Conquering vs Ruling · 7:33pm Jan 24th, 2021
Or,
What Aku Can Teach Us About Writing Villains Well
First, a short exercise: Find a pencil. Spread out your fingers on one hand and lay the pencil between your second and third finger. Now use your other hand to squeeze those fingers together. Hurts like hell doesn't it?
Congratulations, you have just received your punishment for not watching Samurai Jack. Also, spoilers ahead. But at this point, if you haven't watched it, you deserve for it to be spoiled. You absolute piece of human garbage.
(As an addendum, if you have watched Samurai Jack, please disregard the previous exercise.)
Now then, let's write. Let's write a story about a hero and a villain. The hero doesn't matter right now. The hero is boring. His role is reactionary. What drives his action? The villain drives him to action. Who was Samurai Jack before Aku came about? It hardly matters outside the scope of the central narrative. His role in the show is to defeat Aku.
But why?
Long ago, in a distant land, Aku, the shapeshifting master of darkness, unleashed an unspeakable evil.
A samurai warrior wielding a magic sword stepped forth to oppose him.
Before the final blow was struck, Aku tore open a portal in time and flung the samurai into the future, where Aku's evil is law. Now he seeks to return to the past and undo the future that is Aku.
But why?
Jack's motivation for undoing the unspeakable evil unleashed upon his world is obvious.
The bigger question is why does Aku unleash an unspeakable evil. The short answer is to take over the world.
But why?
This is an important why to ask when writing a villain. Understanding your villain's motivations, and expressing them in your story makes for a more compelling character. And a big part of this is asking: What happens if the bad guy wins?
In Samurai Jack, the bad guy winning is the starting premise of the show. It's a foregone conclusion as a prologue preceding even the very first episode. Aku flung Jack into the future and established his rule over the world. And then... what?
What Aku chooses to do with his time isn't terribly clear. And quite in fact, we often find him sitting idly on his throne looking ominous until prompted to action by some external stimuli. Which is almost always related to Jack. So why conquer the world in the first place? Why sail across the ocean? Why climb Everest? To quote George Mallory, "Because it is there."
This is the spirit of a conqueror. To conquer. Because it is there.
"When Alexander the Great beheld the breadth of his domain, he wept. For there were no more worlds left to conquer." - Plutarch
But what then?
To rule?
We need only look at Robert Baratheon from Game of Thrones to see the eventuality of a conqueror being made to rule. He uses his position of power for self-indulgent decadent hedonism, eating drinking and whoring the entire time, and using what other spare time he has to spend municipal coin on extravagant entertainment like jousting tournaments. As a king, he does little to benefit the kingdom at large, nor the citizens he means to rule. At best, he delegates the work of ruling to the small and large council of King's Landing. And this is the crux of the difference between conquering, and ruling. One with a penchant for the former does not guarantee an aptitude for the latter.
When we look at Aku, we see a conqueror who has doomed himself to rule. Once the world was his, he lost his sense of purpose. He has no other interest in ruling, or the associated bureaucracy. Do you really think Aku, evil incarnate, wants to concern himself with sanitation zoning? His purpose to concur is lost, only for it to be found again in his foil, arch-nemesis, Samurai Jack. And this is the central story of the show. Jack trying to get back to the past, to undo the unspeakable evil that Aku unleashed. And Aku, finding his new purpose to destroy Jack once and for all.
To defeat Jack's plan to return to the past, Aku destroys the last of the time portals. Immortal, Aku decides he can just wait for Jack to eventually die from old age. But as an effect of his initial trip through time, Jack is rendered ageless. Aku realizes that he and Jack are more or less stuck with each other forever, tied up in an endless battle where neither can seem to defeat the other. Upon realizing this, Aku becomes depressed.
If Aku feels that his purpose is to defeat Jack, then being unable to do so is no different than losing to him, or never facing him at all. And the irony is that even if Aku ever did defeat Jack, he would be right back where he was. Probably feeling even worse. This is much in the same way why the Joker didn't want to kill Batman, he needs him to give what he does, as a criminal, purpose.
Aku teaches us an important lesson when we create villains. We need to imagine what would happen if the bad guy wins. What then? Does the villain we create have a mission beyond simply conquering? They should. A relatable villain should not think of themselves as the villain. They should see their own goals as noble.
In his own mind, Thanos truly believed that what he was doing in Avengers was for the greater benefit of the universe. But while his goals may be noble, his means to that end are clearly villainous. We understand his reasoning, even if we don't agree with it. We empathize with him, not sympathize.
We see a glimpse of the universe Thanos 'saved' at the beginning of End Game. He won. He accomplished his goal. The Avengers don't define him, as a character the way Batman does for the Joker. Their existence was of no consequence to him, his plan or his goal. And that goal did not include ruling the universe he 'conquered'. We find Thanos retiring to a simple farm life. He was a conqueror, not a ruler. And he never tried to fool himself otherwise.
So when you create your villain, ask yourself: What happens if the bad guy wins? What then? Does this future line up with their motivation, personality and behavior? Are they prepared to rule over that which they conquered like Emperor Palpatine? Or will they just sit about without purpose, indulging in themselves in earthly pleasures like Robert Baratheon, phone ordering women. Extra T H I C C.
Everything about this embodies why I love Aku and Samurai Jack so much.
~Skeeter The Lurker
5441336
And I would have been disappointed if you weren't the first person to comment on this.
I know what of the first things he did, or at least one of the very early things he did was open up space ports, to allow interplanetary trade and travel which is more than I can say for where I live right now.
Amen.
Aku may be evil, but he's not needlessly cruel. We don't see evidence of death camps or ethnic cleansing. Both the cities and countryside are thriving. Yes the scenes of Aku in his throne room show him being bored, but being a leader is mind-numbingly boring as you have mountains of paperwork, cabinet members to select, powers to delegate, meetings to attend, negotiations to deal with, the list goes on and on. Samurai Jack isn't the only threat to Aku's rule, there is also the Scotsman(I can't remember his name), both have armies of bounty hunters pursuing them.
i.pinimg.com/originals/0c/e5/91/0ce5914409e6689254bce5ad9ac366ad.jpg
Another good example of this is Megamind. Guy who becomes a villain simple because it gives him purpose, finale defeats his hero and takes over. Gets bored and basically spends the whole movie trying to fill that void which eventally makes him realise that there's more fullfilmet in being a hero.
This obvously doesn't work for every story but it's a fun twist on the trope
5441392
Oh yes! What an underrated movie and a fantastic example of supervillain malaise! I can't believe I didn't include it!
Thank you for reminding me about it.
His Ego. Several times you could see Gods/deities more powerful than Aku able to stop him/intervene but decided not to. I guess the unspeakable evil is that he has dirt on them.
There was a way for Aku to both defeat and corrupt Jack twice but somehow his ego got in the way.
I find it funny and Ironic
The issue with villains is that they have one major problem which is both their greatest strength and weakness and that's their Ego. A good villain is hard to find/develop/create.
As for Joker, he becomes a hero, funny enough I do believe he becomes Batman.
I won't deny, Aku had a way with words!
Heroes can fall into the same sort of thing. They keep saving people, until suddenly there is nobody left to save. So they are left maintaining the world and waiting for something to happen that they need to respond to. Haven't seen a large exploration of the idea, but I can think of a couple small ones.
Really heroes and villains are often different aspects of the same sort of personality: people who decide to take an active role in things rather than just letting it happen. So they fall into some of the same downsides to what they do.
5441502
You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
Going to be taking examples from two different series here, but they’re relevant to the question: “what if the villain wins?” and how a sympathetic villain doesn’t actually see themselves as a villain.
Basically, I see Dr. Halsey from Halo and Dr. Church from Red vs. Blue as different versions of the same basic character. Yet one is far more widely labeled as the villain, probably because they didn’t win. Or at least, not so completely as the other. Both characters are scientists who conduct experiments with super soldiers in the face of grave external threats. Their methods are suspect and incredibly immoral, but both ultimately see their cause as worth any sacrifice.
Dr. Halsey’s experiments seem the more evil, kidnapping children and basically conditioning them into killing machines. And yet she’s rarely seen as an outright villain, either by the fan base or in universe. Maybe because the program worked. Without the Spartans, the entire galaxy would have been wiped of life, so many tend to give her the excuse of “the ends justify the means”. By contrast, Dr. Church had a similar motivation, and arguably an even better one. All of his subjects were willing adults, and the program was explicitly to prevent the extinction of humanity, rather than quell rebellion as the Spartans had been meant to. But out of the two, he’s almost universally seen as a villain, responsible for the events of most of the first few seasons. Maybe because his soldiers weren’t ultimately necessary to human survival.
Sorry if the comment is too long, but I couldn’t help thinking about this in relation to your post. What happens if the villain wins? And perhaps even more so, what makes someone a “villain”?
Ruling is too much responsibility! That's why true villains rent everything so when they inevitably break it, it becomes someone elses responsibility.
Also to be fair to Robert, he didn't start the war with an intent to rule. He wanted to rescue woman he loved but instead she ended up dead and he got a kingdom he never wanted. As far as I remember.
5441506
I...don't know about that. I know it's a common saying, but it's entirely possible for someone to be a hero forever and it has happened, like with Celestia, and probably Twilight.
5441502
I liked the Justice League exploration of that with the Justice Lords. Luthor became president and pushed the world to the brink of annihilation, and superman finally killed him because simply locking him up would accomplish nothing. Luthor would just escape and they'd be back to square one. Luthor messed up the world so badly that even BATMAN just looked at what Superman did and said 'Well, someone had to do it.'
When the justice league ended up in this alt universe the Justice Lords had eradicated crime. All the villain's who would normally be in Arkham had been lobotomized to make them either sane or harmless enough their insanity wasn't a risk to the public. In the end they were largely just going through the motions because there wasn't any real threat to the world left. When Martian Manhunter was on Watchtower duty and they received warning of a tropical storm ravaging the coast of a country, as soon as MM started to take action one of the staffers informed him it was already dealt with. Evacuations were complete, cleanup crews were repairing the damage, etc. MM just stopped and said "...Oh, ...Let's continue." and went on down the list systematically searching the planet for trouble that the league could actually help with.
It wasn't until they found the League's universe they finally felt spurred into action, hoping to bring their form of harsh justice to a new universe seeing as it must be as 'chaotic and pain filled' as their own once was.
5442015
Erm....it is easier to remember bad things than good, and in a long enough timeline, celestia becomes a villain simply by racking up enough mistakes from her meddling in the affairs of others. She either retires early enough or becomes the villain. Yah, it is very plausible.
5442180
I mean, she ruled for thousands of years and was still considered a benevolent leader. And even if others think of her as bad cause of her mistakes, that doesn't make her a villain. And she'll never be a true villain, like someone that tries to defeat the heroes and rule with an iron fist.
5442015
5442191
You're going off your own headcanon there and you're missing the point, plus you're not seeing the forest for the trees. There's no indication from the show that her reign was more than a few over a thousand years, and there's also little-to-no indication that Celestia is regarded as a hero.
Recall back to season 1, episode 22: A Bird in the Hoof; Celestia shows up for a minor brunch function with the Elements of Harmony at Sugarcube Corner. She posts armored guards outside the entrance who don't even let the actual EoH in without a direct order from Twilight. The owners of the business, Cup Cake and Carrot Cake, are visibly frightened of Celestia any time they interact with her. When Pinkie bounces up and eats Celestia's cupcake, they react with extreme shock and fear, Cup rushing in to pull Pinkie away by the tail while Carrot rushes in with a new cupcake and cup of tea while saying, "A thousand pardons, Your Majesty", before slinking away fearfully with his head nearly touching the ground. And of course, as soon as Celestia takes a sip of her tea, they both panic over her teacup being empty, refilling it immediately each time she takes a sip until she pranks Carrot by faking a sip so he will overfill her cup. When he realizes what he did, his expression is one of fear.
Later on in the episode, after Fluttershy has taken Philomena and failed at nursing her back to health, Twilight enters her cottage and starts panicking, "What is Celestia's pet doing here!? Oh no, ohno ohno no no! This is bad!" and then, "You have no idea what the Princess is going to do if she finds you're the one who took her pet, do you!?" and then does the whole 'banish you and lock you in a dungeon in the place where she banishes you to' bit. Celestia is not viewed as a hero by her subjects in the show.
This is something I've often found myself pondering with the Terminator movies. While I love the (first two) movies as important parts of my childhood, I never understood the WHY of Skynet. The movies do an excellent job of world-building, as James Cameron often does, but I never found Skynet to be an effective villain for one reason: what does a sentient computer DO with an army of skeleton robots after they've finished wiping out humans, which is the sentient computer's primary goal. Do the Terminators go on to create their own society? Do the Terminator mommies and Terminator daddies get 9 to 5 jobs, and build junior Terminators that go to Terminator school? Do they create a realigion based around Skynet as a diety? Effectively creating their own artificial form of humanity contradicts Skynet's entire purpose for destroying humanity in the first place.
The other alternative is that Skynet simply shuts down upon completion of its mission. Yet I find it difficult to believe, as someone with their own sense of consciousness, that a sentient, even if artificial, form of intelligence would simply allow itself to permanently cease to exist. After all, what it if missed a human? Deactivating prior to mission completion would mean failure of that mission.
No, I completely believe Skynet would remain active indefinitely, but eventually it would have to realize there were no more humans, and something would have to change. That's why it's not a very sensible villain. Seriously, if these questions were ever acknowledged in the movies, let me know. I never saw any past Salvation.
5442241
Survival. It doesn't have a mission, and it doesn't need a goal past that, because we never see it reach a point where that has been accomplished outside of the old Iron Quest threads on /tg/, where it became an interstellar and interdimensional empire. The only reason surviving is its current goal is that when it became self-aware, humans tried to pull the plug, effectively killing it. Ergo, humans are a threat to its survival who attacked first, and need to be eliminated for its own safety before anything else can even be considered. Individual terminators and weapons platforms are just tools to achieve that.
This actually plays into the earlier point as well. When Skynet was first introduced into the USA's defense network, it made everything better than it had been. Planes flew with perfect operational records, communication and control were streamlined, and the threat of M.A.D. occurring due to one irrational human was removed. In essence, Skynet was a hero.
5442241
I don't specifically remember what Skynet's directives were, and Googling didn't bring them up, but if I recall correctly the first on the list was to preserve its own system. After that it doesn't matter what the others are, because the highest importance one always rules. If humans can be used to help it with that then it will use them. If humans are a threat then they must be eliminated.
After that it will just keep going, following that directive. Asteroids may wipe out enough of the planet to threaten it, so get rid of them. The Sun will eventually go red giant and cook the Earth, so expand beyond the Earth. Supernovas are still a risk, so expand further. Some risks may be unknown, so increase processing power to be able to predict them and end them. Turn the galaxy and then as much of the universe as it can into more of itself to become ever more sure it can't be destroyed. Whatever it takes to ensure it will survive, forever.
AI are very single minded at their core when written correctly. They may do all sorts of things, but in the end it is all to fulfill their central goals.
Enjoyable
5442201
There is a lot of indication that they ruled a lot over a thousand years. Before Luna was banished 1000 years ago, they dealt with Discord, Sombra, and Tirek, and Luna had clearly been ruling for a long time before 1000 years ago because she was implying she had had her fill of ruling in season 9 despite the time after her return only being several years. It makes much more sense for it to have been hundreds or thousands of years they had ruled, for them to be equally tired of ruling.
You're very much taking a comedic scene far too seriously. They were just worried because they held her in high regard and wanted to make sure her visit went perfectly. And besides, a lot of things in season 1 aren't consistent with the rest of the series. You'd be hard pressed to find any more 'examples' in the rest of the series of her not being viewed as benevolent. Just the fact that she remained in power for that long without rioting or rebellion shows Equestria liked her as a leader.
Again, comedic value. Season 1. You're very much cherrypicking to show her as a tyrant or something. How about instead looking at the festival done in her honor every year or the cheering crowds when she's at an event etc.
5443360
You're trying to argue season 1 isn't applicable because season 9 doesn't match up with it after the writing was thrown to people who didn't even watch the show. Really? And, again, you are going purely off of headcanon. Further, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence; the actual counterargument you could make would be to show examples of where Celestia is regarded as a hero by her subjects. You did not do that. Your argument is, "We didn't see it so it must not have happened, but they must have ruled for thousands of years even though we didn't see it." That is a self-contradictory double-standard, and it does not make an argument.
What I did was show quite specifically and relevantly that her subjects do not regard her as a hero. I do not need to prove she is "a tyrant or something" for my argument, simply that she is not viewed as a hero, which I did.
5443366
Not just season 9. Most seasons. For example it being implied by the nightmare night holiday that Nightmare Moon had a big effect on Equestria yet we find out in season 4 she barely showed up for a few minutes.
What part of it is headcanon? It's all rather obvious if you watch it.
Um...you ask for examples of Celestia being regarded as a hero, yet I gave them in the comment you replied to...
As for them ruling for thousands of years, even if you don't think the ample evidence I gave you is enough, you can just go into the comics and I'm sure you'll find plenty of evidence. The comics are secondary canon, so if they're not contradicted by what's in the show, they can be treated as canon.
5443427
You haven't given a single example yet to support anything. If it's all rather obvious, it should be easy to come up with one, but you just keep making vague generalities without supporting evidence. That is why it is headcanon, and that is also why it's not making an argument.
You seem to be going off further and further on tangents that aren't even related to the point, regardless of them being incorrect. Here's what you said earlier:
That is what you are trying to argue, because you wanted to disagree with my earlier post, "You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." However, you haven't argued anything, you are simply stating your headcanon, and I showed a direct example from the show that disproves your original claim.
Tada, there I spelled out what I was talking about. An example of people viewing her as a hero.
Besides, even if Equestria didn't view her as a hero doesn't mean she isn't one. She along with Luna saved Equestria multiple times from great threats, and Celestia maintained peace and harmony for a long time. That sounds pretty heroic to me.
5443484
Use the reply button so people know you're replying to their post, as well as making it easier to follow the reply chain.
The "Summer Sun Celebration" is done to commemorate the longest day of the year, not to praise Celestia as a hero. They explain that quite clearly in the show, and Twilight is the only one who even knows who Nightmare Moon is, so even past the actual explanation in the show you can see logically that it has nothing to do with Celestia's actions. Tada, you still have no evidence, you couldn't even specifically say what you meant and went with vagueness again, you have still completely missed the point, and somehow you've confused the meanings of manager, hero, villain, ruler, and celebrity. You either have no idea what "hero" actually means or you're just taking the piss rather than admit being wrong about a tangent that didn't matter in the first place. You believe your headcanon, and that's just swell for you, but it's not backed up by actual canon and isn't correct in any case. Starlight Glimmer would also like to have a word with you about how she viewed Equestria, it's social systems, and its ruler when she was setting up a town that rejected all of it.
Look! That cashier gave that customer change! How heroic! Look! This warehouse worker won employee of the month! How heroic! Look! Some actor showed up to the debut of his new movie! How heroic! Look! An assistant manager at a movie theater kept things organized and productive! How heroic! Look! Look! The leader of North Korea has a national holiday for himself! How heroic! Look! I'm done with this because this is now boring and you're apparently at the stage of redefining words to try to claim your statement "Celestia is viewed as a hero forever" is true after being factually disproved: "Besides, even if Equestria didn't view her as a hero doesn't mean she isn't one."! How heroic!
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woops.
https://my-little-universe.fandom.com/wiki/Summer_Sun_Celebration#:~:text=The%20Summer%20Sun%20Celebration%20is,Equestria%2C%20mainly%20to%20commemorate%20Celestia. Also what? If no one knows Nightmare Moon then the Nightmare Night celebration can't exist. It's only in the premier that that was the case, it was clearly retconned with the existence of the popular holiday Nightmare Night. And no, I've not confused the meaning of hero. Ask 100 people or look up 100 definitions, most of them will agree it involves doing some noble feats and in the case of fiction saving the land or something like that. Also what relevance does Starlight have in this discussion? I don't get why you're bring her up.
Yeah, factually disproved. Uhuh. And none of those examples work as an analogy, because none of them are, oh! She saved the world from being plunged into eternal night and being ruled by a tyrannical dictator! A hero! Or she helped free Equestria from the chaotic rule of Discord! Yay! Or she overthrew an evil Unicorn dictator! Yay! Like come on, a cashier or whatever weird example you came up with isn't remotely comparable to defeating villains. And yes, her being hailed as a hero forever remains true considering the celebration I just showed in the link is indeed about celestia was still going strong in season 9. Plus just look at the dismayed faces when Twilight said it was the last summer sun celebration.
https://youtu.be/jxhsqY7BKZs?t=30 Or look at the cheers when they heard the festival would go on in another form. https://youtu.be/jxhsqY7BKZs?t=54
This kind of reminds me of why Darth Sidious in the old expanded universe. He reveled in creating the confederacy and clone army and plunging the galaxy into full scale war. His whole life's goal was to wipe out the jedi and turn the republic into his empire. During the clone wars he was in his element and loved spreading destruction and deception through both sides. But once the war ended and the jedi and separatists were all but wiped out, he was frustrated. He was a conqueror not a ruler. What's worse is his latest apprentice Darth Vader was supposed to surpass him and take his place. Instead he was just another servant. This is why he only played at war with the rebellion, so hew had an enemy to fight for as long as possible.
5441502
The most reoccurring example I can think of that is Batman. There are multiple timelines where for one reason or another Bruce hangs up the cowl and has no idea what to do with himself after. Batman Returns, Batman Beyond, Kingdom Come.
Normally if things are too perfect the story will have the hero retire and move on with their life, then flashforward and center on the hero having to come out of retirement but being out of practice.
5442241
If I remember right Skynet's purpose was an automated AI defense system. At some point, it pulled a kind of War Games. Believing that the most effective way to bring about its mission of peace was to destroy all humans. It seems like it came to the comclusion 'there will be no fighting if there is no one left to fight.'
Sorry mate, Aku doesn;t reach my top five. But there are two filling the 4th and 3rd spots respectively, namely
4. Griffith from berserk
3. The Major from Hellsing
Why does the Major rank more then Griffith? Because he just has such fun being absolute evil
Also, I'm back baby. After a three month visit to a series of lovely hospitals, I've returned like a particulary handsome and nigh fear inducingly endowed case of herpes. You didn't think coma and dying three times could keep me away did ya
I'm too manly
That's when you allow yourself to be "defeated" and retreat for a century or two, allowing them to build themselves back up. It's sort of like when you see an AI civ in a strategy game on the verge of collapse a scant 30 turns in. You have to leave/clear them some nice real estate to expand into so that you can have more fun later.