Who makes the better villain? Men or women? Or rather, who do you love to hate more?

[sky14kemea]

This being a gaming forum I think it's a given that we prefer to hate women.

Baha. Hahaha. MUHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHHAHAHA!!

I kinda agree, but probably for different reasons. =P

Whenever there's a woman villain in video games, I immediately despise her, even without hearing her possibly non-evil backstory. It's probably the contrast of the slightly helpless "sidekick/loveinterest" woman, to a super evil, plotting woman.

And the evil sidekick women are always so... "sultry". I dunno what word I'm looking for, that describes flirty but in a bad way?

 

[Yopaz]

This being a gaming forum I think it's a given that we prefer to hate women.

.

Yeah, fuck bitches.

I mean, when you think about it, aren't ALL women villains.

I prefer female villains because they feel more believable.

OT: Honestly I don't care. A well made villain can be great regardless of gender. Now my favourite villain of all time is Lanfear from The Wheel of Time series, but she's my number 1 because she's so damn unpredictable and well written. From beginning to end she lived up to my expectations. Having read the entire series I'm still not sure I understand her entire agenda.

 

[janjotat]

This might sound a bit sexist, but I'd say male villains, because I find it hard to find a woman threatening.

Not to say that there aren't women who I'd feel threatened by in real life, but you rarely see female villains in media who are built like brick shithouses.

Oh how I was hoping to find the first person to say this.

Spoiler: Spoiler'd to not get mod wrath for picture spamming

And these are only movies I've seen and can recall off the top of my head. I don't know what movies you've been watching, but neither male nor female villains have to be "built like brick shithouses" in order to be threatening.

With the exception of GlaDos I find none of them to be threatening. I don't mean to say women cant be good villians, its just much harder to make them seem dangerous. I don't find body build to be threatening (well except in real life), instead I think the villain should be slightly crazy and have a complete disregard about who your are. For example Patricia Tannis would make an excellent villain because she does not give a shit about you or any other human. If a villain makes a conflict personal the writers screwed up, a good villain should seem powerful and not give a rats ass if you exist or not.

It comes down to how the villain acts on not based upon gender or build.

 

[The Heik]

So I was reading the Fairy Tail manga all caught up on the character arc and there's a current chick antagonist that I want to murder because she has ALL MY HATRED at the moment.

And that's when I started thinking and remembering stuff. And lots of wondering? So now I'm just asking you people.

Title is self-explanatory, it is. Let's hear your thoughts.

Feel free to give examples or whatever.

...Oy vey. Not another one of these

I think this is applicable...


....balls. *grumble* youtube and the blocked embedding BS *grumble grumble*

Seriously though, people need to stop asking questions like these. Any individual, regardless of race, creed, gender, etc. can be a fantastic [insert archetype here] so long as their characteristics (and I cannot stress that word enough) suit the setting. No subdivision of the human species is inherently always better at something than any other subdivision, so for the love of equality everybody, knock it off with the stereotyping!

/mini-frenzy

 

[PeterMerkin69]

I can't think of a single female villain I've hated. I already relate to villains more easily than heroes, and when I see a bad-ass, exciting, awesome woman at odds with someone I don't like, I don't hate her. I want her.

I recently watched Dredd and my tongue was lolling out in the gang leader's general direction the whole damn time.

 

[The_Great_Galendo]

I'd like to say it doesn't matter to me, but in practice it seems that men make the better villain most of the time. Well, actually, I tend to prefer the more supernatural villains for true villainy, but even those tend to take male rather than female form.

As an example, my "best villain ever" title goes to Morgoth from The Silmarilion. Technically he's not human and can take any shape he pleases, but in practice he stays in man-form. More technically, he's basically Tolkien's version of Satan (who's also a villainous non-human "male" shapeshifter, not coincidentally).

The only class of villains I can think of right now where I prefer a female villain are the Hive Queens, and even there the best example I can think of (MorningStarMountain, from a series whose name and author elude me at the moment) is, IIRC, gender-neutral.

I'm not saying that a woman can't make a fine villain. I'm just saying that all of the best ones -- few enough as they are -- seem to not be.

 

[AngloDoom]

Really, if someone killed my parents, stole the princess, and left me ruined and broken on the wayside swearing revenge, then their lack of penis isn't going to stop me hating them.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

I tend to prefer male villains because some just seem much more sinister than female versions but they have their merits too.

 

[The_Echo]

It all depends on how they're written. For example, Joffrey of Game of Thrones is an unconscionable twat, a character that inspires very real derision from the audience.

On the flip side, Skyler from Breaking Bad is capable of the exact same thing.

... What? She isn't an antagonist? I beg to differ.