[ SECRET POST #3851 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3851 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.



__________________________________________________



02.


__________________________________________________



03.


__________________________________________________



04.
[Horizon Zero Dawn]


__________________________________________________



05.


__________________________________________________



06.


__________________________________________________



07.


__________________________________________________



08.













Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 08 secrets from Secret Submission Post #551.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

08. https://i.imgur.com/6CbCAJ8.png

[(Anonymous)]

Of course they're all those things. But they're also either hot or woobified.

[(Anonymous)]

But there are people who like Ramsey Bolton! Ramsey 'vicious sadist who looks like a frog' Bolton!

[(Anonymous)]

uh no. Woobified villains tend to have tragic backstories that lead to them being evil. Evil for the sake of evil villains get the "X was right/X did nothing wrong" subset of fans.

[(Anonymous)]

Some people think it's cool.

And petty, selfish, arrogant, obnoxious people like being made to look cool in the minds of many other people, so they think it's cool too.

[(Anonymous)]

Are you insinuating that a not-insignificant number of villain fans are actually petty, selfish, arrogant, obnoxious people who see themselves in the characters?

[(Anonymous)]

Well, in that particular villain's case, he probably gets a lot of sympathy because

a) he's pathetic and entertaining
b) the race officials are legitimately out to get him
c) he's somehow considered the only official cheater in a race with, among other things, a bi-plane, an actual tank, a house-car occasionally powered by a dragon, and Pat Pending's Convert-A-Car, which is a class of cheating all on its own

[greghousesgf]

HB seems a little too fond of "we don't like this guy so you're not supposed to like him either even though the other characters do the same cheating, etc. and get away with it" bit. that and the "cowardice is hilarious" trope.

[(Anonymous)]

Uh. If you like villains, you'll probably like them acting villainly.

[(Anonymous)]

...so you do understand the appeal then.

[(Anonymous)]

as a confirmed villain fucker i have to agree that's the whole fun of them. there is no redemption arc, no redeeming traits and i find that fun. a lot of series are made by a villain being compelling and i've always been drawn to that. (plus i have mean tendencies anyway and i find them cathartic lol!)

[(Anonymous)]

Because they're entertaining? A fictional person does not need to be a good person to be interesting and fun to watch.

Plus if a hero in a series kind of sucks/is boring it tends to make it more fun to watch the villain attempt to take them down.

[philstar22]

Yes, they are all those things. And that's what makes them interesting to me. I don't like them as people. They'd be horrible in real life. But as fictional characters? Fascinating.

[(Anonymous)]

I have a huge soft spot for villains who are villains 100% because they want to be and they love it. Bill Cipher and Jack Spicer both come to mind.

Sometimes in stuff it's fun if not everything's grey, it's nice to enjoy watching Good and Evil duke it out. I don't need a long handwringing explanation on why Sauron and Gandalf are both morally grey characters and Sauron has as much right to rule Middle Earth as anyone else and Frodo and Sam are essentially suicide bombers in a terrorist uprising against Sauron. I just want good to defeat evil.

[nightscale]

And all of that is why I like me some shitbag villains, they're utterly reprehensible but they can be damn fascinating to watch.

[(Anonymous)]

I like them because I'm tired of tragedy being a motivator and just want villains who revel in their self-absorbed pettiness. Shallow character maybe, but at least they look like their having fun half the time with their idgaf attitude and general ridiculousness. (At least in lighter works. Darker stuff is a different animal)

[(Anonymous)]

Not to stir a hornet's nest, but has anyone else noticed a marked drop off in the attractiveness of villains since trump took office? Like, you suddenly aren't attracted to the whole bad boy villain trope? I all of a sudden want captain America to kick Loki's ass instead of fuck it.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm completely with you, OP.

[(Anonymous)]

There's a reason Bowser is the best Mario character.

[(Anonymous)]

I think it depends on the type of villain and how they're framed in the story.

Someone like Ramsay Bolton is utterly reprehensible and disgusting and I can't understand why people even want to think about him let alone like his character. He just makes my skin crawl, I get so uncomfortable that people ship him with anyone (I may be biased because my partner and I were victims of sexual abuse and find no catharsis in reading about that sort of thing. Not kinkshaming or anything, it's just not my thing at all).

But other villains are just plain fun. Like Maleficent. She's so childish and petty that it's legit funny to watch her and the lengths she'll go to get back at someone for the most ridiculous reasons. Plus she turns into a badass dragon!

[unspeakablyevil]

They're petty, selfish and arrogant. But they're also funny.

[cici_nota]

Unrepentant, petty, villainous assholes can be incredibly fun to watch (Kusaka Masato, my god), because they create or help to create dramatic tension in a work of entertainment. Liking or loving a villain as a character to watch doesn't mean one condones said behavior or would want to be anywhere near said character in real life. But yeah, the unrepentant assholes are often super entertaining simply because they cause trouble.

It's not like villains have a monopoly on those traits.

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, people sometimes like them in heroes or protagonists that aren't quite heroes. And, after all, villains are the heroes of their own stories. And if fans see a villain as a three dimensional person, then they are going to come up with reasons for why they do things because everybody has reasons even if they are bad or nonsensical ones. Which is when head canon kicks in - it can be fun to come up with better reasons for villainy. And there's that impulse that a lot of people have to make someone else hurt when they are hurt and I think fiction is an innocuous avenue to see hurt done.

[(Anonymous)]

Many possible reasons?

They could be really witty and charming, or outright hilarious. If a character entertains me, I am likely to be fond of them.

They could be very smart and competent, a truly formidable opponent for the heroes. It could be fun just to watch someone consistently gets shit done.

Or my personal favorite: they are unrepentant because they ascribe strongly to their own principles and code of morality, so they never waver and don't even think they are wrong to begin with. They might be a product of a fucked up system, or they might have arrived at these beliefs on their own, but they are utterly, ruthlessly convinced that they are right. I don't have to agree with them, but I love moral conviction in a character.

[eos_joy]

Agreed. I don't always need to try to sympathize or empathize with villains, but, damn, creators, give them depth, logic, reasoning...something!