Why can't we just have evil villains?

[Lindley]

His methods included cruelty and torture, but from his point of view it was all in service of a greater good.

Again I ask, WHO CARES? Some things are indisputably, objectively evil. Some points of view are simply, obviously wrong.

I'm not saying otherwise.

I'm merely saying that a character whose sole motivation is "I must be EVIL to move the story forward!" is boring. Give him something to care about, something to drive him, even if it's obvious his perceptions and conclusions based on that are twisted.

Nero got a revenge motivation. Simple, fairly prosaic, really, but it was something. He's not as flat a villain as some I've seen, but there's just not a lot to say about him.

 

[RoJoHen]

I also think it's very difficult to pull of an evil villain without motivation without making it seem like a parody.

 

[Canadave]

I also think it's very difficult to pull of an evil villain without motivation without making it seem like a parody.

Exactly, you run the risk of delving into sheer mustache-twirling. That's dull and\or unintentionally funny.

A good villain needs motivation, simple as that. Even the Emperor, oft-cited so far, had one, albeit a simplistic one: the desire to have and maintain power. My favourite villains do tend to be the ones who do what they do for a reason. A villain that's simply evil for evil's sake is just a sign of poor writing, IMO.

 

[Trent Roman]

So for example, would you consider Nero to be justified in destroying Vulcan just because Romulus was destroyed?

No, but that has nothing to do with internal motivations; it's rather a consequence that he, and the rest of the film's plot, read like they were written by a 12-year-old boy after a soda binge. Not much thought went into why Nero did the things he did beyond the old Khan stand-by of 'you killed my wife'. (That said, of course, it isn't necessary that a villain have good reasoning; but it tends to be better if they do.)

I said logical, note, not right, they're very different things

Explain.

As a demonstration of what Lindley, there's the classic Swiftian example: a country has overpopulation and starvation. Solution? Feed the surplus population to the rest, and get rid of both problems at once. Logical. Also vastly unethical, from most perspectives. Logic is not a value system, it's a method.

I also think it's very difficult to pull of an evil villain without motivation without making it seem like a parody.

Exactly, you run the risk of delving into sheer mustache-twirling. That's dull and\or unintentionally funny.

Also an excellant point. Frankly, I find the very concept of 'evil' asinine and overly dependant on metaphysics; it's hard to take these Snidely Whiplashes and Mings the Merciless seriously. If a villain has to be balls-out something, I'd prefer it be amoral--like the Borg. Ethics just doesn't enter into it.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I find the very concept of 'evil' asinine and overly dependant on metaphysics

I think there have been quite enough examples in the real world alone that would tend to prove the existence of true, absolute evil.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I find the very concept of 'evil' asinine and overly dependant on metaphysics

I think there have been quite enough examples in the real world alone that would tend to prove the existence of true, absolute evil.

Even so, the worst people in our history weren't evil for the sake of evil. They always had reasons for what they did, and didn't think of themselves as villains. That doesn't make them any less wrong, but it's simply unrealistic and uninteresting to have a villain who is evil without any reason for being so.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Ah, but Trent here was trying to argue that there wasn't even such a THING as evil. I still do have a problem with that. Don't you?

 

[Goji]

"Evil" isn't a "thing", in this context, it's an adjective. It describes things. And some of us feel that, in the realm of fiction specifically, there are more interesting ways to describe things.

 

[Awesome Possum]

I find the very concept of 'evil' asinine and overly dependant on metaphysics

I think there have been quite enough examples in the real world alone that would tend to prove the existence of true, absolute evil.

I would think that most of them think that they are correct in their views, no matter how twisted. No one writes in their diary that they are going to be evil starting next week. All have a reason for the way they are, either lust for power or they feel that they have been wronged in some way. As terrible as he is, Osama bin Laden thinks that he is going good and God is on his side.


As for villains, I've been enjoying some of the more recent versions of Lex Luthor, such as him considering Superman to be a threat to Earth and he is the only one to see it. I think it was Lex Luthor: Man of Steel. It played him as a fairly decent person, even forming a friendship with a janitor who works the late shift while Luthor is still at the office. Luthor even helps send the janitor's son to a nice college. The one time we see Superman is behind a window, his eyes glowing red. I also love the Venture Bros. version of villainy, an organized union where super-scientists and heroes arrange for a rival. Most of them seem to treat it strictly as a job, only the Monarch truly hates his enemy and I don't think he remembers why he arches him. Although I think it was hinted it came from Dr. Venture insulting his poetry in college.

 

[Trent Roman]

As terrible as he is, Osama bin Laden thinks that he is going good and God is on his side.

Indeed, bin Laden and his jihadist crew believe themselves to be engaged in a battle against evil--the United States as a 'Great Satan', disbelievers, infidels, and all that crap.

I won't attempt to speak for anybody else in this thread, Mr. Laser Beam, but as to myself: no, I don't like the idea of 'evil'. It is, at best, ineffectual, because 'evil' is a concept, not a thing, with no substance to evaluate or respond to (how to you treat, cure or prevent some pitchfork-wielding, maniacal-cackling, goat-horned and forked-tail 'evil'? It's an impractical paradigm), and like any concept detached from empirical reality, subject to such slippage depending on perspective as to be useless across any given number of people; at worst, because it displaces blame for all-too-human failings on some sort of monstrous type, excorciated and cast out until we're shocked by the next such manifestation, which prevents us from ever making any progress on that front, and as stated above, nobody is so enthusiastically vicious and bloodthirsty as justified by the intrinsic and irredeemable 'evilness' of their foes.

With fiction, I give a little more leeway, but stories that need to rely on their antagonists being EVIL! don't get much respect from me.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I think there have been quite enough examples in the real world alone that would tend to prove the existence of true, absolute evil.

I would think that most of them think that they are correct in their views

Why do people keep saying this? Of course everyone thinks they are correct. I'm not disputing that. But just because somebody doesn't THINK they're evil doesn't mean they AREN'T evil.

I won't attempt to speak for anybody else in this thread, Mr. Laser Beam, but as to myself: no, I don't like the idea of 'evil'. It is, at best, ineffectual, because 'evil' is a concept, not a thing

Oh, evil is most definitely a thing. Or, to be more precise, an action. What about things like the Holocaust? Stalin's purges? Pol Pot? Or your more garden-variety murders, rapes, assaults, etc. Are you suggesting those are not evil? How could they NOT be? To suggest that something isn't evil is to imply that it's GOOD, and I can't conceive how any rational being could deduce that any of those things are good.

 

[Awesome Possum]

I think there have been quite enough examples in the real world alone that would tend to prove the existence of true, absolute evil.

I would think that most of them think that they are correct in their views

Why do people keep saying this? Of course everyone thinks they are correct. I'm not disputing that. But just because somebody doesn't THINK they're evil doesn't mean they AREN'T evil.

I won't attempt to speak for anybody else in this thread, Mr. Laser Beam, but as to myself: no, I don't like the idea of 'evil'. It is, at best, ineffectual, because 'evil' is a concept, not a thing

Oh, evil is most definitely a thing. Or, to be more precise, an action. What about things like the Holocaust? Stalin's purges? Pol Pot? Or your more garden-variety murders, rapes, assaults, etc. Are you suggesting those are not evil? How could they NOT be? To suggest that something isn't evil is to imply that it's GOOD, and I can't conceive how any rational being could deduce that any of those things are good.

Those events weren't done for the sake of being evil though. They had a reason, even if it is twisted. Evil is a label we attach to things.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ I see. So what would you call all of those things I mentioned? Misunderstood?

Things can have a reason and still be evil. Some sick pervert might like to kill children, for example, and give a reason why they do that, but it doesn't change the fact that it's still evil. (At least I hope we can all agree that killing children is evil. Anyone who doesn't think so is, IMHO, clearly deranged. )

 

[Kelthaz]

I think there have been quite enough examples in the real world alone that would tend to prove the existence of true, absolute evil.

I would think that most of them think that they are correct in their views

Why do people keep saying this? Of course everyone thinks they are correct. I'm not disputing that. But just because somebody doesn't THINK they're evil doesn't mean they AREN'T evil.

Well who is right than? Osama believes you're evil and you believe he's evil. Which opinion is right? Are you the evil one or is he? Are you both evil? Are you both good? Who makes the final judgment call on evilness?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Osama believes you're evil and you believe he's evil. Which opinion is right? Are you the evil one or is he? Are you both evil? Are you both good? Who makes the final judgment call on evilness?

I haven't planned and carried out terrorist attacks against innocent people, so I think the evil ball is in his court.

There are absolute standards as to what is evil and what is not. Murder, rape, assault, etc. are just a few examples of this.

To say there can't be evil villains is to claim there can't be villains - and there always must be those.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

"Evil villains" aren't just boring, they're silly. They work real well in silly stories.

 

[Awesome Possum]

Osama believes you're evil and you believe he's evil. Which opinion is right? Are you the evil one or is he? Are you both evil? Are you both good? Who makes the final judgment call on evilness?

I haven't planned and carried out terrorist attacks against innocent people, so I think the evil ball is in his court.

There are absolute standards as to what is evil and what is not. Murder, rape, assault, etc. are just a few examples of this.

To say there can't be evil villains is to claim there can't be villains - and there always must be those.

Who is the villain of V For Vendetta then? The elected government or the terrorist who blows up buildings, murders people, and tortured a woman?

 

[Canadave]

Osama believes you're evil and you believe he's evil. Which opinion is right? Are you the evil one or is he? Are you both evil? Are you both good? Who makes the final judgment call on evilness?

I haven't planned and carried out terrorist attacks against innocent people, so I think the evil ball is in his court.

There are absolute standards as to what is evil and what is not. Murder, rape, assault, etc. are just a few examples of this.

To say there can't be evil villains is to claim there can't be villains - and there always must be those.

Who is the villain of V For Vendetta then? The elected government or the terrorist who blows up buildings, murders people, and tortured a woman?

Or, to use the Clerks-esque example, the Rebels in Star Wars: how many innocent construction workers were on the Death Star when they blew up the second one? Does that make the Rebels evil?

 

[Australis]

Actors like complex, and they like villains, because they give them more of a chance to show off their acting chops. Complex villains give them a chance to really show their stuff.

Myself, I'd like to see a villain who wins, all the way to the end.

 

[Too Much Fun]

I agree that a villain doesn't need to have some back story that explains the motivation behind his evilness to be effective, but at the same time, I find it very boring for a villain to simply be mean and destructive for the hell of it. I don't know what he was like in the comics, but this is exactly why I found Darkseid so boring in the Superman and Justice League cartoons.

He just seemed to be this really mean, humourless guy who just hated Superman and destroyed things/killed people just to piss Superman off. Yawn. He never did or said anything interesting. I found Lex Luthor and Gorilla Grodd much more appealing because at least they had ego, sense of humour, ambition, and smugness that made them cool. A villain who is just a sourpuss asshole is blah.