FireBug3 Posted December 15, 2011 Share Posted December 15, 2011 If he got a good reason to be a villian, you know, like Excel from Excel Saga. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nivea Posted December 15, 2011 Share Posted December 15, 2011 I personally like Villains who are not clearly well...a Villain. Nothing is Black or White, and a good Villain to me shouldn't be either. Just being evil does not make them a good Villain it just makes them a cliche. XD "The streets of hell are paved with good intentions." I enjoy Villains who do something for what they believe is a greater "good", now that doesn't mean its good for everyone but its something they believed in. I just like Villains who do not start out as a bad guy, but evolve into one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Writhes Posted December 15, 2011 Share Posted December 15, 2011 In my opinion a good villain is someone that can scare you or just scares you in general. By scary I don't mean just physically, but personality and intelligence too. If your villain has the wit to trap you, confuse you, or just plain think 20 moves ahead of you on a chess board then that leaves you with a feeling of hopelessness or that maybe there is no way to escape something or someone that smart. A villain doesn't always have to look evil and that's too simple. In my opinion what makes a villain evil is their mind and their personality should reflect that. Just because you are evil doesn't mean your gonna stand in front of a mirror for 3 hours and try to find a evil outfit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darksun45230 Posted December 15, 2011 Share Posted December 15, 2011 I enjoy Villains who do something for what they believe is a greater "good", now that doesn't mean its good for everyone but its something they believed in. I just like Villains who do not start out as a bad guy, but evolve into one.While this is good advice, it can also be difficult to pull off. One can easily fall back on cliches to fill in the gaps when critical thinking is neglected (see Plinkett Reviews of Star Trek: The Next Generation movies). If you're looking for a more concrete answer, browse TVTropes: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CompleteMonster And while it is possible to have complete monsters in fiction, they're hard as hell to pull off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Writhes Posted December 15, 2011 Share Posted December 15, 2011 I personally like Villains who are not clearly well...a Villain. Nothing is Black or White, and a good Villain to me shouldn't be either. Just being evil does not make them a good Villain it just makes them a cliche. XD "The streets of hell are paved with good intentions." I enjoy Villains who do something for what they believe is a greater "good", now that doesn't mean its good for everyone but its something they believed in. I just like Villains who do not start out as a bad guy, but evolve into one. I don't really want to get into a debate about good and evil or anything, but if you are to think from a more open perspective where things are not as black and white then using the words good and evil/bad should become less valid because these words never have static meaning and change depending on who you are talking to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ambyur Posted December 15, 2011 Share Posted December 15, 2011 (edited) Bethesda is terrible at making villains. Whatever you do, don't follow their example. i totally disagree. Bethesda's villains in my view tend to be some of the best i've run into. Evil after all is a matter of perception; The forsworn king (forgot his name) is a villan right? in my eyes hes really just freedom fighter, i guess how you feel about him is based on how you feel about eradicating an oppressive group of people. i for one feel a revolution is not a tea party. The daedric lords would be villans to devine worshipers, to dadric worshipers they arent. and ffs they are hands down the most entertaining npcs in game... Ulfric Stormcloak depending on how you play the game is either a good guy or a bad guy, you can love him or hate him or both... generally i feel even if i might be a storm cloak he still is a massive racist dickweed and i hate him. like thomas Aquinas illustrated, (paraphrasing btw) that bad is like darkness... good is like light. evil is an absence of good, darkness is an absence of light. unfortunately... thomas aquinas never really establishes what is objectively good. So that definition of good is for all intents and purposes up to interpretation as to where something falls between light and dark, good and evil. I feel the the bethesda writers tend to have fairly sophisticated plots involving empathetic villans, and anti-heros extremely entertaining ones at that. (lul reference to 12th century saint in a video game forum.... Im srrs about my villainy yo) to the op: the best villains play on the ambiguity of right and wrong. the most entertaining villains have a certain clever quirk about them that endears themselves to the player/viewer. an obsession, a mannerism, certain cleverness etc. Though i figure you just wanted to know what they should look like... in that case: curly mustache and henchmen /thread Edited December 15, 2011 by Ambyur Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galacticat42 Posted December 15, 2011 Share Posted December 15, 2011 What makes a good villain... That has no real answer. It really depends on what kind of villain you're trying to make. You have warmongers hungry for power (Like Ulfric), there's divinists trying to cleanse the world of evil (Like Dagon and the Mythic Dawn or General Tullius or even Alduin) and of course there's the insane, abused antagonist that just wants to see things burn to get even (The Joker, Sheogorath). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darksun45230 Posted December 15, 2011 Share Posted December 15, 2011 (edited) I feel the the bethesda writers tend to have fairly sophisticated plots involving empathetic villans, and anti-heros extremely entertaining ones at that. You gotta admit, Ancano's lust for power wasn't exactly a boon of imaginative writing. Edited December 15, 2011 by Darksun45230 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
severian1981 Posted December 15, 2011 Share Posted December 15, 2011 I've always found the villains whom were to all appearances perfectly normal people... until you discover they have unfathomable beliefs. For example... something like: A friendly NPC whom travels the world giving gifts of food to poorer folk, gathers children around him when in towns and tells storys... and then you discover that he has been plotting to rid Skyrim of the poor as they a cancer on 'civilised society'...quite often the food is poisoned. He doesnt kill children though, as there is 'still hope' for them, as long as he can rid them of their poor parents. That is kinda creepy. Throw in the odd bit of cannibalism as well :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darksun45230 Posted December 15, 2011 Share Posted December 15, 2011 (edited) ^ That's very nice. I always imagined this one NPC being the head of loyal order of knights honor-bound to eradicate unnatural beings like Vampires and Werewolves for the public good. He also works with local towns and villages too small to protect themselves from bandit raids. He often puts his own life at risk despite having a loving wife at home and many loyal followers. As a result, he's practically a champion for the people. ...And then you discover he's a self-hating Vampire. He uses his wife as cattle to feed his lust for blood but sometimes that isn't enough to sate him. When those times come he stalks a random villager, hypnotizes them, sucks their blood, then kills them in order to prevent the spread of his disease. He hates himself for doing this and it will eventually come back to haunt him as acolytes of his order begin to hunt for the rogue Vampire... Edited December 15, 2011 by Darksun45230 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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