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#302693
Why Does Hollywood Keep Making Villains Sympathetic?
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Because villains are characters and unsympathetic characters are boring
Ofc modern writing doesn't take advantage of this and makes sympathetic characters boring anyway
@Grue stand with Israel
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Bullshit. Evil is interesting on it's own
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You don't have to feel sorry for or forgive Evil. But if the goal is comprehensible the story makes more sense
@Grue stand with israel
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I get what you mean, but the problem with those writers is that they keep making villains "misunderstood good guys" which is really lame. Maleficent and Cruella writers are the guiltiest of this.
You can have a 3-dimensional fun character and still make him unrepentantly evil.
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It really isn't. Evil is only interesting because of its relation to the moral being explored. If the villain loses because he wastes his time kicking every puppy along the road, then the only meaningful character trait in the hero is the fact that he kicked slightly fewer puppies and therefore had more free time.
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Sometimes the villain is just a Great Beast to be vanquished and sometimes humans are genuinely irredeemable pieces of shit who must be destroyed
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Are beasts really incomprehensible though? Is an animal truly unsympathetic?
And no, no human is irredeemable. The point is that it's the villain themselves who must do the redeeming.
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Debatable. Maybe after years of reflection, religion, or hecking therapy. Regardless, when there's a crisis sometimes the threat just needs to be destroyed. Stories serve different purposes, some are for exploring a moral theme, sometimes it's just about man overcoming a great threat. It's the oldest type of storytelling. Trope subversion can be interesting, but there's nothing inherently wrong with these stories.
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Jail exists for the sole reason that there are errors you can't make up for. You kill someone you have effectively cursed your own life because failing to punish you would be an insult to all the people that managed not to murder someone on their way.
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The Alien aliens are truly unsympathetic while being comprehensible.
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Not always true. Horror villains can be interesting despite having zero sympathetic traits
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They ruined Michael Myers by trying to give him a back story
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There are plenty of horror villains with sympathetic traits btw. The "Saw" puppet guy and Jason are two examples.
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Sure, but I was more thinking along the lines of The Thing, IT, Alien, Hellraiser, or Halloween. I know the last two examples eventually did give sympathetic stories to their villains, but they were already considered interesting before that.
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Slasher films and gore films are absolute slop. Good horror showcases the monster people can be whether by making a person act like a monster or creating a monster to project human evil onto.
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Weyland-Yutani being the reason humans have to deal with the aliens so frequently supports your point, but I do think there's room for good horror which doesn't always go for 'but humans are the real monsters'.
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Are you able to name one unsympathetic interesting villain? (Besides Big Jack What's-His-Name, since I haven't watched the movie yet.)
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Assault on Precinct 13 !kino
The villains are named White Warlord, Black Warlord, Oriental Warlord, and Latinx Warlord.
Their motivation is being so pissed off at the LAPD that they unite their races to declare war on the city and kill a random little girl. The gangs end up storming a police station. None of the criminals have speaking roles other than violent screeching. It rules, very primal "barbarians at the gates" feeling.
BANGER soundtrack too
Also reflects reality
https://www.courant.com/2020/05/29/angry-demonstrators-in-minneapolis-ransack-torch-police-station-cnn-reporter-arrested-on-air/
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Anton Chigurh
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Good pick
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I mean, you could also just make up a story if you want. I would definitely accept that. I always thought the whole "reputable external source" demand was a bit stupid.
If you can't even do that then your position is nothing more than your own unexaminable opinion. Whereas my beliefs are open to any question you have about them.
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Hannibal Lector
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Hans Gruber from Die Hard
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Big Jack What's-His-Name, from that movie you haven't watched yet
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Ganon man is sympathetic
Dark orange man has to be bad to balance out the light.
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there's a certain exoticism and mystery you can evoke with characters so detached from your reasoning and morality that they can't be related to or sympathized with. if done right
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gay,
the best villains are plain evil with incomprehensible motives(because they are r-slurred).
my favorite show has the antagonist be a guy who becomes obsessed with European dolls during ww2 and then starts a company to militarize them through to the 90's. he schizo rants a lot, molests the robots he makes and makes dolls out of women he likes and forces the women to operate them remotely because he hates touching them. he has no motive other than being schizo and making more robots.
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What show is that?
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animu called key the metal idol
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