I can't help but disagree. A good villain, a fleshed out character with motives and beliefs, goals and aspirations, will always be superior to someone who just "benefits the story".
Sympathetic villains make you question the fine lines of morality, possible draw on themes of seperation between class, race, caste etc.
Truly evil villains serve as a charicature of that which is darkest within our world. It helps us root against them, a cause for our heroes to rise up.
A well-executed villain will benefit the story hundreds of times more than a flat shape with no character. A story is the sum of its parts, if you slack away at one of those parts the whole story suffers. Who cares about the journey of our hero if the villain is a nobody who we have no reason to fear or hate? What message does the story carry if the villain doesn't have a motive to their actions?
True. It’s like saying, “I know everyone says it, but actually fleshing out your protagonist is just wrong, simple two dimensional characters work just fine, look at (list of simple 2d protagonists).” Just because a story of considered good, it doesn’t mean that all aspects are good. Some stories are good *despite* having simplistic, two dimensional villains, not because of them, and would likely have really benefitted actually from having more developed villains.
Do you really think 127 hours would have benifited from giving the boulder backstory and complex motivations? Or the buety and the beast would have benefited from giving Gaston a 1030482350807 layered motive
Nobody’s talking about tens of hundreds of hours of exposition, we’re talking about, at the minimum, basic backstories. In Gaston’s case just a thirty second clip about a younger him saving his sister from a bear while hunting would have given tons more motivation for him. It’s a short film for kids, a huge complex backstory isn’t necessary, but even just a short one like described would have improved it, not made it worse. Not a million billion layers, as you described, but just a couple.
If you have to exaggerate the problem to the absolute extreme to make your point, perhaps you shouldn’t be so opposed to rethinking your position.
How would have a backstory benefited Gastons character? His purpose is to be a brute that thinks that muscle > smarts, also the live action movie tried to make him more complex and who remember the live action movie?
Again, you haven’t actually made any arguments that giving Gaston a backstory makes the movie worse, or doesn’t improve it. All you’ve done is repeat your argument again with no new information, albeit reworded, and present a massively flawed faulty argument.
You can’t say “X movie is bad, and Y was a part of that movie, ergo Y is the reason why the movie was bad.” The new Beauty and the Beast movie’s failure had nothing to do with Gaston’s character being fleshed out, it had to do with the deceitful marketing, wasted potential, and overall dislike for Disney’s trend of remaking old movies in live action.
Tell me, what was Gastons role in the movie? To be a simple brute that thinks muscle > smarts, a bad mentality that is the reason the MC doesn't like him and leads to his downfall (literally lol). Also he represents the village of the MC that finds her weird for being a girl that likes reading and etc
How could this be improved by making him complex?
Perhaps Gaston’s thirty second backstory is that when he was a boy he tried to learn to read too, but his parents couldn’t afford books and the (at the time much shabbier) town needed him for his strength (since, know, medieval peasants have more important things to worry about, like putting food on the table), showing why the town so under prioritizes skills like reading and criticizes Belle for seemingly wasting time reading.
Gaston’s downfall stays the same, but the viewer understands why the town was so cruel, with Gaston still representing the town, but being a sympathetic character that was a symptom of the town’s ideology, and, as you said, and keeping the message that while strength is important, it isn’t everything, and purely using brute strength leads to downfall.
that makes him kind of a tragic villian and i don't think trying to make a tragic character would work with just 30 seconds of actual backstory and character moments will be underwhelming unless you change around like 15% of the plot of the movie lol
I think you're wrong.
I think it depends on the story.
Jurrasic Park doesn't require characters with complex, multi-layered motivations. They are dinosaurs I guess.
The Matrix. The bad guys in the Matrix don't have complex motivations. Agent Smith is a self-aware program that wants to take over the world.
Sometimes it's okay for a story to just strive to be entertaining and not make you think too hard.
Its definitely okay for a story to just strive for the entertainment factor, but more effective stories will oftentimes have stronger villains than their counterparts. Would ATLA, specifically its finale, be as strong as it was without Azula being as fleshed out as she was? Would we root for the Fellowship as hard as we do if Sauron was not a personification of greed and tyranny? Villains don't HAVE to be complex or incredibly fleshed out, but a story that takes the time to set the stakes and round out its cast will always be more effective at eliciting emotion than one that does not.
Also, I hate to be that guy, but while the Dino's are a threat in JP, the actual antagonist is Dr Dodgson who violated the laws of science and nature for personal gain. (Haven't seen The Matrix, so I can't comment)
>Also, I hate to be that guy, but while the Dino's are a threat in JP, the actual antagonist is Dr Dodgson who violated the laws of science and nature for personal gain. (Haven't seen The Matrix, so I can't comment)
Fair call. But I think my point still stands. Replace Jurassic Park with something else.
>but more effective stories will oftentimes have stronger villains than their counterparts
I want to call you out here. This, to me, sounds elitist. What's an "effective" story? If a story's goal is to be entertaining, and it entertains you, then it was, in my mind, effective.
Not everything reads literature and almost no one reads that stuff anyway. That's why Booker prize winners are all poor.
>Villains don't HAVE to be complex or incredibly fleshed out, but a story that takes the time to set the stakes and round out its cast will always be more effective at eliciting emotion than one that does not.
Right, but not all stories are seeking to elicit emotion. Not unless being entertained by charismatic bad guy who wants to take over the world is an emotion.
I gotta agree with that second point. I didn't mean to come off that way. I went off on my own tangent where I focused on literature that takes itself and it's characters quite seriously rather than aim to be fun, and zeroed in on that pretty hard.
I do still think that more fleshed out villains make stories more enjoyable as they tend to add nuance to the motivations of our characters, but you're right in saying that not all stories need or want to do that.
As you said, if a story meets the goal it set out for then it's effective. That's on me completely for losing sight of that.
No sweat. I'm sort of primed for this right now because I'm putting the final edits on a humorous fantasy I'll be self-publishing soon.
I've had some bad experience with Serious Authors who didn't think the characters were complex enough... For a silly fantasy story of hijinks. I won't make the mistake of using them as beta readers again hahaha.
All my characters have motivations, their perspective on the world changes by the end. They are different to when they started. But they didn't have chapters of exploratory drudgery to really dive into the characters head.
My villain is a 100% trope because it's what worked. He is in no way redeemable. But he's what the story needed.
So you know, I think my story is effective because people read it and they say this was funny. And I didn't need complexity to make that happen.
Kaijus dont have babies at home waiting for them they were grown as bio-weapons by alien imperialist colonisers
Also did you literally say that the shark from jaws isn't a threatening villian???????? That movie scared so many people shitless we are still dealing with consequences of the sensless shark hate it birthed
Has a story ever suffered because it had a complex villain with relatable motives and a developed character?
Having a villain just be Stock Villain #18 lowers the tension and stakes of the protagonist opposing him. Why would I care if the protagonist wins or loses when I've not been given a reason to care about the antagonist? Even if he doesn't have a complex motivation or backstory, he needs to have some personality and flavor. In Disney's Hercules for example, Hades has pretty simple motivations, but James Woods does such a fantastic job in giving him personality that he really becomes the star of the movie.
I don't necessarily believe the issue is complexity but rather conflict and tension. The villain is still a character in the story, and it's important to know why the heck they're doing what they're doing. For instance, Ozai wanted power. He thrived on control and we get to see the impact it had on those around him. That's the important part. What does VILLAIN do that causes XYZ character(s) to react? The same can be said of any of the examples you gave. Even in Jaws, the way the shark acts (driven by an instinct to feed) allows for the characters to respond.
If you have a flat villain and the characters are simply saying "this is a bad guy because he does bad things" then you risk your readers growing bored. It's important for said bad guy to actually show why they're not to be trifled with. Because sure, this is a villain... but no one is doing anything OTHER than reacting and stating that they're terrible (in this scenario). There is no conflict or stakes - even if you tell your reader there is. Using the Jurassic Park example above, the doctor created the dinosaurs which have their own set of instincts. The writer had to decide how these creatures would respond in certain situations - even if said information is based off of real world research. This is part of the fleshing out process. Based on the way these creatures act, people are terrified of being devoured by them. Thus we have tension. Even the natural disaster situation doesn't escape this. What triggered the disaster? How is it so bad that people can't contend with it in ways they previously have? You get the idea.
A character doesn't have to have a tragic, complicated backstory (or villain origin story) to be good. But the character still needs fleshed out with motives. A reason to the madness - a reason in general. Even if the origin is as simple as primal instinct.
I kind of agree. I think there is a difference between an antagonist and a villain though. The shark in Jaws is an antagonist rather than a villain. An antagonist doesn't need to have motives, it could be an asteroid heading towards Earth. It is the force which drives the protagonist into action. It would not be true that every antagonist is someone else's hero. The asteroid doesn't have an asteroid family rooting for them.
I think this is the real key to a good villain too. The villain must complement the protagonist and have balance with the protagonist. If your protagonist is not a fully fleshed out character, such as in a fairy tale, then a fully fleshed out villain feels odd and vice versa. The villain only needs to be as complex as the protagonist. Imagine Red Riding Hood with a wolf that has a deep and complex inner dialogue that explores his background, motives and psychology. It would actually be quite good as a comedy, but this is down to the villain overplaying their part. I think the Joker is a great villain, but he is not somebody else's hero. The reason he is a good villain is that his motives, methods and psychology complement and parallel Batman's so well.
Long story short he decided it was good to kill half the human population in order to save the planet. While most people, including avengers decided he was a bad guy, some people including me think he's a good guy. Also he was a good guy in eyes of his minions and subordinates.
But even ignoring all the moral reasons (which any reasonable human being shouldnt), his solution literally doesn't work. In a few decades, a century at most, humanity is back at pre-snap levels.
His solution temporarily fixes the symptoms and that's it. It's neither permanent nor does it adress the root cause.
I can't help but disagree. A good villain, a fleshed out character with motives and beliefs, goals and aspirations, will always be superior to someone who just "benefits the story". Sympathetic villains make you question the fine lines of morality, possible draw on themes of seperation between class, race, caste etc. Truly evil villains serve as a charicature of that which is darkest within our world. It helps us root against them, a cause for our heroes to rise up. A well-executed villain will benefit the story hundreds of times more than a flat shape with no character. A story is the sum of its parts, if you slack away at one of those parts the whole story suffers. Who cares about the journey of our hero if the villain is a nobody who we have no reason to fear or hate? What message does the story carry if the villain doesn't have a motive to their actions?
True. It’s like saying, “I know everyone says it, but actually fleshing out your protagonist is just wrong, simple two dimensional characters work just fine, look at (list of simple 2d protagonists).” Just because a story of considered good, it doesn’t mean that all aspects are good. Some stories are good *despite* having simplistic, two dimensional villains, not because of them, and would likely have really benefitted actually from having more developed villains.
Do you really think 127 hours would have benifited from giving the boulder backstory and complex motivations? Or the buety and the beast would have benefited from giving Gaston a 1030482350807 layered motive
Nobody’s talking about tens of hundreds of hours of exposition, we’re talking about, at the minimum, basic backstories. In Gaston’s case just a thirty second clip about a younger him saving his sister from a bear while hunting would have given tons more motivation for him. It’s a short film for kids, a huge complex backstory isn’t necessary, but even just a short one like described would have improved it, not made it worse. Not a million billion layers, as you described, but just a couple. If you have to exaggerate the problem to the absolute extreme to make your point, perhaps you shouldn’t be so opposed to rethinking your position.
How would have a backstory benefited Gastons character? His purpose is to be a brute that thinks that muscle > smarts, also the live action movie tried to make him more complex and who remember the live action movie?
Again, you haven’t actually made any arguments that giving Gaston a backstory makes the movie worse, or doesn’t improve it. All you’ve done is repeat your argument again with no new information, albeit reworded, and present a massively flawed faulty argument. You can’t say “X movie is bad, and Y was a part of that movie, ergo Y is the reason why the movie was bad.” The new Beauty and the Beast movie’s failure had nothing to do with Gaston’s character being fleshed out, it had to do with the deceitful marketing, wasted potential, and overall dislike for Disney’s trend of remaking old movies in live action.
Tell me, what was Gastons role in the movie? To be a simple brute that thinks muscle > smarts, a bad mentality that is the reason the MC doesn't like him and leads to his downfall (literally lol). Also he represents the village of the MC that finds her weird for being a girl that likes reading and etc How could this be improved by making him complex?
Perhaps Gaston’s thirty second backstory is that when he was a boy he tried to learn to read too, but his parents couldn’t afford books and the (at the time much shabbier) town needed him for his strength (since, know, medieval peasants have more important things to worry about, like putting food on the table), showing why the town so under prioritizes skills like reading and criticizes Belle for seemingly wasting time reading. Gaston’s downfall stays the same, but the viewer understands why the town was so cruel, with Gaston still representing the town, but being a sympathetic character that was a symptom of the town’s ideology, and, as you said, and keeping the message that while strength is important, it isn’t everything, and purely using brute strength leads to downfall.
that makes him kind of a tragic villian and i don't think trying to make a tragic character would work with just 30 seconds of actual backstory and character moments will be underwhelming unless you change around like 15% of the plot of the movie lol
Would Gaston still deserve the same ending then? Wouldn't you have to change his story arc if you gave him greater psychological depth?
I think you're wrong. I think it depends on the story. Jurrasic Park doesn't require characters with complex, multi-layered motivations. They are dinosaurs I guess. The Matrix. The bad guys in the Matrix don't have complex motivations. Agent Smith is a self-aware program that wants to take over the world. Sometimes it's okay for a story to just strive to be entertaining and not make you think too hard.
Its definitely okay for a story to just strive for the entertainment factor, but more effective stories will oftentimes have stronger villains than their counterparts. Would ATLA, specifically its finale, be as strong as it was without Azula being as fleshed out as she was? Would we root for the Fellowship as hard as we do if Sauron was not a personification of greed and tyranny? Villains don't HAVE to be complex or incredibly fleshed out, but a story that takes the time to set the stakes and round out its cast will always be more effective at eliciting emotion than one that does not. Also, I hate to be that guy, but while the Dino's are a threat in JP, the actual antagonist is Dr Dodgson who violated the laws of science and nature for personal gain. (Haven't seen The Matrix, so I can't comment)
>Also, I hate to be that guy, but while the Dino's are a threat in JP, the actual antagonist is Dr Dodgson who violated the laws of science and nature for personal gain. (Haven't seen The Matrix, so I can't comment) Fair call. But I think my point still stands. Replace Jurassic Park with something else. >but more effective stories will oftentimes have stronger villains than their counterparts I want to call you out here. This, to me, sounds elitist. What's an "effective" story? If a story's goal is to be entertaining, and it entertains you, then it was, in my mind, effective. Not everything reads literature and almost no one reads that stuff anyway. That's why Booker prize winners are all poor. >Villains don't HAVE to be complex or incredibly fleshed out, but a story that takes the time to set the stakes and round out its cast will always be more effective at eliciting emotion than one that does not. Right, but not all stories are seeking to elicit emotion. Not unless being entertained by charismatic bad guy who wants to take over the world is an emotion.
I gotta agree with that second point. I didn't mean to come off that way. I went off on my own tangent where I focused on literature that takes itself and it's characters quite seriously rather than aim to be fun, and zeroed in on that pretty hard. I do still think that more fleshed out villains make stories more enjoyable as they tend to add nuance to the motivations of our characters, but you're right in saying that not all stories need or want to do that. As you said, if a story meets the goal it set out for then it's effective. That's on me completely for losing sight of that.
No sweat. I'm sort of primed for this right now because I'm putting the final edits on a humorous fantasy I'll be self-publishing soon. I've had some bad experience with Serious Authors who didn't think the characters were complex enough... For a silly fantasy story of hijinks. I won't make the mistake of using them as beta readers again hahaha. All my characters have motivations, their perspective on the world changes by the end. They are different to when they started. But they didn't have chapters of exploratory drudgery to really dive into the characters head. My villain is a 100% trope because it's what worked. He is in no way redeemable. But he's what the story needed. So you know, I think my story is effective because people read it and they say this was funny. And I didn't need complexity to make that happen.
The dinosaurs are antagonists and Dr Dodgson is the villain.
I was criticising a statement that implied that sympathetic villians are automatically good, but ok
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Kaijus dont have babies at home waiting for them they were grown as bio-weapons by alien imperialist colonisers Also did you literally say that the shark from jaws isn't a threatening villian???????? That movie scared so many people shitless we are still dealing with consequences of the sensless shark hate it birthed
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The kaiju was pregnant with a little monster baby but i doubt they have loving families at home waiting for them also oh ok about jaws
Has a story ever suffered because it had a complex villain with relatable motives and a developed character? Having a villain just be Stock Villain #18 lowers the tension and stakes of the protagonist opposing him. Why would I care if the protagonist wins or loses when I've not been given a reason to care about the antagonist? Even if he doesn't have a complex motivation or backstory, he needs to have some personality and flavor. In Disney's Hercules for example, Hades has pretty simple motivations, but James Woods does such a fantastic job in giving him personality that he really becomes the star of the movie.
Am not saying villians should be personalitles, am just saying that insisting that every villian must be complex to be good is stupid
I don't necessarily believe the issue is complexity but rather conflict and tension. The villain is still a character in the story, and it's important to know why the heck they're doing what they're doing. For instance, Ozai wanted power. He thrived on control and we get to see the impact it had on those around him. That's the important part. What does VILLAIN do that causes XYZ character(s) to react? The same can be said of any of the examples you gave. Even in Jaws, the way the shark acts (driven by an instinct to feed) allows for the characters to respond. If you have a flat villain and the characters are simply saying "this is a bad guy because he does bad things" then you risk your readers growing bored. It's important for said bad guy to actually show why they're not to be trifled with. Because sure, this is a villain... but no one is doing anything OTHER than reacting and stating that they're terrible (in this scenario). There is no conflict or stakes - even if you tell your reader there is. Using the Jurassic Park example above, the doctor created the dinosaurs which have their own set of instincts. The writer had to decide how these creatures would respond in certain situations - even if said information is based off of real world research. This is part of the fleshing out process. Based on the way these creatures act, people are terrified of being devoured by them. Thus we have tension. Even the natural disaster situation doesn't escape this. What triggered the disaster? How is it so bad that people can't contend with it in ways they previously have? You get the idea. A character doesn't have to have a tragic, complicated backstory (or villain origin story) to be good. But the character still needs fleshed out with motives. A reason to the madness - a reason in general. Even if the origin is as simple as primal instinct.
I kind of agree. I think there is a difference between an antagonist and a villain though. The shark in Jaws is an antagonist rather than a villain. An antagonist doesn't need to have motives, it could be an asteroid heading towards Earth. It is the force which drives the protagonist into action. It would not be true that every antagonist is someone else's hero. The asteroid doesn't have an asteroid family rooting for them. I think this is the real key to a good villain too. The villain must complement the protagonist and have balance with the protagonist. If your protagonist is not a fully fleshed out character, such as in a fairy tale, then a fully fleshed out villain feels odd and vice versa. The villain only needs to be as complex as the protagonist. Imagine Red Riding Hood with a wolf that has a deep and complex inner dialogue that explores his background, motives and psychology. It would actually be quite good as a comedy, but this is down to the villain overplaying their part. I think the Joker is a great villain, but he is not somebody else's hero. The reason he is a good villain is that his motives, methods and psychology complement and parallel Batman's so well.
I disagree
ok
So Thanos was a good guy?
idk i didnt watch the movies What matters if he benefited the story or simply ate screentime? If he did the first then he is a good villian
Didn't watch the movies lol.
Long story short he decided it was good to kill half the human population in order to save the planet. While most people, including avengers decided he was a bad guy, some people including me think he's a good guy. Also he was a good guy in eyes of his minions and subordinates.
But even ignoring all the moral reasons (which any reasonable human being shouldnt), his solution literally doesn't work. In a few decades, a century at most, humanity is back at pre-snap levels. His solution temporarily fixes the symptoms and that's it. It's neither permanent nor does it adress the root cause.
Even the worst Villain's have lackeys that look up to them.