WatchmenComicMovie.com Forum

I posted the topic here because I also wanted to encompass characters from TV and movies also.

What are your favorite villains ? what makes a villain endearing and fascinating ? do you know any shitty villains you can mention ? why is it so important for a story ? is it necesary ? anything you can talk about, feel free to post here !

I should start with the obvious, not only because eventually someone will mention him, but because he is one of my favorites:



^ That is an excellent villain, at the same time, an example of a shitty villain would be:

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An example of great villains:







An example of shitty villains:

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Good



can't think of any bad ones off the top of my head though
since both vader and Sideous have been listed as good, it could be said that Dooku is crap by comparison.

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We're all actors, Laurie. I'm just an actor who read the script.

These are also some of my favorites, can anyone recognize them ?

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I don't know about that. I have a problem with villains like Darth Vader. To me, a villain is someone you absolutely hate, someone who is threatening at all times, and makes you wish for his comeuppance. I don't feel that way towards Darth Vader. People love him. They dress up as him at comic conventions. There exists a Potato Head version of him. He's without a doubt an iconic villain, but much of that is based on his voice and appearance, witch most people think are cool. There's something too noble, and too cartoony about him to make me think he is an excellent villain.

Here are some good villains:



The Warden from The Shawshank Redemption. He is a prick throughout the movie, eventually becoming a murderous prick.



Nazis are always scumbags, but this guy was a mega scumbag.

Honorary mention



Chris and Snoop from The Wire are a tandem team. You can't have one without the other. While they rarely display the type of hostility most other villains display, it's their willingness to kill anyone, no matter how old or young, no matter how petty the crime, for their boss Marlo, that make them genuinely fearsome villains.

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"Heard them Walthers like to jump some" "As will you, with one in your elbow."

Interesting, we can deffinitely say it's also good criteria when the villain is hateful, personally that is not my prefered measure, I always think that the best villain is the one who serves as the best foil to the direction of the story or to the hero/main character.

And Darth Vader accomplishes that succesfully, sure, he is not as hateful as other villains (mostly because of what happens at the end of the first trilogy) but during the course of the story he is the most powerful being in the galaxy, he points a finger at a planet and it gets destroyed, the greatest things he did were not accomplished because of his talent in the force, but because of his authority, no matter how people twist it around, HE was the galactic empire.

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i thought we were going for good as in iconic etc.

and i would say if you discount ROTJ he is a great villain.

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We're all actors, Laurie. I'm just an actor who read the script.

Here is a bad villain:



The Crimson King from The Dark Tower series. One of the most disappointing villains of the series. He is built up not only throughout the series, but through books like Insomnia and Hearts In Atlantis. When he is finally revealed, he is shown to be a crazy old man screaming "I WILL KILL YOU EEEEEEEEE!". That's not even an exaggeration. What's strange is there are so many other, better villains in the series like Tic Toc, Blaine, Gasher, and mega villain Walter/Martin/Flagg. I really don't see why Flagg wasn't made the main villain, especially when he has appeared in other King books over the years.

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"Heard them Walthers like to jump some" "As will you, with one in your elbow."

Conversely, I've heard over and over that a really good villain is one you can sympathize with.







Your mileage may vary on those first two but on that last one not so much.

Also, WJK's second image of a "bad" example isn't there anymore.

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"The world is a fine place and worth fighting for." I agree with the second part.

"There's a cello in your house now."

It was so terrible I had to replace it with a less shitty picture.

Also, when Nazis come to mind, who should instantly be on this page?

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Wouldn't the real villain be ...



Hey ! Some fans would say he is !

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lol I suppose you could view it that way but the general consensus would be that Light is the villain because he's killing people while L and the police force are trying to prevent death.

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"The world is a fine place and worth fighting for." I agree with the second part.

"There's a cello in your house now."

By the way, I can't believe how we forgot about this one !

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Fixed.

Joking, of course.

Or am I?

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Depends ! If your definition of villain is "evil character" then .................... maybe ?

If your definition is "he who goes against the goals of the protagonist", then no.

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MAG-FUCKING-NETO

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Say, Doc, did I ever tell you I'm the only metal that's liquid at room temperature?

Hearts in Atlantis is a dark tower book? i had no idea, having only seen the movie

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We're all actors, Laurie. I'm just an actor who read the script.

I think the movie cut out the Dark Tower related stuff, since it wouldn't really make sense to anyone not familiar with the series. It's not really a DT book, just one of the many books that is connected to the series. The movie is based on the first part of the book, "Low Men In Yellow Coats". In the book, Ted Brautigan (Anthony Hopkins) is on the run after escaping his world where he works as a breaker. Breakers are people who are responsible for using their powers to try to break down the beams that support the Tower. Every universe is connected to the Tower. By destroying the beams, the Tower would fall, and there would be chaos. When Ted is captured by the Low Men (the men who work for the Crimson King), he makes reference to the Tower and tells them that there is still a gunslinger who might oppose them. He later has a significant role in the final DT book.

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"Heard them Walthers like to jump some" "As will you, with one in your elbow."

so they replaced "breakers" with "psychics hired to fight the cold war" and "low men" with "shady government types"
i might give the DT series a go one of these days, quite a mission though.

(edit: seems like quite a few of king's books have connections to the DT series http://www.stephenking.com/DarkTower/connections.html )

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We're all actors, Laurie. I'm just an actor who read the script.

Lame

They try to pass him off as the opposing ideal to Charles view, even as far as saying that he is the Malcolm X of comics, when he is nothing more than an evil fuck

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