Villains that are better than the Hero.

[Bunny Tracks]

Surprised no one said this guy yet. I mean, he definitely stole the show once again in the remake, even if his voice isn't as good.

 

[No. 7 cat]

Alan Rickman as Sheriff of Nottingham famously was said to have to outshone Kevin Costner as Robin Hood that supposedly cuts were made so it wouldn't be utter fail for the supposed lead.

 

[Recoil]

The highlight of Far Cry 3 was Vaas, far and away.

Hell, all the villains in that game were neat-o.

 

[Overly Serious]

Have we really got to six pages and not yet picked out the most famous instance of all?

Paradise Lost by John Milton.

Almost impossible to read but fantastic to quote. It has been said that Milton was "of the Devil's party and did not know it". A deeply religious man he set out to create a work that praised God and condemned the Devil and somehow managed to achieve the opposite in almost every way. The reader slogs through self-praising passages where Jesus and God discuss each other's perfection and laugh at Satan's foolishness; then that same reader devours every line of Satan cursing God and vowing even if he's damned he will not be beaten so long as there is defiance in his breast.

"What though the field be lost?
All is not lost; the unconquerable Will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield:
And what is else not to be overcome?"

These are Satan's words on finding himself cast down from Heaven, defeated. I mean, fucking read them - "study of revenge, immortal hate". Milton either never understood that every reader loves the underdog; or else thought readers would like he recoil from the very idea of defiance of God's will. He underestimated Man. The more inevitable the fate, the more defiance is admired.

When Uriel asks the Devil what he's doing out of Hell, Satan replies: "Let Him surer bar His iron gate if he would have me stay in that dark durance". Or in modern parlance: "Bitch, you want me in Hell, try harder". And which of us doesn't know the line: "Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven"? There's various fiction that attempts to portray the Devil as the Good Guy (the entire religion of Gnosticism to begin with). But I think only Milton tried so hard to make the Devil bad with such unintended outcome.

 

[Guts Gets Some]

I'm sure even the Christians here would agree the evil robots are cooler than "Captain Bible".

 

[Stasi]

I'm going to go a little old school here...

Back in the 90's there was this little late night show on CBC up here in Canukistan called Forever Knight.

I actually stumbled across this show a while back on youtube and really enjoyed it. Gave me Highlander TV show vibes. Sadly youtube cock blocked me and a bunch of the episodes are blocked in bongland. Tried to find a download but no luck. Would kind of like to finish watching it.

 

[JambledUpWords]

This is a bit more of an obscure example, but the movie Faust (based off of the German book written by Johann Goethe) has the coolest demon. The way he’s played in the 1926 German film by Emil Jannings is what steals the show. It’s one of my favorite movies for that reason. Also, the special effects are really good:

If you’re into religious themes you’ll like this movie.

 

[knightlautrec]

The highlight of Far Cry 3 was Vaas, far and away.

Hell, all the villains in that game were neat-o.

Aside from the Dutch guy at the end who kinda comes outta nowhere and whose existence I felt pretty meh towards. They made a mistake killing off the most entertaining villain first. Although I liked Buck a lot...the context visual clues of whatever fucked up shit he does to your friend are really great without it being so in your face and even then it's hard to hate his Aussie rapey character considering how pleasant he seems during his part of the game.

I think Ubisoft learned from their mistake in Far Cry 4 and made the more interesting villain the BIG final one. Pagin Min was a good villain. His lesser ones not quite as good but the wholesome family guy mercenary wasn't bad juxtaposition to the main character.

 

[Recoil]

I liked Buck a lot...

Buck was some of the best characterization I've seen in vidya. He genuinely got under my skin, like a character in a film or book.
Hoyt was a bit of a letdown, altho I laughed like hell when he said his hobbies include crystal meth.

His little speech about contact lenses was cool.

 

[Baguette Child]

*ahem*

Early DS9 Dukat was freaking incredible. Astounding performance by the actor. I hated the whole 'space satan' arc at the very end though; They could have taken his descent into madness after his daughter's death in a much more interesting direction.

 

[Midlife Sperglord]

I have to go with Magneto from the XMen.

 

[Sun Shihong]

Bowser.

Really. No matter how much he tries to be intimidating, he fails, but in a spectacular, over-the-top way that it's impossible for anyone to not cheer and support the guy. And he suffers from the same problem that Dr. Robotnik has, a bland protagonist that ends overshadowing every single of their support characters.

 

[Doctor of Autism]

Culprit-Kun from Persona 4 who is entertaining as fuck and literally gave no fucks to what he was doing. It's amazing that his sheer personality makes him more entertaining and interesting compared to the Investigation Team overall. Like not that they are bad, it's just Culprit-Kun is much more interesting and in spinoff material he has more depth than most of the modern Persona characters.

Spoiler: Spoiler

Daily reminder Adachi did nothing wrong he was just killing thots to protect Nanako.

 

[frozenrunner]

I'm going to go a little old school here...

Back in the 90's there was this little late night show on CBC up here in Canukistan called Forever Knight. It's about a vampire (before they were all turned into sparkly faggots) who's a cop in Toronto tying to kinda make up for all the bad shit he's done over the last 800 years. It was a really great show powered by some amazing actors and if your into that kinda shit look it up.

Anyhoo...the main character Nick Knight (ugh) has a "father" in a character named LaCroix who loves his wayward "son" dearly but doesn't understand why he wants this redemption shit and just wants his family back the way it was. Now LaCroix is a evil motherfucker in every regard who tries to set Nick up in various ways usually involving some poor unlucky human so that he'll "come back into his proper senses". He also has a radio show where he speaks to Nick every night waxing philosophically about the nature of good and evil, it sounds stupid but works rather well. The father's day episode is rather brilliant in this regard.

The complexity of LaCroix makes him far more interesting then any of the shows hero's who are humdrum in most ways. In the end Nick comes to the conclusion that he must kill LaCroix to be free to live his new life and the final fight is very intense as LaCroix is far more powerful but is ham-stringed by not really wanting to hurt his son or daughter and in the end they find a way to kill him and the parting lines as the trio stalk each other are amazing.

As much as I hate to say this the Jap's are really good at writing great villains as well.


Also Q from Star Trek...how can you not love that omnipotent bastard.

Fist bump. Forever Knight was great, as was the cast itself. It's been a lot of fun to see Nigel Bennett (LaCroix) pop up in other stuff over the years. I almost lost my shit when he had a small role in the vampire series The Strain.

Fun fact: Knight's love interest, played by Catherine Disher, also provided the voice of Jill in the original Resident Evil 3. I haven't played it in years, but I remember thinking it's was the only decent voice acting I had heard in the series at that point.

 

[Sayon]

I have to go with Magneto from the XMen.

Both Magneto and Bolivar Trask are right thanks to how the X-Men's world is written. If their respective kinds are doomed to endlessly be at war until one finally disposes of the other then someone like either of them are needed.

 

[Absolute Brainlet]

Squadra Ezecuzioni were the most based motherfuckers in part 5 and deserved to win

 

[Gravityqueen4life]

not sure who is the better villain (or the one having the better five head) but, Armstrong is one of my favorite. a libertarian on steroids that saw america and its shit culture destroying the world and the only way he thought too fix it was burning it all down and start over. turning the country into a anarchist hell-hole were only the strong may rule. i like villains that either loves or respect the hero and really wants them too join their side. but in the end

IT HAS TOO BE THIS WAYYYYYYY!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMpuUUV2HeE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkPVBoKx8MY&t=326s

 

[Some JERK]

Khan>Kirk
Vader>Luke
Magneto>Prof. X
The Kurgan>MacLeod
Walter White>everybody

 

[Tragi-Chan]

Alan Rickman as Sheriff of Nottingham famously was said to have to outshone Kevin Costner as Robin Hood that supposedly cuts were made so it wouldn't be utter fail for the supposed lead.

Another Kevin Costner movie with this problem is Waterworld. Costner’s character is portrayed as this gruff loner, but he’s not interesting or charismatic enough to be likeable. It doesn’t help that he does things like trying to sell a woman and child into prostitution.

Meanwhile, Dennis Hopper is this manic post-apocalyptic pirate cult leader dude who’s built a decadent floating city on the Exxon Valdez. All the fun scenes and interesting concepts revolve around the bad guys. The whole thing is meant to be this environmental parable, but I’d rather be with the beer-drinking cigar-smokers on jet skis than the boring piss-drinker on the catamaran.

 

[Bunny Tracks]

Deadman Wonderland is a stupid series with a stupid premise and even stupider characters, but holy shit, does it have some of the best villains I've ever seen. One of them gay, murderous, batshit insane monk who talks like a surfer-dude (at least in the dub) and has a guitar-gun. Lemme repeat-his guitar is also a gun. A guitar-gun that later becomes a fucking compressed air canon that he uses to blow out a guy's spine.

The other guy is a minor villain who's basically like if you took L and Light, fused them together, fucked up his neck in the process, and then hopped him up on a fuckton of crack. Also, the dub gives him this hilariously stupid line which I still can't believe is actually real.

Spoiler: This isn't a parody, but it might as well be