and frequently do evolve and get more detailed with it.
If this were the Marvel or DC universe, my characters' history would reflect that as well.
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. |
I do it differently. My characters are constantly evolving, even if it's only in my head, because I created all of them, with a couple exceptions in the context of the game-world.
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And yet, this is still BY FAR the closest I've ever been able to get
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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 mostly bring Phipps up to illustrate that the original City of Villains writers really did see villains as repugnant and made their stories accordingly. I6-I7 City of Villains IS Westin Phipps, because it's just one giant depressing, dirty, repulsive, unpleasant experience as though purposely designed to make people regret ever choosing to play it. It's like the authors wanted to tell is "Evil is bad! Don't be evil! Don't support evil! See how unpleasant it is!" but it ends up sinking the entire gaming experience because to get the point across, they had to make all of CoV unpleasant.
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I'm a very political person, for good or ill, and at its best CoV looks to me like it's doing a better job than CoH even tries to do of asking what governance looks like when there are thousands of people running around who cannot be made answerable to any law. Until we found out, lately, that he's diverted all of his scientific efforts to trying to wrest his free will back from the Well of the Furies, I had concluded that Lord Recluse was a Mad Social Scientist, that Arachnos was his lab, and that the hypothesis he was testing was this: the way to govern, in a world of supers, is to set up competing hierarchies of supers in a checks-and-balances system, while dangling the illusion of winner-take-all laissez fair economics and Social Darwinism in front of them. I think the balancing act between the arbiter corps, the fortunata corps, and the regular military in CoV is brilliant; I think encouraging the most dangerous villains to try to conquer as much territory, within the Isles, as they can actually govern is a fascinating solution; I adore the idea of the arbiters as this ultimate scary time-traveling assassins threat that (in theory) holds people like Kirk Cage or Johnny Sonata to that "but you have to govern it" idea and have been waiting, since issue 6, for the arbiter corps to come down on Kirk Cage like a ton of bricks, maybe even retcon him completely out of existence by time travel, for his failure to pacify Sharkhead and meet the bauxite quota.
I find nothing, and I mean nothing, gritty and depressing about the single best part of CoV: level 10 to 20 in Cap au Diable. No, not even Peter Themari. He's a malevolently awful person, but without even realizing it, he's let himself be channeled into a useful role, neutralizing potential threats to the government. Yeah, I felt about about what happened to Pyriss, but as bad as it was, ... well, let me answer that question by explaining my take on Westin Phipps.
As bad as Peter Themari is, Westin Phipps is absolutely worse. He is a bad person and revels in being a bad person; the more people he tortures and kills, the happier it makes him, and the more he can trick stupid people into thanking him for it, the more he squirms with puppyish delight. But about halfway through his arcs, I realized something: Manticore is actually worse. And that's why Arachnos needs someone like Westin Phipps in Arachnos counter-intelligence. If Manticore succeeded in the destablization op that is the main plot of Phipps' arcs, every supervillain weapon in every Arachnos lab, up to and including the nuclear-tipped missiles in Warburg, would fall into the hands of petty criminals and terrorists from all over the world. Arachnos is evil, but it's an evil government, with territory to defend and interests to protect; it can be threatened, it can be negotiated with. The raw chaos that would break out if Arachnos crumbled from within, as somebody like Manticore or Pyriss or LeoKnight or Blue Phazer (or more recently, Strongheart or what's-her-name Siren) want ... well, we've seen that future, we've seen what happens after an Arachnos Civil War: "Agony Hall," the death of almost the entire human race. Sorry, Ms. Francine, but given a choice between siding with Phipps in defense of the status quo or siding with you and Manticore and sending us all to Agony Hall ... I'm with Phipps. He's not my friend, I don't like him, I won't be inviting him over for dinner any time soon, and I'm not proud to be photographed with him ... but thanks to clueless politically naive dupes like Ms. Francine and short-sighted wealthy terrorists like Manticore, Arachnos needs guys like Phipps.
(I wish it didn't. I'd rather work for guys I trust, like, and respect, like Marshall Brass and Arbiter Daos. I'd also like the option of having more contacts, especially by level 20, treat me with the same respect that I get out of the newer contacts in Sharkhead, that I get in dribs and drabs from contacts in St. Martial, that we get in First Ward. People in Hades want better food and drink, too; what we want and what we get are seldom all that closely overlapping.)
I said I wouldn't say anything good about Sharkhead, but even Sharkhead has Villa Requin. Even Mercy Island has upper Mercy. Everywhere you go in the Rogue Isles, the most powerful villains, and their minions, are building governed places, nice places to live with little or no street crime, no rioting, no anarchy on the streets, plenty of jobs. The Snake Uprising in Darwin's Landing was in 2005, and by late 2006 it already had the lights back on, construction cranes deployed, businesses re-opened, and rudimentary shanties for the people whose buildings had been destroyed. Whereas here we are, 10 years? 11 years? after the First Rikti War, and Founder's Falls is still overrun with Rikti terrorists, the cops and the US military don't even try in Perez Park, and Baumton doesn't even have so much as a single blue FEMA tarp.
Contacts throughout City of Villains, for the most part, treat you as a low-life mercenary up through around level 45, and I don't like that part. But at least you're a low-life mercenary working for people who are, yes, selfish people trying to get wealthy and powerful, but they're doing so in a system that makes them contribute to the common defense against mainland aggression and makes them provide jobs and safe streets to the populace they conquer. That's actually kind of neat.
As bad as Peter Themari is, Westin Phipps is absolutely worse. He is a bad person and revels in being a bad person; the more people he tortures and kills, the happier it makes him, and the more he can trick stupid people into thanking him for it, the more he squirms with puppyish delight. But about halfway through his arcs, I realized something: Manticore is actually worse. And that's why Arachnos needs someone like Westin Phipps in Arachnos counter-intelligence. If Manticore succeeded in the destablization op that is the main plot of Phipps' arcs, every supervillain weapon in every Arachnos lab, up to and including the nuclear-tipped missiles in Warburg, would fall into the hands of petty criminals and terrorists from all over the world. Arachnos is evil, but it's an evil government, with territory to defend and interests to protect; it can be threatened, it can be negotiated with. The raw chaos that would break out if Arachnos crumbled from within, as somebody like Manticore or Pyriss or LeoKnight or Blue Phazer (or more recently, Strongheart or what's-her-name Siren) want ... well, we've seen that future, we've seen what happens after an Arachnos Civil War: "Agony Hall," the death of almost the entire human race. Sorry, Ms. Francine, but given a choice between siding with Phipps in defense of the status quo or siding with you and Manticore and sending us all to Agony Hall ... I'm with Phipps. He's not my friend, I don't like him, I won't be inviting him over for dinner any time soon, and I'm not proud to be photographed with him ... but thanks to clueless politically naive dupes like Ms. Francine and short-sighted wealthy terrorists like Manticore, Arachnos needs guys like Phipps.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
The great thing about reflexive idealism is that it leaves the majority of your brain delightfully relaxed. And I'm being trolled again...
On topic, I tilt strongly toward the glamorous, or perhaps theatrical, end of villainy. My two most villainous villains are, respectively, a demonic marketing agent whose corporate mission is to make the world so terrible that people will sell their souls for the least bit of relief, and a James-Bond-antagonist mustache twirler who deliberately chose to use his family fortune to make himself the most infamous criminal in history. Both of them would readily describe themselves as evil, and both of them were created deliberately to be fun antagonists - the kind who never stop coming up with devious plans to be foiled. My greedy or merely self-motivated types tend to be Rogues, and my extremists are Vigilantes.
@SPTrashcan
Avatar by Toxic_Shia
Why MA ratings should be changed from stars to "like" or "dislike"
A better algorithm for ordering MA arcs
When I say "misguided," I more mean... Let's use an ad-hoc example. A character's parents were murdered by criminals, but he thinks they were murdered by heroes, so he hates heroes and wants to kill them. Society cast him out because he was a murder so he had to live homeless on the streets and believes it's their fault. This obvious villain can be reformed if you reveal the truth to him and give him an opportunity to save a city or two. Instant hero.
If a villain has room for redemption into a hero (or a hero room for falling from grace into a villain), I'll usually write that into their backstory. In order for me to swap a character from hero to villain, I need to change my mind as to what I want the character to be. I'd never write the swap into their real-time storyline, because my characters DON'T have a real-time storyline. Their plots happen off-screen. When they're on the screen, they kill stuff.
THESE are the people I make into actual villain characters. In a sense, they are indeed the worst of the lot, but not because they rip the heads off innocent civilians, but rather because they functionally cannot be redeemed. These aren't so much "disgusting" villains so much as they're "sinister" ones. To some extent, I'm digging my own dichotomy into the ground when I say this, but I just now realise I enjoy quite a few villains who aren't necessarily "glamorous" but more so sinister, consistent and irredeemable.
Someone spoke about "goals" and "purpose" before. I guess that's where the "glamour" aspect comes in. If a villain has a purpose and sticks to achieving that purpose, as opposed to stopping to commit every unthinkable travesty along the way and savour the malice, that is a cool villain. So long as the purpose itself is glamorous, or at least not disgusting (rule the world vs. kick puppies, destroy all existence vs. torture people, etc.), the villain comes off as "glamorous" by my definition... I think