Why can't we just have evil villains?

[DevilEyes]

Villain and antagonist are two different things. A villain can be a protagonist - villain-protagonist:

I'm familiar with the term. Never liked it. I prefer antihero most times.

That's not the same thing. I think of an anti-hero as a protagonist who doesn't have "heroic" qualities; say, Falstaff or the main characters of Midnight Cowboy or Mad Men (although I know that some, like Wikipedia, include villain-protagonists in the lists of "anti-heroes"). While a villain-protagonist is a protagonist who has qualities usually associated with a villain; say, Richard III or Macbeth.

What you have to be careful with is making the leap from sympathy to justification. Understanding why someone did a bad thing isn't the same as condoning it or believing it to be right.

You caught on faster than me, let's put it that way. I still take awhile to separate those concepts.

We're lucky that you're not a criminal profiler. (Or at least I hope you're not? )

 

[Kegg]

Villain and antagonist are two different things. A villain can be a protagonist - villain-protagonist:

I'm familiar with the term. Never liked it. I prefer antihero most times.

That's not the same thing. I think of an anti-hero as a protagonist who doesn't have "heroic" qualities; say, Falstaff

Falstaff is absolutely not an antihero. Not by any definition I'm even remotely familiar with, and I've batted this totally pointless battle about at times.

The anti bit is key here. If I may coin a pointless neologism (yay!) Falstaff is more of an ahero... right, that's a terrible word, but the point is he's neither hero nor antihero. He's the protagonist. A protagonist need not be either of those two things.

However, a protagonist whose ethical agenda is antithetical to that of a good hero? That's an antihero. Besides, this definition of yours does assume there's an inherent relationship between protagonist and hero, no? If villains can be protagonists, can we have antihero antagonists?

 

[DevilEyes]

I'm familiar with the term. Never liked it. I prefer antihero most times.

That's not the same thing. I think of an anti-hero as a protagonist who doesn't have "heroic" qualities; say, Falstaff

Falstaff is absolutely not an antihero. Not by any definition I'm even remotely familiar with, and I've batted this totally pointless battle about at times.

The anti bit is key here. If I may coin a pointless neologism (yay!) Falstaff is more of an ahero... right, that's a terrible word, but the point is he's neither hero nor antihero. He's the protagonist. A protagonist need not be either of those two things.

However, a protagonist whose ethical agenda is antithetical to that of a good hero? That's an antihero. Besides, this definition of yours does assume there's an inherent relationship between protagonist and hero, no? If villains can be protagonists, can we have antihero antagonists?

No, since we don't have "anti-villain protagonists". What you mean is, can we have hero antagonists? Yes, in fact, we do. What else are the antagonists in Henry, Earl of Richmond in Richard III or Malcolm, Macduff and the Siwards in Macbeth?

There are characters who can be described as "anti-heroes" but who aren't the villains of the piece. There are many fictional works without a villain or a hero. Mad Men is a show that people these days like to mention as an example of a show where main characters are mostly assholes, but would you call any of them a villain? Is there a Good vs Evil battle going on? Nope. The show just seems to say: that's what people were like, and that's it.

While on the other hand, in works like the two plays mentioned above, the plot seems like the classic Good vs Evil tale, and the whole purpose of the ending is to see the villain fall - only it's the villains, not the heroes, who are the main characters of the play. Macbeth and Richard III are undoubtedly villains in the classic sense of the word, but they are also protagonists.

 

[Kegg]

No, since we don't have "anti-villain protagonists".

If we can have villain protagonists it follows that we can have anti-villain protagonists. I'm not sure what that is, but it makes conceptual sense since what a villain is is apparently not limited to the antagonist role.

What you mean is, can we have hero antagonists? Yes, in fact, we do. What else are the antagonists in Henry, Earl of Richmond in Richard III or Malcolm, Macduff and the Siwards in Macbeth?

Antivillains. Haven't we been here?

Besides, some of the examples of antihero I've cited - Dexter, say - occasionally operate on the grey and even darker grey morality scale. Many antiheroes, typically the ones which we want to sympathise with more than Macbeth, go up against people who are even nastier than they are - sure, Dexter's a serial killer, but the Ice Truck Killer is even worse!

My roundabout point is: Does a 'villain protagonist' need a hero antagonist for them to be a villain protagonist?

There are many fictional works without a villain or a hero.

This is true. While I may appear didactic, it's a matter of category distinctions, not an insistence that all stories work to fit these labels. However, if the labels don't apply, then they don't apply.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

But Dex is the 'good guy', working under Harry's Code. Evil turned to a more worthy purpose (for a given value of 'more worthy').

The function of the Code is to keep Dexter from getting caught (and pretty transparently, to allow the audience to like him - but that's the writers' manipulation and Dex doesn't know anything about that ). He's still essentially a guy who kills because he likes to kill, no more savory the OP's Romulan who blows up planets because he likes to blow up planets.

So Dexter is an example of how to take a no-excuses "evil" character and make him sympathetic enough that the audience will root for him. Tough to do but not impossible.

Not sure if this is related to the topic, but after seeing Avatar, I want to see sci-fi again where the humans are noble and heroic and the aliens they fight are twisted and pure evil.

Watch V when it comes back in the spring...it's Avatar in reverse!

sure, Dexter's a serial killer, but the Ice Truck Killer is even worse!

Ah...but is he? Only because Dexter's way of staying alive just coincidentally makes the audience like him better. Take away the Code, and he'd be doing exactly what his late, lamented brother did. But Dexter isn't following the Code to make us like him - he doesn't know we exist and that we're watching his every move (man that would freak him out! ) That's just the trick the writers use to turn their villain "good."

 

[Aragorn]

If you want one-dimensional evil villains, watching National Treasure: Book of Secrets might change your mind. Ed Harris's character doesn't even have motivation to be bad!

 

[DevilEyes]

No, since we don't have "anti-villain protagonists".

If we can have villain protagonists it follows that we can have anti-villain protagonists. I'm not sure what that is, but it makes conceptual sense since what a villain is is apparently not limited to the antagonist role.

We do have them. But most people call them heroes.

What you mean is, can we have hero antagonists? Yes, in fact, we do. What else are the antagonists in Henry, Earl of Richmond in Richard III or Malcolm, Macduff and the Siwards in Macbeth?

Antivillains. Haven't we been here?

Hmmm.... no, I don't think so. "Anti-villain" is the term that people like to associate with characters like Javert from Les Miserables and a bunch of other misguided or morally ambiguous characters, and Television Tropes and Idioms define it as "a villain with heroic goals, personality traits, and even virtues". Some of those characters (though not all), like the above mentioned Javert, are antagonists of very sympathetic and heroic main characters. While a character like Henry, Duke of Richmond is not any kind of villain at all, and is presented as your straight-up hero who is taking down a villain. I'd use "hero(ic) antagonist" to avoid the confusion.

Jon Kavanaugh from The Shield is a more complicated case, since he starts off as a good guy antagonist, who has a good goal, to bring down a very corrupt, criminal cop, but he gets to obsessed with it and so frustrated that he starts doing illegal and unethical things himself, starting to become more like Vic himself.

(Sometimes an antagonist becoming bad doesn't make the protagonist look better - quite the opposite. To whoever thinks that we were "supposed" to see Vic as some kind of good guy: Kavanaugh's fall did not vindicate Vic in any way - in fact, it was the opposite, at least to me: when the disgraced Kavanaugh says that Vic is, basically, contaminating and everyone and everything around him, it sounded painfully true, even more so when you see - in Kavanaugh himself - another example of corruption spreading even to those trying to stop it. )

 

[Kegg]

We do have them. But most people call them heroes.

There's no room for the terms antihero and antivillain, then. It's binary: Hero protagonists, villain protagonists, villain antagonists, hero antagonists. If we have villain antagonists and villain protagonists, and also anti-villain antagonists, then the inability of anti-villains to be protagonists... it's just conceptually messy, and points to what I've been trying to say the whole time, which is that villains are implicitly connected to the antagonist idea.

Hmmm.... no, I don't think so. "Anti-villain" is the term that people like to associate with characters like Javert from Les Miserables and a bunch of other misguided or morally ambiguous characters,

Javert is more of a regular villain than he'd ever be an anti-villain. An anti-villain would be a heroic character or antihero (as generally used) would not make a lot of sense.

(Sometimes an antagonist becoming bad doesn't make the protagonist look better - quite the opposite.

Quite. It can be a way of just forcing the issue as regards whatever moral ambiguity existed in the work.

 

[Zachary Smith]

I don't WANT a one-dimensional evil-for-the-sake-of-being-evil villain. That's boring and poor story-telling.

One of my all time FAVORITE "villians" is the character of Dr. Zaius in the original "Planet of the Apes". Throughout the film he persecutes, harasses and finally threatens to destroy mind and personality of the "hero", Taylor. If, however, you look at the film FROM Zaius' perspective, HE, not Taylor IS the hero. In the end, everything he fears about Taylor proves to be true, everything he reveals to Taylor about the nature of Man and his role in events is true. Zaius is ABSOLUTELY right to fear Taylor and he is JUSTIFIED in trying to protect his culture and society FROM Taylor. In this situation, the motives and actions of both protagonist AND antagonist are pure and reasonable. It is the CIRCUMSTANCES, as irreconcilable as they might be, that put the characters at odds with one another. The film is a brilliant study in the yin/yang dynamic of hero/villain relationships and, despite the extreme premise, well reflects the ambiguity of real life.

 

[Small White Car]

Careful. Too much explanation and you risk justification.

BS. I can tell you why the Sept. 11th terrorists did what they did.
You think that justifies it? Please. You're pretty twisted if that's how you actually think.

 

[Australis]

But Dex is the 'good guy', working under Harry's Code. Evil turned to a more worthy purpose (for a given value of 'more worthy').

The function of the Code is to keep Dexter from getting caught (and pretty transparently, to allow the audience to like him - but that's the writers' manipulation and Dex doesn't know anything about that ). He's still essentially a guy who kills because he likes to kill, no more savory the OP's Romulan who blows up planets because he likes to blow up planets.

So Dexter is an example of how to take a no-excuses "evil" character and make him sympathetic enough that the audience will root for him. Tough to do but not impossible.

Which is why I said 'good guy'

It's a dodgy area to get into. Dex sees the people he kills as beneath him, and he would not (intentionally) harm anyone outside the Code, even respects them to a point.

Circling back to my earlier point about a villian winning all the way to the end. What would it look like? Imagine the Master from Doctor Who taking over a space empire far fromthe Doctor's reach. Or Gollum capturing the Ring and Sauron gaining victory over the Fellowship and Middle Earth.

What would happen next?

This is the crux of the matter as to whether the villain is well created or not. Does he then just destroy what he has taken because that is all he can do, or does he in effect become the good guy, by providing stable government, justice, and in effect care for his peasants? What the hell is the point of destroying something it has taken years to acquire?

A really interesting example of this is Lord Havelock Vetinari, Tyrant of Ankh-Morpork. In Ankh-Morpork, it's one man, one vote - Vetinari is the man, he has the vote. He has spies, he manipulates people, he is against unnecessary cruelty but is right alongside the idea on necessary cruelty... and the city works. And because the city now works so very well, no one wants to get rid of him. He is too good to replace!

He isn't a character I'd want to cross: two great moments from him.

In the books, he often says to people petitioning him, by way of dismissal, "Don't let me detain you."

And in the TV version of 'The Colour of Magic', as played by Jeremy Irons, he says to the main character, "What are we going to do with you, you little scamp?' It's all in the delivery, it cracks me up a lot every time.

ETA: found a clip!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwOowHV88wQ

Actually, now I think about it, that would be my suggestion to the OP and Mr Laser Beam - read the relevant Discworld books where Vetinari has a role, and you see a villain who has gone so far... he's become the good guy. And he really is.

 

[Kegg]

This is the crux of the matter as to whether the villain is well created or not. Does he then just destroy what he has taken because that is all he can do, or does he in effect become the good guy, by providing stable government, justice, and in effect care for his peasants? What the hell is the point of destroying something it has taken years to acquire?

Or they could rule it, but do it with a sadistic iron fist. A brutal, totalitarian regime - that's likely what Sauron's rule over Middle-Earth would entail, for example, I'm betting only Orcs would get a better lot in life (and then not by much)... and perhaps the kingdoms of Harad and Rhun, I don't know if he'd eventually turn on the Southrons or just leave them be as allies.

Of course, the micromanaging and invasive empire is as old a cliche as the moustache-twirling villain.

 

[barnaclelapse]

^ That reminds me, I'd like to see a "Blood Will Tell"* - style retelling of Firefly. This time, from the POV of the Alliance.

* for those not in the know, Blood Will Tell is a series of Trek comics presenting classic TOS episodes involving Klingons, but this time told from the POV *of* the Klingons. You'd be surprised as to how different they seem.

That could be interesting and certainly provide that added perspective.

It seems to me Eastwood did something along those lines with Flags of Our Fathers/Letters from Iwo Jima.

 

[DevilEyes]

Careful. Too much explanation and you risk justification.

BS. I can tell you why the Sept. 11th terrorists did what they did.
You think that justifies it? Please. You're pretty twisted if that's how you actually think.

QFT. I love it that you formulated it in such a simple way.

Honestly, I can't figure out why there are so many people who keep confusing "explanation" with "justification". The distinction is very simple and easy to make.

 

[Awesome Possum]

So Dr. Evil would be your cup of tea?

Sometimes, yes.

I suppose it's a good thing for a villain to be complex, but at the very least, the things that the villain does should still be obviously bad. They should not be sympathetic - it should be clear that the villain is doing the wrong things and deserves to be brought to justice because of it. They should still be criminal.

A villain can do bad things and still be sympathetic. I think you have to trust your audience. What you have to be careful with is making the leap from sympathy to justification. Understanding why someone did a bad thing isn't the same as condoning it or believing it to be right.

Nevertheless, some of the best stories don't make it clear exactly who is right or wrong--and sometimes nobody is right. Those are the ones you're supposed to come away thinking about.

I'm reminded of the Batman TAS version of Mr. Freeze. Even Batman sympathized with him.


Also Faith on Buffy. She came from a broken home, pretty much left by everyone she trusted, became the Slayer, her watcher gets killed, goes to Sunnydale where she is pretty much dropped by Buffy and the Scoobies, and joins forces with the Mayor. The Mayor was probably the only character who even show real concern for her at that point, even having a father/daughter relationship with her.

 

[Myasishchev]

If Nero is a complex villain, I weep for complexity. He's an excellant example of how not to do a villain: an ahistorical, one-dimensional embodiment of stereotypical rage and pointless violence.

Ahistorical? The Nero of Trek 11 wasn't an accurate depiction of the real Nero that came back to the 23d century? Well, honestly, I could buy that...

To me, it's a question of verisimilitude. Real people have motives for what they want, goals they wish to achieve--however twisted their objectives or methods--and nobody thinks of themselves as evil unless they have serious disorders. I think a villain with purpose is better than an empty cipher merely there to define the hero by opposition, or a cheap way by which to impel to plot.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

But true. About the only villain this works for is the Joker, and not every villain--virtually no other villain--should be the Joker. (Even other villains don't like the Joker.)

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Careful. Too much explanation and you risk justification.

BS. I can tell you why the Sept. 11th terrorists did what they did.
You think that justifies it? Please. You're pretty twisted if that's how you actually think.

QFT. I love it that you formulated it in such a simple way.

Honestly, I can't figure out why there are so many people who keep confusing "explanation" with "justification". The distinction is very simple and easy to make.

Ironically, Mr. Laser Beam's statement is very similar to things said by the Bush administration (and those supporting them) after 9/11. "It doesn't matter why they attacked us! They must die!"

This completely ignored the fact that you can't fight terrorism without addressing the circumstances that cause it. Sure, you can just kill terrorists and not care at all about their motivation, but you will make absolutely no headway combating terrorism itself.

Likewise, understanding the motivation of the villain is usually crucial to my enjoyment of a story. I want to know why he does what he does, just as much as I want to know why the hero does what he does. Even if it's not something I can relate to, being able to piece it together helps complete the story for me.

That said, the portrayal must bear out the motivation. Nero had a simple and powerful motive--vengeance for the loss of his wife, his planet, and his people--but as a character he was left woefully underdeveloped. He just came off as an erratic nutcase.

As much as Avatar is getting flak for its story right now, the characters in it have quite clear motives that I could understand, and the characters behaved in accordance with those motives. I understood why Stephen Lang's character was a genocidal psycho, given what the planet had done to him, but that doesn't mean I found his actions acceptable or praiseworthy.

 

[FluffyUnbound]

The problem with attempting to use "simple" villains to present unambiguous moral situations is that if your villain is TOO simple, it doesn't work.

Take a very, very simple hero/villain antagonism as an example: He-Man and Skeletor. Skeletor is presented as straightforwardly evil and without complex motivation. But the problem is that because of this, when you get right down to it, you have to ask yourself: What does Skeletor do that's so bad? He wants to be in charge. Well, He-Man's dad is already in charge, and He-Man is the heir to the throne, so forgive me if I don't really see why I should root for the existing autocratic order instead of the character who wants to replace the existing autocratic order.

You see? The deliberate absence of content in their conflict ends up making the hero and villain the same.

Frankly, you could say the same thing about the original 1977 Star Wars. Before Lucas decided to try to "correct his mistake" by having elected Queens and such in the prequels, it's clear that he is employing traditional archetypes of royalty in the original, and Princess Leia is part of a ruling class that rules by birth. So we're basically faced with an imperial conflict between an emperor who rules by power and a princess who rules, or who will rule, by birth. So we should root for the princess who's rebelling because...why, exactly? Why should I rather be ruled by a princess than an emperor? Why are the rebels morally superior to the Empire? Because Vader chokes his own men? Because he wears black? What is the political program of the rebels? Anyone know? I don't.

 

[FluffyUnbound]

It's real easy to be the good guy when your dad is already king.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Also Faith on Buffy. She came from a broken home, pretty much left by everyone she trusted, became the Slayer, her watcher gets killed, goes to Sunnydale where she is pretty much dropped by Buffy and the Scoobies, and joins forces with the Mayor. The Mayor was probably the only character who even show real concern for her at that point, even having a father/daughter relationship with her.

And eventually returned to fight at Angel's side.

A friend remarked that if Firefly had continued and the Operative had appeared in it, two seasons beyond the events of Serenity he'd have been a member of the crew.