This ought to be fun and seperate the men from the boys in regards to the last option.
A fun game for Sunday after this weird week, inspired by a crazy ski masked rapper and a livestream I watched yesterday
I'll put 3 categories of villain for you to choose from, and also note I said favourite not greatest so you can't hide behind killcount, effectiveness or effect they still had on society now. In rising spiciness, the choices are:
Favourite gaming villain
Favourite media villain so can be anime or western media
Favourite historical villain
And since I suggested it I'll go first:
Gaming villain: Kane from C&C franchise, he was a mastermind with style and in the 3rd game played EVERYONE to win in the end
Media Villain: Demiurge from Overlord series, despite putting himself as number 2 behind the MC, the actual mastermind of the series, from 'happy farms' to his 'majestic weapon', you want evil look this guy up
Historical villain: I could be a wuss and say Vlad the Impaler or someone similar but let's go with someone very spicy, Shiro Ishii. Why him? Because after ALL the atrocities he committed for his 'scientific experiments' in Unit 731, he not only got away with it after the war but got military medals for it, pardoned and paid $200k by the Americans in exchange for his research and is responsible for a lot of the true vaccines we use today.
So anyone want to play?
Irenicus from Baldur's Gate 2 (2000), voiced by David Warner who died earlier this year in July.
David Xanatos from Gargoyles (1994), voiced by Jonathan Frakes. Origin of the 'Xanatos Gambit' trope.
Favourite historical villain
Not that I think he is one, he's just that ingrained in so many people's heads it's all they can think about and it's not even limited to Americans. I've known people in the UK who cannot go a single day without bringing him up in some way or another. He hasn't been POTUS for almost 3 years and he's still the first thing many think about when they wake up, the last thing they think of before sleeping, and likely what they dream about. Rent. Fucking. Free.
I chose Shiro Ishii than someone like Trump as Trump is more a 'perspective villain' in that in terms of actions, Obama is a bigger villain and it's only because he's 'on the other side' they even consider him a villain living in their heads.
It has less basis than calling Emperor Hadrian a villain for giving us Syria/Palestine...
Though you make a good point, I chose Shiro Ishii as with them pushing 'vaccines' so hard, I love reminding people where the most effective ones came from.
This was my second choice for gaming villain. David Warner's performance really sells the character in a way that the script alone would never pull off. A fantastic showing in an absolute masterpiece of a game. A+, 10/10.
I tune out the story by the time I get to the normal Elf village and am superpowered, but it seemed like those Elves were kind of real dicks.
Main character is the spawn of a demon, goes around slaughtering whole races (like that lizard tribe after the mage prison), is mercenary, and Machiavellian like when you set up the Drow leader for eternal damnation just for fun instead of just stealing the dragon egg back.
I'm not sure Irenicus is the bad guy. Isn't he just doing what it takes to stop those horrible Elves that screwed him over?
Holy shit, no.
First off the main character is the spawn of an actual god, specifically Bhaal, Lord of Murder. Demons would be a massive downgrade here.
The Drow are 99.999% an evil race. We're talking full on moustache twirling sadists here. Betraying the Matriarch in that moment is not only the best thing you can do to remove a threat to the silver dragon whose eggs the Drow had stolen, but also to cripple that city for however long by causing so much chaos they won't be going on any raids for the foreseeable future while they all try to kill each other. There is a single Drow in the entire city who isn't evil and you get told to go kill him by his ex because she's bored of him.
He's that power hungry he literally tries to become a god. Twice.
The reason the elves "screwed him over" is because after being coerced by his sister Bodhi for so long Irenicus tried to tap into the Divine power of the Tree of Life and supplant the existing Elvish pantheon of gods. The first time he was stopped and this is what gets him stripped of his immortality and renamed "Irenicus, the Shattered One". The punishment was expected to eventually be fatal however he steals the main character's Divine soul which stabilises the condition. Bodhi was similarly punished but turned to vampirism as a means of avoiding her death. She gets the Divine soul of another Bhaalspawn however is slain prior to the showdown with Irenicus and because of her vampiric nature didn't "connect" with her stolen soul in the same way as her brother manages. When Bodhi dies the stolen soul simply returns, however after defeating Irenicus at the Tree of Life both he and the main character die and end up in Hell for a final confrontation over who gets the soul.
Irenicus is completely unrepentant about his first attempt to become a god that he spends his intended final years trying to extend his own life so he can get revenge on the elves who punished him then try again.
Dragons will kill you for just looking at them wrong. Better to set a bunch of spike traps to kill the dragon and hatch its egg as your battle pet.
But regardless, the 'best' thing you can do is go in and slaughter all the Drow. I mean they're evil right? Except that's some Anakin Skywalker shit and even he knew it wasn't right to fight evil with evil.
He just wants to level up, same as main character. Wanting to improve yourself isn't evil.
Chromatic dragons will kill you for looking at them wrong, Metallic won't. They are split by alignment in a similar way devils and demons are in D&D where one is Lawful Evil and the other Chaotic evil. In the case of dragons the ones with a metal in their species are good, such as the Silver dragon in question. A Grey dragon however would be evil.
No, the best thing you can do is infiltrate the city and recover the eggs. Not only does this ensure you actually get the eggs back but it means you don't have to lay seige to an entire city. Secondary to the story aspects it's also the method that grants far, far more rewards in terms of both character XP and loot because there are dozens of side quests you can complete during the infiltration.
This re-enforces the point u/MargarineMongoose makes.
The main character does doesn't want to level up, he wants to get escape the Underdark so he can retrieve his Divine soul from Irenicus before things get any worse, which they are with every passing moment.
The sole driving point of the main character in the original Baldur's Gate games is to escape those chasing him due to his Divine birthright as a Bhaalspawn. In the first game this takes the form of another Bhaalspawn who wants to be the last one standing as that results in them reincarnating into Bhaal. In the second game it's trying to avoid Irenicus at first, then trying to rescue a party member, then trying to get your soul back. In the expansion for the second game it's back to trying to survive attacks from other Bhaalspawn.
Irenicus only cares about having power.
"Silvers, like all dragons, believed themselves the most superior creatures in the world". They're literally Nazis.
If you are simply disinterested she says you "would have encountered my tooth and claw instead of words" if she didn't actually need you and if you outright refuse "I fear that the choice is no longer yours". Forced labor, that doesn't sound fascist at all... And if you were to fail, the mysterious imp warns you that she'll find you wherever you go and kill you.
Wow, what a moral exemplar that.
Oh no doing good is so much work. Better to just leave the evil Drow there mostly undisturbed with a new leader who might be worse.
Sounds like your main character does in fact want to level up instead of doing the right thing.
Wow, it's like you literally never played the game.
Gaming Villain: Senator Armstrong from Metal Gear Rising: Revengence, all day, every day. Even beyond the memes and the epic fight, his true motivation is admirable, and you can even make an argument that him going as far as he does makes sense in the context of the Metal Gear universe. In fact, the only reason I dont consider him to be the hero snubbed by the game and the author is because he goes too far.
Media Villain: Iago from Shakespeare's Othello. He still serves as my platinum standard of a villain for all media regardless of type. He manages to accomplish all of his goals, get his revenge, do it without being suspected by anyone else, and even manages to kill those he feel wronged him without lifting a finger. He merely spoke a few words and then let them tear themselves apart.
Historical Villain: I am going to go in a little bit of a strange direction and say Thomas Robert Malthus on the grounds that he is the inventor of Malthusianism. This is the single most destructive ideology created IMO, and is the one that most of the Elite of the world seem to have come to believe which is why they are making such destructive policy. This despite the fact that if you actually look at history, we actually figure out ways to either get more resources or we use them more efficiently (Peak Oil was supposed to be like 40 years ago, yet we are still increasing oil production). And the worst part of his theory? Its starting basis is flawed! He based his idea that eventually you run out of resources and therefore need aggressive government control of the population is based on his review of the Irish Famine...WHICH WAS A GOVERNMENT CREATED FAMINE!!!!
People always say they would go back in time to kill Hitler? Nah bitch, I am going back in time and killing Malthus.
At least Malthus inspired the Mouse Utopia Experiment. Which, while failing to show anything it set out to do, showed us a startling vision of the future we now live in.
I apologise, your gaming pick made me play 'It has to be this way' in my head and then I had to replay the soundtrack on my phone again lol
Interesting historical pick, reading up on it, yeah I might have to change my time travel pick as it used to stop Woodrow Wilson being elected at all costs!
Well then I am about to give a mildly controversial take: I am actually not a huge fan of It has to be this Way, and I think Collective Consciousness is the better of his boss songs.
Of course, this is all moot anyway because my favorite boss song in the game is Stains of Time (the boss song for Monsoon).
That isn't too controversial as the entire soundtrack is a banger so people just have personal favourites (I'm more Red Sun)
What WOULD be controversial is when you have access to gaming soundtracks, anime op and ed, independent musical talents, is to go 'I only listen to top ten charts for music'
Favorite gaming villain: u/SR388-SAX I'll give you three guesses.
Favorite media villain: Roy Batty. The guy was designed to kill, and yet his final act involves saving his enemy's life, redeeming himself, and fulfilling the motto of his creator.
Favorite historical villain: Ghengis Khan. The guy was a bona fide natural disaster.
Ah, a classic pick for your historical villain, the guy that caused A LOT Europeans to have a common ancestor lol
Given your username, I'll go with ... Crocomire.
Flip side is that Temujin was a product of his world, and he did seem to care about his people and his family. But he understood that there's two ways of dealing with power... rolling over for it, and forcing it to roll over for you.
"I am the Flail of God! If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you."
Iago. Nothing else comes close. Iago is a character who embodies evil without ever becoming an actual monstrosity. The most evil character you ever see in most media is a serial killer, a genocidal madman, or a megolomaniac. They're evil, but comically so. The Red Skull is always evil, but is a monster/demon stand in. He can't actually be human with his evil.
Iago is something very different. He manages to be the most vile, underhanded, scheming, twisted, traitorous bastard while basically keeping his hands clean. He lies to his closest friends in order to get them to kill each other, while posturing himself as "Honest Iago". He never actually becomes demonic, but his seething hatred is always honestly conveyed only to the audience, whom can do nothing to stop him. Connor from The LotusEaters recently said that even Iago was judged a bit unfairly given that Othello was a Moor, whom the Spanish and Italians would have prejudice against naturally due to the conquest of Spain. But that deflects the fact that Iago postures himself as Othello's best friend in order to try and incite him into killing his own wife, in order to kill him with guilt and grief. For that, Iago is a masterful villain who always seems to maintain his human form, but possessed by a hatred that can't really even be rationalized. What he does is far worse than what any simple prejudice or stalled ambition could rationalize.
Tom Clancy called it.
I'm gonna go with John Brightling: head of the Horizon Corporation and secret primary antagonist in Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six. The man appears to be a billionaire philanthropist and advocate for environmental protection. To Neoliberals, it's the kind of guy they want to be. He's a perfect Globalist that believes it is necessary to bring the world together using corporate wealth and international co-operation to cure diseases and end the threat of Climate Change. He's very concerned about Peak Oil. He's personally building a brighter future. Why, he's even built biomes across the world to study how best humanity can live with the Earth.
Unfortunately, he's entirely ideologically possessed by the most insane and rabid elements of the environmentalist movement. In his younger years, he became a member of a Left-wing terrorist organization called the Phoenix Group, but rather than engaging in direct acts of terrorism, he became a patron for the group with his businesses. He's secretly an anti-natalist, accellerationist, terrorist. He's a billionaire mogal who's "penetrated" the multiple national governments across the world with his wealth and influence, such that the Phoenix Group, and Horizon Corporation, are effectively one and the same entity. He placed Phoenix Group ideologues and terrorists into governments across the globe to help facilitate the downfall of civilization and the mass depopulation of the world.
In addition to his efforts at generally destabalizing the world and using the violence to secure further and further control over civilization... well, read this and tell me if it sounds familiar: "In early 2000, Horizon opened a research facility in Congo, Africa with Dr. Catherine Winston as the lead researcher. The facility was opened as a result of Horizon being contracted by the World Health Organization to find a cure for an Ebola Brahma epidemic that had been decimating West Africa's cattle population. Brightling saw it as a opportunity to modify the virus for his plans. He then used Horizon's charity work with the inner-city homeless as a front for a kidnapping ring to acquire experimental subjects for testing the pathogen at a facility in Idaho."
That's right, he used a grant from the WHO to develop a bio-weapon based on the Ebola virus, in order to kill off the majority of the world's population. The biomes he built using US Taxpayer money were actually bio-weapon bomb shelters that he and his acolytes could use as the weapon killed off the majority of the human population.
Even though you are part of the Rainbow Program, an international counter-terrorism operation designed to defeat international terrorism from all of it's sources, you realize that all the governments you are attempting to help have already been subverted and infiltrated by the Phoenix Group. Including the US Secretary of State, who is an older white woman with significant political ambitions and a ruthless villain. Sound familiar yet? Anyways, you basically have to go rouge without tipping your hand to any of the governments that you are aware of Brightling's plot, until you launch a major operation to secure the bio-weapon's set to detonate at the Olympics, and then raid Brightling's biome compound in South America.
John Brightling's end-game speech absolutely could be pulled from the front of the WEF today, likely written by Klaus Schwab himself. Just Stop Oil would honestly recruit him as a member.
Uday Hussein.
Overly entitled rich boy who deserved the death he got: having 500 lbs bombs dropped on his bunker, not to kill him from the blast, but to use the percussive force to give him so many concussions that his brain fucking liquefied. I'm not sorry, he fucking had it coming.
Excellent picks, your media pick is a great signature villain, the gaming one is like a more competent Bill Gates which is terrifying
And historical, the guy I feel most sorry for was his body double. I remember watching Count Dankula's mad lads on him, the shit he went through..
Thanks, and I saw that too.
Gaming villain: Infel of AT2. Because she's overtly a genocidal maniac villain, but the game makes sure you're clearly aware that she believes everything she is doing is right and proper, and not only that, the game makes sure you're aware that... She's right. Her plan would indeed work. And she's been helping you throughout the entire game, even right up until entering that final boss room, knowing you're against her, she'll still help you, because she acknowledges that our method would ALSO work, but just be much less effective long-term, it's a stopgap measure, but that you as a party are not evil, you're just opposed to her for professional differences.
Media Villain: His Noble Majesty Lelouch vi Brittannia. No one in media is quite as far gone as he is. He kills hundreds millions, and they make sure you KNOW it, that the weight of those weigh on both the audience, and on himself. None of this delusional Thanos "I did a great job, time to farm" stuff, he HATES what he is, but does it out of what he believes to be evil by necessity. And he succeeds, which to me is an important element of villainy. Ineffectual villainy is just comic relief.
Historical Villain: Yakub Shabazz. "Historical" is a tricky category, but I believe he qualifies, as at least a few million people believe he really exists and did the things he did. As to what he did... Why, he made us. The historical records of the Nation Of Islam highlight the tale of Yukub of the tribe Shabazz as a mad scientist who through using grafting, selective breeding, and magnets, created "white people" as the ultimate weapons of destruction and hatred to curse the world. White People were so evil, so purpose-built to lie and deceive and destroy, that Moses had to blast most of them away with dynamite, but a few survived, and spread, and took over much of the world with their "tricknology" powers. A historical mad scientist, who is just absolutely nutty in his tale's recounting. I have to laugh every time his historical record and the origin of the caucasian human sub-species is brought up. Since he brings so much joy, he has to be my favorite.
The Nation of Islam thinks whites are so superior that they had to come up with a story about whites being genetically engineered to be superior just to explain it.
Excellent pick for your media villain, I do prefer the manipulator characters, both hero and villain in these kinds of stories
Hermes from The Suffering simply because his voice actor absolutely nails it in a way that VAs today don't even measure up to. He is meant to be an unfeeling professional, who slowly begins to gain pleasure from his work to a point where he longs to know what they feel. Starting with simply staring at their bodies after, to listening to their final phone calls, to eventually putting himself in the gas chamber. It was and still is a very unique look at the "often tried and failed to achieve" sociopathic character type.
Fukase and Sera from Instant Bullet. I put both, because the story is constantly changing who is the villain and hero.
Sera is a completely broken person, who lacks the ability to actually feel any proper reactions to the world. Her father committing suicide around her doesn't even make her smile flinch, only asks when he is coming home. He had attempted her whole life to put some morality in her by making her obsessed with Sentai shows, which worked in that she became obsessed with being a hero. But being unable to actually understand morality beyond that simple black/white structure, and her power being literal control over bombs, she struggles to do anything but fail. She joins the Big Organization to hopefully get help in that regard, but their methods are so brutal she realizes she cannot escape and simply succumbs to being the villain.
Whereas Fukase, the protagonist, opens the story saying he will destroy the world and is the villain of the story. He is the pariah of everything, spends most of his days getting jumped and beaten, and hasn't had more than a handful of good memories in his life. He spends the entire runtime of the story being given a reason to live and being shown the beauty of the world. Getting friends, a new family, a girlfriend, all of it. Its almost a cliche rags to riches story. But by the end of it, instead of being grateful for any of it it simply enrages him further. He resents the world that kept it from him for so long, hates others who got it so easily, and is enraged knowing it will be taken from him again. So he reminds everyone, including the audience and Sera (who had been waiting on him the "hero" to kill her) that he is the true villain of this story and will absolutely destroy the world with his power.
Its a dynamic you don't often see, and its a shame it was cancelled resulting in the last volume being considerably rushed (leaving a lot of stuff unanswered, though the ending still works regardless).
Karen Horney. A woman so egotistical and selfish she singlehandedly began the rot that infected Psychology while it was still in the womb. When Freud himself offended her by saying less than kind things about women, she just went "NO U" and made up her own field of things like "womb envy" that said men are destructive because they are driven mad by their inability to create life like the superior women. Her clinical work was also incredibly creepy, wherein she would become your "mother" and then re-raise you to be correct. This requires you to sign a minimum one year contract that you had to keep seeing her, under the guise of "it'll mess you up to stop half way."
Her work, and the lack of people criticizing it due to coinciding with the early feminist power push, is the foundation of why Psychology became a much more female oriented field and she is still held up as some high name by many in the field. And the abuse of Psychology as a political tool is half the reason why the Left ever had a chance. The Civil Rights Movement wouldn't have succeeded without the Doll Test. The media couldn't craft a narrative without shill funded "studies" to trick normies. Trannies needed John Money's horror show.
Love your explanation for Hermes and Instant bullet, shame about the ending for the latter but unfortunately that happens a LOT in media where the ending fails to deliver
That Karen Horney though, Jesus. She's in the bracket that I'd like to call "women that prove impy right" (just a teasing jab imp)
Its funny, because the author, would then go on to make Kaguya: Love is War. One of the biggest series of the last few years shortly after, whose massive scope had him straight retire once it ended a few months ago. So I'm sure that execs who axed it are kicking themselves now.
And yeah, Horney is a very undertalked about figure in history despite her work being on par with John Money in terms of damage caused.
Maybe with the success of Kaguya Sama: Love is War, his previous work might get what I like to call 'the Fruits Basket treatment'
I swear though, all these Japanese authors switching up a lot, they either did dark stuff then went lighter or reverse or did doujins then manga or the reverse! Very interesting selecting an author and checking their previous works lol.
Instant Bullet wasn't nearly big enough to get the Fruits Basket treatment, unfortunately. And with him retiring, its even less likely to see a second attempt.
And generally, I always check an author's entire catalogue if I can. I've found a lot of favorites that way. Dead Tube, my guiltiest pleasure, I found through one called Scumbag Loser. Same with Instant Bullet here. Though ironically its much more similar to Kaguya than you'd expect given what I said. The entire "gang" he assembles is basically the Student Council in broad strokes, showing that his ideas were always great just needing more time to develop.
Boom, headshot.
The 2000s were so long ago they are almost high schoolers.
I'm still wavering between was Darth Vaders most badass moment in the og Trilogy or the last scene of Rouge one
And that historical 'villain', is how you play the long game lol
Ooh boy, I'll have to think long and hard about this one. I have so many to pick from, but if I had to pick only one, it would have to be the Aparoids from Star Fox: Assault. Yeah, the controls haven't aged all that well, but there was just something about the concept of an alien insect hivemind, whose queen has psychic powers, consuming the galaxy that hit the right horror notes when I played it all the way through many years ago. hint hint Nintendo
Ramses II in The Prince of Egypt. This is completely putting aside the religion aspect of the movie. You get to see him grow up alongside Moses, and eventually grow apart as he solidifies himself as Pharaoh of Egypt (going so far as to, among numerous other things, to have built an even larger statue than that of his father, Seti I, who also plays a major role despite only being in the first half). After all that transpires in the second half, it all culminates in this climax that I feel few movies have ever matched.
I've got to go with Al Capone. He was a real bastard, but damn, was his PR game top notch. When he was eventually caught, they didn't pin him on murders, kidnappings, and extortion. No no no, they instead got him on tax evasion in what would be the first of many big takedowns by the federal organization known today as the IRS.
And that historical villain is why even The Joker doesn't fuck with the IRS lol
Nice media pick, I like the opposing sides grew up together but fate divided them onto different paths storyline
Gaming: The Elder God-Legacy of Kain. The Hub of the Wheel. Where all souls go. The parasite gnawing at Nosgoth.
Media: Going basic here. The Joker. An awful person, devoted to the cause of just being an asshole. Choose your version (except Jared Leto...or maybe add him. The goal is being a cackling asshole.)
Historical: Pol Pot. Man killed people just for wearing glasses because he thought they were smarter than him.
Now that's a classic, is there any news on the Legacy of Kain as I heard there was a problem with the people that bought the rights to it
Another DC villain, I wonder if DC makes better villains than Marvel as haven't seen any yet
Ah Pol Pot, the guy who's regime made me root fir commies...not his commies, the Vietnamese once that had enough of their shit and invaded pushing them back easily as they were too focused on killing, kinda the same thing that happened with the Rwandan genocide.
Fuck if I know. Last I heard Black Sun videos, then fuck all after the abysmal failure of Nosgoth. I still hold out hope somebody with talent finishes off the saga. And with certain major VA's dead now, never gonna happen.
sigh
Least Simon Templeton is still around.
Gaming villain: Bob Page from the Deus Ex series. He is a deeply, deeply flawed man, egotistical, vicious, a true megalomaniac. But he is, in fact, a super genius. He set up a series of events from a young age that came very close to him being functionally immortal and a lower-case-g god. But I can never forgive him for what he did to Megan Reed.
Media villain: Professor Moriarty. Well-known and respected educator who runs the entirety of European organized crime, both for his own profit and to make sure it doesn't get too out of hand. Would have gotten away with it, if it wasn't for that meddling autistic dope fiend Holmes.
Historical villain: Lenin. Remove him, and the 20th Century has one spasm of war and is quiet. Fewer famines, fewer deaths, and fewer teenage communists.
Very interesting picks and I have to ask although it went downhill after season 2 what did you think of Sherlock's take on Moriarty?
I understand your hatred for Lenin but I would raise you Woodrow Wilson, because without him, no Lenin rise to power, no commies in general, no Nazis and possibly no race movement as he's the guy that brough racism back on a federal level!
Disclaimer: I am doghsit at answering these types of questions so I'd probably change my mind on a whim.
Gaming: Sovereign in original Mass Effect, an excellent combination of intimidation and intrigue, his contempt for organic life just oozes out of him.
Media: The Joker. Not all interpretations of him are good (Leto), but there have been several that are (Hamil, Nicholson, Ledger, Phoenix, Baker). I like that there are different interpretations of him, but I still come away thinking, "yep, that's The Joker alright."
Historical: Wernher von Braun. I don't actually consider him a villain, but many do because of his Nazi party membership. It's hilarious watching Jews and liberals seethe to this day about him being a contributor to rocket science and space flight. They even made movies to make the space program about black women (Hidden Figures) and a TV show to air their perverse fantasies about torturing people who came to the US under Operation Paperclip (Hunters). The saga of Wernher von Braun is also a great example of political realism compromising ideological idealism.
Nah it's all good, as said this is all for fun to de-stress before we get another week of hearing the weird shit Kanye might say lol
Like your picks and will say your historical pick does line up with mine since if I remember right, both the US and the Soviet Union sought after those working in Unit 731, just the US did full immunity and even payment for research and the Soviet Union did trials where the defendants got surprisingly lenient sentences given the crimes.
It's kinda lucky that the Axis that had all these ideas, concepts and inventions, didn't have the resources the Allies did to put them into full production.
Gaming, I had a thing for Bloody Malth from Ninja Garden (loved that story). Media: I really liked Admiral Thrawn as a kid. Historical, Pontius Pilate.
Thrawn, the guy that we all collectively say 'Disney are idiots not having him in the Trilogy' but after they happened, we're glad he wasn't so they couldn't ruin him
Pontius Pilate, guy who got Jesus 'killed' (murky as he did come back), actually going biblical with your villain lol
Gaming: The C-Consciousness from STALKER. Kind of terrifying when you think about the possibilities.
Media: For fun, let's say Senor Chang in Community. A classic devious little weasel.
Historical: Napoleon. There's just enough to describe him as more villain than hero or anti-hero, but you can't help but admire his skill and genius. Efficient, thorough, effective, and managed to ruffle so many feathers from so many nations. I'd have to bet that Thrawn was almost certainly inspired by, or loosely based on Napoleon.
HA GAAAAYYYY! (sorry I had to, I really had to lol)
Napoleon was good enough we named an entire era after him so he definitely was recognised, great picks
Gaming Villian: Boss, MGS3. I loved her arc and found her motivations great. How she was cornered into playing the villian, so she faithfully stuck to that role for her nation.
Media Villian: Noximilien By far the best villian I can think of. The fact he was right about his use of violence and murder. He just got screwed over in the end even though he won.
Historical: Gotta go with others and say Khan. Dude was a natural disaster in human form and and legacy lives on in a huge portion of the population.
I'll be honest, although she's the antagonist, feel uneasy calling Boss the 'Villain' but WAY too many MGS games have so many shades of grey that it's hard to tell bad from good.
Unfamiliar with Noximilien so I'll have to go by your summary
I think that's the fourth Khan we've had lol, but interesting picks.
Nox is great, hes got a jester kind of personality at the start of the show and slow burns into getting more and more serious. If youre interested, the show he is from is Wakfu season 1. He justifies everything he does by the fact he will rewind time so none of his atrocities will matter because everyone he killed will be alive thousands of years later again anyways. It is a French kids show though. So there is a ton of filler episodes. The second seasons antagonist is also great but he's definitely not as good as Nox.
Everyone's gaming villains are giving me great ideas for games to play.
(Strokes cat) Ah Mr Assassin you found the true purpose of this operation, find media with a excellent villain as a good story needs 3 things minimum, a great setting, a great hero and a great villain
The Historical villain is not just spice as some of the picks really provide excellent new perspectives of people that don't get the hatred they deserve for their actions.
Game: Sovereign reaper
Media: Lore
History: Nixon
Mass Effect 1 was an amazing game, 2 and 3 were crap. Lore showed what a true evil android would be, with better than Khan intelligence and capability, and not sadistic but simply with no morals. Nixon was the original Trump, a populist hero turned villain by media narrative and fake scandal.
Nixon did sell us out to China though.
Yeah looked up Lore, when Star Trek was good and Picard wasn't weak..
Our first DC villain and excellent pick at that, though I was more interested in his daughter for no reason in particular
gaming: Kefka from FF3
media: The Despiser from Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
history: Mao
Had to look up your media pick:
Sounds interesting, without spoiling, how would you describe the evil of the main antagonist, The Despiser?
I haven't read it in forever but he is like a Satan analogue. He wants to destroy creation to free himself but at the same time takes pleasure in inflicting suffering on the people to "punish" God for imprisoning him inside of it.
His motives drive the plot but he isn't really a character in the story other than appearing in climactic parts. Which is imo the best use of an overlord type villain.
The stories are good but there is some serious degeneracy in it, hard R for sure. The main character is an author insert and he is FUCKED UP. Its even worse for Donaldson's other series called "The Gap Cycle".
If you want to give him a try his book of short stories called "Reave the Just and Other Tales" is a good intro.
I'll have to see if I can borrow a copy somewhere, while I can read and watch dark subjects easily for research to understand a subject/figure, free time I have a limit on what I'll view for degeneracy.
Too many good villains to choose from. I'm partial to Magus from Chrono Trigger. Mostly because that game is amazing, but also because I'm sympathetic to his motivations and you get the opportunity to decide for yourself what to do with him once you know the whole story.
Re: Vlad Tepes
Vlad is a fucking hero, not a villain.
I did say in my defence putting Vlad would be the wuss option just because he loved impaling, I mean you are talking to a guy who's perfect partner would be the reincarnation of Olga of Kiev!
Nice pick for gaming, just looking at the list we have shows how many good villains we've had in gaming.