I want villains I can respect

I'm clearly waaaaay too used to typos.

My first thought on reading the subject header was "Umm, gather a team, do missions, and go to Thorn Isle in Nerva..."

On the actual subject, though, a good villain makes the story, a weak one makes the story fail. Whether I find them engaging, or I just love to hate them and want to see them fail, I can be sold on the story if the villain is believable.

Being slightly tangental, and hopefully not trying to derail - but shouldn't we have a broad spectrum of villainy? I'm thinking along the lines that the great villains are generally great (rather like heroes to be fair) because they stand head and shoulders above their peers.

In fiction generally, there generally seems to be a standout villain, surrounded by other bad guys who range from the thug to the downright incompetent, and the odd psycho just for good measure.

I guess that's one problem with a mass-media game - if your villain is highly noticeable, then unless other villains are less so, or it becomes the median and then less great. Greatness is generally a comparative measure I suppose because of it's ephemeral nature perhaps. If all are great who notices?

Perhaps in game terms this is a problem with the story and the path we take. We're mostly lackeys and patsies, rather than genuine game-changing villainous characters that have everyone in awe.

Sadly I have no idea how to overcome that particular hurdle.

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

There are far too many points I want to address for me to put in individual quotes, so I'll try to respond free-hand. If it seems I'm responding to you, I probably am

First of all, I want to clarify why I chose the word "respect" in the title. A lot of people have spoken about likeable villains, and I may have fallen into that trap myself, but I don't actually have to specifically like a villain in order to respect him. In fact, to borrow a concept from the Dragon Age 2 relationship duality, I can highly dislike a villain and still respect said villain. Someone at some point postulated that "it's better to be feared than loved," and this is precisely where a lot of respectable villains fall. No, they're not likeable, not at all. They want to destroy the world, enslave humanity, infect us all with the alien virus, but by strength of their "villainous virtues," we cannot help but respect these people.

In a recent vlog, the Spoony One talked about classic D&D mages who started out with just one spell, saying "When you saw a high-level mage, you RESPECTED him, because he went through the **** to get there." A lot of villains are not likeable people. They're actually very reprehensible people. However, at the same time, you look at the things they've done, you see the wonders they've achieved, you see the things they've built, you see the greatness, and you have to respect these people. You just have to.

When describing Al Capone, many people say that if the man had not turned to crime, he could probably been an amazingly successful businessman and probably changed the world. This is the kind of villain I cannot help but respect. Sure, he wants to kill me, sure he hates my guts, but when I look at the greatness he has achieved and think about how much that could have benefited the world if he weren't evil, I can't help but dream and wish. A villain can be great and powerful in a way that's completely separate from being evil

Now, there's also respecting a villain as a credible threat, respect through fear, as it were, but that only really works if the villain isn't actively stalking you through an abandoned house, axe in hand, determined to wear your face. When a villain is built up as a great but static threat, one that has to be provoked or slighted in order to turn on you, that is also a villain I can respect. Laugh if you will, but I feel Dragon Ball Z's Freeza is built up like this in a very big way. He's the guy who doesn't do anything right up until the end, but everyone knows - they KNOW - that if they upset that guy, he will kill them. No frills, no games, no jokes. He will simply kill them. A villain with enough power to be a credible threat, yet enough restraint to not attack anyone on sight, is a villain I can respect, in much the same way as I respect the propane tank in my kitchen, in much the same way I respect the power sockets all around my house. This is someone of great power that you simply do not upset.

Of course, there's also the truly likeable villains. Because they have awesome costumes, interesting quirks and cool powers, we just like these guys. In fact, a lot of these guys I like because I could see them being heroes if they weren't so completely evil, but you can sidestep the evil and still have a cool character left behind. The truly likeable villains are those who are likeable for reasons completely separate of their villainy. Yes, they're villains, but they'd be just as awesome without their evil streak, too

Here's where we cross over into "justifiable villains" territory. I've seen a few people talk about giving villains reasons and even excuses to be evil, and I do admit that this makes it easier to like said villains. However, it also has the downside of making it harder to take these people seriously as villains, or at least villains that don't piss me off. There are few things that upset me more than the "misunderstood hero" type villain, at least when it comes to narrative character archetypes, and that's mostly because it gives me emotional dissonance. I want to like these people because they're good, but I can't because they do evil things. I want to hate these people because they do evil things, but I can't because they're good. When you have a brainwashed/confused/fallen hero that you don't want to kill but rather save, the story just draaags until that plot thread is resolved. Well, either until it's resolved or I no longer give a crap about the character. That was, as a point of fact, the fate of Naruto's Sasuke. I'm sick of hearing about the *******. He's been the focal point of the plot for 300 episodes, and I just don't care about him or the show any more.

Now, of course, that's just me. I don't want to dis other people's misunderstood heroes or affable villains. Far from it. But when I make my own villains, I try to give them a solid grounding for their alignment, and that solid grounding usually takes the form of a conscious choice. Now, this doesn't mean mental illness or Saturday morning cartoon villain allergy to "goodness" so much as the character being presented with a choice and taking the evil option consciously. If a villain, for instance, is given the choice to lie to a person and manipulate him for his own ends, or otherwise tell him the truth and lose his support, then the villain will choose to manipulate. Why? Is it because he didn't understand the consequences? Is it because it's vital that he gain this person's help? No. The villain knew what would happen. He just didn't care about this person he's manipulating.

Similarly, I HAAATE using the "madness excuse." If a character is imported-guano-insane, then really anything he does can make sense, to the extent that nothing he does ever makes sense at all. Why does he kill people? Because the sky is blue and dicks are white. Why did he just set that cat on fire? Because wakka wakka wakka. Not giving a villain any logical reason to be evil is, in fact, the ultimate excuse - he's evil because he's insane.

Personally, I don't want my villains' evil to be based in madness or excuse, but rather to originate from the villains, themselves. These are simply not good people, but they are still at least tangentially realistic people. One is selfish, another is callous, another still is greedy and so forth. They all have their character flaws that drive them to make the "wrong" choices, but they still have A character to speak of. Which is where we step into motivations.

Much as I hate giving villains excuses for being evil, I still try whenever I can to give them at least a reason for, and a reason that can be explained and believed. A villain who's evil because he's evil is only interesting once, and that's been done many times already. Beyond that, we need to know why this person made the evil choices he did. What does he want? What does he hope to achieve? What kind of backstory conspired to teach him the life lessons which led him to this decision? If I had lived his life, might I possibly agree with him? One of the tricks to making a good villain is to give him a motivation that people can understand, and perhaps even agree with if they hypothetically let go of their moral qualms.

If I weren't a good person... Could I be like that villain? The answer, at least for me, is usually "yes," because most villains I make originate in the different unthinkable urges I've felt throughout my life. And, really, unless you're a saint, I'm sure you've felt some of those, too. You've felt greedy, you've felt arrogant, you've wanted to hit people, you've wanted revenge and so forth. Most of us choose to be good people and ignore these urges, but because these villains are not good people, they act on them. That kind of villain is one I can actually sympathise with. And if I can also respect this villain, then he becomes awesome!

Having said all this, yes, I do take my villains and heroes and characters in general pretty seriously. I don't roleplay them, no, but at the same time I can't and don't want to feel disconnected from them. Every hero and villain I make is based on something I feel, and if I lose this, I lose the character at all. I've tried writing for characters by just going through the motions, and it simply never works. When there's no emotion in the story, there's no motivation to read or play. I can force myself to read and play when I'm not motivated, of course, but the result is gameplay that's not fun and writing that ends up being garbage. If I can't feel the emotion a story is supposed to convey by virtue of distancing myself from it, then the story becomes uninteresting to participate in.

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Somewhat separate of the conceptual discussion is the notion of PvP and developing our heroes and villains through competition between them. This is an argument I've heard before, and I flatout reject. A good hero needs a good villain just as much as a good villain needs a good hero, but there's no need for both of these to be player characters. In fact, there's no express need for EITHER to be a player character, but for the sake of a game, we need to be playing someone.

My point is that I've heard people lament how difficult it is to roleplay a villain fighting heroes when PvP zones are dead, and I simply don't buy it. A player hero has tons of NPC villains to fight, and a player villain has ever more NPC heroes to fight. While one might argue that the PvE content has a set storyline that is not conducive to forwarding a character's own story, but at least it has a setting. PvP in most games doesn't even have that. And, really, the game's written story doesn't HAVE to get in the way of our own personal journeys. Personally, I feel that the City of Heroes world should be written less as a linear or even branching tree narrative and more like a setting with interactive story elements within which our characters can participate for their own reasons and motivations.

Quote:

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.

Lex Luthor is one of my favorite villains. Why? Because he believes that he is saving the world from Superman. Lex honestly believes that Superman is a bad influence on the world, despite how many lives that have been saved. Lex may go about this in all the wrong ways, but he honestly believes he has the world's best interests at heart.

Dr. Doom is very similar to this; he wants to rule the world because he believes that he is best suited for it. Yes, he does have a massive ego. However, the citizens of Latveria have prospered as a nation. It may be a heavy handed rule, but again, he recognizes only himself as a competent ruler.

As for the bad - evil - villain, evaluate these scenarios:

1. Cop stops an armed robbery. In preventing harm to bystanders, he shoots and kills the robber. Saving bystander = good, but killing = bad. Is the cop bad for killing?

2. Same scenario as 1, except it's a normal citizen instead of a cop.

3. Time traveler comes to the past to prevent an armed robber from killing a bystander. Would future knowledge of a murder be considered an acceptable reason to kill the robber before the crime? Is the time traveler considered an evil person for killing someone with no apparent (to us) reason?

Morals are usually decided by the majority, but how do they apply when dealing with a different culture? Can morals change, or are they permanent? Can the ends truly ever justify the means, no matter the means? Hard to say. Robin Hood is a hero, because he gave his illegal gains to the poor. (Well, a vigilante in CoH speak, but he's still regarded as the hero of the story.)

Painting good and evil as strictly black/white is a little naive, IMO. Every person has a motive for what they do, and it doesn't always fit into small, tidy packages. Good things are done for the wrong reasons, and evil things are done for the right reasons.

Where is the line drawn for good vs. evil? Who draws the line? Different people will give different answers, and I am not sure any one person is qualified to make those judgements.

Sam one of the things I've not seen you note in there is the "Amoral" villain who's motto is "Do what thou wilt is the whole of the law" and I'm curious as to your take on that.

There's a truish sales maxim that people buy stuff for two reasons: Greed and fear. Greed cuz they want it, fear because of the consequences of not having the whatever it is.

I'm figuring if you're in an environment where fear is not a driver; "I've got the power to take what I want" it means that those who aren't raised with a very clear moral upbringing and belief set could easily turn to an amoral life where they take what they want, do what they want, and be whatever they want because there's really nobody around to stop them.

That's not to say they are evil per se but because they are effectively unlimited there's no shackles on their behaviour - and the only way they could be forced to moderate their behaviour is a bigger, badder somebody coming along and kicking their posterior to kingdom come.

At least with Cole he has an ulterior motive of "saving his people" however he sees that... but aside from that he's one of the most powerful beings on his manor that we've seen (granted that story may be changing) but I have the strong impression he's a tyrant because he has no significant challengers - which is perhaps the entire nature of power - and the more power one has, the easier it is to change the rules to suit your needs.

Somebody who is that powerful could be either respected or reprehensible depending on their behaviour of course but it seems that their lack of "evil" could make them highly respectable in that they are moving to their own goals in their own way of choosing - and in game terms it takes an effort to change that.

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

I see Emperor Cole as an guy a lot like Ozymandias in Watchmen. Kill thousands to save billions.

He wants to save his world. To him that means several things:

- Making a deal with the enemy that can destroy them (or else fall in battle, knowing they will be destroyed in his absence).

- Creating an absolute police state where even thought is censored (or else watch someone else violate said pact and doom the world)

- Covering up his deeds to the point of brainwashing and murder (or else have someone depose him, and thereby doom the world)

- Betraying his closest allies to the point of replacing them (or else have someone who doesn't know the secret accidentally break the deal and doom the world)

- Betray his deal with the Hamidon and attempt to invade an innocent world and destroy the heroes therein (or watch his own people die)

...and it is interesting to note that when granted absolute power, he built a paradise. Er, up to a point. It's kind of the 'nicer' version of Latveria.

...

This is almost the exact choice Superman faced in Kingdom Come.

The difference is, Superman gambled everything on his faith in humanity, and Cole did not.

A slippery slope indeed.

...

There are those who would find what Cole has accomplished, and Cole's goals respectable while others find the price so high it renders such respect impossible to grant.

Cole must be opposed, or you will lose your very identity.

Recluse by contrast conquered a country through assassination, created an organization that has snappy uniforms but is (by design) fraught with infighting, professes anarchy while ruthlessly punishing those who violate his mandates, and ultimately rules over a hellish realm of shanty houses and industrial carnage broken up by the occaisional house of decadence.

Recluse must be opposed, or you will be plunged into a slightly pre-apocalyptic urban wilderness.

It's an interesting dichotomy.

There's an old actors' rule: to understand a character, ask "what does he want?"

A "hero" wants order, decency, a stable and egalitarian status quo. Some use force within limits to get it. Superman, Captain America and yup, the Batman.

"Vigilantes" want the same things, but do not adhere to these limits. These extremists will resort to foul means to accomplish their noble goal. The Punisher, V, Rorschach.

"Rogues" want something selfish and petty and will use ignoble means to achieve it. They can be lovable and charming, or thuggish and dull. Catwoman, Deadpool. They'll work for the villain if he pays well.

Villains...?" Oh, what true villains want is horrifying! What does Phipps want? What does Peter Themari want? What does Recluse want? The answers make normal people gasp and shudder! Joker, Dr. Doom, Darkseid.

That holds true in real life too. Of course we have evil supervillains in real life and I think we can all guess who makes the short list. What they wanted -- words cannot contain the horror.

So to make a memorable villain, a villain you can "respect," find the worst possible answer to the question, "what do you want?" Their answer will lead them to personify a particular kind of evil.

As examples, I created my own "Holy Inquisitor," a vigilante mind-controller who personifies religious bigotry. I also have my own version of the Joker, an axe/dark brute named "Mister Hide" who personifies misogyny. Even most villains want to kill this guy the instant he walks into a room.

The more you think about true villains, the worse they get.