What makes a good villain?

[/LIST]I'm not sure about these two. Admitedly Char started with a noble end goal but the original draft makes it clear that by the end of the show he's become obsessed with the Gundam. Granted the final produced show is different but it is there. By CCA, he's fixated on getting back at Amuro.
As for Zechs- another victim of Wing's vague characterisation wrapped up in a thesaurus and teen girl fantasies. Zechs further has it bad because his entire pressence in the show was Char on fast forward.
 
One thing I like is if the hero and villain can fight on even ground. David and Goliath scenarios are always so boring to me, especially since they skip the marksmanship and replace it with DEM...although come to think of it, I realize this is more a problem I have with Western works.
 
What about the ''destroy everything and everyone'' type of villain who just wants to watch the world/universe burn like Cell, Majin Buu, Johan Liebert, Friend, Rau Le Creuset, Carozzo Ronah, The Frost Brothers, Gym Ghingham, Wiseman/Death Phantom, Knives and Legato Bluesummers, Kirei Kotomine etc, how does everyone feel about that kind of villain?
 
A good villain is someone who taxes the hero to his or her fullest. A villain can be one dimensional, two dimensional or three dimensional in characterization, if you like, but if he or she doesn't challenge the hero, the villain is not doing his or her job.
 
The fact that you've listed so many examples kind of hints that such villains have become a bit cliche. ^_^;

That said, they can still work well if played with flair. A nihilistic Knight Templar just makes you want to put a fist through his face, but the genuine sociopaths can literally make a story. Kefka's arguably 80% of the reason why FFVI is often held up as the paragon of the series, the Joker is easily the most famous comic book villain ever, and of course the aforementioned Johan Liebert...well, the story's name is referring to him, so you do the math.
 
That is pretty cliche but villians like kid buu who are like that are cool with me. Who blow up the Earth and laugh like a kid about it I just don't se that too often. It's all about stlye.
 
Thing is, the memorable ones on the list aren't memorable just because they wanted to blow up the world, but because of what else they brought to the story.

Cell & Buu: Boring supervillains.

Johann: A lot was made of his desire to end everything, but the fact is that he never comes anywhere close to doing that (really, to doing much of anything on more than a small scale) during the story. What Monster's tension comes from is not the threat Johann poses, but the mystery: who is he, what made him that way, how does Nina fit in, and (most importantly) what is it going to cost Tenma to undo his "mistake?"

Rau: Was actually diminished when his agenda was revealed. Like Johann, he's a big mystery for the bulk of his series, but unlike Johann, he has a pretty minor presence during most of the story, disappearing completely- from the screen and from viewers' minRAB - for a lengthy stretch in the middle. Then during a single episode, it's revealed that he's just a psychopath who wants to kill everyone, but not for anything directly connected to the overall storyline, but because of a peripheral subplot that was introduced in that same episode. And from that point on, he's the main bad guy, more so than any of the other characters in the series, but his former suave, collected demeanor has been replaced with barely-coherent raving, random acts of violence, and a mask fetish. Not integrated into the story very well at all.

Frost Brothers: Mostly distinctive because they were Gundam prettyboys who were villains instead of heroes. They worked well enough for the series, but weren't what sticks out in my mind when I think of Gundam X.

Ginghnam: Argh. This guy's like Rau, except with even less presence in the story. Easily the weakest element of Turn-A.

Knives: Actually has very good reasons (along with all the other Plants who join him) for wanting to annihilate humanity. He himself isn't all that interesting - his role mostly consists of blathering about exterminating the vermin, your cause is hopeless, etc etc etc - but the changes humanity has to make on his account are the focus of some of Trigun's most memorable scenes.

Legato: Forces Vash to kill. Awesome.

Kotomine: Is less memorable because of his evil plan than because of how thoroughly he deceives everyone (not only is he actually a bad guy, but he's also a participant in the event that he's supposedly just refereeing - oh, and he has been for the past ten years, hurr hurr). He's much more of a standout in the F/SN game. In the final route his hand is tipped almost immediately when his Servants are killed, and yet Shirou has to seek help from him a couple of times, fully aware of what he is. A lot of time is spent inside of Kotomine's head, exploring his background and how he's had to deal with his unusual circumstances, making you see him very differently when he's just been a one-dimensional villain to that point. Hell, eventually Shirou (mister I-will-smite-you-for-great-justice) has to admit to himself that he actually likes the guy.

EDIT:

TL;DR version: Villains who want to destroy everything can be interesting, but wanting to destroy everything isn't what makes them so.
 
Wow, very well put. I also applaud your mentions of Legato, Knives and Kotomine in particular. Those guys were all good for the reasons you said. Legato's arguably better than Knives just because of what he did to Vash. What Knives did was worse overall, but Legato really hit home.



On Char, maybe so, but he still had his bigger goals in classic Gundam and the grudge was largely put aside in Zeta. And on the humility point, even taking on Amuro out of pride isn't necessarily the same thing as arrogance or the aforementioned "haha I have a glorious destiny and you can't stop me!" attitude. By CCA though, yeah, he's a different man.

As for Zechs, he was definitely a hurable villain. Very early on he felt inadequate between learning about Heero's physical abilities and his struggles to master the Tallgeese. He felt responsible for the death of men under his command in operation meteor. There's the whole "father, forgive your son" speech in Sanc Kingdom. He feels unfit to meet Relena early on due to what he did as a soldier. Post-defection he occasionally makes comments about how he doesn't have much power, or that he seems stuck living as a soldier in spite of himself.

Even at the end, he seems to treat the whole Libra operation as a necessary evil. Char was much more arrogant and manipulative, and was eventually consumed by his rivalry with Amuro in a way that Zechs never was. A lot of villains are cocky and always self-assured, but not Zechs.
 
Zechs was certainly sincere enough in Endless Waltz, although it's fair to argue that Milliardo Peacecraft, White Fang leader would dislike Mariemaia and Dekim just as much as Zechs Merquise, Preventer agent.

For whatever it's worth he did concede to Heero in the series and run off to Mars later, though, rather than plot another scheme. And if you believe Preventer 5, he's still helping the Gundam boys later.
 
I think what makes a good villain is one that's not entirely evil. Like Reala from NiGHTS. He really doesn't want to serve Wizeman. It's just that Wizeman would probably feed him to Cerebrus if he didn't comply to his every demand. Also, he might also feel that since Wizeman is his creator that it would be like betraying his own father if he did what his sibling NiGHTS did.

So basically I think "misunderstood" villains are the best. (I don't know what else to call it.)
 
Definately this.

Ulquiorra comes to mind. And because he went out in such a way that's very rare for me to see in shonen makes me like him over most villains I've seen so far.

However, Aizen does stand out above all. The calm demeanor types are always the go to ever win me over. (Sensui and Shishio also comes to mind.)


These types just get on my nerves.
 
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