Favorite/most memorable villain?

Wow , Charan you seem to be implying that we didn't already know this stuff about parody. I mean, 'This exile is a world, illusion.'

Oh what's this I just found in a deserted church. It's a Golden Hand jerb.

The thing about parody though, is that you can stay in that air for so long that you actually begin to deprive yourself of the substance which earned the right to be parodied in teh fist place. Evangelion is on of those things. I honestly think it is a series that still goes over people's heads.

Like I said. I think Asuka was the main character and Gainax put Shinji, the antagonist front in center just because they knew that mostly boys were going to be watching the show.

Even Rei... was like this massive social commentary on how males look at women. And it all went over most of our heads. But yeah I can still laugh at it. I just don't want ot allow the parodies to eclipse the source material. It shouldn't be taboo to take Evangelion seriously sometimes.

When I was a kid I completely didn't understand Gendo. And now... he's like the most relatable character in the show to me.

"

...And? As suspected, you have nothing other than your own take on it, which is fine. Although you probably shouldn't do that and then say it's a series that goes over people's heads. Sort of puts you back in the firing line of someone who could easily blow your mind over the whole thing, were you receptive to anything beyond your own take on the show. Easily if not effortlessly -- I imagine it'd be serious drudge work getting you out of your own limited head space)

In other words, it's awesome that you've got your own take on it because Eva is that sort of subjective show, but don't pretend your take is any more 'truthful' than anyone else's. Especially not around someone who went deeper into it than you ever will, and emerged with that very conclusion: Eva is best taken as something that will very likely yield different results depending on the viewer. This is what makes it art rather than just entertainment, and it's part of why it sliced the anime timeline in half.

Also, the parody stuff was more for erd's benefit, which is why I tagged him and not you.

All in all, consider me thoroughly not burned. It's not as if you can't burn me on a bunch of other subjects. Stick to those.

You pompous ass. I'm calling you out this time. I never insinuated that my view was the correct one! I only offered it up as my view. What is this, politics? Do I have to take a poll and then draw an accurate graph that represents a cross section of 100,000 people's views on evangelion down to the margin of error?

I like ice cream. That doesn't mean that you have to like it too. I never fucking forced my views on you and yet you couldn't resist the temptation to get on your high horse and try to pretend like I did.

Get this. I don't give a shit what you think about Gendo. You were making jokes about villains and so I made jokes about yours. I honestly couldn't care less about what anyone else thinks about subject matter. In fact I prefer it that most people don't share my view about evangelion!

The only reason I shared my view on Gendo, how I didn't understand him at first and how he is not the series most relatable character is to illustrate how the show continues to live to this day. Not a lot of shows have that.

But finally, even though I don't demand that others share my particular view on eva. I LOATHE when people just give up and say the things' subjective. It's the same thing as practicing atheism --> "Something made us and sustains us... I can't prove what it is, so I guess it's nothing."

Or when I ask, "Gee I have these stats which game engine should I use?" And the answer is, "They're all tools with pros and cons I can't give you a recommendation"

Fact is people who just shrug and say it's subjectives are just quitters. If science worked that way we'd still be in caves. You have to have a THEORY to start things out with, in anything. And your theory is just the theory of giving up. Unbelievable. Shocking, really.

Most memorable - trolls in feedback forums, after they've been exiled from general.

About movies and other media, strangely I have none, I thought for good few minutes, and just no. Maybe Chicken George from fourteen?

Shakespeare villain is Iago (though he has some heavy competition from many sources most notably Lady M and Richard III).

Stephen King imo is Stark from a not very famous book of his (although the King fans will know it).

I actually played Iago once. He is loads of fun. Mine was a very active Iago.

My fave line: Not poppy, nor mandragora nor all the dizzy syrups of the world;
shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep which though owest yesterday.

Really think about that line. Think about if it was you someone was speaking of. Talk about sleeping with a gun under the pillow.

Doing it from memory so pardon me if it is not quite right. This was in my youth.

"

Charan wrote:

So no one's mentioned Moriarty yet. Is he too obvious or are we too poisoned by more modern takes on the Sherlock/Moriarty dichotomy that blur the lines somewhat?

Yes.

Edit: Manually fixed some nonsense with the quote function.

I didn't want to mention him since I never actually read the the original sherlock holmes (which is a mistake I should correct some time). Of the whole lot of different versions I've seen, Moriarty either came off as a generic boring villain who does villain things, but "smart" (which isn't all that memorable) or is more of an annoyance than actual villain trying to tick off and outsmart Sherlock whenever possible, without causing too much harm physically (the psychological effects on Sherlock are a different matter).

Mostly I just didn'really think of him and posted that answer as a joke since he hadn't been mentioned yet, recent iterations are a really mixed bag and he's a low hanging fruit for a thread like this.

Do you get notifications with "Charan"?

I think we're well past being amused at the thoughtful hands memery, but noted. I doubt I'll ever watch eva, but thank for the peek into a fervent and clearly influential work of art and its reach.

"

Charan wrote:

Randall Flagg aka The Man in Black sort of has the deck stacked in his favour. To the point where it always takes a Deus Ex King to stop him. Pennywise is a monster but one that cheats, literarily: it goes after the kids and taps their giant, easy fears. I would place Annie Wilkes higher than both of them in terms of villain.

Definitely, which is why I picked Annie first. But I like visceral-reaction creating villainy a lot.

Pennywise is a villain, true, but the real problem in that town is the denial, forgetting, and not-seeing both of Pennywise, and the real human abuse and repeated trauma occurring. Pennywise feeds on the fears of children, but they are grown in a sick vineyard. That the gang find each other and a way though their traumas - (maybe not the orgy scene but I'm not gonna crucify King for that) - is powerful stuff. But we are talking about villains, so -

"

Charan wrote:

So sticking to that vein, I think my favourite sorts of villains aren't the masterminds or the enigmatic puppeteers but the petty selfish weak ones whose inability to resist the urge to do something ensure everything is set into motion. So in the context of The Stand, the trashcan man.

As for Prince, please attempt that after reading anything else you might want to get through first. It is...well, it raises the bar so high it might as well be the standard for a different event. Those books don't play fair.

I will keep that in mind. Puttering through my (main) current read (you know it!) if slowly.

Still going with Richard 3rd, over Iago, because I have a thing for hunchbacks. Shakespeare wasn't a villain for giving ol' Richard a makeover, I think that's only really bad when it's a bad person whitewashed into being good after the fact.

No thought or backup into saying that, just saying it for the hell of it but it feels right.

Iago was Othello's lover, you know. No wonder he got so burned up.

"

Charan wrote:

So sticking to that vein, I think my favourite sorts of villains aren't the masterminds or the enigmatic puppeteers but the petty selfish weak ones whose inability to resist the urge to do something ensure everything is set into motion. So in the context of The Stand, the trashcan man.

Really?

"

Charan wrote:

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erdelyii wrote:

I kind of hope they have a crack at it.

I was 70% hoping not, 30% ready to nuke a fool off the face of the planet.

Seems that 30% sufficed.

Not simply to watch you in all your fiery glory, Charan. Because we all start somewhere and none of us should ever stop learning.

"

Charan wrote:

So no one's mentioned Moriarty yet. Is he too obvious or are we too poisoned by more modern takes on the Sherlock/Moriarty dichotomy that blur the lines somewhat?

Moriarty is an interesting character. He really had to happen, as Sherlock (and no doubt Conan Doyle) would have died of boredom without him. Not sure it's Yin/Yang so much as worthy adversary - in the detective novel you can't have the detective solving things easily, and here we have a genius detective with no intellectual weaknesses in Holmes.

Wiser writers make their detectives less obvious about how smart they are. Even Poirot was Belgian.

Sherlock would approve of your comment about people being what was it thinking we are good when we're complicated. He calls himself a high functioning sociopath in the Cumberbatch/ Freeman tv show (which I couldn't endure towards the end, what a nosedive, but the first eps are great) but that's wrong.

good piece on how Sherlock operates

On Moriarty:

"

“His career has been an extraordinary one. He is a man of good birth and excellent education, endowed by nature with a phenomenal mathematical faculty. At the age of twenty-one he wrote a treatise upon the Binomial Theorem, which has had a European vogue. On the strength of it he won the Mathematical Chair at one of our smaller universities, and had, to all appearance, a most brilliant career before him. But the man had hereditary tendencies of the most diabolical kind. A criminal strain ran in his blood, which, instead of being modified, was increased and rendered infinitely more dangerous by his extraordinary mental powers. Dark rumours gathered round him in the university town, and eventually he was compelled to resign his chair and to come down to London, where he set up as an army coach. So much is known to the world, but what I am telling you now is what I have myself discovered.”
- The Final Problem

They'll never catch us alive!

"

The chase ends at the Reichenbach Falls, where there is a struggle resulting in Holmes and Moriarty apparently falling to their deaths. Conan Doyle’s used this strategy to escape from what he perceived as Sherlock Holmes’ hold over him. However, public outcry and financial problems eventually forced the author to revive Sherlock Holmes.

But it does usually ("Charan")? I always just assumed it did.

They will fix it eventually, yes.

"

Charan wrote:

Also a quick answer: agreed re Moffatlock. Great start, real nosedive before too long. Seems a pattern of his. But damn can the man craft some sharp as hell dialogue. He just can't do long format to save his life. I think 'high functioning sociopath' is almost tautology. I get 'high functioning autist' or 'high functioning alcoholic' because both autism and alcoholism are considered debilitating in terms of useful social interaction (had to edit that; I know more than a few high functioning alcoholics with many, many friends). Sociopathy, on the other hand, is in itself a very fine term (if medically informal) to describe someone socially very agile and capable. I think 'high functioning autist' is more Sherlock's gig, or Aspie if we're going to go there. If we must. What I find fascinating is how smoothly he fits labels that didn't exist for decades after his creation. I always like going back to older works and seeing these things -- for example, there were two nerds in WarGames who, well, were just painted as nerds because it was 1983. But when you look at their behaviour, their reactions, their sheer inability to read the room, you know now: holy shit, they're textbook aspies years before the term became commonplace.

Yes, exactly why it's wrong and calling himself "high functioning" is the little flashing arrow to say he's joking.

Moffat carried his Dr Who energy over to Sherlock. Same great start, then weird tangled plotlines and fiesty yet weak female characters. Moffat doesn't write women well at all. I dropped off watching Dr Who during that time, am a big old school fan. so the fast-paced short format of the new series never really clicked with me but Moffat definitely sunk that ship, too.

"

Moffat typically defended the plots by citing 1979 script editor Douglas Adams: that the challenge of Doctor Who was to make it simple enough for adults, and complicated enough for children.

Hahahaha.

"

Charan wrote:

Getting back to Sherlock/Moriarty: worthy adversary, yin-yang, tomato, potato. In a mediocre, grey world, they were the bold black and white circling each other in any number of ways. It's a cliche now thanks to Jerry Maguire, but they sort of did complete each other.

Maybe it's that I see Yin/Yang differently, with the characteristics in mind so the villain/hero duality doesn't work for it.

Nemesis?

"

Charan wrote:

There are other examples of this in pop culture, but I think a fairly pertinent one is Pacino and De Niro in Heat. As with Sherlock and Moriarty, the good guy is manic and socially abrasive (and is assumed to have quite the coke habit), and the bad guy is slick and manipulative. They rarely meet but are behind the forces opposing each other. When they finally do meet, they do so across a table, civilly, over a cup of coffee. And the dialogue between them is pure fucking fire. And I believe the next time they meet, one of them is about to die at the hands of the other. I have a lot of trouble seeing De Niro's character in that movie as the villain, because he, again, is slave to his impulses and utterly devoted to his calling. He almost know he has a role to play. If anything, the villain in that movie is the dickhead ring-in who doesn't stick to the plan and sets everything in motion. His reckless action brings De Niro's world and Pacino's world into fatal contact.

So, nemesis?

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Charan wrote:

So, yeah, really re Trashcan man. He was the product of every day torment, although it's made fairly clear that there was still something wrong with him. Flagg tapped that and put a crazed pyromaniac 'high in his council'. Whether or not he saw the nukes coming, well, that's another discussion regarding the agency of arch-villains I guess...

I meant really they are your favourite kind? Why is that?

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Charan wrote:

re Pennywise: King has admitted pretty clearly, in On Writing I believe I saw it, that the real villains of Derry were abusive adults, particularly parents. Is there any character in that entire book more horrifying than Bev Marsh's dad? Not Henry Bowers, who was just a manipulated kid. Not the sad sack of shit the abused Bev hooks up with later in life. Not even Pennywise, who was more symbol than anything else. A walking, laughing, balloon-sharing cipher for whatever the kids found so horrifying. The only way to defeat him was to do the seeming impossible: return to childhood as adults. But he could be defeated. Bev Marsh's abusive dad? He can only be outgrown and reconciled.

Yes.

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Charan wrote:

How about Lex Luthor? Just to chuck another one in the air to see what happens.

Superman? Not something I've ever had interest in aside from being exposed to it. Most Lex / Superman I've seen in years is in the [brilliant that felt like 5 minutes passed] Lego Movies. Probably not quite in-depth enough.

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Charan wrote:

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erdelyii wrote:

Shakespeare wasn't a villain for giving ol' Richard a makeover, I think that's only really bad when it's a bad person whitewashed into being good after the fact.

This is interesting. So you're more okay with a good person being portrayed as bad after the fact? That this isn't 'really bad' in the same way? I should think they reach the same conclusion, just in different directions: gross mischaracterisation and betrayal of historical truth.

Yes, because the good deeds still stand wheras the bad ones being whitewashed offend my sense of justice more.

In the wash, probably a bee's dick difference, though.

"

Charan wrote:

Alright then. Still on Shakespeare (kind of) but now much more historically grounded than Richard III or Iago: Brutus and Cassius. Even though they're more commonly referred to as 'traitors' than 'villains' for their collective role in taking down Caesar, I wonder if the two might not be synonymous given treachery is typically viewed as a villainous act. Certainly Dante put the two of them in the lowest, most heinous circle of Hell (and that's really deep down, below all sorts of scum and monsters), keeping only Judas Iscariot company.

Also, nice Harlan Ellison nod before.

I missed this -

One villanous act can be enough, for sure. Not maybe as memorable as a career of villainy such as we are talking about in this thread, but yes.

Dante likely put them down there because of his political experiences.

Just a guess.

Victor Frankenstein? Put the loco in In loco parentis, and took the parent out.

Off the cuff quip because I was just peeking. More to come after sleep and such, you betcha.