Which types of villains do you prefer?

[Armagon]

11 minutes ago, Dragoncat said:

What's up with his design though? The devs totally made him look like a bandit on purpose.

Not really. That's just Homs armor he's wearing. Reyn wears the same thing. Yeah, he's got wolverine claws but that doesn't scream evil. Even Mecha Mumkar doesn't look obviously evil, though he does appear more menacing.

 

4 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

The best part about that design is how Metal Face and Mumkhar are so obviously the same person. And all the while Dunban is all confused about who this giant robot who talks like his friend, fights likes his friend and knows him personally could possibly be. 

That's like, one of my favorite parts about the game. From a writing standpoint, it makes Dunban seem kinda stupid because Metal Face and Mumkhar are obviously the same person but honestly, i enjoyed the amount of irony that was going on there.

Edited March 25, 2018 by Armagon

[Dragoncat]

55 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

The best part about that design is how Metal Face and Mumkhar are so obviously the same person. And all the while Dunban is all confused about who this giant robot who talks like his friend, fights likes his friend and knows him personally could possibly be. 

I think Dunban got it when he recognized the claw techniques, he's not stupid by any means. He wasn't going to go around blurting it out though. Honestly, I thought Mumkhar was killed in Sword Valley. I thought if the camera wouldn't have went back to Dickson and Dunban we'd see him explode into a pile of blood and guts from those lasers aiming at him. So Metal Face's true identity was revealed to me the same time it was revealed to Dunban.

"What or who are you?" One of the best parts, he pulled the perfect mix between a pissed off and "wtf?" expression.

@Armagon I meant his eyes, mostly. They have no irises. Without the armor and wolverine claws, he reminds me of a generic bandit in FE. No irises in his eyes, kinda rough, slightly wrinkled facial features.

If you need a visual:

Edited March 25, 2018 by Dragoncat

[DisobeyedCargo]

A villain becomes much more "likeable" if you can sympathize with them.

[Water Mage]

1 hour ago, Hekselka said:

The problem isn't really that they're forgiven, it's that they're forgiven too easily. Look at Avatar, when the bad guy came to the good guys he wasn't forgiven, he had to work and show the good guys that he was sincere this time and it made his character all the stronger for it.

I definitely agree with this. When I mean not holding grudge, I didn’t mean forgiving instantly. I mean trying to understand each other, it makes it much more interesting, especially if the villain has committed a crime such as killing innocents when they could have a choice of not to, especially if one of the innocents killed was someone dear to the heroes. It makes it much harder for the hero and the villain to understand each other, but at the same time, much more interesting. Besides, if the villain has useful powers and is willing to help, it’s not a bad idea to accept their help, again, even if they did unforgivable things such as killing innocents.

 

35 minutes ago, Jedi said:

And this is one of the thousand reasons Trails is amazing.

Yup,

 

That’s why I find Crow interesting. Despite being a friendly guy, it’s easy to forget he’s a guy motivated by hatred and probably killed innocent people for the sake of his revenge. I mean, he is a terrorist. There’s no way he led bloodless movement. Besides he helped set up a civil war, which killed many innocent people. He could have chosen a better life and not dedicate himself to hatred, but he made the wrong choices. I always wonder if cannons in the first game weren’t would he have still fired them and killed thousands in order to kill Osborne. Even then, it’s hard to look at the guy and think of him as a villain, even though he is one. Kinda make me wished he would have lived, so he would have faced the consequences of his crimes. And I don’t mean being executed, I mean that since he had a mecha and is a damn good fighter, why not put his powers to good use? Such as to help protect the people?

Edited March 25, 2018 by Water Mage

[Aegiz]

In my opinion, the moral gray is what makes a fire emblem game. So personally, I think sympathetic villains are better. It makes me feel actual emotions, rather than just killing them without a second thought.

[Ottservia]

I will forever hold onto to the notion that a good villain is a character first and a villain second. To make a good villain you must first create a good character. A character with a motive and clear defined and understandable reasons behind that motive. Even good psychopathic villains have this and that's why they work. The only type of villain I'e seen that doesn't have these things but can still work are force of nature villains like junko from danganronpa or fire emblem's very own grima.  

[Reality]

Villians are meant to be entertaining. 

Vincent Price gets this. 

[Aegiz]

11 minutes ago, Reality said:

Villians are meant to be entertaining. 

Vincent Price gets this. 

I'm not sure that's what they're meant to be. In my eyes, villains are meant to push you to go further through their actions. They should be obstacles, but still be real characters.

[The_antithesis]

Honestly, it depends on the situation. I feel minor villains should be more on the psychopathic side, while major villains should be more sympathetic.

A psychopathic minor villain can throw you straight into the action, and give you an excuse to beat a level and kill a boss without needing too much backstory. Too much story can be just as bad as not enough! This is especially true of villains that appear early in the game (though these can get redemption arcs later on) who need to look obviously evil, so the protagonist looks good by comparison.

On the other hand, major villains need to create a good story that can last the whole game. Unfortunately, a simple psycho can only do so much before things get repetitive. As such, something deeper is required to keep long-term engagement.

A good example of this distinction is in Fire Emblem: the Sacred Stones (which is often credited as having the best villain writing in the series) Most of the chapter bosses are just generic brigands and commanders, not main characters in the plot. These don't need any lines beyond "ARR, I wanna kill you!" and can easily set up for the gameplay which everyone is actually here for. However, Lyon is extremely sympathetic, with human motives and a drawn out overarching plot. The game can get away with doing this, as most of the villains' writing is about Lyon and the others from Grado. Overall, I'd say its best to focus the story on one or two good sympathetic villains, while the disposable enemies are more psychopathic.

However, this can also create an interesting story when the rule is subverted. A good example of the "psychopathic" villains actually being sympathetic is in the Plegians in Awakening.

 

[Reality]

7 minutes ago, Aegiz said:

I'm not sure that's what they're meant to be. In my eyes, villains are meant to push you to go further through their actions. They should be obstacles, but still be real characters.

I mean if you want a more serious reply from me

I see the purpose of every charather in a story to be a reflection of the hero. Not just in simple terms of being the hero's foil, but to also reflect their internal state.

The obvious example is Saint George in The Fairie Queen and The Dragon. - When he slays the dragon, he is allowed to enter the Garden of Eden. But when you stop to consider what prevents humans from enterting the garden of eden or hheaven normally, it's eopen to reading it as man ridding himself of sin or satan.  

Naturally when it comes to fantasy I prefer things that are more in line with folk lore and fairy tales, since they are the most conductive to a really formalist analysis.

If we get to the world of entertainment(video games)-

I do like most "3-dimensional" villians, but I hate how people act like they are "the only good way to write a villian". It's too reductive of a viewpoint on several levels. For one, a story about a 3-dimensional charather devolving into a 2-dimensional charather most revenge stories can be fantastic. The 2 dimensinoal villian also keeps the hero central to the story in the classical case. And finally, there's the simple populist case of many such "simpler" villains being entertaining.. Having an outright camp or hammy villian is by no means a horrible thing (and when it comes to acting it's fairly hard to make a career out of due to treading a line with overacting) . Obviously seeing a villian scheme and finally resolve his plots is also entertaining, but it can quickly exhaust audiences if you watch multple suh villians/shows that do that in a role, and while their own reasons for their actions are more  "personal", it often makes the heroes connection to them impersonal, on top of often them being weaker as a hook for the audience.

[Jotari]

Villains that are good characters.

[Silver-Haired Maiden]

I must say that I lean toward sympathetic villains in the classical sense but what I really like are villains with clear motivations. I don't care if their motivation is that their puppy died, I need a clear motivation, not "I'm evil cause I'm evil." That's lazy writing and I despise every villain that is like that. And not in the "Oh I love to hate this villain" more I cringe every time they appear on screen.

Of course this is coming from someone with a deep deep hatred of the Joker so perhaps my opinion counts for nothing xD

[Thane]

It entirely depends on what kind of story is trying to be told. While I generally dislike one-note villains who are more a force of nature than an actual character, it can work if done competently, and maybe if the focus of the writing lies somewhere else. Incidentally, it's easy to screw up a supposedly sympathetic character by either making them irredeemable assholes until some kind of plot twist is revealed or, for example, the protagonists and the villain didn't have to fight if the villain had just bothered to communicate.

My favorite villain of all time is Kreia, who isn't exactly sympathetic in the traditional sense, but there is a lot of depth to her motives and the way she goes about achieveing her goals. I believe that is more important than trying to smack a label on villains.

[Tamanoir]

Psychopatic villain can be well written. The most typical example is the Joker. No matter how tragic is backstory is, it won't excuse any of his crimes.
Or Hisaka for Hunter X Hunter.

Sometimes having someone who is just compeetent as his job and clearly threatening is good. They works more as forces than as characters, but tehy can be important for the story.

And inefficient ones can be pretty entertaining : see Herbert Mueller in Phi Brain. Wtaching being all smug, and then losing his temper is honestly still funny. And then there's his ridiculous power up. After the first time, he stops being really threatening, and is more pitiful (almost sympathetic he wasn't a huge jerk fr no reasons.). Even Kaito stops considering him a threat.

Edited March 26, 2018 by Tamanoir

[Garlyle]

The best villains are the ones you love to hate, because of they are cruel or annoying, or etc. It's also a plus if they are clever ones. Sympathetic villains are a thing, but it's not so satisfying when they are defeated.

[Cornguy]

13 hours ago, blah the Prussian said:

I will say that it's important for tragic villain backstories to be tragic in a way that makes sense. An example of a tragic backstory being handled poorly is in FE6; Zephiel's generic bad childhood gives him a hatred for humanity. The fuck did that come from? It's expected that, because he had a bad childhood, he turned out bad; no further explanation is required. A well done tragic backstory serves to explain the villains actions, and is linked to their worldview and choices. An example of this is Joffrey Baratheon; everything he does can ultimately be traced back to his toxic upbringing giving him a worldview that violence is the only solution.

I feel this. The Zephiel stuff was really weak in my opinion as well. He still had Guinevere, he still had Murdock, his mom isn't explored in detail in FE6, but she's implied to have learned her lesson and care for him now, and apparently those people remained close to him after his entire incident(maybe not his mom, it seems like she wasn't around at all in FE6). But none of that mattered to him in the big picture. I'd respect it a little more if Guinevere turned on him, if Desmond had Murdock executed, or something. Zephiel knows Desmond hates him, and sure, you could probably explain his actions through some form of complex, but aside from how utterly shitty Desmond was, Zephiel still had a lot of good, caring people to turn to.

Anyway, as far as my opinion goes, I prefer sympathetic villains in FE, prefer psychos in other games/media. Most of the sympathetic villains in FE are written pretty well, but any time an FE villain isn't sympathetic, they go so far out of their way to make this villain look evil, sound evil, and only barely deliver on actually committing evil. Especially lately, it's what I dislike about Validar, Hans, Iago, Garon. Ashnard falls under this a little bit too, but he's not "black-sclera" evil. 

[henrymidfields]

I wouldn't mind, for a possible future FE game, if the apparent villains did their deeds out of desperation while the de facto "true villain" was actually yourself, or an ally of yours. And the entire war was just as much as your fault as theirs. Perhaps innocent family members got caught up and made guilty just simply on account of association, or maybe other "villains" got tarred with the same brush. Or maybe  the prosecution went for far too long, and created a new oppressed group of people. And near the end, you found out that a good number of your nation's deeds were not only just as unheroic, but may have been the reason for the conflict in the first place. Ultimately, while you take down the ringleaders of the apparent villains, you also end up firing/banishing/imprisoning some of your own allies who were responsible for the persecution (with or without battle). Perhaps you even decide to abdicate to allow someone more worthy/heroic to take the throne. Maybe something similar to the more unpleasant side of how law enforcement and the military responded to the War on Terrorism, or the Red Scare by Joseph MaCarthy, or maybe even the Wicked musical (eg how Glinda ended up banishing the Wizard and incarcerated Madame Morrible) except less morally complex and more idealistic for FE.

Edited March 26, 2018 by henrymidfields

[Azure Sen]

16 hours ago, blah the Prussian said:

I will say that it's important for tragic villain backstories to be tragic in a way that makes sense. An example of a tragic backstory being handled poorly is in FE6; Zephiel's generic bad childhood gives him a hatred for humanity. The fuck did that come from? It's expected that, because he had a bad childhood, he turned out bad; no further explanation is required. 

Guinivere outright says in 6 that Zephiel's drastic personality change came about after a near-death experience caused by poisoning, similar to real-life cases of brain damage caused by poisoning leading to similarly drastic personality changes. Desmond was also planning to murder Zephiel's mother and Murdock along with Zephiel, which is what ultimately spurred Zephiel into murdering him.

Also, I'm pretty sure being the target of multiple assassination attempts by your own father, including one where you spend ten days on the brink of death due to poison, doesn't qualify as a "generic bad childhood."

[Aegiz]

I guess I was being a bit too broad when I said sympathetic villains are better. I have a bias towards villains I deem sympathetic, like Lyon. However, villains don't need to be sympathetic to be good. As I previously stated, a good quality of villains is to push you further, and Psychopathic villains can be a great means to do this. BUT Psychopathic villains who aren't just there for the hell of it and have an actual reason for their actions, and exist for a reason are pretty great. thATS WHY PeRI suCKs

[The Roger The Paladin]

Again, as many have said. It's a matter of execution and motivation.

One example of this going wrong, in video games is in Fates with Iago. He's a villain. He's hateable. But he has absolutely zero motivation beyond "make life hard for Corrin because I'm bad", which works in Birthright or Revelations just by the fact Corrin is an enemy to Nohr, but in Conquest it becomes clear they had no depth to the character at all beyond that.

Garon manages to be the same damn thing. You'd expect it of him to continue to try and use Corrin as a pawn in Conquest at the very least. But he doesn't do anything except trying to push and break Corrin for no apparent reason.

The only one it makes sense for to be a villain in all three routes is ironically Hans, because he's established as a sadistic murderous psychopath, which is usually the kind of planning that you give to an early-game bandit and not a (comparitively) major villain, but to me he's the one that makes the most sense. Besides, it worked for Valter in Sacred Stones (albeit better because there was a sympathetic villain to distract from him)

On the other hand, going with an example from a certain British comic, the Judge Dredd villain known as Judge Death is a psychopath done right. His motivations have this uniquely warped kind of logic to them. For those not familiar, Judge Death, on his native alternate time-line Earth was a law-enforcement officer, a Judge (which in this time and future is to say he functions as both the one to catch and the one to sentence the criminals). Judge Death earned his nickname when every sentence he carried out on his first day was a death sentence, which when questioned about, he argued that it was 100% proof against re-offenders. Death, through his warped logic, realized that only the living commit crime. Thus, he came to the conclusion that by outlawing life, and serving a death penalty to every living human, he could successfully stop crime altogether. However, he realized there was a flaw, and that he couldn't sentence all living to death as a living man without being a hypocrite. It would have ended with him just inflicting a death sentence on any criminals unlucky enough to be caught in the act or called before him. But he encountered some witches who were able to make him, (as well as themselves and a handful of others) into the undead. No longer bound by hypocrisy as he did not live, Death and his Dark Judges slaughtered everyone on their Earth. Then they acquired a device that allowed them to travel to other timelines, to carry out their dark judgement there as well.

As one can see, Judge Death's motivations make sense (to the degree they need to for a lunatic to buy into them in a comic full of satire, black humor and plain british humor anyway), and it's possible to understand why he does what he does. Yet he's not in the slightest sympathetic. He may even have "end goal" that most want, the end of crime. But his method of "killing everyone so no one commits crime" is flawed to any sane man as "make everything legal so there is no crime". But the best part about Death, the part everyone except Death gets, is that with Death being undead he's disproven his own logic of "Only the living commit crime" by going around murdering people... without being alive. The ultimate irony of the character is his goal of enforcing the law is broken by his very attempts to do so. Death is the kind of guy who would try to cancel out Global Warming with Nuclear Winter if he were an environmentalist instead of a Judge.

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Azure Sen said:

Guinivere outright says in 6 that Zephiel's drastic personality change came about after a near-death experience caused by poisoning, similar to real-life cases of brain damage caused by poisoning leading to similarly drastic personality changes. Desmond was also planning to murder Zephiel's mother and Murdock along with Zephiel, which is what ultimately spurred Zephiel into murdering him.

Also, I'm pretty sure being the target of multiple assassination attempts by your own father, including one where you spend ten days on the brink of death due to poison, doesn't qualify as a "generic bad childhood."

This, I'd also add to it something I said in another thread.

On 1/3/2018 at 1:24 AM, Jotari said:

His Gary Stuness is part of why he became a misanthrope. He was the perfect prince. He did everything right and for his troubles he found himself in agonizing pain, inflicted by the person he loved and wanted to please most. Should he judge the entirety of humanity based on his father's deeds? Of course not, that's what makes him a villain. He's too stupid to realize he's loved by the people that really matter and is stuck viewing the world from a very bleak viewpoint. I find the personal story is better than the typical "I've seen a bunch of people die and had a horrible life, so everyone should just die" backstory of most misanthropic villains (either that or is just "blarg, I'm crazy, deal with it"). Generally, I find misanthropic villains to be weak in general. As it's a pretty hard sell that someone would go to all that trouble if they hate existence so much, when they could just remove themselves from the equation entirely via suicide (as scathing and harsh as that may sound). Zephiel's motivations are slightly overblown and contrived, forced into the plot by Fire Emblem's love of dragons (and really they don't even make that much sense, since the dragons aren't emotionless beings, that's only the war dragons). But there is more to a character than just the end goal. I think Zephiel's pretty solid in his backstory, how he interacts with other characters, his design and music. I think they do tragic backstory right with him. You feel sorry for the kid he was, not the man he's become. The game harbors no delusions that he can be redeemed and, unlike Hardin, the guy he was based off, Zephiel never shows any remorse or guilt. His chapter title is The Neverending Dream, his quote is "You shall not bar my path!" (side note, shame he didn't have any battle quotes beyond that, you'd think they'd give him something to say to Roy). He's never going to give up, never going to change. Having a tragic backstory doesn't excuse villainy, that's what the game goes out to prove. At least how I interpret it. Failing all that, his sprites and music rock.

 

[blah the Prussian]

Admittedly it's been a while since I played FE6; I'll take your word for it. The general point is lazily done tragic backstories, though, and I do think there's are a lot of villains like that.

[Strullemia]

19 hours ago, Water Mage said:

I definitely agree with this. When I mean not holding grudge, I didn’t mean forgiving instantly. I mean trying to understand each other, it makes it much more interesting, especially if the villain has committed a crime such as killing innocents when they could have a choice of not to, especially if one of the innocents killed was someone dear to the heroes. It makes it much harder for the hero and the villain to understand each other, but at the same time, much more interesting. Besides, if the villain has useful powers and is willing to help, it’s not a bad idea to accept their help, again, even if they did unforgivable things such as killing innocents.

 

Yup,

  Reveal hidden contents

That’s why I find Crow interesting. Despite being a friendly guy, it’s easy to forget he’s a guy motivated by hatred and probably killed innocent people for the sake of his revenge. I mean, he is a terrorist. There’s no way he led bloodless movement. Besides he helped set up a civil war, which killed many innocent people. He could have chosen a better life and not dedicate himself to hatred, but he made the wrong choices. I always wonder if cannons in the first game weren’t would he have still fired them and killed thousands in order to kill Osborne. Even then, it’s hard to look at the guy and think of him as a villain, even though he is one. Kinda make me wished he would have lived, so he would have faced the consequences of his crimes. And I don’t mean being executed, I mean that since he had a mecha and is a damn good fighter, why not put his powers to good use? Such as to help protect the people?

Aah, gotcha, in that case we're in agreement.

[Ae†her]

Generally sympathetic villains are nicer, and who's say's they also can't be completely ruthless killers. The key to a good villain is motives, and as long as they have sensible motives they'll be pretty decent villains. I personally really like villains that are trying to protect their legacy, and everything they've built to farthest extent they can that they end up being one of the most difficult enemies of your army.

[Magical CC]

A smart, ruthless, calculating, capable villain. For example: Sarevok, Irenicus, Diablo, Jack and...eh....that is all I remember for now.

 

For Fire Emblem, I want a main villain that is similar to Genghis Khan who conquer, slaughter, destroy and great at both leading army and controlling the empire. No dragon, demon bs please.

Edited March 30, 2018 by Magical CC