Should villains be glamorous or disgusting?
By
Agahnim,
Posted on: 2011-08-23 01:17 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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I think you're really going to like the villains in Dr. Graves' arc then.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
You make a very good point, though. When a villain - in this case a slasher - is so absurd and fantastical that we take him/her/it as more of a force of nature and less as just a very depraved individual, this does tend towards the glamour side of things. Someone already mentioned watching slasher flicks to see the annoying, horrible people that serve as victims killed off and cheering for the killer, and that's not a sentiment I'm hearing for the first time. But think about it - hen you're cheering for the villain, like the villain and want him to succeed... You're buying into the glamour of the presentation, rather than the revulsion of the reality of the story.
Let me put it this way - if a cloven, chainsaw-wielding maniac were trudging through your house looking to saw you in half, you wouldn't cheer him on. No-one wants to die a violent death, after all. But when it's on the screen and it's drawn up in such a way that the horror becomes exciting and even entertaining, that in itself becomes glamorous. It's Happy Tree Friends all over again.. |
"Null is as much an argument "for removing the cottage rule" as the moon being round is for buying tennis shoes." -Memphis Bill
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Exactly, Sam. Well said.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Actually, that's not as far from my idea for a "glamorous" villain by that much, but that's probably hard to tell from the way I described it. Again, we're just proving that my original post was crap. Oh, well
 You make a very good point, though. When a villain - in this case a slasher - is so absurd and fantastical that we take him/her/it as more of a force of nature and less as just a very depraved individual, this does tend towards the glamour side of things. Someone already mentioned watching slasher flicks to see the annoying, horrible people that serve as victims killed off and cheering for the killer, and that's not a sentiment I'm hearing for the first time. But think about it - hen you're cheering for the villain, like the villain and want him to succeed... You're buying into the glamour of the presentation, rather than the revulsion of the reality of the story. Let me put it this way - if a cloven, chainsaw-wielding maniac were trudging through your house looking to saw you in half, you wouldn't cheer him on. No-one wants to die a violent death, after all. But when it's on the screen and it's drawn up in such a way that the horror becomes exciting and even entertaining, that in itself becomes glamorous. It's Happy Tree Friends all over again. Now, granted, I may not appreciate the same kind of glamour as you do, and that's to be expected. Some find glamour in posh cars and expensive clothes, some find it in absurdly overpowered computers, some find international fame, and some indeed find it in hard work and dedication. What we find glamorous is unique to who we are as people, and if you can find glamour in a masked man knifing annoying people in a movie, then more power to you. But at the end of the day, that's still a villain we enjoy watching, isn't it? And that, I feel, is what makes him glamorous. Now flip that around and go watch something like Salo - the movie that even the Cinema Snob had to review while throwing up in his bathroom (for comedy!) - and see the stark difference. Some villains we're meant to like, or at the very least respect. Some villains we're meant to simply hate and revile. |
And yeah, I'm glad we're on the same page, even if we find the enjoyment in different ways.
And... That was me that said I enjoyed cheering the villain to kill those annoying characters!!
You know... My memory came back to me a bit about the Freddy Krueger Nightmare On Elmstreet remake... And this is actually right on topic:
Besides the new Freddy having zero charisma, they decided to make Freddy's past (as a man who was a child abductor and killer) a major focal point (and possibly even a slow reveal for the story).
That's "realism" and an unpleasant story of wretched villainy.
Where as, in the originals, that aspect of him was just his backstory. It's where he came form... but the major point was... he's now a super-powered monster who defies reality and can kill you in your dreams!
The remake is disgusting... the originals are, so to speak, glamorous.
Of course, as you said, we all find it in different places, hehe.
Again, I love Ming the Merciless, Doctor Doom and Darth Vader as much as anyone...
But I also love me some well written dark psychological thrillers based on the scary examinations of wretched minds!! Perhaps it is my interest in psychological studies that has me enjoying those things so much.
Just to babble on for one more thought... it reminds me of something I've said before regarding entertainment...
Just as I recognize Shakespeare is a wonderful source of entertainment, so too is a clown with juggling pins and/or a family member falling on their ***.
@Zethustra
"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
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I disagree. IMO, I think that part of how Praetoria was presented was due to toying with new tech (within the constraints of time)... to the point that many of the missions were the same regardless of who was playing them. Part of that was probably even to satisfy player demand for a 'City of Spies'.|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
That worked because of the Powers Division, and the massively unequal strengths of the loyalists and the Resistance - the set-up was designed so that everyone was outwardly on the same side, and that anyone working for the weaker side had to pretend that they were really working for the stronger side.
That doesn't really work for the Heroes vs Villains set up, because both sides are equally strong, and unlike Praetoria, there isn't just one side that totally controls everywhere, forcing the other side to work in secret - so to create a similar situation would mean that Heroes who went to the Rogue Isles would need to pretend that they were helping Arachnos, and Villains who went to Paragon City would need to pretend that they were helping the genuine Heroes. |
But that's largely irrelevant to the mechanic that allowed for, what was, [2+2] factions to reside on the same zone map without having to run the same Contacts/arcs. Point is; mechanically, it can be done... it just needs the storytelling and support cast to, um, well... support it.
Besides; player characters aside; there isn't much pretense going on with NPC villains on blue side; they make their presence well known whether they live there or are just visiting (unlike those hero types that are mostly sneaking their way around the isles). Like I said, they're Paragon Heroes (they don't really care about the citizens of the Isles); perpetrators, mouth-pieces and frauds; the lot of them.
Apparently, I play "City of Shakespeare"
*Arc #95278-Gathering the Four Winds -3 step arc; challenging - 5 Ratings/3 Stars (still working out the kinks)
*Arc #177826-Lights, Camera, Scream! - 3 step arc, camp horror; try out in 1st person POV - 35 Ratings/4 Stars
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The Praetorian set-up was designed to avoid the need for PvP between Resistance and loyalists, by giving them one organization to work for - which is the role of the Vanguard in the RWZ - Cimerora and First Ward both have similar dangers that require Heroes and Villains to team up - or at least leave each other alone - but it's hard to work out what the reason would be for Heroes and Villains not to fight each other in Atlas Park or Mercy Island - especially with the new content for those zones, which plays up the Hero vs Villain fight.
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Originally Posted by Yogi_Bare
I disagree. IMO, I think that part of how Praetoria was presented was due to toying with new tech (within the constraints of time)... to the point that many of the missions were the same regardless of who was playing them. Part of that was probably even to satisfy player demand for a 'City of Spies'.
But that's largely irrelevant to the mechanic that allowed for, what was, [2+2] factions to reside on the same zone map without having to run the same Contacts/arcs. Point is; mechanically, it can be done... it just needs the storytelling and support cast to, um, well... support it. Besides; player characters aside; there isn't much pretense going on with NPC villains on blue side; they make their presence well known whether they live there or are just visiting (unlike those hero types that are mostly sneaking their way around the isles). Like I said, they're Paragon Heroes (they don't really care about the citizens of the Isles); perpetrators, mouth-pieces and frauds; the lot of them. |
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Originally Posted by Golden Girl
The Praetorian set-up was designed to avoid the need for PvP between Resistance and loyalists, by giving them one organization to work for - which is the role of the Vanguard in the RWZ - Cimerora and First Ward both have similar dangers that require Heroes and Villains to team up - or at least leave each other alone - but it's hard to work out what the reason would be for Heroes and Villains not to fight each other in Atlas Park or Mercy Island - especially with the new content for those zones, which plays up the Hero vs Villain fight.
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I would say it plays more into the LB vs. Arachnos fight; rather than 'hero' vs. 'villain' (or in the case of red side; villain vs. everybody).
Even so, just because there's a lack of Co-op in a shared zone doesn't automatically mean that there needs to be PvP to fill that void. Heroes attacking villains on sight becomes cliche even when player villains aren't present blue-side. How many purse snatchers, mugging victims, CoT captives and Vahzilok skin donors do heroes pass up just to get from point A to point B?
Fact is, the mechanics are there to make it feasible. And although it would seem plausible to take a Tom vs Jerry approach to handling a cross-faction environment... it's also plausible to accept that unless a player villain is actually causing catastrophic failures out in the open; chances are that a hero wouldn't take notice to that villain... or even recognize him as a villain amongst all the Vigilantes, Rogues and other costumed freaks running around by the hundreds.
And even if they did decide they wanted to beat each others brains out... that's what the Arena (and channel) is for.
(Something cool along those lines would be to sub out a generic villain name on radio missions for a player villains name that happens to be in the same zone (and v.v.))
As far as heroes on redside... unless the cape is hollering around that he's a hero; he would be doing pretty much the same exact thing (on the zone map) his villain counterpart would be doing... beating up or getting beat up by everything that gets close to them. Would blend right in until he gets to his instanced map.
Point is, PvP is largely irrelevant to the issue AND it is available to those that still wish to persue it.
Apparently, I play "City of Shakespeare"
*Arc #95278-Gathering the Four Winds -3 step arc; challenging - 5 Ratings/3 Stars (still working out the kinks)
*Arc #177826-Lights, Camera, Scream! - 3 step arc, camp horror; try out in 1st person POV - 35 Ratings/4 Stars
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The longest break I have ever taken from this game was after issue 7, over just this issue. The introduction of the Patrons system was when they made it finally 100% clear that no, really, as villains, we were never going to get to be Paragon City villains; we were stuck in the Rogue Isles, grubbing away for a bad Cobra knock-off, while the fun villains like the Freakshow and Crey and the Sky Raiders got to work the big-time. And it is always going to be like that.|
Originally Posted by Electric-Knight
Yeah, that's the one thing that always bugged me about the two separate worlds (CoH/CoV)...
I often wanted to be a hero in the dark and grimy world and a villain in the bright and clean city. |
All these years later, I still think that was mal-design. When I first heard that they were going to allow player-character villains, I assumed that what they were going to do was let us start in a villains-only instance of, say, Boomtown, or King's Row, and that, from there, as we leveled, we would deal with our contacts in our own instances of the same city zones, dodging NPC heroes and NPC cops and NPC soldiers, while over in the heroic instances of the same zones, player character heroes were fighting NPC villains and monsters. And, for all that I now openly admit that (to my taste) the Rogue Isles' maps are better designed (fewer pointless travel time sinks, slightly more rational neighborhood layouts, significantly better looking buildings than anything we saw until New Praetoria, higher detail count, less-stupid street spawns), I still think that, from an economic and a story-telling perspective, the creation of the Rogue Isles was a gigantic game-design mistake.
There's something which I was just now reminded of on the "Rogue Isles are depressing" tangent. I'm saying this in no context in particular, and it's not a continuation of an existing argument, just a perpetuation of this tangent.
I've seen the Golden Giza brought up as an example of a place in the Rogue Isles that's pretty and high-class. Ignoring the fact that it's run by the mob, I can kind of see that. Large, pretty building, posh interior, tourist attraction. It should have everything you need to escape from the horrors of life in the Isles, right? Except it's not, because like everything seemingly good on the Isles, it's actually WORSE than the bad.
What do I mean? Well, the first contact I got from the Golden Giza is Hard Luck. His job is to hurt people who win in the casino, regardless of whether they cheat or just end up being lucky. If you're not important enough, you die like the Lucky Dragon. If you're too important to kill, they find other ways to rob you. The "pretty" casino is nothing more than a dirty, ugly tourist trap that tricks you with the promise that you may leave rich, but which is nevertheless rigged to make you lose. And if you do somehow beat the house on the slots, the house still beats you. In the face. With a lead pipe.
As Admiral Ackbar would say, it's a trap. Everything on the isles that's pretty, seductive, alluring and otherwise desirable is a trap. If it looks like it's good, it's too good to be true. If you buy into it, you pay the price. It's to the point where when I find something pretty in the isles, I'm more scared of it than when I meet something dirty and ugly. The misery I at least get, because it's obvious and upfront about what it is. It's the "good" in the Rogue Isles that I fear the most, because there is no "good" in the Rogue Isles and everything which looks good is just evil that I don't yet recognise.
THAT is what makes the Isles depressing.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
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 think Arachnos at least in part exists for game-mechanical reasons: They're there to explain whythe game isn't more sandboxy. I think they do that well enough, they're a force to be recknoed wtih, capable of crushing any individual villain (through sheer numbers if nothing else) Lord Recluse also has a fairly interesting philosophical view, it's not often you get an anarchist dictator.
"Men strunt �r strunt och snus �r snus
om ock i gyllne dosor.
Och rosor i ett sprucket krus
�r st�ndigt alltid rosor."
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Oh yeah I totally agree, and I've agreed with everything you've said so far. I got to the point pretty early on in Villains (because I too feel the writers wrote it in an "It's bad to be bad" style) where I just switched off and stopped paying attention to the story at all; I was tired of doing depressing missions in a depressing hellhole of a isle that looks like it's Boomtown 24/7. Shortly after my first villain was made I switched back to Heroes (and I'm glad they've added the long requested alignment missions because I love the Villain ATs). I too play apathetic, psychologically damaged villains because I can find no other way to justify a storyline which has me 'defeat' guys because some other guy doesn't like them, or 'defeat' large numbers of people simply because they were born on the wrong landmass. I mean, how could I glamorise a character who's willing to deliver riot inducing outbreak drugs to Paragon for no reason other than cash? A glamorous character just doesn't fit the scene.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Isn't that kind of the point, though? I mean, if you've known many actual real-life evil people, then I'm sure you'll agree that we don't want to sympathise with them and work to help them succeed. The reason I personally vouch for glamorous villains is exactly because that's the only kind of villain I don't instinctively hate. And when I have to play said villain and work to succeed, I want... NEED to be able to like him. If I can't, I lose my motivation to log into said character, and if I leave a character sitting unused for too long because I dread logging him in, I delete him to make room for another one I like more.
I think it comes down to a pretty simple matter of choice. I get to choose what I play every time I type my account name and password. And so long as I have a choice, I will always choose the characters that make me happy over the ones that depress me. Sometimes, that means choosing obviously unrealistic fantasy over grounded reality, but isn't that what games are for? |
That's all before we even take into account how disparate the concept of a 'glamorous' villain is with real villains (for those of us who've spent our lives amongst the little bastards). I understand that in comic books we get to create glamorous villains simply because they better carry the story, but I can't find a way to make such a character anything but two dimensional. Once we get to the actual motivations for the villainy, we can't just ignore the fact that most people have altruistic empathy drives which only the psychologically damaged lack.
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Eh, I'm not so sure about that. Speaking purely for myself, I don't think I have that many "altruistic empathy drives" as you describe them. Sure, I've always enjoyed helping people in need, but I've always equally enjoyed letting people who mouth off at me stew in their own mock. For instance, at work I'm pretty much the only guy who knows how to work computers in a faculty mostly comprised of biologists. I'm always happy to help my colleagues when they need assistance, and I'm always happy to let them mess their systems up when they feel they know better than I do. Fine, go ahead and install crap on your PC. I'll get paid to reinstall your OS later anyway.|
Originally Posted by Aneurysmo
That's all before we even take into account how disparate the concept of a 'glamorous' villain is with real villains (for those of us who've spent our lives amongst the little bastards). I understand that in comic books we get to create glamorous villains simply because they better carry the story, but I can't find a way to make such a character anything but two dimensional. Once we get to the actual motivations for the villainy, we can't just ignore the fact that most people have altruistic empathy drives which only the psychologically damaged lack.
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Basically, the way I make my villains is by capitalising on the negative emotions and unacceptable urges I tend to have just going about everyday life. Someone on the Internet is being an *** to me and I want to reach through the screen and slap him. I can't do that, of course, and I wouldn't do it even if I could, but Cedric so would. He'd track the person down and make an example out of him. That sort of thing. I'm not aware of any perfect saints who never get any evil thoughts, most of us just know better than to act on them. But what if you could? What if you had the power to do pretty much whatever you wanted with no consequence? Would you? I know I wouldn't and I know a fair few people wouldn't, either. But I know - personally know - at least a few people who would.
In the real world, doing evil things is wrong and most of us know it. Even when we feel like we want to do evil things, we know better than to turn thought into action. This is where fiction comes in. If I can take those negative emotions and evil thoughts, expand on them and condense the result down into a single character, I have a ready-made villain just waiting for a name and a look, and often not even that. I don't make psychologically damaged villains, merely villains who respect the written and unwritten rules of society.
Well, unless I'm psychologically damaged
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
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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They can't be both altruistic and a sociopath?|
Originally Posted by Aneurysmo
That's all before we even take into account how disparate the concept of a 'glamorous' villain is with real villains (for those of us who've spent our lives amongst the little bastards). I understand that in comic books we get to create glamorous villains simply because they better carry the story, but I can't find a way to make such a character anything but two dimensional. Once we get to the actual motivations for the villainy, we can't just ignore the fact that most people have altruistic empathy drives which only the psychologically damaged lack.
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Glamorous villains do exist in real life. Sometimes the glamor is only a veneer but sometimes people that know the ugly behind it still want the trappings that come with being ugly:
Italian Mafia, Pimps, Ballers... the crooks that all the respect, power, girls and money.
Oh... and "Hobo with a Shotgun"!
Apparently, I play "City of Shakespeare"
*Arc #95278-Gathering the Four Winds -3 step arc; challenging - 5 Ratings/3 Stars (still working out the kinks)
*Arc #177826-Lights, Camera, Scream! - 3 step arc, camp horror; try out in 1st person POV - 35 Ratings/4 Stars
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That's actually what was spinning around in my head when I made the original post. At the height of the Mafia's power, the lifestyle of a mobster was something of a dream for a lot of people. Everyone knew it came with violence and murder and dirty dealings, but a lot of people wanted the nice flats, the expensive cars, the fancy suits and the attention and money that came with it. No many people became mobsters because they enjoyed making people sleep with the fishes. A lot did it because the pay was good and because it looked like the only real way to making it big time.|
Originally Posted by Yogi_Bare
Italian Mafia, Pimps, Ballers... the crooks that all the respect, power, girls and money.
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Personally, I feel that something along this line would be a good theme for villains, at least as one optional path. Look through the original I6 City of Villains arcs and you'll notice how few of them actually praise your villain for anything in any way. Operative Vargas is an exception, of course, as he's always polite and always positive, but almost everyone else treats your villain like garbage. If you succeed, you get paid with "money" that is to imaginary money what imaginary money is to the US dollar. We don't even get in-game credits for robbing banks. We just get told we stole a lot of money.
Low flash forward a few years and check out Dean McArthur, Vincent Ross and, hell, even the Time After Time arc from your Patrons. Oh, and Terrance Dobbs and Vernon von Gurn and probably one or two others I'm forgetting. These guys and the stories you experience through them are positive. They take your villain and they praise him for his actions. These guys make you feel good about playing your character to his intended alignment - that of being a villain. That's what I mean by "glamour." It's the upside to being a villain, presented while playing down the obvious downsides.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
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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[QR]
Reeks of false dichotomy. My villains are neither glamorous nor disgusting; they are people who have goals and use means that some find unacceptable to attain them. The best villains are neither senseless evil dispensers nor lovable rogues. They are powerful people who have decided that their goal is so worthy that any means can be justified to accomplish it.
My villains tend to go the mad scientist/dark wizard out seeking knowledge/power through experimentation/dark ritual with absolutely no moral objection for who gets hurt in the process as long as they achieve there sought after goal. They see any gain as good. They don't even care about the mundane classification of good or evil. They are above it.
Human souls are like Chinese food. No matter how many you eat your hungry again 30 minutes later.
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That's intentional. The point was to get a discussion going, not receive a yes/no or A)/B) answer.
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Originally Posted by Emberly
Reeks of false dichotomy.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
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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Speaking of which, something I'd love would be the ability to award alignment points based on actions taken in missions. (say, saving your clone and telling it to go free would give you a rogue point)
"Men strunt �r strunt och snus �r snus
om ock i gyllne dosor.
Och rosor i ett sprucket krus
�r st�ndigt alltid rosor."
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This is something I've always wanted, as well. I've long held a grudge against the "morality" mechanic in Praetoria, and always felt that the few moral choices you have in actual independent missions were far better done. I'm thinking the choice between arresting a Syndicate suit as a Loyalist or offing him for his crimes, and then the choice between fighting Vanessa DeVore or walking away. This, to me, is where morality questions should have been located. To have separate missions that you do specifically to test your morality seems a bit... Forced, in a narrative sense.|
Originally Posted by Arilou
Speaking of which, something I'd love would be the ability to award alignment points based on actions taken in missions. (say, saving your clone and telling it to go free would give you a rogue point)
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I'd actually like to reference Mass Effect for a moment. Most people will agree that this is a great game about giving you a choice between being a saint and being a dick. The thing, though, is that that game actually has very, very, VERY few actual major morality choices. Most of its morality comes from simpler things, like whether you'll help someone or laugh in his face, whether you'll help your friends achieve inner peace by preventing them from committing a murder or letting them have their revenge, that sort of thing. Shepard was almost never put in a position of having to choose between good and evil with that being the whole point of the mission. The beauty of Mass Effect is that it has a dreadfully linear plot and moral choices just sort of happen along the way.
I think giving us lots of little moral choices peppered throughout our missions would be a great way to help cement our heroes and villains as the people they're supposed to be without necessarily swapping alignment with them.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
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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That doesn't really work for the Heroes vs Villains set up, because both sides are equally strong, and unlike Praetoria, there isn't just one side that totally controls everywhere, forcing the other side to work in secret - so to create a similar situation would mean that Heroes who went to the Rogue Isles would need to pretend that they were helping Arachnos, and Villains who went to Paragon City would need to pretend that they were helping the genuine Heroes.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork