The Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Picture this - you are just hanging out in your house, doing your thing, not bothering anybody. Suddenly a boat full of strangers show up, and keep trying to capture or kill you.
Are you gonna defend yourself? Damn right you are.
But noooo, The Creature (or "Gil" as I like to call him) is the monster, the menace, blah blah blah.
*eyeroll*.
Quite so. It's not killing people because it's evil, it's attacking prey because it's hungry.
If anybody is the villain, it's the Mayor who won't close the beaches because tourists, money, on and on. If the beaches were closed, the shark probably would have moved on.
The Gill-man becomes a tragic character in the later movies. First he's captured and put on display in an aquarium, then they surgically turn him into a land creature depriving him of his ability to survive in his natural habitat. His last scene is him returning to the ocean still stuck as a land creature implying he may have drowned.
Just shows how great of a movie the Shape of Water was.
You're very correct, Smart Internet Person.
The second film "Revenge of the Creature" makes me so angry. Humans kidnap him, shove him in a big tank at an aquarium, SHOCK him to "teach" him to "behave".
And we're supposed to LIKE these a**holes?!
F**k 'em. I'm Team Gil all the way.
I don’t know that there are any villains who are objectively “right”, just some who are more understandable than others.
In The Chronicles of Narnia take the Telmarines. They end up in the world Narnia by complete accident, live in their own area for a while, get hit with a famine, and move on to the actual Narnian country, led by Caspian the First. There were no men present, with Peter and the other children being long gone. And they came across talking animals for the first time. In both our world and the land they’d lived in previously there’d only ever been dumb, regular animals who couldn’t talk. So, what did they assume when they came across animals that could talk? That the talking animals were evil spirits or demons.
They’re wrong when taking the entire story into account, but they had no way of possibly knowing the history of Narnia, Aslan, etc. From their perspective they found a rich land with no human settlers and either dumb animals or talking evil demons. I’ve never felt they were wrong to make the assumption they did. Again, they were still wrong overall, they just didn’t have the knowledge to understand that. And I feel the fact that Aslan freely allows a Telmarine, Caspian the Tenth, to rule over Narnia when it’s all said and done kind of proves that they aren’t just “evil” in general. It’s fine for them to live there, they just have to be peaceful and acknowledge the talking animals as actual equals.
That’s probably the real issue you have with characters like Aslan. He basically sees and knows everything, doesn’t seem to have any kind of limits to him, so could arguably step in at any point in time. In Last Battle he lets an entire scam go by involving a donkey pretending to be him. It probably could’ve been solved had he just walked out of a forest, told the donkey to stop, and told all of the other animals not to believe it 😂 but then for C. S. Lewis it’s all about the stories he wanted to tell involving faith and belief, good triumphing over evil, etc. If Aslan always walks in when things are going bad there’s really no need for the kids to ever be called to Narnia at all.
And I’m sure Lewis has some essay he wrote on how Aslan can’t be expected to just solve everyone’s problems for them and the important of people making their own choices, etc.
In the last Narnia book there’s a passage where Allan tells the earth children about the Calormen (obvious Muslim allegories) and how, like, if they’re pure of heart they’re actually followers of Aslan and can go to Super Narnia (heaven) with the rest of the good guys. There’s a lot in that that I’m not going to try to unpack here, but just noting that Lewis made his views on those sorts of questions quite explicit.
It's also entirely possible there was an early misunderstanding that led to conflicts. I could totally imagine them sending out hunters on day 1 who killed some deer who were talking deer and they were then attacked by Narnians and they had no idea what was going on and just trying to defend themselves. Or many of the Narnians as we see in book 1 are not all that friendly and could've been ones they met first.
> I don’t know that there are any villains who are objectively “right”,
Ozymandias from *The Watchmen.* If he doesn't do what he does, the world goes through even more hell. He doesn't really have any choice.
Sort of like Leto II in God Emperor of Dune. He chose the lesser of two evil paths. It was still objectively horrible but way less horrible than the alternative.
Squidward can do better than SpongeBob though. I get that they had a thing, but he's got to let it go. Clearly if the sponge was willing to dump him for a himbo starfish, he wasn't worth it in the first place. And he should really move far away and stay away because clearly those morning quickies aren't helping things.
For sure. Best idea was to align the northern clans under one form of leadership to protect them from the union. Let’s not forget he was being manipulated by Bayaz’s enemies to be used as a weapon against his union
He said "villain."
Lol, j/k mostly. I just really love how Abercrombie muddies the waters between his characters.
"That's not how it was. Whispered Logen. But he knew it had been."
Such great characters.
Black Calder is one of the most shockingly deep characters I’ve ever read.
He’s a monster who I feel so incredibly sympathetic for by the end of The Age of Madness trilogy
“Back to the mud with you, Forley. We’re the poorer, and the ground’s the richer for it.” is such an underrated line imo, just a really touching sentiment for lost friends...
I don't think his conquest was just, he could've rebuild and organize the north instead of trying to capture angland which would never work. I think his victories blinded him and made him reckless.
It's a tough one. In his position, he just united a culture built off fierce independence and martial proving/prowess. Once they're all under the same banner, they're not all going to just want to change their ways and become farmers. They're fighters, that's how their society makes people "named men", all social tradition and status is earned via fighting, his subjects are going to demand war. Is his conquest "unjust"? Certainly. But he couldn't unite the North (or keep it united) without giving them an outlet somewhere.
That is until you unveil that Bayaz is also dark magic and has plans for taking over the world. Neither side is 'good'. I love First Law because it's all shades of grey and damnation.
I love that I found this here. Really got me thinking, Ninefingers is my favourite character in the first law, but damn is he rotten. Maybe Bethod was right.
I’m curious why you think that. Because in my reading of it Made a Monster is confirmation that Bethod was telling the truth at the end of LAOL. Bethod was ambitious and somewhat amoral, but he never set out to conquer the North until Logan pushed him into it. He became a tyrant, but he didn’t start out that way.
Because even in Made a Monster Bethod is insecure about the fact that he brought them to this point. Yeah, he wanted to take a peaceful route *now,* after he'd fed lord knows how many champions to Logan. It kept being one more war and one more war, inflating Logan and growing his legend.
Yeah it's easy for Bethod to say "oh I was totally done, I was ready to be a man of peace" after he'd already done a bunch of conquering, but you don't get to release a demon on the world and then balk when that demon does what demons do.
Ninefingers isn't really the Bloody Nine. They're effectively two different people, Jeckyl and Hyde style. And Ninefingers *knows* how fucked up and horrible the Bloody Nine is, and spends every story he's in, from the First Law onward, trying to escape him and the legacy of the blood he's spilled.
Ayt Madashi from the Green Bone Saga. Her vision of one unified clan over all of Kekon, and a Kekon in control of its own destiny rather than enslaved to foreign interests, those are not bad things and are in fact arguably very good things that the Kauls don’t even disagree with necessarily. From the beginning, she acted with vision while the Kauls acted with emotion. It took them a while to get a vision of their own, and that still wasn’t the guy in charge doing it for a LONG time, but his sister and Weather Man.
Honestly, the fact that Ayt Mada is one of the best characters in a series with fucking insanely good characters is a testament to this being the most S-tier series of all time. Truly stunning quality.
Just finished this series and I agree she's a great villain, but I think the conflict isn't over the long-term vision (Kekon managing Kekon's resources), but the method for getting there (conquest vs. cooperation). Ayt Mada was arguably trying to do it with minimal bloodshed, but that her first though was to shed blood and play into her trademark ruthlessness seems to be her real shortcoming in Lee's eyes.
To be clear, I agree. Their contest isn’t over long term vision. But it’s not about how to get there either. When the war starts, the Kauls don’t have a vision other than “Ayt Mada cannot win.” Slowly they adopt a version of her vision but it’s always a tempered and conservative version.
It was never going to go her way because she based her wealth on selling drugs and sponsoring a criminal empire in other nations.
Drugs which enabled other nations to be jade users which was Kekon's sole advantage.
I mean, the No Peak Clan was literally working to legalize jade usage in other nations and her drug selling was mostly happening in Kekon as the foreigners already had it.
I admit I was swayed by his good looks and manners as well, but yea... Humans broke the treaty. He was fighting back for not just his people but all non-human creatures.
Those elves were amazing. I absolutely love the art style with them. And that opening scene detailing the old war with the little clay models. Such an amazing movie. :)
Yeah. I mean jumping to flat-out extermination was a bit much, but you really do feel they're should have been other options they could have explored first rather than his father just shrugging and accepting extinction.
Count Dooku. He was misguided and eventually lost the plot with his methods, but his reasoning for leaving the Jedi order, and having no faith in them or the Republic were very well founded. In a world where Qui-Gon lives and can temper his vindictive nature, he probably never turns to the dark-side and the two of them probably affect some very positive reform within the Jedi Order and the Republic. A *lot* changes if Qui-Gon doesn't die in general.
ok I'm sorry to make a grammar correction comment but this is my single favorite grammar special case in the english language and I love talking about it please forgive me
Normally affect is the verb and effect is the noun. That movie affected me strongly, Cause and effect, etc.
HOWEVER. In the very special case of *effecting change*, effect is also a verb!! It doesn't mean the same thing as affect exactly, you "effect a change in the government" or "effect a major reform" etc.
So here it should say that the two of them would probably *effect* some very positive reform.
Tbh that's a good question! I have no idea! [The OED](https://www.oed.com/dictionary/effect_v?tl=true) is often a good source, although I don't have an account there so I can't see the full etymology
The Darkling from the Grishaverse. Before he came to power the Grisha were viewed as evil, abominations who were hunted down for having magical powers. They lived in nomadic camps and were always on the verge of being killed off or made into martyrs for a religion that viewed them as evil. But the Darkling gave them a place where they could be safe. He outlawed selling Grisha children and the practice of child brides, he made hunting Grisha illegal in Ravka, he started a school where Grisha could train their powers and not fear being found out. He took them from being outcasts in society and gave them power and safety like they never had before.
And it still wasn’t enough. The Grisha were STILL viewed as second-class citizens, and puppets in an endless Ravkan war. So he decides to use their power to force the neighboring countries into a cease fire and end the ongoing conflicts that they’ve been having for centuries. His methods may have been bad, but they were at war! And no one was going to actually listen to peace talk- not the king, not the other countries. Sure, we would have loved to see The Darkling and Prince Nikolai work together to unite the Grisha and powerless people, but Nikolai was too busy playing pirate (I still love Nikolai).
After he’s gone, the world is even MORE dangerous for Grisha! One country has a militarized task force that hunts them down and burns them at the stake like witches (and their government is doing some VERY unethical experiments with Grisha expectant mothers and babies), and the other is getting them addicted to drugs and using them in unethical experiments to make mechanical super-soldiers. Would any of this have happened if the Darkling had been able to end the war in the first book? I don’t think so!
Koios ( from Lightbringer), at least through first few books.
Absent ( Big) God is completely useless. He's trying to replace system based on worship of god that no one really knows if it exists, with one based on real, present, lesser "gods".
But then he went into simple black/white direction the more the series went along.
Brace yourself that last book is a real let down, IMO. But maybe if you're not waiting years between books it doesn't land like a turd. Maybe we all just built up something that couldn't possibly be delivered because it was taking so long.
Dracula from Castlevania. They killed his wife and he had every right to avenge her immidietly. But no. He gave them a year to leave his lands. All their lives could be spared if only people weren't so damn stubborn and full of themselves.
On top of this, George Sears(Solidus) is trying to free the world from the Super-Robot-Shadow-Government. His methods are terrorism, but his goal is very noble.
On top of **this**, The Patriots want to rid the world of garbage information piling on the internet and spreading division over the world. Given the state Twitter and other social media sites have left us in, it isn't that inhumane an idea.
Besides an obligatory Magneto was right…
Jaime Lannister. I mean he was a ruthless piece of shit, but he wasn’t wrong about killing the king or really anything else. Little Finger for similar reasons.
I mean the entire situation of having kids with his sister was objectively stupid as hell 😂 it placed him, her, and any kids they had at risk for the rest of their lives.
There's a great desire within ASOIAF fandom to absolve some characters of all sins. Jaime was clearly wrong about his affair with Cersei, and it's literally the biggest issue in the books so far.
It was objectively stupid and I'm not pro-incest. And also. Cersei and he were both willing participants in the relationship and while I find the relationship objectionable, I don't think it is fair to make that alone a shorthand for him being evil. He was, in my mind, far less evil than his sister and ends up in a surprisingly redemptive and complex arc compared to cersei who just sort of keeps being way more evil and sadistic.
The War of 5 Kings happened because Jaime and Cersei couldn't stop banging despite her being married to the king.
Quite a lot of people dead over their lack of control.
And Jaime never once reflects on this. He just doesn’t care, and even considers marrying Tommen and Myrcella at one point to justify his own relationship with his sister.
Jaime is only concerned about the mistakes that are known, and not the ones he committed in secret. He wants to be redeemed in the eyes of the public. It’s why I don’t buy into his redemption arc.
Yeah, he's simultaneously not as bad of a person as your first impression of him, and... not a good person.
He's done some good things! But lots of not good things too.
But this ain’t about being evil or not. It’s about whether the villain characters named did the right thing(s). Having sex with a Queen is already pushing it. You’re putting yourself and her at risk. Having children is jumping straight off the cliff.
I think Jaime Lannister is justified in killing Aerys. But in pushing Bran out a window and all the other acts to cover up him and Cersei? Nah, still has a lot of villainy under his belt. Jaime's right as often as he's wrong.
Jaime decided it was a good idea to not tell people his excellent reason for killing the king, then decided it was an even better idea to sit on the throne and be a snarky dick head when Ned got there. But I’m really curious for you explanation on how Littlefinger of all people did nothing wrong?
> Besides an obligatory Magneto was right…
Just gonna leave this very fitting quote here:
> Venom is an example of a villain who evolved into a hero because he was popular with readers and writers decided to rehabilitate him. By contrast, Magneto evolved into a hero because every decade since Reagan it's harder and harder to pretend he's wrong
I think with Magneto it comes down to the writers, especially for the movies. It’s not that hard to conceive of a way where a character can have the right motivation and take too extreme an approach. The problem is the movies bend over backwards to justify Magneto while not giving any reason to Professor X other than moral superiority.
Take First Class. Eric was a holocaust victim who, after hunting down other former Nazis, gets a chance to kill an otherwise immortal Nazi who not only killed his mom and tortured him as a child, but was also on the brink of starting a nuclear war. Charles, on the other hand, decided to try and stop him because murder is wrong, morals he picked up in his days of using his powers to drunkenly hit on college chicks. They both have different ideas of how the humans will treat their kind, but the movie proves Magneto right once again by having both sides of the Cold War, upon seeing mutants, jointly decide to kill them all.
That’s not a story where they gave any weight to Xavier’s side.
X-Men really encapsulates two big problems with comic book writing
* there can never be any improvements to the status quo because that undermines the central premise, but that *also* undermines the central premise. (See also: superheroes never killing their rogues, even after the 19th incident of unrepentant mass murder).
* Using people with superpowers as stand-ins for real-world marginalized groups inadvertently rationalizes bigotry
> there can never be any improvements to the status quo because that undermines the central premise
All the Fall of Krakoa nonsense encapsulates this. I would’ve gladly read actual mutant utopia krakoa, with, like, minor interpersonal drama and political intrigue for a few more years before nuking it. It had the chance to weave some incredibly subtle yet complex narratives and they (marvel editorial) threw it away because they’re dickfucks.
Like especially with some of the horrible powers mutants especially have been shown to have, like that one who literally causes all organic matter around him to uncontrollably decay. Like it's perfectly conceivable that someone's mutant power could be to turn into godzilla or be a walking time bomb and just randomly blow up like a nuke one day.
On the other hand in one of the later films (I think Apocalypse, which to be fair had terrible writing) Magneto tried to kill every human ever, and Xavier was still saying "There's still good in you!"
Magneto and Killmonger (in the MCU) are good examples of the writer situation you're talking about.
Killmonger had some really good points in the movie, and he had some decent motivations to do what he wanted to do. He could have easily have been a "good guy" if he changed 1 or 2 things, but the writers needed a "bad guy" and so they set him up to be a complex bad guy, and then they just said "Okay, he's too relatable and almost 'good', so now he commits genocide".
It's not just that. Comics have a very long history of setting up villains with highly sympathetic motivations that are relevant to social ills of the day, but with approaches that are too zealous or extreme to be acceptable by mainstream society. The heroes routinely defeat them, and then ignore the problems the villains were trying to address. According to some perspectives, this accidentally places comic heroes in the mode of a fascist police apparatus, (who's main reason for existence is to use violent power to enforce the status quo; not to actually solve problems).
It's a huge issue with comic heroes, though I believe it only exists because the writers KNOW that narratively, their heroes possess the power to solve every social problem people face. But that doesn't exactly make for good reading, and maybe sends the wrong message also, that we should wait for ubermensch messiahs to solve our problems for us (when we should be solving them ourselves with the moral lessons taught in the comics). I suspect that a lot of comics writers have used the villains' motivations to shine a spotlight on issues of the day.
Modern screenwriters see this problem too, so they make the bad guys problematic in ways that undermine the sympathetic motivations they display initially. Narratively it's a tough problem to solve, if you want the audience to engage with your antagonists on a level that more than "this dude is a bad guy' while still siding against them. It's also a cautionary tale that just because someone espouses a cause that's easy to identify with, doesn't mean that their entire agenda is pure. We should be much more critical even of those we agree with. Hard to make that message both clear and nuanced.
This. So much this, and great analysis of the comic books.
I think the biggest takeaway is that Supeheroes only really work when there are Supervillains. It's easy to say "Big bad guy is going to destroy the city/country/world/civilization", but when those villains aren't around then you just have a super bully who's picking on someone who may have done a bad thing out of desperation.
>According to some perspectives, this accidentally places comic heroes in the mode of a fascist police apparatus, (who's main reason for existence is to use violent power to enforce the status quo; not to actually solve problems).
Batman is a perfect example of this.
He's a multi-Billionaire playboy, in charge of one of the largest corporations in Gotham, and he uses MOST of his wealth wearing leather, buying overpriced gadgets and toys, and beating up low level bad guys at night. Other than the "main villains" in the Batman series (Joker, TwoFace, Penguin, etc), most of the time he is beating up henchmen (average joes, making minimum wage, living on the streets, and struggling to make ends meet).
So Batman finds these henchmen, and then beats them up because they're "bad guys", and never addresses the main issue: that they may not go to crime if they had stable employment and pay. Batman's efforts don't help to stop the problem permanently, but Bruce Wayne's wealth could be spent to invest in jobs/medical/housing/welfare/etc.
Yes, it's bad when a homeless person robs a random lady on the street, but beating him up with overpriced gear doesn't solve homelessness in Gotham. Beating him up doesn't make people less hungry/tired/desperate. Batman is basically a "super cop", and we've been reading more and more articles about how cops aren't following the laws anymore.
Even though Gotham is filled with tons of rich people who aren't all doing legal things to make their wealth, and refusing to support the working class, Batman focuses all of his efforts on the lowest tier peons/goons/henchmen to "make the biggest difference".
> most of the time he is beating up henchmen (average joes, making minimum wage, living on the streets, and struggling to make ends meet).
Eh, I can't think of to many stories where that's the premise to be honest.
Most of the time in the comics if he's beating up henchmen is cause their in the middle of a massive crime spree, we're not talking random pickpockets or shoplifting, more blowing up buildings and robbing banks at gunpoint.
Other than that he usually goes after serial killers, gangsters or corrupt buisnessmen.
> Batman's efforts don't help to stop the problem permanently, but Bruce Wayne's wealth could be spent to invest in jobs/medical/housing/welfare/etc.
In the comics he does. Bruce Wayne and his subsidiaries pays for just about every social service within Gotham. The trouble is you can't make problems vanish by throwing money at it, especially when most of the city is so corrupt they happily steal the money (that was literally the premise of the latest movie).
Batman is for dealing with the problems he can't solve through the proper channels.
> Even though Gotham is filled with tons of rich people who aren't all doing legal things to make their wealth, and refusing to support the working class, Batman focuses all of his efforts on the lowest tier peons/goons/henchmen to "make the biggest difference".
Like when? I mean the guy's very first appearance is him taking on a murderous chemical tycoon? I feel this sentiment the guy only goes after regular low-level criminals is something more common in parodies (mostly cause its the most obvious joke imaginable you could make) that at this point has displaced the actual stories.
Even in most media, Batman is never shown going after anyone who isn't a serious criminal.
I mean, the writers did rehabilitate Magneto. Magneto becomes a good guy when he realizes being a terrorist is wrong. The other X-Men, notably Cyclops, become more like Magneto in some storylines, but they never go full terrorism mode. Even the mutant revolution stuff was more or less just empty threats and ended with peaceful protest.
Yeah I got a big disagree there. Jaime pushed a child out of a window for no reason than to hide his incest.
As Varys said about Littlefinger, he will burn it all down to be king of the ashes.
>but he wasn’t wrong about killing the king or really anything else.
The king, sure.
Sitting on the throne was wrong.
Having sex with his sister was wrong.
Having incest babies was wrong.
Pushing bran out of the window was wrong.
Starting a sword fight with ned in the streets was wrong.
Killing his cousin in the cell was wrong.
Supporting a knowingly false claim and therefore war was wrong.
There's probably more.
Had me at Magneto, was still hanging with you about the King Slayer thing, but hard cap at "really anything else," dude was so horned up for his sister that he had sex with her where someone could stumble upon them, then tried to murder the kid of the Lord of Winterfell.
Depending on which rendition you of him you pick, but Dr Doom. He is seen as someone who is just fully utilitarianism that is driven to extreme authoritarianism to accomplish that. Even with Bast seeing him as a fully selfless person doing everything as its the only possible way he saw humanity being stopped from demise.
Miles Edgeworth is a pompous ruthless asshole, but does everything legal as a prosecutor and for his sense of justice. I still hate his smug personality, yet he still only goes after people he truly believes to be guilty and only uses evidence he believes to be legitimate. Itachi could be seen by some as being right potentially.
I mean, I like Edgeworth just as much as the next gal but I'm not sure what's supposed to be legal or legitimate about a last minute "updated autopsy report" :D
The Skybreakers in the Stormlight Archive are morally right for siding with the Singers/Parshendi. And for that matter, the Singers are also in the right. They were enslaved by humans who invaded their homeland, and abandoned by their God (Honor) who instead gave their invaders super powers, which they used to further enslave them and ultimately commit a genocide of them. The humans on Roshar should be making concessions of land and reparations to the Singers, not fighting them.
I was legit hoping this was where the story would go, but then it veered into “the evil god supports the Singers and the good god supports the humans and it’s a divine war” unfortunately
Catherine Foundling but then again she's the protagonist. Fundamentally Catherine >!works out how useless Heroes are in book 1. The power of Good as a purely reactive force cannot change the world. Her choice of becoming a Villain for the sake of the world is the only one that can work. After all it is the realm of Evil to look at the whole world and decide it is wrong and it needs to change to suit your desires.!<
The original web serial is available on the author's wordpress site and an edited version is being/has been released on Yonder. The author plans to get it published when they can, but it's still at least a few years out, last I heard.
I'd argue she's still not right though. She chooses to join the side of Evil, but it's consistently shown that evil specifically loses BECAUSE it doesn't make the world a better place. The current evil overlord is an exception rather than the rule, and the forces of evil lose because they're just too unstable. She even changes throughout the story due to that.
Evil loses because there's an exact balance between Good and Evil. Evil empowers Villains generically while Good empowers Heroes just to confront and defeat the Villains. Amadeus has a great rant about it, all the power of Good is basically focused solely on messing up the Villains day whereas Evil normally only cares about the Heroes in so far as they are an obstacle. So Heroes can learn a secret power, that takes a Villain 20 years to master, in a day because that is literally all the Gods Above are focused on.
This is how the active nature of Evil and the reactive nature of Good play out. Nearly every relevant fixture in the series is something put together by the Villains. The Heroes just give everyone space to live with the horrors that plague the world. This is fundamental to the way the Good gods work, they do not give the power to move the world. They give the power to stop Evil in a given moment.
The key to the whole mess is >!Evil doing its thing with the tacit approval of the Heroes. Using Evil's facility for change but doing so in a way that the Heroes will accept!< which is exactly how the series plays out.
In Spiderman: Homecoming, Vulture had a very good point. He wasn't entirely right in that I don't think murder was justified, but Stark was pretty much the bad guy from Vulture's perspective, and stealing from *him* really doesn't seem all that bad.
My favorite antagonists are ones you can at least understand, if not root for.
Did Vulture ever actually murder anyone? I know he accidentally kills one of his guys with alien tech, and he threatens to kill Parker, but that just seems like a big bunch of bluster until Spiderman basically forces him into a deadly situation.
Indirectly. Selling weapons of mass destruction is a great way to get people killed. Stark’s whole lesson from the first movie is about him realizing this. While he didn't intend to kill “The Shocker” he doesn't feel too bad about doing it.
Black Dow wasn't really black, and he was right to betray Logen and take his crown. Dogman's a cunt to oppose him in the name of his childhood friend who he knows to be a madman.
Wellll... Black Dow certainly earned his reputation but he WAS right to betray Logen. The man had to be warned by Three Trees not to rape like several times in the first book iirc.
I'd call him "neutral" on betraying Logen. It's just one violent strongman vs another.
> Dogman's a cunt to oppose him in the name of his childhood friend who he knows to be a madman.
You're missing the point. Dogman isn't doing a whole war for the sake of Logen's feelings, they were becoming estranged at the end of the trilogy. He's fighting to establish a protectorate because Dow is a monster.
The Inchoroi in the Second Apocalypse series are not justified in all their actions (being, you know, rape monsters from space). But their basic position that an afterlife of torment followed by having your soul devoured by the gods sucks a sufficient quality of shit for no afterlife at all to be preferable does seem like it pencils out on a Utilitarian basis. It doesn't help that the morals of the gods aren't particularly savory to begin with.
Bakker did absolutely brilliant work w that. It genuinely bothers me that we'll probably never get more fantasy lit from him because he was writing concepts no one else was even thinking about.
Bakker is legitimately one of my favorite authors. I've heard he's got one more entry planned in the series, but it seems like he was not particularly financially successful, which is really unfortunate. Because you're absolutely right that the books are brilliant.
The rumour mill comes and goes w this, I understood he had a final/further series planned, the publisher dropped him, he got frustrated, toyed w self-publishing, and bailed on the entire writing fantasy thing. Ive seen reference to his brother stating on social media that he was writing again, but i've never seen it.
The way the second series ends, >!Second Apocalypse triggered, No-God active, Inchori and Dunyain wrecked, army in shambles, Kel supposedly dead, insane Nonmen and mages floating around clueless, Akka and co on the run, !
Loll. I mean he's right for wanting to put down Eli but killing people who can't heal you is a bit insane no? (he's still cool cause he's got that found family stuff going on for him)
The hyenas in the Lion King. Scar might be a wannabe fascist dictator, but the hyenas are just excluded from the kingdom and the circle of life. Why? Wouldn’t you pissed of against a monopolistic system that exclude your entire race from it. Wouldn’t you want to rebel against it. Thank god, the status quo is restored by the end of the movie and the rightful heir gain back his crown. Hyenas can be oppressed again.
I don't think the Hyenas were intended to symbolize an oppressed minority in this case. I think they're meant to represent the 'brown-shirts-in-waiting' who exist in the shadows of every society, and are always willing to support a piece of shit dictator if they're promised the right rewards in a future regime--no matter the cost to anyone else.
Eh in which version? Over the years she's done everything from killing people for stepping on the grass, to trying to wipe out humanity, to robbing banks cause she wants to be rich.
HOMURA DID NOTHING WRONG. Madoka's wish was unsustainable and at a huge personal cost, Homura wasn't gonna just sit and watch how her girlfriend commits cosmic suicide and do nothing.
~~Yeah i know Incubators are the villains, but Homura turned into Lucifer at the end of Rebellion~~
My theory is still >!Godoka is going to come and hunt down Homura to reclaim her teenage persona. When that happens Madoka will inevitably step in and fight Godoka, being the only person who can. Homura will be forced to sit there watching her best friend kill herself to defend her.!<
Zaheer from the Legend of Korra (to some extent)
The series also touches the subject of his morality later in the series when Toph (I think) mention how many of the series villains have had the right idea but a completely skewed execution. He stood for freedom and getting rid of corrupteaders, which I think is a good thing, but his way of just getting killing the earthqueen resulting in a power vacuum isn't the way forward. Amon has the same thing going for him of wanting equality, but his idea of equality being just to kill all of the benders, whilst also being a bender himself, is another example of having the right idea, but a completely skewed execution
Zaheer wasn't just about killing corrupt leaders. He was a anarchist. He disagreed with the entire concept of government completely.
Which I mean you may agree with, but simply thinking that corrupt leaders are bad and shouldn't be in power, doesn't mean you are agreeing with Zaheer. He wants to take it much, much further.
Edit: I missed your (to some extent) comment. But I still think pointing out his anarchism is important. I find a lot of these types of threads always devolve into 'Well if you ignore everything that made them wrong then they were actually right'.
Which I mean, I get. It is hard to tell a story where a villain (not just an antagonist) is 100% actually in the right. It kind of goes against the concept of a villain.
Zaheer also randomly decided to kill the Avatar, despite them being the ones fighting against corrupt world leaders.
Amon was NOT about killing benders. He was about making them non-benders. Because we live in a world without bending, where inequality still exists, we know he was wrong, but it was still far more sympathetic than Zaheer's insane nonsense.
Zaheer tried to kill off the corrupt leaders - and the avatar that allowed them to stay in power the whole time was a symbol of authority too. When the whole of history the avatar can pull from is all also assholes that stood by and let shit happen, you can kinda see why he wanted to at the very least end the cycle.
>Zaheer also randomly decided to kill the Avatar
It’s not really random when you consider Zaheer is an anarchist. Anarchists hate hierarchies. You know, the whole “No gods, no masters” thing. And what could be closer to a god in that world than the Avatar?
He also makes more sense when you realize he’s not just against corrupt world leaders, he’s against *all* world leaders. He doesn’t kill the Earth Queen for being corrupt, he kills her for being Queen.
Agreed but the whole "right idea wrong execution" thing was more a failure of the writing than anything else.
It falls into the classic liberal storytelling trope of creating compelling villains who want to force some kind of radical societal change, and then making them do something cartoonishly evil to make sure the audience knows they're bad guys and have to be stopped.
The heroes then physically defeat them and the underlying status quo stays the same.
It stems from the insecurity of knowing that if it was a clash of ideals and social movements, the status quo warriors would lose - much like how genuine revolutionary rhetoric in real life is either squashed or misrepresented by its most extreme offshoots.
Amon was probably the worst example of this, but I'd say Zaheer falls into this boat as well. Marvel is also really bad for this kind of thing. Like Killmongee and the Flag Smashers
Archaon from Age of Sigmar is very ends justify the means, but his end goal is noble.
The chaos gods of the warhammer universe are essentially playing a game where they see how long it takes forneach universe to fall to chaos and destroy itself and whichever chaos god reigned at the time wins that round. Archaon is the "everchosen" meaning he is one of the few who claims boons from all the chaos gods, and as such he is their main champion. His end goal is to sap enough favor from the gods so he can kill all of them, granting the mortal realms a universe free from their influence where everyone can choose to live freely.
Archaon still wants to be the super dictator of all the realms after he's done with all the gods. Just because he secretly hates the Chaos gods and wants them pushed back doesn't mean he's doing it for charity.
TBH Archaon is still the ultimate dupe in the universe. The only person who could have outright defeated Chaos chose to become their champion instead because a statue of Sigmar wouldn't talk to him.
Now he's decided he wants to destroy Chaos... Nobody that deep in the Dark Powers influence can meaningfully harm them.
The Weaver in First Law Age of Madness, kinda. Hard to say this without spoilers but they're right in trying to tear down a beyond unjust system, set up only to benefit a certain true leader. It's really a villain fighting a villain.
I just don't agree that the certain true leader would react (or have such a lack of reacting) as they did through what happened. Knowing that character at the first sign of the burners/breakers having a chance there would have been a swift and brutal reaction, and that there weren't any contingencies in place to stop what happened was super surprising to me.
Spoiler for the end of the series
>!There is no way in heck Bayaz would have allowed to happen what did. He already knows to keep an eye out for Glokta. He knows Glokta's intelligence and will. He knows Glokta hates him. He knows how to stamp out revolution, he must because he's ruled the union from afar for 600 years straight, no doubt he's had to stamp out multiple. Bayaz is one of and if not the richest person on the planet, only Khalul can compare, and Bayaz can throw that weight around. Bayaz has the most access to spies because of 600 years building the network in the nation he built and near infinite funds. I don't believe anyone could mobilize a whole city revolt without him noticing.!<
This post contains major plot spoilers for AoM and the First Law. Read at your own peril.
To attempt to rebuke your argument that Bayaz would never let something like that happen, well, he already has. Bayaz has a history of pissing off to the Northern Library and doing nothing for a really long time. Just look at before Jezal's era, when Bayaz let the Union practically slip out of his control for the extent of maybe half a reign after Arch Lectur Zola died (sorry, I don't know spelling because I listened to the books rather than read them). Bayaz has consistently been lax with the Union, because he simply can't be bothered at all times, and he would rather pop up ever 50 years, save it, soak up the adoration, and then leave again. He has done it once before, and then once after, so we can begin to observe it as a trend, and it is, one, narratively consistent, and, two, consistent with the character. An example is he doesn't strike against Khalul until he's almost already lost.
Also, Bayaz does recognize Glockta's intelligence, but you forget that, to him, all people are just things. He doesn't fear Glockta, not anymore than anyone else, because he's just one of those little insect creatures always getting in his way. They're all just tools to him to get a job done. No more terrifying than a nail is to the hammer. And I think maybe we underestimate how much of this really was to his plan. It's well documented that he likes to plow the fields every so often, letting Calder go to war with Union, for example. I think he firstly didn't predict Rikke being so tricky, and he didn't predict that Glockta would align with Eaters. Losing Yuru and Calder, and by extent, the North and his number 1 henchman, were likely his two greatest blunders, and all the rest he couldn't care less about. He was probably willing to let there be a time of change in the Union, but he didn't predict it would get so out of hand so quickly.
As for the Breakers and Burners... I think Glockta was really doing a great job of suppressing them, but he was also secretly overseeing them, with Pyke's help. Bayaz had no real cause to worry, and Glockta even says that his time table was utterly ruined after the first revolt, and he had to hurry things along. He said something like people tend to go their own way, and his hand in it was trying to steer them to course, but he failed successfully and worked with the pieces. If things had gone perfectly for him, it would have been much cleaner than what we saw, but, as he always says, we must work with the tools we're given. He didn't mobilize a whole cities revolution. Rather, it came naturally from the actions he was taking against them, which worked almost in tandem with his plan and enabled the rest of it to slot into place. And by then, I think probably by the very start of the Age of Madness trilogy, it was already too late for Bayaz to stop Glockta. Even killing him, I think it would have still unfolded more or less similar to what we saw, because Glockta organized a people's revolt to work in his benefit by oppressing said people.
To continue with spoilers.
I like this explanation, but it seems between trilogy 1 and trilogy 2 Bayaz went through quite a large depowering. He seemed to be almost omnipresent in the union in the first trilogy. Funding Glokta, travelling West, making Jezal win the tournament, putting Jezal on the throne, even taking his seat on the council and all with minimal trouble. It seems he has a finger in every pie already. The only things that gives him pause is seeing Tolomei, then in the second trilogy he continually messes up, and leaves before he can even start to fix his mistakes. I hope we get more of his viewpoint in the next trilogy because if the problems he left to deal with aren't bigger than the revolution at home it'll kinda ruin his threat. He has no bank, he has no union, the south is getting to be a bigger problem, the north he only has some allied with him, and all because he went to chat to his sister. It won't take much and his only options will be the seed and fireballs. He is thousands of years old, thats a long time to learn how to plan and manage, and he left himself wide open. If he's that susceptible how had Kahlul not done similar to take him down already?
Kahlul did get really close, though, with his Eaters and the siege of Adua, and he didn't even show up himself. If not for the seed, which was the medieval and magical equivalent of spawning a mythical nuke and detonating it in your own city to beat your foe, Bayaz would have been defeated and killed in that very chapter he activated it.
I really think people give Bayaz too much credit in terms of how competent he is. He's an ill tempered, spiteful old man stuck attempting to relive past glories, who is also stuck in an eternal dick measuring match with his oldest rival Khalul. He's the absolute best in the world at making plans, undoubtedly, but the second there's a wrench thrown in the mix, he just as prone to folly as everyone else. He has shown many times that he is just as human as everyone else and can fail to adapt. Look at Styria and Shenkt, look at the Styrian wars, and look at how close he was to defeat when Khalul came knocking. It's not too hard to see Khalul destroy Bayaz when he's already gotten so close. Plus, the magic leaks from the world, so much of Bayaz's strength fades with the years. When was the last time we saw him do anything magical? He relied on Sulfur, and he's gone now, so what's left for him? He has to default on his influence and money, and more on that now.
In terms of Bayaz's influence being whittled away off screen, that's a fair point. My best counter to that is a theory, so take it as you will. I think it's likely that since he was gone for so long, and Glockta was in his place, all that influence defaulted to Glockta. Who did you go to get things done in the Union that whole time? Not Bayaz, because how do you reach him? So probably Glockta, or one of his puppets on the Closed Council, or potentially someone on the Open Council, but that would be muddied by the politicking, where if Glockta says a thing gets done, it happens. The difficulty there is just getting him to say yes. So, much of Bayaz's influence whittles away naturally in his absence, and it defaults to Glockta.
Also, with the event of investors, some of Bayaz's dominance over the markets opens up. He still controls the coin, but now these investors have stakes in land, in resources, in factories that practically print money. It's natural then that Bayaz loses some of that influence over the social spheres, because nobody is going to the banks anymore. They go to Savine, or people like her, and they front the money and take some off the top of the profits. That's why Sulfur is always at her events, trying to get her ear, because he knows this is now where the true heart of the money is. Really, as I write this, I'm starting to see how truly brilliant Bayaz's fall is in the AoM. What else could topple the dominant government backed bank other than the private investor?
Now, with all that said, Bayaz is still very formidable. No one has experience scheming as he does, and sometimes happy accidents do occur for him, and bad ones, too. And there's one thing I've conveniently left out so far, and that is Bayaz is practically immortal, and, despite his many tantrums, he is very patient. He has seen the old world crumble, only to help the new one be born, and then watch it crumble and be reborn likely countless times over. I don't think he's really too worried about the Union, and he has some things cooking in the back. He strikes me as a man who's very bored, so he's probably glad of the contest. And Glockta is mortal. He will die one day, and likely his schemes with him unless Savine can replace him. Bayaz knows this, and he has the two most important virtues on his side. Time and patience.
On a side note, I wonder which way Joe will go with Glockta. Will he have it be cyclical, and Glockta just becomes Bayaz, or will he actually do what he said he will and create a better world. Knowing Joe, it'll be cyclical, but I think it would be a breath of fresh air if Glockta genuinely reforms the system to be better. It could lead to a new political landscape, a new era of Union dominance, and lead to a more dynamic story.
Edit: I would also like to add, the First Law happens at a point where all the characters have already lived most of their lives. They've made their mistakes, and they're living through the consequences. For that reason, Bayaz has plenty of favours to call on from the older, established generation, and that's what leads him to be so omnipresent. Where, with AoM, we see a Union navigating a new course. That older generation indebted to Bayaz is being phased out. Savine taking over the investment industry, and Leo stepping up as governor of Angland over his mother whose name I forget right now, and Orso stepping up for Jezal. The only exception here is Savine really, because her father is still present up until the civil war, but he actively encourages her to avoid Bayaz and owe him no favours. That's what enables all the crazy events to happen, because if Leo was indebted to Bayaz like his mother, we likely wouldn't get the civil war, and then what chain of events collapses from there? Same with Savine and Vick and Broad and Rikke. These people are making their mistakes, rather than living with them, and they owe nothing to Bayaz, allowing them to operate opposite to Bayaz's agenda. A good example is when Finree (I remember her name) tries to stop Leo at the docks from rebelling, and he just says no. Had he known what Finree did, chances are that goes differently. It's a case of wrong place, wrong time for Bayaz.
Was The Eye of the World not generic fantasy? Teenagers flee their isolated village after a dark lord's inhuman army attacks it, going on a magical adventure culminating in facing the dark lord's lieutenants? Doesn't get particularly subversive until later.
It was/is, but it does still have its own identity, and it's own distinct moments that stand out. The show removed or radically changed basically every single one of the "cool" moments I wanted to see, while also heavily retconning the setting and completely rewriting several character (and significantly changing almost all of them).
The classic answer would be Milton‘s Paradise Lost, where Lucifer is pretty sympathetic. Whether a character can actually be right, not just sympathetic or understandable, and still be the villain, is the real question though.
I mean, not particularly sympathetic. He fed into the interests of many of the angels of heaven, causing them to wage war with God because he was jealous that God wasn't going to see him (Lucifer) as the favorite even though he never promised that and always mentioned the Son of Man sitting at his right hand.
He then tries to introduce death and sin to the Garden of Eden because he's throws a fit, and even when he sees everything he lost and almost repents, he admits he's jealous too and would rather watch the world burn then get over it.
I mean, that doesn't sound like a dude in the right, lol. Also, sympathetic in the sense that it's possible that a human would do that, but I hope no human would be so jealous as to do that
Book 3 has always been my favorite and I think it destroys any sympathy that can be found for Lucifer. If someone really wanted to hurt you, what would be more effective.. attacking you or attacking your children? In book 3 we see Gods grief and desperation for his children, and it’s a really beautiful illustration of his grace and what it cost him. And it leaves me hating Lucifer.
Um, did you READ Paradise Lost? Luci was NOT sympathetic. It was teased that he might be, but the whole point of the story was that he sucks, has always sucked, and will always suck. Everything is a big whiny temper tantrum, and he's not actually grand or beautiful at all. The more petulant he gets, thus revealing more of who he really is, the uglier he becomes - because he's always been an ugly, sad, whiny thing.
Mistborn spoilers:
The Lord Ruler.
Been a while, but from memory he got access to powers wayyy above any mortals abilities, and fucked it up. As a follow up, he had to choose between 2 shit sandwiches, and he chose the one with the best bread to turd ratio.
This is true. Vin and Sazed don’t really blame the lord ruler for what he did when he held the shards, they say it was hard to control anything as well, the problem is very clearly that he starts off as a piece of shit who is racist and sent with the expedition to stop the other guy from even getting there, performs genocide and controller breeding against an entire race while also creating a brand new race of people to be enslaved
Nearly every action he took was aimed at preservation of his own power. He did some small things to prepare for the coming crisis but most of what he did was just unnecessary.
At the same time, he justified his actions by believing that he had to hold on to power because in his mind, he was the only one who could prevent the freeing of Ruin. He believed what he was doing was a necessary evil in service of the greater good.
> He wasn't forced to do any of the stuff that made him a villain in the first book.
Not exactly. It's been a bit since I read the books, but humanity basically needed some kind of central authority in order to survive on a planet that wasn't really habitable anymore. It's like being on a space station--democracy is great and all, but one serious conflict, one famine or epidemic or war that leaves not enough hands to do the farmwork and everybody dies.
So everything he did was in pursuit of an authoritarian society that could endure his mistake. He ensured survival, and I think it's a safe bet that humanity would have gone extinct if he'd tried to be moral rather than effective.
It got away from him in a lot of ways, but I think it's a good lesson in why an authoritarian regime pretty much always devolves into a horror show if it goes on long enough. Pair that with a thousand years of Ruin whispering in his head, and I think he had the right idea and *mostly* succeeded, even if he allowed a lot of evil to exist in his society.
I think maybe they're talking about his choice to kill the original hero guy and take the power to fix the world's problems himself. Every choice after that was him trying to unfuck the mistakes he made until they all ended up in a shitty new equilibrium.
I mean, your assumption is that Ruin was inherently evil. He's not. He's the embodiment of change. Without Ruin, the rebellion against the Lord Ruler would have been useless because Preservation would have been perfectly happy keeping things the way they were. Feruchemy also wouldn't have worked.
The problem was they weren't balanced and since Ruin had gained a little bit of an upper hand the world was going to have to deal with him.
I imagine that if Preservation had had the edge, the world would have been in just a rough place but in a slightly different way. I think it would have been something like how when the Light got too strong in World of Warcraft that one time.
You need both in balance for life to thrive. Preservation ruined the balance by trapping Ruin, and began to die/lose power. So if Ruin was released, then Ruin has the advantage and can do as they will(destory things). It's the problem with the shards as separate entities, they take it to the extreme because they don't have other intents to balance them. Ruin isn't inherently evil, but unchecked ruin is. TLR wasn't wrong to stop the hero, but he fucked up in repairing the damage and made things worse, while still keeping Ruin trapped.
All they said was that preventing Ruin's release wasn't a mistake, your comment is barely relevant. Ruin is a god who wants to destroy the world, that's really all there is to it.
Nah. He did some things right, stockpiling and building shelters to prepare for Ruin's return. Trying to keep Ruin sealed away.
But he could have done all of that without being a racist tyrant.
There’s also decent arguments in favor of the tyranny being made in the thread, but that doesn’t excuse how he went about it. He could’ve ruled with an iron fist, but done so fairly rather than forcing horrors upon the Skaa and the Terris.
He definitely did some good things, but he also set up a society with a slave class, and murdered tons of people including children because of how they were born and set up a society where women were regularly raped and then killed so there was no chance they could have a child.
The final empire was a complete hellscape for no good reason. Him screwing up the climate is one thing but the 1000 years of treating the majority of the population as worth less than animals was in no way needed to stop the apocalypse.
We'll find out in a few months. Or at least know more. But it's heavily hinted that >!he's just going to turn into another Odium, but instead of just being driven by emotion he'll be highly intelligent too!<
Denethor from “The Lord of the Rings”
Denethor’s actions are driven by despair, a sense of duty, and the influence of Sauron’s manipulation. The palantír (seeing-stone) he uses shows him distorted visions, leading him to believe that all is lost and that the fall of Gondor is unavoidable.
The films did my man Denethor so dirty. While he may be scary, and goes crazy from hopelessness because Sauron’s twisted visions betray him, he does not deserve to be pictured as the guy he is in the movie. He is a misled noble man that is driven to madness and wants to die with honor.
Strong vote for Adrian Veidt (Ozymandias) here.
Seen from Veidt's viewpoint, the moment Jon Osterman accidentally became the "Dr. Manhattan" life form, the already-tense Cold War was destined to go into planet-dooming overdrive -- another superpower would eventually recreate a Manhattan-being, or strive to co-opt Manhattan's entire support system, or just plain nuke 'em cause there's no way to win against Blue God. Put more plainly, Manhattan was the next logical iteration of the nuke, and thus escalated the conflict.
Perhaps an objective viewer might have tried to follow *Fail-Safe* (1962 novel), making a big public show of saying "Here, we destroyed Dr. Manhattan, here's incontrovertible proof, we did it to re-balance the scales, now everyone can be equal again" -- but this didn't work, because (a) no one could figure out how to destroy him, and (b) there was probably no 'incontrovertible proof' any nation-state would ever believe that the top dog nation-state had truly surrendered its advantage.
Veidt saw that the only true "balancer" or "unifier" was a new meta-meta-threat -- whether alien incursion or that-Manhattan-guy-going-rogue -- and took steps accordingly. Even Osterman (Manhattan) agreed with his methods when he saw the result.
Ishmael
The "creator" has imprisoned the world in an endless cycle of repetition where lives and souls reincarnate without end. A universe without entropy has no meaning. Death is essential for life to mean something and the wheel doesn't die.
Playing Elden Ring make me see that Marika was wrong to remove death from the ring. That's essentially what the "creator" in WOT has done.
The Great Lord seeks to free us from that endless meaningless cycle and make their universe more like hours.
Ishmael saw it
> Death is essential for life to mean something and the wheel doesn't die.
I think Ishamael's position is under-appreciated. I fundamentally disagree with it, but it's philosophically sound.
That being said, I think death is an end to meaning rather than necessary for meaning. Nothing can change the fact that something *has* happened, or that things *are* happening. ...But to have a universe where nothing will happen ever again? That's a tragedy beyond thinking, to me.
Something doesn't have to be unique or temporary to have meaning.
> Death is essential for life to mean something and the wheel doesn't die.
I disagree, and insist you do not add death to my existence. I believe that would be called murder.
The problem with the wheel was that its a pretty bad universe to live in for large parts of the cycle. But an endless cycle of "arcadian rural paradise -> sci-fi paradise -> arcadian rural paradise". Sign my soul up.
Ishamael's position was provably wrong. There is no inevitable victory for the Dark One. He tried once and he failed. Rand's soul will never lose because he didn't lose, it will just endlessly repeat.
I think whether Ishmael is right depends on how closely the Wheel of Time repeats. Is there going to be another cycle where exactly Rand does exactly the same stuff, or is there just going to be another Dragon who confronts a broadly similar situation with changed details? Whether I agree with him really depends on which it is.
We were frequently told that prophecies were not guaranteed and we see with Rand and Lews Therin that a soul can be extremely different in different lives, we see a ton of different courses of action Rand might’ve taken when he used the portal stone, and we see that the wheel has potential backups for both Rand and the Dark One. I think based on all of that I’d say it’s definitely meant to be the latter.
The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Picture this - you are just hanging out in your house, doing your thing, not bothering anybody. Suddenly a boat full of strangers show up, and keep trying to capture or kill you. Are you gonna defend yourself? Damn right you are. But noooo, The Creature (or "Gil" as I like to call him) is the monster, the menace, blah blah blah. *eyeroll*.
On the same note, Jaws was just being a shark.
Quite so. It's not killing people because it's evil, it's attacking prey because it's hungry. If anybody is the villain, it's the Mayor who won't close the beaches because tourists, money, on and on. If the beaches were closed, the shark probably would have moved on.
In the sequels it's definitely evil and almost magical and hunting people though
Well, the sequels got weirder as they went along, imho.
They travel out into the ocean to kill an animal for doing what millions of years of evolution made it do. Stupid!
Sorry, I have to say it... aside from being a steaming pile of garbage.. *Jaws: The Revenge* literally had the tagline "This Time It's Personal"
The Gill-man becomes a tragic character in the later movies. First he's captured and put on display in an aquarium, then they surgically turn him into a land creature depriving him of his ability to survive in his natural habitat. His last scene is him returning to the ocean still stuck as a land creature implying he may have drowned. Just shows how great of a movie the Shape of Water was.
You're very correct, Smart Internet Person. The second film "Revenge of the Creature" makes me so angry. Humans kidnap him, shove him in a big tank at an aquarium, SHOCK him to "teach" him to "behave". And we're supposed to LIKE these a**holes?! F**k 'em. I'm Team Gil all the way.
I don’t know that there are any villains who are objectively “right”, just some who are more understandable than others. In The Chronicles of Narnia take the Telmarines. They end up in the world Narnia by complete accident, live in their own area for a while, get hit with a famine, and move on to the actual Narnian country, led by Caspian the First. There were no men present, with Peter and the other children being long gone. And they came across talking animals for the first time. In both our world and the land they’d lived in previously there’d only ever been dumb, regular animals who couldn’t talk. So, what did they assume when they came across animals that could talk? That the talking animals were evil spirits or demons. They’re wrong when taking the entire story into account, but they had no way of possibly knowing the history of Narnia, Aslan, etc. From their perspective they found a rich land with no human settlers and either dumb animals or talking evil demons. I’ve never felt they were wrong to make the assumption they did. Again, they were still wrong overall, they just didn’t have the knowledge to understand that. And I feel the fact that Aslan freely allows a Telmarine, Caspian the Tenth, to rule over Narnia when it’s all said and done kind of proves that they aren’t just “evil” in general. It’s fine for them to live there, they just have to be peaceful and acknowledge the talking animals as actual equals.
It is a weird backstory when you think about it. Couldn't Aslan have intervened early on to put them on a better path?
That’s probably the real issue you have with characters like Aslan. He basically sees and knows everything, doesn’t seem to have any kind of limits to him, so could arguably step in at any point in time. In Last Battle he lets an entire scam go by involving a donkey pretending to be him. It probably could’ve been solved had he just walked out of a forest, told the donkey to stop, and told all of the other animals not to believe it 😂 but then for C. S. Lewis it’s all about the stories he wanted to tell involving faith and belief, good triumphing over evil, etc. If Aslan always walks in when things are going bad there’s really no need for the kids to ever be called to Narnia at all. And I’m sure Lewis has some essay he wrote on how Aslan can’t be expected to just solve everyone’s problems for them and the important of people making their own choices, etc.
There are no problems that cannot be solved by magically importing some British schoolchildren.
Ah, but Aslan ‘moves in mysterious ways’ like some other heads of religion supposedly do.
Ah yes. Alan. The mysterious being that controls everything 😂 all Hail Alan!
In the last Narnia book there’s a passage where Allan tells the earth children about the Calormen (obvious Muslim allegories) and how, like, if they’re pure of heart they’re actually followers of Aslan and can go to Super Narnia (heaven) with the rest of the good guys. There’s a lot in that that I’m not going to try to unpack here, but just noting that Lewis made his views on those sorts of questions quite explicit.
It's also entirely possible there was an early misunderstanding that led to conflicts. I could totally imagine them sending out hunters on day 1 who killed some deer who were talking deer and they were then attacked by Narnians and they had no idea what was going on and just trying to defend themselves. Or many of the Narnians as we see in book 1 are not all that friendly and could've been ones they met first.
> I don’t know that there are any villains who are objectively “right”, Ozymandias from *The Watchmen.* If he doesn't do what he does, the world goes through even more hell. He doesn't really have any choice.
Sort of like Leto II in God Emperor of Dune. He chose the lesser of two evil paths. It was still objectively horrible but way less horrible than the alternative.
Squidward
https://youtu.be/thqMRh8zN4Q?si=LOFTJgPfTHjc1lyN obligatory. Deepdive on the psyche of one of the worls most missjudged villain/antagonist
Squidward can do better than SpongeBob though. I get that they had a thing, but he's got to let it go. Clearly if the sponge was willing to dump him for a himbo starfish, he wasn't worth it in the first place. And he should really move far away and stay away because clearly those morning quickies aren't helping things.
Mirri Maz Duur. Drogo needed to be stopped.
By the time you saved me, three raiders already raped me.
Bethod was right.
Bethod was right about Logan, yes but he's as grey as a first law character can be IMO
They were right about each other.
It takes a monster to make one 🤷🏻♂️
Sure. Not so sure about the company he keeps, though.
For sure. Best idea was to align the northern clans under one form of leadership to protect them from the union. Let’s not forget he was being manipulated by Bayaz’s enemies to be used as a weapon against his union
He said "villain." Lol, j/k mostly. I just really love how Abercrombie muddies the waters between his characters. "That's not how it was. Whispered Logen. But he knew it had been." Such great characters.
You have to be realistic about these things
After reading "Made a Monster," I can finally agree with that.
So was Black Calder
Black Calder is one of the most shockingly deep characters I’ve ever read. He’s a monster who I feel so incredibly sympathetic for by the end of The Age of Madness trilogy
But he killed Forley so he's dead to me even though he's a great character that I ended up rooting for a bit more
“Back to the mud with you, Forley. We’re the poorer, and the ground’s the richer for it.” is such an underrated line imo, just a really touching sentiment for lost friends...
So is Old Sticks.
I read this as Bayaz at first and was a bit flummoxed.
I don't think his conquest was just, he could've rebuild and organize the north instead of trying to capture angland which would never work. I think his victories blinded him and made him reckless.
It's a tough one. In his position, he just united a culture built off fierce independence and martial proving/prowess. Once they're all under the same banner, they're not all going to just want to change their ways and become farmers. They're fighters, that's how their society makes people "named men", all social tradition and status is earned via fighting, his subjects are going to demand war. Is his conquest "unjust"? Certainly. But he couldn't unite the North (or keep it united) without giving them an outlet somewhere.
If you ignore the whole side with Shanka and dark magic to try and take over the world part, sure.
That is until you unveil that Bayaz is also dark magic and has plans for taking over the world. Neither side is 'good'. I love First Law because it's all shades of grey and damnation.
I love that I found this here. Really got me thinking, Ninefingers is my favourite character in the first law, but damn is he rotten. Maybe Bethod was right.
Bethod made Ninefingers, saying bethod is good because Logan is bad missed the point
I’m curious why you think that. Because in my reading of it Made a Monster is confirmation that Bethod was telling the truth at the end of LAOL. Bethod was ambitious and somewhat amoral, but he never set out to conquer the North until Logan pushed him into it. He became a tyrant, but he didn’t start out that way.
Because even in Made a Monster Bethod is insecure about the fact that he brought them to this point. Yeah, he wanted to take a peaceful route *now,* after he'd fed lord knows how many champions to Logan. It kept being one more war and one more war, inflating Logan and growing his legend. Yeah it's easy for Bethod to say "oh I was totally done, I was ready to be a man of peace" after he'd already done a bunch of conquering, but you don't get to release a demon on the world and then balk when that demon does what demons do.
Ninefingers isn't really the Bloody Nine. They're effectively two different people, Jeckyl and Hyde style. And Ninefingers *knows* how fucked up and horrible the Bloody Nine is, and spends every story he's in, from the First Law onward, trying to escape him and the legacy of the blood he's spilled.
If you stand against Logen you're probably in the right.
Ayt Madashi from the Green Bone Saga. Her vision of one unified clan over all of Kekon, and a Kekon in control of its own destiny rather than enslaved to foreign interests, those are not bad things and are in fact arguably very good things that the Kauls don’t even disagree with necessarily. From the beginning, she acted with vision while the Kauls acted with emotion. It took them a while to get a vision of their own, and that still wasn’t the guy in charge doing it for a LONG time, but his sister and Weather Man. Honestly, the fact that Ayt Mada is one of the best characters in a series with fucking insanely good characters is a testament to this being the most S-tier series of all time. Truly stunning quality.
God I love Ayt Mada. Truly one of the best written villains ever
I cannot upvote you enough. Ayt mada was one of the most interesting antagonists in any series I’ve ever read.
It also helped a lot that the author never gave her a POV. Very excellent decision imo
Just finished this series and I agree she's a great villain, but I think the conflict isn't over the long-term vision (Kekon managing Kekon's resources), but the method for getting there (conquest vs. cooperation). Ayt Mada was arguably trying to do it with minimal bloodshed, but that her first though was to shed blood and play into her trademark ruthlessness seems to be her real shortcoming in Lee's eyes.
To be clear, I agree. Their contest isn’t over long term vision. But it’s not about how to get there either. When the war starts, the Kauls don’t have a vision other than “Ayt Mada cannot win.” Slowly they adopt a version of her vision but it’s always a tempered and conservative version.
It was never going to go her way because she based her wealth on selling drugs and sponsoring a criminal empire in other nations. Drugs which enabled other nations to be jade users which was Kekon's sole advantage.
I mean, the No Peak Clan was literally working to legalize jade usage in other nations and her drug selling was mostly happening in Kekon as the foreigners already had it.
Prince Nuada from Hellboy movie was 110% right about humans polluting the planet and destroying nature out of the pure greediness
I admit I was swayed by his good looks and manners as well, but yea... Humans broke the treaty. He was fighting back for not just his people but all non-human creatures.
If evil, why so sexy?
He was right in blade 2 but he was a lot uglier
Those elves were amazing. I absolutely love the art style with them. And that opening scene detailing the old war with the little clay models. Such an amazing movie. :)
Yeah. I mean jumping to flat-out extermination was a bit much, but you really do feel they're should have been other options they could have explored first rather than his father just shrugging and accepting extinction.
Count Dooku. He was misguided and eventually lost the plot with his methods, but his reasoning for leaving the Jedi order, and having no faith in them or the Republic were very well founded. In a world where Qui-Gon lives and can temper his vindictive nature, he probably never turns to the dark-side and the two of them probably affect some very positive reform within the Jedi Order and the Republic. A *lot* changes if Qui-Gon doesn't die in general.
ok I'm sorry to make a grammar correction comment but this is my single favorite grammar special case in the english language and I love talking about it please forgive me Normally affect is the verb and effect is the noun. That movie affected me strongly, Cause and effect, etc. HOWEVER. In the very special case of *effecting change*, effect is also a verb!! It doesn't mean the same thing as affect exactly, you "effect a change in the government" or "effect a major reform" etc. So here it should say that the two of them would probably *effect* some very positive reform.
Most polite grammar police I've seen 😂
Wait, can you say more here? Why is this the case?
Tbh that's a good question! I have no idea! [The OED](https://www.oed.com/dictionary/effect_v?tl=true) is often a good source, although I don't have an account there so I can't see the full etymology
The Darkling from the Grishaverse. Before he came to power the Grisha were viewed as evil, abominations who were hunted down for having magical powers. They lived in nomadic camps and were always on the verge of being killed off or made into martyrs for a religion that viewed them as evil. But the Darkling gave them a place where they could be safe. He outlawed selling Grisha children and the practice of child brides, he made hunting Grisha illegal in Ravka, he started a school where Grisha could train their powers and not fear being found out. He took them from being outcasts in society and gave them power and safety like they never had before. And it still wasn’t enough. The Grisha were STILL viewed as second-class citizens, and puppets in an endless Ravkan war. So he decides to use their power to force the neighboring countries into a cease fire and end the ongoing conflicts that they’ve been having for centuries. His methods may have been bad, but they were at war! And no one was going to actually listen to peace talk- not the king, not the other countries. Sure, we would have loved to see The Darkling and Prince Nikolai work together to unite the Grisha and powerless people, but Nikolai was too busy playing pirate (I still love Nikolai). After he’s gone, the world is even MORE dangerous for Grisha! One country has a militarized task force that hunts them down and burns them at the stake like witches (and their government is doing some VERY unethical experiments with Grisha expectant mothers and babies), and the other is getting them addicted to drugs and using them in unethical experiments to make mechanical super-soldiers. Would any of this have happened if the Darkling had been able to end the war in the first book? I don’t think so!
The Darkling was a great example of a morally grey villain.
Koios ( from Lightbringer), at least through first few books. Absent ( Big) God is completely useless. He's trying to replace system based on worship of god that no one really knows if it exists, with one based on real, present, lesser "gods". But then he went into simple black/white direction the more the series went along.
I'm just finishing this series now and I loved the first few books but the last couple of books aren't as good sadly.
Brace yourself that last book is a real let down, IMO. But maybe if you're not waiting years between books it doesn't land like a turd. Maybe we all just built up something that couldn't possibly be delivered because it was taking so long.
Yes! I said Andross Guile myself, but they're all VERY VERY grey as to who are villians
Dracula from Castlevania. They killed his wife and he had every right to avenge her immidietly. But no. He gave them a year to leave his lands. All their lives could be spared if only people weren't so damn stubborn and full of themselves.
*The Boss* from *Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater* is objectively right. She's the main villain, but if she doesn't act, more people die.
On top of this, George Sears(Solidus) is trying to free the world from the Super-Robot-Shadow-Government. His methods are terrorism, but his goal is very noble. On top of **this**, The Patriots want to rid the world of garbage information piling on the internet and spreading division over the world. Given the state Twitter and other social media sites have left us in, it isn't that inhumane an idea.
Besides an obligatory Magneto was right… Jaime Lannister. I mean he was a ruthless piece of shit, but he wasn’t wrong about killing the king or really anything else. Little Finger for similar reasons.
I mean the entire situation of having kids with his sister was objectively stupid as hell 😂 it placed him, her, and any kids they had at risk for the rest of their lives.
There's a great desire within ASOIAF fandom to absolve some characters of all sins. Jaime was clearly wrong about his affair with Cersei, and it's literally the biggest issue in the books so far.
It was objectively stupid and I'm not pro-incest. And also. Cersei and he were both willing participants in the relationship and while I find the relationship objectionable, I don't think it is fair to make that alone a shorthand for him being evil. He was, in my mind, far less evil than his sister and ends up in a surprisingly redemptive and complex arc compared to cersei who just sort of keeps being way more evil and sadistic.
The War of 5 Kings happened because Jaime and Cersei couldn't stop banging despite her being married to the king. Quite a lot of people dead over their lack of control.
And Jaime never once reflects on this. He just doesn’t care, and even considers marrying Tommen and Myrcella at one point to justify his own relationship with his sister. Jaime is only concerned about the mistakes that are known, and not the ones he committed in secret. He wants to be redeemed in the eyes of the public. It’s why I don’t buy into his redemption arc.
Yeah, he's simultaneously not as bad of a person as your first impression of him, and... not a good person. He's done some good things! But lots of not good things too.
He threw a child out of a window!!!!!
But this ain’t about being evil or not. It’s about whether the villain characters named did the right thing(s). Having sex with a Queen is already pushing it. You’re putting yourself and her at risk. Having children is jumping straight off the cliff.
He wasn't wrong to push Bran off a tower?
Wouldn't you push the Night King off a tower?
He did it for love /s
> but he wasn’t wrong about killing the king or really anything else. Pushing Bran out the window.
I think Jaime Lannister is justified in killing Aerys. But in pushing Bran out a window and all the other acts to cover up him and Cersei? Nah, still has a lot of villainy under his belt. Jaime's right as often as he's wrong.
Jaime decided it was a good idea to not tell people his excellent reason for killing the king, then decided it was an even better idea to sit on the throne and be a snarky dick head when Ned got there. But I’m really curious for you explanation on how Littlefinger of all people did nothing wrong?
> Besides an obligatory Magneto was right… Just gonna leave this very fitting quote here: > Venom is an example of a villain who evolved into a hero because he was popular with readers and writers decided to rehabilitate him. By contrast, Magneto evolved into a hero because every decade since Reagan it's harder and harder to pretend he's wrong
I think with Magneto it comes down to the writers, especially for the movies. It’s not that hard to conceive of a way where a character can have the right motivation and take too extreme an approach. The problem is the movies bend over backwards to justify Magneto while not giving any reason to Professor X other than moral superiority. Take First Class. Eric was a holocaust victim who, after hunting down other former Nazis, gets a chance to kill an otherwise immortal Nazi who not only killed his mom and tortured him as a child, but was also on the brink of starting a nuclear war. Charles, on the other hand, decided to try and stop him because murder is wrong, morals he picked up in his days of using his powers to drunkenly hit on college chicks. They both have different ideas of how the humans will treat their kind, but the movie proves Magneto right once again by having both sides of the Cold War, upon seeing mutants, jointly decide to kill them all. That’s not a story where they gave any weight to Xavier’s side.
X-Men really encapsulates two big problems with comic book writing * there can never be any improvements to the status quo because that undermines the central premise, but that *also* undermines the central premise. (See also: superheroes never killing their rogues, even after the 19th incident of unrepentant mass murder). * Using people with superpowers as stand-ins for real-world marginalized groups inadvertently rationalizes bigotry
> there can never be any improvements to the status quo because that undermines the central premise All the Fall of Krakoa nonsense encapsulates this. I would’ve gladly read actual mutant utopia krakoa, with, like, minor interpersonal drama and political intrigue for a few more years before nuking it. It had the chance to weave some incredibly subtle yet complex narratives and they (marvel editorial) threw it away because they’re dickfucks.
Like especially with some of the horrible powers mutants especially have been shown to have, like that one who literally causes all organic matter around him to uncontrollably decay. Like it's perfectly conceivable that someone's mutant power could be to turn into godzilla or be a walking time bomb and just randomly blow up like a nuke one day.
On the other hand in one of the later films (I think Apocalypse, which to be fair had terrible writing) Magneto tried to kill every human ever, and Xavier was still saying "There's still good in you!"
Magneto and Killmonger (in the MCU) are good examples of the writer situation you're talking about. Killmonger had some really good points in the movie, and he had some decent motivations to do what he wanted to do. He could have easily have been a "good guy" if he changed 1 or 2 things, but the writers needed a "bad guy" and so they set him up to be a complex bad guy, and then they just said "Okay, he's too relatable and almost 'good', so now he commits genocide".
It's not just that. Comics have a very long history of setting up villains with highly sympathetic motivations that are relevant to social ills of the day, but with approaches that are too zealous or extreme to be acceptable by mainstream society. The heroes routinely defeat them, and then ignore the problems the villains were trying to address. According to some perspectives, this accidentally places comic heroes in the mode of a fascist police apparatus, (who's main reason for existence is to use violent power to enforce the status quo; not to actually solve problems). It's a huge issue with comic heroes, though I believe it only exists because the writers KNOW that narratively, their heroes possess the power to solve every social problem people face. But that doesn't exactly make for good reading, and maybe sends the wrong message also, that we should wait for ubermensch messiahs to solve our problems for us (when we should be solving them ourselves with the moral lessons taught in the comics). I suspect that a lot of comics writers have used the villains' motivations to shine a spotlight on issues of the day. Modern screenwriters see this problem too, so they make the bad guys problematic in ways that undermine the sympathetic motivations they display initially. Narratively it's a tough problem to solve, if you want the audience to engage with your antagonists on a level that more than "this dude is a bad guy' while still siding against them. It's also a cautionary tale that just because someone espouses a cause that's easy to identify with, doesn't mean that their entire agenda is pure. We should be much more critical even of those we agree with. Hard to make that message both clear and nuanced.
This. So much this, and great analysis of the comic books. I think the biggest takeaway is that Supeheroes only really work when there are Supervillains. It's easy to say "Big bad guy is going to destroy the city/country/world/civilization", but when those villains aren't around then you just have a super bully who's picking on someone who may have done a bad thing out of desperation. >According to some perspectives, this accidentally places comic heroes in the mode of a fascist police apparatus, (who's main reason for existence is to use violent power to enforce the status quo; not to actually solve problems). Batman is a perfect example of this. He's a multi-Billionaire playboy, in charge of one of the largest corporations in Gotham, and he uses MOST of his wealth wearing leather, buying overpriced gadgets and toys, and beating up low level bad guys at night. Other than the "main villains" in the Batman series (Joker, TwoFace, Penguin, etc), most of the time he is beating up henchmen (average joes, making minimum wage, living on the streets, and struggling to make ends meet). So Batman finds these henchmen, and then beats them up because they're "bad guys", and never addresses the main issue: that they may not go to crime if they had stable employment and pay. Batman's efforts don't help to stop the problem permanently, but Bruce Wayne's wealth could be spent to invest in jobs/medical/housing/welfare/etc. Yes, it's bad when a homeless person robs a random lady on the street, but beating him up with overpriced gear doesn't solve homelessness in Gotham. Beating him up doesn't make people less hungry/tired/desperate. Batman is basically a "super cop", and we've been reading more and more articles about how cops aren't following the laws anymore. Even though Gotham is filled with tons of rich people who aren't all doing legal things to make their wealth, and refusing to support the working class, Batman focuses all of his efforts on the lowest tier peons/goons/henchmen to "make the biggest difference".
>Batman is basically a "super cop", When the bat signal is lit, the one man SWAT team shows up
> most of the time he is beating up henchmen (average joes, making minimum wage, living on the streets, and struggling to make ends meet). Eh, I can't think of to many stories where that's the premise to be honest. Most of the time in the comics if he's beating up henchmen is cause their in the middle of a massive crime spree, we're not talking random pickpockets or shoplifting, more blowing up buildings and robbing banks at gunpoint. Other than that he usually goes after serial killers, gangsters or corrupt buisnessmen. > Batman's efforts don't help to stop the problem permanently, but Bruce Wayne's wealth could be spent to invest in jobs/medical/housing/welfare/etc. In the comics he does. Bruce Wayne and his subsidiaries pays for just about every social service within Gotham. The trouble is you can't make problems vanish by throwing money at it, especially when most of the city is so corrupt they happily steal the money (that was literally the premise of the latest movie). Batman is for dealing with the problems he can't solve through the proper channels. > Even though Gotham is filled with tons of rich people who aren't all doing legal things to make their wealth, and refusing to support the working class, Batman focuses all of his efforts on the lowest tier peons/goons/henchmen to "make the biggest difference". Like when? I mean the guy's very first appearance is him taking on a murderous chemical tycoon? I feel this sentiment the guy only goes after regular low-level criminals is something more common in parodies (mostly cause its the most obvious joke imaginable you could make) that at this point has displaced the actual stories. Even in most media, Batman is never shown going after anyone who isn't a serious criminal.
I mean, the writers did rehabilitate Magneto. Magneto becomes a good guy when he realizes being a terrorist is wrong. The other X-Men, notably Cyclops, become more like Magneto in some storylines, but they never go full terrorism mode. Even the mutant revolution stuff was more or less just empty threats and ended with peaceful protest.
Yeah I got a big disagree there. Jaime pushed a child out of a window for no reason than to hide his incest. As Varys said about Littlefinger, he will burn it all down to be king of the ashes.
>but he wasn’t wrong about killing the king or really anything else. The king, sure. Sitting on the throne was wrong. Having sex with his sister was wrong. Having incest babies was wrong. Pushing bran out of the window was wrong. Starting a sword fight with ned in the streets was wrong. Killing his cousin in the cell was wrong. Supporting a knowingly false claim and therefore war was wrong. There's probably more.
Had me at Magneto, was still hanging with you about the King Slayer thing, but hard cap at "really anything else," dude was so horned up for his sister that he had sex with her where someone could stumble upon them, then tried to murder the kid of the Lord of Winterfell.
Depending on which rendition you of him you pick, but Dr Doom. He is seen as someone who is just fully utilitarianism that is driven to extreme authoritarianism to accomplish that. Even with Bast seeing him as a fully selfless person doing everything as its the only possible way he saw humanity being stopped from demise.
Magneto gets only more and more correct with each passing year.
Miles Edgeworth is a pompous ruthless asshole, but does everything legal as a prosecutor and for his sense of justice. I still hate his smug personality, yet he still only goes after people he truly believes to be guilty and only uses evidence he believes to be legitimate. Itachi could be seen by some as being right potentially.
The real villain is the Japanese justice system
I mean, I like Edgeworth just as much as the next gal but I'm not sure what's supposed to be legal or legitimate about a last minute "updated autopsy report" :D
there are MANY villains who try to do the right thing. what makes most of them villains is that they tried to do it in the wrong way.
The Skybreakers in the Stormlight Archive are morally right for siding with the Singers/Parshendi. And for that matter, the Singers are also in the right. They were enslaved by humans who invaded their homeland, and abandoned by their God (Honor) who instead gave their invaders super powers, which they used to further enslave them and ultimately commit a genocide of them. The humans on Roshar should be making concessions of land and reparations to the Singers, not fighting them.
I was legit hoping this was where the story would go, but then it veered into “the evil god supports the Singers and the good god supports the humans and it’s a divine war” unfortunately
I'm still hoping this changes when the bad god is defeated without the war being decided
That's an incredibly simplistic view of what's going on.
Catherine Foundling but then again she's the protagonist. Fundamentally Catherine >!works out how useless Heroes are in book 1. The power of Good as a purely reactive force cannot change the world. Her choice of becoming a Villain for the sake of the world is the only one that can work. After all it is the realm of Evil to look at the whole world and decide it is wrong and it needs to change to suit your desires.!<
For anyone else reading this is from Practical Guide to Evil
Is Practical Guide to Evil self published? I was looking for book or audiobook, and I can’t seem to find anything with that title
The original web serial is available on the author's wordpress site and an edited version is being/has been released on Yonder. The author plans to get it published when they can, but it's still at least a few years out, last I heard.
I'd argue she's still not right though. She chooses to join the side of Evil, but it's consistently shown that evil specifically loses BECAUSE it doesn't make the world a better place. The current evil overlord is an exception rather than the rule, and the forces of evil lose because they're just too unstable. She even changes throughout the story due to that.
Evil loses because there's an exact balance between Good and Evil. Evil empowers Villains generically while Good empowers Heroes just to confront and defeat the Villains. Amadeus has a great rant about it, all the power of Good is basically focused solely on messing up the Villains day whereas Evil normally only cares about the Heroes in so far as they are an obstacle. So Heroes can learn a secret power, that takes a Villain 20 years to master, in a day because that is literally all the Gods Above are focused on. This is how the active nature of Evil and the reactive nature of Good play out. Nearly every relevant fixture in the series is something put together by the Villains. The Heroes just give everyone space to live with the horrors that plague the world. This is fundamental to the way the Good gods work, they do not give the power to move the world. They give the power to stop Evil in a given moment. The key to the whole mess is >!Evil doing its thing with the tacit approval of the Heroes. Using Evil's facility for change but doing so in a way that the Heroes will accept!< which is exactly how the series plays out.
In Spiderman: Homecoming, Vulture had a very good point. He wasn't entirely right in that I don't think murder was justified, but Stark was pretty much the bad guy from Vulture's perspective, and stealing from *him* really doesn't seem all that bad. My favorite antagonists are ones you can at least understand, if not root for.
Did Vulture ever actually murder anyone? I know he accidentally kills one of his guys with alien tech, and he threatens to kill Parker, but that just seems like a big bunch of bluster until Spiderman basically forces him into a deadly situation.
Indirectly. Selling weapons of mass destruction is a great way to get people killed. Stark’s whole lesson from the first movie is about him realizing this. While he didn't intend to kill “The Shocker” he doesn't feel too bad about doing it.
Black Dow wasn't really black, and he was right to betray Logen and take his crown. Dogman's a cunt to oppose him in the name of his childhood friend who he knows to be a madman.
I mean, u can't expect a man named Dogman to not be loyal despite any flaws. /s
Wellll... Black Dow certainly earned his reputation but he WAS right to betray Logen. The man had to be warned by Three Trees not to rape like several times in the first book iirc.
You do recall correctly.
I'd call him "neutral" on betraying Logen. It's just one violent strongman vs another. > Dogman's a cunt to oppose him in the name of his childhood friend who he knows to be a madman. You're missing the point. Dogman isn't doing a whole war for the sake of Logen's feelings, they were becoming estranged at the end of the trilogy. He's fighting to establish a protectorate because Dow is a monster.
The Inchoroi in the Second Apocalypse series are not justified in all their actions (being, you know, rape monsters from space). But their basic position that an afterlife of torment followed by having your soul devoured by the gods sucks a sufficient quality of shit for no afterlife at all to be preferable does seem like it pencils out on a Utilitarian basis. It doesn't help that the morals of the gods aren't particularly savory to begin with.
Bakker did absolutely brilliant work w that. It genuinely bothers me that we'll probably never get more fantasy lit from him because he was writing concepts no one else was even thinking about.
Bakker is legitimately one of my favorite authors. I've heard he's got one more entry planned in the series, but it seems like he was not particularly financially successful, which is really unfortunate. Because you're absolutely right that the books are brilliant.
The rumour mill comes and goes w this, I understood he had a final/further series planned, the publisher dropped him, he got frustrated, toyed w self-publishing, and bailed on the entire writing fantasy thing. Ive seen reference to his brother stating on social media that he was writing again, but i've never seen it. The way the second series ends, >!Second Apocalypse triggered, No-God active, Inchori and Dunyain wrecked, army in shambles, Kel supposedly dead, insane Nonmen and mages floating around clueless, Akka and co on the run, !
Victor Vale
I feel like thats a bit far fetched. He may be somewhat justified, but he isnt right just because Eli is worse.
Loll. I mean he's right for wanting to put down Eli but killing people who can't heal you is a bit insane no? (he's still cool cause he's got that found family stuff going on for him)
The hyenas in the Lion King. Scar might be a wannabe fascist dictator, but the hyenas are just excluded from the kingdom and the circle of life. Why? Wouldn’t you pissed of against a monopolistic system that exclude your entire race from it. Wouldn’t you want to rebel against it. Thank god, the status quo is restored by the end of the movie and the rightful heir gain back his crown. Hyenas can be oppressed again.
The hyenas were indiscriminately eating too much and destroyed the ecosystem. They had no restraint.
There's recklessly destroying the ecosystem and then there's God hating your ass and delivering drought and permanent darkened skies on your realm.
I feel like it was mentioned in the movies too, although just briefly
I don't think the Hyenas were intended to symbolize an oppressed minority in this case. I think they're meant to represent the 'brown-shirts-in-waiting' who exist in the shadows of every society, and are always willing to support a piece of shit dictator if they're promised the right rewards in a future regime--no matter the cost to anyone else.
Poison Ivy
“Billionaire white man beats down green-skinned climate activist”
Eh in which version? Over the years she's done everything from killing people for stepping on the grass, to trying to wipe out humanity, to robbing banks cause she wants to be rich.
HOMURA DID NOTHING WRONG. Madoka's wish was unsustainable and at a huge personal cost, Homura wasn't gonna just sit and watch how her girlfriend commits cosmic suicide and do nothing. ~~Yeah i know Incubators are the villains, but Homura turned into Lucifer at the end of Rebellion~~
My theory is still >!Godoka is going to come and hunt down Homura to reclaim her teenage persona. When that happens Madoka will inevitably step in and fight Godoka, being the only person who can. Homura will be forced to sit there watching her best friend kill herself to defend her.!<
Zaheer from the Legend of Korra (to some extent) The series also touches the subject of his morality later in the series when Toph (I think) mention how many of the series villains have had the right idea but a completely skewed execution. He stood for freedom and getting rid of corrupteaders, which I think is a good thing, but his way of just getting killing the earthqueen resulting in a power vacuum isn't the way forward. Amon has the same thing going for him of wanting equality, but his idea of equality being just to kill all of the benders, whilst also being a bender himself, is another example of having the right idea, but a completely skewed execution
Zaheer wasn't just about killing corrupt leaders. He was a anarchist. He disagreed with the entire concept of government completely. Which I mean you may agree with, but simply thinking that corrupt leaders are bad and shouldn't be in power, doesn't mean you are agreeing with Zaheer. He wants to take it much, much further. Edit: I missed your (to some extent) comment. But I still think pointing out his anarchism is important. I find a lot of these types of threads always devolve into 'Well if you ignore everything that made them wrong then they were actually right'. Which I mean, I get. It is hard to tell a story where a villain (not just an antagonist) is 100% actually in the right. It kind of goes against the concept of a villain.
Zaheer also randomly decided to kill the Avatar, despite them being the ones fighting against corrupt world leaders. Amon was NOT about killing benders. He was about making them non-benders. Because we live in a world without bending, where inequality still exists, we know he was wrong, but it was still far more sympathetic than Zaheer's insane nonsense.
Zaheer tried to kill off the corrupt leaders - and the avatar that allowed them to stay in power the whole time was a symbol of authority too. When the whole of history the avatar can pull from is all also assholes that stood by and let shit happen, you can kinda see why he wanted to at the very least end the cycle.
>Zaheer also randomly decided to kill the Avatar It’s not really random when you consider Zaheer is an anarchist. Anarchists hate hierarchies. You know, the whole “No gods, no masters” thing. And what could be closer to a god in that world than the Avatar? He also makes more sense when you realize he’s not just against corrupt world leaders, he’s against *all* world leaders. He doesn’t kill the Earth Queen for being corrupt, he kills her for being Queen.
Agreed but the whole "right idea wrong execution" thing was more a failure of the writing than anything else. It falls into the classic liberal storytelling trope of creating compelling villains who want to force some kind of radical societal change, and then making them do something cartoonishly evil to make sure the audience knows they're bad guys and have to be stopped. The heroes then physically defeat them and the underlying status quo stays the same. It stems from the insecurity of knowing that if it was a clash of ideals and social movements, the status quo warriors would lose - much like how genuine revolutionary rhetoric in real life is either squashed or misrepresented by its most extreme offshoots. Amon was probably the worst example of this, but I'd say Zaheer falls into this boat as well. Marvel is also really bad for this kind of thing. Like Killmongee and the Flag Smashers
Archaon from Age of Sigmar is very ends justify the means, but his end goal is noble. The chaos gods of the warhammer universe are essentially playing a game where they see how long it takes forneach universe to fall to chaos and destroy itself and whichever chaos god reigned at the time wins that round. Archaon is the "everchosen" meaning he is one of the few who claims boons from all the chaos gods, and as such he is their main champion. His end goal is to sap enough favor from the gods so he can kill all of them, granting the mortal realms a universe free from their influence where everyone can choose to live freely.
Archaon still wants to be the super dictator of all the realms after he's done with all the gods. Just because he secretly hates the Chaos gods and wants them pushed back doesn't mean he's doing it for charity.
TBH Archaon is still the ultimate dupe in the universe. The only person who could have outright defeated Chaos chose to become their champion instead because a statue of Sigmar wouldn't talk to him. Now he's decided he wants to destroy Chaos... Nobody that deep in the Dark Powers influence can meaningfully harm them.
The Weaver in First Law Age of Madness, kinda. Hard to say this without spoilers but they're right in trying to tear down a beyond unjust system, set up only to benefit a certain true leader. It's really a villain fighting a villain. I just don't agree that the certain true leader would react (or have such a lack of reacting) as they did through what happened. Knowing that character at the first sign of the burners/breakers having a chance there would have been a swift and brutal reaction, and that there weren't any contingencies in place to stop what happened was super surprising to me. Spoiler for the end of the series >!There is no way in heck Bayaz would have allowed to happen what did. He already knows to keep an eye out for Glokta. He knows Glokta's intelligence and will. He knows Glokta hates him. He knows how to stamp out revolution, he must because he's ruled the union from afar for 600 years straight, no doubt he's had to stamp out multiple. Bayaz is one of and if not the richest person on the planet, only Khalul can compare, and Bayaz can throw that weight around. Bayaz has the most access to spies because of 600 years building the network in the nation he built and near infinite funds. I don't believe anyone could mobilize a whole city revolt without him noticing.!<
This post contains major plot spoilers for AoM and the First Law. Read at your own peril. To attempt to rebuke your argument that Bayaz would never let something like that happen, well, he already has. Bayaz has a history of pissing off to the Northern Library and doing nothing for a really long time. Just look at before Jezal's era, when Bayaz let the Union practically slip out of his control for the extent of maybe half a reign after Arch Lectur Zola died (sorry, I don't know spelling because I listened to the books rather than read them). Bayaz has consistently been lax with the Union, because he simply can't be bothered at all times, and he would rather pop up ever 50 years, save it, soak up the adoration, and then leave again. He has done it once before, and then once after, so we can begin to observe it as a trend, and it is, one, narratively consistent, and, two, consistent with the character. An example is he doesn't strike against Khalul until he's almost already lost. Also, Bayaz does recognize Glockta's intelligence, but you forget that, to him, all people are just things. He doesn't fear Glockta, not anymore than anyone else, because he's just one of those little insect creatures always getting in his way. They're all just tools to him to get a job done. No more terrifying than a nail is to the hammer. And I think maybe we underestimate how much of this really was to his plan. It's well documented that he likes to plow the fields every so often, letting Calder go to war with Union, for example. I think he firstly didn't predict Rikke being so tricky, and he didn't predict that Glockta would align with Eaters. Losing Yuru and Calder, and by extent, the North and his number 1 henchman, were likely his two greatest blunders, and all the rest he couldn't care less about. He was probably willing to let there be a time of change in the Union, but he didn't predict it would get so out of hand so quickly. As for the Breakers and Burners... I think Glockta was really doing a great job of suppressing them, but he was also secretly overseeing them, with Pyke's help. Bayaz had no real cause to worry, and Glockta even says that his time table was utterly ruined after the first revolt, and he had to hurry things along. He said something like people tend to go their own way, and his hand in it was trying to steer them to course, but he failed successfully and worked with the pieces. If things had gone perfectly for him, it would have been much cleaner than what we saw, but, as he always says, we must work with the tools we're given. He didn't mobilize a whole cities revolution. Rather, it came naturally from the actions he was taking against them, which worked almost in tandem with his plan and enabled the rest of it to slot into place. And by then, I think probably by the very start of the Age of Madness trilogy, it was already too late for Bayaz to stop Glockta. Even killing him, I think it would have still unfolded more or less similar to what we saw, because Glockta organized a people's revolt to work in his benefit by oppressing said people.
To continue with spoilers. I like this explanation, but it seems between trilogy 1 and trilogy 2 Bayaz went through quite a large depowering. He seemed to be almost omnipresent in the union in the first trilogy. Funding Glokta, travelling West, making Jezal win the tournament, putting Jezal on the throne, even taking his seat on the council and all with minimal trouble. It seems he has a finger in every pie already. The only things that gives him pause is seeing Tolomei, then in the second trilogy he continually messes up, and leaves before he can even start to fix his mistakes. I hope we get more of his viewpoint in the next trilogy because if the problems he left to deal with aren't bigger than the revolution at home it'll kinda ruin his threat. He has no bank, he has no union, the south is getting to be a bigger problem, the north he only has some allied with him, and all because he went to chat to his sister. It won't take much and his only options will be the seed and fireballs. He is thousands of years old, thats a long time to learn how to plan and manage, and he left himself wide open. If he's that susceptible how had Kahlul not done similar to take him down already?
Kahlul did get really close, though, with his Eaters and the siege of Adua, and he didn't even show up himself. If not for the seed, which was the medieval and magical equivalent of spawning a mythical nuke and detonating it in your own city to beat your foe, Bayaz would have been defeated and killed in that very chapter he activated it. I really think people give Bayaz too much credit in terms of how competent he is. He's an ill tempered, spiteful old man stuck attempting to relive past glories, who is also stuck in an eternal dick measuring match with his oldest rival Khalul. He's the absolute best in the world at making plans, undoubtedly, but the second there's a wrench thrown in the mix, he just as prone to folly as everyone else. He has shown many times that he is just as human as everyone else and can fail to adapt. Look at Styria and Shenkt, look at the Styrian wars, and look at how close he was to defeat when Khalul came knocking. It's not too hard to see Khalul destroy Bayaz when he's already gotten so close. Plus, the magic leaks from the world, so much of Bayaz's strength fades with the years. When was the last time we saw him do anything magical? He relied on Sulfur, and he's gone now, so what's left for him? He has to default on his influence and money, and more on that now. In terms of Bayaz's influence being whittled away off screen, that's a fair point. My best counter to that is a theory, so take it as you will. I think it's likely that since he was gone for so long, and Glockta was in his place, all that influence defaulted to Glockta. Who did you go to get things done in the Union that whole time? Not Bayaz, because how do you reach him? So probably Glockta, or one of his puppets on the Closed Council, or potentially someone on the Open Council, but that would be muddied by the politicking, where if Glockta says a thing gets done, it happens. The difficulty there is just getting him to say yes. So, much of Bayaz's influence whittles away naturally in his absence, and it defaults to Glockta. Also, with the event of investors, some of Bayaz's dominance over the markets opens up. He still controls the coin, but now these investors have stakes in land, in resources, in factories that practically print money. It's natural then that Bayaz loses some of that influence over the social spheres, because nobody is going to the banks anymore. They go to Savine, or people like her, and they front the money and take some off the top of the profits. That's why Sulfur is always at her events, trying to get her ear, because he knows this is now where the true heart of the money is. Really, as I write this, I'm starting to see how truly brilliant Bayaz's fall is in the AoM. What else could topple the dominant government backed bank other than the private investor? Now, with all that said, Bayaz is still very formidable. No one has experience scheming as he does, and sometimes happy accidents do occur for him, and bad ones, too. And there's one thing I've conveniently left out so far, and that is Bayaz is practically immortal, and, despite his many tantrums, he is very patient. He has seen the old world crumble, only to help the new one be born, and then watch it crumble and be reborn likely countless times over. I don't think he's really too worried about the Union, and he has some things cooking in the back. He strikes me as a man who's very bored, so he's probably glad of the contest. And Glockta is mortal. He will die one day, and likely his schemes with him unless Savine can replace him. Bayaz knows this, and he has the two most important virtues on his side. Time and patience. On a side note, I wonder which way Joe will go with Glockta. Will he have it be cyclical, and Glockta just becomes Bayaz, or will he actually do what he said he will and create a better world. Knowing Joe, it'll be cyclical, but I think it would be a breath of fresh air if Glockta genuinely reforms the system to be better. It could lead to a new political landscape, a new era of Union dominance, and lead to a more dynamic story. Edit: I would also like to add, the First Law happens at a point where all the characters have already lived most of their lives. They've made their mistakes, and they're living through the consequences. For that reason, Bayaz has plenty of favours to call on from the older, established generation, and that's what leads him to be so omnipresent. Where, with AoM, we see a Union navigating a new course. That older generation indebted to Bayaz is being phased out. Savine taking over the investment industry, and Leo stepping up as governor of Angland over his mother whose name I forget right now, and Orso stepping up for Jezal. The only exception here is Savine really, because her father is still present up until the civil war, but he actively encourages her to avoid Bayaz and owe him no favours. That's what enables all the crazy events to happen, because if Leo was indebted to Bayaz like his mother, we likely wouldn't get the civil war, and then what chain of events collapses from there? Same with Savine and Vick and Broad and Rikke. These people are making their mistakes, rather than living with them, and they owe nothing to Bayaz, allowing them to operate opposite to Bayaz's agenda. A good example is when Finree (I remember her name) tries to stop Leo at the docks from rebelling, and he just says no. Had he known what Finree did, chances are that goes differently. It's a case of wrong place, wrong time for Bayaz.
The Dark One in The Wheel of Time. Having watched the show I'd want to destroy the universe too.
Watched season one, haven't bothered with season two. They missed the mark for me, it felt more like a generic fantasy series than WoT.
Was The Eye of the World not generic fantasy? Teenagers flee their isolated village after a dark lord's inhuman army attacks it, going on a magical adventure culminating in facing the dark lord's lieutenants? Doesn't get particularly subversive until later.
It was/is, but it does still have its own identity, and it's own distinct moments that stand out. The show removed or radically changed basically every single one of the "cool" moments I wanted to see, while also heavily retconning the setting and completely rewriting several character (and significantly changing almost all of them).
The classic answer would be Milton‘s Paradise Lost, where Lucifer is pretty sympathetic. Whether a character can actually be right, not just sympathetic or understandable, and still be the villain, is the real question though.
I mean, not particularly sympathetic. He fed into the interests of many of the angels of heaven, causing them to wage war with God because he was jealous that God wasn't going to see him (Lucifer) as the favorite even though he never promised that and always mentioned the Son of Man sitting at his right hand. He then tries to introduce death and sin to the Garden of Eden because he's throws a fit, and even when he sees everything he lost and almost repents, he admits he's jealous too and would rather watch the world burn then get over it. I mean, that doesn't sound like a dude in the right, lol. Also, sympathetic in the sense that it's possible that a human would do that, but I hope no human would be so jealous as to do that
Book 3 has always been my favorite and I think it destroys any sympathy that can be found for Lucifer. If someone really wanted to hurt you, what would be more effective.. attacking you or attacking your children? In book 3 we see Gods grief and desperation for his children, and it’s a really beautiful illustration of his grace and what it cost him. And it leaves me hating Lucifer.
Um, did you READ Paradise Lost? Luci was NOT sympathetic. It was teased that he might be, but the whole point of the story was that he sucks, has always sucked, and will always suck. Everything is a big whiny temper tantrum, and he's not actually grand or beautiful at all. The more petulant he gets, thus revealing more of who he really is, the uglier he becomes - because he's always been an ugly, sad, whiny thing.
a lot of the morally complex/grey villains tend to be right with some assessment of the world but their methods to fixing it was always fucking wrong.
Mistborn spoilers: The Lord Ruler. Been a while, but from memory he got access to powers wayyy above any mortals abilities, and fucked it up. As a follow up, he had to choose between 2 shit sandwiches, and he chose the one with the best bread to turd ratio.
He wasn't forced to do any of the stuff that made him a villain in the first book.
This is true. Vin and Sazed don’t really blame the lord ruler for what he did when he held the shards, they say it was hard to control anything as well, the problem is very clearly that he starts off as a piece of shit who is racist and sent with the expedition to stop the other guy from even getting there, performs genocide and controller breeding against an entire race while also creating a brand new race of people to be enslaved
Nearly every action he took was aimed at preservation of his own power. He did some small things to prepare for the coming crisis but most of what he did was just unnecessary.
At the same time, he justified his actions by believing that he had to hold on to power because in his mind, he was the only one who could prevent the freeing of Ruin. He believed what he was doing was a necessary evil in service of the greater good.
> He wasn't forced to do any of the stuff that made him a villain in the first book. Not exactly. It's been a bit since I read the books, but humanity basically needed some kind of central authority in order to survive on a planet that wasn't really habitable anymore. It's like being on a space station--democracy is great and all, but one serious conflict, one famine or epidemic or war that leaves not enough hands to do the farmwork and everybody dies. So everything he did was in pursuit of an authoritarian society that could endure his mistake. He ensured survival, and I think it's a safe bet that humanity would have gone extinct if he'd tried to be moral rather than effective. It got away from him in a lot of ways, but I think it's a good lesson in why an authoritarian regime pretty much always devolves into a horror show if it goes on long enough. Pair that with a thousand years of Ruin whispering in his head, and I think he had the right idea and *mostly* succeeded, even if he allowed a lot of evil to exist in his society.
I think maybe they're talking about his choice to kill the original hero guy and take the power to fix the world's problems himself. Every choice after that was him trying to unfuck the mistakes he made until they all ended up in a shitty new equilibrium.
The hero guy was going to release ruin, so I don’t think that was a mistake
I mean, your assumption is that Ruin was inherently evil. He's not. He's the embodiment of change. Without Ruin, the rebellion against the Lord Ruler would have been useless because Preservation would have been perfectly happy keeping things the way they were. Feruchemy also wouldn't have worked. The problem was they weren't balanced and since Ruin had gained a little bit of an upper hand the world was going to have to deal with him. I imagine that if Preservation had had the edge, the world would have been in just a rough place but in a slightly different way. I think it would have been something like how when the Light got too strong in World of Warcraft that one time.
You need both in balance for life to thrive. Preservation ruined the balance by trapping Ruin, and began to die/lose power. So if Ruin was released, then Ruin has the advantage and can do as they will(destory things). It's the problem with the shards as separate entities, they take it to the extreme because they don't have other intents to balance them. Ruin isn't inherently evil, but unchecked ruin is. TLR wasn't wrong to stop the hero, but he fucked up in repairing the damage and made things worse, while still keeping Ruin trapped.
All they said was that preventing Ruin's release wasn't a mistake, your comment is barely relevant. Ruin is a god who wants to destroy the world, that's really all there is to it.
Nah. He did some things right, stockpiling and building shelters to prepare for Ruin's return. Trying to keep Ruin sealed away. But he could have done all of that without being a racist tyrant.
There’s also decent arguments in favor of the tyranny being made in the thread, but that doesn’t excuse how he went about it. He could’ve ruled with an iron fist, but done so fairly rather than forcing horrors upon the Skaa and the Terris.
He definitely did some good things, but he also set up a society with a slave class, and murdered tons of people including children because of how they were born and set up a society where women were regularly raped and then killed so there was no chance they could have a child.
The final empire was a complete hellscape for no good reason. Him screwing up the climate is one thing but the 1000 years of treating the majority of the population as worth less than animals was in no way needed to stop the apocalypse.
Taravangian
Well, that really is to be seen is it not...
Mr. T's biggest fault is that he thinks he's in a grim dark book.
We'll find out in a few months. Or at least know more. But it's heavily hinted that >!he's just going to turn into another Odium, but instead of just being driven by emotion he'll be highly intelligent too!<
Spoiler warning for the subs below r/moashdidnothingwrong Pre-ROW tho Now its r/fuckmoash
Denethor from “The Lord of the Rings” Denethor’s actions are driven by despair, a sense of duty, and the influence of Sauron’s manipulation. The palantír (seeing-stone) he uses shows him distorted visions, leading him to believe that all is lost and that the fall of Gondor is unavoidable.
The films did my man Denethor so dirty. While he may be scary, and goes crazy from hopelessness because Sauron’s twisted visions betray him, he does not deserve to be pictured as the guy he is in the movie. He is a misled noble man that is driven to madness and wants to die with honor.
Strong vote for Adrian Veidt (Ozymandias) here. Seen from Veidt's viewpoint, the moment Jon Osterman accidentally became the "Dr. Manhattan" life form, the already-tense Cold War was destined to go into planet-dooming overdrive -- another superpower would eventually recreate a Manhattan-being, or strive to co-opt Manhattan's entire support system, or just plain nuke 'em cause there's no way to win against Blue God. Put more plainly, Manhattan was the next logical iteration of the nuke, and thus escalated the conflict. Perhaps an objective viewer might have tried to follow *Fail-Safe* (1962 novel), making a big public show of saying "Here, we destroyed Dr. Manhattan, here's incontrovertible proof, we did it to re-balance the scales, now everyone can be equal again" -- but this didn't work, because (a) no one could figure out how to destroy him, and (b) there was probably no 'incontrovertible proof' any nation-state would ever believe that the top dog nation-state had truly surrendered its advantage. Veidt saw that the only true "balancer" or "unifier" was a new meta-meta-threat -- whether alien incursion or that-Manhattan-guy-going-rogue -- and took steps accordingly. Even Osterman (Manhattan) agreed with his methods when he saw the result.
Ishmael The "creator" has imprisoned the world in an endless cycle of repetition where lives and souls reincarnate without end. A universe without entropy has no meaning. Death is essential for life to mean something and the wheel doesn't die. Playing Elden Ring make me see that Marika was wrong to remove death from the ring. That's essentially what the "creator" in WOT has done. The Great Lord seeks to free us from that endless meaningless cycle and make their universe more like hours. Ishmael saw it
Moby Dick sounds very different from what I thought it was like.
> Death is essential for life to mean something and the wheel doesn't die. I think Ishamael's position is under-appreciated. I fundamentally disagree with it, but it's philosophically sound. That being said, I think death is an end to meaning rather than necessary for meaning. Nothing can change the fact that something *has* happened, or that things *are* happening. ...But to have a universe where nothing will happen ever again? That's a tragedy beyond thinking, to me. Something doesn't have to be unique or temporary to have meaning.
> Death is essential for life to mean something and the wheel doesn't die. I disagree, and insist you do not add death to my existence. I believe that would be called murder. The problem with the wheel was that its a pretty bad universe to live in for large parts of the cycle. But an endless cycle of "arcadian rural paradise -> sci-fi paradise -> arcadian rural paradise". Sign my soul up.
Ishamael's position was provably wrong. There is no inevitable victory for the Dark One. He tried once and he failed. Rand's soul will never lose because he didn't lose, it will just endlessly repeat.
I think whether Ishmael is right depends on how closely the Wheel of Time repeats. Is there going to be another cycle where exactly Rand does exactly the same stuff, or is there just going to be another Dragon who confronts a broadly similar situation with changed details? Whether I agree with him really depends on which it is.
We were frequently told that prophecies were not guaranteed and we see with Rand and Lews Therin that a soul can be extremely different in different lives, we see a ton of different courses of action Rand might’ve taken when he used the portal stone, and we see that the wheel has potential backups for both Rand and the Dark One. I think based on all of that I’d say it’s definitely meant to be the latter.