Interested in advertising on Derpibooru? Click here for information!
Help fund the $15 daily operational cost of Derpibooru - support us financially!
Description
I like villains.
It’s often been said that a hero is nothing without a good villain and I agree with that notion. Remember Superman Returns, the biggest amount of time and money dedicated to showing a hero do nothing but brood for 2 hours? That’s what happens without a good villain.
Indeed, in many ways, the villain HAS to be better than the hero, better written, better acted, better conceived. You can get away with a generic hero, but if your villain is boring or played out, the tale starts losing steam fast. So the villain HAS to be quotable, badass, tragic, funny, or memorable. In order for a story to work, we have to - be it natural sympathy or loving to hate - care about and like the villain on some level.
And why do we like the villain? BECAUSE he or she is a villain. Because we love seeing Kyubey trick girls into tragic contracts and getting blown up. Because we love seeing Vegeta stomp the fuck out of Goku and show real bravery in doing so. Because we love watching Bester rip apart a pharmaceutical company with one man and a psychic suggestion. Because we love watching Chrysalis sing about how she has Shining Armor by the balls and will rule Canterlot. This is why we love villains: they give the hero something truly dangerous to oppose, and entertain us all the way.
So when I see the Draco in Leather Pants phenomenon, I shake my head in frustration. It misses the point of the villain completely! We’re not supposed to hug Light Yagami and tell him the mean monster L won’t get him, we’re not supposed to think true love’s kiss will save Hans’s soul. Hell, the only way this does work is if the villain is already sympathetic or earns redemption, and if anything this makes the Draco effect worse! It takes genuine tragedy and endearing struggle and turns it into fucking My Immortal! It kills any possible sympathy we might have had!
So remember, kids, love your villains, redeem your villains, make us sympathize with your villains, but don’t pretend they’re a Linkin Park montage away from being a shounen-ai protagonist.
/rant
It’s often been said that a hero is nothing without a good villain and I agree with that notion. Remember Superman Returns, the biggest amount of time and money dedicated to showing a hero do nothing but brood for 2 hours? That’s what happens without a good villain.
Indeed, in many ways, the villain HAS to be better than the hero, better written, better acted, better conceived. You can get away with a generic hero, but if your villain is boring or played out, the tale starts losing steam fast. So the villain HAS to be quotable, badass, tragic, funny, or memorable. In order for a story to work, we have to - be it natural sympathy or loving to hate - care about and like the villain on some level.
And why do we like the villain? BECAUSE he or she is a villain. Because we love seeing Kyubey trick girls into tragic contracts and getting blown up. Because we love seeing Vegeta stomp the fuck out of Goku and show real bravery in doing so. Because we love watching Bester rip apart a pharmaceutical company with one man and a psychic suggestion. Because we love watching Chrysalis sing about how she has Shining Armor by the balls and will rule Canterlot. This is why we love villains: they give the hero something truly dangerous to oppose, and entertain us all the way.
So when I see the Draco in Leather Pants phenomenon, I shake my head in frustration. It misses the point of the villain completely! We’re not supposed to hug Light Yagami and tell him the mean monster L won’t get him, we’re not supposed to think true love’s kiss will save Hans’s soul. Hell, the only way this does work is if the villain is already sympathetic or earns redemption, and if anything this makes the Draco effect worse! It takes genuine tragedy and endearing struggle and turns it into fucking My Immortal! It kills any possible sympathy we might have had!
So remember, kids, love your villains, redeem your villains, make us sympathize with your villains, but don’t pretend they’re a Linkin Park montage away from being a shounen-ai protagonist.
/rant
Source
not provided yet
Oh, a villain changing is a good thing, and a well written sympathetic villain is wonderful. It’s just there’s this weird habit of making all villains universally broody and emo and really good puppy dogs who just need to listen to an MCR song to become heroes.
Of course, some villains ain’t havin it.
One word: Azula.
That sounds hilarious. I’d read it.
…What? I like having Chrysalis as a sort of wannabe villain who’s just not good at being, well, a villain.
{It’s not like Chrysalis was any good at it, since her plan was kind of….flawed and her ego blew up what success she had.}
Shotsfired
Good call on that virtue thing.
To use Jojo as an example, Part 5 gave us Diavolo, who’s truly wicked with pretty much no redeeming qualites, and we end up with a flat uninteresting villain who’s pretty forgettable. One the other end of the Spectrum we have Funny Valentine from Part 7, who’s clearly the antagonist of the story, yet balances it out with quite a few good virtues, namely the fact that he wants to make the US a true paradise on Earth, even if it means diverting the misery to the rest of the world. And he ends up being one of the series’s most loved villains due to how noble he is.
If its well done why not, ideal example is show in batman the animated series where every villain was evil but because of some form tragedy/personal vendetta but that didn’t make them mary sueish what a lot of ppl do with Chrysalis xD
Understandable.
Couldn’t have said better myself.
Problem I also see here is the fact that “deep character development” and “truly anything” do not compute together. Look at Mane6. They have great development and I have no doubt anyone on this site can name some virtues as well as flaws of each. Are they “truly good”? They sure are nice people, em, ponies but not flawlessly so, which makes them alive.
Now a challenge. Name me a few virtues of Chrysalis from the comics. Damn, difficulty escalated quickly, didn’t it? And here’s the thing. If you want to have depth, you need to have something on both sides of character’s personality, and by doing so, want it or not, you move away from “pure evil and wicked”.
Of course some characters have more virtues that others which makes them closer to being “heroes” while others are in the “villain” area with all their flaws and negativity.
The only believable true evil I can think of are certain types who suffer from a violent form of insanity but this really leaves very little for deep character development.
Better than the extreme, I suppose. But in that case, I’d hope that a good portion of her changelings break away from her and seek peace on their own. Don’t get me wrong, I love Chrysalis, but I love the prospect of changelings and ponies coexisting way more.
I prefer a Chrysalis that actually stands a chance of getting a happy ending in the show. A 100% evil Chrysalis, with or without depth, would go the way of Tirek or Sombra in the show - imprisoned or worse - because she’s certainly not gonna win. I don’t want that.
What about keeping her truly evil, deceptive, and wicked, but also giving her depth while sticking to those aspects? That’s how I tend to perceive her.
YES! I love enemy mine situations!
I don’t really like draco either. I used to dislike it a lot more, but the comics made the enemy of my enemy into my friend.
I have long held that the best way for the show to continue Chrysalis and the changelings’ story would be for them and ponies to initiate some kind of diplomacy, or to have them fight a common enemy together and agree not to be aggressive to each other afterwards. That way there’s no woobie/draco, no depthless psychopathic monster. Nice and neutral with plenty of room for interesting and complex development.
In Chrysalis’ case at least, simply blaming her species works just fine. By nature Changelings are parasites; they feed on the emotions of others, they need to do so to survive. That’s not to say that they’re any more “evil” than fleas or leeches or tapeworms or whatever other parasites, it just naturally is going to put them at odds against vastly different beings like ponies who they depend on and view just as a food source.
So in cases like this, no… a villain character really doesn’t need to be “redeemed” or painted as a sympathetic figure.
Which would be fine if the Draco wasn’t just as depthless for different and much lamer reasons.
Agreed, actually. It’s just that when every villain is Draco Sohma Sasuke Cullen it gets old real fast.
I dunno. Worked pretty well for Ultron.
But on the other hand, you shouldn’t be evil just because with no rhyme or reason.