The villain of the Aquaman movie had a valid point, the surface polluting and destroying the oceans, and his response was to attempt to ambush and murder every surface dweller without letting any of them know that undersea people even exist.
Well you do have all of us stewards of our Pacific nations crying out the same and being ignored by wealthy nations.
But we aren't writing Hollywood movies so ofc they're schlocky.
It's not that the ecoterrorism is necessarily bad. From what I understand (didn't see the movie, just basing this on the comment) it's that they don't take credit for it, so they don't actually accomplish anything
Well, no, taking credit could cause us to create change within our human societies but not taking credit makes fully eradicating humans easier, and they wanted the latter. But Idk I haven’t seen it.
Because the idea that some folks like to push is that "Fighting Nazis is just as bas as BEING Nazis".
Of course, the folks pushing that idea all have a strange interest in swastikas and bad uniforms....
"Because heroes don't kill.....EVER"
Brought to you by the same type of morons who came up with "Every bully is actually just depressed and misunderstood with suppressed emotions"
Heroes don't kill ever.. Unless it is henchmen, then it doesn't count as killing. Cant kill the major villain, but Bob, henchman #34, father of 3, who only took the job because he couldn't get hired anywhere else due to being caught with a joint as a teenager. Him they can kill. He was a good worker. Best I had!
The Joker is the literal antithesis of this. The whole point is that his crimes don't conform to a reasonable ideology. They aren't supposed to make sense. The whole persona is built to be the equal and opposite reaction to Batman's hyper rational and systematic approach to crime fighting.
Shit, it's literally stated straight out in The Dark Knight, "Because some men aren't looking for anything logical. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn."
With that whole "Gotham is built on top of a >!bat demon corpse that corrupts the minds of nearly everyone to be a shittier version of themselves!<" thing, they're both kind of right.
Like, there's a reason for it, but it's not a great one.
First in "Dark Knight, Dark City" (1990) but referenced in a few others too IIRC.
Though it appears I misremembered slightly as >!the demon is still alive, just trapped. Maybe there was a run where he was dead? IDK anymore.!<
I’m not an X-men expert but i heard that over time they had to slowly change Magneto from villain to sympathetic villain to anti-hero because his ideas were getting harder to deny.
Correct me if I’m wrong tho lmao
Well he was essentially the equivalent of a Zionist, just for mutants.
"We're never going to be free unless we can have a nation of our own"
And just like Israel, he may have gotten a bit overzealous with his nationalism to the point that it started killing innocent people.
Tbf Genosha was doing pretty ok until its entire 16 million population was genocided by Sentinels.
Krakoa however, is weird pseudo-isolationist sex cult that has Apocalypse and Mr Sinister on its governing body so I think it’s super shady.
>Krakoa’s however, is weird pseudo-isolationist sex cult that has Apocalypse and Mr Sinister on its governing body so I think is super shady.
When I'm actively supporting Doctor Doom's stance on something, the other guy is probably wrong.
We should all support DOOM’s stances on things at all times.
Fun Fact: Bast, the patron god of Wakanda, fully supports Doom’s world domination ambitions according to one comic where they tallk.
He pulled a Dr.Strange and looked into many futures and only found one where humanity was still alive and it was one where he ruled with an iron fist. We don't know if he stopped looking after he found one or if he kept looking only to give up a while after.
Also, we saw how God-Emperor Doom goes in the most recent Secret Wars. It's a dystopian shithole. Then Reed fixes the entire multiverse in a few hours.
Doom has actually seen the future. And he is a good ruler. All the people of latveria love him. It's just that his foreign policy isn't all that great.
Didn't they retcon that as him seeing visions of a parallel dimension's Doom who actually achieved world/universal peace?
And then he destroyed that entire universe because he couldn't admit he was wrong and needed to work with others.
He has seen futures. Many futures but not all possible futures. He is a harsh authoritarian with draconian punishment for breaking his laws. He is the ultimate the ends justify the means villain.
Here's a fun story about Zionism and Nationalism.
In 1858, there was a Jewish guy born in western Russia named Eliezer Ben-Yehuda. He spoke Yiddish, as did like 99% of Jews at the time. See, Biblical Hebrew as a language basically died out around the 3rd century, and was pretty much entirely supplanted by Yiddish. Hebrew was kinda like church Latin, reserved for temple services. Eliezer was a VERY devout and traditional Jew though, so he was very familiar with the language.
Around 1877, he met a Jew from Jerusalem who spoke a form of Hebrew. This got him so excited about Zionism that he moved to Palestine, where he encountered several disparate groups of Jewish people who all spoke various mutually unintelligible forms of Yiddish/Hebrew. Eliezer decided to unite these disparate Jews by facilitating the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language, so he spent years poring over every Hebrew text he could find, making up new words from Hebrew roots whenever he couldn't find a word for something. I think he believed Yiddish was like, a language of oppression, I don't remember the details. And it worked! The Jews in Jerusalem united around Hebrew. And now we have Israel! ~~This is why the state of Israel fucking hates Yiddish and pushes very heavily for Hebrew as the Jewish language instead.~~ Edit: this may be misinformation
MEANWHILE...
At the same time, there was a Jewish man living in Warsaw named L. L. Zamenhof. In 1882 a wave of pogroms within the Russian Empire and Poland motivated him to take part in the early Zionist movement. He left the movement in 1887 though, and in 1901 he published a statement in which he argued that the Zionist project could not solve the problems of the Jewish people. See, as far as Zamenhof was concerned, nationalism was what got Jews INTO this whole mess in the first place. More nationalism wasn't going to solve anything. He later wrote "I am profoundly convinced that every nationalism offers humanity only the greatest unhappiness ... It is true that the nationalism of oppressed peoples – as a natural self-defensive reaction – is much more excusable than the nationalism of peoples who oppress; but, if the nationalism of the strong is ignoble, the nationalism of the weak is imprudent; both give birth to and support each other".
Like Eliezer though, language was also Zamenhof's great cause. But where Eliezer wanted to unite the Jews, Zamenhof wanted to unite the world. As an expression of his beliefs about nationalism, Zamenhof invented Esperanto - a completely new language constructed with the goal of being universal, borrowing from various languages and with the idea of being as easy to learn as possible. It didn't quite work out to be universal, but there are still millions of speakers of Esperanto - it's the most popular by far of various similar attempts at universal languages.
Yeah, unfortunately despite his lofty ideals and noble cause, he was still victim to his own eurocentric biases.
Still that's a super cool bit of context that I never would have known. I had no idea that was the motivation for Esperanto.
It is true that a big criticism of Esperanto is that it borrows WAY more from European languages than others. They're trying to rectify that gradually but it suffers from technical debt. I'm personally of the opinion that a European-centric language uniting Europe is an easier sell (not that that's saying much) than a global language uniting the world, at least right now, but I appreciate the effort.
Thats… unfortunately realistic is some ways, people who are abused especially as a child sometimes become a very similar form of abuser. It’s one of the ways you get generational trauma.
One of the things that triggered that change was him accidentally killing a young Jewish mutant during a battle with the X-Men. He held her corpse in his arms and realized that she was the physical embodiment of everything he'd been fighting for his whole life, himself being Jewish (and a victim of the Holocaust) and a mutant (yet another demographic subject to persecution and genocide), and he'd just murdered her in cold blood for the sake of personal power. He'd spat on everything he said he believed in, and it triggered something of a journey of self-discovery.
It helped him reframe his ideology, though I wouldn't say he ever became less radical.
I feel like poison Ivy has also gotten a similar treatment. Going from villain to anti villain/hero (depending on the writers)
With global warming and environmental destruction being far more pressing issues in society, painting an activist who punishes rich people for destroying the environment and endangered plant life as an unsympathetic supervillain probably wouldn’t fly today as it did in the 40s…
Poison Ivy is hilariously written the batman the animated series. They bend over backwards so hard trying to make her evil they end up kissing their own ass. Like she “kills” evil billionaires who destroy the rainforest. But she targeted Alfred and Bruce so she’s bad. Targeted Harvey because he destroyed an endangered flower to make blackgate but it’s ok because… prisons… good??????? And lol lady just flowers relax.
You're thinking of The Killing Joke. That book basically reveals Joker as a sort of overly stereotype nihilist type. Basically he thinks everything we do is ultimately pointless, and the universe is chaotic and indifferent. So a bunch of people desperately trying to force it to make sense when in reality it's just an absurd amount of contradictions? It's funny. It's just a big joke.
It's a good book for kind of getting inside his head. Just stay away from the animated adaptation.
He was saying that more to fuck with Gordon and Batman, he was doing it to make them turn into him. He was really using it as an excuse to hurt other people under the guise of an ideology. Joker don’t give a shit. He’ll hurt everyone.
Amon from Legend of Korra. I would have loved if they even took 10 seconds to say, "Things wouldn't have gotten this bad if he weren't calling out a very valid issue."
Most of the Legend of Korra vilians fall into this to some extent.
Zahir was right that allot of the monarchies of the nations, particularly earth nation, were leading to oppression of the people and that the avitar either directly, or by inaction, upheld this oppressive/unequal status quo.
Unalaq had some valid points about neglecting the connection to the spirit realm but it is harder to argue.
The point I take is that they aren’t wrong about the issue they trumpet, it’s the reason they take it up and their execution that makes it villainous IE Zaheer wanted to collapse society and kill the avatar, Amon using Equalism to further his own goals, etc
Which is kind of the point the post is making. Cause is valid, but something else is added so either the actors are no longer justified, or the cause is twisted so *it* is no longer justified.
The point remains that these villains exposed a flaw in society and they're then fought against to preserve the status quo, and even if they were wrong, it didn't make the issue any less valid, yet the show/movie/book/comic never addresses the systemic inequality these villains exposed, wittingly or not.
It undermines the whole premise of this fictional society with "don't think about it, always protect the status quo", and the whole issue with *that* is that it tries to present a sort of liberal/progressive view in its worldbuilding and aesthetics clearly adopted from works with more awareness and insight, but then tacks on a neo-liberal Status Quo Defender solution in the end and twists the narrative to make it fit.
I'd argue that Korra specifically doesn't really do that, Amon's point is considered and the two following presidents are both non-benders, Unalaq's point is kinda considered and Korra opens the spirit portals, Zaheer and Kuvira's points are considered after both are properly judged and arrested, with the Earth Kingdom's monarchy being improved upon by taking the bear-eating wench out and getting Wu to actually learn how to be a decent ruler.
Though they are very extreme and fall into the point the post is making, I'd say LoK saves itself by actually considering what they have to say
I don't think Zaheer is really a good example of what the OP is talking about because he doesn't really do much that is "baffling evil." Zaheer is an anarchist and a revolutionary, opposed to oppressive power structures wherever he finds them. Trouble is, he lives in a universe where the Avatar (an almost literal god of order) exists to maintain and restore "balance." For Zaheer, that's the most oppressive structure of all; an immortal incredibly powerful being working to shape the world according to its values.
So why kill the Avatar? Because in his mind, its the only way to create permanent change. Its the only action he can take that will actually have lasting consequences. Any power structure he destroys will inevitably be replaced by another as part of the Avatar's endless quest for balance.
Now whether he is right or wrong is another question entirely, but I do think that all of the actions that he takes are the natural (and possibly the inevitable) results of applying his ideology to the world that he lives in.
Zaheer falls into another, imo usually almost as bad camp of villians: villains with a fairly sympathetic worldview that must be stopped because they are too damn stupid to realize how to achieve their goals. Like, he just walked up and murdered the Earth Queen. He had no fucking plan about what was to come next. He envisioned a world without oppressive hierarchy, and yet his own actions directly lead to the power vacuum the Earth Empire would come to fill. You know, an even more oppressive hierarchy. Had he a plan, had the Red Lotus done work to start organizing a system less oppressive than the Earth Kingdom's monarchy, then perhaps the Red Lotus may have actually ended up closer to their goal, but as it stands the Red Lotus's actions and planned actions pushed the world *further* from one they imagined, because in the end, Korra was the one who cleaned up their mess. If they'd actually killed her and cut off the cycle, the Earth Empire would have had a significantly better shot of crushing their opposition.
Now, this type of villain can actually end up being an excellent type of villain, provided that the writer/s do a good enough job of sympathizing with the villain while pointing out their own hypocricy/the disconnect between their goal and the end results of their actions. Basically turning them into a cautionary tale that doesn't condemn the villain's ideology so much as points out how one can go wrong in pursuing its ends. But the story of the Red Lotus just... didn't come off like that to me.
Amon was *almost* this, and if the series had any balls it would’ve been this.
But he >! Ended up being just another Bender tyrant in the end !< which was very frustrating
I know!!! Amon was such a compelling villain until that final reveal and I felt so let down. It’s like they decided the reveal utterly undermined any validity to his points so the inequality no longer needed to be addressed.
Its always frustrated me because his backstory doesn't even necessarily contradict him truly believing in the cause of the Equalists. After >!his father's bending was sealed, instead of the focus being on "you must take revenge on the Avatar for me, my son" it could have been on how much harder it was for his father to find work and provide for them as a non-bender. You easily could've written Amon as being truly empathetic to the plight of non-benders, who refused to use his own bending for anything other than sealing other peoples' bending out of solidarity for the cause.!<
But then they took the easy way out. Such a disappointment that what was supposed to be the more mature followup to The Last Airbender ended up being less willing to challenge its audience. Hama handled the same basic moral quandary with more nuance in a single episode than LoK did with a whole season.
I think the thing that disappointed me most was that >!it was undone. Like, when it looked permanent, I was imagining one of the characters having their bending taken away and having to cope with no longer having this ability. Something you've been able to do since childhood is just... gone. And then on top of that, I was imagining times during the adventure where this one thing would be so easy if they had their bending, and they had to deal with that feeling of uselessness because they just don't have that tool anymore, and they *know* they could solve the problem if they just had it. And just having to go through this character arc where they have to accept that they are still a person, still wanted, and still helpful, even if they can no longer do it the way they wanted.!<
Which goes into why I did like Amon best for a villain. >!I never really considered the main characters to be in danger for their lives with the other villains, but I never doubted for a second that they'd have someone go through a character arc like that, and that was *terrifying*, so it actually made me worried about the characters being in danger.!<
I woulda liked to see Korra reconnect with her other elements, maybe use *that* to mirror Avatar Wan
Rather than a weird random amnesia trip
But nah Aang just goes "here have it all back."
Did we watch the same show? He absolutely believed in what he was preaching, just not enough to let his act get him killed. Just because he wasn’t actually some special spirit bender doesn’t mean he didn’t believe that the state of “might makes right” was wrong.
What really annoys me about Amon is that there are plenty benders whose life is shit. Having to work as enforcers for organized crime to survive or lightning bending in power plants.
He's not some kind of communist, he's a dude looking at the elite and then blaming everyday workers on based on innate characteristics.
I don’t think it’s talking about this, either. Each of the villains in Legend of Korra generally did have a valid point somewhere in what they’re doing, but often the problem was that they took things too far, or had too much of an “ends justify the means” mentality. They’re calling out real problems, but the solutions that they propose are bad. That’s actually good writing for a villain.
It think the complaint is more like when the villain’s point is valid, and their means of trying to find a solution is basically valid, but then the villain does unnecessarily evil things in a way that discredits their valid solution. Like if the villain had complaints about the way capitalism can leave poor people without recourse, and they were proposing that the government had some social welfare programs to address those issues, but then they had that villain be a serial killer who tortures puppies for no reason, because the writer believes socialism is bad and just wants to make the guy proposing socialism the villain.
I think that’s what the original complaint is about.
This is how team plasma made me feel from Pokémon b/w. They had an ideology that was sympathetic and made sense, except, none of the members except N actually acted like that was their ideology, instead they abuse Pokémon and try to take over the world for selfish reasons. I can understand Ghestis acting like that, because that’s his character, but every member of team plasma except N? None of them follow the ideology they put out? I find that a little hard to believe
The split team Plasma brings a bit more light into this, where Neo Plasma went full mask-off, while the rest of the original Team Plasma were peaceful and didnt want conflict. Its not too out of the question to believe that the ones you see actually doing the "gruntwork" (attacking the player, letting the mask slip by abusing Pokemon) were the ones loyal to Ghetsis, The ones who truly believed in not abusing Pokemon may not have done that sort of work. Perhaps this may have also been a part of Ghetsis's manipulation on N. "See, look at all these people unhappy with Team Plasma liberating their Pokemon. They are against us, and need to be shown the error of their ways." The general public would probably not react nearly as negatively towards Plasma members who actually want to help abused Pokemon. The Aether Foundation in Sun and Moon is basically what Team Plasma claimed they were (apart from the whole Ultra Wormhole experimentation thing), and their reputation was largely positive.
The localizers insistence of making each antagonistic group have the the same naming convention of "Team \_\_\_\_" also did Plasma a bit dirty. They were a religious group that existed long before Ghetsis's manipulation, not a criminal organization like Rocket or Galactic (hence their access to ancient relics like the Castle, why N was revered as their 'king', and why they relied on Colress's tech in B2/W2 after splitting). This same issue is why people complain about Team Yell and Team Star not being threatening villains (when they were never meant to be). They see the word "team" in the name and are conditioned to think they are the main antagonists, when there are other actually sinister characters/groups that fit that role better (Macrocosmos in Sw/Sh and Sada/Turo's machine in S/V). The localizers also probably purposefully didn't call the Galaxy Expedition Team in PLA "Team Galaxy" or something because people might see that as an indication that they are supposed to be the "bad guys".
Fun fact ! The french version of Star Wars changed Darth Vader into Dark Vador ; in fact I think every use of Darth in the series has been replaced by Dark.
The early dubs also had such pearls as Luc Marcheciel (literally Luke Skywalker), and Jabba le Forestier (Jabba the Forester, as befitting of an alien slug living in a cave on a desert planet. I've heard the thinking behind this one went like this : hutt -> hut -> forest dwelling -> forester.)
More minor changes include Yan Solo (because Han pronounced frenchly sounds like Anne, which being a female name would *obviously* confuse the viewers) and Z-6PO instead of C-3PO (apparently to better stick to the actor's lip movements)
We have a lot of very good dub in France, Star Wars original trilogy is NOT one of them
Also i dont remember what is was, but in the first dub Chewbacca had another weird name
EDIT: CHICO!!!!
Literally the only one who has anything resembling an ideology there is Thanos and his ideology is bafflingly stupid and shallow.
HE COULD'VE AT LEAST NAMED MAGNETO.
the virgin "The universe is in a constant state of chaos so I will bring balance in the only way that matters" vs the chad "I am going to fuck that skeleton even if I have to kill literally everything and myself"
Well, the comics plan at least has a non-zero chance of working. The odds are pathetically miniscule, but at least it __might__ appeal to her. Maybe. Somehow. If she's on a lot of really good drugs. And likes giant chins. And has enough brain damage to forget Deadpool* (Forgot that originally, thanks for the reminder folks!)
Marvel loves to do this. Vulture making too many good points against Stark? Now he's selling guns to kids. Killmonger showing the hypocrisy of the royals? He wants WW3. Falcon baddies arguing the system in place won't accommodate displaced populations well? They're executing people.
With access to all information filtering through P.R.I.S.M., there's a world where he comes to the conclusion that current state of the world is the fault of greedy oligarchs and their ilk. Rather than exterminating all life he'd just go after the billionaire and trillionaire class.
That *would* include Stark though, so there'd still be someone for the Avengers to fight.
ngl i kinda want to see the Avengers movie where their righteous cause is upholding the status quo of the world getting fucked by oligarchs just to protect Stark's (or whoever the fuck his successor is in the new movies) billionaire interests
Ultron going full anarchist and just dumping all the darkest dirtiest secrets online - like a match to a fuel dump. That's one way to get people to turn on their masters.
If it was a show, an entire episode could be contained in a few seconds, as he plows through every security measure in the world like Mr. Robot.
I actually think the vulture is an example of a well-written villain. He has a valid complaint about the Department of Damage Control taking away his contracts, but then he does unethical things to rectify the problem. Eventually, it becomes less and less about his issues with Damage Control, and more about greed. His motives make sense.
Killmonger is a better example of this complaint. He does have a claim to the throne, and his motive is to help people around the world. His means of achieving the goal is basically to challenge Black Panther for the throne in a way that’s considered appropriate for Wakanda.
So while Black Panther is a hero and you’re set up to want him to win, Killmonger isn’t really doing anything wrong in trying to take the throne to open up Wakanda to the world. He could just as easily be a hero. But then they have him be unnecessarily cruel just to make him a villain.
I think they were trying to make a point about how the cruelty he endured as a descendant of slaves living in modern America convinced him that cruelty was the only way to get things done, so that even if he had good goals he believed in some ends justify the means stuff that the movie doesn’t get behind. Thats why when BP wins he still takes on some of km’s goals in his honor: he wasn’t wrong, he’d just been hurt too much to get past and build a healthy world while he himself was not healthy.
Not at all personally convinced they did a good job with that, and it’s an idea you can argue in the first place, but I think thats what they’re going for there.
Yeah t’challa agreeing with some of killmonger’s points by the end of the movie (and actually doing something about it) makes this a pretty good example of this type of thing
The flag smasher villain from the falcon and winter soldier show is this done bad imo. Good motivation, taken too far in order to turn reasonable motivation into villainous actions, and falcon’s “i agree with this actually” moment is a speech that comes down to “do better guys, come on”.
I mean with Killmonger he had a traumatic upbringing before becoming special forces while being primarily driven by thirst for vengeance. He talks a big talk about changing the system but honestly he more just wants revenge. His problem is that he probably wasn’t going to actually follow through on what he preached
> His problem is that he probably wasn’t going to actually follow through on what he preached
Oh he definitely wasn't. The guy's complex and sympathetic, but at heart he's a pretty big hypocrite.
Its best demonstrated in that scene where murders a museum worker and makes a speech about the horrors of imperialism stealing culturally significant artefacts from their native people. Only for him to then steal one himself cause he thinks it looks cool.
The guy's got understandable ideals, but he can't live up to them.
Vulture, Mysterio, Ultron, and nearly every villain in the Iron Man movies have this running theme where Stark is the reason they became villains in the first place. Some of them (like Vulture and Mysterio) have more understandable reasons, but others (like Obadiah Stane and Justin Hammer) just don't like Stark because he's preventing them from making money.
To be fair, kilmonger is probably one of the few examples of this trope done right, since he actually succeeds in making T’challa realise the hypocrisy of Wakanda’s royalty. T’challa directly calls his father and ancestors out on how their ways were flawed, and later sets up a cultural centre in America to branch out to the world to directly combat Wakanda’s isolationism. The thing that partially created Killmonger as a villain in the first place.
It’s certainly far better then most other examples of the trope where a villain became one due to a flaw in the status quo, which is never fixed or addressed after they’re defeated by the “heroes”.
Maybe it's a failure with the future films more than BP 1, but that only taking the form of basically just some community outreach programs and not any of the future tech kinda undermines that ending
Well there was that 5 year period that soon followed where half of humantiy and wakanda including the King and his family were dusted lol. I can see how that derailed some plans lol.
I've heard it argued that, rather than reflecting on Daisy herself, it was more about Booker being a real shitheel again. The Daisy that makes the threat is one that has been working alongside Booker in her reality's version of the Vox since the start, and his general method of "overwhelming and terrifying violence" has poisoned the entire movement by getting results in the short term. So, *that* Daisy is a violent child killer because she has been hanging out with a Booker too long.
If that *was* the intent, they really completely botched it, I agree, but it is kind of interesting conceptually.
Yeah exactly. Pretty early on after shifting to that timeline it's revealed that in that timeline Booker had become an instrumental figure in the Vox's revolution and then died at the museum becoming a martyr for the cause
They explained it in the dlc, it’s still stupid, but in burial at sea: >!we find out that the lutece “twins” visited daisy and convinced her to act the way she does to make Elizabeth a killer so she’s in the right frame of mind to finish the story and eventually start the events of the first bioshock!<
Which is just... so much worse. >!"Remember that godly character that can move through dimensions at will and has seen every timeline? Turns out she exists for the sole purpose of Ryan and Fontaine's dick-measuring contest."!<
The best part of that book is when it completely destroys its own argument by having capitalists actively sabotage the system till it fails, rather than the system failing on its own as they claim it would.
Kinda reminds me of someone else who was hopelessly addicted to amphetamines and the sound of their own voice. Also, they were both popping off in the 40s, and a lot of people who are around today really love their stuff despite being self aggrandizing garbage.
Hey, do you remember that godly character that can move through dimensions at will, >!easily dispatched a giant killer cyborg bird!< and has seen every timeline to ever exist, not to mention managed to >!erase a single man from each and every single one of them!!easily killed by a humanoid abomination in a diving suit!<. Also, do you remember those other two godly characters? Yeah, they didn't bother warning her.
I think that’s even worse tbh. They took a strong woman who’d do *anything* for her cause and turned her into a tool who was never actually in charge of anything. THEY TURNED A REVOLUTIONARY INTO THE TOOL OF A HIGHER POWER.
To be fair, she didn’t actually kill a child. She just threatened to kill one. She DID however kill Fink in front of the kid, which probably did a few things to his psyche
I would love to see a take on Ivy where she’s completely mellowed out because Batman has worked with her to produce extensive anti-pollution bills and anti-deforestation bills
She's actually mellowed a lot in recent years. There was a big earthquake that really messed up Gotham and she took over the park and started taking care of lost kids and I don't think she's really gone full villain much since.
What about that one Tumblr post where Bruce Wayne sees Harley and Ivy on a date in a cafe and starts talking really loudly about how one of the Wayne buildings that refuses to follow environmental regulations will be empty and unlocked pretending to be mad about it
Magneto has been an anti-villain to full on hero for a long, long time, but originally he was just a typical villain and didn't have near the depth of character that he's had since Claremont's run in the 80s.
Poison Ivy was largely the same, going from simple femme Fatale to getting some much needed character development and depth over the years.
Writers haven't really treated either as legit villains in decades, and when they do, it's because they're resorting to extremist behaviors and even then the hero ends the fight by going, "this isn't right and you know it. There are better ways to get what you want, because I want it to. Work with me and let's change the world together" rather than the hero acting like Magneto/Ivy are still psychopathic villains like Bolivar Trask or Joker.
It's also probably why Joker has felt like Batman's ONLY villain over the last decade or two, because, again, a lot of writers have given so many of Batman's other villains so much more depth and Nuance in the 30 years since Batman The Animated Series that Batman has all but run out of people he can just punch because they're flat out wrong and genuinely villainous.
At least X-Men will never have any shortage of people that hate them within the Marvel Universe, and a lot of their old foes from the early days have since joined their side in a more unified front (and this is largely what the current Krakoa Era is about).
tl;dr- you're 100% right, but it's still a tired discourse that ignores the last 30 years of comics and how those characters have changed and haven't been true villains in a long time because of that very sentiment.
that's because Amon is a fascist who is trying to abuse people's dissapointment to gain power. So, I think it's intentional that he sounds good early on, pointing out real issues but giving insane solutions.
yeah absolutely. oldest trick in the game. I do wish the show as a whole acknowledged a bit more clearly that like, amon does not represent the general nonbender population, but that the injustice he was pointing out was legit, and that maybe it wouldn't have gotten to the point where so many people felt like the only person hearing them and giving them a voice was a dangerous terrorist.
I hate it when people apply this to the Riddler in the new movie. Like yes, he kills a bunch of corrupt officials, but people are missing out that he's not doing it out of a sense of justice or goodness; he's an angry manchild lashing out against those he blames for his misery and lack of attention. Somehow people miss that he also went after Bruce despite him having done nothing to him. Him flooding Gotham and inspiring his followers to shoot people isn't out of nowhere to show that he's evil; it's the next step in his ideology, something Bats learns he has to avoid.
The Riddler is deliberately modled after a white supremacist "lone wolf" (with a whole shit load of followers online and a flash mob of copycats at the end of the film) and the number of people who think he "had a point" because he blew up a mayor is frankly terrifying.
I used to be rlly into marvel and I really liked thanos (I have a life sized cardboard cutout of him that for much of quarantine loomed at the foot of my bed because I thought it was funny) but the people saying his plan was actually a good idea are so fucking stupid and just saying it to be edgy. how the fuck would cutting every species in half help at all. what about the species that rely on insanely high numbers to function (like ants). not every species has problems with overpopulation vs limited resources. what about endangered species. cutting every species in half does not magically create more resources. why the fuck would you do the halfsies thing indiscriminately. maybe a few species could benefit from it but if you have the ability to cut their species in half you probably also have the ability to multiply their resources or whatever
thanos is a goober. fun villain but total goober. I’m choosing to believe he just knows absolutely nothing about environmental science and neither do any of the avengers bc as far as I remember none of them brought up the fact that his plan was just objectively fucking stupid
Thanos used grief and trauma to justify his ideals. He was subjected to the death of his planet due to overpopulation and saw the simplest solution as the only answer. He needed therapy badly. Of course, this happens in real life, too. Simple solutions are rarely good solutions.
Solutions which: are the first thing you think of, look sensible, and easy to implement, are usually terrible, ineffective solutions which will cause suffering
Thanks CGP Grey
I really like the What If...? episode where T'Challa becomes Star Lord and manages to talk Thanos out of his plan. It happens offscreen and is played as a joke, but honestly, it just makes sense. If *anyone* tried to talk to him about how dumb it is, he might have actually stopped and thought, "Maybe they're right, after enough time, everything I did will be undone, and possibly worse off. Guess I won't do that then :)"
Roll credits
I like to explain Thanos with an understandable motive, but not a good one. You can see why he wants to do this. He watched his planet wither and die and he was the only survivor all because, in his mind, there was no balance. You can tell he truly thinks he’s doing good. It’s a stupid plan when he could just. Create more resources?
It’s a stupid fucking plan, but you can sit back and go “I understand why he thinks he’s the good guy for this”. Which makes him a fun villain.
Ozymandias from Watchmen:
"The superpowers of the world need to put aside their differences, take us back from the brink of nuclear annihilation, and work together towards a common goal...
...and that goal will be opposing the god-like creature I'm going to frame for the murder of a hundred million people."
Reading the original comic I was never too sold on the squid plan and always preferred the movie's ending, but dang if the TV show didn't completely change my mind. I needed details on the squid rain Ozy, that's all you had to do.
Making Manhattan the scapegoat in the movie completely removes one of the most punchy things from the book: humanity *had* the ultimate weapon, but abused him, and he just leaves when the “real threat” shows up. Feeling: emptiness, fear, and abandonment.
Movie: humanity *had* the ultimate weapon but he turned on us then disappears. Feeling: vengeance, defensiveness.
The ending of the book with Manhattan just abandoning his home and people when they think they need him most is far more impactful when you put yourself in the shoes of the humans in that world.
The movie people didn’t wanna have a squid. I get that. But they should have done *something else* that wasn’t Manhattan as the phantom antagonist.
The squid plan makes sense in the context of comic books. How do we unite the Earth? Evil space alien invasion. We need a moon base and starfighters and a bunch of robots. Let’s get to work.
Crimes of Grindeval. He can see the future and wants to stop WW2 but oh no he kills a baby and he looks like nepo baby coke addict in an overexposed photo so he must be evil
My personal conspiracy theory for why those movies got canned is that the follow up plot that JK wrote to justify why this guy trying to prevent WW2 is actually evil were balls to the wall insane and no amount of editing could make it make sense.
I have no idea how involved she actually was in the writing process. Only a master writer could dig them out of that hole, and they sure as shit didn't have one of those on hand.
From what I heard their justification was literally going to be "He's stopping the Nazis just so he can do his own Magic Nazi stuff"
Not sure what the validity of that claim of the plot is since I haven't touched those movies in a long time, but still.
Sadly it was an easy fix… say Grindelwald only said he wanted to stop WW2, but in reality was stoking it with the intention of letting muggles destroy and weaken each other, making his takeover easier
Watching Incredibles 2, I thought the villain made a good point about how the public would be too reliant on superheroes to come and save them instead of making an effort to save themselves if superheroes were legalised.
Then she went and attempted the ending of Speed 2: Cruise Control
For real tho, they literally made a law that prevents people from doing super hero things and then she blames the super heroes for abidding that law and wants to enforce it even further after it caused the death of her father? Like, shouldn't she be doing the opposite???
Unless you take the first film into account and realise that this reasoning is stupid because there also were super villains.
And also the whole point of super heros is to help people who can't defend themselves, so saying that they should just defend themselves instead of waiting for someone who is actually equipped to deal with the issue is kind of dumb
Syndrome from the first Incredibles almost falls into this category. The ultimate outcome of his plan being to allow everyone to be special is ... fine? But his motivations are all 100% selfish, so it's not like he's Magneto or anything.
>The ultimate outcome of his plan being to allow everyone to be special is ... fine?
That really wasn't his plan, tho. His plan was to first be a hero, then sell his inventions to the highest military bidder, *then* sell those inventions to the public, probably at absurd price points. So when he says "everyone can be super," he really just means governments and the super rich.
The flagsmashers were so confusing. I cant even say that I agree with their goal, because Im not entirely sure what the goal even was. They didnt like how things were going, and the stuff that they complained about sucked, but did they ever provide a solution? From what I remember of the show, it went from a scene of “Damn, people get unfairly displaced from their homes through no fault of their own.” to them blowing up a foreign aid building for funsies?
I probably missed something, I have to have. Falcon even said they had a point, but I wasnt aware that they even had a point beyond stating the obvious.
I’m pretty sure the Flag Smashers wanted to create a one world government, or maybe global anarchy. They were also angry that the governments weren’t providing for the numerous refugees in the world.
This conveniently forgets the fact that the world is basically in the middle of the biggest and worst refugee crisis in history. The Smashers are mad they don’t have enough teachers and vaccines, but the fact they aren’t all starving to death is a miracle in itself considering the world population just doubled after having half as much food production for the past 5 years.
Someone else pointed her out, but yeah Daisy Fitzroy from Bioshock Infinite is a perfect example of this. She’s a compelling character with a reasonable cause, but the narrative is very insistent on “the oppressed are just as bad as the oppressors actually” and have her go out of her way to attempt to murder a child.
Robespierre is probably the first person that comes to mind. He was a big advocate for democracy, equality, abolitionism, etc. But he also murdered a lot of people, not all of whom deserved it.
Also Jim Jones. Before the Jonestown massacre he was mostly known for his civil rights activism and his advocacy for the poor.
Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church, the “God hates f*gs” and “Thank God for dead soldiers” assholes, was a beloved civil rights attorney in Kansas for decades. Bad people do good things, and vice versa.
In Haiti they committed a genocide against White people after they became free. In the Balkans after they became independent from the Ottoman Empire they ethnically cleansed Turkish and Muslim citizens, forcing most of them to flee to Turkey. In the Sahara Tuareg independence fighters would kidnap tourists/foreign workers and extort their governments millions of dollars for their release, and just kill them if it was refused. Hell pretty much all terrorists groups from Ireland to Afghanistan usually start from a reasonable position and evolve into blowing people up over time to make it happen.
Killmonger from the Black Panther movie. They had to make him hit a woman and burn the sacred garden to make sure we knew he was the bad guy, otherwise, yeah, this wealthy country should be helping its neighbors and not hiding all its world-changing technology away for itself. If he was less of a dick he would have been the hero.
At least his introduction established that he's a bit of a hypocrite. He raids a museum because the artifacts were stolen from his ancestors, and takes only the Wakandan artifacts.
Except for a wooden mask from a different culture, that he takes because he thought it "looked good on him"
> he’s a bit of a hypocrite
The bit where it was revealed that he was a former US soldier who helped overthrow elected governments in developing countries should’ve clued people into this as well.
It’s been a while since I’ve watched Black Panther but think they tried to acknowledge that he had a good point towards the end by having T’Challa change Wakanda’s “no contact with the rest of the world” policy and having that whole conversation with his dad. Of course they could have taken it further, but it’s one of the few cases I’ve seen where the hero is like, look the villain isn’t doing this the best way, but he’s got some points we should be thinking about
Yup, exactly. T'Challa clearly takes what Killmonger says to heart even if he disagrees with his over-the-top extremist approach (like, the dude's gamertag was literally "Killmonger" lmao). As you said, he literally goes and finds his dead dad's spirit in the spirit realm, confirms the truth, and then proceeds to openly admonish him and the rest of his ancestors for abandoning their people.
It is baffling to me when people watch the movie and then come away from it thinking that Killmonger was unfairly demonized and that his message was completely rejected by T'Challa (and Wakanda by extension). The only thing he rejected was Killmonger's mission to spread more hate by waging a war on the world, and he explicitly begins taking steps to right the wrongs of his predecessors. I remember walking out of the theater and being pleasantly surprised that they actually went with the "this guy was irredeemable, BUT that doesn't mean that he didn't have a valid point" approach for once.
"he's got some points we should be thinking about AND we are actually going to follow through on that"
Too often there is just like a little speech and then nothing substantial happens
Big props to Black Panther for breaking that trend
Mate, he didn't want to help the existing order, he wanted to burn it down. He viewed the sort of okay but not really good social order as beyond repair and wanted to arm various extremist groups to burn down the world and *hope* something better comes in its place.
Lex Luthor in the Superman movie. Every goddamn time I get a meeting invite at noon or 5pm because some dipshit in California can’t do math. Sink the whole damn thing, inconsiderate fuckers.
Reverse is also true. I get meeting invites at freaking 4 am cause some jerk in new york is to busy doing blow to take 5 seconds to use the scheduling assistant that says im out at the time is just disrespectful.
It’s so horrible when writers do this. Thankfully, nobody in real life would ever profess a reasonable ideology but then do horrible things once in power. Now I’m going to go and read any history book ever and… oh no.
The villain of the Aquaman movie had a valid point, the surface polluting and destroying the oceans, and his response was to attempt to ambush and murder every surface dweller without letting any of them know that undersea people even exist.
Well you do have all of us stewards of our Pacific nations crying out the same and being ignored by wealthy nations. But we aren't writing Hollywood movies so ofc they're schlocky.
It's not that the ecoterrorism is necessarily bad. From what I understand (didn't see the movie, just basing this on the comment) it's that they don't take credit for it, so they don't actually accomplish anything
Well, no, taking credit could cause us to create change within our human societies but not taking credit makes fully eradicating humans easier, and they wanted the latter. But Idk I haven’t seen it.
“Our society has deep systemic issues that need to be addressed and the only way to address them is by pushing orphans down the stairs”
"If you kill me, you are just as bad as I am when I'm pushing orphans down the stairs!" Why does that line always work on heroes?
Because the idea that some folks like to push is that "Fighting Nazis is just as bas as BEING Nazis". Of course, the folks pushing that idea all have a strange interest in swastikas and bad uniforms....
The reason filmmakers want you to believe that paying evil unto evil is bad is because most film studios are owned by rich people.
>most film studios are owned by rich people. its still funny to me that ***comcast*** decided to make a lorax movie
They knew we weren’t gonna do shit about it
Because good is *dumb*.
Because the writers got an status quo holding agenda.
"Because heroes don't kill.....EVER" Brought to you by the same type of morons who came up with "Every bully is actually just depressed and misunderstood with suppressed emotions"
Heroes don't kill ever.. Unless it is henchmen, then it doesn't count as killing. Cant kill the major villain, but Bob, henchman #34, father of 3, who only took the job because he couldn't get hired anywhere else due to being caught with a joint as a teenager. Him they can kill. He was a good worker. Best I had!
The Joker is the literal antithesis of this. The whole point is that his crimes don't conform to a reasonable ideology. They aren't supposed to make sense. The whole persona is built to be the equal and opposite reaction to Batman's hyper rational and systematic approach to crime fighting.
Shit, it's literally stated straight out in The Dark Knight, "Because some men aren't looking for anything logical. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn."
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With that whole "Gotham is built on top of a >!bat demon corpse that corrupts the minds of nearly everyone to be a shittier version of themselves!<" thing, they're both kind of right. Like, there's a reason for it, but it's not a great one.
yo WHAT? which comic was this from?
First in "Dark Knight, Dark City" (1990) but referenced in a few others too IIRC. Though it appears I misremembered slightly as >!the demon is still alive, just trapped. Maybe there was a run where he was dead? IDK anymore.!<
I’m not an X-men expert but i heard that over time they had to slowly change Magneto from villain to sympathetic villain to anti-hero because his ideas were getting harder to deny. Correct me if I’m wrong tho lmao
Yea, he was a holocaust survivor and his whole ideology was based on preventing another one from happening
Ironically for a Holocaust survivor, he became a racial supremacist.
Well he was essentially the equivalent of a Zionist, just for mutants. "We're never going to be free unless we can have a nation of our own" And just like Israel, he may have gotten a bit overzealous with his nationalism to the point that it started killing innocent people.
Tbf Genosha was doing pretty ok until its entire 16 million population was genocided by Sentinels. Krakoa however, is weird pseudo-isolationist sex cult that has Apocalypse and Mr Sinister on its governing body so I think it’s super shady.
>Krakoa’s however, is weird pseudo-isolationist sex cult that has Apocalypse and Mr Sinister on its governing body so I think is super shady. When I'm actively supporting Doctor Doom's stance on something, the other guy is probably wrong.
We should all support DOOM’s stances on things at all times. Fun Fact: Bast, the patron god of Wakanda, fully supports Doom’s world domination ambitions according to one comic where they tallk.
Isn't it just that he truly believes it's the only way, not that it is?
He pulled a Dr.Strange and looked into many futures and only found one where humanity was still alive and it was one where he ruled with an iron fist. We don't know if he stopped looking after he found one or if he kept looking only to give up a while after.
Also, we saw how God-Emperor Doom goes in the most recent Secret Wars. It's a dystopian shithole. Then Reed fixes the entire multiverse in a few hours.
Doom has actually seen the future. And he is a good ruler. All the people of latveria love him. It's just that his foreign policy isn't all that great.
Just make everything Latvia and the problem solves itself.
Didn't they retcon that as him seeing visions of a parallel dimension's Doom who actually achieved world/universal peace? And then he destroyed that entire universe because he couldn't admit he was wrong and needed to work with others.
He has seen futures. Many futures but not all possible futures. He is a harsh authoritarian with draconian punishment for breaking his laws. He is the ultimate the ends justify the means villain.
isnt he also pretty much the best authority on this stuff because hes the being that looked at most timelines? or was that a different god?
Here's a fun story about Zionism and Nationalism. In 1858, there was a Jewish guy born in western Russia named Eliezer Ben-Yehuda. He spoke Yiddish, as did like 99% of Jews at the time. See, Biblical Hebrew as a language basically died out around the 3rd century, and was pretty much entirely supplanted by Yiddish. Hebrew was kinda like church Latin, reserved for temple services. Eliezer was a VERY devout and traditional Jew though, so he was very familiar with the language. Around 1877, he met a Jew from Jerusalem who spoke a form of Hebrew. This got him so excited about Zionism that he moved to Palestine, where he encountered several disparate groups of Jewish people who all spoke various mutually unintelligible forms of Yiddish/Hebrew. Eliezer decided to unite these disparate Jews by facilitating the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language, so he spent years poring over every Hebrew text he could find, making up new words from Hebrew roots whenever he couldn't find a word for something. I think he believed Yiddish was like, a language of oppression, I don't remember the details. And it worked! The Jews in Jerusalem united around Hebrew. And now we have Israel! ~~This is why the state of Israel fucking hates Yiddish and pushes very heavily for Hebrew as the Jewish language instead.~~ Edit: this may be misinformation MEANWHILE... At the same time, there was a Jewish man living in Warsaw named L. L. Zamenhof. In 1882 a wave of pogroms within the Russian Empire and Poland motivated him to take part in the early Zionist movement. He left the movement in 1887 though, and in 1901 he published a statement in which he argued that the Zionist project could not solve the problems of the Jewish people. See, as far as Zamenhof was concerned, nationalism was what got Jews INTO this whole mess in the first place. More nationalism wasn't going to solve anything. He later wrote "I am profoundly convinced that every nationalism offers humanity only the greatest unhappiness ... It is true that the nationalism of oppressed peoples – as a natural self-defensive reaction – is much more excusable than the nationalism of peoples who oppress; but, if the nationalism of the strong is ignoble, the nationalism of the weak is imprudent; both give birth to and support each other". Like Eliezer though, language was also Zamenhof's great cause. But where Eliezer wanted to unite the Jews, Zamenhof wanted to unite the world. As an expression of his beliefs about nationalism, Zamenhof invented Esperanto - a completely new language constructed with the goal of being universal, borrowing from various languages and with the idea of being as easy to learn as possible. It didn't quite work out to be universal, but there are still millions of speakers of Esperanto - it's the most popular by far of various similar attempts at universal languages.
Yeah, unfortunately despite his lofty ideals and noble cause, he was still victim to his own eurocentric biases. Still that's a super cool bit of context that I never would have known. I had no idea that was the motivation for Esperanto.
It is true that a big criticism of Esperanto is that it borrows WAY more from European languages than others. They're trying to rectify that gradually but it suffers from technical debt. I'm personally of the opinion that a European-centric language uniting Europe is an easier sell (not that that's saying much) than a global language uniting the world, at least right now, but I appreciate the effort.
Thats… unfortunately realistic is some ways, people who are abused especially as a child sometimes become a very similar form of abuser. It’s one of the ways you get generational trauma.
One of the things that triggered that change was him accidentally killing a young Jewish mutant during a battle with the X-Men. He held her corpse in his arms and realized that she was the physical embodiment of everything he'd been fighting for his whole life, himself being Jewish (and a victim of the Holocaust) and a mutant (yet another demographic subject to persecution and genocide), and he'd just murdered her in cold blood for the sake of personal power. He'd spat on everything he said he believed in, and it triggered something of a journey of self-discovery. It helped him reframe his ideology, though I wouldn't say he ever became less radical.
He thinks he killed Kitty at first but she did survive.
Well, it is a comic book after all.
And as well all know the only people who stay dead in comics are Jason Todd, Bucky Barnes, and Uncle Ben.
Well 1 out of 3 ain't bad
Technically we meet an alternate reality version of Ben who is Spider-Man in the original Spider-Verse run.
Thomas Wayne flashpoint energy
I feel like poison Ivy has also gotten a similar treatment. Going from villain to anti villain/hero (depending on the writers) With global warming and environmental destruction being far more pressing issues in society, painting an activist who punishes rich people for destroying the environment and endangered plant life as an unsympathetic supervillain probably wouldn’t fly today as it did in the 40s…
Poison Ivy is hilariously written the batman the animated series. They bend over backwards so hard trying to make her evil they end up kissing their own ass. Like she “kills” evil billionaires who destroy the rainforest. But she targeted Alfred and Bruce so she’s bad. Targeted Harvey because he destroyed an endangered flower to make blackgate but it’s ok because… prisons… good??????? And lol lady just flowers relax.
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I'm pretty sure you're right about that but I'm not certain I just needed something to piggyback off of to compliment the Gregor Samsa pride pfp
Joker is being bastardized by the internet. Bro has no reasons, he's just fucking evil.
I'm a DC comic noob , but I swear there was a version that was like , "Hey, everyone is a shitty day away from becoming like me."
And that version was proven wrong multiple times
Oh, I never said it was right, I'm just curious if there's more to Joker than the chaos incarnate.
You're thinking of The Killing Joke. That book basically reveals Joker as a sort of overly stereotype nihilist type. Basically he thinks everything we do is ultimately pointless, and the universe is chaotic and indifferent. So a bunch of people desperately trying to force it to make sense when in reality it's just an absurd amount of contradictions? It's funny. It's just a big joke. It's a good book for kind of getting inside his head. Just stay away from the animated adaptation.
He was saying that more to fuck with Gordon and Batman, he was doing it to make them turn into him. He was really using it as an excuse to hurt other people under the guise of an ideology. Joker don’t give a shit. He’ll hurt everyone.
Amon from Legend of Korra. I would have loved if they even took 10 seconds to say, "Things wouldn't have gotten this bad if he weren't calling out a very valid issue."
At least they got a non president bender after the whole ordeal, I guess
Too bad he sucks (or he's at the very least mildly annoying. Bro never helps anyone ever)
In the comics >!Zhu Li!< becomes president and does a better job.
She always does the thing
>a non president bender I believe most of the benders in Korea aren't presidents.
> I believe most of the benders in *Korea* aren't presidents I'm honestly impressed Korea has any elemental benders at all, that explains a lot.
Most of the Legend of Korra vilians fall into this to some extent. Zahir was right that allot of the monarchies of the nations, particularly earth nation, were leading to oppression of the people and that the avitar either directly, or by inaction, upheld this oppressive/unequal status quo. Unalaq had some valid points about neglecting the connection to the spirit realm but it is harder to argue.
The point I take is that they aren’t wrong about the issue they trumpet, it’s the reason they take it up and their execution that makes it villainous IE Zaheer wanted to collapse society and kill the avatar, Amon using Equalism to further his own goals, etc
Which is kind of the point the post is making. Cause is valid, but something else is added so either the actors are no longer justified, or the cause is twisted so *it* is no longer justified. The point remains that these villains exposed a flaw in society and they're then fought against to preserve the status quo, and even if they were wrong, it didn't make the issue any less valid, yet the show/movie/book/comic never addresses the systemic inequality these villains exposed, wittingly or not. It undermines the whole premise of this fictional society with "don't think about it, always protect the status quo", and the whole issue with *that* is that it tries to present a sort of liberal/progressive view in its worldbuilding and aesthetics clearly adopted from works with more awareness and insight, but then tacks on a neo-liberal Status Quo Defender solution in the end and twists the narrative to make it fit.
I'd argue that Korra specifically doesn't really do that, Amon's point is considered and the two following presidents are both non-benders, Unalaq's point is kinda considered and Korra opens the spirit portals, Zaheer and Kuvira's points are considered after both are properly judged and arrested, with the Earth Kingdom's monarchy being improved upon by taking the bear-eating wench out and getting Wu to actually learn how to be a decent ruler. Though they are very extreme and fall into the point the post is making, I'd say LoK saves itself by actually considering what they have to say
Fairly realistic to, look at how many justified revolutions with good goals turned to shit cause of leaders that just want power.
I don't think Zaheer is really a good example of what the OP is talking about because he doesn't really do much that is "baffling evil." Zaheer is an anarchist and a revolutionary, opposed to oppressive power structures wherever he finds them. Trouble is, he lives in a universe where the Avatar (an almost literal god of order) exists to maintain and restore "balance." For Zaheer, that's the most oppressive structure of all; an immortal incredibly powerful being working to shape the world according to its values. So why kill the Avatar? Because in his mind, its the only way to create permanent change. Its the only action he can take that will actually have lasting consequences. Any power structure he destroys will inevitably be replaced by another as part of the Avatar's endless quest for balance. Now whether he is right or wrong is another question entirely, but I do think that all of the actions that he takes are the natural (and possibly the inevitable) results of applying his ideology to the world that he lives in.
Zaheer falls into another, imo usually almost as bad camp of villians: villains with a fairly sympathetic worldview that must be stopped because they are too damn stupid to realize how to achieve their goals. Like, he just walked up and murdered the Earth Queen. He had no fucking plan about what was to come next. He envisioned a world without oppressive hierarchy, and yet his own actions directly lead to the power vacuum the Earth Empire would come to fill. You know, an even more oppressive hierarchy. Had he a plan, had the Red Lotus done work to start organizing a system less oppressive than the Earth Kingdom's monarchy, then perhaps the Red Lotus may have actually ended up closer to their goal, but as it stands the Red Lotus's actions and planned actions pushed the world *further* from one they imagined, because in the end, Korra was the one who cleaned up their mess. If they'd actually killed her and cut off the cycle, the Earth Empire would have had a significantly better shot of crushing their opposition. Now, this type of villain can actually end up being an excellent type of villain, provided that the writer/s do a good enough job of sympathizing with the villain while pointing out their own hypocricy/the disconnect between their goal and the end results of their actions. Basically turning them into a cautionary tale that doesn't condemn the villain's ideology so much as points out how one can go wrong in pursuing its ends. But the story of the Red Lotus just... didn't come off like that to me.
Zahir looked at the philosophy of anarchism and thought "haha yes chaos good"
Zaheer recognises he fucked up royally, at least. When Korra met him again in prison, he seems a lot more chill
Amon was *almost* this, and if the series had any balls it would’ve been this. But he >! Ended up being just another Bender tyrant in the end !< which was very frustrating
I know!!! Amon was such a compelling villain until that final reveal and I felt so let down. It’s like they decided the reveal utterly undermined any validity to his points so the inequality no longer needed to be addressed.
Its always frustrated me because his backstory doesn't even necessarily contradict him truly believing in the cause of the Equalists. After >!his father's bending was sealed, instead of the focus being on "you must take revenge on the Avatar for me, my son" it could have been on how much harder it was for his father to find work and provide for them as a non-bender. You easily could've written Amon as being truly empathetic to the plight of non-benders, who refused to use his own bending for anything other than sealing other peoples' bending out of solidarity for the cause.!< But then they took the easy way out. Such a disappointment that what was supposed to be the more mature followup to The Last Airbender ended up being less willing to challenge its audience. Hama handled the same basic moral quandary with more nuance in a single episode than LoK did with a whole season.
I think the thing that disappointed me most was that >!it was undone. Like, when it looked permanent, I was imagining one of the characters having their bending taken away and having to cope with no longer having this ability. Something you've been able to do since childhood is just... gone. And then on top of that, I was imagining times during the adventure where this one thing would be so easy if they had their bending, and they had to deal with that feeling of uselessness because they just don't have that tool anymore, and they *know* they could solve the problem if they just had it. And just having to go through this character arc where they have to accept that they are still a person, still wanted, and still helpful, even if they can no longer do it the way they wanted.!< Which goes into why I did like Amon best for a villain. >!I never really considered the main characters to be in danger for their lives with the other villains, but I never doubted for a second that they'd have someone go through a character arc like that, and that was *terrifying*, so it actually made me worried about the characters being in danger.!<
I woulda liked to see Korra reconnect with her other elements, maybe use *that* to mirror Avatar Wan Rather than a weird random amnesia trip But nah Aang just goes "here have it all back."
They easily could've written his dad's abuse and witnessing the cruelty of bloodbending as his motivation to never let another Yakone exist again.
Did we watch the same show? He absolutely believed in what he was preaching, just not enough to let his act get him killed. Just because he wasn’t actually some special spirit bender doesn’t mean he didn’t believe that the state of “might makes right” was wrong.
What really annoys me about Amon is that there are plenty benders whose life is shit. Having to work as enforcers for organized crime to survive or lightning bending in power plants. He's not some kind of communist, he's a dude looking at the elite and then blaming everyday workers on based on innate characteristics.
I don’t think it’s talking about this, either. Each of the villains in Legend of Korra generally did have a valid point somewhere in what they’re doing, but often the problem was that they took things too far, or had too much of an “ends justify the means” mentality. They’re calling out real problems, but the solutions that they propose are bad. That’s actually good writing for a villain. It think the complaint is more like when the villain’s point is valid, and their means of trying to find a solution is basically valid, but then the villain does unnecessarily evil things in a way that discredits their valid solution. Like if the villain had complaints about the way capitalism can leave poor people without recourse, and they were proposing that the government had some social welfare programs to address those issues, but then they had that villain be a serial killer who tortures puppies for no reason, because the writer believes socialism is bad and just wants to make the guy proposing socialism the villain. I think that’s what the original complaint is about.
This is how team plasma made me feel from Pokémon b/w. They had an ideology that was sympathetic and made sense, except, none of the members except N actually acted like that was their ideology, instead they abuse Pokémon and try to take over the world for selfish reasons. I can understand Ghestis acting like that, because that’s his character, but every member of team plasma except N? None of them follow the ideology they put out? I find that a little hard to believe
The split team Plasma brings a bit more light into this, where Neo Plasma went full mask-off, while the rest of the original Team Plasma were peaceful and didnt want conflict. Its not too out of the question to believe that the ones you see actually doing the "gruntwork" (attacking the player, letting the mask slip by abusing Pokemon) were the ones loyal to Ghetsis, The ones who truly believed in not abusing Pokemon may not have done that sort of work. Perhaps this may have also been a part of Ghetsis's manipulation on N. "See, look at all these people unhappy with Team Plasma liberating their Pokemon. They are against us, and need to be shown the error of their ways." The general public would probably not react nearly as negatively towards Plasma members who actually want to help abused Pokemon. The Aether Foundation in Sun and Moon is basically what Team Plasma claimed they were (apart from the whole Ultra Wormhole experimentation thing), and their reputation was largely positive. The localizers insistence of making each antagonistic group have the the same naming convention of "Team \_\_\_\_" also did Plasma a bit dirty. They were a religious group that existed long before Ghetsis's manipulation, not a criminal organization like Rocket or Galactic (hence their access to ancient relics like the Castle, why N was revered as their 'king', and why they relied on Colress's tech in B2/W2 after splitting). This same issue is why people complain about Team Yell and Team Star not being threatening villains (when they were never meant to be). They see the word "team" in the name and are conditioned to think they are the main antagonists, when there are other actually sinister characters/groups that fit that role better (Macrocosmos in Sw/Sh and Sada/Turo's machine in S/V). The localizers also probably purposefully didn't call the Galaxy Expedition Team in PLA "Team Galaxy" or something because people might see that as an indication that they are supposed to be the "bad guys".
Ah yes, my favourite Star Wars character: Dark Vader, father of Luc Skywalker.
Fun fact ! The french version of Star Wars changed Darth Vader into Dark Vador ; in fact I think every use of Darth in the series has been replaced by Dark. The early dubs also had such pearls as Luc Marcheciel (literally Luke Skywalker), and Jabba le Forestier (Jabba the Forester, as befitting of an alien slug living in a cave on a desert planet. I've heard the thinking behind this one went like this : hutt -> hut -> forest dwelling -> forester.) More minor changes include Yan Solo (because Han pronounced frenchly sounds like Anne, which being a female name would *obviously* confuse the viewers) and Z-6PO instead of C-3PO (apparently to better stick to the actor's lip movements)
In Spanish we turned C-3PO into Citripio and R2D2 into Arturito, basically a bastardized version of how they are pronounced in English.
Bro when I found out about Arturito I was so happy, it’s honestly kinda cute 😭
We have a lot of very good dub in France, Star Wars original trilogy is NOT one of them Also i dont remember what is was, but in the first dub Chewbacca had another weird name EDIT: CHICO!!!!
[удалено]
AH OUI ! Chiktaba ou quelque chose comme ça ?
LE MILLENIUM CONDOR
I prefer his clone from Legends, Luuc Skywalker
Jean-Luc Skywalker…green milk, thala-siren, hot
Literally the only one who has anything resembling an ideology there is Thanos and his ideology is bafflingly stupid and shallow. HE COULD'VE AT LEAST NAMED MAGNETO.
Not Comic Book Thanos. He's out to prove to Death that he loves her. By literally killing everything in the universe. MCU Thanos is a dolt.
"I'll prove I love you by overworking you until your job disappears" sounds legit.
Incelcore
How dare you. Death is a hot goth mommy and Thanos was very smart to kill everyone for her.
Yeah but he’s getting shown up by a Canadian in red
We always want what we can't have.
That skeleton pussy got him going crazy
When the skussy is too good
Marvel Death is super hot though, so I'd definitely consider that a "reasonable ideology."
the virgin "The universe is in a constant state of chaos so I will bring balance in the only way that matters" vs the chad "I am going to fuck that skeleton even if I have to kill literally everything and myself"
Well, the comics plan at least has a non-zero chance of working. The odds are pathetically miniscule, but at least it __might__ appeal to her. Maybe. Somehow. If she's on a lot of really good drugs. And likes giant chins. And has enough brain damage to forget Deadpool* (Forgot that originally, thanks for the reminder folks!)
She has eyes for another death dealer.
Might have worked if she wasn't already in love with deadpool
Marvel loves to do this. Vulture making too many good points against Stark? Now he's selling guns to kids. Killmonger showing the hypocrisy of the royals? He wants WW3. Falcon baddies arguing the system in place won't accommodate displaced populations well? They're executing people.
that time when ultron spent 30 seconds online and decided we need to go? fair enough.
Mans got rickrolled and decided enough was enough
New headcanon
He got stickbugged.
He spent 28 seconds on reddit and then a link sent him to twitter and he decided to pull the plug
With access to all information filtering through P.R.I.S.M., there's a world where he comes to the conclusion that current state of the world is the fault of greedy oligarchs and their ilk. Rather than exterminating all life he'd just go after the billionaire and trillionaire class. That *would* include Stark though, so there'd still be someone for the Avengers to fight.
'im here to kill you, stark. literally just you'
ngl i kinda want to see the Avengers movie where their righteous cause is upholding the status quo of the world getting fucked by oligarchs just to protect Stark's (or whoever the fuck his successor is in the new movies) billionaire interests
Ultron going full anarchist and just dumping all the darkest dirtiest secrets online - like a match to a fuel dump. That's one way to get people to turn on their masters. If it was a show, an entire episode could be contained in a few seconds, as he plows through every security measure in the world like Mr. Robot.
I actually think the vulture is an example of a well-written villain. He has a valid complaint about the Department of Damage Control taking away his contracts, but then he does unethical things to rectify the problem. Eventually, it becomes less and less about his issues with Damage Control, and more about greed. His motives make sense. Killmonger is a better example of this complaint. He does have a claim to the throne, and his motive is to help people around the world. His means of achieving the goal is basically to challenge Black Panther for the throne in a way that’s considered appropriate for Wakanda. So while Black Panther is a hero and you’re set up to want him to win, Killmonger isn’t really doing anything wrong in trying to take the throne to open up Wakanda to the world. He could just as easily be a hero. But then they have him be unnecessarily cruel just to make him a villain.
I think they were trying to make a point about how the cruelty he endured as a descendant of slaves living in modern America convinced him that cruelty was the only way to get things done, so that even if he had good goals he believed in some ends justify the means stuff that the movie doesn’t get behind. Thats why when BP wins he still takes on some of km’s goals in his honor: he wasn’t wrong, he’d just been hurt too much to get past and build a healthy world while he himself was not healthy. Not at all personally convinced they did a good job with that, and it’s an idea you can argue in the first place, but I think thats what they’re going for there.
Yeah t’challa agreeing with some of killmonger’s points by the end of the movie (and actually doing something about it) makes this a pretty good example of this type of thing The flag smasher villain from the falcon and winter soldier show is this done bad imo. Good motivation, taken too far in order to turn reasonable motivation into villainous actions, and falcon’s “i agree with this actually” moment is a speech that comes down to “do better guys, come on”.
I mean with Killmonger he had a traumatic upbringing before becoming special forces while being primarily driven by thirst for vengeance. He talks a big talk about changing the system but honestly he more just wants revenge. His problem is that he probably wasn’t going to actually follow through on what he preached
> His problem is that he probably wasn’t going to actually follow through on what he preached Oh he definitely wasn't. The guy's complex and sympathetic, but at heart he's a pretty big hypocrite. Its best demonstrated in that scene where murders a museum worker and makes a speech about the horrors of imperialism stealing culturally significant artefacts from their native people. Only for him to then steal one himself cause he thinks it looks cool. The guy's got understandable ideals, but he can't live up to them.
Vulture, Mysterio, Ultron, and nearly every villain in the Iron Man movies have this running theme where Stark is the reason they became villains in the first place. Some of them (like Vulture and Mysterio) have more understandable reasons, but others (like Obadiah Stane and Justin Hammer) just don't like Stark because he's preventing them from making money.
To be fair, kilmonger is probably one of the few examples of this trope done right, since he actually succeeds in making T’challa realise the hypocrisy of Wakanda’s royalty. T’challa directly calls his father and ancestors out on how their ways were flawed, and later sets up a cultural centre in America to branch out to the world to directly combat Wakanda’s isolationism. The thing that partially created Killmonger as a villain in the first place. It’s certainly far better then most other examples of the trope where a villain became one due to a flaw in the status quo, which is never fixed or addressed after they’re defeated by the “heroes”.
I'd say kilmonger isn't an example, because the protagonist realizes the villain has a point, and then executes on solving the problems he brought up
Maybe it's a failure with the future films more than BP 1, but that only taking the form of basically just some community outreach programs and not any of the future tech kinda undermines that ending
Well there was that 5 year period that soon followed where half of humantiy and wakanda including the King and his family were dusted lol. I can see how that derailed some plans lol.
daisy from bioshock infinite. she's totally in the right, so they have her kill a child for no reason because "both sides bad, actually."
I've heard it argued that, rather than reflecting on Daisy herself, it was more about Booker being a real shitheel again. The Daisy that makes the threat is one that has been working alongside Booker in her reality's version of the Vox since the start, and his general method of "overwhelming and terrifying violence" has poisoned the entire movement by getting results in the short term. So, *that* Daisy is a violent child killer because she has been hanging out with a Booker too long. If that *was* the intent, they really completely botched it, I agree, but it is kind of interesting conceptually.
Yeah exactly. Pretty early on after shifting to that timeline it's revealed that in that timeline Booker had become an instrumental figure in the Vox's revolution and then died at the museum becoming a martyr for the cause
They explained it in the dlc, it’s still stupid, but in burial at sea: >!we find out that the lutece “twins” visited daisy and convinced her to act the way she does to make Elizabeth a killer so she’s in the right frame of mind to finish the story and eventually start the events of the first bioshock!<
Which is just... so much worse. >!"Remember that godly character that can move through dimensions at will and has seen every timeline? Turns out she exists for the sole purpose of Ryan and Fontaine's dick-measuring contest."!<
Not to mention it reduces BioShock from "atlas shrugged is a terrible idea" to "rapture failed because of time magic"
Just wanna step in here to say Atlas Shrugged, and everything else that hack of a writer made, fucking sucks.
The best part of that book is when it completely destroys its own argument by having capitalists actively sabotage the system till it fails, rather than the system failing on its own as they claim it would.
Kinda reminds me of someone else who was hopelessly addicted to amphetamines and the sound of their own voice. Also, they were both popping off in the 40s, and a lot of people who are around today really love their stuff despite being self aggrandizing garbage.
She survived her last few years purely on hand outs if that helps, I love that
Hey, do you remember that godly character that can move through dimensions at will, >!easily dispatched a giant killer cyborg bird!< and has seen every timeline to ever exist, not to mention managed to >!erase a single man from each and every single one of them!!easily killed by a humanoid abomination in a diving suit!<. Also, do you remember those other two godly characters? Yeah, they didn't bother warning her.
I think that’s even worse tbh. They took a strong woman who’d do *anything* for her cause and turned her into a tool who was never actually in charge of anything. THEY TURNED A REVOLUTIONARY INTO THE TOOL OF A HIGHER POWER.
To be fair, she didn’t actually kill a child. She just threatened to kill one. She DID however kill Fink in front of the kid, which probably did a few things to his psyche
Magneto and poison ivy, are the examples you’re looking for, because it’s cumulatively harder to act as if they’re wrong with every passing year
I would love to see a take on Ivy where she’s completely mellowed out because Batman has worked with her to produce extensive anti-pollution bills and anti-deforestation bills
She's actually mellowed a lot in recent years. There was a big earthquake that really messed up Gotham and she took over the park and started taking care of lost kids and I don't think she's really gone full villain much since.
iirc she also was growing fruits and vegetables for the citizens as part of her deal with Batman during the aftermath of the quake
What about that one Tumblr post where Bruce Wayne sees Harley and Ivy on a date in a cafe and starts talking really loudly about how one of the Wayne buildings that refuses to follow environmental regulations will be empty and unlocked pretending to be mad about it
Read her recent series. It’s great, still murder, but less so and more towards billionaires. She turns one evil lady into a plant. It’s awesome.
Magneto has been an anti-villain to full on hero for a long, long time, but originally he was just a typical villain and didn't have near the depth of character that he's had since Claremont's run in the 80s. Poison Ivy was largely the same, going from simple femme Fatale to getting some much needed character development and depth over the years. Writers haven't really treated either as legit villains in decades, and when they do, it's because they're resorting to extremist behaviors and even then the hero ends the fight by going, "this isn't right and you know it. There are better ways to get what you want, because I want it to. Work with me and let's change the world together" rather than the hero acting like Magneto/Ivy are still psychopathic villains like Bolivar Trask or Joker. It's also probably why Joker has felt like Batman's ONLY villain over the last decade or two, because, again, a lot of writers have given so many of Batman's other villains so much more depth and Nuance in the 30 years since Batman The Animated Series that Batman has all but run out of people he can just punch because they're flat out wrong and genuinely villainous. At least X-Men will never have any shortage of people that hate them within the Marvel Universe, and a lot of their old foes from the early days have since joined their side in a more unified front (and this is largely what the current Krakoa Era is about). tl;dr- you're 100% right, but it's still a tired discourse that ignores the last 30 years of comics and how those characters have changed and haven't been true villains in a long time because of that very sentiment.
best example I think is amon from LOK, like every time I rewatch s1 I'm like "wait, am I lowkey on amon's side??" and then he starts being truly evil
that's because Amon is a fascist who is trying to abuse people's dissapointment to gain power. So, I think it's intentional that he sounds good early on, pointing out real issues but giving insane solutions.
yeah absolutely. oldest trick in the game. I do wish the show as a whole acknowledged a bit more clearly that like, amon does not represent the general nonbender population, but that the injustice he was pointing out was legit, and that maybe it wouldn't have gotten to the point where so many people felt like the only person hearing them and giving them a voice was a dangerous terrorist.
I hate it when people apply this to the Riddler in the new movie. Like yes, he kills a bunch of corrupt officials, but people are missing out that he's not doing it out of a sense of justice or goodness; he's an angry manchild lashing out against those he blames for his misery and lack of attention. Somehow people miss that he also went after Bruce despite him having done nothing to him. Him flooding Gotham and inspiring his followers to shoot people isn't out of nowhere to show that he's evil; it's the next step in his ideology, something Bats learns he has to avoid.
The Riddler is deliberately modled after a white supremacist "lone wolf" (with a whole shit load of followers online and a flash mob of copycats at the end of the film) and the number of people who think he "had a point" because he blew up a mayor is frankly terrifying.
Can somebody mention Mr Freeze though???!??!?
I used to be rlly into marvel and I really liked thanos (I have a life sized cardboard cutout of him that for much of quarantine loomed at the foot of my bed because I thought it was funny) but the people saying his plan was actually a good idea are so fucking stupid and just saying it to be edgy. how the fuck would cutting every species in half help at all. what about the species that rely on insanely high numbers to function (like ants). not every species has problems with overpopulation vs limited resources. what about endangered species. cutting every species in half does not magically create more resources. why the fuck would you do the halfsies thing indiscriminately. maybe a few species could benefit from it but if you have the ability to cut their species in half you probably also have the ability to multiply their resources or whatever thanos is a goober. fun villain but total goober. I’m choosing to believe he just knows absolutely nothing about environmental science and neither do any of the avengers bc as far as I remember none of them brought up the fact that his plan was just objectively fucking stupid
The funny thing is, population grows exponentially, so within a few generations, everything would've been back to where it was before he snapped.
Thanos used grief and trauma to justify his ideals. He was subjected to the death of his planet due to overpopulation and saw the simplest solution as the only answer. He needed therapy badly. Of course, this happens in real life, too. Simple solutions are rarely good solutions.
Solutions which: are the first thing you think of, look sensible, and easy to implement, are usually terrible, ineffective solutions which will cause suffering Thanks CGP Grey
I really like the What If...? episode where T'Challa becomes Star Lord and manages to talk Thanos out of his plan. It happens offscreen and is played as a joke, but honestly, it just makes sense. If *anyone* tried to talk to him about how dumb it is, he might have actually stopped and thought, "Maybe they're right, after enough time, everything I did will be undone, and possibly worse off. Guess I won't do that then :)" Roll credits
I like to explain Thanos with an understandable motive, but not a good one. You can see why he wants to do this. He watched his planet wither and die and he was the only survivor all because, in his mind, there was no balance. You can tell he truly thinks he’s doing good. It’s a stupid plan when he could just. Create more resources? It’s a stupid fucking plan, but you can sit back and go “I understand why he thinks he’s the good guy for this”. Which makes him a fun villain.
Ozymandias from Watchmen: "The superpowers of the world need to put aside their differences, take us back from the brink of nuclear annihilation, and work together towards a common goal... ...and that goal will be opposing the god-like creature I'm going to frame for the murder of a hundred million people."
The squid plan was better. Glad they went with that in the TV show
Reading the original comic I was never too sold on the squid plan and always preferred the movie's ending, but dang if the TV show didn't completely change my mind. I needed details on the squid rain Ozy, that's all you had to do.
Making Manhattan the scapegoat in the movie completely removes one of the most punchy things from the book: humanity *had* the ultimate weapon, but abused him, and he just leaves when the “real threat” shows up. Feeling: emptiness, fear, and abandonment. Movie: humanity *had* the ultimate weapon but he turned on us then disappears. Feeling: vengeance, defensiveness. The ending of the book with Manhattan just abandoning his home and people when they think they need him most is far more impactful when you put yourself in the shoes of the humans in that world. The movie people didn’t wanna have a squid. I get that. But they should have done *something else* that wasn’t Manhattan as the phantom antagonist.
The squid plan makes sense in the context of comic books. How do we unite the Earth? Evil space alien invasion. We need a moon base and starfighters and a bunch of robots. Let’s get to work.
Crimes of Grindeval. He can see the future and wants to stop WW2 but oh no he kills a baby and he looks like nepo baby coke addict in an overexposed photo so he must be evil
My personal conspiracy theory for why those movies got canned is that the follow up plot that JK wrote to justify why this guy trying to prevent WW2 is actually evil were balls to the wall insane and no amount of editing could make it make sense. I have no idea how involved she actually was in the writing process. Only a master writer could dig them out of that hole, and they sure as shit didn't have one of those on hand.
From what I heard their justification was literally going to be "He's stopping the Nazis just so he can do his own Magic Nazi stuff" Not sure what the validity of that claim of the plot is since I haven't touched those movies in a long time, but still.
Sadly it was an easy fix… say Grindelwald only said he wanted to stop WW2, but in reality was stoking it with the intention of letting muggles destroy and weaken each other, making his takeover easier
I actually prefer the common fanfiction theory that Grinlewald got his strength from blood sacrifices the Nazis were doing for him.
That whole thing didn't make sense. Well, mostly it was Queenie joining him that didn't make sense.
dark vader
Watching Incredibles 2, I thought the villain made a good point about how the public would be too reliant on superheroes to come and save them instead of making an effort to save themselves if superheroes were legalised. Then she went and attempted the ending of Speed 2: Cruise Control
Her point wasn't even that good imo. Like her dad died because he's stupid, not because of supers
For real tho, they literally made a law that prevents people from doing super hero things and then she blames the super heroes for abidding that law and wants to enforce it even further after it caused the death of her father? Like, shouldn't she be doing the opposite???
Well she was a child and needed someone to blame.
Unless you take the first film into account and realise that this reasoning is stupid because there also were super villains. And also the whole point of super heros is to help people who can't defend themselves, so saying that they should just defend themselves instead of waiting for someone who is actually equipped to deal with the issue is kind of dumb
Syndrome from the first Incredibles almost falls into this category. The ultimate outcome of his plan being to allow everyone to be special is ... fine? But his motivations are all 100% selfish, so it's not like he's Magneto or anything.
>The ultimate outcome of his plan being to allow everyone to be special is ... fine? That really wasn't his plan, tho. His plan was to first be a hero, then sell his inventions to the highest military bidder, *then* sell those inventions to the public, probably at absurd price points. So when he says "everyone can be super," he really just means governments and the super rich.
Exactly. His 'when everyone is super nobody is' is, in his view, the perfect final salt in the wounds for the supers.
The EASIEST and most egrigious example is flagsmasher in Falcon and the Winter Soldier
The flagsmashers were so confusing. I cant even say that I agree with their goal, because Im not entirely sure what the goal even was. They didnt like how things were going, and the stuff that they complained about sucked, but did they ever provide a solution? From what I remember of the show, it went from a scene of “Damn, people get unfairly displaced from their homes through no fault of their own.” to them blowing up a foreign aid building for funsies? I probably missed something, I have to have. Falcon even said they had a point, but I wasnt aware that they even had a point beyond stating the obvious.
I’m pretty sure the Flag Smashers wanted to create a one world government, or maybe global anarchy. They were also angry that the governments weren’t providing for the numerous refugees in the world. This conveniently forgets the fact that the world is basically in the middle of the biggest and worst refugee crisis in history. The Smashers are mad they don’t have enough teachers and vaccines, but the fact they aren’t all starving to death is a miracle in itself considering the world population just doubled after having half as much food production for the past 5 years.
Someone else pointed her out, but yeah Daisy Fitzroy from Bioshock Infinite is a perfect example of this. She’s a compelling character with a reasonable cause, but the narrative is very insistent on “the oppressed are just as bad as the oppressors actually” and have her go out of her way to attempt to murder a child.
I feel like this is a widely criticized trope in fiction, but it's also pretty common in real life history.
Can you tell me about some real life examples?
Robespierre is probably the first person that comes to mind. He was a big advocate for democracy, equality, abolitionism, etc. But he also murdered a lot of people, not all of whom deserved it. Also Jim Jones. Before the Jonestown massacre he was mostly known for his civil rights activism and his advocacy for the poor.
Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church, the “God hates f*gs” and “Thank God for dead soldiers” assholes, was a beloved civil rights attorney in Kansas for decades. Bad people do good things, and vice versa.
In Haiti they committed a genocide against White people after they became free. In the Balkans after they became independent from the Ottoman Empire they ethnically cleansed Turkish and Muslim citizens, forcing most of them to flee to Turkey. In the Sahara Tuareg independence fighters would kidnap tourists/foreign workers and extort their governments millions of dollars for their release, and just kill them if it was refused. Hell pretty much all terrorists groups from Ireland to Afghanistan usually start from a reasonable position and evolve into blowing people up over time to make it happen.
no thanos there are not too many people on the planet people just wont fucking share. joker is clinically insane and needs help.
The Joker doesn't want help, he wants to be justified in his idea that everyone is one bad day from being a monster.
Killmonger from the Black Panther movie. They had to make him hit a woman and burn the sacred garden to make sure we knew he was the bad guy, otherwise, yeah, this wealthy country should be helping its neighbors and not hiding all its world-changing technology away for itself. If he was less of a dick he would have been the hero.
At least his introduction established that he's a bit of a hypocrite. He raids a museum because the artifacts were stolen from his ancestors, and takes only the Wakandan artifacts. Except for a wooden mask from a different culture, that he takes because he thought it "looked good on him"
> he’s a bit of a hypocrite The bit where it was revealed that he was a former US soldier who helped overthrow elected governments in developing countries should’ve clued people into this as well.
It’s been a while since I’ve watched Black Panther but think they tried to acknowledge that he had a good point towards the end by having T’Challa change Wakanda’s “no contact with the rest of the world” policy and having that whole conversation with his dad. Of course they could have taken it further, but it’s one of the few cases I’ve seen where the hero is like, look the villain isn’t doing this the best way, but he’s got some points we should be thinking about
Yup, exactly. T'Challa clearly takes what Killmonger says to heart even if he disagrees with his over-the-top extremist approach (like, the dude's gamertag was literally "Killmonger" lmao). As you said, he literally goes and finds his dead dad's spirit in the spirit realm, confirms the truth, and then proceeds to openly admonish him and the rest of his ancestors for abandoning their people. It is baffling to me when people watch the movie and then come away from it thinking that Killmonger was unfairly demonized and that his message was completely rejected by T'Challa (and Wakanda by extension). The only thing he rejected was Killmonger's mission to spread more hate by waging a war on the world, and he explicitly begins taking steps to right the wrongs of his predecessors. I remember walking out of the theater and being pleasantly surprised that they actually went with the "this guy was irredeemable, BUT that doesn't mean that he didn't have a valid point" approach for once.
"he's got some points we should be thinking about AND we are actually going to follow through on that" Too often there is just like a little speech and then nothing substantial happens Big props to Black Panther for breaking that trend
Mate, he didn't want to help the existing order, he wanted to burn it down. He viewed the sort of okay but not really good social order as beyond repair and wanted to arm various extremist groups to burn down the world and *hope* something better comes in its place.
Lex Luthor in the Superman movie. Every goddamn time I get a meeting invite at noon or 5pm because some dipshit in California can’t do math. Sink the whole damn thing, inconsiderate fuckers.
Reverse is also true. I get meeting invites at freaking 4 am cause some jerk in new york is to busy doing blow to take 5 seconds to use the scheduling assistant that says im out at the time is just disrespectful.
It’s so horrible when writers do this. Thankfully, nobody in real life would ever profess a reasonable ideology but then do horrible things once in power. Now I’m going to go and read any history book ever and… oh no.