Villains (Mwahaha)

11 Aug 2017

It should come as no surprise that practically every compelling story is centered around a distinct struggle, because evidently, nobody exploring works of fiction wishes to be exposed to the same old mundane banalities that they're encountering on an everyday basis. That struggle can be a situational conflict (eg. relocating to an inhospitable metropolis) or the result of pure bad luck (eg. a gigantic tsunami), but humans mostly thinking in human terms we often enjoy personifying that struggle within a specific human being. Hence the emergence of the 'villain', an archetype that's been around since time immemorial and that's frequently just as powerful/riveting/memorable/revered as the 'hero' himself can be (if not a whole fucking lot more). From ancient religious narratives (ie. the goddamn Devil) to virtually every Disney fairytale, 'villains' have always been lurking in the darkest corners of our favorite stories (mwahaha).

This is the thread to converse about all things villains. You obviously don't have to answer all of these questions, but just to spark the discussion:

- What makes a villain compelling to you? What should the main characteristics of a 'great' villain be?

- Do you appreciate the quintessential 'pure evil' villain that's evil beyond comprehension/explanation (ie. the bad guy doing bad stuff because he's bad), or tend to find it too clichéd and prefer a subtler variety with a relatable backstory and plausible motivations (ie. the flawed guy doing questionable stuff because he's misguided)?

- What are some villains that really struck with you? Any obscure/unpopular ones that you would like to share?

- Who, in your opinion, would qualify as being The Greatest Villain of All Time?

Please share and don't forget... to ignore evil is to become an accomplice to it. L46

11 Aug 2017

For me, a compelling villain needs to be menacing and well-matched to the protagonist. Having a backstory is great, but only if it actually fits with the character and gives some heft to their villainy. Darth Vader, for instance, is a great villain (very menacing and basically Luke's shadow self once the whole father thing comes out) but the backstory Lucas finally gave us in the prequels was ... a bit lame (okay, a lot lame) though much of that was in the telling. With a better script and better actor playing Anakin, it might have worked.

Personally, my favorite villain (not sure if he's the greatest of all time, but he's up there for me) would be The Master from Doctor Who. I'm not up to speed on the new series incarnations (Derek Jacobi, John Simm and Michelle Gomez) but the original Master, Roger Delgado, was a classic (and Anthony Ainley, who took the part during the Fourth Doctor's tenure, was a pretty good successor). Delgado cut a pretty sinister figure to start with and the character was quite literally the Doctor's opposite: another renegade Time Lord but one who fell out with the Time Lords because of his lust for power rather than a desire to use his skills and knowledge to protect others. He could, depending on the writers involved, be a classic B movie mustache twirler but Delgado was a good enough actor that even in those stories, there was a bit more to the character than your usual cardboard cutout villain. And, while he never abandoned his lust for power, The Master was also a pragmatist who would cooperate with The Doctor when needed (but always to backstab when the opportunity arose, sometimes to his own detriment). I believe that the new series has expanded on the background, particularly having the two being friends back before they left Gallifrey (the Time Lords' homeworld) but, as I said, I'm not up to the season where The Master was reintroduced.

Oh, and there is one incarnation of The Master I tend to ignore: Eric Roberts in the 1996 TV movie was just awful. Which was too bad because Paul McGann was terrific as The Doctor and deserved a better villain.

11 Aug 2017

I am very drawn to female villains with an overt sexual/sensual facet - obvious examples would be Harley Quinn and Mystique. Not only do they inspire creative bedroom activity (ha!); but I love how they create this lovely tension between being evil and enticing. I'm no hardcore feminist, but it's some kind of powerful to have a guy (unwillingly) sporting a hard-on whilst having his balls cut off...

As for the GVOAT? I'd have to give this to C Nolan's The Joker. Heath Ledger was perfection.

30 Aug 2017

At last, my own compulsory voluble response (which hopefully won't deter people from posting in my already forsaken thread).

I'll be forthright about the incident that inspired this thread. A few weeks ago while hanging around downtown with my girlfriend, she and I decided to enter a prominent bookstore to indulge in some casual window-shopping (I've always loved browsing bookstores/libraries, particularly to evaluate what I might possibly be unenlightened about). Anyway, as my intellectual curiosity took over and I left my girlfriend to her own pursuits, I soon found myself absorbed in a very specific book.

The book was called The Joker: A Visual History of the Clown Prince of Crime:

As I was navigating through the pages, a realization inevitably hit me: no books dedicated to Spiderman, or Luke Skywalker, or Sherlock Holmes in the vicinity, but a whole encyclopedic tome about the goddamn Joker. The notoriety and magnetism of this villain quite literally surpass that of the majority of heroes. And an interrogation naturally followed: could The Joker be the greatest villain of all time? My own answer: yep, I genuinely believe that he is.

I know, I know, I've presented myself time and again as a huge Batman fan on these forums (hell, my forum-title even is a reference to him), but I can still formulate plenty of objective arguments to support this proclamation. I'd argue that I'm much more captivated by the general idea behind Batman than by any of his popular depictions anyway (I don't even read comic books and most common folks enjoyed the Nolan trilogy much more than I did myself).

Google pictures under the extremely broad term 'villain', and 3 of the first 15 results are visual representations of The Joker (the rest mostly being illustrations of a generic villain). Ask random people on the street to name a 'villain', and you can bet your ass that The Joker will be the most popular answer. My mother has absolutely no idea who the fuck Lex Luthor, Voldemort, or Darth Sidious are, but she sure as hell knows who The Joker is (crap, even my grandmother most likely knew who The Joker was). The stature of The Joker is objectively (and significantly) much more appreciable than the one of any other villain.

But why is it so exactly? First of all, there's a palpable 'democratic ethos' in the whole comic book community. Superheroes, villains or plotlines are mostly suggested to the public rather than being forcefully imposed. Comic book publishers continually come up with an abundance of ideas and let the public influence whichever characters/narratives will persist through time, in a real 'survival of the fittest' fashion. As an obvious example, the death of the second Robin (ie. Jason Todd) was entirely voted by readers through a telephone poll.

In the early 40s (ie. when Batman was freshly created), plenty of villains were proposed and fought to become Batman's archnemesis (some of them being pretty damn ridiculous). Although The Joker was initially meant to die in the very first issue of Batman (believe it or not), editors soon realized that the favorable reception to Batman was partly due to that one villain. All in all, it really shouldn't be any surprising that the most commended villain of the most commended superhero (out of a myriad of each) emerged as one of the most illustrious villains of the 20th century.

However, that still doesn't explain specifically why The Joker has been favored by the public for more than 75 years, correct? My stance on the matter is that The Joker hits the nail on the head pretty damn hard regarding what makes a 'great' villain (I guess I'll be covering every question of my OP with my long-winded eulogy of The Joker). I'll be relatively succinct about the majority of these points (yes people, this is me trying very hard to be succinct), but mostly:

- The Joker is the absolute perfect counterpart of Batman. Whereas Batman is the dark hero, The Joker is the colorful villain (which is quite a fascinating contradiction and arguably a huge part of their respective appeals); whereas Batman is a secretive and methodical engineer, The Joker is an exuberant and mercurial psychopath; whereas Batman saves the day and quickly shies away from public praise, The Joker intends to fuck up the world and make an enormous show out of it. To me, the main role of a villain should be to contrast the proclivities/intentions/decisions of the hero, and The Joker achieves that wonderfully well (both ideologically and stylistically).

- To add to the point above, despite their obvious polarity the two characters still share a significant commonality: they're both channeling their past afflictions through a crazy persona. Whereas Batman uses his persona to avenge the death of his parents through morally defensible actions, The Joker is on a plain lunatic rampage. So different yet so alike, as The Joker himself loves to remind his archenemy to majorly screw with his head. The Joker is essentially 'Batman gone wrong', which again, works remarkably well to discern/appreciate Batman's own moral resolve.

- In reference to my OP, The Joker is both a 'pure evil' villain and a 'plausible' villain: his diabolical persona actually makes perfect sense within context. Whereas plenty of ill-defined villains are evil 'because reasons', The Joker is evil because he's fucking crazy. It's a subtle difference, but it's one that definitely adds a terrifying realness to the character. Utter psychopaths with abnormally violent behaviors are a very real thing in this world, and The Joker is nothing more than a caricatural representation of that. No other superfluous or dubious reasons needed, just a sick man intending to ruin the world with a disconcerting smile on his face.

- The Joker is unfathomable, unpredictable and inconsistent at his very core, which makes him one of the most versatile and stimulating characters ever created. He can play the jovial trickster or the sinister maniac without ever contradicting himself. In fact, the more he's infused with contradictions, the more he's being true to his demented self and the more the public appreciates his erratic persona. The Joker has been portrayed through many different lights through many different eras, and people are still sitting on the edge of their seats after 75 long years, impatiently awaiting what crazy trick he'll be pulling next.

- To extend on the point above, The Joker has a tremendous enigmatic aura, almost of mystical nature. Editors/publishers have always deliberately made his backstory tricky and uncertain. In one comic book issue we learn a bit about his past, in the next it's quickly discredited as mere speculations. Decades of infamy and people are still trying to elucidate who the fuck is this man (including Batman himself). Quite a paradox that one of the most vivid characters of our time is also one of the most obscure, which most certainly contributes a lot to the massive fascination for him.

- Last but not least, his whole fucking visual style. I don't even think that I need to convince anybody about how striking the appearance of The Joker is. There's something clearly disturbing (and riveting) in his whole 'evil clown' persona, which has been reused time and again in plenty of other works of fiction. And who better to illustrate the prestigious 'evil laugh' and 'evil grin' than a goddamn evil jester himself? The Joker has all the inherent qualities of the archetypal villain while still retaining a very distinctive and thrilling identity of his own.

Finally, I'd like to conclude this long accolade with a phenomenal quote, which perfectly emphasizes many of my points:

Quote by The Joker

"You see it doesn't matter if you catch me and send me back to the asylum... Gordon's been driven mad. I've proved my point. I've demonstrated there's no difference between me and everyone else! All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day.

You had a bad day once, am I right? I know I am. I can tell. You had a bad day and everything changed. Why else would you dress up as a flying rat? You had a bad day, and it drove you as crazy as everybody else... only you won't admit it!

You have to keep pretending that life makes sense, that there's some point to all this struggling! God you make me want to puke. I mean, what is it with you? What made you what you are? Girlfriend killed by the mob, maybe? Brother carved up by some mugger? Something like that, I bet. Something like that...

Something like that happened to me, you know. I... I'm not exactly sure what it was. Sometimes I remember it one way, sometimes another. If I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice! Ha ha ha! But my point is... my point is, I went crazy. When I saw what a black, awful joke the world was, I went crazy as a coot! I admit it! Why can't you? I mean, you're not unintelligent! You must see the reality of the situation.

Do you know how many times we've come close to World War Three over a flock of geese on a computer screen? Do you know what triggered the last World War? An argument over how many telegraph poles Germany owed its war debt creditors! Telegraph poles! Ha ha ha! It's all a joke! Everything anybody ever valued or struggled for... it's all a monstrous, demented gag!

So why can't you see the funny side? Why aren't you laughing?"

- The Goddamn Joker (Batman: The Killing Joke, 1988)

31 Aug 2017

Batman has one of the best rogues' galleries of any superhero and The Joker stands at the top of the heap in that group. And when you get into films and TV, there are so many great portrayals to choose from, too: Romero, Nicholson, Ledger, Hamill (Mark Hamill voices the Joker for many of the DC animated series and movies). One of the complaints about the Marvel universe has been a lack of solid, interesting villains (aside from Loki). That should not be a weakness for the DC-verse if they do things right (alas, that has been an issue so far). Interestingly, they are looking at doing a standalone (ie. not part of the DC cinematic universe) Joker origin movie and have brought Martin Scorsese in as a producer, apparently planning to give it some of the gritty, street-smart feel of his classic crime movies.

31 Aug 2017

I think "pure evil" is pretty lazy in terms of constructing a character. No one ever really considers themselves to be evil, it's always a label that is applied from outside the self by others.

As a writer, I truly believe you should love your villains as much as your heroes. The best villains are the ones who have motives that we can identify with. In psychoanalytic terms, a villain is a shadow character - a representation of the repressed parts of ourselves that we wish we could disown. They are the extreme unchecked impulses of the id and/or superego that are buried within us all projected and manifested in the 'other'. Interestingly, this means that stories of good and evil, heroes vs villains are in some ways psychologically fragmented and schizophrenic. The conflict is usually resolved when the forces of good dominate, control, suppress, or vanquish the villain. However, this is simply reenacting the repression which perpetuates the schizophrenia. A more healthy resolution involves acknowledgement, acceptance, and reintegration of the fragmented aspects of the self - the hero and villain unify.

Don't believe everything that you read.

31 Aug 2017

Quote by seeker4
Batman has one of the best rogues' galleries of any superhero and The Joker stands at the top of the heap in that group. And when you get into films and TV, there are so many great portrayals to choose from, too: Romero, Nicholson, Ledger, Hamill (Mark Hamill voices the Joker for many of the DC animated series and movies). One of the complaints about the Marvel universe has been a lack of solid, interesting villains (aside from Loki). That should not be a weakness for the DC-verse if they do things right (alas, that has been an issue so far). Interestingly, they are looking at doing a standalone (ie. not part of the DC cinematic universe) Joker origin movie and have brought Martin Scorsese in as a producer, apparently planning to give it some of the gritty, street-smart feel of his classic crime movies.

What I've always loved about Batman's villains is that instead of being based on senseless themes (eg. Fire-villain, Metal-villain, Weather-villain), they practically all stem from one psychological condition or another. The Joker is the classic psychopath; Two-Face struggles with a dissociative identity disorder; The Riddler is a spineless narcissist; The Penguin has a Napoleon complex and constantly needs to overcompensate for his small stature and his queer appearance; Mr. Freeze suffers from prolonged grief disorder and turned into a cold impassive man ever since his wife died.

And as Dilettante expressed above, the female villains of Batman are also pretty damn fascinating (and hot) with their overt sexuality. Again, they all personify a different aspect of deviant sexuality. Catwoman is the kleptomaniac who's impulsively attracted by whatever is forbidden (material, sexual, or otherwise); Harley Quinn is the girly nymphomaniac who lost all fucking sense of inhibition; Poison Ivy is the uppity seductress who's manipulative beyond reason.

It's no wonder that Arkham Asylum is such a central piece of the Bat-universe: every villain inevitably brings his/her own psychological undertones to the plot (which I absolutely love). It's all an undisguised caricature of course (pun fully intended), but it still definitely makes you want to sympathize/empathize with all those eccentric baddies. And mind you, sometimes caricatures can be strikingly efficient at exposing certain aspects of reality.

I was totally unaware of that upcoming Martin Scorsese movie. Hah, could Leonardo DiCaprio be the next Joker? He could potentially be a pretty decent Joker, I think. Which reminds me, he actually portrayed quite an awesome villain in Django Unchained:

31 Aug 2017

I agree. The Batman series does such a great job with villains. The villains in Batman are truly creative and you hit the nail on the head on how they are based on psychological conditions. If I were an actor, I'd love playing a villain.

A great classic western with a tremendous villain is 'Who Shot Liberty Valance'. Lee Marvin was new to Hollywood at the time, and the movie credits say Introducing Lee Marvin. He was awesome as Liberty Valance, and he called everyone 'dude'. He had a great deep voice that worked so well for the part and he was very animated. I really appreciate old films.

31 Aug 2017

Quote by Just_A_Guy_You_Know
I think "pure evil" is pretty lazy in terms of constructing a character. No one ever really considers themselves to be evil, it's always a label that is applied from outside the self by others.

As a writer, I truly believe you should love your villains as much as your heroes. The best villains are the ones who have motives that we can identify with. In psychoanalytic terms, a villain is a shadow character - a representation of the repressed parts of ourselves that we wish we could disown. They are the extreme unchecked impulses of the id and/or superego that are buried within us all projected and manifested in the 'other'. Interestingly, this means that stories of good and evil, heroes vs villains are in some ways psychologically fragmented and schizophrenic. The conflict is usually resolved when the forces of good dominate, control, suppress, or vanquish the villain. However, this is simply reenacting the repression which perpetuates the schizophrenia. A more healthy resolution involves acknowledgement, acceptance, and reintegration of the fragmented aspects of the self - the hero and villain unify.

It really depends for me. I can appreciate the occasional 'pure evil' villain, so long as it vaguely makes sense within context and it's a self-aware fantasy. Darth Vader is a good example of that: sure, absolutely nobody is so patently evil, but it's still highly captivating to witness what 'pure evil' could look like in a parallel universe where a mysterious 'Force' can make someone either purely good or purely evil. I tend to see it as nothing more than a fun exploration of the human psyche.

What really bugs me is when works of fiction seemingly claim to be 'realistic' while bombarding you with plenty of oversimplified/stereotypical characters. For some reason, the movie The Green Mile comes to mind: death row inmates are surprisingly chummy while that one specific guard inexplicably embodies every fucking aspect of evilness. The movie wasn't entirely 'bad' and had a few interesting cinematic moments, but these kinds of preachy narratives who actually make very little tangible sense just massively make me roll my eyes.

What I truly find fascinating is how all these different narratives that we love to entertain can be so telling of our commonplace perceptions/conceptions. A 'pure evil person' is a fallacious notion, most educated people will agree on that; however, granting a 'pure evil' status to individuals is a very real phenomenon that numerous people indulge into on a daily basis. Religious people are particularly susceptible to that kind of dichotomous thinking. Sorry to religious folks for putting it so bluntly, but oversimplifying things has been the main purpose of your religion for thousands of years. Hell, the goddamn Devil himself might possibly be the most preposterous 'pure evil' villain ever created.

So in more than a way, those highly popular 'purely good' vs 'purely evil' narratives might be more ingrained in reality than most would assume: it's completely inaccurate of how the world operates, but it's still pretty damn accurate of how plenty of people dangerously perceive it.

1 Sep 2017

While the Batman villains, who are splendid in their psychological problems, most villains are the product of slowly breaking down their moral character. And almost any character can become a villain. Even if the 'good' protagonist is developed right, they should be villainous to a degree. Some of the best villains who morphed into their villainy over time are religious leaders, politicians, etc. Those who've lost touch with their original intent. A great villain is one who started good and becomes villainous.

1 Sep 2017

Quote by Buz
While the Batman villains, who are splendid in their psychological problems, most villains are the product of slowly breaking down their moral character. And almost any character can become a villain. Even if the 'good' protagonist is developed right, they should be villainous to a degree. Some of the best villains who morphed into their villainy over time are religious leaders, politicians, etc. Those who've lost touch with their original intent. A great villain is one who started good and becomes villainous.

Unfortunately, that transition is rarely handled well in the movies. Usually, they just kind of blunder into well-intentioned villainy. Just look at the how badly Anakin's fall in Star Wars was handled in the prequels. Admittedly, that's largely on Lucas' head but Hayden was miscast as well, IMHO. An actor who can handle the nuance of the fall was needed, not a pretty boy. In general, I'm with you. But well-intentioned villains rarely seem to work as well on screen as they do on paper.

And I think a villain who skirts the line, rather than transitioning from good to evil, can be very interesting as well. Catwoman (in some of the better portrayals, at least) is the classic example but The Master has done it at times, too (though his/her redeeming moments are usually related to a need for self-preservation rather than outright altruism).

1 Sep 2017

Quote by SereneProdigy

It really depends for me. I can appreciate the occasional 'pure evil' villain, so long as it vaguely makes sense within context and it's a self-aware fantasy. Darth Vader is a good example of that: sure, absolutely nobody is so patently evil, but it's still highly captivating to witness what 'pure evil' could look like in a parallel universe where a mysterious 'Force' can make someone either purely good or purely evil. I tend to see it as nothing more than a fun exploration of the human psyche.

I have to respectfully disagree with you on Darth Vader. Sure, he's a ruthless murderer who has committed genocide against entire planets, but he's like a general in the military who must believe that he is in the service of a greater good (the empire). I believe that Vader is largely motivated by political desire to unify and bring stability to the galaxy. The Rebels are the enemies of law and order, from this perspective, a force of entropy that seeks to undo the accomplishments of the empire, and spread chaos. Essentially it's a colonial agenda of civilizing the barbarians by violently establishing power and authority over them in order to educate and enlighten them about the correct order of things. Yet, even the colonists who committed awful atrocities against native populations did not do so because they were 'pure evil'. In fact, most of them believed themselves to be righteous and glorifying God (or the Force) in their actions.

Of course, I'm talking just about the original trilogy. You could also point to the prequels and Anakin's poor broken heart, but I found that to be less convincing as a motivation for Vader's 'evilness,' and was handled very clumsily by everyone involved. Honestly, I think Vader has had time between being recruited to the dark side, and the beginning of Episode IV to do quite a lot of mourning work, and to come to terms with the traumatic events of Episode III. There might be some unresolved grief issues (he doesn't seem like the kind of guy who is going to go see a therapist about his problems, but that might be a fun spin-off), but the pain of loss is bound to be somewhat less sharp than it was 18 years ago (or however old Luke is when we first meet him). To me, the reason for Vader's 'evil' is far more mundane - he's just doing his job.

Don't believe everything that you read.

6 Sep 2017

Um, ME!!!!

8 Sep 2017

Quote by Just_A_Guy_You_Know

I have to respectfully disagree with you on Darth Vader. Sure, he's a ruthless murderer who has committed genocide against entire planets, but he's like a general in the military who must believe that he is in the service of a greater good (the empire). I believe that Vader is largely motivated by political desire to unify and bring stability to the galaxy. The Rebels are the enemies of law and order, from this perspective, a force of entropy that seeks to undo the accomplishments of the empire, and spread chaos. Essentially it's a colonial agenda of civilizing the barbarians by violently establishing power and authority over them in order to educate and enlighten them about the correct order of things. Yet, even the colonists who committed awful atrocities against native populations did not do so because they were 'pure evil'. In fact, most of them believed themselves to be righteous and glorifying God (or the Force) in their actions.

Of course, I'm talking just about the original trilogy. You could also point to the prequels and Anakin's poor broken heart, but I found that to be less convincing as a motivation for Vader's 'evilness,' and was handled very clumsily by everyone involved. Honestly, I think Vader has had time between being recruited to the dark side, and the beginning of Episode IV to do quite a lot of mourning work, and to come to terms with the traumatic events of Episode III. There might be some unresolved grief issues (he doesn't seem like the kind of guy who is going to go see a therapist about his problems, but that might be a fun spin-off), but the pain of loss is bound to be somewhat less sharp than it was 18 years ago (or however old Luke is when we first meet him). To me, the reason for Vader's 'evil' is far more mundane - he's just doing his job.

I guess I've always been much too enthralled by the simplistic plot of Star Wars to take its political structure any seriously. Was it actually meant to be taken seriously? Because you know, as much as there was a galactic war going on, it's never been fully explained what was at stake other than a vague quest for 'absolute power' and virtuous attempts to defeat it. Hell, we don't even get to apprehend what exactly is 'The Empire', other than some synthetic planet inhabited by grim quinquagenarians (which they affectionately call the Death Star and which happens to be a gigantic weapon of mass destruction, just in case a slow 8-year-old kid might have a hard time grasping that they're the stereotypical bad guys).

Ask yourself what's the focus of these movies: was there ever an in-depth analysis of the context or the characters? We never get to understand what's the planet of origins of humans or how they conveniently came to populate the four corners of the galaxy, Luke's childhood is totally left to open interpretation, we don't even get to discern what-in-fuck is Princess Leia supposed to be the princess of in the original trilogy (I guess they just needed a princess to make her damsel-in-distress moments more [s]clichéd[/s] mesmerizing). And in the specific case of Darth Vader, the only sort of 'character exploration' that's ever offered to us aside from his illustrious "I'm your father" is him dismembering his own son or chocking his officers to death in his spare time. I dunno, but to me the entirety of it all hardly comes across as anything else but a theatrical context to make the lightsaber clashes more epic and engaging.

Look, I enjoyed the ingenuity of these movies just as much as the next guy, but that ought to be one of those most stereotypical works of fiction ever created. Everything about it is highly stereotypical, from the simplistic plot (ie. young man unexpectedly embarks on a journey to save the world and must forge his character through numerous tests) to the characters themselves (ie. prophesied protagonist, unmissable mentor(s), faithful allies, damsel-in-distress, typical villain who's barely human anymore and who compulsorily loves to dress in black). Seriously, any profound imbecile could have guessed which character was going to fill each stereotypical role just by previously observing the movie-posters for a mere 2 seconds:

The whole essence of these movies was to offer the legendary 'eternal battle between good and evil' an inventive spin with amicable robots and colorful lightsabers, and the producers most certainly never attempted to conceal the conspicuous stereotypical nature of it all. Sorry to say, but you establishing parallels with real-world generals and plugging all sorts of intents which were never properly explored in the movies hardly makes it a non-stereotypical saga.

I'm highly curious though, which villain would personify a 'pure evil' villain to you if even Darth Vader himself doesn't?

12 Sep 2017

Quote by SereneProdigy
I'm highly curious though, which villain would personify a 'pure evil' villain to you if even Darth Vader himself doesn't?

The best example that comes to mind is the Joker from Batman. As a character, the Joker is fairly one dimensional. His entire motivation is summed up as "Some men just want to watch the world burn," which I've always thought was pretty weak. He is all about chaos and and anarchy for its own sake, which I guess would make him the best personification of 'pure evil.'

Don't believe everything that you read.

13 Sep 2017

Quote by Just_A_Guy_You_Know
The best example that comes to mind is the Joker from Batman. As a character, the Joker is fairly one dimensional. His entire motivation is summed up as "Some men just want to watch the world burn," which I've always thought was pretty weak. He is all about chaos and and anarchy for its own sake, which I guess would make him the best personification of 'pure evil.'

Well I'm glad that you at least have enough lucidity to recognize that The Joker is a caricatural psychopath. I wonder what gave him away, between the fact that he's an extravagant comic book character or the fact that I explicitly presented him as such throughout this thread.

And without a doubt, unambiguously citing 'insanity' to explain one's evilness is a fairly one-dimensional initiative, but that in itself certainly doesn't make a character implausible or uninteresting. Numerous real-life psychiatrists have attempted to unravel what might possibly drive a psychopath to indulge in utterly wicked behaviors (including cannibalism and necrophilia) by investigating their past; the majority of them usually just end up helplessly raising their shoulders while stamping a big red 'fucking crazy' on a psychiatric profile. That's the whole charm of craziness and arguably why psychopaths (both real and fictional) always manage to gather such an absurd amount of attention: it's a straightforward yet incomprehensible explanation of evilness.

Moreover, I can easily name a hundred real-life people who've committed atrocious deeds on account of insanity: Jack the Ripper, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Andrei Chikatilo, H. H. Holmes, Albert Fish, Ed Gein, Robert Pickton, just to name a few. Can you name a single person who has ever committed a crime under the influence of some vague and mysterious 'dark side of the force'? And are you seriously suggesting that said 'mysterious force' is less of a lazy cop-out to explain evilness than actual insanity is?

Besides, The Joker appeared in nearly 2,500 comic books and dozens of other mediums over the last 75 years. Pretty damn impressive and quite a lot of substance for such an insipid character. By comparison, Darth Vader (as a proper Sith Lord) has primarily been the focus of only 3 movies (with an average screen-time of barely 12 minutes, for the record). I'll be the first to agree that he was a wonderful villain for those movies, but his entire evil persona was arguably fully covered in under 40 minutes of lightsaber clashes.

If you're still unconvinced that the Star Wars universe is a captivating yet highly stereotypical setting, I'd invite you to contemplate the few other villains that George Lucas offered us through his movies. Exact same director, exact same universe, exact same spirit, and one of them was an obvious ripoff of Satan while the other was a playful nod to Count Dracula (who was conveniently called Count Dooku and who was played by none other than Christopher Lee). I genuinely don't believe that anybody in the history of cinema has ever dared to rely on villains who are more clichéd than that: