Villains you prefer: understandable motives or just evil?

It depends on the story and what character we're talking about. If the show's not supposed to be taken seriously, then a villain who's evil for the sake of evil would work fine. But if I'm watching a plot-driven show, it depends. The villain can either be sympathetic and have perfectly reasonable motives, or a complete monster that does evil things for almost no reason at all.
 
I agree, a series plot driven show can have a villain that is just plan evil without any motivation, but that villain has to be a complete monster, be very powerful and heartless, be the most evilest villain in the world for it to work.
 
I am also in the "I prefer both" camp. Especially since both types of villains can coexist quite well and work off each others chemistry if done right.

However, I absolutely cannot stand pretentius, stoic villains who talk like they're writing an article on philosophy. It's incredibly annoying and interferes with the flow of a story.
 
Agree with what someone else said, it depends on the story.

That said, I like both. Sympathetic villains or compelling villains are nice, but sometimes I just like to have those "love to hate" villains who are simply evil just for the sake of being evil.
 
You understand what I have been trying to say before, on how a villain can be compelling and have a motive that audience can understand and maybe even justify, yet still not be a sympathetic character.

Not ever villain that has a proper motive has a sob story behind it, or have any redeming qualities.

For example, almost every villain on Bleach for example has some deep motive behind their actions, and many of them aren't sympathic characters.
 
I think its debatable how ill treated Predacons were under Maximals.

I provided two examples, was there any motive for new school Shredder besides being an evil psychopath? BTAS Scarecrow didn't have a motive beyond being a psychopath with a fear fetish, was he a bad villain? Yeah he was mad at university for firing him, but he got fired because he was psychopath.

Also STAS Darkseid didn't have much of motive, besides being pure evil and he was still a good villain.

Heck Bullseye, the DD villain, has no motive above being a psychopath, is he a bad villain? Heck Purple man doesn't have a motive beyond being a psychopath, is he a bad villain?

To my knowledge Jeffery Damher was never abused as a child, his family only turned their back on him because of his psychopathic behaviour, not the other way around.
 
It depends. I don't usually base villains on that category. I just like a villain that is really interesting and entertaining. The Joker is a good example of a classic villain that always keeps you on the edge of your seat. His character is also very original. What other villain does things just to get a good laugh?
 
He has a point. The vast majority of villains, down to your standard comic book or Saturday-Morning cartoon villains, had a discernible motive - even one as basic as "acquire money/power by any means necessary," and by extension, "eliminate those irksome people who keep standing between me and my money and power." A bad guy who was genuinely evil-for-its-own-sake and not played for laughs is relatively hard to come by. (Oddly enough, and I was a fan of the show, I can think of a few examples from Teen Titans...)
 
One cliche is the pilot of most cartoons where the villain usually has no beef with the protagonist until they do something like stop their plan, or they attempt to get them to join their side and the protagonist rejects the idea, thereby insulting them.
 
Actually...

The last straw in that origin was after the dip in the vat, he heard his pregnant wife had died in an accident. And after all that, I guess going insane was the only sane reaction he could have done.
 
You have the order wrong.

It really was the dip in the vat that pushed him over the edge. He found out that his wife had died before doing the job at the chemical company.

I also think that you're kind of missing the point if you think that going insane was really the Joker's only choice. When confronted with horrors meant to push him over the edge, Gordon very pointedly does not break, and tells the Batman to bring in the Joker "their way." Batman may have his own brand of insanity, but it is a pretty far stretch from the Joker's gleeful anarchy.

Batman even says so to the Joker explicitly when he tells him, "Maybe it was just you all along."

-- Ed
 
Well, although his motive was due to his programming and he had no choice in doing it, he did have a choice on whether to be evil or not, and man was he evil. I mean, Daemon the supervirus also can't go against her destructive programming, but she wasn't evil. She thought what she was doing was for everyone's benefit and pretty much treated everyone nicely and politely (even if she had to brainwash them with "THE WORD" first. :p ) But Megabyte was evil just because he apparently liked being so, and he was a very good villain as a result.
 
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