What do your villains want?

I haven't read through all of the responses, but I fear I'm forgetting what I want to say, so here's a partial response with some observations in it:

First of all, I added a couple more "motivations" to the list. Specifically, I added "kicks and giggles" and "revenge." Again, it's not a complete list or even a meaningful guide, I just felt that people were describing motivations I hadn't really covered.

Secondly, I'm seeing a lot of villains who are either anti-villains (far-end Rogue) or, on the flip side, evil because they're insane. This is something I wanted to address, and there's a reason I didn't add "insanity" to the list of motivations. That reason is that, to me at least, insanity is the sort of no-answer answer to the question of why a character is evil. It's the equivalent of "a wizard did it" when explaining plot points. Obviously, that doesn't make it wrong, it just doesn't explain anything.

Personally, speaking of insane villains (and I do have a few fit the bill), I like to think that there's something more to their evil than just abstract insanity. I like to view insanity as the catalyst which brings up more deep-seated reasons for one to turn to villainy. Think of the "protagonist" from Falling Down, for instance. Yes, he snapped and can probably be called insane by the end, but his craziness is an extension of the frustrations he felt in his life. I don't mind insanity being an answer, I just mind it being the ONLY answer. Again, I don't claim that's a bad thing. I just tend to want more.

Anti-villains, on the flip side, are also strange to me. This has to do with my "evil by choice" notion, in the sense that a misguided villain or one forced into villainy against his will can be "fixed" by removing the circumstances that keep the person a villain. Whether he can be forgiven is another matter entirely, but he can be fixed nevertheless. A villain who chose the path that led him into evil, however, isn't one who can be easily fixed, if fixed at all, because this person made a conscious choice. He isn't "damaged" and thus forced to be evil. He chose to do what he chose to do and he accepted the circumstances. You can no more fix a villain set in his ways than you can change people's political or religious views once they've accepted them consciously.

Even though they're on pretty much polar opposite sides of the "likeability" spectrum, I see pure madmen and pure anti-villains as very close to each other in terms of making a face turn, almost as though the likelihood curve is a circle where the far left and far right sit side by side. Anti-villains are practically heroes with extenuating circumstances while insane villains are practically victims of their madness. In either case, if a villain is made cool enough to where people want to keep seeing more of him, then a face turn becomes very likely, if not in official continuity, then at least in fan fiction.

At least that's how I see it, but I welcome argument to the contrary.

Finally, and this is somewhat sideways of the subject, but I LOVE the idea of having a character serve as a remote-controlled entity while the REAL character is never seen on-screen. Great idea there, and I'll definitely be using it

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.

http://union.virtueverse.net/wiki/Elizabeth_Bathory

Erzsébet Báthory always was a slightly powermad control freak. In life she kept complete control over her subjects and punished those who would question her authority. She has a personal fetish in inflicting pain and suffering. And she would just like the freedom to do so whenever she feels like.

Her search for more power and knowledge goes far. Especially into the dark arts. Which often use sacrifices of human flesh and blood. As she sees her subjects as worthless anyway those where always easy to get.

Now all this was before she became a vampire through a deal with demonic forces. Which also increased her magical powers.

Her goals are still the same... freedom to act and power to keep that freedom. Now it just also includes blood to feed upon and keep her young (filling her blood bath). And ultimatly... her position made many enemies. She hates being opposed... and needs to safeguard her position. So enemies should be eridicated! This is just an neccesity... there is no real hatred here. They are worthless beings like all the rest anyway. Just with power enough to annoy her and her plans.

Ofcourse she has a lot of fun playing with her subjects... So although world domination would be nice... there is no way she goes for world destruction. All those happy meals on legs are there just to serv her... or feed her in time. Whatever comes first!

I have three villains that I really have anything invested in and one who spent long enough redside to matter.

The first is my Traps/DP defender. She's a mercenary, pure and simple. No morals, no anger, no grand goals besides a nice healthy bank account. She takes pride in being the best, but generally doesn't let herself get led around by it. Ego cuts into the profit margin too much.

Second is my MM. She's megalomania incarnate. The world is hers. You're trespassing. Grovel sufficiently and she might forgive you.

Third is my Ice/Pain Corrupter. She's a thrall of the second, so technically she falls under Higher Power, though there is just a sneaking hint of Revenge in there as well. She obeys because she must. If she could kill her mistress, she'd do it in a heartbeat.

My Stalker used be my fourth, driven by fear and the desire for revenge as she fled her captors, but eventually, the better angels of her nature took over and she slid over to blue-side.

<del>Misguided</del> Idealism: "I don't want to rule the world, I want a world that CANNOT BE ruled."

Honestly most of what they've added villain side has been great.

The first villain I created that I enjoyed a whole lot (but had to shelve when I hit that level and lieutenants were immune to me) was my dominator, whose goal was to construct a magic blender, throw people, machines, and plants into it, and create a clone army of herself.

When the architect came out it was the first thing I made and it was a blast. So I still to this day consider the AE as villain content.

Another great addition was the cloning facility missions. Going up against clones of myself made me really truly feel like a badass. And being betrayed and watching the facility go up in smoke? Icing on the cake.

I love the Mortimer Kal task force and everything leading up to it. more like that, and I'll be happy. I probably shouldn't ask for too much because stuff designed by committee probably wouldn't be as impressive.

What do my villains want?

Why WORLD PEACE!
(Under their benevolent rule of course!)

Well, except for my brutes. They just want to beat **** up.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

Any of my characters who are motivated by greed or power are generally Rogues.

All my actual villans are insane. One is driven insane by immense pain levels, and so he doesnt want much, other than to lash out and destroy.

My only other villain is also insane. She is horrified by her condition (fire/thorns dom) and to a degree she is in pain when she uses the thorns. She wants to be normal ... and she wants to kill anyone who has powers but is still normal/beautiful. She actually is beautiful when thorns arent erupting out of her, but she is too unhinged to see that. As this point she is just too prone to fits of rage.

At some point, I plan to cross my dual blades/sr scrapper over and have him be someone who kills because to him it is high art, or fashion, or a performance. So he would be insane also. What he wants is to have his creativity and his sensations pushed to higher and higher levels in his quest for art, perfection and glory.


Lewis

Huh. All my villains are boring cop-outs that explain nothing.

Oh well.

Lewis

I'm not sure that the entire scope of someone's villainy can be explained in motivation. Just saying what they fight for or are aiming towards doesn't always speak of the means that they'll go about it doing it, or their demeanor in general.

Hm. Well let's see. Something I should mention. I'm heavily influenced by the DCAU, and it affects my style.

Bejeweling, my Earth/Fire Dominator - she also goes by the title of the Bavarian Bombshell and has volcano powers thanks to her theft of a gem from what may have been fueling one of Vulcan's forges (otherwise known as volcanoes). She's German because I get very annoyed with people making every single German villain a Nazi, and she's not. At all. Also, I can't pull off a cheesy French accent in-game to save my life (I'm not kidding). Bejeweling is very pulpy in style, and meant to harken back to 1930s serials and characters like Roxy Rocket from Batman: TAS. If Roxy could take out a building.

Her primary motivations are money and thrills and a deep-seated rebellion against authority. She has an odd idealistic streak to her personality, and while admits that she's not really a good person, she likes to think that's an honorable one and has limits. She prefers crimes with artistry to them, and crime that has a degree of craftsmanship to it. She's old school, and has little respect for villains that rely on crude methods like mass slaughter to do the job.

She grew into a supervillain out of boredom with the mundaness of every day life, starting out as an unpowered thief as a way to amuse herself and blow off steam while at university. She later broke into the big leagues. A lack of ambition and glory to it, a frustration of going through the motions. Life should be glorious, in her view. She does this by living larger than life, stealing fire from the gods (literally). She probably could have become a hero if things had gone differently. While she'll do deathtraps and stuff, the idea of an inglorious end to a worthy hero (I suspect she regards it much like dueling) is something she despises. As she puts it, "There should be Valkyries."

Reanimistress - my DP/Rad corruptor - a mad scientist who lost the ability to die permanently in a confrontation with a hero that went badly. Her primary motivation is her own curiosity and desire for knowledge, especially over the secrets of life, death, and creation. She does stuff, such as construct Frankensteinian brutes out of corpses, vat grown material and whatnot, primarily to see if she can. She's insane in the sense that she believes she's advancing knowledge, but it's mostly her indulging her curiosity... and she has almost no limit to how much she'll indulge. She's whimsical, even charming... and she has a tendency of shooting lab assistants that fail her and reanimating their corpses as servitors.

To her, heroes are an annoyance for the most part. She enjoys the conflict on occasion, just for the challenge it represents. The best enemies are rare, wonderful things that keep you on your toes and should be savored.

Stormhulk - Sonic/Dark corruptor, but might reroll him to something else. Stormhulk is a big seven foot evil robot with a brain in a jar. He was built to be a minion... then the mad scientist that built him got caught, and Stormhulk got forgotten. Poor Stormhulk. He's fun. Stormhulk isn't really one minion so much as an army of minions... that appear one at a time. There's a factory somewhere with them, and nobody's ever changed the settings on it. Destroy Stormhulk, the next one on the line starts up and walks into the teleporter.

He's still looking for a motivation, though takes orders well beneath his loud personality (he sounds like Brian Blessed yelling through an old 1950s high school intercom). That, and y'know, destroy all humans.

I admit, part of my motivation for making him was to be cannon fodder. He's a villain, but he lacks the intelligence or ambition to really be anything above a lackey, and he gets blown up a lot. I'd go so far as to call him a professional minion, hiring himself out to minion for others.

Raptus Regaliter: To prove that he's the smartest man in the room. To take over Crey Industries, or destroy it... depends on his mood. To create a personal army of supernatural cyborgs and achieve with it as much personal power as possible.

Kiini: To glorify the goddess of her cult with blood sacrifice, and make a little money as an assassin-for-hire while she's doing it.

December Man: If you asked him, he wouldn't be able to tell you. All he knows is that he seems to have no empathy to the pain of others.

Ro-Bust: She's pretty much insane, and she enjoys causing others mental anguish.

Molm Reindar: To be the world's most perfect killer.

Zaphoirza: To pay back the debt she feels like she owes to Raptus Regaliter, whom she doesn't actually realize is a horrible, horrible person.

Axe Jeeves: Usually he's quite content in his job as a butler. But sometimes people upset him, and he has to kill them. With an axe.

Hrm, I'll bite. Never a bad idea to remind myself why my characters do things.

Toy Dispenser: The android mercenary with as many personalities as he has robotic minions, Toy leans from Personal Gain to Kicks and Giggles depending on the given day. Upkeeping a manufactory satellite and designing a slow growing robot army is expensive, but sometimes he does things simply for the experience. Like getting a Hero ID and pretending to be legit when he gets bored. He has something of an obsession with being the only android of his class, but I'm not sure where that would fit in the list.

Archlich: A Megalomanic raised and undead. He tends to temper himself with some Misguided Idealism about being the only one worthy of controlling all magic, but that doesn't stop much. One of the only survivors of Mu and the first lich, Archlich has spent all the centuries since gathering arcane knowledge and unlocking the true secrets of magic. He wields primal forces like we breathe and one day he'll make sure humanity finds out just how much he learned.

Captain Farfield: Daniel Farfield is a Webmaster who's loyalty to Arachnos is absolute. A model soldier and exemplary commander, Farfield's true desire is Revenge. It started off as a desire for revenge against the lone hero who accidently burned down his apartment and killed his fiance, but Arachnos tutelage has broadened his feelings. All heroes will burn and their ashes tramped under steel boots if Farfield gets his wish.

Lord Netharak: A Doom Lord of the Burning Legion cast adrift in Primal Earth, Netharak is Pure Malice personified. Suffering begets power and power brings the coming of the Legion ever closer. And if there's one thing Lord Netharak is good at, it's causing suffering through untold destruction and death. Or he would if those damn heroes would ever get off his back.

I have some other villains, like Brutish Ghoul and Rich the Claw, but they're mostly all mercenaries in the same vein as Toy Dispenser. I tend to enjoy roleplaying Rogues much more than actual Villains.

Doc_Rev,

I really like Bejeweling. Characters that I make like that, I tend to make them rogues. But yeah, very nice!

Lewis

Oh, joy. I never get enough time to talk about my villains.

Arachnos Unit BT99F - EM/EA Brute - My original villain back from CoV launch, BT9 is a nine foot tall battle robot that was originally a Crey and American government experimental cyber-soldier. The project was decommissioned after several officials raised "human" (feh) issues. Stolen and reprogrammed by Arachnos, he serves Black Scorpion and Recluse without question (literally, he can't talk, but can emit command prompt via an electronic speaker).

Geist Dieb - SS/EA Brute - Originally a Longbow Spec Ops that managed to infiltrate Grandville Tower, she went rogue after coming into contact with the DESTINY portal. The future she saw was destroyed and home to nothing but rubble, so she pretty much embraced her most selfish values, turning to a life of high-tech thievery. Her patron is Ghost Widow, because she thinks that outliving death sounds pretty good.

Geiger Killer - Ah, my most powerful villain. He is actually the Praetorian version of my main hero, Doctor Scotts. Once a heroic figure and genius of unparalleled skill, he organized the communications between the Resistance, Carnival of Light, and assorted rebellious groups. His best friend was also a freedom fighter, and in one swoop his entire organization was destroyed by Cole. His friend was torn in half by Marauder and his network betrayed. Using the last of his connections, he launched an assault against Anti-Matters portals, enough to stall the Praetor and use them. Unfortunately, he passed through unprotected and had his neurons and sanity fried by the temporal energies. When he arrived on Primal Earth, he pretty much started killing anything he saw. His primary goal is to: A) Kill any version of Marcus Cole. B) Supplant the Primal Doctor Scotts and take over. C) Burn everything he can.*

Addendum: Since Incarnates came out, he has become the Incarnation of Hephaestus, god of smithing. His insanity has been mostly healed and he now fights against Cole and The Coming Storm from a secret base located between the Rogue Isles and Paragon.