What Makes a Villain Feel Real?

There's a scene in YuYu Hakusho during the Dark Tournament saga and it has the main

villain

of the Ark - Goro talking to his sponsor Sachi oh and there's a

real

ly weird little exchange between the two where Saki offers to cultivate a drink and - Goro replies that We had a good arrangement, for the love of Mei, the tournament ended properly, if you don't mind, I'll have a glass of orange juice with ice and I love this line. There's something so strange and memorable about her that it seems like such an odd inclusion for a character who up until this point has been a cold killing machine, and the fact that Goro prefers a glass of orange juice over the supposed alcohol offered by Sakyo seems nuanced in a way that

villain

s generally aren't allowed in anime and Look, maybe I'm crazy, maybe it doesn't matter, but I

real

ly think there's something to this line and I suspect I'm not the only one, since in this At the moment the clip on YouTube has almost 60,000 views, but considering everything dramatic. and shocking things to Goro's doors throughout Yu Yu Hakusho, how does one small line have any bearing on his overall character?

Can such a small detail really matter? Let's delve into that and much more as we discuss

what

makes

a villain

feel

real before. We continue here. I just want to be specific about

what

we mean by villain, specifically what we're going to talk about is a typical narrative-driven villain rather than the force of nature style villain. Watch the fantastic Extra Credits video to learn more. As for that, a lot of this will intersect with the fundamentals of good character writing, but I just want to focus on the villains for this video because it may seem like a lot of villains in anime tend to follow a very basic formula and it's a shame. when it drags down an otherwise great series and with that in mind let's get started, there isn't a single aspect of a story that I enjoy more than a good villain, maybe it's the way they view society, they don't like what They see and try to change it.

Maybe it's the insatiable drive that many of them display in pursuing their goals, maybe it's just the simple opportunity to live vicariously through them with a level of abandonment and contempt no hero could dream of, or maybe it's just the catharsis of seeing them finally fall, whatever that may be. It's just that I've been obsessed with the idea of ​​watching bad guys do that ever since I saw Skaar sing, get ready in his musical number, and The Lion King, even from a story point of view, the antagonists have a more interesting role than that of his heroic. the counterparts even take the word antagonist, which loosely translated from its Greek origin means the one who initiates the change;

In other words, the villains are the ones who set the events of the story in motion, the ones who

feel

something so strongly that they are willing to follow it. outside the boundaries of society and law to create a change or imbalance in the world, one that can only be corrected by an opposing heroic force or to put it another way, villains act, heroes react, so with this In mind, what exactly defines a good villain? and I don't think the idea of ​​villainy that has always attracted me the most is the idea that the only thing that separates heroes and villains is a very bad day or a couple of bad decisions, the simple idea that we are all excluded, they use the same fabric and have to enjoy the same daily difficulties or, as the writer Ben Bova says, in the real world there are no villains, no one sets out to do evil, there are no villains who laugh and rub their hands with joy as they contemplate their evil.

Facts, there are only people with problems who struggle to solve them. I think the moments where a narrative villain fails in this regard is the moment they lose us as an audience and it's crazy how much damage a weak villain can do to an otherwise good series. One of the most recent examples is Carbonari's Bieber of the Iron Fortress. I'm going to be pretty harsh here, but one thing I want to point out is that I really like this show. Mom is great. Yukine is great too. Each cast member gets just enough attention to not feel the trophy and it has great action and is consistently beautiful and just because I criticize the show doesn't mean I don't like it, there is a point to be made here, I think there are mild spoilers for the cabin.

What I like most about the first few episodes of Cabin Re is how the cast is kind of a hodgepodge of different people from different classes and backgrounds who just come together and are forced to survive in this dome world of samurai zombies and even giant trains. . Although there isn't a great deal of character development, I really enjoy what's there, especially in episode seven where the series slows down to the point where there are no zombies or combat and we're allowed to just spend some time getting to know the characters. characters. characters as they travel through a newly discovered town, it's fun to see them pair off and see different sides of each other at this point.

I didn't know where the show was going and I didn't really care. I was just enjoying the ride, but then about 15 minutes into this guy appearing, the moment he walked on screen, it was like the entire rest of the series was laid out before me. Everything about him, from his imperial attire to his long locks, reminded me of what seemed like a thousand other animes. villains I'd seen before I don't know exactly when the idea of ​​long-haired, slightly effeminate, elegantly dressed villains became synonymous with anime, but every time I see one my instincts just scream oh god, here we go again and sometimes , I'm wrong. and sometimes it's not my main problem with Biba as a character, it's that he's not a character, he's a plot device, his only purpose within the story is to give Akuma a foil so he can seem more heroic and whatever information we get about his character or backstory only goes so far as to justify his actions within the plot rather than trying to make him into someone who is believable anyway.

A person with his own life or nuances. He is essentially the modern equivalent of a man with a top hat tying. a girl to the train tracks, which I guess is kind of appropriate and this is very disappointing because when faced with such a two-dimensional villain, it drags down every other character in the show, forcing Akuma to go from being a misunderstood and nuanced Shiite hero to simply a hero. and mume to go from mume, which is great, to your standard damsel in distress model, that doesn't mean it ruins the series. I think overall Cabin Ari is still a good time, but it's a shame because a great villain can do a lot to elevate himself. a series like, let's compare it to Yoshi Akira's fantastic gear from JoJo's part for a diamond is unbreakable in many ways Kira is an extremely unusual villain to begin with, he has no big aspirations, no world-changing plans or status races. . within society, Yoshi kang Akira just wants a quiet life and go about his days as he sees fit, the only problem is that he has a penchant for murdering women and cutting off their hands and, actually, I'm going to stop him there, it's not So.

It doesn't matter what he does after that, so yeah, he's as reprehensible as they come and at least at first he seems incredibly evil and inhuman, but as part 4 goes on we start to learn all these weird little details about Kira and her life. . we know his favorite chicken katsu sandwich on freshly baked bread we know that he likes a glass of warm milk before bed we know that he likes to spend his lunches alone in the park and that he gets along well with cats and that he despises dogs and none of them. These details served to make him more dangerous or a greater threat to our heroes, so why do they matter so much?

These are the little details that make you feel alive. These are the nuances that trick our brain into thinking of him as a real, breathing person instead of just a cartoon villain and without these touches all you'd have is just another stand user waiting to be defeated by Josuke and the others. guys. I mean, he's a violent serial killer, but he's also someone who enjoys a nice ride. I am a sunny day, someone who tries to live his life the way he wants, without judgment, contempt or interference from others and that in itself is something I think everyone can relate to, at least when you take away the murder part and it's the little details about him as a character that allow us to see him in this life and it all comes together to make him feel real and tangible.

It is not a plot obstacle that must be overcome. he is a real character with thoughts, emotions and impulses. This

makes

him feel compelling in his own right, but it also makes him feel like a much less predictable and much more tangible threat to our heroes and Mario City, and there's also a great example of a villain who isn't sympathetic but with the that's relatable, so for me, the main thing that separates a villain like Keira. and one like Bieber is a nuance that Keira feels human, Biba does not and working on this side of her character would probably have done a lot to make him feel like a more interesting villain, like taking even Griffith from the crazy one.

Biba and Griffith are arguably quite similar in a lot of ways, but one of the things that makes Griffith Slater's actions that much more shocking is the writing that's been put into him up to this point. Yes, he is a great warrior and a charismatic leader, but he is also a bit of a fool and gets into water fights. and he laughs like an idiot and moments like these make his subsequent actions feel even more shocking and abhorrent. One could argue that both Kira and Griffith have much more screen time than Bieber and are therefore given more nuance and become relatable, and on that I would also have to disagree simply by virtue: if you're enough Cleverly you can make a villain relatable in no time, like let's take a look at Kevin Spacey's character, serial killer John Doe from the movie Se7en.

He doesn't appear until much later in the movie, but then we have this scene where the two detectives take him to the supposed location of the final victim's body and during the 138 seconds it takes for the scene to play out, something incredible happens and it's I mean, he brings you to this point where it's like you understand him, you understand him as a person, like you don't agree with him, but the sheer conviction with which he expresses his disdain for society is so compelling that just for a moment almost seems to make sense, you see his logic in why he commits the atrocities he commits and understanding it like this is chilling, it makes the scene equally disturbing and memorable because just for a few seconds there is a connection between you and him and this for me is what more Something powerful that a story can do with the villain, not make them feel threatening, not make them feel sympathetic, but make them feel relatable.

I'll link a clip of this scene in the description, but 7 is a great movie and if you haven't. You should go check it out once you start looking at villains this way. It's crazy how cartoonishly crazy you can make them and still make them believable once you root the character and have enough foundation and nuance, take Paper Mario and the depiction of the thousand year doors. from Bowser, for example, actually depicts the Kubarz king as a likable and believable person by highlighting that his constant kidnapping of Princess Peach is due to his own loneliness or another great example of revenge from Metal Gear Solid Rising's Senator Armstrong, This is possibly the most ridiculous revenge.

I've seen the final boss in a video game, but there's something so doggedly compelling about his love of American football, his sheer desperate patriotism, and his very particular and genuine disdain for the conventions of modern America, that you end up believing he's a character. real, even if no one that crazy could get that high in politics, hey, wait a minute. The point I'm possibly overworking here is that when you look at villains only as an object for the hero to overcome, you lose. Find out what a great villain can be a wonderfully nuanced and complicated piece of history with all the depth and possibly more than that of his heroic counterparts and that's why I get so excited when a muscular weirdo and a dim-witted trainer ask. over a glass of orange juice, it is the first time in the series that Tagore expresses any feeling that is not directly related to making a hole in another living being and letting these seemingly insignificant little fragments of humanity show it, is the point of series in which he goes from a cliché sunglasses-wearing villain to a truly believable person and foreshadows his human side that will be revealed later in the story, resulting in one of my favorite and most compelling villain arcs in the entire series.

Shonen anime, but that is a story for another video friends, I will do that, if you want to see some shows with great villains, then watch any of the series on screen or if you want to recommend any of yours, let me know in the comment or send me a message on Twitter at i patch wolf. Of course, I'll be back soon with another video, but until then you can catch me on thepodcast of the video game Let's Fight a Boss, where this week we will talk about guard dogs. the anime x-men and my hero academia friends, as always, take care of yourselves and see you next time