Current Events > do villains even need complex motivations?

(+) Yeah! (+)

some twisted mfs just like to kill people for fun, just like irl

I don't think it's necessary, no.

My biggest issue with the Runaways adaptation is that it took the Pride, a group of supervillains who ritualistically sacrifice homeless people on an annual basis - and turned them into sympathetic villains who were doing it for the sake of clean energy or some shit.

No, some of the best are like Jack Horner from Puss in Boots 2.

Sometimes. And sometimes it's nice to just have a moustache twirling bad guy who'd blow up a bus full of nuns and orphans for the hell of it.

toadfan64 posted...

No, some of the best are like Jack Horner from Puss in Boots 2.

"You're not going to shoot a puppy, are ya. Jack?"
"Yeah, in the face. Why?"

If they're going to be a good character? Absolutely.

that's why I like Alex DeLarge - he's just a demented youth, with no reason to it other than he's having fun (and being drugged out).

Lil Ze from City of God is another great villain, who's a piece of shit mainly because he idolized the gangsters around him.

edit: also, Anton Chigurh & Judge Holden from Cormac McCarthy's works

And on the other hand, if you try to make your established villain "complex" or god forbid sympathetic (barf) like the garbage maleficent movie or the admittedly hilarious cruella movie, you take something away from the character.

nope they just need to look cool

A good villain doesn't need to be complex and making them too complex can backfire. They do have to be entertaining at least, if they're just evil for the sake of it. Just like a hero who is heroic just because isn't very exciting on its own either.

Depends on the villain's role in the story. Like the government in Battle Royale was fine by just being an evil government, but Kazuo (in the book) was an incredibly boring villain where I wanted him to die because he was boring to read because he had no motivation.

I kind of liked Kazuo just because he was amoral, and could have easily been more heroic, but determined all of his major decisions based on a coin flip.

it made him seem more like a force of nature/fate.

It depends on the story/characters. Not having a complex story isnt always bad. Having a complex story is only good if the writing is good

A villain. Can be simple or complex. Deep or shallow. Sympathetic or not.

The only thing your villain must never be is boring.

As a necessity: no.

Are they nice to break from the evil because types: yes.

Whatever works.

Just don't bore me.

They don't need them, but they can have them. Depends on whatever the sotry requires

the most beloved villain of all time, da jokah, has but one motivation: kill other people

my boy luca blight says no

Naysaspace posted...

the most beloved villain of all time, da jokah, has but one motivation: kill other people

And even then he still has a little more complexity than a truly generic doomsday villain because of his dichotomy with Batman.

But most importantly hes entertaining.

BoyOfBattle posted...

my boy luca blight says no

I was so disappointed that they basically only alluded to his reasons in Suikoden 2, the expanded media makes him really... not sympathetic, but you can see his cause as one of a rampage of revenge and it's not really a surprise.

For those who didn't know;

Basically, when he was a child, the City State and Highland (his country) agree to peace after a long war that Highland basically came out the better for. The mayor of one of the City-States hires bandits that ambushes his carriage with mum and dad in it. The guards are killed, and daddy runs off (to get help). The bandits then proceed to gang rape his mum, whilst forcing him to watch. Eventually they get rescued, mum is pregnant and dies in childbirth. His rape-product sister grows up to be the spitting image of his mother, and she's always kind to him, which infuriates him because he hates what she is and has a constant reminder of who she looks like (yet he still bends the ear to her at times).

Hence, he's so consumed with bloodlust vs the City-State, detests his father, hates anything he views as cowardly (i.e. fucking everyone), and became that strong and maniacal so he could stand on his own two feet, and destroy the world of all who basically wronged him. And in a way it worked, he needed to be ambushed, shot with hundreds of arrows and he was still fucking going. He was a psycho, and he knew it and he never hid from that, he never begged for sympathy, he never brought up his past or anything, he just sat on that trauma and hatred and let it fester vs his father and the City-state. He's still human though, he shows surprising admiration and restraint to those with ambition and 'big cojones' and seems to have some empathy to those who suffered betrayal etc, but he just cannot comprehend why you wouldn't invest in the sweet joy of revenge and wanton slaughter, he's just fucked in the head in a lot of ways.

Not all of that is in the game though, you get some allusions to it, and you get the carriage being ambushed as backstory but they don't really get into the details.

Still, an iconic character, his whole 'die pig' routine is brilliant, his brute force is phenomenal and he is easily one of the best boss fights ever ~ you need a literal fucking army of ambushes and you still barely take him down and he goes out laughing his head off.

cousinvini posted...

do villains even need complex motivations?
some twisted mfs just like to kill people for fun, just like irl

No, but more complex motivations are more interesting. However, people that kill for more basic reasons usually have underlying reasons for how they got that way. Even if their motivation is as basic as just doing it to do it, there's a psychological backstory behind it. See Jeffrey Dahmer, for example.

No.

As for gaming, I think people confused Sephiroth being controlled by Jenova as him being deep, and then every game tried to use that as a template for many years. Sephiroth was simple, but there were literal layers to him since he wasnt even himself.