Best "Villains in Name Only"?

[FalloutJack]

Who do you think are the best examples of "Villains in Name Only"? As in, the antagonistic opposite of an antihero - perhaps, an anti-villain?

I think one of the best examples is Magneto from X-Men, a tragic Jewish Holocaust survivor who just didn't want anything like that to happen against the mutant population, largely oppressed by the rest of humanity.

As MovieBob's Magneto Was Right implied, if the X-Men universe existed in real-life, I personally think I would side with Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants. Idealism doesn't suit me.

The term you're looking for is Well-Intentioned Extremist.

Perhaps the weirdest example I can give is the whole entire inverted plot to Gun X Sword, in which the villain (The Claw) is a kind old man who wishes to use his special project to unify the world with his more pleasant outlook on life (though he is a man who has killed many to come to this conclusion) and the hero (Van) who doesn't care about any of that and just wants to kill him. Gun X Sword has to be the biggest load of gray morality I've seen in a mecha-anime.

 

[MrPeanut]

Pretty much all of the Sith.

Emotions are bad according to Mr Lucas.

But spending time as a Sith makes you become a genocidal power hungry maniac.

That's bad, right?

That only applies to a few of them to my knowledge. Most are just force users that the Jedi's deemed dangerous.

Isn't it said thought that the longer you spend in the Dark Side the more "corrupted" and insane you become?

 

[Treblaine]

The reason why John complained and why he had a farm is because he didn't want Jack to grow up as a bandit and having to kill people and what Edgar Ross did was ruin that and turned Jack into the bandit his father never wanted him to be that is point of that ending.

Edgar Ross really was an evil man he didn't just go to that farm to kill John he went there to kill the whole family and why didn't he just do it when John killed Dutch instead of waiting for the family to be reunited and start there new lives and then taking that away from them that was pretty horrible.

And then there is always this quote which sums up what he did.
"As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy."
-Christopher Dawson

" Edgar Ross did was ruin that and turned Jack into the bandit

Jack cannot absolve responsibility for murderous tendencies. He still had a farm. He still had his mother to guide him morally. He doesn't have an excuse, he has a motive.

The thing is I THE PLAYER was ready to forgive Ross, to spite having totally invested in John Marston as a character and feeling for him. but the game would not allow that act of humanity and understanding.

I mean I took every single one of my targets alive if I could, I didn't kill Javier or Williamson. I even specialised in taking bounties without killing any of their gang members unless I had to.

This was a game all about choices like these in earning redemption.

But in the end it denied me that assuming every player is a jerk incapable of forgiveness or understanding.

"he didn't just go to that farm to kill John he went there to kill the whole family"

Obviously wrong.

The Army and Ross let his family get away and NEVER pursued them. They left as soon as Marston was dead, Jack and Mrs Marston were able to return unopposed after only 5 minutes. They lived at the same farm for years. They WERE NOT AFTER HIS FAMILY AT ALL!!!


Obscure quotations are nothing but a weak "Argument from Authority" fallacy. Your quote is nothing but a baseless declaration, it's not an argument that stands on itself, it's a summary.

 

[Treblaine]

Pretty much all of the Sith.

Emotions are bad according to Mr Lucas.

Have you even seen a Star Wars film?

Yoda and Obi Wan don't scorn such emotions as love, compassion or affection.

They warn against being controlled by fear, or leading your decisions by wrath and desire for revenge. That's pretty sound advice.

The Original Trilogy never said that Jedi weren't allowed to love In the "Expanded Universe" books (before the awful prequel trilogy) Luke Skywalker as a Jedi fell in love with a woman and married her. The Original trilogy never at all insinuated that Anakin Skywalker turned to the dark side because he loved a woman.

That's just old-crazy George Lucas who wrote the awful prequel trilogy. Please, ignore the prequel trilogy and it ALL MAKES SENSE!

 

[BrotherRool]

Pretty much all of the Sith.

Emotions are bad according to Mr Lucas.

And according to roughly 500 million people in the world. As clever as Mr Lucas was, he was not the Buddha and the Buddha predates him a tiny bit.

So I'm saying you can't be so dismissive. I even think the logic is correct, all pain and suffering comes from bonds of attachment and strong emotionally drives. If you never love you will never feel grief. If you never feel loss you will never feel anger. If you don't desire joy then you won't try to harm others to get it. All people who have done bad things have probably been led aside by strong positive emotions at the beginning.

And the Sith aren't people who just feel strong emotions, they are people who've felt strong emotions and then been corrupted it. Anakin wasn't a Sith when he fell in love with Padme, he became a Sith when his love for Padme drove him to seek power to protect her at all costs. The sith are by definition people who will hurt others for their own gain, which makes them actual villains rather than in name only.


The real question is whether suffering is so bad that it's worth ridding ones self of emotion to destroy it. It's true you can never be hurt in life by locking yourself in white padded cell, but have you even really lived?

The Jedi don't even have this problem because they aren't recommending an emotionless life for everyone. But they, in their roles of protectors need to be rid of strong emotions to stop them from being clouded from their duty. I'm not sure if I agree with that but it's not entirely illogical.

In any case it's a fictional universe and I can buy into their logic as presented as part of the fictional world. It's stated as fact that strong emotions will draw you to the dark side which will consume you with strong negative emotions and persuade you to commit attrocities. This is an act of villainhood

Pretty much all of the Sith.

Emotions are bad according to Mr Lucas.

Have you even seen a Star Wars film?

Yoda and Obi Wan don't scorn such emotions as love, compassion or affection.

They warn against being controlled by fear, or leading your decisions by wrath and desire for revenge. That's pretty sound advice.

The Original Trilogy never said that Jedi weren't allowed to love In the "Expanded Universe" books (before the awful prequel trilogy) Luke Skywalker as a Jedi fell in love with a woman and married her. The Original trilogy never at all insinuated that Anakin Skywalker turned to the dark side because he loved a woman.

That's just old-crazy George Lucas who wrote the awful prequel trilogy. Please, ignore the prequel trilogy and it ALL MAKES SENSE!

Even the original trilogy, Yoda tells Luke he must be calm, never attack. Both Yoda and Ben never display a strong emotion or sense of attachment. They have benevolence and compassion but are not controlled by it, and have little enough attachment to calmly relinquish their lives. They are good but they are also detached and peaceful, making their judgements with wisdom and the force rather than emotional whims and they rebuke Luke with his outbursts and ask him to be calmer and less rash.

 

[Brandon Logan]

Lord Genome from Gurren Lagaann.

He saves the human race by oppressing it.

Also the Anti-Sprial in the latter half.

 

[CrazyJew]

Agent Smith and his philosophy.

"I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague, and we are the cure."

This. Simply this.

 

[Red Oni]

Dean Rooney from Ferris Beuller's Day Off; though he was quite a prick, Rooney was just doing his job.

 

[maninahat]

The best I've ever seen is Superman, in the comic Red Son. Why? He saves lives, fights evil and tries to make the world a better place, but his communistic ideology makes him an antagonist to the comic's protagonist: Anti-hero Lex Luthor, genius inventor, strategist, and America's only hope of survival, but still an evil, egotistical jerk.

Great role reversal.

 

[Slitzkin]

SPOILERS for Final Fantasy Tactics and sort of spoilers for The Shadow of the Collosus.

Spoiler

Wiegraff from Final Fantasy Tactics. He just convinced Ramza is the villain (or another pawn) in the grand scheme of things and does what he believes is right. The abolishment of the royal families in Ivalice. Betrayed by their Kings the soldiers of the Fifty Years War are left destitute and unpayed and through Wiegraff they find a leader. A revolutionary army is created named the Corpse Brigade. Many died in the failed coup attempt and all because of the avarice of the Royalty.

The Colossi from The Shadow of the Collosus. Peaceful giants roaming the lands till some Wanderer comes and murders them to death. And you that plot twist.

 

[Saltyk]

This could be a difficult topic to judge. For example, I can think of terrible villains who did terrible horrible things, but honestly, someone else is responsible for it.

Take Luca Blight from Suikoden 2. Now, Luca attacked the Youth Brigade of his own nation with his personal guard, completely wiping them out. He blamed this on the City-State to put a stop to the peace between the nations. He then proceeded to burn villages down, mock people as he killed them, and even sacrificed an entire city to awaken a great power. Even managed to kill his father with poison. In one scene, we witness a woman beg to be spared, saying she'll do anything. He tells her to act like a pig, which she does. When she thinks that she maybe spared, he then cuts her down with even more slashes than he did other victims we saw he slaughter.

Terrible villain, right?

Okay, but when he was a child, his family was attacked by bandits. His father got away, but not him or his mother. He witnessed these men rape his mother repeatedly for days. Eventually, they were saved, by the royal guard, but a little later his mother died giving birth to a daughter, most likely conceived during that time. Later, he learns that the men were hired by the leader of the City-State.

Also worth noting, that his father was a good man. The only reason for any conflict was the City-State tried to invade. If you look into the background information, you'll realize that the entire conflict that predated the game, and Luca's worldview is all the result of the former leader of the City-State.

So who is the real villain? Luca is more of a victim lashing out at those who wronged him. Yes, he is a villain by his actions, but can you really blame him? Oh, and he seems to have nothing but love for his little sister. Though, he does ignore her pleas to stop the war. Think about that, for a moment.

Other than that, Seifer, from Final Fantasy 8, springs to mind. Yes, you fought him repeatedly, and he was a dick, but he was only trying to live his dream. It seems Ultimecia was using this to manipulate him. And as we saw, there seemed to be no real hard feelings between anyone and him. You could even argue, if you go with the Squall is Dead theory, that we never see Seifer do anything actually wrong. And don't forget he ran off, on his own, to help Rinoa and attacked the President of Galbadia by himself.

Garland, from Final Fantasy 9, was really only trying to aide his own people.

Light from Death Note. You can easily argue that he was a villain, but how many of you would do different, or even worse things, with such a power? At first, he was really only killing the worst of the worst. He became a little twisted and arrogant by the absolute power that he began to wield, but that's about it.

 

[generals3]

I'd say Ocelot in MGS4, while he's presented as the bad guy you need to take out at the end it becomes clear his goal was simply to get rid of "The patriots" which are the actual bad guys. (not sure if i can call them "guys" considering they are AI's)

 

[Treblaine]

Agent Smith and his philosophy.

"I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague, and we are the cure."

This. Simply this.

Humans have breasts... therefore they are mammals. Even men have breasts, but without oestrogen they don't work.

The definition of a mammal is not "develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment" look at what rats and ferrets do when they are introduced to a new environment, they push out all the other animals. Seen most on islands (formed geographically recently by volcanoes) where the only animals that are there are from over the sea so birds and amphibious sea life and seeds blown in the wind.

The definition of a virus is that it is not alive but only a self-replicating process inside other living organisms.

"The only way you can survive is to spread to another area."

Again. Wrong. How are there STILL humans living in Africa as they have lived for tens of thousands of years since the first humans came into existence. They don't strip the land bare and move on, the populations just expand and spread and in fact do form an equilibrium with the environment.

That speech from Agent Smith was nothing but some interrogation mind-fuckery in a lame attempt at breaking Morpheus.

 

[CotF1692]

The reason why John complained and why he had a farm is because he didn't want Jack to grow up as a bandit and having to kill people and what Edgar Ross did was ruin that and turned Jack into the bandit his father never wanted him to be that is point of that ending.

Edgar Ross really was an evil man he didn't just go to that farm to kill John he went there to kill the whole family and why didn't he just do it when John killed Dutch instead of waiting for the family to be reunited and start there new lives and then taking that away from them that was pretty horrible.

And then there is always this quote which sums up what he did.
"As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy."
-Christopher Dawson

" Edgar Ross did was ruin that and turned Jack into the bandit

Jack cannot absolve responsibility for murderous tendencies. He still had a farm. He still had his mother to guide him morally. He doesn't have an excuse, he has a motive.

The thing is I THE PLAYER was ready to forgive Ross, to spite having totally invested in John Marston as a character and feeling for him. but the game would not allow that act of humanity and understanding.

I mean I took every single one of my targets alive if I could, I didn't kill Javier or Williamson. I even specialised in taking bounties without killing any of their gang members unless I had to.

This was a game all about choices like these in earning redemption.

But in the end it denied me that assuming every player is a jerk incapable of forgiveness or understanding.

"he didn't just go to that farm to kill John he went there to kill the whole family"

Obviously wrong.

The Army and Ross let his family get away and NEVER pursued them. They left as soon as Marston was dead, Jack and Mrs Marston were able to return unopposed after only 5 minutes. They lived at the same farm for years. They WERE NOT AFTER HIS FAMILY AT ALL!!!


Obscure quotations are nothing but a weak "Argument from Authority" fallacy. Your quote is nothing but a baseless declaration, it's not an argument that stands on itself, it's a summary.

I don't think the game was assuming the player is a jerk incapable of forgiveness, I think it is showing how Jack grew up with that anger, and even with his mother to guide him morally he still wanted revenge. I saw it as we were John, and while we played as Jack, we were kind of along for the ride. John was a good person (well, if you chose to play that way) but he did some horrible things, and Jack going down the path John wanted him to avoid just shows how hard of a path redemption is.

Now for my choice, I am not entirely sure my pick counts as a villain, but its a spoiler for Bastion

Spoiler

Zulf, although he is never actually called a villain, and I certainly didn't see him as one, you are going against in the second half of the game. He does betray you and lead the Ura to the Bastion, but I can't blame him at all, especially after knowing what he went through.

 

[Treblaine]

I don't think the game was assuming the player is a jerk incapable of forgiveness, I think it is showing how Jack grew up with that anger, and even with his mother to guide him morally he still wanted revenge. I saw it as we were John, and while we played as Jack, we were kind of along for the ride. John was a good person (well, if you chose to play that way) but he did some horrible things, and Jack going down the path John wanted him to avoid just shows how hard of a path redemption is.

Well I was able to make choices for John Marston, it was established ALL through the game... but not with Jack.

To me, that was my own personal Mass-Effect-3 bullshit ending. I fucking hated it. I wish it could be changed, but apparently the RDR fanbase just isn't as legit as Mass Effect's fanbase.

Jack going down the path John wanted him to avoid

Oooooor

both Jack and John continue what they were doing the entire game, which was being BOUNTY HUNTERS! That has all the required skillset of being an outlaw but being on the right side of the law.

shows how hard of a path redemption is.

Of course it's hard IF THE GAME CONTRIVES TO MAKE REDEMPTION IMPOSSIBLE!

Literally the ONLY WAY to finish the game and get 100% is to start something where choosing redemption is impossible.

It's not a case of "redemption is hard" more a case of "We won't let you have redemption".

They think petty revenge is a more satisfying ending than LETTING THE PLAYER CHOSE the path of Redemption. The path to remption is forgiveness, not personal retribution.

That's what this game should have been called:

[HEADING=2]Red Dead Retribution[/HEADING]

 

[Treblaine]

sip

LOL

I'm afraid even if we ignore the prequel trilogy we never see a Jedi Knight show any emotion, I couldn't speak about the books that followed because I never read them, but the first trilogy showed a very stark contrast from the Luke in the Empire Strikes back and the Luke in Return of the Jedi as far as emotions go.

Absolute deceptive nonsense.

Yoda and Obi Wan frequently are seen smiling, joking and demonstrating compassion and empathy.

Don't mistake restraint and control in a tense situation for cold lack of feeling. He is feeling, compassionate and tender. Yeah he's not wailing and screaming like a fool but he clearly shows that cares for his sister and friend's well-being, and can't hide his emotion at the death of his estranged father.

 

[Magikarp]

Loki from Thor. He did a lo of bad stuff, but he was always trying to do what he thought was best for Asgard.

 

[Kimarous]

Lord Ashur from Fallout 3's "The Pitt" DLC. He's a tyrant ruling over the Pitt with raiders dominating a multitude of slaves, all the while claiming to be working on a cure for the local mutation plague that also prevents children from being born (which is why they use slave labour in the first place). Thing is... he's the good guy. The "cure" the slaves want to steal is Ashur's baby daughter, who has a miraculous resistance to the disease. The reason the cure is taking so long is that the scientist developing it, Ashur's wife, is trying to keep the baby safe. Furthermore, the slaves are lead by Ashur's former lieutenant, who lead a violent coup and was shut down and enslaved as punishment. So why don't you murder a baby's parents and hand this "cure" over to the self-interested rebel and his army of uneducated slaves who have absolutely no idea how to develop the cure. Because that's the GOOD Karma thing, right?