/lit/ - Literature

Although it was on /v/, I saw a chart that listed types of villains from 'God Tier' to 'Shit Tier'.

In general, God Tier villains are the ones you can sympathise with, or the ones who can justify their actions as a way of genuinely trying to help the world.

Shit villains are ones who are evil just for the sake of being evil, like Sauron.

>2012
>heroes and villains

>>2293606
Every story has heroes and villains, even if they're not sentient people.

>>2293608
Wow so deep, will you let me fuck your face?

>>2293608
What are you implying? I hope not some sci fi herp derp about androids and bionicles. You're talking about, like, an idea as 'the villain' of the stroy?

>>2293596

Yes, I saw that thread, and /v/'s thoughts on the subject were either so generic as to mean next to nothing, or totally retarded. (Tell me, in that OP's image - what the difference is between his Shit Tier and Great Tier, apart from "great tier villains are from settings I like and shit tier villains are from settings I don't like"?)

So I came to ask /lit/ instead, figuring they knew more about the subject.

The coolest villains are savvy as fuck. They don't tell the hero his plans or give anyone second chances. Cool and smart mother fuckers.

Definitely agree with this though >>2293596
>In general, God Tier villains are the ones you can sympathise with, or the ones who can justify their actions as a way of genuinely trying to help the world.

>>2293615
I think he's getting 'villain' confused with antagonist/antagonistic force.

>>2293615
Yes, I meant the latter. I suppose 'obstacles' is a preferable word.

>>2293617
Forget the settings and forget /v/'s opinion on vidya (because they hate everything) -- it's the character's motivations that are important.

As for OP's picture . . . it was done just to entertain a few hicks who watch Maury, so I'd say that's pretty shit tier. And not much of a villain, either.

The villains who pull the trigger on the gun without giving a 30 minute speech.

>>2293653

"I did it thirty-five minutes ago."

>>2293660

>>2293583
Shakespeare's Iago
/thread

I like villains who are oblivious that what they're doing is evil. I wouldn't call him my *favorite* villain but I really like the gentleman with the thistle down hair from Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. He legitimately thinks he's being really kind and generous while he's actually torturing everyone.

>>2293642

I was talking about the OP picture from the /v/ thread, you big dummy. That thread's tier list had "Shit Tier - Villains who are just evil to be evil" and "Great Tier - Villains whose motives are obscure / seem insane". Shit Tier example: Ganondorf, Great Tier example - The Joker. Those are nearly the same thing, the only difference between his putting one villain in Shit Tier and one in Great was whether he liked the source material or not.

Villains who has are more intelligent than normal person ofc but too has some awsome personality and are not just some freaking mad scientists or something.
Good villains are not like open book that you know what he will do at everyturn. They are suprising and have awsome plans.
Usually vise lunatics(like joker) makes good villain.

>>2293732
Also, some of the best villains in literature are evil just to be evil (mostly thanks to Shakespeare). "And therefore since I cannot prove a lover to entertain these soft well-spoken days, I am determined to prove a villain, and hate the idle pleasure of these days."

>>2293732
The joker is not great tier, it's "pseudo-intellectual edgy teenagers fap to this" tier, depending on the scriptwriter.

If he was sane and just a troll, I would like him more, even if that got him into a lower tier. It's just that sometimes the scripters try too hard to portray him as some kind of mystical, philosophical force opposed to all that Batman (blah blah blah), which seems utterly retarded. Maybe they find it funny while they are writing it, but when I read it it's garbage.

>>2293795
>If he was sane and just a troll
Are you retarded? There is no sane person who kills for fun. Its not sane to kill just for trolling some batsuited dude.

>>2293822
If he was sane, the list of targets of his trolling would be longer than "just Batman lol XD SO RANDUM!"

In order for a villain/antagonist to be effective, they must be powerful. More powerful than your hero. For example, look at the different seasons of Dexter and how good they were. The best seasons (1 and 4) had the most powerful villains, and could go toe-to-toe with the protagonist at his own game.

They should have a reason for what they're doing that is against the protagonist. One of the reasons 'evil emperor guy who rules the kingdom from his palace and has a few scenes where he yells at his goons and that's all we see' doesn't work is because, sure, some people are power-hungry, real-life villains like Hitler were, but what did they want that power for? Illustrate that. If your villain kills for money, show him putting that money to use. If they hate your protagonist, show us why.

Put simply, the villain is the hero of their own story.

My favourite villain from literature is Judge Holden from Blood Meridian and my favourite from television is Johan Liebert from Monster. I don't think it's a coincidence that they are, in wildly different ways, incarnations of Satan--who is also one of the greatest villains in literature. Read/watch both of these things and you will get some good ideas. A villain with a complex philosophy can really drive a story. But they are not easy to create.

>>2293956 cont'd

Your villain should have multiple ways to put obstacles in front of your protagonist. When brute force isn't working he should try trickery. When that's not working he should try blackmail. When thgat's not working he kidnaps someone the hero loves and threatens them unless the hero stops, and so on. These are generic examples but you get the gist.

The villain should win at least one decisive victory against your hero. In Hollywood terms that's the low point, or all is lost moment, where the villain has fucked up all your protagonists so hard that any left alive might as well pack up and go home because his victory is secure. Then the rest of the story is about how the hero fights tooth an nail back to victory. Or not, but that's how it nornally goes.

I find it fun to give the villain some type of relationship with the hero, whether pre-established or it develops over the course of the story. They might learn to respect each other as oponnents. Or they might grow to hate each other more and more, and THIS TIME IT'S PERSONAL or whatever.\

When you create your villain, think about everything you'd think about when creating a protagonist, knowing their backstory, relationships, etc. ANd let that colour what they do.

Ozymandias up in this shit, bitches. And i mean the comic version, not the retarded movie adaptation.

>>2293993
They both have the same motives. The only real difference is their reaction when they succeed.

I know I'll get flamed, but a good example is Tywin Lannister from a A Song of Ice and Fire. He protects his family (aside from Tyrion) and has clear, reasonable motives.
Good villains have reasonable motives. Insane and/or stupid ones are overused. They need to have characterization and a lot of it. They almost need to be as fleshed out as the main character.

>>2293583
Here is a nice trick to give the villain more depth: Make him/her friend with the main character from his/her past. It will make the reader relate the villain to the hero + it will cause more of a grey area, instead of just the "Doctor Evil archetype"

A good villain is someone the reader can/must relate to partly. It internalizes the conflict and forces the reader to use his judgment instead of being spoon fed solutions passively.

The best villains have redeeming qualities. The greatest villains turn out to be the heroes of other people.

>>2293596
Sauron doesn't show up anywhere in LotR, except for like one paragraph when he sees Pippin through the Palantir.

How is one supposed to make judgements on what kind of a villain he is if we have nothing to go off of?

Also, he's an immortal demonic entity that's existed since the beginning of time. You're not supposed to be able to relate to him or sympathize with him or understand him at all.

GOD TIER: the judge (blood meridian)

sure you've read it if you are browsing lit

>>2294452
Sauron is just a flimsy stand-in for Satan. I think part of the reason why Tolkien spent so little time developing Sauron as a villain is because Tolkien assumed that we would do a much better job of imagining the atrocities committed by Sauron.

>>2294413
You're point kind of doesn't always work. For example, Hush from the Batman series has the background of being a former friend of Bruce, but in all essence Hush is a Oedipal mess/"philosophical" braggart. He's motivations are odd as compared to more practical enemies.

Now the sympathy card goes to Mr. Freeze. One of my favorite villains from Batman was the Riddler due to the fact that his prime reason of evil is to just outwit the Batman, as no other intelligence is on par with him. What an ego on that bastard. I also liked the Scarecrow as his sole reason for crime was that he had become so tolerant to fear that he harmed people in order to have fear of the Batman's pursuit of him. They both have faults though. I'm just throwing this out there because you guys keep arguing about the Joker. I absolutely dread when pseudo-intelligent girls start blathering about "super-sanity" or "nihilism" when talking about the Joker. Even Two-Face's psyche broken and him turning to "fate" and "duality" as a gimmick is more interesting. The Joker has surely become a mess.

Plus Sinestro, Lex Luthor, and Doctor Doom like villains are often on my higher rank of better enemies in comics.

Not going to lie, ever since high school, Captain Beatty from Fahrenheit 451 had always been a favorite of mine. Sure that cryptic nihilism is outplayed when you read more novels, but he always struck as a decent villain back when I was a teen.

>>2294468

I did like his views on violence being our prime existence. I always rue living in this day and age as opposed to living in the past. It's difficult to find intelligent people who you can bare to speak with nowadays.

Ellsworth Toohey from The Fountainhead

>>2294491
I agree. Hush is a terrible villain. But without his past he would just be a more flat villain. Being related to the main character gives an extra layer, and can cause more emotional drama, instead of just action and suspense.

>>2294491
>>>/co/

>>2294478
How is one supposed to develop a Satanic character?

Again, you can't sympathize with Satan, you can't relate to Satan, you can't understand Satan.

I'll grant that you that Satanic bad guys aren't all that interesting for those reasons, but that doesn't necessarily make them bad villains.

They're evil for reasons you can't comprehend, isn't that enough?

>>2294390
This. Tywin and Cersei Lannister are superb villains. One can understand and sympathize with them and their motives. They are also far more powerful and skilled than the heroes of the story.

>>2294545
What about Paradise Lost?

>>2294587
>>2294587
Correct, Cersi and Tywin are incredibly powerful, but there's a large difference. Tywin was a phenomenal leader, running a kingdom despite having an insane king (prior to the first book). He also garners little or no sympathy, being that he was a soulless, hypocritical monster who only cared about his honor. Cersi had even MORE power, but she also didn't know how to wield. She was a STUPID villain. She was also sympathetic after watching Joffery die and her willingness to do anything and anyone to protect her children.

>>2294606
that depicts a humanized version of Satan

the actual theological concept of Satan is much different

>so high are the heavens above the earth, are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts

that's something God said of course, but it's the same with the angels

>>2294606
Fuckin' this.
Paradise lost had an excellent comprehension of the dark lord, and it even questioned if god and the good guys really were that good.

>>2294452
Because even if we don't see him, we learn enough about him from other characters.

Is Voldemort a good villain?

lol this thread is dogshit

>>2293615
>bionicle

I fucking lost it.

Don't think in terms of heroes and villains. Try protagonists and antagonists.