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What Happened To Our Villains?

May 29, 2021
Let me tell you a story, dear viewer, when I was about 13, I mean when I had just reached the legal drinking age in Scotland, one of my friends dared me to drink half a bottle of Chinese moonshine. No, he had never tried this. things before and, as I found out later, he hadn't done it either, but anyway I broke the cork that was secured with duct tape for some reason and got fired in a few sets. Now I've consumed some nasty drinks in my time, let me tell you, but this. The stuff tasted like rotting liquefied dog, but a challenge is a challenge and you only back down from something like that, so a few minutes later I raised the empty bottle in triumph and quickly vomited angrily and passed out next to a dumpster behind from a tesco.
what happened to our villains
The point here is that without overcoming the challenge of that shitty drink I would never have become the witty, drunk narrator you see before you because, when you get down to it, every hero needs a good villain. What would Superman be without Lex Luthor? What would become of Batman? Being without the wild card,

what

Captain Marvel would be without Brie Larson is that, like a personal attack or something, the antagonist of a story is actually a pretty interesting thing from a writing point of view, they can come in different forms and sizes, from physical powerhouses to calculating intellectuals, from honorable warriors to evil assassins, but

what

ever form they take, they all serve the same basic purpose.
what happened to our villains

More Interesting Facts About,

what happened to our villains...

They are an obstacle for the protagonists to overcome something that can challenge them to be better and stronger than they were before. Basically, they are the drivers. force behind the hero's journey, but it's more that only a good villain can challenge the very nature of who and what a hero is and what the audience believes him to be; may have justifiable motivations and complex personalities of their own, the best ones can even make the audience wonder who exactly the real villain is. In fact,

villains

are often cooler and more memorable than the hero himself. Because? Because, unlike heroes, writers don't have to worry about making their

villains

likable and relatable so they can take risks with them, they can indulge their wildest writing fantasies, creating the most despicable psychopaths, monsters. terrifying, evil dictators or cunning criminals imaginable, the more evil they are, the greater the threat they pose or the more they test the protagonist, the more satisfying it is when the hero finally prevails, the problem is that good villains seem to be a species in extinction these days.
what happened to our villains
The incredible antagonists who used to dominate the screen and push our heroes to the limits of their endurance are gradually being replaced by weak, limp, forgettable limitations, with none of the power. and the threat of their predecessors and because they no longer pose a challenge, there is no real reward when they are defeated. Now, explaining how and why this happens is going to take a bit of time, so get naked and get ready for the drinking writing workshop first. I'll give you an example of a well-written antagonist that everyone knows and where better to start than Darth Vader.
what happened to our villains
He's basically the quintessential movie villain from the first moment he walks onto that rebel ship surrounded by dead bodies. You know this guy is. In fact, he's not around. George Lucas used almost every trick in the book to make you afraid of this guy. He is huge and powerful. He is dressed in black armor. His face is hidden behind an inhuman mask, so you have no idea what he really is. He looks and speaks with a deep, booming voice that seems to radiate power and menace. Where are those transmissions you intercept? What have you done with those plans?
Man, you can even throw people around like ragdolls. Physically he is big and intimidating, but he is also intelligent. and ruthlessly efficient, he makes intelligent logical decisions based on the information he has and almost never loses his cool, for example, he uses his force powers to punish subordinates who fail or disrespect him, but never does it out of anger or malice. , or has proven to be a point for men. who doubt his power or eliminate ineffective commanders who compromise the success of his mission When Vader acts, it is always in the service of a higher objective and never because he has lost control of himself, the overall effect here is to create a villain that you wouldn't at all want to with a man who basically dominates every situation and plows through every opponent in three films until the final act, when Look at Last manages to dominate him, but even that counts as a kind of victory for Vader, whose goal was never to defeat Luke anyway, but defeat Luke. provoke rage and anger from him and well from him, that's exactly what he does.
The point here is that George Lucas managed to create a villain who was intelligent, powerful, dominant, ruthless, interesting and extremely well written, a character who maintains his air of danger and menace almost until his final moments. before redeeming himself and sacrificing his own life to save his son, no wonder he's so iconic now let's take a moment to consider his modern counterpart, Kylo Ren, I mean on the surface the similarities are there, they both wear masks and black armor, both make their entrance. In the middle of a battle they both use lightsabers and they are both strong with the force and for the first few seconds everything goes pretty well for Kylo Ren, he gets out of his ship and kills an old guy who looks like he should be important. and stops a blaster ball in the air, damn, not even Darth Vader could do that, then everything starts to go wrong when he tries to interrogate Paul, so talk first, you talk first, I talk first, the old man gave it to you .
It's very difficult to understand you with all that, what is this? If you want us to take this guy seriously, you really shouldn't have people throwing snarky comments at him unopposed, it's like the script is actively making fun of him and encouraging us to laugh. along with them and things only get worse from there, while Vader was cold and efficient, Kylo frequently loses his temper and lashes out in childish rage, making foolish and illogical command decisions and pursuing his mission in the least efficient way possible. , brutally punishes people for asking completely. Logical questions about this fleet: What is a gift?
What are you asking for in return? In fact, the only reason it catches up with our heroes is because almost everyone in the galaxy seems to be a snitch. He regularly takes off the mask and destroys the mystery. of what lies behind this, he is openly conflicted about the path he wants to take, hesitating at crucial moments and brooding endlessly over his choices, worst of all, every time he faces the hero, he loses first, failing to fathom his mind with the force and then gets his ass kicked in a fight and it is only pure luck that prevents him from being killed from that point on, any threat or danger he may have posed is completely annihilated because if your antagonist starts more weaker than the hero, so what's going on there?
What's left to fight your impression of Kylo Ren is that he's a weak, immature, conflicted child who desperately pretends to be something and doesn't explode with childish displays of emotion whenever things don't go his way and is incapable of compromising. with a course. of action, a man who can't even control himself, regardless of those around him and who constantly loses every time he is tested against the hero, in short, he is a toothless villain, it doesn't matter, although at least Snoke has some potential, well there's always Hux. It started out pretty ruthless and supreme, oh you see how the script doesn't even have the decency to produce competent villains, not only are these guys evil, but they are evil and inept, you're not supposed to fear them, you're supposed to.
Laugh at them and it's not just Star Wars that has this problem. Consider Captain Marvel's Yonrog, a man who loses her first fight against her and then basically does nothing for the rest of the movie until she finally gets bored and effortlessly beats him up. because I have nothing to prove to you, at no point in this movie does he pose the slightest threat to her, so why should we care when she hits him or how about Roman Cyonus from Birds of Prey, a sadistic nightclub owner who pouts and cries? and screams throughout the film and needs constant emotional validation and reassurance from his henchmen, a man who is presented as insecure, unstable, needy and generally somewhat pathetic and who never comes close to presenting a real threat to the hero or what about Max Lord from Wonder Woman? 1984, a shady businessman desperate to hide his failures behind a veneer of bold '80s arrogance who revels in the idea of ​​power and success, but crumbles like a wet paper bag the moment his life turns upside down. is at risk and is never able to threaten Wonder Woman in any way and of course let's not forget Rowan from Ghostbusters 2016, a sad middle-aged socially inept loser with a superiority complex who is angry because everyone in the world look down on him or how about Buzzley from Charlie's Angels played by a frail actor in his late 70s whose plan is easily discovered and thwarted by people who are clearly much smarter than him before knocking him out with a single punch.
What I'm trying to say here is that all of these characters are shitty villains because they lack personality. -control fighting ability, intelligence or sheer physical strength to be genuinely intimidating, they never present a tangible threat to the hero, in fact they are basically treated as weak and pathetic straw men who can be easily ignored once the script decides it's time for them to lose. the writers in this case lack the only thing that every creator should have for their antagonist and that is respect for their creations darth vader hans gruber hannibal lecter the terminator the list goes on and on but what unites all these characters is respect for the Writers were smart enough to build up their antagonists so that they became a genuine threat for the hero to overcome rather than trying to tear them down and belittle them from the start.
Now what you may rightly wonder is why is this happening? Well, it's changed quite a bit, as it turns out the real problem here is that there are pretty strict rules about what you can and can't show in mainstream movies, and I'm not talking about tits and violence like the old days. talking about the unwritten behind-the-scenes rules that basically exist to make sure your films don't incur the ire of journalists, the media, or the endless Twitter mobs who are simply waiting for the next reason to be offended, in this case , one of the golden rules. is that women are never allowed to lose to men in anything for any reason, whether it be a physical fight, a test of skill or intelligence, or even a simple argument.
Pick basically any scenario where a woman confronts a man and I can guarantee it. the woman will be victorious; or she will outsmart the man in a battle of wits, or have the last word in an argument, or kick his ass in a fight, regardless of her relative size and strength, whatever it is, the rules dictate. . no man can beat a woman in a balanced commitment because the natural implication would be that men are smarter or stronger or generally better than women and we certainly can't allow this to be all very well, but it creates a very obvious problem when Your hero turns out to be a woman and your villain, a man.
Traditional storytelling requires the antagonist to start out stronger and more dangerous than the hero, forcing him to grow and improve in some way before ultimately prevailing in the end, but naturally this process requires the demand to be dominant. in the early stages and as we've already discussed, that's no longer allowed to happen, even if it's just a temporary thing, so how can you avoid it well if you're writing for Disney Marvel DC or Lucasfilm? If you're forced to make your villains weak and pathetic, whether unfairly elevated beyond their capabilities or jealous and envious of the hero's success, it's basically a form of projection that allows writers to vent their frustrations on enemies and rivals. imaginary into a weak straw man who may unfortunately be, this whole mentality creates more problems than it solves, weak villains create weak stories because they rob the narrative of its tension and drama, what's worse, it actually undermines the hero. same because if you are never truly tested by a worthy opponent, then you have really accomplished nothing.
A hero is only as strong as the villain he defeats and what's really interesting is that the problem still exists even if you reverse the rules. Take Thor Ragnarok, for example, the villain. The movie is about a woman, which is perfectly fine at the beginning when she kicks Thor's ass, but becomes a real problem near the end when it comes time for him to win. You definitely can't show Thor punchinga woman against the ground because that brings up all kinds of unpleasant accusations of glorifying violence against women, so the film takes the best alternative and has a third party intervene to win the battle for him.
Notice how they carefully managed to sidestep the awkward issue of Thor defeating her in a fair fight. Just something to think about. What I'm trying to say is that the reason people don't like characters like Rey or Captain Marvel isn't because of their gender, but because everything has been made so easy for them that it's basically impossible. empathize, it's exactly the same problem with ghostbusters, harley quinn or charlie's angels, if your heroes do nothing more than fight their way through a collection of emasculated, harmless enemies, then you'll never get your audience to care. their fight because they don't.
I have one, what exactly is the solution here? Ironically, the solution is equality and I really mean quality, not the Hollywood version that artificially weakens one side just to make the other appear superficially strong. If you want your heroines to be respected equally, then you have to subject them to equal fights against worthy people. enemies, you need to stop weakening your villains in a vain attempt to avoid offending people on social media because honestly, the more you try to appease them, the more you compromise your ability to tell a decent story if you want awesome heroes that people can watch. . until then, you need to give them awesome antagonists that they can fear, in short, you need to give your villains the balls back anyway, that's all I have for today, go now.

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