No Right Answer: Most Played Out Villain Ever

[Kenjitsuka]

"Leave it to the Nazi's to get results!"
Quite a zinger!

Although they are still a huge -growing- problem, particularily in Russia and the Former USSR.
Even in Germany... They KILL people...

Good spit-take!
Leave it to Arnold to get results!!!!

 

[Xman490]

Dem shirts... dem shirts so good, so funny.

Also, the "guidelines" near the start are funny too. You guys have a great sense of humor.

 

[flying_whimsy]

I hate zombies for being overused.
I hate Nazis for being Nazis.

I love the distinction you made there. Also the way you organized your badges.

OT: I never actually got sick of nazis, but zombies always boil down to the same couple of scenarios. The human drama around zombies gets pretty tiresome after a while, too; especially since for survival no one ever really brings up how zombies are all victims. Makes it kind of hard to hate them when they are just unluckier versions of you.

Nazis, however...well, as Yahtzee puts it: there is no guilt in killing Nazis because they're Nazis.

 

[Elijah Newton]

IMHO, zombies are ever present because they represent the nadir of programming difficulty and requisite narrative explanation.

Nazis... I agree they're horribly overused and don't much mind that they've been dehumanized over time, BUT. But. I think there's a danger to dissociating them from humanity as completely as pop culture has done. The danger, which to me is the threat of fascism and xenophobia, is that it's a weakness of humanity. It's not a danger that was unique to Germany in that day and age, though their example should serve as a warning through the ages. I just don't think we, as a species, are 'past it'.

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

I have to admit, I'm a little tired of killing zombies. Or 'dead' things in general. It was fun for a while, especially with Left for Dead and the first two Dead Space games, but around 2010 I'd had my fill of zombies after reading the Walking Dead and World War Z, as well as a few other books or comics. But after years of growing up on Resident Evil and Dawn of the Dead, I found myself no longer interested in zombies right about the time the entire media decided zombies should be in everything. Most games have zombies or something extremely similar as enemies in them, and I'm just really bored of them at this point.

I think this is why I'm so annoyed at the Walking Dead TV show anytime someone brings it up. It's crazy popular but I'm just not interested after having read the comics for years, so I feel bad over not liking something that I would have ordinarily liked about five or so years ago. Instead I just passively scroll past any ads that I happen to see as people count down to the first episode of the new season, as they're nearly invisible to me. I really have no regards towards the show at all - no positive or negative feelings.

Maybe it's also why I didn't get into the Last of Us. I still haven't finished it and haven't really been looking forward to it. I like that they mixed it up at least. But generally, I just feel like zombies are incredibly too played out for me, however, I would not wish for the zombie craze to die down for those who are still enjoying it. But I am hoping it'll pass quickly...

 

[Aptspire]

Call of Duty: World at War, and also Dead Snow. Now you can be tired of stuff twice as efficiently!

 

[Olas]

While zombies are way more overused today, they still resonate with me more than Nazi's do, because they're inherently creepy. Nazis on the other hand rely on their historical reputation to intimidate, and that has worn away to the point where they're a joke now, and since they aren't inherently scary like zombies, they come across as just being a bunch of enemy soldiers.

Zombies are basically just dumb people, which makes them the least threatening enemy on the planet. The only reason mankind is on top of the food chain instead of say bears, is because we're smart enough to make weapons. Most everything zombie related skip over how one zombie turns into the entire population because it could never happen.

It's nice to see I'm not the only person who gets this. In order to spread the disease zombies would have to infect people at a greater rate than people can kill them, which would never happen because zombies are inherently inferior to humans as is evidenced by every single zombie related piece of media. And anyone who does get bitten will likely opt to shoot themselves (or be shot by someone else) before they turn. The zombie apocalypse would be stomped out before it even begins.

That being said, logic aside I still find zombies a more intimidating.

 

[Darth_Payn]

"Nazis get results!" Oh, it is SO easy to quote that out of context.
I'm bored with the zombies because they make no sense as an enemy. One of the most-read articles on Cracked.com, "7 Scientific Reasons a Real Zombie Apocalypse Will Fail", said the zombie is a creature designed for failure. Its natural enemy, living humans, are also its prime food source and only means of reproduction. Zombie fiction never explains how zombies aren't stopped by the CDC or the military before it goes into full plague mode. I find really annoying when they switch gears and go "No, wait! It's the Humans Are the Real Monsters!", and I find that insulting.

Nazis, however, are guilt free to kill because most of their leaders and original founders were practicing occultists who sound like they jumped out of an old comic book, because their beliefs and methods were so evil. It's even fun to blame them for everything wrong with the world now. I like it when their is a reason to make the bad guys Nazis or Nazi-like, such as HYDRA from Captain America: The First Avenger, which had all the superscience and magic that the real world Nazis WISH they had in the war.

I can see why those two groups are used as bad guys in movies and video games so much, because it's so easy to make a political statement when you identify an enemy by their country of origin or religion, which is why we don't see a whole lot of Middle eastern terrorists in popular fiction, even though we're still at war with them.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I gotta agree with Chris. I'm so sick of Zombies I could puke up a zombie.

 

[Evil Smurf]

Nazis were evil fucks. Their are so many stories left for Nazis, we should always have Nazis in the media. They remind us of what nationalism can do, they remind us that racist, bigoted arseholes in power can cause damage.

Tony Abbot is a racist, bigoted ****; who has wet dreams about Margaret Thatcher.

How about a survival horror game about a concentration camp prisoner, where death is an option? Or a game about Anne Frank? The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas would also make a good game.

Nazis should be explored to show the evil of humanity, to show that we need to love people, no matter how gay, black, Jewish or political they are. I'm fired up about this because injustice and evil never stops. We need to expose the bastards in power.

 

[James Joseph Emerald]

Nazis were evil fucks. Their are so many stories left for Nazis, we should always have Nazis in the media. They remind us of what nationalism can do, they remind us that racist, bigoted arseholes in power can cause damage.

You're right to some extent, but Nazis have become too iconic to reflect that any more. People look at Nazis now, and they don't see desperate humans with twisted ideologies that remind us of what people are capable of when pushed to the brink, they just see cartoonishly evil stormtroopers.

Ironically I think the raw evil of the Nazi regime would be a lot more apparent and impactful if they made the Nazis you're fighting seem more tragic than totally monstrous. These were kids aged 16-21, taught to hate non-Aryans from an even younger age, then handed guns and sent into a battle that, in many cases, nobody expected them to survive.

 

[Evil Smurf]

Nazis were evil fucks. Their are so many stories left for Nazis, we should always have Nazis in the media. They remind us of what nationalism can do, they remind us that racist, bigoted arseholes in power can cause damage.

You're right to some extent, but Nazis have become too iconic to reflect that any more. People look at Nazis now, and they don't see desperate humans with twisted ideologies that remind us of what people are capable of when pushed to the brink, they just see cartoonishly evil stormtroopers.

Ironically I think the raw evil of the Nazi regime would be a lot more apparent and impactful if they made the Nazis you're fighting seem more tragic than totally monstrous. These were kids aged 16-21, taught to hate non-Aryans from an even younger age, then handed guns and sent into a battle that, in many cases, nobody expected them to survive.

I'd play that game, it would be a very educational game, teaching about indoctrination. With the right writing, it would be fantastic, a game from the eyes of a nazi youth.

 

[Icehearted]

Awesome job getting it on the drinking round. That said I laughed too.

Zombies feel really more like a force of nature than anything, but then I can imagine a game or a movie about escaping a fire being more compelling that zombies. There's only so much you can do. At least with Nazis you can get creative with characters, Inglourious Basterds demonstrates this perfectly. Honestly I can do without either, a new kind of bad would certainly be welcome.

 

[ZexionSephiroth]

I think there's plenty of things to these played out things that we can do.

How about Robotic Alien Samarai-Pirate-Ninja Nazi Zombie Ghost Gators?

But you know what's really been played out?

Humans!

Humans are everywhere, they've been everything! Zombies? been them. Robots? Been them. Nazis? Been them. In space? Been them. Wolves? If were-wolves count, they've been them.

No matter what ridiculous thing you come up with... For some reason, a human is at the center of it.

Humans are Boring, unremarkable, and unnoticeable.

And since everything is pretty much human, Humans are almost always the villain. Even more than they are the hero, since there are some stories where humans are screwing up the non humans.

So I say the most played out Villain is Humans.

(Crazy argument, but its something.)

 

[Product Placement]

Were they talking about "Dead Snow" there at the end?

I was not, though Dead Snow is the one exception to this entire debate as Dead Snow is freaking amazing.

You guys do realize that they're already filming the sequel, right?

http://bloody-disgusting.com/news/3247851/nazi-zombies-focus-of-dead-snow-2-featurette/

 

[Branindain]

I've been watching this show for so long and I FINALLY SAW A SPIT-TAKE! I'm disturbed by how happy that makes me.

 

[GamemasterAnthony]

Good lord...this thread was Godwin'd before it even began!

On a more light-hearted and musical note, I have a wild idea for a debate. Listen to this:

The Trashmen - Surfin' Bird [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj0GtRI4Ulo]

...and then to this:

Barry Gibb/Frankie Valli - Grease [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXsrHGOQe5I]

Which one is actually...THE WORD?

 

[Strazdas]

Curse you, nazis are boring, they are just humans that turned to ideology everyone hates.
Zombies, i cant get enough of them. MORE ZOMBIES.

Pirates however, it was overplayed before it even began. Seriuosly guys, pirates were NOT cool. stop pretending they were just because they used same alcohol that you do.

 

[AstaresPanda]

Nazis are overly played out yes but they are and always will be the first real bad guys that made ppl allie to stop. Simple and easy. But now they are going back to the old fall back of Russia being a bad guy. Zombies are just "IN" right now and its just annoying. I love my zombies always have but like with most things the Alt/geek/nerd/gamer lets call it kinda niche it gets high jacked by the mainstream bastardised and milked for all its worth and then some.