Bad guy motivations

Saregon

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May 21, 2012
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So I was thinking about video game and movie bad guys and why they do what they do. Why do they get up in the morning, why they scheme to do whatever it is this particular antagonist wants and so forth. I also think a proper, well written bad guy that you know why he is what and who he is, what he wants and why, and it makes sense, well, that is a mark of a very well written games, because so few pull it off. This need not apply only to one person/entity either, it can be anything from a rogue group of mercenaries, via shady corporations, to something as amorphous as an idea/group psychology, not sure how to explain that last one properly, it just makes sense in my noggin.

Anyway my question is, what games have you played that stood out, antagonist-wise, as either very good, or very rubbish, and why? What's the motivation, who's the bad guy and so forth.

For me I'd say any game where the antagonist is going for world domination is unimaginative and dull. Why would he want that, it would just set him/her/it up with endless chores. Think politicians have it bad? Expand that to the whole world. Yeah.

On the other hand, going for world destruction is much better in my mind. It can be out of revenge, hatred of the planet's race, or just being bored, and it won't leave them with the tedium of administrating it afterwards.

Oddly enough though, I can't think of any examples off the top of my head as I'm writing..

Anyway, what's your idea of this?

Captcha: dog's dinner. Well, captcha, I suppose that could be a motivation as well.
 

Vegosiux

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May 18, 2011
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Saregon said:
On the other hand, going for world destruction is much better in my mind. It can be out of revenge, hatred of the planet's race, or just being bored, and it won't leave them with the tedium of administrating it afterwards.
Wait why would I want to destroy the world? That's where I keep all my stuff!

Still, you're right that world domination plots can get quite generic and dull. Especially when I go "You know, Doctor Wendell could have just made billions patenting his weather control technology and retired, what the hell was that all about?"

To me, though, the best kind of antagonist is one that I absolutely despise because he's written that way (hello, Jon Irenicus!). Which is not to say they can't have any redeeming qualities, hell even Irenicus might have had one or two, if you managed to dig deep enough.

But it has to be personal at least to some degree, because, well, the personal bit is what sets the antagonist apart from other antagonists. Those that only do it "For the evulz" are usually quite shallow and while I do like the trickster archetype, that's not exactly something I want to see in an antagonist.

But, it's not about what their motivation is as much as it's about why it's like that and how they relay it.

Oh yeah, bonus points; an antagonist should have got at least SOME entries in the Evil Overlord list right.
 

WoW Killer

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Mar 3, 2012
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Suikoden 2 springs to mind. The first bad guy is like a comicbook/pantomime caricature who likes to burn things and say "Die piggy!", with seemingly no motivation whatsoever beyond the enjoyment of inflicting pain. The second tries to be more reasonable, talking about things like destiny and inevitability, despite making aboslutely flat-out zero fucking sense. The first bad guy was better.
 

SajuukKhar

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I like Dr. Wallace Breen from Half-Life 2.

He reminded me of the anti-spirals from Gurren Lagann, they originally had a noble goal, in Breen's case it was saving humanity from outright annihilation by The Combine, and while his original intentions were probably pure, over the years his powers corrupted him and made him loose sight of what it was he was really trying to achieve.

Without Dr. Breen surrendering humanity to The combine, Gordon would have not had a world to return to and save. He is one of the few badguys whose existence and actions were necessary for the survival of the people.

He also shares a bit in common with the Illusive Man from MAss Effect... well before ME3 ruined him.

Dr. Breen, The Illusive Man, and the anti-spirals are all people who
-Claim to be working for the survival of humanity/the universe
-Have gone to extremes such as genocide to get what they want
-Despite claiming to be working for something they live in incredibly detached areas from the thing they are trying to protect. Breen in his office high above in the citadel, the Illusive man in his glass room, and the anti-spirlas in their mini-alternate dimension.
 

Stavros Dimou

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Saren in Mass Effect: Perhaps the most sophisticated and deep antagonist I've ever found in a game.

Bowser from Super Mario: He just kidnap a Princess,without any reason except for the heck of it. He isn't asking ransom money,or a political change,or whatever. He just grabs a girl and put her to a cage just because.
 

disgruntledgamer

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Stavros Dimou said:
Saren in Mass Effect: Perhaps the most sophisticated and deep antagonist I've ever found in a game.

Bowser from Super Mario: He just kidnap a Princess,without any reason except for the heck of it. He isn't asking ransom money,or a political change,or whatever. He just grabs a girl and put her to a cage just because.
What are you talking about he kidnaps here for her "Cake" don't you ever watch Yahtzee
 

Saregon

Yes.. Swooping is bad.
May 21, 2012
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SajuukKhar said:
Dr. Breen, The Illusive Man, and the anti-spirals are all people who
-Claim to be working for the survival of humanity/the universe
-Have gone to extremes such as genocide to get what they want
-Despite claiming to be working for something they live in incredibly detached areas from the thing they are trying to protect. Breen in his office high above in the citadel, the Illusive man in his glass room, and the anti-spirlas in their mini-alternate dimension.
Now see, this is what I'm talking about, some depth and insight into the reasoning behind their "evil". This is also the case in Fable 3, with the king being evil to save the people from utter doom and such. It definitely helps you relate somewhat to them, like "Yeah, it's twisted, but I may have done the same to save everything I love." And also with the whole absolute power/corruption thing.

And I definitely agree with the poster above, that a completely reprehensible, through-and-through EVIL character is enjoyable in the sort of "I'm going to enjoy taking you down" kind of way. Although I think I prefer it more grey-area, as in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, where pretty much nobody is really evil, they all have their justifications (except Joffrey, screw that brat).
 

Jason Rayes

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The other courier from the Fallout New Vegas DLC The Lonesome Road. He is more than a little insane but as you find out why, and his motivations, while I disagreed I could understand where he was coming from.
 

Swyftstar

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Stavros Dimou said:
Bowser from Super Mario: He just kidnap a Princess,without any reason except for the heck of it. He isn't asking ransom money,or a political change,or whatever. He just grabs a girl and put her to a cage just because.
He has a very good reason for kidnapping her. See all those kids he has as the game gets more and more sequels over the years? Do you see any female bowsers around?

OT: While I appreciate a villian with a rational and maybe even relatable reason for being a villain, I feel like it gets done sometimes just so they don't seem like a lazily written villain. Which in turn makes them seem like a lazily written villain. Sometimes I just like my bad guys to be assholes. Take Denzel Washington in Training Day. What were his motives beyond being a money hungry, greedy, power tripping asshole? Basically, he's just an ass, they exist and if they are written and played well enough, I am fine with that. I don't need heroic intentions gone wrong all the time.
 

esperandote

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In MGS2 the patriots wanted to moderate the information in the world so there isn't junk information so that peple coul make advancements faster.
 

The Madman

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SHODAN is by far my favourite game villain for various reasons outlined HERE. Spoiler warning though, don't read unless you've either played the game or don't mind spoilers.

Anyway someone who just wants to take over the world or who does things because they're evil isn't exactly compelling. If you want a memorable villain, one that people will talk and think about for years to come, there's got to be some sort of catch to make things interesting. Something to either make them sympathetic to the player or just so downright twisted and villainous they're impossible to forget.

To use a pair of popular examples: Sephiroth is popular not because he's an effeminate man with fabulous hair and a shiny sword, but because people who've played the game remember him as just being ten types of screwed up in the head and badass to boot. A mama's boy with mental issues and a penchant for gruesome murder. Not that many of those out there, especially not dressed like him!

Kefka meanwhile was a similar 'experiment gone spectacularly wrong' scenario but with even more spectacular results. While his motivations are murky, he's memorable for actually getting shit done. He wants to destroy the world? He'll destroy the world and make himself a literal god while doing it, laughing like an insane maniac the entire time... because he totally is an insane maniac, go figure. But he's an insane maniac with power!

Like the Joker with lazer eyes!
 

Kiefer13

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In my opinion, the best villains are generally those that regard themselves as the heroes, or at least have a semi-justifiable reason for acting the way they do, rather than merely out of desire for power or destruction. Examples would include several of the antagonists from the Metal Gear Solid series and Saren from Mass Effect.
 

Mirroga

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Whenever I imagine that the villain would truly like the motivation of destroying the world, I can only describe him that he hates material things or that he is a massive emo that is hellbent on taking the world with him to hell.
 

DoPo

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Jan 30, 2012
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Aha, another topic where Chuck Wendig [http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2012/07/24/25-things-you-should-know-about-antagonists/] has something to say about. Well 25 things to say, in fact.

But let's see, an antagonist I really liked was the Big Bad from Arcanum

Long story short, after chasing around thinking this one elf is planning to return to the world from being banished to another dimension, the PC finally plunges into the prison realm to stop him. It turns out that the elf has been held off by a different prisoner there - one very infamous necromancer. The necromancer for whom the Black Necromancy (raise dead and harming stuff, White is just healing) was banned for a while. His plan is to kill everybody in the world. And he wants to do it not out of spite, but because he truly believes that souls are in pain in the mortal world and death grants them peace. And he is actually right - he did travel to the afterlife and saw the serenity there. You can even talk philosophy with him and he genuinely sounds like an OK guy...well, aside from the horrible torture and experiments he did in the past and his desire to kill everybody. But you can also point our flaws in his reasoning and he'll see the error of his ways.
 

Axyun

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Can't really recall a good video game villian in recent memory. I hate most video game villains. They are evil for the sake of being evil and are horribly one-dimensional as a consequence. Few people of power and stature worth standing up to are truly evil. You might percieve them as wicked or evil because their values don't line up with yours but most genuinely believe that what they are doing or trying to do is a good or necessary thing.

What makes them come across as evil is their arrogance, selfishness, tunnel-vision, blind faith in questionable beliefs, nihilism, stuborness, empathy, etc. They have these strong negative attributes that they seem unaware of and act decisively and aggressively on their feelings. Most video game villains are evil because you need a villain that wants to take over or destroy the world and give the hero a reason to get out of bed every morning. The occassional nut-job villain, like the Joker, gets a pass on my book but few do chaos and evil for the hell of it as well or as convincingly as he does.

The rest are just thinly-veiled punching bags to smack with your Erde Kaiser for 9999.
 

KoudelkaMorgan

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I always preferred Kefka's motivation.

He was the first magitek knight, the process wasn't perfected yet, and his mind was damaged. Was he was like that beforehand? We don't know. He has no empathy, he simply doesn't understand why living beings choose to struggle for survival when they will only die anyways and their entire existence is meaningless.

Human life, all life is meaningless, pointless, there for the exploitation and casual extirpation of anyone with the power to do so. Poisoning Doma? Why not? Making a little girl your slave? Sounds fun. Killing off your peers because they call you mad? Delightful!

Sand on your BOOTS!? It will not be tolerated!

Unlike the Emperor, Kefka achieved his goal, assuming he ever had one. He became a god. He destroyed the world, because he could, because no one could stop him. The petty concerns of mortals mean nothing to him, that there were any survivors after the Day of Judgement was simply him not caring enough to acknowledge them.

But when those survivors began to defy him, he laser cut the fucking continent in half from atop his garbage tower. If they didn't have a spare airship stashed away the world would have been pretty screwed.

When they met him face to face he proclaimed all life to be obsolete, and that he would turn the world into a monument of nonexistence.

Because he could. He was merely helping entropy along.

Even after the heros win, the world is still dying. It doesn't magically get restored, people waking up from comas in caves somewhere.

There is no happy ending thanks to the mad god.

Even Sheogorath realizes that life had its uses.
 

whitewolf35

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There are many 'bad guys' in bioshock, but I personally feel Andrew Ryan is one of the best to stand out. He believed in a dream and made that dream come true for him and and others like him, however he failed to see that the working class cannot survive on Ayn Rand objectionist philosophy, which he realises when Jack comes face to face with him
 

One Shot wonder

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The HECU Marines from Half-Life 1 are actually pretty good seeings as they're pretty early on in the whole scheme of bad guys having a story beyond being 'bad guys'. They're trained soldiers, they've been told that strange abominations are swarming over the Black Mesa research facility, that the personnel at the facility are responsible and that it's vital the world doesn't know about the fact there's been an alien invasion in New Mexico. Their orders have been issued, their commanders are in radio contact and as for the details? Well "Ours is not to wonder why but do and die." Or as they'd put it: they're marines and they follow orders, especially when the orders make sense. For a simple adversary the HECU actually make a hell of a lot of sense. Later on they're directly motivated by a hatred of freeman for killing their comrades and escaping, so the malice they show towards him is both displayed and justified.