fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2875 ]

[ SECRET POST #2875 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2875 ⌋

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Forget the good guys for a while. What kind of character would be your ideal antagonist/villain in a story? Which are your faves?

My favorites are the ones that keep you guessing on where they stand. I love moral ambiguity in an antagonist and it makes them seem more interesting.

Loki, Q from Star Trek, just to name a few.

I have a lot of fun with moral absolutists. Screw all these whiny jerks who do bad things for the morally flexible greater good! I want to see more folks do bad things because God tells them to, or the law says so, or their code of honor demands it.

Ideally, someone who from their perspective is doing what is logical or what they think is the right thing. Where their actions make sense within their own moral framework.

Example: Zaheer in Legend of Korra

I'd really like to see more of a character who thinks he is the good guy/protagonist and does everything he does out of the firm belief that what he does is right only to notice along the way that he is actually the villain.

This is why I love Spec Ops: The Line. It executes this SO perfectly.

Re: Your ideal fictional antagonist/villain?

(Anonymous) - 2014-11-17 12:06 (UTC) - Expand

Smart ones. I'm fed up with villains that are supposed to be intelligent and careful, but who always make stupid mistakes and fuck up, letting the hero win without any effort of their own.

Thissssssss.

Stop monologuing for fuck's sake.

Re: Your ideal fictional antagonist/villain?

dreemyweird - 2014-11-16 23:40 (UTC) - Expand

I generally gravitate more to antiheroes than to villains, and I differentiate between villains that function well for their place in the story, and those who actually interest me as characters in their own right. Thinking on this, I suppose the characteristics that put a villain in the second category for me are: the patience and intelligence to carry out a long-term plan; a sense of humor; complex motivations; the occasional foray into dark grey; and the ability to snap back to pure evil and scare the crap out of me just when I start to think that they're not so bad after all.

The only characters I can think of right off that hit most of these bullet points for me are Mayor Wilkins from BtVS S3, Pegasus Crawford from YGO, and (to some extent) Kil'jaeden from World of Warcraft. (I suppose if I consumed more media my list would be much longer.) ` I'm not sure if the Count from Gankutsuou is considered a villain or an anti-hero, but for me he's in the vicinity of all those traits.

David Xanatos.

Done.

Re: Your ideal fictional antagonist/villain?

darkmanifest - 2014-11-16 22:27 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Your ideal fictional antagonist/villain?

othellia - 2014-11-16 22:35 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Your ideal fictional antagonist/villain?

darkmanifest - 2014-11-17 00:15 (UTC) - Expand

Intelligent self-aware evil! The kind that's actively committed to evil for practical reasons, like - yeah, you COULD take the good way out, but all that time and effort trying to save all the people could go somewhere better, couldn't it? Plus evil would crush the obstacle more easily and permanently, wouldn't it? It's obviously the right choice to make to meet the end goals. It's not about the power or morals at all (no more power-mad gloating villains please), they just think that evil is the almost always most efficient method to use.

Ex: Havelock Vetinari!

I hate when deluded villains believe they're good or right or that their side is the good guys (because of religion or insanity or whatever). I want more smart villains who acknowledge they're evil and horrible and are totally ok with that. The results are worth it.

Edited 2014-11-16 21:54 (UTC)

Hm. I think my favorite villains are the ones that are great foils to the hero. Thor and Loki. Batman and Joker. Professor X and Magneto.

I didn't like the Operative himself from Serenity (because I liked nothing at all from Serenity), but I love a villain with his philosophy of "I am doing horrific things in order to create a better world where there will be no place for people like me."

Normal villains. People who aren't really grandiose in their plans and ambitions, who don't have overweening ambitions, who aren't geniuses, who are a little dull. People who are just normal people doing their jobs, which happen to be evil in their effects. Bureaucrats and salarymen. Who are competent and decent at their jobs and who don't question things too much, who have a role that they're comfortable playing and who do it.

Or, I guess, Gul Dukat and Doctor Doom are also good options even if they are the opposite of that

Good motivation. I don't care if it's bordering on woobiesque or if it's pure, undiluted selfishness - if there's a good motivation that's in line with what that character would do, I'd buy it.

Yes, this includes unrepentant psychopaths: I won't accept that they're evil for evil's sake, because no matter what the situation, they still have to want something and have a reason for going about doing the things they do in the way they do it.

I also don't care if the logic is flawed, or if the character is just wrong. If it's in character for the antagonist to feel that they must do this evil thing, and if I can accept that in their eyes it's either the only choice, or the better choice, then hell yeah, I can accept that.

In the end, it just comes down to whether or not I can see a character genuinely believing their own motives, and for it to be in character, regardless of what those motives are.

I have a thing for the charismatic villain with an oddly compelling philosophy that they completely and utterly believe in (Claire Stanfield, Rau le Creuset, Khan Noonien Singh, Edmond Dantes, Captain Nemo, Scorpius, some Devils), but on the other hand I also have a thing for the villains whose backstory seems to consist of them having gone "You know what, screw everybody, I want what I want and I'm gonna get it" (Servalan, Yzma, Scar, Maleficent, other Devils).

If I have to pick my favourite villain of all time, though, it's gonna be Servalan from Blake's 7. She decided she wanted all the power in the galaxy, and no matter what happened to her (several rebellions, coups, assassination attempts, kidnappings, the loss of her clone children, and an interstellar war), she damn well kept on trying until she finished the series as the only character confirmed still standing and climbing right back up the ladder. She lied, murdered, tortured, enslaved and mind-raped people, she ran several versions of a fascist state, she was cheerfully vicious, cruel and evil in every way, but she did it all with style, nerve and wit. She was fabulous. She turned every situation to her favour, no matter how weak she was going into it (she's taken control of being abandoned, chained and weaponless among her enemies). She had a big brutish hireling throw her around and call her beautiful, and after letting him rather pointedly know where the real power was, she invited him to do it again, as she rather enjoyed it.

She's evil. She's really, really, really evil. She's a power-hungry amoral fascistic bitch who has honestly and genuinely commited or ordered someone else to commit every horrific crime in the book. But goddamn she was classy and fabulous doing it. She had all the ruthless nerve in the universe and was not at all shy about using it to achieve her goal, and her goal was nothing less than all the power and control her universe could offer.

I mean, if you're going to be evil and own it completely, you could do worse than to emulate this woman.

1. The hero's equal in intelligence/power/skill
2. Complex characterization. I don't mind evil for the evil if there is some depth to the character, but I want to know why they are the way they are.
3. Most of the time I prefer villains who enjoy being who they are, whatever that is. Depressed or angsty villains aren't my thing.
4. I want the villain to actually try to do something that will mean something to the characters. That can be something personal to the hero or some sort of grand, sweeping destruction. But I don't want to just be told they are evil. I want to see it.

Re: Your ideal fictional antagonist/villain?

darkmanifest - 2014-11-17 00:20 (UTC) - Expand

I...don't understand why people like villains, actually. All I want is for villains to seem like an actual threat, before they are summarily defeated in guns and glory.

I have a soft spot for cartoonish villainy. Like Jack Spicer, or Insanenoodlyguy.

Intelligent, enjoys being evil. Can have a tragic backstory but doesn't let it define them.

A slashy one. The Master from DW comes to mind.

One which is redeemable evil and which the main character falls in love with...

Original ones. Honestly, for some reason it is so much harder to find a villain that isn't just a walking trope than it is to find a good hero. Freudian villains in particular make me think ill of any modern writer who uses them.

Favourites? El Supremo from the Hornblower series would be one (mostly because he's genuinely and obviously mentally ill and this motif is explored in depth, as well as the issue of whether he's really guilty); then there's Moriarty (arguably the first of a kind, hence very non-tropey); Mr Rucastle; Thomas Neill Cream (his reliance on the major historio-psychological conflicts of the Victorian era - very smart!); Lt. Daniel Blaney (one of the finest grey-area antagonists I've seen); Heather Grace; the protagonist of The Collector by J. Fowles, F. Clegg; Capt. Anson from Arthur&George (although that's kinda RPF). Pretty much all the antagonists of Catch-22, but notably, Aardvark. Ugh.

I tend to like villains that really, truly believe they're making the world a better place.

I love trickster villains... but then again, I really love asshole tricksters who are way less chaotic evil and more chaotic good than they're like to admit, so maybe that doesn't count.

As for pure villains, I love the ones who are gleefully malicious. They know they're bad, they know they're evil, and they couldn't be happier. I love it when I'm nasty!

Edited 2014-11-17 00:32 (UTC)

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