Quick Blog: How people react to villians · 2:06pm Nov 22nd, 2015
So, every now and again, I see someone comment, or blog, or even simply say that they "hate [insert antagonist here] so much" and that "somebody needs to give me a cricket bat so I can deal with [said antagonist]" and so on and so on.
I mean, I've seen plenty of people going on about how the antagonist in The Mane Attraction was "the worst (or best from a certain perspective) villain this season" and how he made them so mad. I see people wanting to start an anti-Starlight Glimmer group so she can 'get what she deserves'.
It made me think: I don't really get annoyed by MLP villains. At least most of them. I see these hastily-brought-in characters that have little-to-no character development, and all get to see of them is them being an ass. Honestly, when this happens, I can't bring myself to hate them. Not because I think that they've 'got problems of their own that are driving such and such do do it' or anything like that. No, it's because of two reasons:
1| Anything that they do is trivial.
2| Even if they somehow do something non-trivial, we all know that they're not going to get away with it in the end.
Now, there are exceptions that I've seen to this, but none that I can remember from S5. Exceptions that I can think of off the top of my head would be the one particular moment in the Tirek VS Twilight battle; when Twilight's home is destroyed, I literally slammed my headphones down on the desk, paused the video, raised my hands to my head, and in a voice that screamed 'super rage mode but trying to suppress it', I slowly said "Fuck you, Tirek. Fuck you."
I suppose I should be asking myself what makes a good villain. Is it how much the show/story manages to make you hate them, or is it perhaps about how much you can relate to them and understand their own struggles?
So, I'll ask you guys. What do you think makes a good villain?
One that actually provides trouble and distress for the main characters
Simple
The willingness to do whatever it takes, and sacrifice anything to achieve their objective, is what defines a villain. Many people may be misguided or amoral, but a villain is defined as one who is willing to sacrifice anything or anyone to achieve a result unbound by virtues or morals.
Regardless of the goal a person who is wiling to sacrifice their ideals to achieve a result loses themselves and forgets who they used to be and what they were fighting for in the first place.
LateBronyWriter
3560789 I gotta agree with you on that one. I'm not too sure how well I talked about that in the blog, but something that really gets me invested (or rather, invested in hating) an antagonist is when they do crap to characters, but get away with it. And for me, things that antagonists do that get me riled up would include personal insults/harm, property damage, and just generally stuff that would be illegal in real life.
3560823
...Hmmm. Interesting definition. I guess I should've been more wary tossing the terms 'antagonist' and 'villain' around, as they are actually very different things.
In my opinion, a villain is not a person. They're not someone that you can decide if they are a villain or not. A villain is a construct of the writer, someone who that is designated by what the writer means for them to do. If, when the writer wrote the script or story, created the character in order to oppose the protagonists and/or cause trouble, then that, I think, makes them a villain.
But there's a difference between a villain, and a good villain. It can be hard to tell which.
As far as Starlight Glimmer is going to be in the S5 finale... well, I guess we'll have to see. I'm honestly not too sure how far she's going to go, or if she will be reformed in the end, but we do know that she's going to try to change history to make it so the mane 6 never meet.
I don't know about you, or anyone else, but that sort of thing doesn't get me to hate a villain, or even like a villain. I think a villain is made good by their appearance, their eccentric or over-the-top or unstable personality. A villain should stand out, be someone unique.
But villains also need a driving force. And that is something that MLP has never been too good with. By the time we got to see Diamond Tiara's drive, she was practically reformed.
And so I go into the last episode of season 5 wondering if Starlight is going to be given any more character. I want to see perhaps a flashback to her foalhood where maybe everypony else does stuff better than her, or something that drives her to create the communist town of 'Our Town'.