Screw Nuance, Give Me A Memorable Villain | Semi-Ramblomatic

Join us on May 30th at 10 AM CT for our six-month celebration livestream event on Second Wind! We'll be announcing new things, revealing first-looks at upcoming things, new merch and more. We'll be looking to raise additional funds for our long-term sustainability, so if you enjoy our work consider joining us on Patreon! www.patreon.com/SecondWindGroup

I feel like Megamind said it best, the difference between a villain and a supervillain is presentation. The best villains are the ones who OWN their shtick.

Be deep, be shallow, be nuanced, be simple, but for god sake, don't be boring. That's writing advice you don't need to go to college for.

Kale from Hi-Fi Rush really deserves additional praise in this regard. The dude's a corporate man child who's never worked a day in his life. His evil plan is to mind control people into buying his products rather than making his products actually good. His dying words are "this is too much work". He's perfect.

Why not compromise: have two villains. One's a morally complicated nuanced figure. Halfway through the game one of your teammates stabs you in the back and becomes the memorable, uncomplicated villain, and then you have to team up with the first villain, and then you and them part ways and agree to stop fucking with each other. yes this is literally just Portal 2

There's a reason people loved Big Jack Horner in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.

Perhaps the issue is more that nuanced villains are now the norm, and so having clear villains feels refreshing? Which is the opposite from how it was 10-15 years ago.

I think it's one of those trends that writers seesaw back and forth between. We get a bunch of cartoony villains until people find them too one-note and then someone writes a more nuanced villain and everyone likes that until every villain has a tragic childhood and a grey morality.

I like villains with nuance when they are presenting me with something new and deeply philosophical. Not the tragic backstory of "Oh my family was killed and I had to do all this villain shit to take control of the world to prevent stuff like that." I mean villains like Kreia from Knights of the Old Republic 2, whose philosophy is totally anathema to anything I've ever seen from Star Wars. Someone who wants to kill the Force on the grounds that it causes intense amounts of suffering and death on the grounds of balance? That's downright unique in Star Wars. Yes, villains who own their villainy and relish being evil are fun, I love them too. Sometimes it's just nice to watch someone be evil because that's what makes them happy.

5:55 this immediately made me think of a GabeN quote: "I have never thought to myself that realism is fun. I go play games to have fun."

I absolutely love how Hi-Fi Rush’s villain Kale Vandelay’s whole plan, with mind control programs in the robotic implants that Vandelay produces, came about not because of any world-conquering ambitions but because he doesn’t want to waste money and energy on a marketing department

Ganondorf from Wind Waker gets the sweet spot. He is unapologetic evil, serial kidnapper, terrorizes the sea, explode islands to achieve his goals. Yet still sympathetic in its final moments, with the whole wind speech, delivering the Nuance as a memorable footnote through the whole ordeal.

As far as "The Batman" goes, while the contents of the movie strove to be extremely realistic, the framing, tone, and cinematography of everything made it feel like the most fantastical Batman movie we've had in a long time. It truly did feel more like a Batman comic than any other live action one I've seen. Sure, the Riddler is structurally more grounded than ever, but that discounts Paul Dano's goofy-ass but still disturbing performance. It made the movie have a very memorable villain, not just with him, but with the Penguin. I still see those two pop up all the time, they've had more staying power than many comic book movies, and i think that's definitely points in the memorability basket.

I think there's something to be said for a particular mix of "nuanced" but also "batshit evil". Caesar from Fallout: New Vegas is a megalomaniacal fascist with brain cancer. He's one of the most loathsome villains I've ever hated in a video game, and part of that comes from how willing he is to sit down and have a polite chat about his ideology, with the earnest intention of bringing me to his side. After talking with him, I was left thoroughly convinced that he had already heard every argument I might conceive of to redeem or soften him, and already dismissed them all, one by one. He was intelligent, driven, and honestly devoted to his cause, and while I appreciated the option to join it, I knew it had to all burn.

Entirely understandable. I still remember Scar and I haven't watched The Lion King in years.

Kane from Command & Conquer is an absolute legend of a villain just hamming it up to the point of being incredibly engaging. Especially in the first one where his whole schtick is still largely unexplained and Joseph Kucan being pretty much the only person in the FMV cutscenes who had even the slightest bit of acting experience, he absolutely elevates the whole experience with his mere presence.

I feel that Liquid Snake from MGS 1 deserves a shoutout. He really chews the scenery every time he shows up (I love his over dramatic enunciation) and his backstory still gives him some nuance. The Metal Gear series as a whole has a great record of goofy and highly memorable villains (Volgin, Ocelot, Vamp etc).

Just to add to your point, but the cage-headed boss in Bloodborne you mentioned has one of my absolute favorite "death screams" in gaming. Dude's hamming it up, even while he's dying

Having a memorable antagonist makes all the difference. Say what you want about the comedy of the 2 first borderlands games, but the banter and back and forth with Handsome Jack really made it great. It doesnt come down to the lines either its all about the delivery of the great voice actors we have.

I think one of the biggest problems with trying to write a realistic villain is that no matter how hard you try to drive home that they’re evil and what they’re doing is still wrong, if they feel like a real person, there will be a real person out there who thinks they are correct. Do it poorly enough, and you’ll find yourself accidentally writing a thesis paper for an ideology that you’re trying to condemn.