Why are all the "bad guys" "cooler" nowadays?

[xerounlimited]

It's been stated before, my main argument is villains, many times are in the grey area of morality. The hero is almost always in the white segment of such a spectrum, and without a fantastic writing, he will come off as bland. They try to keep the status quo, he/she/they keep things from regressing, yet also hinder progress.

Yet the a well written villain challenges you, he asks, "What's so great about the keeping things the same? We can create a better world" (Well most say this, unless it's just some guy trying to destroy everything for the lulz, quite reminiscent of lulzsect, hmm...).

But, in all truth what I find even better, is a story that always stays in the gray. Look at the brilliant 'A Song of Ice and Fire' (The entire series, not just what the show covered) and more specifically look at Jaime. In the first book he seems like an all around asshole, yet in the fourth book he's grown into a character who you can empathize with, he even is able to justify some of his past actions (ell except the whole 'crippling a child thing', that was still a dick move) but it creates an interesting character who's not restrained to the morality spectrum. And to praise the series once more, as much as I absolutely hate Tywin (what a Bastard) but I at least know why he did some of the things he did (still a bastard though).

 

[TonyVonTonyus]

Hero and Villain are just terms applied to people through our eyes. The guy who burns down a military base can be seen as a villain by one side (probably the side who owned the base) and a hero from the other. Yeah, we can say doing a certain action is being a "renegade" but really it's just less paragon-like. And espescially in moral choice systems we see evil choices as the choice that leads you to be an asshole but being an asshole and being evil are two totally different things. Being EVIL and being villain are two different things. Hence the term "evil villain",if it were the same it would be a tautology. Lastly in games where the player must choose his actions he isn't empathizing with a villain, he's choosing the actiosn he would make in that situation and that action just happens to fit that of a villain or renegade by the game's definition.

 

[SilentCom]

Villains have a different point of view from most good people and are willing to do things that others only fantasize about. The Hero usually only upholds justice and the status quo. Heroes are defined by the Villains they fight. Without Villains, there would be no need for a Hero.

I actually prefer playing a character who is sort of an Anti-Hero because there is more depth of character and the player has to make sense of the world around them and doesn't feel constrained toward acting like the Hero or the Villain.

 

[Jegsimmons]

its an easy way for people to make an interesting villain when they have a hard time writing them as 3 dimensional....sometimes....

 

[cainx10a]

because sometimes you sympathize with the goals of the villain.
For example in the MSG universe I find myself more agreeing with Zeon then the Federation.

Until they drop their 999th Colony on earth. Also, "GATOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" /cough


on-topic: I like how the villains these days are not pure evil construct, like Saren in Mass Effect, who had humble beginnings, but somewhere along the way, lost their cool, and are trying to perform a bunch of actions that might be deemed 'bad' even if in the case of Saren, he has some good intentions in mind, like survival in the face of an insurmountable odd in the form of Sovereign and his brahs.

 

[Polarity27]

So I was reading the "Rebels or Empire" thread and someone made a very good point. Cheering for the "bad guy", despite (or maybe because of?) them usually being a giant prick regardless of your views on morality, seems to be the "in" thing in the last couple years. More and more games are allowing players to control the villain or morph the protagonist into a villain, and in so many media nowadays it seems a lot more time and effort has gone into characterization of antagonists than heroes. Why are we empathizing more with and caring so much more about villains than heroes today? It really is starting to get annoying. I can pity the evil mastermind if his mother didn't love him, but I'm not going to suddenly cheer for him to take over/destroy the world for it.

1. Because fantasy evil is FUN. Because the majority of us are powerless office drones or retail drones or factory drones who have at least one person who we think would look infinitely better with Force Lightning stuffed up their ass, and a little petty, pixelated revenge feels good.

2. Because entirely too few storytellers understand the concept of "nuance" (and when they do, a la Matt Stover in "Star Wars: Traitor", the corporation they're working for just goes and retcons it out of existence-- people actually *thinking* about the Force, oh no, can't have that in our black and white morality, *BZORT!* Vergere's a Sith, now shut up, fans!) and because a lot of that group has a completely bizarre idea of what constitutes "good". If your "good" guys are committing torture and genocide (and justify it because it's okay if it's against "evil" people) without blinking an eyelash, if they're just trading one oppressive antidemocratic government for another, if they're kidnapping children and forcibly indoctrinating them, then I start losing the ability to tell the difference between them and the idiot they're fighting, and just start rooting for whoever has the coolest toys.

Star Wars has been irritating me on this front for decades, but they're far from being the only offender.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I've always thought Bad-Guys were cooler than good guys. Starscream, Skeletor, Mum-ra, Shredder, Kefka. Hell, The Joker has been around for longer than my Dad and he's still among the most popular comic villains ever.

As for why it's booming like it is now...I dunno. I just go with it. Saint's Row makes being a prick HILARIOUS. Infamous turned me into a better Force-Wielding Sith than any Star Wars game I've played (including KotOR)

I'd say villainy is popular because of how cathartic it is to cause massive destruction in a consequence-free environment.

 

[Laser Priest]

"Nowadays"?

This has been going since Darth Vader, man.

 

[Braedan]

I see it as a stage games are going through right now, and it's less about liking bad guys.
sure, people have always liked bad guys, but i see this different. I see it as how we've always done things a certain way (well almost), and we've hit a point in the growth of games where people are starting to go "hey, we've been doing A for 30 years, lets do the opposite to be clever/artsy/fun/unique".
people are starting to change from the norm just for the sake of it, just to experiment.

 

[TheLoneBeet]

The first thing I thought when I read the title was that you meant "cooler compared to each other" rather than "cooler compared to the protagonist". So I'm gonna flesh out that thought. I think they're cooler these days because the comedic bad guy has been used up. I personally enjoyed when the evil character was more ridiculous but I suppose them being "cooler" is a good thing. I like them better now because they seem more mature and I'm more mature than when I first played video-games (at least somewhat) so I feel like villains have aged with me.

On to my opinion of what the thread is actually about. I think it's because the antagonists are actual characters where as the protagonist is usually a blank-slate with a bunch of moral choices to make throughout the game. Your character is fleshed out by these choices. If a game doesn't have a moral choice system then I guess it's just bad writing.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

It could be a combo thing.

People want the villain to be more than just plan evil, and the best way to do that is to give them reasons that we can understand and relate to. Also, at least in the case of games, people want to feel more for the hero for reasons beyond the fact that he or she is the "one" to save everything. The easiest way to do that is to make you the player the hero, or make them have personality but not be completely fleshed out so the player can again feel more like they are the hero. This maybe what causes people to like the villain more because they are being built to be liked, but the hero is buit to be us.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Rooting for the villain has been in play for ages. Notice how the biggest legion of Star Wars fans is a Storm Trooper unit? In the new Transformers movie, one of the characters says, "Why do the Decepticons ALWAYS get the good stuff?" Bad guys are always cooler, get the best stuff, get the hot girls. It makes it all the more satisfying when they are brought down to me.

Personally, I've never rooted for any bad guy because I have a strong moral compass. I don't mean to imply others don't. Mine is simply extremely straight. I just don't like evil or bad guys.

 

[magnuslion]

Eh. I miss villains like Kefka, whose sole motivation for being the bad guy was a total dedication to being a bastard.

 

[captainwalrus]

Because they have better music then the good guys.


AmIrite?

Anyway, a Well written bad guy will ALWAYS make you question your beliefs and make you think think they are not evil.

+1. Best Disney musical sequence ever.

 

[Soviet Steve]

Storytelling these days is extremely poor, so we just want everyone we see in the story to die screaming in agony, which is what villains usually offer.

If you mean games where you play the villain exclusively like Just Cause 2 or Evil Genius, it's all done satirically or in a way so that it provides us with a neat little powerfantasy that us nerds love so.

 

[Wintermoot]

because sometimes you sympathize with the goals of the villain.
For example in the MSG universe I find myself more agreeing with Zeon then the Federation.

Until they drop their 999th Colony on earth. Also, "GATOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" /cough

but what about autonomy of the space colonies? the colonies aren't on earth so why should the Earth Federation rule them?

 

[StormShaun]

People think bad guys are cool since they are the one/s with all the power, money, weapons, woman and pretty much everything, while the heroes have little next to nothing (in some cases they do...special cases), but in the end the bad guys lose...especially in my case where most of the bad guys dont look cool with a bullet in between their eyes, in most/all of my cases they die because of the gun I hand in my hands...HaHa suck on that bad guys, evil always loses and the good guys always win!

 

[Vault101]

too much generalising here, good guys arnt boring because they are good, they are boroing because they are badly written

good guys can be interesting

Why are we empathizing more with and caring so much more about villains than heroes today?

Because we as an intellecutally maturing society are starting to realize that righteousness is synonym for stupidity, and if you think about it, 'heroes' are nothing but damaged people with a god-complex.
Besides, doing the 'right thing' is always inherently less fun, and most of the time has no pragmatic sense to it.
In short, to answer your question, because illiteracy is slowly dissapearing.

then what are the villans?

bottom line is villans are cool, but I mean we have good guys because I simply dont care if all the charachters are douchbage or complete monsters and would find such a story hard to watch/read, the Idea of the "anti-hero" fills both sides of the spectrum

also Honest to god I cant think of ANY good guy more or less recently thats been "100% perfect goody goody" because that makes a terrible charachter, people have worked that out by now

of coarse from what Ive read over time I feel there are quite a few sociapathic wanna be super villans on this site...

 

[cainx10a]

because sometimes you sympathize with the goals of the villain.
For example in the MSG universe I find myself more agreeing with Zeon then the Federation.

Until they drop their 999th Colony on earth. Also, "GATOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" /cough

but what about autonomy of the space colonies? the colonies aren't on earth so why should the Earth Federation rule them?

Spoken like a true Zabi's drone. [/feddie]

It make sense for the spacenoids to want to have bigger control over their lives when the colonies are the only home they know, along with their lack of a link to Earth, it's understandable that they want their own identity along with not being exploited by the Federation and Earth, whereby they are seen only as worker bees to feed the elite and help a planet that has almost ran out of all resources. But they still have a certain responsibility to the people who were benefactors to the cradle of their existence. The Federation and the so called 'Elites' living on earth funded and offered their benedictions to ensure that space colonisation was a success. And it would be absurd to just abandon Earth now that the Colonies are self-substainable. That's just being ingrats of the highest magnitude.

If Zeon Daikun wasn't murdered, he probably could have been a moderate voice to broker for better treatments of the spacenoids with the Feds, but the Zabis had to fuck it up, didn't they? Invading Earth, then colony drops as well as other acts of terrorism as seen in Stardust Memories only made the situation worst, it was multiple attempt at genocide. Sure, in the beginning they were seen as just miserable worker bees to be exploited, now they are regarded as potential Zeon's enemy combatant (way to shit on a good man's name too). That's where the whole, "but the spacenoids are exploited people" argument get thrown out of the window, at least in my honest opinion, they have the blood of countless earthlings on their hands, and the body count just keep increasing.

And without Project V, earth would have been screwed and the Zabis wouldn't have been a better form of leadership for mankind. Aristocracy? In any case, the Fed are definitely the lesser of the two evils.

Edit: I went to Wiki to check for some more background stuff, and all I can say is damn, there's is a lot, a lot of information that I missed, mainly the background story and relation between Zeon Daikun and those Zabi cockroaches. But anyways, glad to see another Gundam (U.C) universe fan around.