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Joined: Jun 13, 2003 Posts: 169 Location: southern california
Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 11:46 pm Post subject: Re: Recipe for Evil - Round Table
Hasdrubal, man thats what i am saying. . i must not have said it well. My point was that Moriarty was completely fictional with no basis in reality. He served no purpose in literary life but to be Holme's adversary. On the other hand you had Dickens whose villains did have depth and form and were in fact very real because they were based on very real archetypes. Sorry about that confusion there, when i re-read it i could see where it was easy to get mixed up.
Hey Joe, lets have a go at solipsism some time. >=)
Joined: May 31, 2002 Posts: 637 Location: Planet Mongo
Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 1:47 am Post subject: Re: Recipe for Evil - Round Table
No problem. The thing that facinates me about real 18th and 19th century people is the common thread of finding opposite types of behavior in the same people. Thomas Jefferson honestly wrote "All men are created equal", but could never release his slaves after millions of dollars of debt accumulated while serving the country. The Duke of Wellington loved commanding his army, but thought his soldiers were beggars and scum. The hardest thing for modern people to grasp is how so many people serving the Confederacy honestly believed they were piously serving God's will for the cause of state's rights.
I think there is a difference between dramatic fictional villains and real life villains.
Lex Luthor's purpose is to be a source of conflict for Superman so Supes can be forced to show us his character through conflict. Characters in drama/melodrama are existing in a controlled environment solely for the needs of the story.
When the question of this thread asks "What makes a great villain?" are they really asking about fictional villains or what made Hitler such a great villain?
Jack the Ripper is a great villain for fictional purposes because his identity remains a mystery. In real life he's just a guy who brutally killed people. I'm pretty sure his real life victims wouodn't see him in such a trite fashion as to say "what makes Jack such a great villain?"
What makes Sadam such a great villain? He puts his victims through a meat grinder?
The Joker character is crazier than Sadam but in real life, Sadam is a psychopath. None of the Joker's victims really ever lived outside the fantasy world of Gotham.
Even Hitler in the 3rd Indiana Jones movie is turned into a dramatic tool..yes, based on Hitler's known behaviours...but still confined to the dramatic realm for the purposes of story.
Is there a difference betwen what makes the Joker a great villain and what makes Hitler a great villan?
Joined: May 31, 2002 Posts: 637 Location: Planet Mongo
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 8:50 am Post subject: Re: Recipe for Evil - Round Table
I don't know, Sadam had some quirky Joker-like behavior. The stories about his swinging 60's bachelor pad, and the fishing trips on the Tigris River with hand grenades were worthy of the Joker.
When the question of this thread asks "What makes a great villain?" are they really asking about fictional villains or what made Hitler such a great villain?
Fictional, for purposes of designing "great villians" [as opposed to trite or hackneyed ones] in fiction: games, comics, writing, film, animation - whatever.
Considering that that's what a lot of us do here, that's the best context to look at it in.
Real life bad guys are useful to look at in this context though, because of how they intersect and compare with the fictional creations. IMO, drawing upon life adds a certain depth and verisimilitude to a fictional creation... just as a drawing or painting of a dragon "works" better if the artist has a good understanding of how bones, muscles, scales and skin interact with each other and operate.
It gets complicated when the real life villian also has a body of fiction and legendry around them: Jack the Ripper is an excellent case in point. There's the real Ripper, who was a butcher of women, and probably nothing at all like the larger than life legendary mythic killer that's grown up around his exploits in books and movies. Vlad Dracul is another: the real life Vladimir Tepes was a villian in his own right - horrific enough that he spawned a body of legendry and horror about him that transmuted into the fictional Dracula of book and movie.
[Also a good case in point of the duality of roles: Vladimir Dracul was a hero in parts of Wallachia and my ancestor's Czechoslovakia - because of the role he played in protecting his kinsmen and subjects from the equally or greater horrors of the Turks/Persians]
What makes a "Great Villian" in a novel or movie or comic? Depth? Similarity to real life horror? Motivation? The occassional flash of "Goodness" in him/her, like Magneto's occassional compassion or Doom's nobility and sense of honor? Viciousness and ruthlessness? Brutality? Cold bloodedness, as in The Watchmen? [And was Rorsach villian or hero? He was certainly memorable...] Quantity, as in Hitler, or as in the villian of Mike Resnik's "Walpurgis"? Insanity? But not all great villians are insane....
All of the above? None of the above? Something else?
What makes a villian *click!* when you read a novel? What makes The Ripper horrifying... ? There've been other serial killers with higher body counts, and even more henious crimes... but the Ripper is special, or he wouldn't have developed that body of myth and legendry. Vladimir Tepes is *special* - or he wouldn't have become the embodiment of the synonym for Monster through centuries. The Outsider from Koontz's "Watchers" is chilling - and it's not even human. But it is a "villian" in all senses of the term, including flashes of pathos, compassion, and ruthlessness.
There's something that makes an antagonist chilling and memorable in a well written work of fiction... something that clicks. As creators, we can't always capture that if we don't know what it is and what causes it.
"Evil" is hard to define. But since so many writers and artists manage to do so so well, obviously "Villian" can be captured and reproduced.
That's what this roundtable is aimed at: if you're a new 3D comic artist or writer [or even an old one working at getting better ], and you're starting out - how do you capture that? What defines it? What makes it work/click? What makes a memorable/great villian, rather than just a cardbaord cutout with a pencil thin mustache? _________________ "I'd add a legitimate comment here, but that would mean reading everything, which I have no patience for." - Slynky
To me, the Villian is some one elses Hero. Look at Marv from Sin City. With very little spin he's a villian, but he's the hero of the book.
Magneto in the 80's and 90's. He was a villian, but he had a point. People just didn't like the level he was willing to go to.
Most important... you have to admire your villian. Freddy Cruger was child murder who came back into your nightmares to kill you. Why would a character like that get a movie empire built around him? We, one some level, admired his comical brand of evil.
In writing, your hero has to have a serious flaw to overcome, and thus make him the hero. Some think that this means your villian must have a flaw that he DOESN'T overcome. I prefer to think that your villian should have a redeaming quality that makes him almost heroic.
Joined: Jun 10, 2002 Posts: 769 Location: Ontario, Canada
Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 4:25 pm Post subject: Re: Recipe for Evil - Round Table
On the flipside of what Rattler says with "admired on some level" villain, there's also the villain who is so utterly dispicable that you can't tear yourself away from them. You keep reading on in horror at what vile thing they're going to do next. A great example of this kind of villain in Obidiah Hakeswill in the "Sharpe" novels by Bernard Cornwell. _________________ Jim Harnock - ODS
www.OrcaDesignStudios.com
Hrmmm... that one takes some thought, Finster. There's so many great ones to choose from...
Historical? I'd have to say Vladimir Tepes, although Rasputin comes close. Tepes was a majorly complex figure... ruthless to his enemies in a way that suprassed even contemporary standards of ruthlessness in his age. But to all accounts, an excellent leader and ruler - hence his being venerated as a hero rather than a villian in parts of his native Wallachia.
Fiction? More difficult, because there's fewer to choose from that realy stand out.
I'd say: Black Omne, from Price of the Phoenix. A heroic figure who chose to become villanous because his own pecuiliar code of honor demanded it.
Both of them are complex characters, and in the case of Tepes, I have to admire someone who was so much larger than life they managed to become a mythic archetype. ;] _________________ "I'd add a legitimate comment here, but that would mean reading everything, which I have no patience for." - Slynky
a really good case of rip roarin parnoid schitsoprhenia witih a dash of meglomania, and a healthy dose of 'i'm not crazy i am trying to save the world' belief in him/herself........a person who does not believe they are insane or do believe that they are actually some diety...jim jones ring a bell? oh and a little crulty doesnt hurt...of course it has to be in the guise of 'for your own good'....these to me make the most 'tasty' villans...unless you intend them to be funny and then i would recomend the shariff of nottingham in robinhood prince of thieves...he was not only a good villan he was funny too....
Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2005 1:41 am Post subject: Re: Recipe for Evil - Round Table
I think Julius Caesar was a great villain and in fiction (Colleen McCullough's 'Romans' series) he's used as a perfect example of a man whose personal ambition would destroy anything that stood in the way of his goal of being the 'first roman' of all of history. McCullough's interpretation of Caesar is used purely for fictional value, but looking at what's known of Caesar, he always was able to find the best partners to align himself with and when they fell he remained untainted by scandal. He conquered Gaul, killing thousands of people, simply to impress his Roman peers and when they refused to grant him what he wanted he took Rome by force. In that series I found Sulla to be a more delicious villain, but Sulla didn't have the relentless drive that Caesar had and I think McCullough's Caesar, as a man driven by relentless ambition, makes for a villain who is intriguing.
In fiction, I like Shakespeare's Richard III as a villain. In the BBC's "House of Cards" the Francis Iroqhuat character employs Shakespeare's device of having the villain speaking to the audience, being intimate with the audience while he plays underhanded tricks on other characters of the story. Iago kind of employs this kind of one-on-one device as well, but Iago is kind of a backstory narrator whereas Richard tells his story in the now and what he says to the audience is what he really thinks whereas what he says to other characters can never be trusted...always a ploy to use someone. I don't know if Shakespeare was the first to use that kind of 'villain-audience intimacy' but he uses it to perfection.
I also really like John Malkovich's characterization of "Vicomte de Valmont" in 'Dangerous Liaisons"...in real life we'd think he was a total prick, but as a fictional character he's deliciously vile. In the other movie version called "Valmont", I think Annette Benning actually plays the better villainous.
On one handhe's a meglomaniachal tyrant trying to seize control of the worlds computers by making his OS the all consuming cop or the Internet.
On the other, he is an entrepenaur extrodinair who took his vision of future and made it reality improving most of our lives in the process.
The fact is.. both are true.
GWB. Man of god who started a holy war for Oil.
But if ther is peace in the midle east at some point in the next 25 years... he may be responsible for it.
This is the heart of the modern villian. The casm between good and evel isn't as big as it used to be.
Even in cases like the RIAA vs. indivisuals. Clearly the RIAA is a villianous organizition. Yet they are within the law.
This is the new archtype. The villian who is "technically right" but "morally corrupt", and in responce we have the "Punishers". Heroes are are Morally right, but "technically criminals".
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