You Ever Had It With Good Defeating Evil?

J

Jeevs C

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I've Seen It Like a Million Times in Cartoons, Comics and Video Games. I Just Would Like For Evil to Defeat Good Too.

I Made this thread to Ask If Anyone If they Are Fans of EVIL and if They Feel the Same Way I Feel.

One More Thing, Why Does the Creators of Cartoons, Comics and Video Games Want Good to Defeat Evil Anyway.

Who Wanted Evil to be Defeated Anyway?
 
What I'm personally tired of is so many cartoons being about good VS evil. Everything isn't black and white. Much of the world and human nature is shades of gray. I'd like to see more animated shows that aren't about good guys going against bad guys and more shows about people just being people, but that's just me.

Anyways, you can't have a bunch of cartoons and video games aimed at impressionable children where evil routinely triumphs over good. What sort of lesson would that teach? The PTA and Sunday school teachers would never allow that.
 
Really, Well I'd Just Like the Cartoons, Comics and Video Games to be Just About the Villains. Since We Know So Much About the Heroes. The Creators of Cartoons, Comics and Video Games Should Focus on the Villains.
 
Cartoons and video games aimed at impressionable children in which evil routinely triumphs over good might give kids the idea that they themselves should try to be bad rather than good. Portraying evil as admirable and enviable might set a bad example.

Also, with protagonists, you have to kind of want them to succeed. It's not really the same thing hoping that the villains wins and achieves his/her goal of enslaving all of humanity or destroying the Earth. If the villain wins and kills the heroes or takes over the world, then what?

Furthermore, it is the purpose of villains to create conflict and present obstacles for the heroes to overcome. If villains were given emphasis and character depth to the point where you began empathizing with them and wanting them to overcome the odds and succeed, then they would become the protagonists, while the protagonists would become the antagonists. In other words, the villain would become the hero and the hero would become the villain. It would be counter productive.

I'm suddenly reminded of the Road Runner short "Zip, Zip Hooray!", in which 2 young boys are watching a Road Runner cartoon on TV:

Boy #1: Sometimes I really feel sorry for the Coyote. Sometimes I wish he'd catch him.
Boy #2: If he caught him, there'd be no more Road Runner. You wouldn't want that, would you?
Boy #1: No.
Boy #2: I didn't think so.
 
There are numerous video games like Grand Theft Auto and Destroy All Humans! where you get to play as the "bad" guys, as well as shows like Kaput and Z?sky and Legion of Super Evil, upcoming movies like Despicable Me and Mastermind, and many comic book villains (Lex Luthor, Magneto, etc.) have rich and full histories and have even starred in their own titles, so it's not like villains are never represented.

Ultimately, it really doesn't matter: both sides need each other. Without heroes, villains wouldn't be villainous, and without villains, heroes couldn't be heroic. As long as you have a protagonist and an antagonist, it really doesn't matter which side is focused on more.

Overall, I prefer straight-up comedies as opposed to good VS evil shows. Heroes VS Villains gets old after a while for me.
 
Some shows I've watched have had villains defeat the heroe.
If your talking about in the very end, than yah I don't think thats gonna happen. As the person above said, it'd show kids that being evil cool and that you have to be evil to be invincable.
 
If pain is bad and to be relieved of pain is good, then to desire evil to win is to desire pain.
If pain is your desire then someone who relieves pain does evil to you.
Thus relieving pain is evil to you and pain is good.
But you want evil to win, so you are on the side of the one who will relieve your pain.
?..
:eek::confused::eek::confused::eek:



Maybe if you give a few examples of where you want evil to win.


How about a few general cases to consider.
1) What the good guys stand for you don?t consider good.
2) The good guys haven?t proven to you they deserve to win.
3) The bad guys are the more likable characters.

Sometimes I see the second point, where the writing is bad and they let the good guys win simply because they are the good guys.


Pok?mon is my example for the third point. The good guys stand for everything I call good, but they are so uninteresting to me. And that's probably my biggest problem with the show.
Team Rocket is fun, and crazy and do all the interesting stuff. But they never deserve to win. But who cares, they go blasting off again and will be fine for the next adventure.
 
A series I find this very true of?

Naruto.

And before y'all pile up on me for saying that: yeah, I know the Akatsuki are evil, have to die, somebody had to beat them, etc. Yeah, I already knew that.

What bothers me is that it's just so unrealistically done, and feels like Kishimoto only writes these villains to alleviate his boredom, makes them interesting in compensation for his very boring main cast, and then gives them the fate which 90% of the time befalls animation.
 
The one show I wish evil would win once in a while is Phineas and Ferb. Sometimes, like in Cheer Up, Candace or Chez Platypus, I can't help feeling bad for him.
 
I admit, back in my days as a Pokemon fan, there were a lot of times I just wish Team Rocket would just win already, for the reasons stated in Aquadementia's post. That said, I do like cartoons where the villains aren't always defeated. I don't know if this is what Legion472 meant or not, but I feel that if a villain is treated as a credible threat within the show, but always gets his/her butt handed to him/her by the hero(es) of the show, then we the audience will not feel that the villain is credible. That was one of my biggest problems with the last season of Jackie Chan Adventures. Drago fired the Enforcers after the first episode of that season for being incompetent, but then went on to hire Strike Master Ice and his gang, who were just as incompetent. (The writers were probably just tired of the Enforcers, which I can't really blame them for.) Now there are some villains out there who are threats because they don't always lose. Some of my favorites are as follows:
Princess Azula from Avatar, who didn't suffer a major loss until The Boiling Rock. Until then, she was always calm, collected, calcualting, and always at least two steps ahead of her opponents. I'd call her a much more interesting villain than Ozai.
Nerissa from W.I.T.C.H. Here was a baddie who went undefeated for most of her episodes in Season 2. She was so bad, that the guardians ultimately had to bring back a previous bad guy to bring her down.
Now it's been awhile for me, but didn't Megabyte have some victories in Reboot? I don't remember too much of the show, but I really liked him.
My point is, I do agree with the original poster that for villains to be threatening, they must give the hero a challenge. Either win in some episodes, or else have the hero only win by the skin of his/her/their teeth.
 
Because the villains intend to bring death and destruction for no real reason, while the heroes stop them. If you lost your family to one of these villains, wouldn't you want the heroes to stop them so nobody else feels the pain that you do? Look at Bruce Wayne for example. His parents were murdered, and instead of wallowing in sorrow over their death, he's out there making sure nobody else suffers by taking down criminals.
 
The most likely answer is censorship; I can't imagine glorifying evil sitting well with too many networks, and parent groups. The secondary answer would probably be laziness, it takes a lot more effort to do that than just have a standard "Good VS Evil, Good Wins" storyline; and judging by the state of animation today, effort doesn't exactly seem to be a word most animators and writers know about.
 
It depends on the series. But if the villains constantly get beaten, you end up with what TV Tropes refers to as Villain Decay. That's not a good thing either. There are ways of avoiding this, and they should be exploited so that your villain maintains their credibility.
 
Frankly, I'm not sure what the author of this thread is referring to. Does he mean the bad guys should get temporary victories (which isn't actually uncommon in animation) or does he mean that he would like to see the villain actually defeat the hero permantely/most of the time? :confused:
 
I'm not so sure censorship is the primary factor. Even in shows aimed specifically at adults, good almost always triumphs over evil. The bad guy almost always gets his or her dues in the end. Yeah, the bad guys kill alot more people along the way, but the main heroes of shows like NCIS, Star Trek, Law & Order, 24, Dexter, etc, still consistently defeat the bad guys in the end. Heck, even in horror/thriller movies, the last survivor usually takes out the serial killer.


I think the point is, if a villain is written well, you're supposed to want them to die the most gruesome death imaginable. People like seeing well-written bad guys get what's coming to them; it's sort of cathartic in a way.


Now, should there be shades-of-gray characters that get shades-of-gray victories? Yeah. ButI'd say a lot of shows have those, even cartoons. Lex Luthor in JLU, for instance. Did he really "lose" at the end of Destroyer? The bent (as opposed to broken) characters, the neutral characters, the anti-heros, the free-agents. They often get away more-or-less scott free, despite having selfish motivations.


But the big bads, the psychopaths, the broken, irredeemable characters...those are the ones who have to get it in the end. Otherwise, you just don't feel satisfied.
 
I do get irritated when bad guys constantly lose. Like Dr. Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb.

A series I think handled the bad guys winning (mostly, I mean) is Avatar. *spoilers* In the first season, the good guys won, against Zhao. Then, in the second season, the good guys suffered a colossal loss against Azula. Then again in the third season, the good guys had a failed attempt at invading the Fire Nation capital. -Day of Black Sun. In the end though, the good guys did triumph. Although with many struggles and losses along the way.

Other series I liked that did this includes W.I.T.C.H., Code Geass, etc.

I think a good show should balance the wins and losses of both sides. If they do have sides. Some shows don't. =P
 
Heh, sums up my thoughts exactly!



This as well. The best example lately for me personally has been Medusa from Soul Eater.

Now I can understand cheering for villains in comedic, less serious shows. There were times when I was a kid that I wanted Robotnik, Scratch, & Grounder to succeed every now & then. But with shows that take themselves somewhat seriously, while I like & respect villains like Medusa, Joker, Lex Luthor, Demona, etc., there's no way you'll catch me wishing they'd succeed.

I'd like to know what exactly Legion means wanting to see the villain win. Because if he/she means the bad guys earning some victories throughout the course of the story, that's been happening in many different media for quite sometime now. But if he/she means the bad guy winning at the very end, you're probably not going to find that in the animation medium too much...
 
Medusa is probably my favorite female villain of all time, she was awesome and one of the most capable and interesting ones I've seen.

That's what I find interesting about Iron Man: Armored Adventures; I find it odd the two main antagonists in a superhero cartoon are really more grey characters who aren't evil (Gene and Stane). You got some side villains who are, but to have the two main ones be more morally ambiguous and more after their own problems rather than evil doings is a bit interesting. More grey characters as the central antagonist would be a nice touch
 
Good needs to defeat evil. Good does defeat evil in the end, anyway. It's the lay of the land. There is day and night, there are four seasons, there is so many things we have to do to survive and good conquers evil. ;)
 
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