How evil should a cartoon villain be?

A cartoon villain should be evil enough to give the good guys a real challenge. I don't like cartoon villains who are so idiotic or incompetent that the good guys barely break a sweat defeating them. That was the trouble with the Disney movie Robin Hood. Prince John was a sissy, and so was his assistant, and the Sheriff was a big fat bumbler, and his guards were lousy shots. Robin therefore mostly strutted and bragged through his battles with them. It was all a little too easy and a little too precious. Too bad, because I liked the idea of animals standing in for humans in the story.

And then there are so-called comic villains who aren't really funny. Most of Kim Possible's villains were like that, including Drakken. To me, Doofenschmirtz on Phineas and Ferb is everything a comic villain should be. The writers strike the right balance of sympathy and villainy with him. I really like him and sometimes feel sorry for him. He's very human and very funny.
 
True, but let me me ask this question: How do you avoid this problem in animation:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ButNotTooEvil

The problem is often the moral guardians want a black and white morality, which can be fine, lots of fantasy works are just good vs. evil tales, but are still interesting. The problem is these guardians don't let the villains do anything remotely evil, so its not so much good vs. pure evil, as so much good vs. pathetic ineffective evil, which is why we got all the goofy, ineffective villains from the 80s.

I think its less of a problem now, but still, something to be mindful of.
 
It depends on the type of villain. For example, there's a clear moral line you can't really cross if you want your villain to still be considered sympathetic by the audience.

I'm personally not fond of the 'evil villain for the sake of evil' villains like the Joker. As long as they have some goal or reason behind their actions then any level is fine with me, though I personally like ones who are either very manipulative or have some understandable qualities to them (understanding why they do what they do, even if you don't agree with them). My personal favorite villain right now is Medusa from Soul Eater. Very evil (abusing and using her own child as a host for hatching a demon egg is pretty sick) but not without her reasons for her actions, and she's always interesting to watch considering she was always two steps ahead of the heroes it seems like.
 
Except some people like that in real life, like most serial killers, they are serial killers because they enjoy power and domination and like victimizing people. Jeffery Damher seemed to have normal childhood and he still became a monster. Some people are just evil in real life and they have no redeeming qualities and have no motive beyond being a psychopath.

So frankly I don't mind villains like that fiction, because it does reflect reality, not all people are sympathetic in real life.

Sometimes to have a sympathetic villain, you need a really evil villain to contrast them, in the X-Men animated series, Magneto was pretty sympathetic so maintain that he often team up with the X-Men against more monstrous foes like Mr. sinister and Apocalypse.

Sometimes to move the plot forward, you need a bad villain, a villain the audience is supposed to dislike. These villains are especially needed if you are trying to make a point, about why certain things, like fascism or racism are bad, you need a nasty villain to get is point across. I kinda liked Judge Frollo in the Hunch Back of Notre Dame, who wasn't sympathetic like he was in the book, sure, but was evil in a way that horrifying and realistic way.

Big Brother and the Party were completely unsympathetic in 1984, because what they represented, Stalinism, was an evil thing and sometimes its the role of fiction to shed light on real world evils.

Plus if the villain is a demon its hard to make them sympathetic, especially since demons are supposed to be physical manifestations of evil itself.
 
This quote from the abridged Yu-Gi-Oh! movie sums it up:

Anubis: First I will defeat you in this children's card game. And then I will destroy the world!
Yami: But why?
Anubis: What do you mean?
Yami: Why do you want to destroy the world? What do you gain from it?
Anubis: What kind of question is that?
Yami: I mean, you must have some reason to want to destroy the world, or else this whole movie was just pointless bickering!
Anubis: Of course I have a reason!
Yami: What is it then?
Anubis: I'm not telling you!

Nonetheless, you do have a point, though I'm certain some of those people in real life were raised a certain way. (Matter of fact, pertaining to the above quote, I actually read a fanfic that was a re-telling of the Yu-Gi-Oh! movie and I actually preferred it to the real movie. Granted, I still don't think Anubis' reason to destroy the world was justified, but at least it gave him more of a past.)
 
I think some of my favorite villains would have to be any of the ones from Scooby Doo(I know it seems weird, but i'm kind of biased); especially the ones from the 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo, yeah the show was a rip off of the Ghost Busters movie but there some very imaginative and very threatening villians in that show.

I think the best villains from that show were Maldor the Malovelent(a master of black magic who put Daphne and a princess under a sleeping spell), Time Slime(who actually took over the world in an episode, but it took Vincent Van Ghoul to show Scooby the error of his ways and eventually he came back) and probably Professor Fantasmo(an evil ringmaster with a sinister circus and a calliope that hypnotizes people, plus a ringmaster's whip that hypnotizes people).

Some of the other villains were good, but some were just corny, like Demondo(the one who used a magic ink pen to bring comic strip monsters to life), I mean I know it's a cartoon, but really? If I were writing that show I would have had Demondo use his ink pen to bring monsters from actual books to life, like can you imagine Scooby and company having to face Mary Shelly's Frankenstein or Mr. Hyde or Dracula? now that I would have liked to see, I guess there's always fan fiction for that.
 
Well overall destroying the world itself doesn't make, unless the villain is completely bonkers.

For example 2003 Shredder recently tried to destroy the TMNT multi verse, himself because at this point discovering multi verse filled with various TMNTs has effected his sanity, so even destroying the multi verse can make sense as motive, if you use characterization correctly.

Before losing his mind, 2003 Shredder's motive seemed be nothing more then pure psychopathy, someone who simply had no regards for others and a lust for power. Maybe not the deepest character ever, but certainly a menacing one, one who can drive the story forward, put the hero through some paces and be interesting because of how monstrous he really is.

When you have a really evil villain, it makes the stakes and high dramatic, because of the hero loses, it would be the end of hope in that world, that's the drama a really evil villain can bring.
 
Yeah, Anubis is definitely what I'd call bonkers. All that's really revealed about him is that he tried to destroy the world 5,000 years ago but was defeated by the Pharoah, and now he's come back to finish what he started.



Definitely true, but Anubis has little to no characterization, but then again we're dealing with a 90-minute movie, not a 20-to-50-episode story arc (and the official movie site actually mentioned that). I guess it depends on the material you're dealing with.



Hmmm... I remember reading on the official Yu-Gi-Oh! movie site that they were saving the most powerful villain for the movie. With no real backstory or motive, Anubis pretty much is the most evil villain they could come up with, and he certainly did seem menacing. (Though in a few ways he was sort of a pathetic villain - his plan seemed a little more convoluted than necessary, and at times, it seemed like he sealed his own fate.) And even though I knew all along Yugi would win, it certainly did build up the drama toward the end of the duel.
 
Well, like I said earlier, it depends on the character. David Xanatos wasn't evil, but he was definitely amoral. Most villains tend to be immoral, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Xanatos is amoral.
Norman Osborn is immoral. Lex Luthor is immoral.

I wouldn't change any of them.
 
True psychopaths are just sick twisted bastards because of how their brains are constructed, not because of how they were raised. You can literally discover one day that your young child is a psychopath and you won't be able to do jack squat about it, no matter how good of a parent you are.

I mean, sure, you can train them to act according to social norms, but they still wouldn't feel bad about strangling you to death if it suited their interests and they knew they could get away with it. And that's where the "true" villains in many fictional stories come from. The Emperor Palpatines, the Jokers, the Friezas, the Firelord Ozais, the Shredders, the Megatrons, etc.
 
Compelling bad guys to me are those who don't actually see themselves as evil and have actually believe what they are doing is legitimate or right on some level.

The more that the audience can relate to the rationale of the bad guy, the better.

Death Note's Light Yagami is a prime example of this. The audience could relate to his evil deeds and he could largely justify them.

The type of bad guys I hate to watch the most are the ones that are so manipulative, they destroy a good person's reputation and ultimately their life by convincing others that their lie is the truth.

When I watch those types of villains, it really makes me want to punch through a wall >.
 
How evil should a cartoon villain be?

....

Just as evil as the animators want them to be... just as long as their evil-ness doesn't border on the PG-13 or R rated live-action villains.
 
I can like both developed villains and generic villains but a key thing is that the producers actually know which they have. I can think of any number of shows which present a fairly clear mustache twirler, yet the wider scripts try and act as if they're presenting some morally ambigious antagonist intended to give the protagonist and audience food for thought. Disney shows you can have a fairly clear 'one note' villain and still make them stylish and memorable. Not every baddy needs to a look at the human choice of free will.
 
Evil enough to be fascinating for the majority part. Whatever you do to him or her has to at the very least entrance the viewer. You could give him all the emotional, empathetic claptrap you want to explain his case, but if he isn't fascinating, then no dice.
 
Eh,it is really hard to answer this question,simply becouse 95 % of cartoon villians hardly DID anything to justify their "evil" status.

They just brag about how "evil" they are,then they have an "evil plan",then they build a mashine/weapon,and before they even activate it the heros come just in time and save the day.
It doesn?t really matter if the "evil plan" was laughably pathetic or potentially harmfull to humanity,cartoon writers seem to think that just a mere "tought" of doing something harmfull to society makes a villian "evil".

And those villians who even manage to do an "evil act"(like kidnapping Santa Clause *gasp*) often come of as barely "rude" and "inapropriate".Those are mainly minor harmless villians whos serve as comic releifs.

And then again,maybe I am expecting too much from PG rated cartoons :D
But keep in mind,those 5 % of truly harmfull and cruel villians can be seen in the old classics.

Like Proffesor Ratigan from Great Mouse Detective-he killed one henchmen for calling him a rat.Probably one of the most disturbing and saddest scene in cartoon history.

Sheriff of Nothingham-he is capable to steal from a blind beggar wthout remorse.It was Robin Hood in disguise,but still..

Horned King from Black Caludron-he murders the good former king(ofscreen),keeps his corpse in his castle,makes the most scary army of dead soldiers,and kills the little dog critter...pure evilness right here

So my answer is : writers should just keep pushing the limits as much as they can

Just my 2 cents
 
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