Poll: Villain Background stories

[GodofDisaster]

Video games, Films, Anime and TV shows quite a few of them follow the concept of good vs evil and I myself personally belive that no, fictional characters can exist without their evil counterpart.

Example: Superman to Lex Luther, Batman to the Joker, L to Kira, Ichigo to Aizen, Chris to Wesker or the Escapist Community to that random Halo troll. (Just my litte joke)

So with the introduction out of the way, lets move onto the question.

Are you interested in hearing the background story of a villain, a story which tells you their past and maybe a bit of insight to as why they became evil in the first place.

Or do you not care about such a thing and view it as pointless waste of screen time.

Yes I am aware that some villians automatically explain their story within their first apperance, but the ones that I am talking about are the ones that appear from no where, but are claimed as evil.

My own anwser to this post is yes, If I like the villan and I find him or her interesting then I enjoying hearing their story, I believe it gives them a bit more character depth.

So the question again: Do you enjoy hearing the background story of any fictional villain.

 

[Insanum]

No, it ruined Darth Vader.

Well i didnt see that coming. genuinely.

You sir, Make a VERY good point.

It depends, I mean we never really learnt a back story to Fable 2, But the bad guy managed to piss me off right there, Without me finding out if he'd stomped on a few puppies or something.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Some backstory is okay, but there should always be an air of mystery.

 

[Radeonx]

No, it ruined Darth Vader.

Well i didnt see that coming. genuinely.

You sir, Make a VERY good point.

It depends, I mean we never really learnt a back story to Fable 2, But the bad guy managed to piss me off right there, Without me finding out if he'd stomped on a few puppies or something.

The backstory to Fable II is that he wants infinite power and shooting you in the head would help him get it. You'd think he'd check for the corpses outside his castle instead of letting passing citizens pick them up, though.

No, it ruined Darth Vader.

This is my opinion on the matter.

 

[rokkolpo]

the third option.

ofcourse if he interests me i wanna know.
if he,s like bowser or anything, i couldn,t care less.

 

[Sassafrass]

Only if it directly contributes to the story.

For example, Seymour Guado's back-story in Final Fantasy X. (Yes, I've been playing FF a lot) and it's the only back-story I sort of remember.

 

[Jon Etheridge]

I enjoy it, mostly because I'm a sucker for character development. But at the same time it has to make sense.

Example in Superman 1 Lex Luthor's plan was to buy a bunch of land east of the San Andreas fault, sink California into the ocean and profit from selling the new beachfront property. Pretty damn good plan that might be crazy enough to work.

But in Superman Returns he planed to build a continent made of radioactive rock so he can own and sell the land. What?!

So yeah, i love to hear backstories and plans but at the same time they have to be good and help develop the character.

 

[initialdelay]

I like it when the evil guy's backstory makes me like them more than the 'hero'. However this is usually more due to the fact that 'hero main characters' are often extremely dislikeable to me these days

 

[SomethingUnrelated]

I don't think they should do it too much. It can ruin characters. Some backstory is okay.

 

[EeveeElectro]

Most of the time it's the same.
And every damn villain wants to wipe out the human race and start afresh *sigh* they should force feed people cookies instead.

 

[Hooded-hyena]

i donno, mostly I do. I liked the Joker's background(s)
Where he flips the FUCK out from losing his wife, being forced to do shit for some criminals, and then being thrown in some chemicals. Awsome.
Or the Dark Knight, where he's just a freak (like me) with a bad childhood.

 

[EliteDave725]

No, it ruined Darth Vader.

Well i didnt see that coming. genuinely.

You sir, Make a VERY good point.

It depends, I mean we never really learnt a back story to Fable 2, But the bad guy managed to piss me off right there, Without me finding out if he'd stomped on a few puppies or something.

While Lucien's backstory isn't beaten over your head like an unabridged English dictionary made out of bricks, it is described that Lucien is a broken man wracked by grief and driven by megalomania. However, in Fable 2 he drops off of the face of the Earth during most of the story. He definitely had great potential as a memorable villain but at the time, Peter Molyneux was busy watering down the rest of the plot.

Villain backstories are something to be used conservatively. For example: if you just want a dude to run into people's houses and go kill-crazy, a backstory will most likely dilute any intimidation factor the character might have. If you want a villain that only confronts a protagonist but also confronts the protagonist's (and possibly the viewer's) way of looking at life, a backstory usually is a good idea (exception: the Joker).

As for Darth Vader being mentioned earlier, the fact that he had a backstory wasn't the problem. The problem was that he was too sympathetic of a character. He was just a goody-two-shoes puppet with a dead mother that fell victim to forces greater than him. Rather than an entire prequel trilogy, George Lucas could have made one movie about a powerful Jedi with ambiguous morals who intentionally taps into the Dark Side of the Force so that he can choke bitches with his mind.