What Makes a Great Villain?

[Lord Krunk]

4) Some of the best villains look completely harmless at first. Like Oleander- you wouldn't have pegged him as a villain until you actually saw him doing evil stuff, ya? Until then he's just a sorta oddball camp counselor.

Yeah, I agree. And you play the game again and think; "Why didn't I notice that?" Seriously, he would make one of the best game villains, as you not only understand him, but your character can also relate to him. Also, a nice touch was to add levels where you enter his mind, his nightmares and his fears, even though the result is pretty freaky.

 

[LOLiver]

Javier Bardem

 

[the_merchant_of_evil]

Albedo from the Xenosaga trilogy. Set aside the fact that he's basically invincible, and his sheer evilness is still enough to scare the piss out of me. He's completely insane due to his merging with the power of UDO, and you spend half the trilogy just chasing him around the galaxy, watching him slowly destroy the minds of your characters. It's that ruthless intelligence that really sets him apart from other villains. Plus, some of his dialog alone is enough to creep you out.

 

[milocade]

If you want a great villian pull from the files of Scorpious from Farscape.
-he has the right blend of brains, charisma and influence to put himself in a doomed position and come out on top without blinking an eye.

If you want an over powered villian pull from Mr. Sinister from Marvel Comics.
-a villian with brains but powers beyond what anybody can figure out, even the writers. I don't recogmend this since beating him seems like killing a quasi diety. Slim to none chance of success is not very appealing.

 

[PhoenixFlame]

A villain needs to actually be crafty and intelligent. A lot of the worst villains, honestly, are contrived and formulaic, and fall into predefined "buckets". The best villains are the ones who have as many successes as the hero and are just as dangerous. It takes smarts to do that. A lot people mention Kefka - he fits this bill. So does Luc from Suikoden.

And unfortunately, he doesn't count since he has never appeared in a video game, but Sylar from Heroes is probably a good example of what I'm talking about.

 

[Basil The Baker]

a cape. that instantly makes you scary

 

[Basil The Baker]

a cape. that instantly makes you scary

 

[Dectilon]

And unfortunately, he doesn't count since he has never appeared in a video game, but Sylar from Heroes is probably a good example of what I'm talking about.

It's pretty sad... Sylar is a pretty interesting character, but the script is so awful that not even good actors could've done something with it.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

Don't knock Heroes. Any problems the show may have are automatically set off by the awesomeness that is Hiro.

 

[Uncle Comrade]

One of my all time favourite villains has to be Pius Augustus from Eternal Darkness. For me he has pretty much all the hallmarks of a great nemesis.

*Alert! Minor Spoilers!*

- He's got the everday-good-guy-gone-bad story that's been mentioned previously in this discussion. We know how he came to be so evil and the motivation behind his actions, rather than being an 'I'm going to destroy the entire world just because I can' sort of villain. (Apart from one part, where he has a tower hundreds of feet tall built out of nothing but people for no apparent reason other than to show off his awesomeness, but I'll let him off one small indulgence)

- He's ridiculously powerful. As in Can Mortally Wound God-like Beings powerful.

- Despite his power, he's a very calculating and subtle enemy, and relies more on shadowy manipulation to accomplish his goals.

- He has a true villain's talent for showing up just when you think you've made it to safety. More than one chapter ends with Pius appearing and casually killing the hero who you've just guided through danger so carefully.

- He looks and sounds very meanacing, but in quite a cool way. He has an especially awesome maniacal laugh.

*End spoilers*

Apart from Pius, another of my favourite villains has to be Baldurs Gate II's Jon Irenicus, but Wixern's already gone over his greatness, so I won't repeat.

 

[Strafe Mcgee]

If you want a great villian pull from the files of Scorpious from Farscape.
-he has the right blend of brains, charisma and influence to put himself in a doomed position and come out on top without blinking an eye.

Farscape! I loved that show. Only got into it recently, and then got through all the seasons in about a week. Great villains are usually cold, malicious and calculating. The best villains are the ones that you just loathe being in the presence of. Snape and Malfoy from Harry Potter are great examples- they can get away with horrible things, smirking with enjoyment at making life a misery for Harry. **SPOILER** I was kind of disappointed when Snape got redeemed at the end of Harry Potter (though I knew it was coming) since I wanted to see him getting annihilated viciously. Still, never mind. **SPOILER OVER**

The sort of villains that when you beat you shout "DIE, FUCKER!" and get a huge sense of satisfaction at having beat them into the ground are the best. They're not as entertaining as other villains, but they're the most satisfying to see fail.

 

[Dectilon]

Don't knock Heroes. Any problems the show may have are automatically set off by the awesomeness that is Hiro.

Actually, there's few things I hate more than that character. It's as if the writer watched some anime and came to the conclusion that all japanese people are just like in their cartoons.

 

[kittenbot]

A good villain is usually one with a reason for being villainous, be it greed or revenge, usually revenge on the entire world - whether it's their fault or not - for a past suffering, often works well if the villain used to be a good guy until he was forced to be evil or compelled to be evil by his emotions.

Of course good old greedy villains are great too, forces that're purely malevolent for some reason - usually for the lulz or to make a whole assload of riches or amass yet more power. A truly good malevolent villain is one who's absolute power is feared, he's probably closer to being the exact opposite of the virtuous hero than any other kind of villain or anti-hero.

 

[sms_117b]

I think a really good villain (like a few others here) needs to simply believe what they are doing is right, in their mind they're not evil or doing something wrong, to them, you're the evil one for trying to stop them doing their "good deed" for everyone, with this level of belief comes followers, the private army you have to fight your way through to get to the big bad guy at the end, probably only to find its a guy with a upper class English accent, not British, could you imagine a final boss with a Welsh valleys accent, he'd probably lose all credibility (not making fun of the accent just making a point), but i digest. A good villain you have to want to fight at the end, no point getting to the final boss thinking "do I really want to fight him? Will it make a difference?" (To the pixelated world in question). But in saying that he needs to have a aspect of fear about him, which your character needs to overcome, so not a big weapon or a incredibly destructive spell that takes 5 turns to charge up, they don't count.

I feel like I'm meandering around the point here, right, a good villain needs to be smart, believe what they're doing and be able to convince people to follow them. I don't normally play games with "good" or "bad" guys I'm a RTS player, but from that, one name does stand out, Kane for C&C

 

[Dectilon]

It's not welsh, but Barry the Baptist from Lock stock and Two Smoking barrels that I previously wouldn't have considered for a similar character : )

 

[Lord Krunk]

I'm wondering... Are we talking about video game villains or villains in general?

 

[Minhef]

Twiddly Moustach, Top hat, Waistcoat and good ol' English charm and charisma.

 

[Katana314]

Ah, nice! Someone else who watched GunGrave!
No, I don't watch too much anime. Someone just recommended the series since they don't have completely overstated characters (ie, reply to any new information is: WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!?!?!?) and I agree, it turned out well. It sucked at the part where it had to tie it all back to the video game, but before then it was great; I didn't even think the person in the same episode was the same as the Harry McDowell from before. Then there was that amazing scene. I'll quote the line to refresh your memory, because it's not much of a spoiler on its own. (nor would it affect anyone if they hadn't known the series until then)
"BRAAAAAAAAAAAAANDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!" *BLAM*

That's something I like about villains. Like any character in a story, they need character development. It's especially important to either give backstory as to WHY he's so evil, or have him change over the course of the game. One thing that actually seems to be working well in games is to do everything possible to make the player HATE the villain in every way, and then somehow grant him sympathy, or simply understanding, at the very end. They did that well with Paxton Fettel (F.E.A.R.) and attempted to do it with Imran Zakhaev. (but failed! Because every plot device in COD4 failed.)

 

[Singing Gremlin]

Paulie from the Darkness is quite good. Not deep, not brilliantly written. But you hated him. The satisfaction of a shotgun round to the face despite the fact it would curse your character to endless torment=not too shabby.

 

[JJDWilson]

I believe that a great villain is established when you're playing the game for the third time in a row and you think, "Hold on... I know a guy like that" and then you spend the next month wondering whether by "See you later" he means he'll slaughter you in your sleep.

That and good hair, you need good hair.