Have you ever wanted the bad guy to win?

[wAriot]

Most of the Templars in the later Assassin's Creed games. As a guy with a pretty Hobbsian view of humanity, the idea that everyone deserved complete, absolute freedom was always pretty laughable to me. And generally the assassins did a terrible job of implementing any kind of grand scheme, seemingly content to be a mostly reactionary force and just kill Templars whenever they got too "uppity." Contrast this with the later Templar characters, who are actively shaping systems of government in a sincere effort to bring the best standard of living to as many people as possible, who are effectively indoctrinating slavers, gaining control of their estates, and freeing their slaves.

In no game is this better illustrated than. Black Flag, you play a pirate, a motherfucking mass murdering, innocent killing, looting and marauding pirate (he was actually my favorite assassin for the very reason that he wasn't originally one).

Anyway I don't really want to get into a discussion about the nature of humans, or the advantages of one governmental system over another. I just thought the (later) Templars had some good points and that the assassins didn't really do much beyond murdering people.

Templars in AC's world are basically conservative politicians in real life.
They have some good ideas (specially in times of crisis), but they are so corrupt that they can't really make them come to fruition. They are so obsessed with power that leaving them alive is almost always worse than just killing them.

 

[Candidus]

Phaere, the Underdark, Baldur's Gate 2 - I'd have liked to help her claim control of the city and destroy Suldenessalar. If I could have defeated Irenicus in subordination to Phaere as a sort of Sith Option, that'd have been excellent.

Irenicus, Baldur's Gate 2 - Failing the above, I'd kind have liked it if Irenicus had just plain won. I found Elessime(sp?) so despicable and fucking high-handed that I actually wanted her and her people to choke on the fruits of her own curse.

Celestia Ludenberg, DGRP - I'd have liked it if she got away with her murder and won the game.

Esdeath, Akame ga Kill - As horrible as The Capital is, if the only way to bring it down is by killing Esdeath then I'd just leave it be. She's perfect.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Law Abiding Citizen. A film which inexplicably tried to paint Gerard Butler as the bad guy, when in reality, Jamie Foxx (especially that fucker) and all of the authority characters were a bunch of self-serving, smug, arrogant arseholes, who really should have been killed off.

What they had there, was a brilliant revenge flick, only to ruin it in the last 20 minutes. Easy enough to remedy, just don't watch the last 20-minutes. But it's the movie equivalent of a denied orgasm!

I was going to post this. I rage-stroked so hard, I now hate Jamie Foxx forever.

It's hard to find a villain that you can sympathize with. Most are usually portrayed as single minded brutes. I have always liked the villains who were shown to be capable of outsmarting the hero. Villains like Lex Luthor, it would be nice to see him knock Superman down a peg or two, if at least for an issue or two before the fans frothed at the mouth and DC crumbled, making him beat Luthor in an ironically criminally stupid way.

I wanted the villain in Hancock to win.

 

[Riddle78]

Transistor - The Camerata had the right idea. In a city where,quite literally,everything was decided by public vote,from the city layout,to the weather,to the colour of the fucking sky! It was all orderly,of course,but the issue was that everything was determined by the whim of the majority,leaving the minority to suffer. In such an environment,it was also impossible for someone to gain any lasting recognition,and Cloudbank would never have anything that lasts,as it'll be doomed to be replaced by something else that's more in vogue. All the Camerata wanted to do was create a Cloudbank where the individual could matter,and where the deeds of one could have permanent effects,should they be great enough. It all went south because of one petty,spiteful decision made by one member of the (albeit small) organization. "When everything changes,nothing changes."

Supreme Commander - Now,this all really depends on your definition of "Bad Guy",since all three sides of the Infinite War have their reasons. A little rundown. The United Earth Federation (UEF) seek to unify the splintered factions of humanity to lead it back to the glory days,before the Infinite War. The Cybran Nation want the freedom of the enslaved Symbionts (cyborgs networked with powerful AI) and to simply be left alone. The Aeon Illuminate seek to bring all humanity to The Way,a religion practiced by the Actual Pacifist alien race known as the Seraphim,whose prime tenets were,quite literally,love all life without question,and forgive all transgressions. The thing is,all three sides are so resolute to their solution to the conflict that they refuse to see any other way. The UEF will kill or imprison anyone who doesn't join them. The Cybrans will do the same,likely also turning them into Symbionts in the process. The Aeon will simply kill all who do not follow The Way,should they refuse to convert,and they don't give the option to Symbionts,due to their digital minds being too easy to tamper with. All said and done,though? The Aeon. The glory days collapsed for a reason. Isolationism isn't a permanent solution. At least something new could potentially bring lasting peace. For all their scary,fundamentalist religious dogma,and trust me,I utterly loathe such things,I find the Aeon Illuminate,and their goal,to be the most palatable and,in the long term,ideal. Unity through The Way. Such a shame Black Sun tore the universe a new one,and ushered in the Seraphim War.

Dungeon Keeper - Call me a nihilist,but-- Wait. The bad guy does win. Problem solved!

 

[necromanzer52]

All the time. Right now, I'm more on Kuvira's side in legend of Korra. If only she'd tine down the whole re-education camps thing.

In sword art online, I wanted death gun to kill off Shion & Kirito so badly.

And, I don't know that it has a villain, but I'm really hating the main bloke in fate stay night. He doesn't have to die, I just want to know why we're focusing on him when literally anyone else would make a far more interesting protagonist.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

Avatar (the James Cameron one, not the anime) would be one where I was actively rooting for the hero to fail.

I would have to more or less agree with this.
Despite the fact that the military guy was a massive douche along with that other business guy, I don't think the morality was quite as clear cut as they played it. Sure, invading an alien planet and destroying their way of life (the abysmally transparent allegory for imperialism) is certainly a terrible thing. But the earth is completely fucked, are the humans just supposed to lay down and die?

You know what's funny about this? Avatar and Transformers have this same plot thread but people react totally differently to each of them. Like Cybertron, Earth in Avatar got the way it was because of us and now we're making another race pay for it. So I never got how we excused the RDA doing what they did as doing what needed to be done, and called it the height of evil for the Decepticons to do the same thing to save their planet, which was in far direr straits than Earth.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

You know what's funny about this? Avatar and Transformers have this same plot thread but people react totally differently to each of them. Like Cybertron, Earth in Avatar got the way it was because of us and now we're making another race pay for it. So I never got how we excused the RDA doing what they did as doing what needed to be done, and called it the height of evil for the Decepticons to do the same thing to save their planet, which was in far direr straits than Earth.

To be honest, I've never watched anything beyond the first transformers movie (even then i barely paid attention to it), so I'm not entirely sure how the morality of it compares.
I suppose i would put it down to species bias, it's no secret that humans believe humans are the most important species in the universe.

 

[Kae]

Law Abiding Citizen. A film which inexplicably tried to paint Gerard Butler as the bad guy, when in reality, Jamie Foxx (especially that fucker) and all of the authority characters were a bunch of self-serving, smug, arrogant arseholes, who really should have been killed off.

What they had there, was a brilliant revenge flick, only to ruin it in the last 20 minutes. Easy enough to remedy, just don't watch the last 20-minutes. But it's the movie equivalent of a denied orgasm!

This is probably the best answer to this thread. Even though Gerard was undoubtedly a villain, the fact that its born out of love and a belief in justice (Which was sorely lacking) made you want him to kill everyone, especially Jamie's character, who was a massive dick.

Though I think you read the ending wrong. In the end, Gerard did win - he wanted them to kill him. He set up a scenario where they had to choose between true justice (stopping him) or bureaucratic justice (Pissing about and playing by the rules), and they ultimately did what he wanted them to do - to stop hiding behind protocol and actually fight for justice.

As for other examples...

Psycho Pass - An anime on Netflix I watched recently.

Spoiler: SPOILER WARNING

The anime takes place in Future-Japan, where the entire world has gone to shit except for Japan, as it has turned its government over to the Sibyl System, a massive computer network that handles food production, all government functions, and which eliminated most crime by scanning all citizens brains, identifying people's 'Criminal Coefficient' and punishing imprisoning them on that basis alone. Firearms are illegal, and the only police force left use pistols that actively scan people and decides for the user whether the can stun, kill, or not fire, effectively meaning even the police have no ability to administer justice as they see fit. It also determines what you can do with you life, based on a single test .And at the beginning of the show, this is said to be the perfect government.

This notion is instantly dissolved when the Sibyl System labels a recent rape victim as a criminal, and tells the police to kill her. We meet 'Enforcers', latent criminals with high criminal coefficients who are effectively bullied into becoming slaves to police detectives, or be locked into solitary confinement for the rest of their lives. We then get thrown the main antagonist of the show, a psychopathic narcissist who believes the Sibyl System has destroyed all freedoms, and who the Sibyl System cannot read, effectively making him immune to police intervention since their firearms wont work on him. And you want him to win so bad, because he's trying to destroy what is effectively Uber Fascism IN THE FUTURE. Your urge for him to win is doubled when you find out that Sibyl is not a computer, but over 200 psychopath's removed brains linked together.

But alas, they eventually kill him, and Sibyl, who's secret is been revealed to the main protagonist, gets a pass because 'everyone's happy in ignorance.'

The show isn't over yet, but the acceptance of Sibyl with only the pathetic remark that 'When we have a better way, we'll stop using you' is just frustrating as hell.

It's dinner time. I'll think of some more later.

That's to be my choice too.

Spoiler

Shogo was a bastard but Sybyl really needed to die so I really wanted him to win, which considering the writer it was actually something I thought possible, however I did like the ending to the first season it was pretty amazing, I mean it was pretty weird because all characters had completely different motivations, it was really interesting and I was really genuinely surprised that the one that "won" was Kogami and not Tsunemori, anyway I wanted Shogo to win but I let it slide because the show is still interesting and the second Season has been pretty good so far, still it's pretty weird that I was rooting for the psychopath that was going around killing people and helping other people kill people mainly for amusement.
Anyway I'd suggest watching the second season but it's only on episode 5 or 6 right now so unless you want to subscribe to Funimation's streaming service it's probably best to wait for the DVD or until they add it to Netflix, though I have no clue if they will add it to Netflix.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

You know what's funny about this? Avatar and Transformers have this same plot thread but people react totally differently to each of them. Like Cybertron, Earth in Avatar got the way it was because of us and now we're making another race pay for it. So I never got how we excused the RDA doing what they did as doing what needed to be done, and called it the height of evil for the Decepticons to do the same thing to save their planet, which was in far direr straits than Earth.

To be honest, I've never watched anything beyond the first transformers movie (even then i barely paid attention to it), so I'm not entirely sure how the morality of it compares.
I suppose i would put it down to species bias, it's no secret that humans believe humans are the most important species in the universe.

That actually depends on what fiction for Transformers you read; in the more well known ones, Megatron is usually a moustache twirling villain par excellence, but the comics present a Cybertron that was hugely fascist against against a lot of its own people and the Decepticons were a popular uprising.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Two villains come to my mind, Nox from Wakfu and that scientist from Saber Marrionette J since the both of them simply wanted to see their families again. Granted Nox only had himself to blame for the lost of his family (he went Gollum with that cube) and the scientist goal was fruitless (his family were dead by the time he plan came to action).

Oh there is also Mandara since who give a danm about reality when your wildest dream can come true under a fantasy? You know it would be like the matrix but not run under window 95. Also I guess I sympathise with Mandara a little bit (he wanted to be recongise but instead got ousted by the people he wanted to protect).

 

[diligentscribbler]

Jean Baptiste Grenouille

Perfume, anyone ?

I guess he did kinda win, but I suppose that says something about villains.

 

[Silvanus]

It was not even the Na'vi as a people I had a problem with as much as it was Jake Sully in particular. It was that line in the epilogue where he refers to the humans being packed away back to earth as "the aliens" that clinched it for me. I wanted to shout "you self-entitled douchnozzle, these are the people you were raised with. They vat-grew you a whole other fucking surrogate-body and are the reason you can walk again. Right or wrong, they were your people, you betrayed them hardcore and the whole thing should've ended like Farcry 3. Either ending"

Why does it matter that he was raised with them, or that they did him a solid in the past? They were in the wrong. Surely that matters more (of course, only if we're discussing this in moral terms, rather than fun-story terms).


OT: I wish victory for the villains of James Bond and Doctor Who all the time, simply because those heroes get away with so much bullshit. They are armoured with so much plot it's unreasonable. I also sympathise with the Separatists in Star Wars (though certainly not the Empire).

 

[RavingSturm]

Most of the Templars in the later Assassin's Creed games. As a guy with a pretty Hobbsian view of humanity, the idea that everyone deserved complete, absolute freedom was always pretty laughable to me. And generally the assassins did a terrible job of implementing any kind of grand scheme, seemingly content to be a mostly reactionary force and just kill Templars whenever they got too "uppity." Contrast this with the later Templar characters, who are actively shaping systems of government in a sincere effort to bring the best standard of living to as many people as possible, who are effectively indoctrinating slavers, gaining control of their estates, and freeing their slaves.

In no game is this better illustrated than. Black Flag, you play a pirate, a motherfucking mass murdering, innocent killing, looting and marauding pirate (he was actually my favorite assassin for the very reason that he wasn't originally one).

Anyway I don't really want to get into a discussion about the nature of humans, or the advantages of one governmental system over another. I just thought the (later) Templars had some good points and that the assassins didn't really do much beyond murdering people.

I am so with you on this. I really liked Haythams rant in AC3 and the Templars in AC4 actually had their shit together. The assassins mostly exist as a spite army, going on out of a desire to stop the Templars more then having an actual independant cause.

Totally agree. The everything is permitted nonsense had no real goals or plans. More like rudderless, forever in the moment, punk fart in your face antics.

 

[happyninja42]

The zombies in Land of the Dead,

Spoiler

Who actually did win!! xD I was so happy when they wandered into that human stronghold and started eating everyone![/b]

That movie made me actually empathize with the undead, which is VERY hard to do. I personally hate any variation of undead, and consider them best used as antagonists. I hate vampires, and our cultures sexual obsession with them, and how they keep trying to make them likeable and nice as anti-heroes. But the opening scene of Land of the Dead, I actually felt bad for the zombies, and was angry at the humans. So yeah, for once, I was cheering on the hungry hoard.

Also, in Van Helsing, I kind of wanted Dracula to win, because he was just so gloriously over the top and hammy, I couldn't help but laugh in delight at his performance.

"Lord Drahculaaaah, 'ahve you no haaarht?" *spelled for insanely thick Transylvanian accent*

Dracula: "NOOOOOOOOOOOO! I......am......hollow...." all being said while standing upside down on the ceiling, bitching about Van Helsing. xD So cheesy it was great!

 

[MorganL4]

Yeah, I wanted Light Yagami to win in Death Note.

 

[ExtraDebit]

Do I ever want bad guys to win? ALL THE TIME!

One word: MAGNETO!

 

[MorganL4]

Quite regularly actually. Mostly because hack-writers often take the omniscient morality license given to action-y heroes in western media and stretch it way, way too far.

For example -

Imagine a sci-fi movie.

Earth has withered and died and only a few hard-boiled soldiers survived and are now on a quest to retrieve a key with which they can activate the cryostasis chambers full of infants that would allow humanity to be reborn. But the one person that could help them save our race is a scout that was sent ahead and has gone full native, and sides with them over his own species. He tries to keep the key for himself and attacks them. When they take the key by force (after having also been attacked by the locals repeatedly) they hastily try to initiate a terraforming process, since they have to assume they will shortly be overwhelmed if they don't act fast. In retaliation the former scout destroys their ship, killing off all the unborn infants and forever dooming his own species to extinction. The last survivor of the soldiers that fought so hard to save humanity has a heroic breakdown and lets himself be killed out of desparation.

What a horrible downer ending, am I right?

Now replace "Earth" with "Krypton" and "Race-Traitor" with "Clark Kent", and you have the plot of man of steel.

The biggest problem I had with Zod's motivations in that movie was that the film's canonical universe has established that there are other star systems that have planets that can support life, and that they have the ability to scan planets and travel faster than the speed of light, and yet Zod is determined to terraform (completely alter the planetary structure) of a planet that already has sentient life on it. Why couldn't he simply go to a different star system that at this point only has a few single celled organisms or something? OR why couldn't he just terraform mars? The only answer I could come up with was "Because then we wouldn't have a movie" When your plot hole is THAT big, you are a bad writer. Just saying....

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Oh God yes.

Killzone: The Helghast basically got screwed from the get go, in addition to the fact that they look cooler, have cooler weapons, and actually function like a somewhat organized military. The "good guys" were such an obnoxious gaggle of every cookie cutter cliché of "bad-ass rogue who doesn't play by the rules but gets the job done!". I was so hoping the game would end with the Helghast taking over.

Avatar (already mentioned): I totally wanted the humans to annihilate the Na'avi. Pretty much any movie or VG where the director must continuously slam your face into their point or message, I'm rooting for the baddies to win.

Elysium: See Avatar.

Syndicate (the FPS version): I was totally hoping that the game would give you the choice of saying "I know this Corporation killed my parents, but fuck it, they turned me into this insanely bad-ass super soldier, I'm gonna keep fighting for them".

"Slackers". The whole premise of this movie was sort of messed up. A bunch of incredibly unlikeable lazy asses who are cheating their way through college get blackmailed by a socially awkward guy (who knows their secret) and he wants their help to land his dream girl. Unfortunately for him, instead the lead slacker takes his girl from him and the socially awkward guy gets left out to dry. The weird thing is: the socially awkward guy is supposed to be the bad guy in this. Soooo, yeah, pretty clear cut who I'm rooting for there.

Pretty much anytime Deathstroke takes on Batman, I'm rooting for Deathstroke.