sympathetic villains were made because of the overwhelming amount of pure evil villains. now that the sympathetic villains are the majority, it's time for pure evil villains to come back
@@Random66860 but many currently find the sympathetic villains boring. “He’s evil!… Nvm, he’s misguided and just has trauma.” People are ready for a change
This is exactly what I've been thinking for years and honestly, BOTH can be done incredibly well or horribly bad. The author, execution and overall story is what will determine if the "pure evil for evils sake" or "evil until you know his story" works or not. People can prefer one or the other but there's never a "right answer" on which approach to take. It all comes down to a case by case basis cause there's good and bad examples for both sides
There's also cases where showing a tragic backstory elevates their villany, take Dio for example, he suffered a lot as a child, but one the Joestars adopt him he had a chance to be a good person, what does he do? Decide that he's gonna make Jonathan's life hell and kill his father to get an inheritence, then once that goes bad he decides to become a vampire and take over the world, having a tragic backstory doesn't make him sympathetic, it makes him an even bigger monster
"It was me, Dio!" and "It was me Barry!" Have that smug maliciousness you have to love in a villain. Fully acknowledged evil act, proud of it, going to do it again.
@@someonenothimi like your video and way you explain with a elocuent tone and yeah you should totally watch jojo many characters have such a remarkable charimas and good plot full of shenanigans.
@Soreal722 i deadass forget about the Under World arc. All i remember from "Dio's Kids" arc is that cowsuit weirdo that can control those flying tube creatures and Bohemian Rhapsody arc
"Some men just want to watch the world burn" is a good quote for pure evil. It doesn't value your soul, your exstince, it hates you, lucifer may make a deal with you but that doesnt mean he values your soul, he wants you to suffer, he wants you to be away from God, he is pure evil in its most prideful form, the lich from adventure time is pure evil is its most deadly form, he wants all life to cease, thats his mission
@@darlalathan6143 It does usually, as everything has good in it, it's based on it to decide what to do with it. OFcourse people who chose to be terrible aren't terrible 100% of time, it's the reason they can actually make functional friendships. However I do need to mention there is a difference in Empahtize and Sympathize, that is forgiveness you emphatize with a struggle of a person however you don't sympathize because that person chose to become terrible Shen you can Emphatize with his fear of the Unknown and destiny, you can't Sympathize with what he was willing to do for it. I believe Pure Evil Villains are those who litterarly lack humanity like the lich, Lich doesn't commit evil exactly becuase it's fun, he does it because thats his purpose, Fun would make it a human thing because people sometimes jsut do things becuase the fun of it overides everything else, be it good or evil. Pure evil does evil because of it, thats it in the same way pure good does the oppisite in the same way. Both are heavily flawed due to being extremes, Pure evil prevents you from ever experincing anything better from life and Pure good is Ironically corruptable because it can't really guarantee what is evil, since it mentally can't comprehend it meaning it can be diluded into believing a Certain evil is good because it doesn't understand evil enough to go against it.
So true, some ppl also forget that villains are villains you're not supposed to like them have them commit horrible act that makes you wanna hate them or cheer anytime the hero beat their ass
@@QuiteFunnyIsnt1t Sheev is basically an analogy for corrupt politicians and dictators. That's a character archetype which is hurt by having a sympathetic element
Exactly. You can sympathize with some villains and still denounce them for their actions. Joffrey Baratheon comes to mind. From his environment and 'upbringing', it's tragic that he never had a chance to become a good king, but it was still satisfying to see him die when his comeuppance came. Lotso from Toy Story 3 too.
Yeah, we are "allowed" to feel sympathy and understand what makes the villains to become what they are now. It never means we should agree with their actions
Depends what's meant by redeemable. A redemption story is always nice as people can always change and make up for their past mistakes. You can also have certain redeeming qualities about yourself yet your actions still be wrong
AM is honestly a great example. Sure, he does have good reason to be as angry as he is, but his actions are so petty that they go far beyond any justification you can make. Pure Evil can have a cause, the simple act of having one doesn't diminish from their evil.
As said by Red from Overly sarcastic productions when it comes to pure evil villains to paraphrase: "you can have pure evil characters because good writing is what services the story as is necessary. " So, you can have pure evil villains and sympathetic villains and everything else in between as long as you make it work in the story
@@nagisafurukawa1409 Emperor Belos also. We learned his backstory, and maybe you can relate to his fear of magic and why that eventually lead to his obsession with control. He was a great villain. He was also pretty far from redeemable.
@@nagisafurukawa1409 what about a certain villain who didn't have much growing up? Just loving parents, stability and a mansion...and a thriving bake goods entreprise for him to inherit. (Useless crap like that) Maybe a tragic backstory but still.
imagine pure evil villains that don’t have tragic backstories and instead have fortunate pasts where they were given everything they wanted by their parents, and was absolutely spoiled. nothing bad happened to them, and yet they turned evil.
What they've done with Frieza in recent years demonstrates that a villain can get character development without actually becoming a better person. He's still as sociopathic as ever but he's become more pragmatic and has started to embrace the fighting spirit of the heroes.
Id argue Frieza was damaged by his expansion. He went from the most powerful being in the universe and a tyrant to a petty servant of a lazy god and has gone from a legit intimidating force to a joke half the time
@@tenanaciouz Frieza was always a joke half the time though. Before Goku went Super Saiyan half of their fight was just Frieza getting bamboozled by him
I believe villains help teach a valuable lesson, sometimes you will face someone with no light in their eyes and you have to end it one way or another. “Some men just wanna watch the world burn.”
I take sympathetic villain backstories as lessons on what you should not do and what are the right things to do when faced with a similar situation as they (the villains) did.
"Every villain should be the hero of their own story" can be argued. That doesn't mean the villains' motives/causes must be relatable to the audience. They can be completely unrelatable and yet be good/heroic from their own perspective. We don't need to relate to any villains to understand that they have a different perspective that contradicts ours. We don't need to understand them. They have their own headspace. The point is therefore not to make villains relatable, it's to make them more than a machine. They have reason. That doesn't mean we have to understand, like or agree with that reason.
That makes me wonder. What about a story in which the hero cannot be understood? Like, he is the hero, full blow hero, but his motivations DO NOT EVER make sense for the audience.
This is the thing. A villain needs reasons to be evil. However the reasons don't necesarily need to be rational or make sense to the audience. Or even be remotely respectable. What matters is that on the villain's pov, he is the good guy. On the same note, I'd love more heroes with questionable reasons to be heroic. Sure they did the right thing, but... were they motivated by the right things? Or were they even selfish?
@@Jose-yt3qzI have something similar. Although not an outright "hero", a chracter I have is one of the "good guys" in the military. Yet he is a super selfish narcissistic psychopath that is there solely because he gets paid to end people and abuse recruits. Not a hint of goodness behind his actions.
@@rac1equalsbestgame853 Are you thinking of a character like the Comedian from Watchmen? A character who heroically puts his life at risk for the "greater good". But behind the scenes he brutally hurts good people while covering behind his status.
@@ETBrooD Idk which of the two replies you were replying to, but as for my chracter, he is an alcoholic narcissistic psycho that was conscripted to the military and stayed because he loves risk and eliminating people (would say the actual word but youtube). His actions are indeed risky and heroic, it takes someone especial to challenge mafia gangs with no fear whatsoever. But the intent behind his actions is simple psychopatic adoration for murder out of boredom.
Griffith is not a purely evil villain my guy. Literally his last thought as a human before the sacrifice was about how Guts was the only one that made him forget about his dream. Does that make Griffith decision less heinous? No, but you sure as hell cant call him pure evil. I am not a Griffith advocate by any chance but I hate how people spit on Miura's writing by making such a complex character as Griffith seem plain.
@@jahkeemgroves537 "Pure evil" shouldn't be an insult, nor a statement of plain writing. It's just a descriptor really. In the case of Griffith, he rejected any kind of moral or limitations hodling his dream his back. Yes he realized he built his road on pilars of corpses and that Guts made him lost focus. But that's precisely what make him pure evil: though knowing this, he still wished to have his feelings ripped apart in service of his ambitions. Chosing to be an ultimate being devoided of fears and doubts. Is there anything more terrifying than this?
@@benjaminthibieroz4155 While I agree with you on how "Pure evil" doesnt nessesarily imply plain writing, I completely disagree that Griffith's decision to go through with the sacrifice makes him "Pure evil". Saying such would simply be innacurate in Griffith's case as it took a lot and I mean a lot of event for him to get there. Gut's desertion, being tortured for a whole year, seeing Guts surpass him in skill and strenght when he got rescued, seeing Casca and Guts no longer needing him, and on top of that knowing that Guts would run off again with Casca this time to leave him rot as a cripple. All of those things led Griffith to make his choice, all of them being strong reasons to make it. It wasn't just that he wanted to be emotionless and become god to fulfill his dream but it was that or literally nothing.
To me personally, Pure evil is like a ghost. At first you think it's just basic nonsense only children would believe. And you may be right in some regard to think that. But then you see something unnatural while you're alone in the woods at night. Making you think, and fear, that what if it wasn't nonsense after all.
@@anomitas Or you just didn't get my point. There's a difference between pure evil that doesn't feel real and pure evil that feels real. I enjoy pure evil characters. I also fear pure evil characters that feel more real. But based on what you said, it's like you think you need to believe in childish thing's to enjoy pure evil characters. That sounds pretty condescending.
Pure evil is actually an oxymoron. Purity is opposed to evil, as all of evil is impurity; it's like how if something was 100% hole in itself, it would not exist whereas being "full of holes" is a spectrum of how holey it is. It can be so moth-eaten and punctured that there's no hopes of ever repairing it, and that's what most people mean by "pure evil" Or how if your body was ever 100% diseased, you'd be made entirely of pathogenic microbes with no host to _be_ diseased. Even the baddest dude in reality (Satan) isn't without positive qualities like ambition, intelligence, willpower, and gumption.
Something I will never understand from the people who insist that sympathetic villains are always the superior form of villain, especially when they say they’re relatable or realistic. Thing is though, they ignore the simple fact that people are often assholes. Everyone has their reasons and their sob stories but at the end of the day, many people act completely villainous and see no issues. Someone who pursues career success by sabotaging their peers probably has their reasons, but at the end of the day they’re not unaware of what it makes them, they’ve more than come to terms with what it means and they chose to do it anyway because it gets them what they want.
Exactly. I remember back when Persona 5 came out and people complained the villains of that game were irredeemable, and I always thought it was a dumb criticism because many people genuinely ARE just as bad as Kamoshida, Shido, etc.
Whenever people say they cannot imagine a good villain that isn’t sympathetic, I sometimes suspect a bit of intentional self-denial. To them, if actual evil can be imagined, they’ll have to assess their own actions in relation to that, and for many people, selfishness is too strong to let them want to do that.
@@DiamondKingStudios While not as omnipresent as the sympathetic villain trope, this reminds me of how I've seen some people talk about making heroes more ''relatable'' by making them more lazy and cynical (just like them, albeit they tend to not mention that). While both ideas can work depending on the story, it seems to stem into people's desire to be seen as good without doing the effort, leading to a reduction of what both villainy and heroism can truly be. After all, it's much easier to be a hero when you don't have to improve yourself and your perceived evil acts can be justified by your sympathetic reasoning.
"One just need to look at History and news documentaries to realize monsters in shape of humans aren't unrealistic at all." Ultimately, the role of the vilain is to be a threat. And a threat you can't comprehend, relate to or soften, is a far greater danger.
14:20 while there are exceptions Kajiu for the most part aren't necessarily considered pure evil more so forces of nature like how we would view a hurricane or tsunami.
Monsters are more like animals than natural disasters, because they do what they want to do, out of instincts, while hurricanes are gases and liquids moved by sunlight on the atmosphere. A tsunami is a wave caused by an earthquake.
1:45 Me looking at multiple ways of calling villains and I see that in the top right corner it says "Carlos": Oh yes, in my fictional story I made a great Carlos.
I like GRRM works bc he has a lot of gray and nuance in his stuff and his characters that are evil just for the sake of being evil are few and far between and even those he takes the time to add more to their personalities to make them feel like actual breathing people instead of a mustache twirling comic book villain
A good villain is a villain you hate so much that just seeing a bit of them makes your blood boil, thats when a villain becomes a good, heck even best villain.
I dunno I find it hard to hate villains like Judge Holden or AM, they are utterly irredeemable but just watching them exert their will upon the world they inhabit, it's sort of cathartic, because of how they achieve their dominance. With Holden for example hes a straight monster, yet he is insanely nuanced for a villian of his caliber.
@@thatprofessorguy8316he could have gotten his life set for him if he just accepted being Jonathan's brother but he resented him for having the easy life compared to him and then set out to ruin jonathan's life, poison his adoptive father and get the entire joestar fortune for himself, because of his upbringing maybe his backstory was sympathethic but in his mind it enabled him to do far greater evil
Trying to artificially make sympathetic villains undermines the historical fact/concept that people go through bad things and then come out bad people who do bad things. Do I wish to invalidate the suffering of say... Stalin (his dad became abusive and forced him and family to leave)? No, but I can recognize and say whilst it is sad, it doesnt justify his wrongdoings.
My man, couldn't you have used less ambigious example? Stalin was NOT evil (like many others, even Hitler wasn't). Pure evil does not exist in a real world, even psychopathic serial killers can be treated and redeemed (we just don't have resources to do so).
@valerianchole Stalin killed tens of millions, more than Hitler. Hitler killed millions and wanted to "cleanse" the world of anyone but the "pure" race. They were both very evil people who did evil things. Do not sympathize with or justify their behavior, I understand fheir pasts and the contexts of their historical situations but that is not an excuse or a valid reason
@@Leiliel1 show me an official document where Stalin unequivocally gives the order to commit genocide of certain nations. 'Red Fascism' is an oxymoron.
@@valerianchole Nazbols are litterally a thing bro. the mistake is not "red fascism is possible" the mistake is assuming evil commies must be fascists, no communism is evil by itself.
Godzilla does have a back story. It's the results of nuclear testing on the Bikini Atoll and represents natures wrath toward humanity. The Night of the Living dead was the same. Nuclear waste is dumped in a cemetery. George A. Romero chose zombies [ghouls] because "they are us". In Kaiju movies, humans are the monsters.
I love it when a pure evil villain is given a chance to redeem themselves and it's so well done you actually believe for a second it may happen but then they just go "Nah" it really doubles down on their evil while giving them a teeny tiny little bit of tragedy knowing what could have been.
You then fall into the trap of writing villains who are just comically evil and uninteresting I've grown tired of cardboard cut villains who the author shows is pure evil by either attempting assault on a female character or kills a lot of people
Villains always having a good reason to be bad doesnt work, like in real life, some poeople will do some herendous shit while being absolutelly aware of what they re doing and the consequences of their actions or maybe they just dont care, not everyone has a sob story
On this subject, I found All for One from My Hero Academia to be a breath of fresh air. The dude simply had power and wanted to use it to his end goals. He wanted to be evil, no sob story or the hero of their own story bs. All were tools and everything necessary was permitted.
The man saw literal comic book supervillains as such an aspirational influence for him that he decided to basically become The Devil himself because mere supervillainy was too small time for him
Love seeing stuff like this while trying to write my own stories. Been trying to make sure that my villain comes off as pure evil, so a video dedicated to characters like this is perfect.
That’s why I love Aizen, he is pure evil because he never apologizes or seeks forgiveness from the people he’s hurt since it was all by design to show how futile it is to fight against him. He was blessed with near limitless strength and intellect so he abuses it, simply because he could and that was all the reason he needed.
What? Aizen isn’t evil for fun, he has a very clear plan and he actively wants to replace The soul king because he dislikes how the god of the bleach universe is nothing more than an spectator
@@KvngLeroy1 I never once said Aizen was evil for fun. I said that he is evil because he has immense power so he uses it for personal gain, which is true. I’m not making Aizen out to be evil for the sake of evil, I even say “all by design” in the original comment. So I’m well aware of what Aizen wanted to accomplish but he ruined his own plan trying to prove his superiority against Ichigo just to lose horribly and even before that he was trying to kill Ichigo’s friends which gave Ichigo the time he needed to train and defeat him. Aizen is incredibly intelligent but his fatal flaw is that flaunts and talks about his own power so much he tends to underestimate the strength of others, which was his undoing against Ichigo.
@@YamagiHQ Aizen is sympathetic villain by definition since we actually know why he's doing what he's doing. We don't have to feel empathy for him, but at least we have an idea of his thought process.
It's ironic that sympathetic villains are always good in a way, unlike people with only sympathy and no criticism in their lifes, no one stops them from turning into a beast
It just DEPENDS, every story needs different things if your story is that everyone is a good person inside then you need a villain who is sympathetic but if you tell the story that not everyone deserves redemption then you can make a pure evil villain
Not at all, if anything it's the opposite. Villains are usually supposed to challenge the protagonists worldview, look at batman and the joker, batman believes everyone can be redeemed, while the joker is completely irredeemable and everyone is just 1 bad day away from becoming like him. If you have a hero that from the start absolutely wants to redeem everyone, and the only villain is someone that can be redeemed, then you aren't going to have a very complex story. And it's the same the other way around.
@Battyj That's not what I said, you're talking about something on a character level, I said on a story level, if THE STORY is about us all having something good inside you can't make a completely evil villain, because you're shooting yourself in the foot
@@Battyjyou seem to be missing a huge point and your example disproves you quite easily. An antagonist is the obstacle you are talking of, a villain is defined by their actions. Not every villain in batman is like the joker, and some absolutely can be redeemed, some not. But redemption and sympathy do not inherently go hand in hand. Mr Freeze, Twoface, and babydoll to name villains that are sympathetic, but widely looked at as some of batmans best villains, especially Mr Freeze, are not guaranteed redemption given characters, the only caveat is Mr Freeze and that depends on the story. Sympathy is not the breaker of challenging the worldview, but how depraved the villain can be in their actions, testing the hero’s morals. The hero can always best a physical challenge, the moral challenges are the hardest for them, and with batman it becomes a test of how depraved can a villain be to no longer be redeemable, but that doesn’t mean they are not sympathetic, only that they can’t be saved, at least by batman.
This is why I hate when people make William Afton a loving father… the writer intended for him to be a pure evil monster so let’s keep him that way He killed kids to become immortal, not because his son died
Exactly. I hate people trying to make him some complex or deeply tragic character when he’s never been portrayed in official media as anything other than a complete psychopath who would happily murder innocent kids just to add a few years to his life. It’s the reason his ultimate fate is so deeply ironic. He murders kids and stuffs them in the animatronic suits to become immortal. He winds up trapped in an animatronic suit himself, cursed to spend eternity as a walking, half-robot corpse.
If a villain with no relatability or redeeming qualities is bad writing, then Puss in Boots the last wish is a poorly written slop-fest Edit: I would like to explain that I am only talking about Jack Horner Edit 2: Lemme also add some other pieces of media who also have a character who's evil just because: The Blood Merridian, I have no mouth and I must scream
@@OrpheasVIPC what makes it work is the variedness of each one, Goldilocks is Sympathetic due to the good she does want to achieve. Death is Empathic, because Puss basically pissing all over the love of his eternal existance is understandable to despise, however it doesn't excuse breaking his own position to justifiably hate on an idiot. Jack Horner is just a Pathetic Moron and we love how much he wouldn't have it any other way. Too much of something will ofcourse get boring, so the movie varying it's ideologies makes the hole thing better, Jack horner works well as the stories main threat against the Wishing star, Goldilocks somewhat was but she did learn the lesson later on to no longer be so and Death is a pesersonal Villain to puss working the main theme of valuing what you have.
@@alexcat6685…So these guys just somehow don’t know what “sympathize” means, then? You just made the case that those villains are sympathetic villains. If it’s a villain who is being a villain in a way that you can understand why they are the way they are, then that means they’re sympathetic. You can understand them.
You'll be surprised, WAY too many folks sympathized Megatron and unironically say “Megatron is right” because Transformer One movie ass more story and nuances behind the origin of Megatron and Optimus Prime. Even though Megatron ends up being a robot alien Stalin 😭
Here’s one thing to note that the idea of the pure evil villain, being a one track mind and not being nuanced in the sense as you described it is not entirely true because they might have multiple ways of achieving your goal. Even if it’s the same goal it is a rational, but if you look at characters like Eric Cartman from South Park, he does loads of mental, gymnastics in order to absolve himself of responsibility that he didn’t know his self is pure evil, and I think he’s actually more down to earth, realistic as to what we see coming out of people, the narcissistic tendencies to gaslight others and act as if they can do no wrong is a catalyst for being pure evil.
Jack Horner is fun pure evil that comes to recent mind. Dude is an absolute monster trying to get all magic because he got less attention than Pinocchio, no tragic backstory and he had a well off pastry empire. He just wanted more and would even merk his own men and did by accident and with the human bridge to get what he wants.
It could be possible that tragedy doesn’t necessarily equal sympathy, under the condition that it’s pretty clear our villain’s dark heart stood the test of a chance to be good, this can also enhance the role of a foil to a hero, if a villain is irredeemably bad, perhaps even on a surface level shallowly blaming their backstory despite the blatant refusal to heal from it, at a certain point it is their fault, and perhaps the hero is the opposite example to exemplify that
Pure evil villains are more relatable. They're petty, greedy, envious, wrathful, sadistic, narrow-minded, apathetic, prideful and in many ways encapsulate how people actual end up doing evil things.
Sure... but they are also uninteresting. The main antagonist of a story is often a very large part of said story, and if that large part of the story is uninteresting, the story often, not always, falls flat.
@Ultimabuster92 Uninteresting? Malificient, Ursula, Scar, Gaston, to an extent Anton Ego, Hopper, Hal Stuart, Big Jack Horner, Death, Drago Bludvist, Grimmel the Grisly, Tai Lung, Shen, Fairy Godmother... All of these villains were "uninteresting" to you?
@@Ze_N00B Excuse me, what? How are Malificent, Ursula, Scar or Gaston interesting...? In what way? What about these characters makes you want to know more about them...? I never sat there and thought to myself. "Man, i wonder what goes on in Scar's mind, how did he become like that?" I never sympathized with him nor did i feel the urge to look closer. Same with the other examples (i don't know all the characters you listed, btw.) These villains may be entertaining or iconic, but they're not interesting. Maybe our definition of the word "interesting" just varies, but no. Entertaining and interesting are two seperate things. That all being said, i'd like to point out, that i never said, that those villains are bad, they do, what they are supposed to do for the story, never said that a villain HAS to be interesting to work for the story, but they are still that, uninteresting. Nothing i will think about after i come out of the story, nothing that i will list as my favourite villains, nothing that i will analyze later on to learn from it, nothing that makes me question myself. They are simply forgettable
@@Ultimabuster92 They are interesting to watch. Maybe they are not interesting to you, but that doesn't apply to everyone. Others are interested in their psychology because its unlike things we see in reality.
@@hunterkudo9832 Huh... alright. Two types of people, i guess. If you find them interesting, that's fine. Then i will rephrase my earlier statement and instead say, that I find them uninteresting.
I just commented about Frollo. Thank you for also including Shen! Gosh, I cannot overstate how much I love The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Kung Fu Panda 2 precisely because of their villains. Complex and realistic villains that don't get redeemed not because they don't deserve it but because THEY REFUSE TO, that right there is an important fact that people who gush over redeeamble villains don't understand: some people are dangerous and terrible because they want to be, and that's it.
14:24 I fundamentally disagree with this notion. Kaiju are inherently sympathetic (for the most part). To quote the late great Ishiro Honda, director of the original _Godzilla,_ “Monsters are tragic beings. They are born too tall, too strong, too heavy. They are not evil by choice. That is their tragedy.” The song “Who Will Know” from Shin Godzilla is pretty much the perfect showcase of this philosophy.
I think sympathetic villains and pure evil villains can both be really good or really bad. It ultimately depends on the character, what you want to achieve with them, and if being sympathetic or pure evil suits them.
The greatest current day villain is called Max Martin and many view him as a hero. He is not comical but still true evil. The closest villain in fiction to him would be Pucci from JoJo's
Porky Minch from Earthbound starts as being an understandable villain but slowly progresses into pure evil as he becomes more and more of a monster to the point where you completely forget that he was redeemable at one point. By Mother 3 he is absolutely vile.
Jack Horner from Puss and Boots and the High Evolutionary from Guardians of the Galaxy 3 are the best villains I've seen recently who were evil, unapologetically so and were wonderful catalysts for the story and a fantastic foil for the heroes.
I like to say, there's 3 types of evil and 2 types of villains - You can be purely evil, you can be mostly evil and you can be making lots of mistakes that could be understood as evil. As for villains there's really only redeemable and the irredeemable villains
Sometimes the purpose of a villain is to remind the reader that there is such a thing as “Evil.” Part of the logic behind the trend of morally grey or relatable villains is the idea that there is no such thing as evil, there is only that which we do not understand. “Do you hate the wolf for its hunger” sort of thinking, but that doesn’t account for the existence of malevolence, or the genuine desire to do harm for harm’s sake. You can’t get a moral grey area without mixing the light and the dark.
Zelda is great in this way, cause the villains are never usually things that are misunderstood, theyre demons and monsters who just need to be stopped, and theyre great for it.
I think a villain who can be irredeemable and pitiful can make for a great tragedy. It’s incredibly hard to write but done right makes for incredibly complex and dynamic villains. Their actions arn’t the result of tragedy their tragedy is the result of their actions.
Can confirm but BOY ARE THEY A PAIN TO WRITE (source: tried writing a villain who “was both sympathetic and irredeemable” and well… let’s just say it was really hard to walk that line)
My personal take on writing villains is that I just do what I think works for the story I'm trying to tell- some of my projects have nothing but sympathetic villains who can all be talked down and reasoned with, some of them have nothing but pure evil villains who revel in being assholes, some have a mix of both, and I've even got some villains who are sort of a combination of the two (villains with sympathetic backstories and personality traits who are still awful people, or who are just being evil for evil's sake but *can* still be reasoned with) ...I have way too many projects but what else is new
This is what i loved the most about Puss in Boots 2, it had the unstoppable force of nature who isnt evil, a reddemable antagonist who we can relate to and the irredeemable monster who we want to see fail and be defeated by the hero
If you are interested in pure evil villains then I recommend Villain Retirement. Riley Ross is the main character and the main villain. He decided to retire simply because his nemesis is temporarily dead, and wants to wait until she wakes up. His only motivation in being a villain is because he enjoys listening to the screams of despair of the tortured and dying. He also often messes with heroes by using innocent civilians as projectile weapons on them. If they block or dodge then the civilians would splatter like an egg on the floor.
All too often I hear someone hear someone call a villain bad because they have no sympathetic backstory and isn't relatable. The ironic part is that most people miss the real evil in front of them because of how unrelatable a real evil person actually is. They're not always tragic victim of circumstance, but rather people who want something and don't care if they hurt others to get it. They're reasoning confused people. It's why sociopaths are so unrelatable.
Just because a villains not sympathetic doesn’t immediately make them uninteresting as characters. Analyzing the attributes of pure psychos is just as interesting as analyzing relatable villain. The latter has become boring because of overuse
The idea that a villain has to be relatable influences people to believe it's forgivable and quirky to be a POS irl and I blame the excess presence of such villains on why so many people think it's okay to be cruel
Forgive me for gushing, and I admit I've only watched the abridged DBZ, but even there I adored just how batsh**t nasty those two were. I know the abridged version amplified the comedy to a hundred so maybe I'm biased by their humor, but I just love how much they unapologetically adore doing bad stuff and laughing at people who think anyone can be redeemed.
This is why my favorite villain in all media is Yoshikage Kira from JoJo’s while he is relatable but not in a sympathetic way. He is relatable because he’s just a normal guy with serial killer tendencies among a line up of villains that had plans to take over the world.
One of the main things I hate about sympathetic villains, especially if they’re minors, is when people say “they’re not a villain, they’re misunderstood/a child”. Yeah your so-called “misunderstood” guy was gonna kill like 15 people on-sight. That’s pretty evil to me
14:56 That kind of reminds me of the character change of Eren Yeager from attack on Titan, where at first he is an ambitious young boy, so with pain and rage to fight against the Titans. But as soon as he finds out the reason why they’re all on that island and why there are Titans on it. He feels like he needs to have revenge against the world to gain freedom. So he puts all of his power and effort into destroying it. And to me, it just felt so weird how he had such a sharp change in character, all the way into becoming the villain of the story, where everybody needed to stop Eren in order to save the world.
Honestly both Pure Evil Villain's and Sympathetic Villains have their places in media and BOTH can be absolutely amazing it just depends on how he or she is Handled
9:23 Alright, I hear this out. Since you mentioned the characteristics of an pure evil villian I had been thinking of him. So, imagine my surprise when I heard his voice at that point of the video while I was listening without watching the footage. By the way, super great quality for such an small channel, instantly subscribed.
Honestly why I liked the governor in TWD, he started as a typical egomaniacal villain out for blood, then had a semi-redemption arc, only to fall back on his old ways and became the worst most irredeemable version of himself I don’t think I’ve seen a “failed redemption-arc” anywhere else and it made the character much more unique as a villain
One of the most refreshing things about the manga "Berserk" is that the villain, Griffith, is utterly unsympathetic once he crosses that point of no return. Sure, he's the hero of his own story, but he's a complete narcissist who's rewriting reality to make the whole universe revolve around him, with himself as the conquering hero. He's living a childish fantasy built on a mountain of corpses, and never once does the author of the manga try to make you sympathize with him after the Eclipse. Rather, he does everything in his power as a writer and an artist to make you hate Griffith with every fiber of your being, to the point where the mere sight of his face makes your blood boil. I've never hated a fictional character as much as I hate Griffith, and it's a testament to Kentaro Miura as a storyteller, God rest his soul. Berserk is a masterpiece, by the way. Go read it if you haven't already, and if you have the stomach for it. Trust me, it gets pretty uncomfortable at times.
In terms of categorising pure evil, I think the Lich should not be viewed as some typical Saturday morning cartoon villain, even though that is technically what he is. The Lich itself is the physical embodiment of entropy and decay, death made manifest as a talking, malign entity. While our heroes can and must fight against it, it is shown that the Lich is always there, a force that is inescapable and constantly lurks in the background, scheming and chipping away at the world around it. While it can temporarily be subdued, imprisoned, blasted apart or transformed, the Lich still exists in one form or another.
Oh so the video is about the fact irredeemable villains are great and not "villains you sympathize with are bad", was confused with the title of the video.
I think the best version of this is Handsome Jack. He has zero redeeming qualities, doesn't have a tragic story, and the worst thing to happen to him doesn't happen until he's already irredeemable. The closest thing he has to a tragic history is his grandmother who raised him using harsh physical punishment for his behavior, which made him think violence and fear tactics are fine as long as they're "justified." In the end, he still believes he's the hero of the story (even saying so), despite killing innocent people all the time, and his own daughter telling him to fornicate a cactus.
A good villain doesn't have to be relatable, but they always have to be either an unstoppable force or an immovable object, because they need to motivate the hero to become the other
We're in a time now where fools are actually trying to humanize the demons from Frieren and is upset that the demons are treated as the malicous monsters they are. The whole 'sympathetic villain' trend has infected a generation into thinking everyone is secretly a cuddly person who just had a bad day.
I wouldn’t confuse sympathetic with being cuddly, as opposed to being more worth thinking about. In the same line of thought, don’t confuse empathization with exoneration. “Oh, I understand it” doesn’t make “Oh, I accept it”. If you have an impenetrably evil character that doesn’t give you a reason to think about them… why are they chosen to be the opposing ideology to whatever the hero is about. That would just be writing your hero as an ideological winner by default. You need a reason why your hero is a hero compared to your villain without having anything to do with the actions either/both take. The demons in Frieren didn’t seem to do anything for anything other than the sake of control and power… so, they’re not memorable. the actions the party took against them were about as interesting as walking around a “wet floor” sign. Sorry man, but yeah, they would have been better characters if they were sent by someone else, or didn’t want to be demons of their own volition, etc etc. The blood demon isn’t interesting because of his blood abilities, that’s just that character’s silhouette. What’s there to care about in Frieren anyway? Everything interesting happened in the first few episodes. The backstory was more interesting than Frieren’s new adventure. Frieren’s grief has already been resolved, and now it’s just a regular D&D adventure. Frieren isn’t interesting because she’s an elf, or a mage, those are just the silhouette. Her newfound feeling of grief was what made her character compelling. The only “pure evil” villains I’ve ever found compelling were villains that aren’t even sentient. In stories of drug addiction, it’s the compulsions of addiction, and the drugs themselves, that are the villains. The things that can’t change. If it’s a living thing that can’t, categorically can’t, be changed, then that’s not interesting-the only way to be rid of that villain would be to kill it. Stories about the process of killing a god aren’t as interesting as stories about why the god must die. Sorry man, but those Frieren demons have nothing on, say, Miquella from Elden Ring. Him being a compelling villain isn’t about how you get to kill him, it’s about why he is always killed no matter how much you loved him and what he wanted to do for the world. “Christ must die” is way more interesting than “Satan must die”. There’s your difference in interest between villain characters that are contextually evil versus categorically always evil/categorically can’t be understood/sympathized with. We already have enough absolute evils to deal with in life, like sadists-if I wanted to think about them, I’d just watch a documentary. Fiction is for thinking about how to deal with these things, not thinking about how those things are inescapable. You don’t need to be reminded of something that is self-evident. You don’t need elaboration for why absolute evil is absolute. For literally everything else, though, you do. Because if evil isn’t absolute, then it started at some point, and that starting point is what these stories we’re talking about, is about. A kid who kills puppies out of impulse is not as interesting as a kid who kills puppies because he deluded himself into thinking he has a reason to do it. What makes a villain good, or, better at being a villain than another villain, is how interesting and compelling they are as characters. Sorry man, but categorically, the latter kid belongs in stories more than the former kid. There’s more to do with the latter kid. More to think about. To think is the point, otherwise, why consume media at all? Surely not for eye candy…. This is also the same reason people are way, way more compelled by Griffith in Berserk than the Heart of Evil. Everyone loves to talk about that series. Isn’t the difference self evident? If sympathy isn’t what makes villains interesting, just substance and actions separated from reason, then wouldn’t the enormous literal root of all evil depicted in that series have more people interested in it than Griffith, who’s just some guy who made a silly decision? :P Like I said, a villain isn’t exonerated for their actions for having a “bad day”, but yeah the fact that they had a bad day at all, as opposed to “I was always this way”, is the whole point of a character’s inclusion in a story. You should have thought about that. I don’t like having to cite anime when talking about structure in stories, for obvious reasons, but since that might be all you understand, fight fire with fire I guess.
@Zythryl You miss one thing here. Even if something isn't interesting, it doesn't suddenly gain traits to make it more compelling. Especially since interest is subjective from person to person. I don't even care about Frieren since I only watch it sparingly with friends, but the example was to point out how even with a race created by the story to serve as occasional obstacles and nothing else is being fed more layers by people who need to believe there is more underneath. Sometimes, characters are actually one note and only serve a single purpose. If characters like that are boring to you, fine. But at least understand that it's dumb to try to argue against the lore of the story because you *want* something different. The villains aren't that intersting, the story is more about Frieren's group and their dynamic. Some people like that and some don't. I hear you on the idea of simple villains and devils being done to death, but if a story needs a straightforward malicious antagonist then it should be accepted as a writing tool like any other.
sympathetic villains have become so normal and expected that the demons in frieren caused controversy and had people trying their hardest to defend (which is fucking weird) despite the story making it clear demons evolved to predate on humans specifically and then there's the fat dude in puss in boots I think he was called jack i can't remember haven't watched it since it released (and death to a degree) wasn't liked by weirdos for being irredeemable being singular in focus without care for others it's sad that a pure villain is no longer what's normal and having a sympathetic villain was the rarity
Katz was pretty memorable. I mean whenever he was on screen even during certain episodes you were drawn to his presence even in an episodic series, like courage, the cowardly dog.
So villains can become more fascinating because of how evil they are. The best example of this are 3 evil villains from dark books, known by fans as „The Evil Trio”: Judge Holden from Blood Meridian Qu from All Tomorrow And AM from I have no mouth and I must scream. They are the worst of the worst, putting villains like Dio, Lich and even Griffif to shame
I'd argue Judge Holden isn't fascinating because of how evil he is, but because of he presents that evil. He's also not evil for the sake of evil, he very clearly has a reason. I should also mention the same for AM
Came here to say this the rise of sympathetic villains is because of the rising tide of evil and real life. As we tolerate more and more sin and evil it demands to be seen as anything but, it demands we see it as right and justified instead of what it is, vile and to be brought down. Evil always weeks to life itself above good or at least subvert the true meaning of goodness
The way I love to handle villains is to make it that much more vile and twisted Not to make them sympathetic but to make them “relatable”, like to have them go down the route of intrusive thoughts taking over, like to have them snap one day and think “This is so much easier to do this, why care?, it just makes things more inconvenient”
The counter arguments tend to sound alien...like...here's an example "I don't like bridges, they make life way too easy" The ones who won't be that kind of evil are those who GENUINELY want to show how hard they are (You don't look strong when all you do is "Crush ants", anyone can do that, so if you see someone who tramples the "weaklings" to be strong, they just want to feel strong)
For me, there is such a thing as a well-written villain. My vision is to stop writing bad villains. Something that I honestly don't feel in what I see, because I only see good things.
I hate what they did to the Lich in the Fionna series. The Lich was supposed to be a force of nature kind of villain. It didn't need "purpose" or self-doubt. Those are human emotions. The lich is beyond that, he was "The end".
One of my favorite "pure evil" villains is Makoto Shishio from the Manga/Anime Rurouni Kenshin. He IS the hero of his own story, and he HAS a personal moral philosophy and a justification for his actions. He's got a goal and a long-term reason to strive for it, and he won't be dissuaded, no matter what. For context, RK is a historical fiction story, set in the years after the civil war in the 1800's that brought Japan out of 200 years of feudal rule and isolation. The main character and hero of the story, Kenshin, was an assassin during that war, who killed hundreds (though always reluctantly) to pave the way to the new era of peace and prosperity. But after a personal tragedy during the war, he retired from the assassinations and joined the battlefield proper; the assassin position fell onto a much more willing swordsman, Shishio. After the war ends, Kenshin is offered positions of power, but refuses them, swears to never kill again, and wanders the country helping people, wielding a reverse-edge sword; Shishio, on the other hand, is ambushed by his own allies, knocked unconscious, and burned alive. Throughout the story, Kenshin fights all sorts of enemies, from psychopaths to warriors left behind by the times, and always manages to defeat them non-lethally, with the most impactful attacks often being through words rather than by the sword. Then comes Shishio. Covered in bandages, scarred head to toe by the flames, and leading a revolution that seeks to overthrow the government and install a regime where the strong rules the weak, because he sees the government that betrayed him as one that's ashamed of the blood they shed to rise to power, and that's wholly incapable of facing the fast approaching international conflicts of the era. Shishio is a ghost of the main character's past, a consequence of his actions, and a dark reflection of himself. He's threatening, entertaining, and has the strength and resources to pull off his plans. He's got followers who love him and fear him and would die for him. In his own "hero" quest, through his own philosophy, he has saved some of them, or given them a reason to live and believe. He IS pure evil, but he also has a point about the weakness and hypocrisy of the government. He's the one enemy Kenshin can't dismantle psychologically, and he's too strong, and more importantly, too determined, to be defeated non-lethally. He's not just a threat to the land, and to the lives of the heroes, but also to the very moral foundation of Kenshin's philosophy. I'm not gonna say how the story concludes, but I will say that Shishio stays true to himself to the very end, and beyond. So yeah, he's one of my favorite villains, and a prime example of what this video is about, done right.
Ngl really enjoyed the video and the examples you gave of "Pure Evil" are also some of my favorite characters but I am tired of people saying that everyone hates villains who are pure evil. No one has ever said that all villains should be sympathetic, some have said that we should get more sympathetic villains and some say we should get more pure evil villains. Im pretty sure you are confusing the argument that some bring saying that all villains should have a motivation and not just be evil because of the plot, Shen and the Lich have a motivation so that really wouldn't go against that argument.
One of my favorite villains is Tolkien's Morgoth. Where Sauron started off with good intentions in terms of imposing order on a chaotic world, Morgoth rebelled against Middle Earth's version of God simply because he could not indendently create, and therefore totally rule, anything for himself, and so sought to impose his will on his Creators works through corruption, and then eventual destruction. Nothing about that is sympathetic, but every part of that sentence makes sense in terms of motivation: absolute petty destruction on a cosmic scale. It's the kind of thing I suspect even Lovecraft's beings would be stunned by because while their goals and very being is supposed to be incomprehensible, they have agendas that entail some kind of mastery over the world rather than its absolute destruction, and I suspect even they would look at such petulance as outright insane. Another villain to make it into popular culture is Lord Dominator whose desire is to destroy every planet in the galaxy. Why? Because it's fun to watch people despair as their home is destroyed. It sounds cartoonish on paper, but it actually makes her a great foil to the main protagonist, who goes out of his way to be kind to everyone, even his enemies, because that's who he is and its something he takes joy in. It's altruism vs that casual childish sadism we like to forget we had when we squashed bugs for fun or teased and/or bullied each other in different turns, or got caught up in some drama or another when we were teenagers. That kind of cruelty in a villain isn't "relatable" (or at least I really hope not), but it is a good example of those worst impulses never being checked and taken to the worst heights imaginable when someone who gets a kick out of causing pain is given the power to destroy planets. These traits give her a psychotic streak that makes for a terrifying yet fun villain as she's laughing it up while being unapologetically evil. Oh, and she has a nice character design, and that always helps in terms of popularity. Anyways, with these two examples, I thought I'd just make my case that a villain doesn't need to be relatable or redeemable. What they need is an internal logic (IE, it makes sense to them within the story they're in) to be villainous as well as a way to be engaging, and one of the best ways to do that is to not only give them vices, but corrupted virtues. C.S. Lewis himself once noted that Attila the Hun wouldn't have left such a mark if it wasn't for his courage, and in the above, Morgoth let his desire for creative control become an obsession for dominion while using his creativity to twist reality so that all things had some form of his evil in it, with the worst example being his corrupting captured elves to create orcs. Meanwhile Lord Dominator used her ability to be empathetic in order to better inflict pain and misery on others for her own amusement. I think that also gives a pretty good idea on how to go for "pure" evil: not a complete absence of the ability to do good (at least at first), but to know what is good and then willfully choose what you know to be evil out of selfish motive.
I wonder how much of Morgoth’s development as described here would coincide with most Christian depictions of Satan, given Tolkien’s background. The two would seem rather similar by my understanding.
As long as we keep telling stories, there will always be a place for those villains within them that are entirely unredeemable and unsympathetic, those that consistently choose every time to reject the good. It is their words and deeds that instruct us away, and without them we lose our direction.
This is why Claud Frollo is (to me) the perfect example of a pure villain that is still realistic (btw thank you for mentioning him in the video, even if it was a short clip). We do not relate to him, he's an asshole, but you can definetly understand how a man like him can become the way he is, by looking at the societal problems around him, his upbringing and his position of power. Claud Frollo is a product of his time, specifically of the bad aspects of his time, and THAT's why he's a perfect pure evil villain.
I recently watched Kamen Rider Ryuki and it has a new favorite villain of mine, Ouja. He actually subverts the sympathetic villain trope pretty hard back into downright deplorable bastard. everyone can't get enough of his hijinks, an absolute joy to watch him be a menace. So much so he frequently comes back in other Rider series with the original actor who loves the role. Def recommend this series even if you haven't watched a Kamen rider before, it's on YT now I think.
I LOVE writing irredeemable villains especially when it allows me to play around with morality and character mindsets and all that fun stuff! I have one right now that is a power hungry monster who insists that he’s the victim, trying to get the hero’s sympathy when he knows he’ll never change, torturing the hero and forcing him to abandon his kind and forgiving nature for the good of the world and himself! It’s so much fun to write characters with no morals whatsoever!
All the people who make that claim that villains cant be pure evil, doesnt understand evil. There are serial killers, who just wanted to do pure evil. Theres one vid on youtube with a killer in court explaining his horrific crime to the judge, its so disturbing, but to him, he is explaining it like me and you would explain how we bought groceries at the store. He doesnt feel any emotion for the horrific things he did. And he did them, because he could.
It seems nobody knows that “pure evil” means “cannot be changed”. Or that “sympathy” does not mean “accept/approve”. All the whining I’m seeing is coming from pro-eye-candy, anti-thinking sentiments. You can have a good story where a hero overcomes an absolute evil, and a good story where a hero overcomes any other kind of evil by understanding why the evil is evil and not something else (aka, sympathy). But to say that stories with pure evil villains are somehow more worthwhile than stories without, seems to me like saying “Superhero movies where the heroes always know they’re right are better than superhero movies where they have to question themselves before being sure about tackling the villains”. It’s a sentiment that implies you aren’t watching media to think. Which isn’t a good look at all. Obviously what works best depends on what you are trying to tell in your story, but, come on. This video’s title and claim is synonymous, literally, yes literally, with “Stop making me wonder how villains become evil”. Not a good sentiment to have. At all. The only way you would have intended to mean something else, is if you mean something else when saying “sympathize” or “pure”. If a villain can have their mind changed, if they can recognize a mistake they’ve made, if they’ve become or are evil for an actual reason, and not just being a self-evident thing, then they aren’t “pure evil”. No, “pure evil” cannot be changed with persuasion, because that’s not what fucking “pure” means. “Pure” is synonymous here with “absolute”. Satan is pure evil. A guy who commits, say, mass genocide, for any reason at all that isn’t out of impulse, is not pure evil. Because the guy can, possibly, become something other than what he is. He can change. Satan can’t. Stories where the audience needs to think about why the hero is a hero, and/or why the villain is a villain, requires a villain whose evil is not absolute, and not self-evident. Satan can’t be used in a story like this because the hero’s reflection categorically can’t go deeper than identifying whether or not the hero is like Satan. There’s no “why”, only “is”. And yeah, frankly, the stories about “why” are way more interesting. “Christ must die” or even “Hitler must die” is way more compelling than “Satan must die”. You can have a story where a hero overcomes an absolute/pure/unchangeable evil, like a hero overcoming a drug addiction (the drugs being a cause of suffering is an axiom, unchangeable-so, “pure evil”). But that’s not a story about ideology. Neither is a story about, like, Finn having to destroy the Lich. Finn doesn’t need to question why he must do what he needs to. It’s just not about that. In that story, it’s about whether or not Finn is *capable* of victory, not about questioning whether or not it’s the right choice. I’m just saying, if I want stories about absolute evils, general doomerism, things that obviously must be dealt with but the capability of doing so is the question, I’ll go ahead and watch a documentary. But in a fictional story, yeah, I would prefer to have my ideologies challenged. This requires the absence of self-evident absolutes, and requires understanding of what is challenging me. If you want to reduce that to just trying to identify why everyone is having a bad day, if you want to reduce a desire to understand to a desire for cuddles, that makes you the selfish prick, not me.
I agree. A story with a pure evil villain necessarily means it has a pure good hero which in turn means the story is black and white in who you're supposed to root for. There's no thinking in it. Obviously the hero is good and needs to win bc the story spells it out for you clearly. I like stories where you're forced to engaged with material on a deeper level and you are the one that has to make the judgement calls about what you think is right. In a way such stories tell you more about yourself and your value system than it does about the characters themselves
There is definitely a place for all sorts of villains. some have understandable motives, but not sympathetic. Some have sympathetic motives that make you wish they were on the heroic side. And then there are those who just want to watch the world burn!
sympathetic villains were made because of the overwhelming amount of pure evil villains.
now that the sympathetic villains are the majority, it's time for pure evil villains to come back
Hellsing depicts pure evil villian very well
but too many people are used to sympathetic villains, and many of those people find pure evil villains boring.
@@Random66860 but many currently find the sympathetic villains boring. “He’s evil!… Nvm, he’s misguided and just has trauma.” People are ready for a change
This is exactly what I've been thinking for years and honestly, BOTH can be done incredibly well or horribly bad. The author, execution and overall story is what will determine if the "pure evil for evils sake" or "evil until you know his story" works or not. People can prefer one or the other but there's never a "right answer" on which approach to take. It all comes down to a case by case basis cause there's good and bad examples for both sides
@@Random66860 I mean Sakuna exists
There's also cases where showing a tragic backstory elevates their villany, take Dio for example, he suffered a lot as a child, but one the Joestars adopt him he had a chance to be a good person, what does he do? Decide that he's gonna make Jonathan's life hell and kill his father to get an inheritence, then once that goes bad he decides to become a vampire and take over the world, having a tragic backstory doesn't make him sympathetic, it makes him an even bigger monster
Another reason why I HAVE to watch Jojo ;-;
"It was me, Dio!" and "It was me Barry!" Have that smug maliciousness you have to love in a villain. Fully acknowledged evil act, proud of it, going to do it again.
i think another good example would be dolfamingo
@@someonenothim The villains are all A tier besides maybe one that's just B+
@@someonenothimi like your video and way you explain with a elocuent tone and yeah you should totally watch jojo many characters have such a remarkable charimas and good plot full of shenanigans.
To quote JoJo:
"Evil that doesn't realize it's evil... Is the worst kind of evil there is!"
That sort of quote is probably more applicable than most are willing to let on.
Wait from which part that is?
@@ShatteredGlass916Stone Ocean, Weather Report to Pucci during the Under World arc.
I'd say evil that knows it's evil but still choose to be evil is the worst kind
@Soreal722 i deadass forget about the Under World arc. All i remember from "Dio's Kids" arc is that cowsuit weirdo that can control those flying tube creatures and Bohemian Rhapsody arc
I think a pure evil villain can be talked down with a speech check if they're somewhat rational. Pure evil doesn't necessarily mean purely irrational.
Honestly I think “pure evil” itself is a term that gets rid of the nuance.
"Some men just want to watch the world burn" is a good quote for pure evil. It doesn't value your soul, your exstince, it hates you, lucifer may make a deal with you but that doesnt mean he values your soul, he wants you to suffer, he wants you to be away from God, he is pure evil in its most prideful form, the lich from adventure time is pure evil is its most deadly form, he wants all life to cease, thats his mission
@@cosmicspacething3474 If any nuance exists.
@@darlalathan6143 It does usually, as everything has good in it, it's based on it to decide what to do with it.
OFcourse people who chose to be terrible aren't terrible 100% of time, it's the reason they can actually make functional friendships.
However I do need to mention there is a difference in Empahtize and Sympathize, that is forgiveness you emphatize with a struggle of a person however you don't sympathize because that person chose to become terrible
Shen you can Emphatize with his fear of the Unknown and destiny, you can't Sympathize with what he was willing to do for it.
I believe Pure Evil Villains are those who litterarly lack humanity like the lich, Lich doesn't commit evil exactly becuase it's fun, he does it because thats his purpose, Fun would make it a human thing because people sometimes jsut do things becuase the fun of it overides everything else, be it good or evil.
Pure evil does evil because of it, thats it in the same way pure good does the oppisite in the same way.
Both are heavily flawed due to being extremes, Pure evil prevents you from ever experincing anything better from life and Pure good is Ironically corruptable because it can't really guarantee what is evil, since it mentally can't comprehend it meaning it can be diluded into believing a Certain evil is good because it doesn't understand evil enough to go against it.
I usually go full insane villian (example: Joker)
Not to disagree, at all, but I feel like something even more important that so many people have forgotten is to treat your villains seriously.
OO TRUE !
So true, some ppl also forget that villains are villains you're not supposed to like them have them commit horrible act that makes you wanna hate them or cheer anytime the hero beat their ass
@@Achieme THANKZ 4 THE LiKE, TO U OR WHOEVER LEFT iT !
@@Achiemei think a villain should be absolutely hated inverse but be likeable as a pure evil character for real life people who are watching
And then there's Palpatine, who is so unrepentantly evil he turns anyone he can get under his thumb into a tragic villain.
And he's a damn good villian
He has no sad backstory or truama at all he just does it because he can and loves being evil
Well he is a politician
@@QuiteFunnyIsnt1t Sheev is basically an analogy for corrupt politicians and dictators. That's a character archetype which is hurt by having a sympathetic element
greatest villain to ever appear on the silver screen, no doubt.
Villains can have nuance without being redeemable. There is a difference
Exactly. You can sympathize with some villains and still denounce them for their actions. Joffrey Baratheon comes to mind. From his environment and 'upbringing', it's tragic that he never had a chance to become a good king, but it was still satisfying to see him die when his comeuppance came. Lotso from Toy Story 3 too.
Yeah, we are "allowed" to feel sympathy and understand what makes the villains to become what they are now. It never means we should agree with their actions
Depends what's meant by redeemable. A redemption story is always nice as people can always change and make up for their past mistakes. You can also have certain redeeming qualities about yourself yet your actions still be wrong
Exactly! The Penguin is the first perfect example that comes to mind. Oz is nuanced yet irredeemable.
AM is honestly a great example. Sure, he does have good reason to be as angry as he is, but his actions are so petty that they go far beyond any justification you can make. Pure Evil can have a cause, the simple act of having one doesn't diminish from their evil.
As said by Red from Overly sarcastic productions when it comes to pure evil villains to paraphrase: "you can have pure evil characters because good writing is what services the story as is necessary. "
So, you can have pure evil villains and sympathetic villains and everything else in between as long as you make it work in the story
And I stand by everything that they've said as gospels!
Puss in boots 2 its a Great example of that
In other words, If it's good it's good.
@pietrolupo2717 Yes
@@pietrolupo2717 Jack Horner just entertainingly evil and we love his attitude, but we also enjoy when he get taken down rightfully
A villain doesn't need to be relatable or redeemable in order to be liked. Bill Cipher is one such example.
So you either need to be relatable, redeemable or charismatic
that is the best example of a beloved yet irredeemable and unsympathetic villain I've seen
@@nagisafurukawa1409 Emperor Belos also.
We learned his backstory, and maybe you can relate to his fear of magic and why that eventually lead to his obsession with control.
He was a great villain.
He was also pretty far from redeemable.
@@nagisafurukawa1409 what about a certain villain who didn't have much growing up? Just loving parents, stability and a mansion...and a thriving bake goods entreprise for him to inherit. (Useless crap like that) Maybe a tragic backstory but still.
Fricking yeah, I like that guy a lot
imagine pure evil villains that don’t have tragic backstories and instead have fortunate pasts where they were given everything they wanted by their parents, and was absolutely spoiled. nothing bad happened to them, and yet they turned evil.
Big Jack Horner. Lmao
@@conn0rized292 the twins in the latest troll movie, too
Frieza in a Nutshell, except he only had his dad, Annnnd until he met Goku on Namek
Light Yagami comes to mind😂
Yeh, psychopaths do exist in real life. Some people don't need any reason (excuse) to do bad things.
What they've done with Frieza in recent years demonstrates that a villain can get character development without actually becoming a better person. He's still as sociopathic as ever but he's become more pragmatic and has started to embrace the fighting spirit of the heroes.
Yup
he's just a useful force of nature rather than one of the good guys
the only reason he works with the heroes is out of fear
Frieza is such a petty asshole. I love him.
Id argue Frieza was damaged by his expansion. He went from the most powerful being in the universe and a tyrant to a petty servant of a lazy god and has gone from a legit intimidating force to a joke half the time
@@tenanaciouz Frieza was always a joke half the time though. Before Goku went Super Saiyan half of their fight was just Frieza getting bamboozled by him
I believe villains help teach a valuable lesson, sometimes you will face someone with no light in their eyes and you have to end it one way or another. “Some men just wanna watch the world burn.”
Villains should serve as warnings as to what we as the audience are and could mutate into further
Lemme tell ya. Working a year in prison opened my eyes to that more than anything else.
I take sympathetic villain backstories as lessons on what you should not do and what are the right things to do when faced with a similar situation as they (the villains) did.
Or like Judge Frollo from Disney THoN, who will burn the city of Paris and its entire inhabitants, but really think he do God's work
You might wanna change "men" to "people".
"Every villain should be the hero of their own story" can be argued. That doesn't mean the villains' motives/causes must be relatable to the audience. They can be completely unrelatable and yet be good/heroic from their own perspective. We don't need to relate to any villains to understand that they have a different perspective that contradicts ours. We don't need to understand them. They have their own headspace.
The point is therefore not to make villains relatable, it's to make them more than a machine. They have reason. That doesn't mean we have to understand, like or agree with that reason.
That makes me wonder. What about a story in which the hero cannot be understood? Like, he is the hero, full blow hero, but his motivations DO NOT EVER make sense for the audience.
This is the thing. A villain needs reasons to be evil.
However the reasons don't necesarily need to be rational or make sense to the audience. Or even be remotely respectable. What matters is that on the villain's pov, he is the good guy.
On the same note, I'd love more heroes with questionable reasons to be heroic. Sure they did the right thing, but... were they motivated by the right things? Or were they even selfish?
@@Jose-yt3qzI have something similar. Although not an outright "hero", a chracter I have is one of the "good guys" in the military. Yet he is a super selfish narcissistic psychopath that is there solely because he gets paid to end people and abuse recruits. Not a hint of goodness behind his actions.
@@rac1equalsbestgame853 Are you thinking of a character like the Comedian from Watchmen? A character who heroically puts his life at risk for the "greater good". But behind the scenes he brutally hurts good people while covering behind his status.
@@ETBrooD Idk which of the two replies you were replying to, but as for my chracter, he is an alcoholic narcissistic psycho that was conscripted to the military and stayed because he loves risk and eliminating people (would say the actual word but youtube). His actions are indeed risky and heroic, it takes someone especial to challenge mafia gangs with no fear whatsoever. But the intent behind his actions is simple psychopatic adoration for murder out of boredom.
Griffith from berserk is a fantastic example of a purely evil villain. Someone who was willing to sacrifice the people that trusted him to gain power
Griffith is not a purely evil villain my guy. Literally his last thought as a human before the sacrifice was about how Guts was the only one that made him forget about his dream. Does that make Griffith decision less heinous? No, but you sure as hell cant call him pure evil. I am not a Griffith advocate by any chance but I hate how people spit on Miura's writing by making such a complex character as Griffith seem plain.
Griffith did nothing wrong
Griffith cared about his people. But he saw sacrificing them as necessary to achieve his goal. He’s a bastard though thats for sure.
@@jahkeemgroves537 "Pure evil" shouldn't be an insult, nor a statement of plain writing. It's just a descriptor really. In the case of Griffith, he rejected any kind of moral or limitations hodling his dream his back. Yes he realized he built his road on pilars of corpses and that Guts made him lost focus. But that's precisely what make him pure evil: though knowing this, he still wished to have his feelings ripped apart in service of his ambitions. Chosing to be an ultimate being devoided of fears and doubts. Is there anything more terrifying than this?
@@benjaminthibieroz4155 While I agree with you on how "Pure evil" doesnt nessesarily imply plain writing, I completely disagree that Griffith's decision to go through with the sacrifice makes him "Pure evil". Saying such would simply be innacurate in Griffith's case as it took a lot and I mean a lot of event for him to get there. Gut's desertion, being tortured for a whole year, seeing Guts surpass him in skill and strenght when he got rescued, seeing Casca and Guts no longer needing him, and on top of that knowing that Guts would run off again with Casca this time to leave him rot as a cripple. All of those things led Griffith to make his choice, all of them being strong reasons to make it. It wasn't just that he wanted to be emotionless and become god to fulfill his dream but it was that or literally nothing.
Villains don’t have to be relatable but they should be plausible.
To me personally, Pure evil is like a ghost. At first you think it's just basic nonsense only children would believe. And you may be right in some regard to think that. But then you see something unnatural while you're alone in the woods at night. Making you think, and fear, that what if it wasn't nonsense after all.
I guess if you don't believe in childish stuff like ghosts then you can't enjoy these villains
@@anomitas Or you just didn't get my point.
There's a difference between pure evil that doesn't feel real and pure evil that feels real. I enjoy pure evil characters. I also fear pure evil characters that feel more real. But based on what you said, it's like you think you need to believe in childish thing's to enjoy pure evil characters. That sounds pretty condescending.
Pure evil is actually an oxymoron. Purity is opposed to evil, as all of evil is impurity; it's like how if something was 100% hole in itself, it would not exist whereas being "full of holes" is a spectrum of how holey it is. It can be so moth-eaten and punctured that there's no hopes of ever repairing it, and that's what most people mean by "pure evil"
Or how if your body was ever 100% diseased, you'd be made entirely of pathogenic microbes with no host to _be_ diseased.
Even the baddest dude in reality (Satan) isn't without positive qualities like ambition, intelligence, willpower, and gumption.
@@anomitas Atheist cringe.
Isn't the "pure evil" you're describing just a type of evil you can't understand?
"Do you a villain because you have a sad backstory, or you have a sad backstory because you a villain?"
Something I will never understand from the people who insist that sympathetic villains are always the superior form of villain, especially when they say they’re relatable or realistic.
Thing is though, they ignore the simple fact that people are often assholes. Everyone has their reasons and their sob stories but at the end of the day, many people act completely villainous and see no issues. Someone who pursues career success by sabotaging their peers probably has their reasons, but at the end of the day they’re not unaware of what it makes them, they’ve more than come to terms with what it means and they chose to do it anyway because it gets them what they want.
Exactly. I remember back when Persona 5 came out and people complained the villains of that game were irredeemable, and I always thought it was a dumb criticism because many people genuinely ARE just as bad as Kamoshida, Shido, etc.
Whenever people say they cannot imagine a good villain that isn’t sympathetic, I sometimes suspect a bit of intentional self-denial. To them, if actual evil can be imagined, they’ll have to assess their own actions in relation to that, and for many people, selfishness is too strong to let them want to do that.
@@DiamondKingStudios While not as omnipresent as the sympathetic villain trope, this reminds me of how I've seen some people talk about making heroes more ''relatable'' by making them more lazy and cynical (just like them, albeit they tend to not mention that). While both ideas can work depending on the story, it seems to stem into people's desire to be seen as good without doing the effort, leading to a reduction of what both villainy and heroism can truly be. After all, it's much easier to be a hero when you don't have to improve yourself and your perceived evil acts can be justified by your sympathetic reasoning.
"One just need to look at History and news documentaries to realize monsters in shape of humans aren't unrealistic at all."
Ultimately, the role of the vilain is to be a threat. And a threat you can't comprehend, relate to or soften, is a far greater danger.
14:20 while there are exceptions Kajiu for the most part aren't necessarily considered pure evil more so forces of nature like how we would view a hurricane or tsunami.
Monsters are more like animals than natural disasters, because they do what they want to do, out of instincts, while hurricanes are gases and liquids moved by sunlight on the atmosphere. A tsunami is a wave caused by an earthquake.
1:45
Me looking at multiple ways of calling villains and I see that in the top right corner it says "Carlos": Oh yes, in my fictional story I made a great Carlos.
This is why antagonists like Ramsey Bolton and Prince Joffrey were so great, I miss love-to-hate villains
I like GRRM works bc he has a lot of gray and nuance in his stuff and his characters that are evil just for the sake of being evil are few and far between and even those he takes the time to add more to their personalities to make them feel like actual breathing people instead of a mustache twirling comic book villain
No he's just annoying but in a bad way, he isn’t well made at all
A good villain is a villain you hate so much that just seeing a bit of them makes your blood boil, thats when a villain becomes a good, heck even best villain.
Griffith from berserk, lol
Sentinel Prime
I dunno I find it hard to hate villains like Judge Holden or AM, they are utterly irredeemable but just watching them exert their will upon the world they inhabit, it's sort of cathartic, because of how they achieve their dominance. With Holden for example hes a straight monster, yet he is insanely nuanced for a villian of his caliber.
I think the problem is people to often confuse sympathetic with redeemable
I think a tragic villain doesn't need to be sympathetic take DIO for example
Tragic would imply that he fell from grace.
Bro was trash from the beginning
@@Ratface0007I think they meant his transformation into a vampire. They meant his rejection of humanity to become a monster
@@thatprofessorguy8316he could have gotten his life set for him if he just accepted being Jonathan's brother but he resented him for having the easy life compared to him and then set out to ruin jonathan's life, poison his adoptive father and get the entire joestar fortune for himself, because of his upbringing maybe his backstory was sympathethic but in his mind it enabled him to do far greater evil
@@thatprofessorguy8316 how is his transformation into a vampire tragic?
@@thatprofessorguy8316
He was already a monster. Turning into a vampire doesn't change that, it just gives him more options to be monstrous.
Trying to artificially make sympathetic villains undermines the historical fact/concept that people go through bad things and then come out bad people who do bad things. Do I wish to invalidate the suffering of say... Stalin (his dad became abusive and forced him and family to leave)? No, but I can recognize and say whilst it is sad, it doesnt justify his wrongdoings.
My man, couldn't you have used less ambigious example? Stalin was NOT evil (like many others, even Hitler wasn't). Pure evil does not exist in a real world, even psychopathic serial killers can be treated and redeemed (we just don't have resources to do so).
@valerianchole Stalin killed tens of millions, more than Hitler. Hitler killed millions and wanted to "cleanse" the world of anyone but the "pure" race. They were both very evil people who did evil things. Do not sympathize with or justify their behavior, I understand fheir pasts and the contexts of their historical situations but that is not an excuse or a valid reason
@@valerianchole -Red Fascist, Or Unacceptably Naive Child
@@Leiliel1 show me an official document where Stalin unequivocally gives the order to commit genocide of certain nations. 'Red Fascism' is an oxymoron.
@@valerianchole Nazbols are litterally a thing bro. the mistake is not "red fascism is possible" the mistake is assuming evil commies must be fascists, no communism is evil by itself.
Godzilla does have a back story. It's the results of nuclear testing on the Bikini Atoll and represents natures wrath toward humanity. The Night of the Living dead was the same. Nuclear waste is dumped in a cemetery. George A. Romero chose zombies [ghouls] because "they are us". In Kaiju movies, humans are the monsters.
godzilla's motive depens on the story he is in to be honest,this guy can be anything
@-Burningzilla_YT- Very true. That's one of the reasons I love Godzilla. He can be either an anti-hero or a flat-out villain, depending on the story.
Im writing a book that has both a pure villain and a sympathetic villain. My goal is to enlighten people that both archetypes are equally compelling.
Hope to read it soon. Pure evil and sympathetic villains as foils to one another are my favorite~
I love it when a pure evil villain is given a chance to redeem themselves and it's so well done you actually believe for a second it may happen but then they just go "Nah" it really doubles down on their evil while giving them a teeny tiny little bit of tragedy knowing what could have been.
Sympathetic villains are tired. Give me pure bastards. Just absolute pieces of shit. Villains that are evil and _loving_ every second of it.
Yeah I feel like the sympathetic villain trope has been overused, probably because the writers nowadays lack creativity.
It feels so _Good_ to be *Bad.*
There's no shortage of those. If you want a character truly sadistic to his core then go watch the Terrifier movies
You then fall into the trap of writing villains who are just comically evil and uninteresting
I've grown tired of cardboard cut villains who the author shows is pure evil by either attempting assault on a female character or kills a lot of people
Then go play Danganronpa, you will love its villain...
Villains always having a good reason to be bad doesnt work, like in real life, some poeople will do some herendous shit while being absolutelly aware of what they re doing and the consequences of their actions or maybe they just dont care, not everyone has a sob story
👆I want to frame this comment, it's the truth that many are scared to admit.
The perfect pure evil villain is probably Anton Chigruh from no country for old men
On this subject, I found All for One from My Hero Academia to be a breath of fresh air. The dude simply had power and wanted to use it to his end goals. He wanted to be evil, no sob story or the hero of their own story bs.
All were tools and everything necessary was permitted.
I mean, he was stealing and taking as he pleased while he was still in the womb.
The man saw literal comic book supervillains as such an aspirational influence for him that he decided to basically become The Devil himself because mere supervillainy was too small time for him
Love seeing stuff like this while trying to write my own stories. Been trying to make sure that my villain comes off as pure evil, so a video dedicated to characters like this is perfect.
That’s why I love Aizen, he is pure evil because he never apologizes or seeks forgiveness from the people he’s hurt since it was all by design to show how futile it is to fight against him.
He was blessed with near limitless strength and intellect so he abuses it, simply because he could and that was all the reason he needed.
What? Aizen isn’t evil for fun, he has a very clear plan and he actively wants to replace The soul king because he dislikes how the god of the bleach universe is nothing more than an spectator
@@KvngLeroy1 I never once said Aizen was evil for fun. I said that he is evil because he has immense power so he uses it for personal gain, which is true.
I’m not making Aizen out to be evil for the sake of evil, I even say “all by design” in the original comment.
So I’m well aware of what Aizen wanted to accomplish but he ruined his own plan trying to prove his superiority against Ichigo just to lose horribly and even before that he was trying to kill Ichigo’s friends which gave Ichigo the time he needed to train and defeat him.
Aizen is incredibly intelligent but his fatal flaw is that flaunts and talks about his own power so much he tends to underestimate the strength of others, which was his undoing against Ichigo.
@@YamagiHQ Aizen is sympathetic villain by definition since we actually know why he's doing what he's doing. We don't have to feel empathy for him, but at least we have an idea of his thought process.
It's ironic that sympathetic villains are always good in a way, unlike people with only sympathy and no criticism in their lifes, no one stops them from turning into a beast
It just DEPENDS, every story needs different things if your story is that everyone is a good person inside then you need a villain who is sympathetic but if you tell the story that not everyone deserves redemption then you can make a pure evil villain
Not at all, if anything it's the opposite. Villains are usually supposed to challenge the protagonists worldview, look at batman and the joker, batman believes everyone can be redeemed, while the joker is completely irredeemable and everyone is just 1 bad day away from becoming like him. If you have a hero that from the start absolutely wants to redeem everyone, and the only villain is someone that can be redeemed, then you aren't going to have a very complex story. And it's the same the other way around.
@Battyj That's not what I said, you're talking about something on a character level, I said on a story level, if THE STORY is about us all having something good inside you can't make a completely evil villain, because you're shooting yourself in the foot
@@Battyjyou seem to be missing a huge point and your example disproves you quite easily. An antagonist is the obstacle you are talking of, a villain is defined by their actions. Not every villain in batman is like the joker, and some absolutely can be redeemed, some not. But redemption and sympathy do not inherently go hand in hand. Mr Freeze, Twoface, and babydoll to name villains that are sympathetic, but widely looked at as some of batmans best villains, especially Mr Freeze, are not guaranteed redemption given characters, the only caveat is Mr Freeze and that depends on the story. Sympathy is not the breaker of challenging the worldview, but how depraved the villain can be in their actions, testing the hero’s morals. The hero can always best a physical challenge, the moral challenges are the hardest for them, and with batman it becomes a test of how depraved can a villain be to no longer be redeemable, but that doesn’t mean they are not sympathetic, only that they can’t be saved, at least by batman.
@@Devilelf oh hey
This is why I hate when people make William Afton a loving father… the writer intended for him to be a pure evil monster so let’s keep him that way
He killed kids to become immortal, not because his son died
Exactly. I hate people trying to make him some complex or deeply tragic character when he’s never been portrayed in official media as anything other than a complete psychopath who would happily murder innocent kids just to add a few years to his life. It’s the reason his ultimate fate is so deeply ironic. He murders kids and stuffs them in the animatronic suits to become immortal. He winds up trapped in an animatronic suit himself, cursed to spend eternity as a walking, half-robot corpse.
@ yup, and why he’s still a much better villain than the friking mimic (who IS a sympathetic villain)
If a villain with no relatability or redeeming qualities is bad writing, then Puss in Boots the last wish is a poorly written slop-fest
Edit: I would like to explain that I am only talking about Jack Horner
Edit 2: Lemme also add some other pieces of media who also have a character who's evil just because: The Blood Merridian,
I have no mouth and I must scream
Careful now, statements like that attract the contrarians
@yeehowdy267 Let them come
@@OrpheasVIPC what makes it work is the variedness of each one, Goldilocks is Sympathetic due to the good she does want to achieve.
Death is Empathic, because Puss basically pissing all over the love of his eternal existance is understandable to despise, however it doesn't excuse breaking his own position to justifiably hate on an idiot.
Jack Horner is just a Pathetic Moron and we love how much he wouldn't have it any other way.
Too much of something will ofcourse get boring, so the movie varying it's ideologies makes the hole thing better, Jack horner works well as the stories main threat against the Wishing star, Goldilocks somewhat was but she did learn the lesson later on to no longer be so and Death is a pesersonal Villain to puss working the main theme of valuing what you have.
@@alexcat6685…So these guys just somehow don’t know what “sympathize” means, then? You just made the case that those villains are sympathetic villains.
If it’s a villain who is being a villain in a way that you can understand why they are the way they are, then that means they’re sympathetic. You can understand them.
Looks like somebody just made the case that those villains are relatable, actually. :P
Mfs think that understanding the villain's motivation is trying to make the audience sympathize with them.
You'll be surprised, WAY too many folks sympathized Megatron and unironically say “Megatron is right” because Transformer One movie ass more story and nuances behind the origin of Megatron and Optimus Prime. Even though Megatron ends up being a robot alien Stalin 😭
Here’s one thing to note that the idea of the pure evil villain, being a one track mind and not being nuanced in the sense as you described it is not entirely true because they might have multiple ways of achieving your goal. Even if it’s the same goal it is a rational, but if you look at characters like Eric Cartman from South Park, he does loads of mental, gymnastics in order to absolve himself of responsibility that he didn’t know his self is pure evil, and I think he’s actually more down to earth, realistic as to what we see coming out of people, the narcissistic tendencies to gaslight others and act as if they can do no wrong is a catalyst for being pure evil.
Jack Horner is fun pure evil that comes to recent mind. Dude is an absolute monster trying to get all magic because he got less attention than Pinocchio, no tragic backstory and he had a well off pastry empire. He just wanted more and would even merk his own men and did by accident and with the human bridge to get what he wants.
It could be possible that tragedy doesn’t necessarily equal sympathy, under the condition that it’s pretty clear our villain’s dark heart stood the test of a chance to be good, this can also enhance the role of a foil to a hero, if a villain is irredeemably bad, perhaps even on a surface level shallowly blaming their backstory despite the blatant refusal to heal from it, at a certain point it is their fault, and perhaps the hero is the opposite example to exemplify that
Do whatever you want. Pure evil, sympathetic, who cares. It just has to fit the tone of the story.
Pure evil villains are more relatable.
They're petty, greedy, envious, wrathful, sadistic, narrow-minded, apathetic, prideful and in many ways encapsulate how people actual end up doing evil things.
Sure... but they are also uninteresting. The main antagonist of a story is often a very large part of said story, and if that large part of the story is uninteresting, the story often, not always, falls flat.
@Ultimabuster92
Uninteresting?
Malificient, Ursula, Scar, Gaston, to an extent Anton Ego, Hopper, Hal Stuart, Big Jack Horner, Death, Drago Bludvist, Grimmel the Grisly, Tai Lung, Shen, Fairy Godmother...
All of these villains were "uninteresting" to you?
@@Ze_N00B Excuse me, what? How are Malificent, Ursula, Scar or Gaston interesting...? In what way? What about these characters makes you want to know more about them...? I never sat there and thought to myself. "Man, i wonder what goes on in Scar's mind, how did he become like that?" I never sympathized with him nor did i feel the urge to look closer. Same with the other examples (i don't know all the characters you listed, btw.)
These villains may be entertaining or iconic, but they're not interesting. Maybe our definition of the word "interesting" just varies, but no. Entertaining and interesting are two seperate things.
That all being said, i'd like to point out, that i never said, that those villains are bad, they do, what they are supposed to do for the story, never said that a villain HAS to be interesting to work for the story, but they are still that, uninteresting. Nothing i will think about after i come out of the story, nothing that i will list as my favourite villains, nothing that i will analyze later on to learn from it, nothing that makes me question myself. They are simply forgettable
@@Ultimabuster92 They are interesting to watch. Maybe they are not interesting to you, but that doesn't apply to everyone.
Others are interested in their psychology because its unlike things we see in reality.
@@hunterkudo9832 Huh... alright. Two types of people, i guess. If you find them interesting, that's fine. Then i will rephrase my earlier statement and instead say, that I find them uninteresting.
Villains that are pure evil will always be my favorite type of villain
Judge Frollo and Lord Shen are both great examples of purely evil villains that are also complex.
What is a Lord Shen?
@ the main antagonist of, “Kung Fu Panda 2,” and one of my favorite villains ever. Bornok talks about him at 9:15.
I just commented about Frollo. Thank you for also including Shen! Gosh, I cannot overstate how much I love The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Kung Fu Panda 2 precisely because of their villains. Complex and realistic villains that don't get redeemed not because they don't deserve it but because THEY REFUSE TO, that right there is an important fact that people who gush over redeeamble villains don't understand: some people are dangerous and terrible because they want to be, and that's it.
14:24 I fundamentally disagree with this notion. Kaiju are inherently sympathetic (for the most part).
To quote the late great Ishiro Honda, director of the original _Godzilla,_
“Monsters are tragic beings. They are born too tall, too strong, too heavy. They are not evil by choice. That is their tragedy.”
The song “Who Will Know” from Shin Godzilla is pretty much the perfect showcase of this philosophy.
I think sympathetic villains and pure evil villains can both be really good or really bad. It ultimately depends on the character, what you want to achieve with them, and if being sympathetic or pure evil suits them.
The greatest current day villain is called Max Martin and many view him as a hero.
He is not comical but still true evil.
The closest villain in fiction to him would be Pucci from JoJo's
Porky Minch from Earthbound starts as being an understandable villain but slowly progresses into pure evil as he becomes more and more of a monster to the point where you completely forget that he was redeemable at one point. By Mother 3 he is absolutely vile.
And while we understand how and why he ended up like that, by no means we "need" to sympathize with him
Jack Horner from Puss and Boots and the High Evolutionary from Guardians of the Galaxy 3 are the best villains I've seen recently who were evil, unapologetically so and were wonderful catalysts for the story and a fantastic foil for the heroes.
I like to say, there's 3 types of evil and 2 types of villains - You can be purely evil, you can be mostly evil and you can be making lots of mistakes that could be understood as evil.
As for villains there's really only redeemable and the irredeemable villains
Sometimes the purpose of a villain is to remind the reader that there is such a thing as “Evil.” Part of the logic behind the trend of morally grey or relatable villains is the idea that there is no such thing as evil, there is only that which we do not understand. “Do you hate the wolf for its hunger” sort of thinking, but that doesn’t account for the existence of malevolence, or the genuine desire to do harm for harm’s sake. You can’t get a moral grey area without mixing the light and the dark.
Zelda is great in this way, cause the villains are never usually things that are misunderstood, theyre demons and monsters who just need to be stopped, and theyre great for it.
Or like the Ganondorf in Wind Waker. While we understand his reason, we still need to stop him.
Your villain can be the hero of their own story and still be unsympathetic.
Agreed, go check the latest vid for that one~
I personally love “pure stupid” villains where a villian is stupidly evil to the point they actively fuck over most of their evilness
I think a villain who can be irredeemable and pitiful can make for a great tragedy. It’s incredibly hard to write but done right makes for incredibly complex and dynamic villains. Their actions arn’t the result of tragedy their tragedy is the result of their actions.
Can confirm but BOY ARE THEY A PAIN TO WRITE (source: tried writing a villain who “was both sympathetic and irredeemable” and well… let’s just say it was really hard to walk that line)
I think judge holden shows that villains dont need to be sympathetic to be phenomenal. Granted even among pure evil, the Judge is a step above.
My personal take on writing villains is that I just do what I think works for the story I'm trying to tell- some of my projects have nothing but sympathetic villains who can all be talked down and reasoned with, some of them have nothing but pure evil villains who revel in being assholes, some have a mix of both, and I've even got some villains who are sort of a combination of the two (villains with sympathetic backstories and personality traits who are still awful people, or who are just being evil for evil's sake but *can* still be reasoned with)
...I have way too many projects but what else is new
This is what i loved the most about Puss in Boots 2, it had the unstoppable force of nature who isnt evil, a reddemable antagonist who we can relate to and the irredeemable monster who we want to see fail and be defeated by the hero
What did he do to deserve that? I mean, what specifically?
@@GlaceonStudios The irredeemable mosnter? he was about to shot a puppy in the face
@ Yeah. In the face. What of it?
If you are interested in pure evil villains then I recommend Villain Retirement. Riley Ross is the main character and the main villain. He decided to retire simply because his nemesis is temporarily dead, and wants to wait until she wakes up. His only motivation in being a villain is because he enjoys listening to the screams of despair of the tortured and dying. He also often messes with heroes by using innocent civilians as projectile weapons on them. If they block or dodge then the civilians would splatter like an egg on the floor.
All too often I hear someone hear someone call a villain bad because they have no sympathetic backstory and isn't relatable. The ironic part is that most people miss the real evil in front of them because of how unrelatable a real evil person actually is.
They're not always tragic victim of circumstance, but rather people who want something and don't care if they hurt others to get it. They're reasoning confused people. It's why sociopaths are so unrelatable.
Just because a villains not sympathetic doesn’t immediately make them uninteresting as characters. Analyzing the attributes of pure psychos is just as interesting as analyzing relatable villain. The latter has become boring because of overuse
The idea that a villain has to be relatable influences people to believe it's forgivable and quirky to be a POS irl and I blame the excess presence of such villains on why so many people think it's okay to be cruel
This is why i love villains like Cell or Frieza
Forgive me for gushing, and I admit I've only watched the abridged DBZ, but even there I adored just how batsh**t nasty those two were. I know the abridged version amplified the comedy to a hundred so maybe I'm biased by their humor, but I just love how much they unapologetically adore doing bad stuff and laughing at people who think anyone can be redeemed.
This is why my favorite villain in all media is Yoshikage Kira from JoJo’s while he is relatable but not in a sympathetic way. He is relatable because he’s just a normal guy with serial killer tendencies among a line up of villains that had plans to take over the world.
One of the main things I hate about sympathetic villains, especially if they’re minors, is when people say “they’re not a villain, they’re misunderstood/a child”. Yeah your so-called “misunderstood” guy was gonna kill like 15 people on-sight. That’s pretty evil to me
14:56 That kind of reminds me of the character change of Eren Yeager from attack on Titan, where at first he is an ambitious young boy, so with pain and rage to fight against the Titans. But as soon as he finds out the reason why they’re all on that island and why there are Titans on it. He feels like he needs to have revenge against the world to gain freedom.
So he puts all of his power and effort into destroying it.
And to me, it just felt so weird how he had such a sharp change in character, all the way into becoming the villain of the story, where everybody needed to stop Eren in order to save the world.
Honestly both Pure Evil Villain's and Sympathetic Villains have their places in media and BOTH can be absolutely amazing it just depends on how he or she is Handled
You should take a look at my latest video then!! :3
9:23 Alright, I hear this out. Since you mentioned the characteristics of an pure evil villian I had been thinking of him. So, imagine my surprise when I heard his voice at that point of the video while I was listening without watching the footage.
By the way, super great quality for such an small channel, instantly subscribed.
Gary Oldman will always turn heads.
Also thank you, I do my best :3
Honestly why I liked the governor in TWD, he started as a typical egomaniacal villain out for blood, then had a semi-redemption arc, only to fall back on his old ways and became the worst most irredeemable version of himself
I don’t think I’ve seen a “failed redemption-arc” anywhere else and it made the character much more unique as a villain
One of the most refreshing things about the manga "Berserk" is that the villain, Griffith, is utterly unsympathetic once he crosses that point of no return. Sure, he's the hero of his own story, but he's a complete narcissist who's rewriting reality to make the whole universe revolve around him, with himself as the conquering hero. He's living a childish fantasy built on a mountain of corpses, and never once does the author of the manga try to make you sympathize with him after the Eclipse. Rather, he does everything in his power as a writer and an artist to make you hate Griffith with every fiber of your being, to the point where the mere sight of his face makes your blood boil. I've never hated a fictional character as much as I hate Griffith, and it's a testament to Kentaro Miura as a storyteller, God rest his soul.
Berserk is a masterpiece, by the way. Go read it if you haven't already, and if you have the stomach for it. Trust me, it gets pretty uncomfortable at times.
In terms of categorising pure evil, I think the Lich should not be viewed as some typical Saturday morning cartoon villain, even though that is technically what he is.
The Lich itself is the physical embodiment of entropy and decay, death made manifest as a talking, malign entity. While our heroes can and must fight against it, it is shown that the Lich is always there, a force that is inescapable and constantly lurks in the background, scheming and chipping away at the world around it.
While it can temporarily be subdued, imprisoned, blasted apart or transformed, the Lich still exists in one form or another.
Oh so the video is about the fact irredeemable villains are great and not "villains you sympathize with are bad", was confused with the title of the video.
I think the best version of this is Handsome Jack. He has zero redeeming qualities, doesn't have a tragic story, and the worst thing to happen to him doesn't happen until he's already irredeemable.
The closest thing he has to a tragic history is his grandmother who raised him using harsh physical punishment for his behavior, which made him think violence and fear tactics are fine as long as they're "justified."
In the end, he still believes he's the hero of the story (even saying so), despite killing innocent people all the time, and his own daughter telling him to fornicate a cactus.
A good villain doesn't have to be relatable, but they always have to be either an unstoppable force or an immovable object, because they need to motivate the hero to become the other
We're in a time now where fools are actually trying to humanize the demons from Frieren and is upset that the demons are treated as the malicous monsters they are.
The whole 'sympathetic villain' trend has infected a generation into thinking everyone is secretly a cuddly person who just had a bad day.
what the fuck are you on about
Another weeb with a bad take. Yawn
@@Carlos-bz5ooanother shit take tumbling out of tumblr. sigh
I wouldn’t confuse sympathetic with being cuddly, as opposed to being more worth thinking about. In the same line of thought, don’t confuse empathization with exoneration. “Oh, I understand it” doesn’t make “Oh, I accept it”.
If you have an impenetrably evil character that doesn’t give you a reason to think about them… why are they chosen to be the opposing ideology to whatever the hero is about. That would just be writing your hero as an ideological winner by default. You need a reason why your hero is a hero compared to your villain without having anything to do with the actions either/both take. The demons in Frieren didn’t seem to do anything for anything other than the sake of control and power… so, they’re not memorable. the actions the party took against them were about as interesting as walking around a “wet floor” sign. Sorry man, but yeah, they would have been better characters if they were sent by someone else, or didn’t want to be demons of their own volition, etc etc. The blood demon isn’t interesting because of his blood abilities, that’s just that character’s silhouette.
What’s there to care about in Frieren anyway? Everything interesting happened in the first few episodes. The backstory was more interesting than Frieren’s new adventure. Frieren’s grief has already been resolved, and now it’s just a regular D&D adventure. Frieren isn’t interesting because she’s an elf, or a mage, those are just the silhouette. Her newfound feeling of grief was what made her character compelling.
The only “pure evil” villains I’ve ever found compelling were villains that aren’t even sentient. In stories of drug addiction, it’s the compulsions of addiction, and the drugs themselves, that are the villains. The things that can’t change. If it’s a living thing that can’t, categorically can’t, be changed, then that’s not interesting-the only way to be rid of that villain would be to kill it. Stories about the process of killing a god aren’t as interesting as stories about why the god must die. Sorry man, but those Frieren demons have nothing on, say, Miquella from Elden Ring. Him being a compelling villain isn’t about how you get to kill him, it’s about why he is always killed no matter how much you loved him and what he wanted to do for the world.
“Christ must die” is way more interesting than “Satan must die”. There’s your difference in interest between villain characters that are contextually evil versus categorically always evil/categorically can’t be understood/sympathized with. We already have enough absolute evils to deal with in life, like sadists-if I wanted to think about them, I’d just watch a documentary. Fiction is for thinking about how to deal with these things, not thinking about how those things are inescapable. You don’t need to be reminded of something that is self-evident. You don’t need elaboration for why absolute evil is absolute. For literally everything else, though, you do. Because if evil isn’t absolute, then it started at some point, and that starting point is what these stories we’re talking about, is about. A kid who kills puppies out of impulse is not as interesting as a kid who kills puppies because he deluded himself into thinking he has a reason to do it. What makes a villain good, or, better at being a villain than another villain, is how interesting and compelling they are as characters. Sorry man, but categorically, the latter kid belongs in stories more than the former kid. There’s more to do with the latter kid. More to think about. To think is the point, otherwise, why consume media at all? Surely not for eye candy….
This is also the same reason people are way, way more compelled by Griffith in Berserk than the Heart of Evil. Everyone loves to talk about that series. Isn’t the difference self evident? If sympathy isn’t what makes villains interesting, just substance and actions separated from reason, then wouldn’t the enormous literal root of all evil depicted in that series have more people interested in it than Griffith, who’s just some guy who made a silly decision? :P
Like I said, a villain isn’t exonerated for their actions for having a “bad day”, but yeah the fact that they had a bad day at all, as opposed to “I was always this way”, is the whole point of a character’s inclusion in a story. You should have thought about that.
I don’t like having to cite anime when talking about structure in stories, for obvious reasons, but since that might be all you understand, fight fire with fire I guess.
@Zythryl
You miss one thing here. Even if something isn't interesting, it doesn't suddenly gain traits to make it more compelling. Especially since interest is subjective from person to person.
I don't even care about Frieren since I only watch it sparingly with friends, but the example was to point out how even with a race created by the story to serve as occasional obstacles and nothing else is being fed more layers by people who need to believe there is more underneath.
Sometimes, characters are actually one note and only serve a single purpose.
If characters like that are boring to you, fine. But at least understand that it's dumb to try to argue against the lore of the story because you *want* something different.
The villains aren't that intersting, the story is more about Frieren's group and their dynamic. Some people like that and some don't.
I hear you on the idea of simple villains and devils being done to death, but if a story needs a straightforward malicious antagonist then it should be accepted as a writing tool like any other.
the past doesn't make the villains sympathetic or justify their own action. it's make a monster look more terrifies! i love it 😍
sympathetic villains have become so normal and expected that the demons in frieren caused controversy and had people trying their hardest to defend (which is fucking weird) despite the story making it clear demons evolved to predate on humans specifically and then there's the fat dude in puss in boots I think he was called jack i can't remember haven't watched it since it released (and death to a degree) wasn't liked by weirdos for being irredeemable being singular in focus without care for others it's sad that a pure villain is no longer what's normal and having a sympathetic villain was the rarity
Katz was pretty memorable. I mean whenever he was on screen even during certain episodes you were drawn to his presence even in an episodic series, like courage, the cowardly dog.
So villains can become more fascinating because of how evil they are. The best example of this are 3 evil villains from dark books, known by fans as „The Evil Trio”:
Judge Holden from Blood Meridian
Qu from All Tomorrow
And AM from I have no mouth and I must scream.
They are the worst of the worst, putting villains like Dio, Lich and even Griffif to shame
I'd argue Judge Holden isn't fascinating because of how evil he is, but because of he presents that evil.
He's also not evil for the sake of evil, he very clearly has a reason.
I should also mention the same for AM
And this is why Griffith has been hated for near 30 years
Evil people can't stand for villains to be portrayed as anything other than sympathetic and justified.
Fair
Came here to say this the rise of sympathetic villains is because of the rising tide of evil and real life. As we tolerate more and more sin and evil it demands to be seen as anything but, it demands we see it as right and justified instead of what it is, vile and to be brought down. Evil always weeks to life itself above good or at least subvert the true meaning of goodness
The way I love to handle villains is to make it that much more vile and twisted
Not to make them sympathetic but to make them “relatable”, like to have them go down the route of intrusive thoughts taking over, like to have them snap one day and think
“This is so much easier to do this, why care?, it just makes things more inconvenient”
As another comment put it “They should serve as warnings of what we could become”
The counter arguments tend to sound alien...like...here's an example
"I don't like bridges, they make life way too easy"
The ones who won't be that kind of evil are those who GENUINELY want to show how hard they are (You don't look strong when all you do is "Crush ants", anyone can do that, so if you see someone who tramples the "weaklings" to be strong, they just want to feel strong)
For me, there is such a thing as a well-written villain. My vision is to stop writing bad villains. Something that I honestly don't feel in what I see, because I only see good things.
I hate what they did to the Lich in the Fionna series. The Lich was supposed to be a force of nature kind of villain. It didn't need "purpose" or self-doubt. Those are human emotions. The lich is beyond that, he was "The end".
I’m glad someone went over this topic, even with the characters like the lich and the white peacock how his backstory doesn’t make him not pure evil.
Pure evil is still pure sir
One of my favorite "pure evil" villains is Makoto Shishio from the Manga/Anime Rurouni Kenshin. He IS the hero of his own story, and he HAS a personal moral philosophy and a justification for his actions. He's got a goal and a long-term reason to strive for it, and he won't be dissuaded, no matter what.
For context, RK is a historical fiction story, set in the years after the civil war in the 1800's that brought Japan out of 200 years of feudal rule and isolation. The main character and hero of the story, Kenshin, was an assassin during that war, who killed hundreds (though always reluctantly) to pave the way to the new era of peace and prosperity. But after a personal tragedy during the war, he retired from the assassinations and joined the battlefield proper; the assassin position fell onto a much more willing swordsman, Shishio. After the war ends, Kenshin is offered positions of power, but refuses them, swears to never kill again, and wanders the country helping people, wielding a reverse-edge sword; Shishio, on the other hand, is ambushed by his own allies, knocked unconscious, and burned alive.
Throughout the story, Kenshin fights all sorts of enemies, from psychopaths to warriors left behind by the times, and always manages to defeat them non-lethally, with the most impactful attacks often being through words rather than by the sword.
Then comes Shishio. Covered in bandages, scarred head to toe by the flames, and leading a revolution that seeks to overthrow the government and install a regime where the strong rules the weak, because he sees the government that betrayed him as one that's ashamed of the blood they shed to rise to power, and that's wholly incapable of facing the fast approaching international conflicts of the era.
Shishio is a ghost of the main character's past, a consequence of his actions, and a dark reflection of himself. He's threatening, entertaining, and has the strength and resources to pull off his plans. He's got followers who love him and fear him and would die for him. In his own "hero" quest, through his own philosophy, he has saved some of them, or given them a reason to live and believe.
He IS pure evil, but he also has a point about the weakness and hypocrisy of the government. He's the one enemy Kenshin can't dismantle psychologically, and he's too strong, and more importantly, too determined, to be defeated non-lethally. He's not just a threat to the land, and to the lives of the heroes, but also to the very moral foundation of Kenshin's philosophy.
I'm not gonna say how the story concludes, but I will say that Shishio stays true to himself to the very end, and beyond.
So yeah, he's one of my favorite villains, and a prime example of what this video is about, done right.
Ngl really enjoyed the video and the examples you gave of "Pure Evil" are also some of my favorite characters but I am tired of people saying that everyone hates villains who are pure evil. No one has ever said that all villains should be sympathetic, some have said that we should get more sympathetic villains and some say we should get more pure evil villains. Im pretty sure you are confusing the argument that some bring saying that all villains should have a motivation and not just be evil because of the plot, Shen and the Lich have a motivation so that really wouldn't go against that argument.
One of my favorite villains is Tolkien's Morgoth. Where Sauron started off with good intentions in terms of imposing order on a chaotic world, Morgoth rebelled against Middle Earth's version of God simply because he could not indendently create, and therefore totally rule, anything for himself, and so sought to impose his will on his Creators works through corruption, and then eventual destruction. Nothing about that is sympathetic, but every part of that sentence makes sense in terms of motivation: absolute petty destruction on a cosmic scale. It's the kind of thing I suspect even Lovecraft's beings would be stunned by because while their goals and very being is supposed to be incomprehensible, they have agendas that entail some kind of mastery over the world rather than its absolute destruction, and I suspect even they would look at such petulance as outright insane.
Another villain to make it into popular culture is Lord Dominator whose desire is to destroy every planet in the galaxy. Why? Because it's fun to watch people despair as their home is destroyed. It sounds cartoonish on paper, but it actually makes her a great foil to the main protagonist, who goes out of his way to be kind to everyone, even his enemies, because that's who he is and its something he takes joy in. It's altruism vs that casual childish sadism we like to forget we had when we squashed bugs for fun or teased and/or bullied each other in different turns, or got caught up in some drama or another when we were teenagers. That kind of cruelty in a villain isn't "relatable" (or at least I really hope not), but it is a good example of those worst impulses never being checked and taken to the worst heights imaginable when someone who gets a kick out of causing pain is given the power to destroy planets. These traits give her a psychotic streak that makes for a terrifying yet fun villain as she's laughing it up while being unapologetically evil.
Oh, and she has a nice character design, and that always helps in terms of popularity.
Anyways, with these two examples, I thought I'd just make my case that a villain doesn't need to be relatable or redeemable. What they need is an internal logic (IE, it makes sense to them within the story they're in) to be villainous as well as a way to be engaging, and one of the best ways to do that is to not only give them vices, but corrupted virtues. C.S. Lewis himself once noted that Attila the Hun wouldn't have left such a mark if it wasn't for his courage, and in the above, Morgoth let his desire for creative control become an obsession for dominion while using his creativity to twist reality so that all things had some form of his evil in it, with the worst example being his corrupting captured elves to create orcs. Meanwhile Lord Dominator used her ability to be empathetic in order to better inflict pain and misery on others for her own amusement. I think that also gives a pretty good idea on how to go for "pure" evil: not a complete absence of the ability to do good (at least at first), but to know what is good and then willfully choose what you know to be evil out of selfish motive.
I wonder how much of Morgoth’s development as described here would coincide with most Christian depictions of Satan, given Tolkien’s background. The two would seem rather similar by my understanding.
As long as we keep telling stories, there will always be a place for those villains within them that are entirely unredeemable and unsympathetic, those that consistently choose every time to reject the good. It is their words and deeds that instruct us away, and without them we lose our direction.
This is why Claud Frollo is (to me) the perfect example of a pure villain that is still realistic (btw thank you for mentioning him in the video, even if it was a short clip). We do not relate to him, he's an asshole, but you can definetly understand how a man like him can become the way he is, by looking at the societal problems around him, his upbringing and his position of power. Claud Frollo is a product of his time, specifically of the bad aspects of his time, and THAT's why he's a perfect pure evil villain.
Anton Chigurh does not have a corny backstory and is an evil psycho. He is though one of the best fictional antagonist
I recently watched Kamen Rider Ryuki and it has a new favorite villain of mine, Ouja. He actually subverts the sympathetic villain trope pretty hard back into downright deplorable bastard. everyone can't get enough of his hijinks, an absolute joy to watch him be a menace. So much so he frequently comes back in other Rider series with the original actor who loves the role. Def recommend this series even if you haven't watched a Kamen rider before, it's on YT now I think.
I LOVE writing irredeemable villains especially when it allows me to play around with morality and character mindsets and all that fun stuff! I have one right now that is a power hungry monster who insists that he’s the victim, trying to get the hero’s sympathy when he knows he’ll never change, torturing the hero and forcing him to abandon his kind and forgiving nature for the good of the world and himself! It’s so much fun to write characters with no morals whatsoever!
Characters in general don’t necessarily need to be relatable to be good character imo idk why so many people think that they have to
All the people who make that claim that villains cant be pure evil, doesnt understand evil. There are serial killers, who just wanted to do pure evil. Theres one vid on youtube with a killer in court explaining his horrific crime to the judge, its so disturbing, but to him, he is explaining it like me and you would explain how we bought groceries at the store. He doesnt feel any emotion for the horrific things he did. And he did them, because he could.
It seems nobody knows that “pure evil” means “cannot be changed”.
Or that “sympathy” does not mean “accept/approve”.
All the whining I’m seeing is coming from pro-eye-candy, anti-thinking sentiments. You can have a good story where a hero overcomes an absolute evil, and a good story where a hero overcomes any other kind of evil by understanding why the evil is evil and not something else (aka, sympathy). But to say that stories with pure evil villains are somehow more worthwhile than stories without, seems to me like saying “Superhero movies where the heroes always know they’re right are better than superhero movies where they have to question themselves before being sure about tackling the villains”. It’s a sentiment that implies you aren’t watching media to think. Which isn’t a good look at all.
Obviously what works best depends on what you are trying to tell in your story, but, come on. This video’s title and claim is synonymous, literally, yes literally, with “Stop making me wonder how villains become evil”. Not a good sentiment to have. At all.
The only way you would have intended to mean something else, is if you mean something else when saying “sympathize” or “pure”.
If a villain can have their mind changed, if they can recognize a mistake they’ve made, if they’ve become or are evil for an actual reason, and not just being a self-evident thing, then they aren’t “pure evil”. No, “pure evil” cannot be changed with persuasion, because that’s not what fucking “pure” means. “Pure” is synonymous here with “absolute”. Satan is pure evil. A guy who commits, say, mass genocide, for any reason at all that isn’t out of impulse, is not pure evil. Because the guy can, possibly, become something other than what he is. He can change. Satan can’t.
Stories where the audience needs to think about why the hero is a hero, and/or why the villain is a villain, requires a villain whose evil is not absolute, and not self-evident. Satan can’t be used in a story like this because the hero’s reflection categorically can’t go deeper than identifying whether or not the hero is like Satan. There’s no “why”, only “is”. And yeah, frankly, the stories about “why” are way more interesting. “Christ must die” or even “Hitler must die” is way more compelling than “Satan must die”.
You can have a story where a hero overcomes an absolute/pure/unchangeable evil, like a hero overcoming a drug addiction (the drugs being a cause of suffering is an axiom, unchangeable-so, “pure evil”). But that’s not a story about ideology. Neither is a story about, like, Finn having to destroy the Lich. Finn doesn’t need to question why he must do what he needs to. It’s just not about that. In that story, it’s about whether or not Finn is *capable* of victory, not about questioning whether or not it’s the right choice.
I’m just saying, if I want stories about absolute evils, general doomerism, things that obviously must be dealt with but the capability of doing so is the question, I’ll go ahead and watch a documentary. But in a fictional story, yeah, I would prefer to have my ideologies challenged. This requires the absence of self-evident absolutes, and requires understanding of what is challenging me. If you want to reduce that to just trying to identify why everyone is having a bad day, if you want to reduce a desire to understand to a desire for cuddles, that makes you the selfish prick, not me.
I agree. A story with a pure evil villain necessarily means it has a pure good hero which in turn means the story is black and white in who you're supposed to root for. There's no thinking in it. Obviously the hero is good and needs to win bc the story spells it out for you clearly. I like stories where you're forced to engaged with material on a deeper level and you are the one that has to make the judgement calls about what you think is right. In a way such stories tell you more about yourself and your value system than it does about the characters themselves
There is definitely a place for all sorts of villains. some have understandable motives, but not sympathetic. Some have sympathetic motives that make you wish they were on the heroic side. And then there are those who just want to watch the world burn!