The opposite side of the coin is just as frustrating, i.e. where the hero mindlessly kills dozens of henches throughout the story but at the end of the movie they don't kill the main villain (the actual source of all the problems) because suddenly the bad guys must "face justice" and go to jail or "we can't stoop to their level."
I think there’s a few times this is okay. Like in GotG Vol 3, they kill a bunch of villains in combat, but they refuse to kill the High Evolutionary when he’s at their mercy and absolutely humiliated. Did he deserve to die and letting him live may cause problems for them down the line? Yes. But did it provide catharsis for Rocket that he wasn’t the monster that his creator was? Also yes.
@@luisvelez1952That's probably the worst example you could've given. That's Aang's only kill in the series and for good reason, it's even played as his development. Instead, Ellie from The Last Of Us 2 kills hundreds of enemies all throughout the game for her revenge (including fathers and mothers) but when getting to the perosn actually responsible for her grief, she stops because of some visions and because the villain adopted a kid.
@@denisucuuu what is it with a lot of people that thinks that Aang is a virgin of not killing someone like Batman. He is not perfect, he took the desert episode personal.
Yeah, I hate this with Batman's "no-kill" policy. He'll waste billions of dollars and destroy entire city blocks in collateral damage, but he practically makes out with the Joker instead of just subtracting him.
It's annoying when the villain puts the hero in a trap, and then leaves the scene fully expecting the trap to kill the hero, and leaving nobody around to make sure the hero doesn't survive.
Fr tho. I hated that moment in The Last Kingdom where Hesten captures Uthred, monologues how he has waited years for this moment to finally kill him and then he just leaves him to die of a cause that will probably kill him instead of something that 100% will kill him and just leaves him there because he had better shit to do I guess???
I always liked in the first Incredibles how Syndrome even references Mr Incredible getting him lulled into a monologue. He says “you sly dog, you got me monologuing”!
This was also lampshaded in Van Helsing when the last vampire lady had the heroine trapped...only to ask her what she thought of her blood giving the vampire everlasting beauty. The heroine then staked the vampire and responded, "If you're going to kill someone, kill them. Don't stand there talking about it."
The best "Join me" moment was when Vader revealed who he was to Luke and that completely shook Luke's resolve and threw his motivations up in the air. Such a complex emotional moment. Luke wrestles with this knowledge and while he refuses, he's still confused and haunted by the revelation.
It also tells us two important things about Vader - he's not happy with his life as it is, and he's not as strong as he appears. If he were, he wouldn't want to destroy the Emperor and rule the galaxy, and he wouldn't need Luke's help to do it. That vulnerability is what inspires Luke to try to redeem his father, instead of simply destroying him.
@WriterBrandonMcNutty I think also it worked because the temptation of the dark side was a fundamental theme in Star Wars. But I do feel they didn’t make it tempting enough and the sequels didn’t understand the religious themes of Star Wars deeply enough. Luke being tempted was akin to Jesus being tempted in the Last Temptation of Christ
I feel like this works a lot better too because one that is his Son and so he has an actual connection with him that would make him want to offer in the first place. He's not some random nobody. Two he's already beaten Luke and it seems very clear that if his offer is refused he'll just kill Luke and remove him as a threat. Three Vader doesn't let him go Luke basically commits suicide but gets very lucky with where he ended up.
Probably my most loathed villain cliche is the fake sympathetic villain. You know, these ones who will commit the most horrid crimes against humanity and then the story try to evoke sympathy on them for some reason like ''I was abused as a kid''. It's so ridiculous and cheesy, and makes the villain feel more flat and robotic rather than profound.
Lmao this is a shit take because 90% of villainous REAL people do the exact same thing, blame everything that happened to them, it makes them seem more real, and less the garbage comic book villains that mostly only autistic and low IQ people think a villain should be like
That's one thing that's very well done in the Dark Knight, when Joker reveals that he's evil because he was abused as a kid, and change his back story everytime he tells it. It's an awesome twist to a loathsome cliché
like Cinder Fall I hated her backstory, also why didn't the huntsman report her stepmother, it's not like Cinder is a filthy faunus, she was the most evil character in the show (even more than Salem) and her backstory is better suited for Adam or another faunus
@@siegfriedmordrake3229 It works because it's strongly implied Joker is making the whole thing up (or, as in _The Killing Joke,_ he can't remember his past and doesn't care).
I feel like we need more of "double twist" villains. Basically, the first twist comes when they turn from ally to villain. The second twist comes when they redeem themselves. This would really force a write to think about how they're going to execute things, as the motivation has to make sense. I'll try to explain things as best as possible. What if a story is centered around war & it's the basic good vs. evil. Both the hero & their friend fight because they love their families. Eventually, the hero's friend gets captured, but he gets outs & explains how he got out. The explanation does make the hero suspicious, as there are major plot holes. But it's his friend! He can't be evil right? Nope. He sabotages everybody, & it's revealed that the evil side made a bargain with the hero's friend. It goes like this, "If you fight for us, we'll make sure you & your family are always safe". Since it's already established that they both fight to protect their families, the twist makes sense. But this victory is short-lived, as he realizes that by fighting for the evil side, he's causing many families to die, & so naturally, he betrays the evil side & rejoins the good side. The motivation is always there, & stays the same throughout the story, and not only that, the friend gets character development. This definitely better than Disney's twist villains or Disney's no villains.
Maybe the cliche that is the villain never being able to kill anyone. They do their best, but the author always heals the good guys. That's frustrating.
I'm picturing those bad actions movies where the heroes are trying to run away and there are a bunch of bad guys with machine guns firing at them where it's practically raining bullets on the heroes and somehow they manage to miss every single time. And if they do hit them, it's either just a graze or somewhere 'unimportant' like the shoulder or something. Slight tangent, but ever notice how shoulder wounds in movies are almost always treated like they're no big deal, contrary to reality?
The garbage modern superhero movies being the big example. There's a brilliant skit by Ryan The Leader parodying Marvel fans and how ridiculously braindead it is that they get emotionally invested and think the heroes might lose by the end
One of the worst plot armor writing I know is in a game. While I give games and even more online games more room for gameplay purpose, the mmorpg FF14 doesn't even try. It makes the playercharater the absolute center of everything - while having neither free will nor a voice - with not really super special powers (it's more some random 'beasts who can normally brainwash people can't brainwash you' the rest is just plot armor always fitting the circumstances), while the two big antagonista are a) super powerful wizards, who are pretty much immortal, can teleport in an instant at will, can teleport others (including the player character) in an instant against their will, got super magic power, shown to be even able to create whole cities including quasi-life in it, able to see and hear everything without anyone being able to see or hear them and many more stuff b) A gigantic super high tech empire with flying fortresses, with cannon powerful enough to easily obliterate a small town within seconds, which can fly with hypersonic speed (so 6000km/h+/~4000miles/h+), got a gigantic highly equipped army with all kind fo high tech stuff like drones, mech suits and so on, powershields which can't be disrupted by any normal means, a continent sides nations behind them with millions of people while you on the player side are 3-4 medieval towns with no technology at all and some low level magic. You COULD work with that, but instead the whole story that goes over years is B pretty much doing nothing all the time, not even when you invade them and A constantly talking about that they must stop you, but never actuall doing anything, especially not when they got you right in their claws and completely helpless. In the end of the story B just collapses offscreen and A fight you like some idiots and you just overpower them easily without any explanation how and why beside them just giving the player the usual boss fight like some random henchman and of courser always staying in range so you can poke them with your sword or lance (you got no real weapons, at best some magic but even that is even shown in cutscenes as pretty slow, weak and short ranged). You could argue: it's a game and MMORPG at that, but even MMORPGs try way harder to explain and for example add important NPCs and simply don't make the player character the main focus of everything what of course can't work in an online game, since the player char can't die, can't be corrupted, can't fall, can't change, so is clearly just awful to use as character in any story beyond heroic deeds. Biggest joke: That FF14 game even managed to give the NPC around the player character the same plot armor. They simply don't die. One of the main antagonists from A even got a negative kill count. One of those NPC (who already had several fake deaths) had another scene in which she got lost in the soulstream, and the antagonist brought her back. The whole NPC crew got meanwhile a giant count of fake deaths, it's just utterly absurd. And the biggest joke? People praise that game for that awful writing!
@@dxfifa Bad enough: Movies like the last Flash, that was made much better in the regard (sure by using a different time line, but yeah, overall that's pretty much the most you can do, because even when you kill off a hero, there are so many remakes meanwhile, it doesn't really matter anyway when it comes to this, so working with a lost timeline is actually more impactful than a death that for the franchise won't be one anyway) aren't praised for doing it better. Not only did it let the antagonists win, it even went against the "now you got an army of antagonists, so they got individually weaker", even making the no-name Kryptonians a threat and not just easy prey as in especially all the Marvel movies. It then also took the other Flash and let him go into full desperation plus confronting the 'original' one with the fact, that even with the power he got, he wasn't allowed to just change anything (pretty much the only acceptable way to use time travel, at least when you try to sell a serious story).
Villains that generally don't seem that bad or make good points but then decide to commit or plan a random massacre/ genocide because you know, they're the villains and that's what villains do, right ?
@@Aiden-wg4puhis point was always to kill people he kinda made that obvious Now say his plan was to just double the amount of resources then his character would seem stupid
@@Aiden-wg4puThanos's ideas were flawed from the very beginning though. The problem wasn't that there're too many people and lack of resources, it's the imbalance with the distribution of resources. Instead of trying to rebalanced it, he decided to kill half of the world because he's a maniac.
I also think villains can come in different flavours and it's annoying and boring when you make them as evil as possible at every turn. Like the bad guy in The Patriot. He has children executed as spies, which causes Mel Gibson's character to get involved. Later, the villain liberates a town and sets the slaves free, saying that England has abolished slavery so they should be freed, which would have made him a more interesting villain but then he immediately turns around and forcibly conscripts the freed slaves into his army so they're still slaves, just his slaves. Then he rounds up an entire village into a barn and sets it ablaze so they all burn to death. It's so cartoonishly evil for no real reason.
@@alimations5226I think another aspect of it was that galacticus, a planet eating , huge mf out in space feeds on planets like earth and halving it’s population creates a sort of balance
What bugs me about the villain's monologue is that nothing really stops the villain from breaking the hero's legs, paralyze them from the waist down or just shoot them and explain their evil plan as the hero slowly passes away.
Now that's a good idea--all in one go, you can demonstrate just how sadistic this villain is, ramp up the tension, and (assuming your story isn't a tragedy, or the villain isn't the protagonist) either give your hero the opportunity to turn the tables in a fiendishly clever way or give the supporting cast a rare moment of glory when they come to the rescue.
@@KristinChoruby Thank you, friend. After watching so many flicks, you just get tired of seeing the same old cliche. Plus, I am one of those people who values more a good antagonist/villain rather than the standart hero. And honestly, I've always wanted to see how a story would progress if the villain kills the main hero.
The Princess Bride did this with the six fingered man! Where he inflicts what he assumes is a lethal wound on Inigo before telling him about how he remembers killing his father, and is enjoying watching him slowly die. It’s a great scene.
The one I hate is when the villain has already beaten the hero to the point where he is down and too wounded to fight. But then he tells the hero what he will do with the hero's girlfriend or wife, after the hero is dead. Suddenly the hero gets up and is able to fight and win.
Either that, or when the villain kidnaps the hero's love interest, so the hero has to rescue her. I can see logic from the writer's perspective, having the hero kill the bad guy and get the girl in the same scene, but from movie's internal logic, it just makes no sense. The hero wants to kill the bad guy anyway, so why give him one extra reason?
Basically a version of the useless monologue, but on steroids. Usually the pointless monologue stalls and gives the hero more time, this type of monologue gives the hero both time and motivation. "If you will not be turned, then perhaps she will." "NEVER!" (Except in that case it works since Vader was intentionally egging him on.)
@@ShawnRavenfire because the love interest will/might/does prove to be a distraction in the moment and SHOULD cause the hero to lose because the hero looks away at an important moment.
@@ShawnRavenfireit also makes the conflict more personal. The aim is to heighten the stakes. The hero might save the world but if he loses his loved one in the process is the victory worth it? Sure there are other ways to do it, but it’s not as redundant as you might suggest.
I think a lot of zombie stories suffer from being selectively dangerous. When unimportant characters are among the horde, it's like a feeding frenzy. When a main character is surrounded with no possible escape *cough cough* Jon Snow, they are slow and useless
as much as i love CoD zombies, that is a bit of a pet peeve i have with the cutscenes. the zombies are fast, numerous, indestructible, and ravenous when fighting nameless generic soldiers. then they fight the protagonists, and all of a sudden all competency goes out the window so the protagonists can fight with style. look at intros like origins and IX. the difference is incredibly obvious (special mention goes to IX, where the jobbers are gladiators expecting a fight and still get taken down like chumps)
Zombies are at least somehow stupid, so it's mostly fine when they are a pretty random threat. What annoys me WAY more in most Zombie movies and games is, how stupid the peopel are. For example camping in the open or when they get a camp, make it open to all side and with glass or just a fence and alike. That's just dumb.
One of my most hated villain cliches is when a villain has a hero trapped and proceeds to take the time to explain and expose their entire evil plan so that when the hero inevitably escapes, they know exactly what to do to stop the villain’s plan.
I suppose a writer could subvert this cliché. Imagine a hero escaping having been told "the plan" but the villain has actually been prompting the hero using inaccurate info so that the "fix" makes things worse - or is even an integral part of the evil deed. "Oh no! I've killed the delegates by defusing the device! Could it be General Badguy lied about his plan? And now everyone thinks I'm the evil one?" General Badguy watches from his hidden video feed, sniggering in delight...
A stroke of genius in the New Vegas game was having to pass a speech check to make a gang boss reveal his plan, and from there you can convince him that his underling hired you to take him out, triggering a firefight between them.
Love it or hate it, the Watchmen movie had the best response when Ozymandias did this, and then revealed he'd already activated this plan. Ergo, since the heroes listened to the monologue, they had no chance of stopping it.
The main villian cliche I hate is the redemption without the redemption arc. Where the villian just turns good instantly cuz the main character said "let's be friends" or something like that. Even more annoying is when they go from insane psychopath to well-adjusted rational human as soon as they change sides. They also never realize the gravity of their past actions, atone for them, or face any consequences that come back to bite them. They just turn good instantly and that automatically fixes everything...
I would say Choso, but then again his convictions weren't set in stone considering how long he was alive in addition to his reason for stopping. I actually felt bad for Choso after he fought Yuji
It kinda sucks because the “Join me” proposal has genuine potential. What if one of the heroes backstabs the rest of the team to actually Join the villain?
I see that sometimes, I also see it appears one of the heroes has, but then they reveal in the end it was to get close to the villain. Also sometimes where the hero joins the villain not knowing they are a villain and do get backstabbed, or where the hero joins the villain temporarily to fight a common foe, or to backstab the villain themselves. The "Join me! Never!" might be tired, but the offer I feel has a lot of other interesting paths one can take.
Join me seems to work best only when the villain's goals have some ethical overlap with the hero's in some obvious way. A smart villain that can identify common ground and goals and make them enticing, overcome objections that the hero has...also interesting if the hero thinks about taking them up on it to end the fighting.
There's a UK show called Utopia which does this fantastically. One of the lead characters Wilson Wilson gradually starts to understand where The Network are coming from until eventually he can't even understand why they're fighting against them, it's a great character arc that goes throughout both seasons
I'm actually a fan of the "join me" scene if the villain has been set up well. For example, if they're a good leader or their proposals are actually enticing to others. This can be especially powerful if the villain's offer is something the protagonist *would* have accepted before their growth.
Even though there were other issues with the movie, I felt in The Last Jedi they really built up the dynamic between Rey/Ben. When he offered her to join him to rule as equals - since Rian Johnson was "trying to subvert expectations lol" - the movie would have been redeemed in my eyes had she said "this cycle of death, the war between light and dark sides needs to stop, Ben I will join you if you will stop the neverending violence/conflict with me". Then the movie ends as both give orders to stop the battle with them looking outside of the ship like ESB but in a completely different way. This would have allowed SW to move in a completely new and interesting way asking if the struggle between good and bad in itself is evil by the destruction and misery it causes, and what can be done to change it. It would also have subverted expectations of this cliche.
I think you touch upon a good point here. Even if we know the hero won't accept the offer, seeing WHY they refuse is an important dimension. After all, there is a reason why we're following this character and not one ofcountless others.
@@leepatterson5710 I think that would be a fantastic ending to the sequels. Because the sequels are an excellent demonstration that revolution and rebellion usually only lead to more revolution and rebellion, and that the new republic is at best a naive fantasy attempting to reclaim a failed past. A jedi and a sith deciding to end the cycle of violence, leaving behind those titles and the dead republic would be an amazing end to the journey. A story about letting go of the things that no longer help us, and how new generations must be allowed to sail their own stars. It would be so perfect!
The Empire Strikes Back has the best "join me" pitch in cinematic history. First, Vader offers all the typical 'let's team up to destroy our mutual enemy', ultimate power pitch. When it's summarily rejected, he reveals the 'well why don't you go into the family business' surprise that's an actual temptation and motivator for Luke.
I love when a monologue is used against the villain. For example, in the resident evil 4 remake, right before the end of the Castle, Salazar starts a monologue before Leon pulls out his handgun and says "you talk too much" before shooting him. I like it because it's in line for both characters
I love the monologues best when they are turned on their head, which doesn't happen often enough. Done really well in 'The Incredibles' when they get Buddy/Syndrome monologue and almost stop him right there. Done amazingly well in 'Watchmen.' "I triggered it 35 minutes ago." The heroes lost before they even got there.
The best joke about fatal monologues in a movie is definitely the "When you have to shoot, shoot, don't talk !" punchline by Tuco in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly 😂😂😂 Oh, and about stylish throwaway villains, Supreme Leader Snoke has entered the chat 😅
That is one of my top ten favorite lines from movies EVER!! And really, it can be applied to so many situations in real life. Tuco is the strongest and most complex character in that movie. Eli Wallach was awesome in that role.
Best twist on the villain end monologue was in Watchmen when Ozymandias tell the other Watchmen "ok I can waste my time explaining my plan since I've already put the final part in motion 30 minutes ago" wich totally flip that thrope on it's head.
in one episode of Animaniacs the kids confront the villain and ask him to reveal his plans. you think I'm stupid? he answers. I tell you all about my plans, and then you escape my carefully laid out trap and spoil everything. nope, I'm staying silent! but it says you must, right here in your work contract!, they say, and produce said contract. oh! he says. Very well then, listen up...
One of the worst is when the villain captures the hero and has the chance to outright kill him, but instead just puts him in some trap/obstacle course and walks away, allowing the hero to eventually escape unnoticed. Several of the James Bond movies do this, but DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER was one of the entries to do it the most.
My favourite subversion of this is from the first Kingsmen film. "Is this the part where I put you in a death trap that’s easy to escape from?" "Yes, that would be nice." "Yeah, well this is not that kind of movie!" *shoots him in the head* (Yes I know the next film undoes this but that doesn’t stop it from being a good subversion in the first place.)
This is what I hated in Digimon: Adventures (the original one, not the stupid pseudo-reboot). Vamdeemon, who is even portayed of the smartest villain up to that point, has had several chances to stop the Digi-Destined and make his plan a success. But yet he took NONE. Two ot the instances are somewhat explainable/ explained (one in-universe and one sort of in-character), but that still leaves at least two more. And what freaks me out about it most is that stupid two-episode hyper-villain arc that follows it. They could've incorporated things far better here with a lot less author showing his hand ...
Funnily enough, Maul's return in the Clone Wars, while possibly a cheap retcon to resolve cliché 2, actually provides a pretty solid example where cliché 3 works. (Spoilers) Maul makes a "join me" offer to Ahsoka, but it's not a standard "You're cool, we could do a lot together if you would just be evil." His speech is based on the fact that he knows Palpatine's about to take over the galaxy, and we as the audience know that's true. He asks Ahsoka to work with him, and while his desire to kill Palpatine is definitely selfish to a major degree, their interests do genuinely align. Furthermore, it is quite legitimately a "We're not so different" since they've both rejected their respective allegiances to the Sith and Jedi. It kind of makes sense for Ahsoka to work with him, and she actually says yes at first. It's only when he reveals that they have to kill Anakin to stop Palpatine (something we also know to be true) that Ahsoka's loyalty causes her to pull back, and that's not a given since she's walked away from Anakin in the past. Same structure as the cliché, but a legitimately compelling argument for the hero to join, and even though we kind of know Ahsoka and Maul have to fight, there's a much more interesting conflict within Ahsoka as she weighs the merits of Maul's argument with her previous allegiances.
yeah, that was one of my favorite moments from season 7 and the series in general. it's tense because we know its a realistic offer that we actually want the hero to agree with, and she considers it but then decides not to because (apologize if i misremember) Maul wanted to kill anakin, even though we know that it would actually be a good thing if he did. season 7 in general (mainly the parts about order 66 and such) did an absolutely amazing job of creating a compelling story even when we knew what was coming
Disney needs to start telling stories chronologically and quit resorting to lazy and often times contradictory retcons to crank out their "stories," but, they won't.
@@Magneticlawyou do realize that the clone wars wasn't disney besides the last season (which was the best CW season). SW always wrote stories out of chronological order and I don't think you understand that it wasn't Disney who made it like that
Not necessarily. If done right, it can absolutely work. I mean, take the most infamous real life villain for example - Adolf Hitler. His main goal was to make Germany the ruling global power/assure world-dominance. Surely, he himself had a reason for wanting to achieve that goal. For us however, it's not something that makes sense. 'The world', 'the galaxy' or 'the universe' are all very 'absolute' things. For a character who seeks to gain power, it's only reasonable to desire conquering/destroying one of these. Of course, the villain should have a reason for why this is a goal to achieve. If a villain doesn't know himself why he even wants to rule/destroy 'the world', then yes, that is pretty flat.
The villain cliche I really hate is when the villain kills their henchman / accomplice in the opening act. The reason why is because, in theory, it's actually a *great way* to establish them as ruthless and deadly. What's more dangerous than a person who'll easily kill even those who serve their ideas if they fail? Right... right? But in over 90% of the cases in practice, what follows is that same villain not killing or attempting to kill the hero or some more important characters for challenging them in significantly more dangerous ways. For instance, if you establish that your villain kills his henchman in the first scene because he smirked at their bad joke, you simply cannot have them *not kill* (or try to) the hero or hero's love interest who calls them a moron to their face. If you establish that person as someone who's willing to kill for anything, follow that through. This way, it's a clunky way to say that an obviously bad person is obviously bad, and then continuing with the plot as if nothing happened.
I love how in the end of Batman (1989) the Joker asks his number one, his closest man, for his gun, and when Bob hands him the gun the Joker shoots him. Just a great blink-and-you'll-miss-it few seconds that show how deranged the Joker really is.
I thought of this idea where one of my villain's henchman says a bad joke which gets the villain to smirk, but then when one henchman makes an insult (referencing something traumatic) the villain gets a crossbow saying "That's funny, I got a joke for you" then straight up shoots the man before saying "You guys didn't find it funny? I found it amusing"
I thinki most writers do this "killing the henchman" thing because Darth Vader, which is probably the most recognizable villain of all time, did it first. Most of them end up missing the point entirely, Vader never kills actual henchman, you know storm troopers, he kills high ranking corrupt and incompetent officers. Also he never kills because of ego, which is the basic mootive most villains kill their allies as you pointed out, making them seem petty, childish and easy to manipulate.
Let’s say that there’s a villain who can kill their henchmen from a very far distance. And now I know it sounds weird but what if that villain kills a henchman to protect the main character? (Provided the main character has some sort of worth to the villain)
I hate the "last stab" cliche: where the villain has been defeated and the hero has decided to spare them (already a cliche in itself), so they take one last stab at the hero, usually behind their back, and are promptly done away with.
One of the "join me" villain moments I remember and enjoy was on Avatar: The Last Airbender cartoon. It didn't happened with Aang (the protagonist) but with Zuko, who is still very important to the story. We saw Zuko's struggles and how hard he was trying to cope with the fact he was a dishonored prince while still looking for his own path. We thought he changed, that he was a better person who understood the terrible things his father did to other nations and people, but when Azula (his sister) offers his honor back in exchange of fighthing the good guys, he takes the offer even if it means go back to the side of his megalomaniac father and crazy sister. He was never a bad person, but he wanted to be accepted by his family so much it clouded his mind.
Maul definitely still counts as an example despite being brought back *because* he was brought back *because* of how obvious it became that the mistake had been made. And I think that "join me" works in two situations: 1. The villain is a delusional megalomaniac that thinks that their goal is objectively heroic, and they think they've met an equally heroic person who has merely been deceived. 2. It's an amoral and pseudo-friendly mercenary type character who makes this offer to anybody that they encounter and then flip-flops based on convenience.
The Join me idea also works if there's another stronger character the hero and villain decide they both need to overcome together. Infinity blade does this pretty well
Darth Vader making his offer to Luke. Now that had some real power behind it, on top of the big reveal. Trouble is, the trope has been done to death so much since then and by so many poor writers.
I can't think of any examples offhand but a 'join me' that results in the hero unexpectedly but sincerely saying 'yes, I'll join you' is actually an amazing trick to pull off.
honestly, morally gray villians are wearing out their stay. recently every villian needs to have some back story explaining their psychology and some of it ends up being cheesy or just feels like filler. Sometimes a very horrible character just works, because bad people are real
Well-written ones are great. I think the problem here is that companies like Disney have inundated the market with hacky, childish writing and have mass produced bad versions of this trope, making everybody bored and/or frustrated with it. Well, except for me since I don't watch Disney crap!
totally agree, but i think the fatigue of these villains is that they’re not well written and believable. sympathetic villains are some of the best written characters in media but it feels like writers just take that idea and apply none of the nuance and skill it takes to be effective. Disney’s cruella is a good example of this being done poorly whereas a good morally grey villain will even have people defending their actions like Walter White.
yea the glorious bastard villain are so much nicer. He is magnanimous, powerful, competent charismatic. He is great and he knows. The heroes really don't have a chance, at least not in act one. The glorious bastard drives the entire plot, and the reason for his eventual act 3 failure is directly related to his own primary vice (pride). And when we get that act three turn and see him lose control it comes off super satisfying. And why did the glorious bastard became a villain in the first place. Did he watch the tragic death of a loved one, was he beaten as a child, did he lose his choocho, NO he just likes being evil and is damn good at it.
about maul: I love how dave filoni (the creator of the clone wars series.) basically salvaged maul because he knew his character was done injustice. they made him so much more interesting and threatening and made him an actual character instead of a throwaway first movie villain. :)
A lot of times in Disney Movies, the villains aren't selectively dangerous. The hero often finds the villain's weakness and figures out how to exploit it. In "Aladdin," the titular character used Jafar's lust for power when he realized that the genie had a much greater power. When Mike and Sully fought Randall in "Monsters Inc.," they used the terrain by knocking him into a door and trapping him with humans. Other times, the villain makes a mistake in their ruthless attempts to attack the hero. They let their rage cloud their judgement. Clayton was unable to reach Tarzan, he was reckless with his machete and cut the vines holding him above the ground. Gaston stabbed the beast in the back while holding onto a gargoyle with one hand in the rain. He took a risk that cost him his life.
While it's not specific to villains, the "you and I are not so different" spiel is something I find rather groan-worthy. It's especially bad when the similarities are just things within the essential human experience such as caring about your loved ones, or being angry at injustice. It's more excusable if the story calls out how full of crap it is.
Agreed. Most of all, I hate it when the villain gives either this line or the "you're the *real* villain because ___" line, and then the hero in the face of blatantly obvious logic fails to give any kind of reasonable reply in their defense.
Belethor in Skyrim. he isn't a villain as such (just sleazy) but he says "You and me, we're the only people who aren't complete fools." which immediately makes me think he's trying to manipulate me.
This is another trope that is overused, and mostly used badly, but in its core, it can be done right. If the story established that the hero and the villain indeed have some striking similarities, and even partially the same goal (only the hero's way of executing it is peaceful, while the villain's goes overboard and too violent), then this can work well. It can even come off as a logical step in their dynamics. But the issue is that in the vast majority of cases, their similarities are too superficial, and the scene exists only because the authors saw it in other stories, without knowing why it's there. Usually, it's executed in a pointless, throwaway way, and the audience is left with a raised eyebrow on why did the villain even say it in the first place.
Quite often on a basic level they are very similar but choose to work for opposite ideals. Superheroes and villains fit this. They both have powers but it is their choice of use. Then plenty of villains end up that way because they think what they are doing is for the greater good. In that they are not that different, just lack using morals.
@@Dominic-he7sgthat's right but the villain doesn't need to say it out loud. The audience can see it for themselves without characters taking their hands
I've always hated the villain monologue as well. The villain can straight up kill the hero without having to explain their goal. It's like you have your opportunity to kill them but instead you tell them the reason, just have the villain straight up do their goal which would put a struggle within the hero. And most realistic enemies never go on a monologue, they just do their actions.
I think the comments in a previous video addressed a scene in Van Helsing where Kate Beckinsale is confronted by the last of three vampire brides of Dracula. Instead of killing Kate straight away, she wastes time explaining how, allowing Kate to retrieve a stake and stab her. And what’s interesting about this is that as she stabs her, she calls out how the bride should just kill her victim and not waste time talking about how.
The writer just has to armor that plot with some steel by having the villain explain everything we already know before handing us a happy ending on a platter.
Prepare to Die! has way too much hesitation in it. You'd think an opportunistic villain would just jump at the chance without having to put the action on hold for the obvious intent reveal.
The only time I've forgiven a villain monologue is terrorblade in Dota: dragon's blood. All throughout the show, he exert his influence by persuading random characters to let him take control. His whole schtick is plunging people into despair so he can break them. The beginning of his final fight is him trapping the heroes in illusions so he can monologue them into giving up. So when he takes the time to float when he think he's won, I'm not surprised at all. It's his very essence to delight in the despair of others, so he wouldn't miss a chance to inflict even more.
I think they work sometimes if they actualy make sense in the context of the story. Like Colonel Kurtz (Apocalypse Now) making a monologue which had small hints to Captain Willard that Kurtz wants Willard to kill him and end his suffering.
Antman and The Wasp: Quantumania was the last example of the villain pulling punches that really bothered me. Kang is vaporizing hordes of nameless extras. Then Scott, Hope and Cassie are in his sights, the people he most wants to kill, and suddenly he stops using that weapon. Good writing would have found a way for the heroes to defeat him or actually had one of them sacrifice themselves, instead Kang pulls his punches and allows them to get close.
Lot of words to say “I wasn’t actually paying attention.” And why so many critiques fall flat. FFS… The explanation for how Pym tech works doesn’t correspond with ANY of its examples in the movies. Things don’t shrink and retain their mass, they have exactly as much mass as the user desires them to have. How else could Hank carry actual vehicles around in a Hot Wheels case, or drag a building like luggage? But Kang being absolutely walloped by a high tech ant army and not being able to use his most potent weapons in the final fight is “bad writing?” In what universe?
Mind control is my least favorite villain trope. Kind of like the “offer to join” it’s usually not pulled off well. Even when it’s something like hallucinations, or affecting emotions, it often has someone acting very out of character for how they’d be in that scenario.
Word of advice then, never even look at, never mind play Far Cry 5. It's the most egregious, enraging, idiotic example of mind control (of two entirely different types) that I have ever seen in a piece of media.
I’m going to just say I like mind control and leave it at that. It’s fun. Witcher the last wish is an example for me, or in the clone wars right after the geonosis arc
@@InfiniteEscuro Lol, too late, I beat it before you even commented. I will say, I like the types used, (Addiction and conditioning) but the execution is nonsense. Even though it's not technically mind control, I think ice kings crown from Adventure Time, or the cyber psychosis in Cyberpunk anime was much better put in narration.
@@Eloweh I'm not completely against mind control when done right, and I'm not super familiar with the examples. When it's soft magic against jabroni's it doesn't bother me as much, but I prefer hard magic anyway. The Mistborn series has a good hard magical version of it, more towards influencing emotion.But it's often the staple for hard magic anyways sooo yeah.
I think the "Join me proposal" was very effective in Spiderman. Osborne was affected by his experiments and so had mental health issues affecting his judgment, and while the audience knows Spiderman is incorruptible, Green Goblin at this time does not. A short dialogue showed Green Goblin rational in his thinking and being much smarter than we had previously seen him, and simultaneously completely deranged and detached from reality in his goals, plus creating some mystery because the audience does not know how sincere he was.
Agreed. Plus, while most like me were familiar with Spider-Man, lot of kids at that time were just learning about him, so his incorruptibility was not known to some of the audience. That said, and to Brandon's point, it was implied as all watching knew Spidey is a superhero.
Yes to all this. Spider-Man’s rejection was necessary to give Goblin a more personal reason to hate Spider-Man other than “You have spoiled my plans once again!” Plus, Norman’s desire to have Peter as his heir/personal weapon was in the comics too.
Reminds me of the “Evil Overlord Checklist” - a gag list with 30 stupid things villains shouldn’t do like: “Shooting is not too good for my enemies.” My least favorite is an extension of 5, when they brag about their plans to the hero for no reason other than to reveal backstory or key plot points. Like Lord Voldemort in virtually every scene. The obvious comparison is Sauron who we know only through his actions - because he never appears.
I love the Evil Overlord Checklist. Especially the one about giving the henchmen insurance because it's smarter to have your workers be motivated to work for you. The whole list is clever.
These are all great picks. This one is similar to #5 but another cliche I hate is when the hero fights a villain that’s way bigger/physically stronger than them. When the hero gets grabbed, for some reason the villain always just chucks them across the room instead of doing the sensible thing like choking or crushing them. By throwing them away from you, you’ve not only just given them distance from you and lost your close range advantage, but you’ve bought them time to either run away, attack from far away, or bought them time to come up with a plan.
Terminators seem to do that a lot lol. In T1 there was a lot of banging in a room and I think Sarah was like "what's going on in there ". Sure there could an explanation for it, maybe it's because they need information or simply because throwing someone might do less damage to them self which if you are a terminator and need to blend in is important. But I do hate it whenever villains go easy on the hero by chucking them about seemingly to savour the moment for absolutely no reason.
But the cliché I also really hate is the "head vampire" one. Where the villain has an entire army or the world is teeming with villains and it seems all is lost for our heroic band of stragglers. It introduces this concept as a way of showing the extremely dire circumstances they are in. But wait! Actually, it turns out all they have to do is kill this one leader and all the others will just die, or turn back into human or whatever. It just makes a joke of the whole scenario and we roll our eyes wondering what the big fuss was about. It's this stupid cliché that destroyed Game of Thrones for me.
that’s what i love so much about Mistborn. (MISTBORN SPOILERS) When they kill the Lord Ruler, Vin, Elend and the others find that nothing’s even over yet. They have to deal with assassinations, politics, and armies that try to kill them twice every week. It’s realistic and stressful
@@EngelSpiel The phantom menace was about the politics and Palpatine gaining power. This led to the senate taking decisive action, and in turn, making the people of Naboo and other small systems love Palpatine even more. The new, stronger senate was (presumably) able to take the ship down.
Agreed. I was emotionally uninvested in the show after that. Of course, I couldn't actually see what happened in the rest of the episode anyway. Not that it already hadn't been disappointing me for a while by then, but that moment crossed the point of no return. After that, I was just watching because I'd invested all that time in it, but I didn't really care anymore.
That’s a good point. 🤔 For me, though, the Head Vampire bit can be useful because the heroes have to find a way TO the head villain. It’s the uncertainty of being able to even make it there past the hordes or what-have-you. Especially if the villain is smart and can communicate long-range while obliterating things close to the heroes. It doesn’t ease the destruction, like with the Shire (in the LotR movies, if I recall correctly, the hordes were defeated when the One Ring/Sauron was destroyed, but the Shire was ruined, though they glossed over it in the movie).
My least favorite villain arc is when the narrative justifies the villain and makes it out as if their villainy isn't really their fault. Allow your villain to be evil. Or make them sympathetic. Or even redeem them. But make it believable, and remember they are a villain.
Are you autistic? The binary of antagonist = villain and protagonist = hero is one of the most brainless and predictable tropes. Although it takes a good writer to pull it off, it is much more interesting to realise the main character is just the focus, and the story is told to make them the favourite, not to make them the bastion of morality against evil. Think of an unhealthy romantic relationship from someone you know. Very few are an evil person tormenting a good victim, or even an evil person at all. And most of us see very small fragments of it, and only hear from one side, from unreliable narrators. Real stories aren't discrete sets of heros and villains
But remember a villain isn't going to be nasty 100% of the time. Even the Nazis went home to wives and children they loved. That is what marks out the Joker in Batman films and Teatime in Diskworld.
@@seriousmaran9414I pity the wife and children, well mostly the children, I'm not surprised some women can sometimes have bad taste in men but spawning children to continue a cycle of evil is just disgusting.
I don't like the redeem part, that to me just makes them out like they get a free pass as if they are any less evil for every evil deed that has crossed too many lines. If you are gonna due that then write it like Zuko. With him he's not evil at heart like his dad is, he is just a misguided kid who is trying to get approval from an abusive parent and eventually later when he's labeled a traitor he learns just how terrible his dad is and gives up trying anymore. This makes his arc believable because he never crossed any serious lines and he did care about innocent ppl like saving a village from a bunch of Fire Nation soldiers (unfortunately got kicked out for revealing who he is). He grows with Aang's team and learns more how to be his own person instead of being like his sister and father and tries to be more like Iroh who was his only real father figure. It's actually a good to write a character like Iroh who can be positive role model to characters like Zuko as it's proven in real life having one can help keep ppl especially young on the right path in life. If you ever want to make a villain have this arc then here's are some basic rules: Make them sympathize with the good characters and show they are capable of caring about the innocent and they truly do not want to harm people on purpose. Second, show they have a moral compass like the heroes albeit with exceptions like maybe they steal from the rich to help poor ppl ala Red Hood style, that way it contrasts that the said villain and hero both have the same goals to help make their community or home better just with different methods. Third, do not make them do evil things that cross the line say like killing someone's beloved pet or burning down a building with ppl inside as that will make them unsympathetic and just want the viewers to hate them which is not what you want if you want them redeemed, you have to keep the villain where they are not sinister and willingly to do stuff like that. And finally, have it where they conflict with the hero and that they are about to do something that does cross a line but have them stop and show mercy to the hero as a way to prove they are not evil at heart and realize they almost went too far and turns themselves in. This is where they can start changing their methods where they don't have to take extremes to improve their community or whatever and therefore redeemed after they are released from jail and can help ppl like they planned to but with alternatives rather than having to steal. This to me is the best and only to write this arc for a villain.
Of course not. And I like it when villains are complicated. What I mean is when the narrative justifies their actions. Or when redemption arcs aren't earned and we're just suddenly told that they weren't really evil after all and their actions weren't their fault.@@seriousmaran9414
What do you think about the "join me proposal" when the main character rejects the villain at first, but end up in a situation when he realizes joining the villain is the best choice they can do and end up joining in?
The problem he stated is cases where it isn't practical or believable. Your example would likely be an exception since it's practical and, if written well, believable.
I'm not convinced that this is a bad cliché as the offer might be sensible from the villain's perspective. But again, I guess it boils down to how the author builds towards the offer 🤔
I just had to think about Thunderbolt Fantasy. While Lin Setsu A isn't the main villain (at least not up until now, but he certainly is very, very shady), he had a bit of a hard time bringing the protagonist to join him. In the end of episode they ended up as a team (to fight a greater villain) and stayed like this for three episodes, never fully trusting each other. And as I said, Lin is very, very shady and it wouldn't surpise me that much if he turns out to be the evil mastermind in the end.
One of the worst for me is where the villain needlessly kills one or more of his own henchmen, just to establish the fact he is evil. In some cases this works well, such as when Tuco beats his henchman to death in Breaking Bad, because Tuco had already been established as a deranged psychopath who was high on drugs almost all the time and we later find out he is direct family of a ruthless mexican drug cartel. Nobody would challenge him and that is understandable. Yet there are many more examples where the villain, often in the early part of the story, kills a henchman for minimal or no reason and you just immediately think "Why would the other henchmen tolerate this? Why would they work for him? Why wouldn't they just kill the villain themselves and walk away?" A loose cannon is not someone that would command respect from an army of henchmen unless they had serious connections.
Nailed all of these Brandon! My major cliche is the villain not killing the hero when they have the chance. I'm currently writing/drawing my own manga series where the villains are ruthless, no monologuing with their master plans to the hero. Their motives will be discovered over time from other sources. I've always found it weird when villains describe their plots to the hero, very counterintuitive for someone trying to accomplish a goal without interference.
Wasn't there a film, where the villain told the heroes his plan and ended his monologue with something like "And it has been executed half an hour ago... Did you realy think I would divoulge this to you with any chance of you intervening?"
On the flipside, I think the betrayed villian is a really good underused trope. Amy from Gone Girl, and Harvey Dent are good examples of this. Meg from Hercules is almost an example of this. When you understand the hurt it makes them compelling.
On the Spiderman example, I think the actual offer is a lot more meaningful than it seems. It shows both of their conflicting ideologies, Goblin has no reason to believe Spider Man wouldn't take him up, after all he lived through what he told him. At least from his perspective he made Oscorp what it is and how did they thank him for his heroic act? They backstabbed him. He thought of himself as someone better than them and the Goblin serum proved him right. Normal people are beneath him, which is why he takes interest in another extraordinary individual like Spider Man. Heck, he accomplishes his actual goal midway through the film and spends the rest of the runtime, for Spider-Man to see that his ideology is right. And it isn't like Peter would always have rejected such an offer. He did take the easy way when he was robbed out of his money before, if uncle Ben hadn't taught him the importance of responsibility than he might have accepted to rule the city. Goblin didn't outright say he wanted to destroy it, he had no reason to, since he already did and it is debatable if a less selfless Peter wouldn't have taken him up on that offer.
I agree. Osborn was a company founder and CEO. He was used to negotiating deals and acquiring talent. It makes perfect sense for that character to behave the way that he did. We all knew Spiderman would never go for it, but to cut it out would not only lessen the complexity of the character of the villain, but also take away the opportunity for the audience's understanding of the hero to be confirmed in a movie where he blames himself for his uncle's death and his superhero persona is being perpetually smeared by the papers. Believable characters are written according to their motivations, not the perceived audience's expectations.
It's also a great illustration of how Osborn doesn't really understand people who aren't as greedy and vicious as he is (something that I'd argue applies to both his Osborn and Goblin personas). He can't imagine why Spider-Man _wouldn't_ join him.
In defense of The Hunger Games, Clove had no character development to say that she is a person who is guided by common sense and logic. In fact, from what little is known about her, it is implied that she was very arrogant. So yes, Brandon, it was a bad example.
Also, Clove had been training her whole life for the Hunger Games. She was there by choice. In their tribute skill rating scores, Clove scored a 10, and Katniss scored an 11, and Clove was clearly very envious of this. It makes sense she'd revel in the moment.
My most hated villain cliché is when they’re just evil for evil’s sake. Like, they need to have some sort of underlying motive; it can be an amoral or evil motive, but it has to have some kind of logic behind it.
It could just be someone who is ridiculously sadistic,you dont need much of a reason to be evil when you finf it to be so fun in and off itself i think.
Is this even a thing anymore? It feels like every villain nowadays has 1 million and one reasons for what they're doing and some deep tragic backstory I kinda miss mustache twirlers tbh
I don't agree with #2, i think that the reason Darth Maul is so iconic is precisely because he is so mysterious. I mean, it's much easiwr to create just an intriguing design and an illusion of depth than actual depth, I don't think they'd ever be able to flesh out a back story matching the audience expectations.
I was thinking the same. A chief henchman with little to no backstory is a staple of fiction. They don’t need a back story because that is not required for their role in the story. Does anyone complain about Jaws or Oddjob's lack of backstory? Ok maybe Jaws doesn’t count as he actually has an arc Moonraker. Darth Maul was a henchman, a fully expendable minion. I agree it would have been better if he had returned for episodes 2 & 3, but that doesn’t diminish his role in the first film.
I'd say the "proposal" one is, when cleverly done, a way to give you the time to calm down after the action while further cementing the hero's choices. You know what's gonna happen but you also realize the hero has to make a point and refuse, to show they're morally right and proud of the path they chose. I'd say it can be a transition scene from the hesitant hero to the driven and proud of themselves one.
About convoluted villain plans, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire has got to be the worst offender. Voldemorts plan was to wait for an international wizarding tournament that only takes place once every 5 years so he could sign Harry up for the tournament that lasts for an entire school year and make sure not only that Harry survive the dangerous tournament where people can die but also that he wins it all so Harry would touch the trophy which is a portkey (a teleportation device) that teleports him to Voldemorts lair where he could kill him in secret. The problem with this plan is that anything could be a portkey in this world, even a random boot. Why not just have your henchman who is already working as an undercover agent at Harrys school invite Harry for tea one afternoon and be like "Yo Harry, could you hold this "pen" for me?" Takes 10 minutes to kill Harry Potter that way instead of an entire school year where a thousand things could go wrong.
#3 is interesting since I have a short story with something similar. But it has a little twist, and I think it’s one of my best short stories I’ve ever written. "Well... here we are... the long awaited final battle". A young woman said, tightening her grip on her sword. A tall figure, clad in armor, stood at the edge of the cliff, facing the sunset. "Appropriate, is it not, Elizabeth"? He asked. "Just as the sun sets on this day, so too does it set on our story. This is indeed the end, one of us will die here, the other will return to their loved ones and live out the rest of their days in peace... only, I don't have any loved ones. You saw to that, didn't you?" He said. "I never meant to kill your wife Jaren, I meant to kill you, but she sacrificed her life to save you". Elizabeth looked away sadly. "I wanted to respect her wishes, to let you live, but you made that impossible" She said. "Why are you trying to stop me, Elizabeth"? The tall figure, known as Jaren, asked. "You're a lunatic, that's why. You've killed billions of people, you've destroyed *entire kingdoms*! As long as you live, no one is safe, I won't allow a world like that. A world of suffering and pain, of death and destruction, of sorrow and despair, I won't live in that kind of world, so I'm going to do anything to stop you from making it that way. "Ah, so even the hero can be selfish" Jaren said. "Selfish? What are you talking about"? "You said, *you* won't allow a world like that, *you* don't want to live like that, *you* are trying to stop me without even knowing my true motives". "Well... what are your intentions if you think they're so just, and why was it worth so much death"? Elizabeth asked. "The purge of corruption". Jaren began to turn, sword in hand, and Elizabeth readied herself. Jaren began pacing slowly as he explained, "Humankind, is corrupted. There is no good, they have done nothing but evil, no matter what they *say* their intentions are. They have wronged me, time after time after time. Humans have taken everything from me every day for a thousand years, all because I tried to play hero... and failed". Jaren lifted his hands and removed his mask, revealing to Elizabeth a face that she knew all too well. Her brother's. "Look around, Elizabeth. Can you look at all of this ruin and destruction and still call yourself a hero"? She scanned her surroundings, he was right. There was nothing left except shattered swords, broken shields, and burning corpses. And she could have prevented it all with only a few words. All she had to do was say to the emperor, "I will not fight in this war", and he wouldn't have launched his invasion, Elizabeth wouldn't have had to kill Jaron's wife, she wouldn't have had to imprison his children. A thought occurred to her then, 'Am I even the hero? Was I ever a hero in the first place'? "I... I don't..." "No? Well humans can, they see this desolate wasteland as a victory, no matter how many of their comrades that they lost. It's all a game to them, they are nothing but cruel, weak minded, savages, driven by violence and greed. You know of what I speak of, for you've witnessed it firsthand." "When they killed my first son, and tortured my daughter just to hurt me. When they stole everything that I ever cared about and burned it down right in front of my eyes. All before I became the way I am now, when I was the hero, before I did anything to deserve the scorn of these weak wretches". "N-no... stop... no more, I don't want to hear anymore". Elizabeth cried. "But you know that I'm right, maybe you won't accept it, but you know. You and I... we've ascended beyond their mortal strife. As immortals, we have an obligation to look after the world, and all the humans do is destroy it. So I will destroy them first." "Join me... please, you can rule with me, together we will put an end to their pathetic suffering". Jaren put out his hand. "If you kill the humans, what will there be left to rule"? "Oh, how ignorant you are, there are an uncountable number of realms beyond this one, we can purge the evil in all of them and then create our own race, free of the human plague." That made her remember something. The words of her master, the one who taught her how to use her powers. "Long ago..." Elizabeth recalled aloud. "The power to dimension swap and to strike down evil were one in the same. But when twins were born to the previous hero and the black dragon in human form, her powers were split and given to her offspring, and the same regarding the powers of the black dragon." Elizabeth finished. "The legend of the Black Dragon and the White Wolf" Jaron said, recalling the story told to him as well. "Why does this matter right now"? "Don't you see, Jaren? The past hero was the White Wolf, our mother, and the Black Dragon was our father. You Inherited mothers ability to dimension swap and fathers ability to release his restraints and unleash all of his power. I inherited mothers ability to destroy evil, and fathers sheer combat prowess." "I grow weary from listening to this, get to your point Elizabeth", Jaren growled. "...Maybe your not wrong about humans being purely corrupt, but your not right to eliminate them for it. I have another way." "You have the ability to enter the dimension of spirits, and I have the ability to combat evil. Let us join our powers and fight the source of the evil, not the vessels." "The demons in the dimension of spirits"? Jaren asked. Elizabeth held out her hand. "Join me, help me, and we both get what we want." Jaren smiled. "That actually sounds like a good plan". He said, taking her hand in his, he would never admit it, but he was relived to be on the same side as his sister, and she was glad to have her brother back. "What about your daughter, will she be alright"? "I know her, she will be fine" Jaren said with a smile. "We may not be fighting each other, but we still have a long battle ahead of us, are you ready to face what follows"? Elizabeth took a deep breath, then spoke. "I am". And they were absorbed into the dimension of spirits. Legend has it, they're still there, combating the demons that contaminate the minds of the humans throughout all of the countless realms. Fighting side by side, as brother and sister, until their mission is fulfilled, though it would last till the end of time. "Let the Chaos ensue, let all evil be devoured by my hatred."
I think the most obvious example of the needlessly complicated plan was Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. So, you're one of Voldy's minions and you've managed to infiltrate Hogwarts and gain the trust of Harry Potter. Mission basically accomplished. Prepare a portkey, cut Harry, wipe away some blood and then teleport away before anyone can ask questions. Or if the Dark Lord insists on dueling and killing Harry personally, then bring Harry in your office where a gift is waiting for him. Or a strange magical device that you're going to use as a teaching device. Have Harry pick it up, and psych! it's a portkey. Or break into Gryffindor common room and turn Harry's toothbrush into a portkey. Or Stupefy him and put him in that handy-dandy little kidnapping trunk of yours.
I agree with you about Voldemort’s plan in GOF, There is just one problem with the portkey idea, they don't work inside Hogwarts, like apparitions, and you can't use them to get in and out of the castle, Barty Jr. would have to catch Harry outside, though that shouldn't be too hard, I think the easiest would probably have been kidnapping Harry before Hogwarts began, Owl him a portkey while at the Dursley, or even send someone to kidnap him, if I remember right he was only protected from Voldemort there not the Death Eaters. They could have also taken him to the Quidditch World Cup. Barry Jr. was just a few feet away from him, Ron, and Hermione in the woods no one else nearby. It would have been easy to knock out Ron and Hermione and grab Harry, though I'm not sure if Barty Jr. was helping Voldemort at that point or if he didn't start until after, but yeah there were easier ways to get Harry than using the Triwizard Tournament.
@@saphiramystique2086How about "kidnap Harry during a Hogsmeade weekend"? If pulled off right, he wouldn't be missed for hours and by the time a search party would even begin to form, everything would be long over.
Great video, Brandon! also, I love that in the original Incredibles, they poke fun at the "Fatal monologue" trope twice. once with Frozone talking about his glory days and Baron Von Ruthless, and Syndrome dodging and acknowledging it.
"You sly dog, you got me monologueing!" Yeah, it's kinda hilarious that he doesn't use the first Incredibles to call out that trope. Such an obvious and excellent way to bridge the two tropes.
I hate when Hero instantly forgives the villain for all the bad stuff they did because the villain has a tragic backstory. Like no no no no no, we are not going to ignore the dozens of innocent people you slaughtered because you were sad once. If you want a redemption arc, earn it.
I'm going to second the convoluted plans one. I actually would love to see/do a video about terrible ways to write smart characters. The "genius" villain is always shown to be super smart because they have complicated plans that go off almost without a hitch, but the plans basically require every single thing to happen perfectly and it's often incredibly contrived that so many of the steps happen the way they do. They'll perfectly predict the behaviour of other characters even when those characters do things that don't make sense, and even if not, the plan hinges on people acting in a very specific way and any number of factors could change that. A better way to write a smart villain is to have them have solid contingency plans and adapt when plans don't go the way they should. This was demonstrated effectively in Die Hard, where Hans Gruber had a good solid plan but unexpected circumstances threw multiple wrenches in his plan (an unexpected guest who happens to be a cop is hiding in the building, some of his men get killed, his detonators get stolen, John pulls a fire alarm, etc) and when those things happen, it provides major setbacks to his plan but he comes up with smart ways to deal with it and keep everything on track. Things aren't supposed to go smoothly for the heroes, but writers often forget that they shouldn't go smoothly for the villain either. It makes the story more interesting and believable, and adds a lot of great tension.
A character can only be as smart as the writer... You'd think a genius villain would understand plans don't survive contact with the enemy and has carefully considered all manner of problems that could arise and has incorporated countermeasures and solutions in his robust plan
@@andrewgreeb916 I think people can write characters smarter than themselves but you do have to have a certain amount of smarts to actually understand what makes people smart. Too many writers write smart characters as just having a bunch of specific traits: They use big words all the time (and/or use strict/archaic grammar), they know lots of languages, they invent/concoct/jury-rig things, they're instantly good at a number of activities, and sometimes they just Sherlock everything to a ridiculous degree. Such characters will superficially appear smart but sometimes are incredibly dumb.
I think the "join me" cliché can work in some circumstances, such as when there's a corrupting influence on the hero, like maybe the hero is slowly turning into a vampire, or being corrupted by the Dark Side of the Force, or something as simple as financial problems. (A great example of this is the scene in "It's a Wonderful Life," when Potter tries to offer George a job working for him.)
That's a great example, actually. Things are so bad for George at that point and Potter's offer is so genuinely tempting in that circumstance that even the audience is kind of like, "You know, that's not a bad deal."
#5 also sometimes works in my opinion when either used comedically like Syndrome from Incredibles or when it is short like in Demolition Man when Simon Phoenix gloats that this is "the best day of my life," before Spartan grabs a nearby ice ball and smashes it at Phoenix's feet freezing him. Was memorable.
The villain cliché I have little care for are the Know-it-all types who know everything about everything, and in their infinite wisdom, haven't set out to do what they said they would do
I think you nailed something about the "Join me" cliché... "You and I aren't so different" and so on... Because a lot of times there is no point to it. Now I would like to voice a contradiction to that; I do actually like when the speech delivered upon such a moment actually makes the protagonist doubt their own actions and motives, whether because the "baddie" is a great manipulator (not a bad villain's trait, after all) or because there was some actual misleading from them. Especially if those doubts reside even after the end of the confrontation (no matter how it went).
The one villain cliche that I hate is the getting captured on purpose one. This annoys me when it's done poorly or over elaborately. Best examples of it being done well is the joker in the dark knight his contingency was put in place after he was captured and was done within an acceptable amount of time. The second is the opening to the blacklist as it was a carefully planned surrender with an option for release. When it's done poorly you get silva from skyfall an impossible plan that he would have needed nostradomis levels of foresight to execute with it all being dependent on being captured at the exact right time. It's a cliche that needs to die or at least be done well.
Number 4 reminds me of an episode of Wordgirl, titled “A Simple Plan”, that plays around with this trope, which ironically highlighted the episode’s words of the day, “Simple” and “Complicated”.
The one cliche I hate usually occurs in anime. The cliche is how villains would stop mid fight to explain their backstory. I hate this as it breaks the pace of the fight and it looks stupid to see the protagonist just sit there instead of trying to fight the villan. This happens an awful lot in anime like dragon ball, it is genuinely frustrating and pace breaking. What would be funny is a subversion of this cliche where the villain drops their backstory and then the hero just kills them mid speech. Good video. You gained a subscriber. Edit: spelling and grammar.
This reminds me of Bruce Lee, and when an opponent started to break out into a speech before the fight begins, Bruce would cut them short with "Do we talk, or do we fight?"
I dislike the capricious ally / subordinate killer. When the villain is a leader of an organized team or force but consistently murders subordinates or allies just for startle points. It’s ok if it’s a lone wolf unpredictable guy, but a situation where a villain is somehow organizing disciplined forces but the only benefit to rising in those forces is getting knocked off just makes me think “what are these guys hoping to gain by following this guy”
What if the villain is sort of a God figure to those people he rules over so that when he murders some of them out of sheer madness they still continue to obey him?
The "join me" in Ahsoka episode 4 was pretty good since the hero actually accepts. It'll be interesting to see what happens with that later on in the show.
As a parent who has seen too many kid's shows, I can't stand the, "I was only being mean because I didn't have any friends. If Pete stole all of Mickey's sheep because he was bored, then including him might give him fewer opportunities to give in to his bad impulses, but it's not going to magically erase his bad tendencies.
Similar to the convoluted plan, my most hated is a plan that will harm the villain as much as everyone else. For example, in the first Blade movie, the villain's plan is to become a blood God that can turn humans into vampires just with his presence. Vampires win the war, so it's great, right? Only one problem - if it becomes so easy to vampirise humans, then who do the vampires have left to eat?Genuinely crazy or self loathing villains get a pass on this one.
Probably when the villain has the power and the perfect oppertunity to kill the hero but then gets interrupted by a supporting characters and they all survive without injuries. I would accept it if it's a reason that makes complete sense but most of the time, no.
Oh ye. I hate when the vilain got the hero and instead of simply killing him he turns to a henchman tell him to "deal with it" turns aroind and go do other stuf... You are right there, you won, just end it and deliver the cou de gra for fs sake...
Care to give an example of a "irredeemable monster" type villain? I'm curious as I prefer if the villain is just a straight up ass hole to everyone and everything. I'm tired of every villain being "sympathetic" because it doesn't really add much to the story (sometimes at least). Especially if the villain is doing horrible things, yet the writer wants us to feel bad for them?
Hey Brandon, thanks for the video! The Stylish throwaway villain is definitely somewhere at the top of my most hates cliches because it just feels like the character wasn't even written in until the end or the writers just made a perfect villain for the hero and then decided to not use it for some reason. On a somewhat similar note, what is your opinion on the "it was a dream / hallucination from the start" cliche, to me its one of the worst cliches and makes me feel like the whole series / movie I just watched was worth none of the time I invested in caring for the story.
I appreciate that The Incredibles played this trope off by having Syndrome begin monologuing and then acknowledge that he did that. Or when Cap asks Ultron about what he's doing and Ultron responds, "I'm glad you asked because I wanted to take this time to explain my evil plan to you..." Love it when films acknowledge the trope like that
I particularly hate when the villain, at some point in the story, tells the hero, “We’re not so different, you and I.” And the hero has to proclaim, “I’m nothing like you.” Done, redone and overdone.
I agree on all but the example for number 3 hits close to home so I have to defend it 😅 I believe it works in Spider-Man because the Goblin is an egomaniac, and believes he has already bested Spider-Man by having control of the situation like he says "I could squash you like a bug right now" but he sees that there is potentially more to gain from the situation. Goblin knows he can wreak havoc alone but if he had the one person who could/would be willing to stop him on his side? Then its game over for New York. It also works to show that Spider-Man isn't invincible in the sense that he technically was defeated in the encounter that lead to him being drugged and kidnapped. As the Goblin says, either way innocent lives will suffer by way of innocent bystanders being in harms way, or by sadistic intentions of causing massive chaos and devastation so therefore he ultimately does not care which choice Spider-Man makes, as he knows he gets what he desires both ways. Overall I agree that it is a cliché but this is my defense for why it works for that particular example, not to mention the movie has several elements of early 2000s campiness in it and so this trope fits right in.
Great video. I dislike the villain with "tons of money that simply wants to rule the 🌎". Lazy writing for this one; they never provide any depth of why the desire is there or why the villain thinks he should do it. The villain is hollow. Also, the conflict leans too much of an extreme situation which also feels hollow.
Plus, there are tons of those in the real world anyway. They're "too realistic" to fit in fiction without something being added/changed to make them interesting.
lmao indeed. Ive got 100 billion dollars in stocks and assets , but not fuck that guy in particular I want to kill that guy. dude you just won LIFE (tm). enjoy yourself.
And in Star Wars an inherent part of the struggle between light and dark is that each side secretly wants to convert the other side to their cause. Part of strengthening their side involves recruitment, and it’s so much easier if you recruit someone already trained, and every Jedi has to do an internal battle with their dark side, which sith know about and will try to exploit.
Absolutely. In ESB it works well because Vader delivers a revelation that completely rocks Luke's world (and the audience's). Luke also has his back to the wall and finds himself in a situation where it's "Join Vader or die."
The "selectively dangerous villain" is due to unimaginitive writing rather than lazy writing, it seems. This is underlined in detective fiction where a Veronica Mars detective is much harder to write-as-you-go because the reader ain't buying it if she kicks down a door with a gun in each hand when the author gets stuck. That ends up meaning that the author has no choice but to wait until a clever solution comes to mind instead, which can have some nice results. How about the giant monsters, sometimes even with CLAWS, who pick up the hero and throw him at something breakable instead of just kill him? 😂
For a trope I don’t like: Recurring villains that are more of a nuisance than a threat. They’re more annoying than anything and in some cases are there just for comic relief (Team Rocket from Pokémon, Dr. Eggman from Sonic, Emperor Pilaf from Dragon Ball).
2:42 I kind of have this one in my novel, but in a different way. The villain offers the "join me" proposal right at the beginning, and the protagonist accepts because of the opportunity to create connexions and get resources that would help her in her personal goal, an opportunity that she's afraid will never appear again. The moral implications of that choice and the impact it has on her as a person will determine how the story progresses
With my story. Before the final battle the Villain doesn't ask the protagonist to join him, he demands him to join him and his army, the protagonist refuses but the villain trys to make him join.
My most hated cliche is that they underestimate the hero WAYYY too much. I used to watch an anime show were the main villain would always send his henchmen to do his dirty work and when he finally shows up, he temporarily defetes the hero but resumes sending his henchmen after that episode. and the most annoying part was that after every faliure, he thought that his henchmen were just making excuses not knowing that the heroes were getting more powerful by every episode.
Loyal underlings. When a villain shows they are perfectly willing to kill their overly loyal underlings when they fail and the underlings just accept that fate. Fear only gets you so far before the next guy decides to off you in your sleep to save his own hide, or turn informant for the hero in order to escape his fate.
Agreed. Anytime I see that trope occuring my respect for writer/director is diminished. In WHAT reality does wantonly offing the finite number of followers/ underlings/ whatever you have count as a smart tactical decision? Where does that endless procession of suicidal sycophants come from, and at what point do they realize that working for a psychotic murderer may not be the best career choice available. It's very clearly lazy writing- as it's only real purpose is to show the audience how evil the bad guy is. Evil, and incredibly stupid- as any real world Darth Vader wannabe would quickly discover, either in depleted reserves or a ray blast to the back of the helmit.
The "join me" moments can be great at times. I don't remember where I saw it, but one vilain was talking about how the hero and himself were similar, and how he should join him. Ofc the hero refused it, but all this time the vilain didn't care as well, he just wanted to buy time for sthg else. And instead of being annoyed by such an obvious cliché, I was rather impressed by the vilain cunningness.
A good example of 4 done well can be seen in Arrow season 1 and 2 (before the show jumped the Sify shark) I loved when Merlin comes with this over the top plan. The good guys celebrate and then Merlin pulls out a last Uno on them. That was smart thinking. Then in season 2 with Deathstroke with an over the top plan that actually work as he killed Oliver's mom.
"I'm surrounded by idiots" The supposed genius villain who relies on the most incompetent henchmen, especially when there's no obvious reason. Like Scar in lion King could have killed Simba himself after the stampede, but instead left it to the hyenas whose intelligence he openly criticized.
Here's one that I think should be on the list (although maybe it's sort of a combination of Selectively Dangerous and Unnecessarily Complicated Plans?): since stories largely follow the protagonist with interjections involving the villain, sometimes it really doesn't make sense when you think about what the villain is doing to occupy their time between appearances. Maybe this could be called the Sitting on Their Thumbs Villain. An example that comes to mind for me is Voldemort in almost any of the Harry Potter books, but especially the Order of the Phoenix. Every once in a while, there will be a sentence along the lines of "Voldemort's on the move" to remind you he's doing something, but also "Why would he do anything when the Ministry are so helpfully pretending he's not back?" to justify that he's NOT doing anything. Did it really take him an entire year to send an envoy to the giants and send a couple of people into the Department of Mysteries? It doesn't actually make sense, it's just to artificially make the final conflict happen at the school year's end.
You know, the throwaway villain trope isn't limited to movies either unfortunately, as it was also present in anime as well. An infamous example is Raditz from Dragon Ball Z.
In Incredibles 2 Evelyn is perfectly explainable, as a narcissist. Countless real life versions of villains think they are the smartest and most skilled at whatever they do, so their flaw is having to make it all about them, they have to be the one who makes their goal happen
The only "Join me" proposal that ever felt right to me is Star Wars (knowing that they are father and son), but everything else that came after just felt so forced and cliche.
Also considering the fact that Anakin actually accepted the "join me" proposal in episode 3. Although he was probably already considered a villain by that point.
The problem, imo, is the fact that most join me offers are attempting to convince polar opposites to join together. A join me offer should be 1. Deserved. Make the hero show strength and work for it 2. The hero needs to be enticed by having moral code met or at least in a reasonable boundary and the clear benefit of joining + the risk of loss if the offer is rejected that isn’t a threat by the offerer (example such as someone who is in danger can get protection and the danger is eliminated otherwise if rejected the person in danger may succumb to that danger)
@@duerphykat8809 I'd say it also works if the villain is losing... while it's also a cliché, if the villain is losing why wouldn't he try anything and everything to try and win.
1:22 this sequence in the manga was very different as it involved different characters who were cutted out I reccomende to everyone to always read the manga as it is way better
Hi Brandon, I’m writing a story that changes perspective between 4 different characters. All storylines connect multiple times and come together by the end. Can you do a video on how to do stories like this? Examples I know of are Pulp Fiction and Requiem for a Dream.
4 different characters? That's a lot. I would recommend Steven King's best book, "Rage" (with the Bockman nom de plume). The first half is through the perspective of the killer, and the second half is through the lens of the victim. What is amazing about that book is that you, the reader, become fully supportive of the opposing positions. Details are here, on RUclips. The first few "Saw" movies occur at THE SAME TIME. You see the creative overlap with characters running past characters from the other movies. Clever and alarming.
The opposite side of the coin is just as frustrating, i.e. where the hero mindlessly kills dozens of henches throughout the story but at the end of the movie they don't kill the main villain (the actual source of all the problems) because suddenly the bad guys must "face justice" and go to jail or "we can't stoop to their level."
That sounds like ATLA book 3 fire were Aang decides to let Ozai’s live even if he killed a Vulture Wasp in the desert episode.
I think there’s a few times this is okay. Like in GotG Vol 3, they kill a bunch of villains in combat, but they refuse to kill the High Evolutionary when he’s at their mercy and absolutely humiliated. Did he deserve to die and letting him live may cause problems for them down the line? Yes. But did it provide catharsis for Rocket that he wasn’t the monster that his creator was? Also yes.
@@luisvelez1952That's probably the worst example you could've given. That's Aang's only kill in the series and for good reason, it's even played as his development. Instead, Ellie from The Last Of Us 2 kills hundreds of enemies all throughout the game for her revenge (including fathers and mothers) but when getting to the perosn actually responsible for her grief, she stops because of some visions and because the villain adopted a kid.
@@denisucuuu what is it with a lot of people that thinks that Aang is a virgin of not killing someone like Batman. He is not perfect, he took the desert episode personal.
Yeah, I hate this with Batman's "no-kill" policy. He'll waste billions of dollars and destroy entire city blocks in collateral damage, but he practically makes out with the Joker instead of just subtracting him.
It's annoying when the villain puts the hero in a trap, and then leaves the scene fully expecting the trap to kill the hero, and leaving nobody around to make sure the hero doesn't survive.
Fr tho. I hated that moment in The Last Kingdom where Hesten captures Uthred, monologues how he has waited years for this moment to finally kill him and then he just leaves him to die of a cause that will probably kill him instead of something that 100% will kill him and just leaves him there because he had better shit to do I guess???
Every James Bond movie.
"You just don't get it, do you Scott?" - Dr. Evil
I never understood why keep them in a trap in the first place. it would be better to just kill them right away.
Because, "My foe must suffer! Mwahahaha!" Or so I imagine is the reasoning.😅
I always liked in the first Incredibles how Syndrome even references Mr Incredible getting him lulled into a monologue. He says “you sly dog, you got me monologuing”!
I love that. Only great writers mix in stuff that’s meant to work on the level of the story as well as a nod to the writing-oriented viewers
When the suicide helpline starts stalling for help to come
"You sly dog, you got me monologuing!"
And then, when he does fall into a classic villain trope (“I’ll get you next time”) the movie undermines it by immediately killing him
Fr
This was also lampshaded in Van Helsing when the last vampire lady had the heroine trapped...only to ask her what she thought of her blood giving the vampire everlasting beauty. The heroine then staked the vampire and responded, "If you're going to kill someone, kill them. Don't stand there talking about it."
The best "Join me" moment was when Vader revealed who he was to Luke and that completely shook Luke's resolve and threw his motivations up in the air. Such a complex emotional moment. Luke wrestles with this knowledge and while he refuses, he's still confused and haunted by the revelation.
Yeah, the Vader "Join me" works because the revelation is so earth-shattering for Luke.
It also tells us two important things about Vader - he's not happy with his life as it is, and he's not as strong as he appears. If he were, he wouldn't want to destroy the Emperor and rule the galaxy, and he wouldn't need Luke's help to do it. That vulnerability is what inspires Luke to try to redeem his father, instead of simply destroying him.
@@WriterBrandonMcNulty it also works because Sidious probably told Vader to offer Luke that, in hopes of replacing Vader with Luke.
@WriterBrandonMcNutty I think also it worked because the temptation of the dark side was a fundamental theme in Star Wars. But I do feel they didn’t make it tempting enough and the sequels didn’t understand the religious themes of Star Wars deeply enough. Luke being tempted was akin to Jesus being tempted in the Last Temptation of Christ
I feel like this works a lot better too because one that is his Son and so he has an actual connection with him that would make him want to offer in the first place. He's not some random nobody. Two he's already beaten Luke and it seems very clear that if his offer is refused he'll just kill Luke and remove him as a threat. Three Vader doesn't let him go Luke basically commits suicide but gets very lucky with where he ended up.
Probably my most loathed villain cliche is the fake sympathetic villain.
You know, these ones who will commit the most horrid crimes against humanity and then the story try to evoke sympathy on them for some reason like ''I was abused as a kid''.
It's so ridiculous and cheesy, and makes the villain feel more flat and robotic rather than profound.
Lmao this is a shit take because 90% of villainous REAL people do the exact same thing, blame everything that happened to them, it makes them seem more real, and less the garbage comic book villains that mostly only autistic and low IQ people think a villain should be like
That's one thing that's very well done in the Dark Knight, when Joker reveals that he's evil because he was abused as a kid, and change his back story everytime he tells it. It's an awesome twist to a loathsome cliché
like Cinder Fall I hated her backstory, also why didn't the huntsman report her stepmother, it's not like Cinder is a filthy faunus, she was the most evil character in the show (even more than Salem) and her backstory is better suited for Adam or another faunus
@@siegfriedmordrake3229 It works because it's strongly implied Joker is making the whole thing up (or, as in _The Killing Joke,_ he can't remember his past and doesn't care).
I feel like we need more of "double twist" villains. Basically, the first twist comes when they turn from ally to villain. The second twist comes when they redeem themselves. This would really force a write to think about how they're going to execute things, as the motivation has to make sense. I'll try to explain things as best as possible.
What if a story is centered around war & it's the basic good vs. evil. Both the hero & their friend fight because they love their families. Eventually, the hero's friend gets captured, but he gets outs & explains how he got out. The explanation does make the hero suspicious, as there are major plot holes. But it's his friend! He can't be evil right? Nope. He sabotages everybody, & it's revealed that the evil side made a bargain with the hero's friend. It goes like this, "If you fight for us, we'll make sure you & your family are always safe". Since it's already established that they both fight to protect their families, the twist makes sense. But this victory is short-lived, as he realizes that by fighting for the evil side, he's causing many families to die, & so naturally, he betrays the evil side & rejoins the good side.
The motivation is always there, & stays the same throughout the story, and not only that, the friend gets character development. This definitely better than Disney's twist villains or Disney's no villains.
Maybe the cliche that is the villain never being able to kill anyone. They do their best, but the author always heals the good guys. That's frustrating.
Agreed! It makes the villain look harmless
I'm picturing those bad actions movies where the heroes are trying to run away and there are a bunch of bad guys with machine guns firing at them where it's practically raining bullets on the heroes and somehow they manage to miss every single time. And if they do hit them, it's either just a graze or somewhere 'unimportant' like the shoulder or something.
Slight tangent, but ever notice how shoulder wounds in movies are almost always treated like they're no big deal, contrary to reality?
The garbage modern superhero movies being the big example. There's a brilliant skit by Ryan The Leader parodying Marvel fans and how ridiculously braindead it is that they get emotionally invested and think the heroes might lose by the end
One of the worst plot armor writing I know is in a game. While I give games and even more online games more room for gameplay purpose, the mmorpg FF14 doesn't even try.
It makes the playercharater the absolute center of everything - while having neither free will nor a voice - with not really super special powers (it's more some random 'beasts who can normally brainwash people can't brainwash you' the rest is just plot armor always fitting the circumstances), while the two big antagonista are
a) super powerful wizards, who are pretty much immortal, can teleport in an instant at will, can teleport others (including the player character) in an instant against their will, got super magic power, shown to be even able to create whole cities including quasi-life in it, able to see and hear everything without anyone being able to see or hear them and many more stuff
b) A gigantic super high tech empire with flying fortresses, with cannon powerful enough to easily obliterate a small town within seconds, which can fly with hypersonic speed (so 6000km/h+/~4000miles/h+), got a gigantic highly equipped army with all kind fo high tech stuff like drones, mech suits and so on, powershields which can't be disrupted by any normal means, a continent sides nations behind them with millions of people while you on the player side are 3-4 medieval towns with no technology at all and some low level magic.
You COULD work with that, but instead the whole story that goes over years is B pretty much doing nothing all the time, not even when you invade them and A constantly talking about that they must stop you, but never actuall doing anything, especially not when they got you right in their claws and completely helpless.
In the end of the story B just collapses offscreen and A fight you like some idiots and you just overpower them easily without any explanation how and why beside them just giving the player the usual boss fight like some random henchman and of courser always staying in range so you can poke them with your sword or lance (you got no real weapons, at best some magic but even that is even shown in cutscenes as pretty slow, weak and short ranged).
You could argue: it's a game and MMORPG at that, but even MMORPGs try way harder to explain and for example add important NPCs and simply don't make the player character the main focus of everything what of course can't work in an online game, since the player char can't die, can't be corrupted, can't fall, can't change, so is clearly just awful to use as character in any story beyond heroic deeds.
Biggest joke:
That FF14 game even managed to give the NPC around the player character the same plot armor. They simply don't die. One of the main antagonists from A even got a negative kill count. One of those NPC (who already had several fake deaths) had another scene in which she got lost in the soulstream, and the antagonist brought her back.
The whole NPC crew got meanwhile a giant count of fake deaths, it's just utterly absurd.
And the biggest joke? People praise that game for that awful writing!
@@dxfifa Bad enough: Movies like the last Flash, that was made much better in the regard (sure by using a different time line, but yeah, overall that's pretty much the most you can do, because even when you kill off a hero, there are so many remakes meanwhile, it doesn't really matter anyway when it comes to this, so working with a lost timeline is actually more impactful than a death that for the franchise won't be one anyway) aren't praised for doing it better.
Not only did it let the antagonists win, it even went against the "now you got an army of antagonists, so they got individually weaker", even making the no-name Kryptonians a threat and not just easy prey as in especially all the Marvel movies. It then also took the other Flash and let him go into full desperation plus confronting the 'original' one with the fact, that even with the power he got, he wasn't allowed to just change anything (pretty much the only acceptable way to use time travel, at least when you try to sell a serious story).
Villains that generally don't seem that bad or make good points but then decide to commit or plan a random massacre/ genocide because you know, they're the villains and that's what villains do, right ?
thanos moment
@@Aiden-wg4puhis point was always to kill people he kinda made that obvious
Now say his plan was to just double the amount of resources then his character would seem stupid
@@Aiden-wg4puThanos's ideas were flawed from the very beginning though. The problem wasn't that there're too many people and lack of resources, it's the imbalance with the distribution of resources. Instead of trying to rebalanced it, he decided to kill half of the world because he's a maniac.
I also think villains can come in different flavours and it's annoying and boring when you make them as evil as possible at every turn.
Like the bad guy in The Patriot. He has children executed as spies, which causes Mel Gibson's character to get involved. Later, the villain liberates a town and sets the slaves free, saying that England has abolished slavery so they should be freed, which would have made him a more interesting villain but then he immediately turns around and forcibly conscripts the freed slaves into his army so they're still slaves, just his slaves. Then he rounds up an entire village into a barn and sets it ablaze so they all burn to death. It's so cartoonishly evil for no real reason.
@@alimations5226I think another aspect of it was that galacticus, a planet eating , huge mf out in space feeds on planets like earth and halving it’s population creates a sort of balance
What bugs me about the villain's monologue is that nothing really stops the villain from breaking the hero's legs, paralyze them from the waist down or just shoot them and explain their evil plan as the hero slowly passes away.
Now that's a good idea--all in one go, you can demonstrate just how sadistic this villain is, ramp up the tension, and (assuming your story isn't a tragedy, or the villain isn't the protagonist) either give your hero the opportunity to turn the tables in a fiendishly clever way or give the supporting cast a rare moment of glory when they come to the rescue.
@@KristinChoruby Thank you, friend. After watching so many flicks, you just get tired of seeing the same old cliche. Plus, I am one of those people who values more a good antagonist/villain rather than the standart hero. And honestly, I've always wanted to see how a story would progress if the villain kills the main hero.
Give Evelyn Deavor some credit, she knew how to completely incapacitate Elastigirl before giving her monologue.
@@leewitten4758 very true.And she could have succeeded if she finished the job entirely.
The Princess Bride did this with the six fingered man! Where he inflicts what he assumes is a lethal wound on Inigo before telling him about how he remembers killing his father, and is enjoying watching him slowly die. It’s a great scene.
The one I hate is when the villain has already beaten the hero to the point where he is down and too wounded to fight. But then he tells the hero what he will do with the hero's girlfriend or wife, after the hero is dead. Suddenly the hero gets up and is able to fight and win.
Either that, or when the villain kidnaps the hero's love interest, so the hero has to rescue her. I can see logic from the writer's perspective, having the hero kill the bad guy and get the girl in the same scene, but from movie's internal logic, it just makes no sense. The hero wants to kill the bad guy anyway, so why give him one extra reason?
Basically a version of the useless monologue, but on steroids. Usually the pointless monologue stalls and gives the hero more time, this type of monologue gives the hero both time and motivation.
"If you will not be turned, then perhaps she will."
"NEVER!"
(Except in that case it works since Vader was intentionally egging him on.)
@@ShawnRavenfire because the love interest will/might/does prove to be a distraction in the moment and SHOULD cause the hero to lose because the hero looks away at an important moment.
@@ShawnRavenfireit also makes the conflict more personal. The aim is to heighten the stakes. The hero might save the world but if he loses his loved one in the process is the victory worth it? Sure there are other ways to do it, but it’s not as redundant as you might suggest.
I don’t really mind this trope tbh
I think a lot of zombie stories suffer from being selectively dangerous. When unimportant characters are among the horde, it's like a feeding frenzy. When a main character is surrounded with no possible escape *cough cough* Jon Snow, they are slow and useless
as much as i love CoD zombies, that is a bit of a pet peeve i have with the cutscenes. the zombies are fast, numerous, indestructible, and ravenous when fighting nameless generic soldiers. then they fight the protagonists, and all of a sudden all competency goes out the window so the protagonists can fight with style. look at intros like origins and IX. the difference is incredibly obvious (special mention goes to IX, where the jobbers are gladiators expecting a fight and still get taken down like chumps)
Zombies are at least somehow stupid, so it's mostly fine when they are a pretty random threat.
What annoys me WAY more in most Zombie movies and games is, how stupid the peopel are.
For example camping in the open or when they get a camp, make it open to all side and with glass or just a fence and alike.
That's just dumb.
I agree. And I love zombie themed stories!
@@Underworlder5sorry, what is CoD?
@@leyenda6149 Call of Duty.
One of my most hated villain cliches is when a villain has a hero trapped and proceeds to take the time to explain and expose their entire evil plan so that when the hero inevitably escapes, they know exactly what to do to stop the villain’s plan.
I suppose a writer could subvert this cliché. Imagine a hero escaping having been told "the plan" but the villain has actually been prompting the hero using inaccurate info so that the "fix" makes things worse - or is even an integral part of the evil deed.
"Oh no! I've killed the delegates by defusing the device! Could it be General Badguy lied about his plan? And now everyone thinks I'm the evil one?"
General Badguy watches from his hidden video feed, sniggering in delight...
A stroke of genius in the New Vegas game was having to pass a speech check to make a gang boss reveal his plan, and from there you can convince him that his underling hired you to take him out, triggering a firefight between them.
Love it or hate it, the Watchmen movie had the best response when Ozymandias did this, and then revealed he'd already activated this plan. Ergo, since the heroes listened to the monologue, they had no chance of stopping it.
@@manuelvasquez4144"I already did it 35 minutes ago." 🥶
@@Isotolerant An awesome twist. Seriously one of the best comic villains ever written
The main villian cliche I hate is the redemption without the redemption arc. Where the villian just turns good instantly cuz the main character said "let's be friends" or something like that. Even more annoying is when they go from insane psychopath to well-adjusted rational human as soon as they change sides. They also never realize the gravity of their past actions, atone for them, or face any consequences that come back to bite them. They just turn good instantly and that automatically fixes everything...
US Agent AND the Flagsmashers in the Falcon and the Winter Soldier. I hated that last episode
Akechi in person 5
The Diamonds
Naruto XD.
I would say Choso, but then again his convictions weren't set in stone considering how long he was alive in addition to his reason for stopping. I actually felt bad for Choso after he fought Yuji
It kinda sucks because the “Join me” proposal has genuine potential. What if one of the heroes backstabs the rest of the team to actually Join the villain?
Yeah, for all the prequel trilogy's issues the "join me" proposal in 3 worked like a charm!
I see that sometimes, I also see it appears one of the heroes has, but then they reveal in the end it was to get close to the villain.
Also sometimes where the hero joins the villain not knowing they are a villain and do get backstabbed, or where the hero joins the villain temporarily to fight a common foe, or to backstab the villain themselves.
The "Join me! Never!" might be tired, but the offer I feel has a lot of other interesting paths one can take.
Angel Salvadore in First Class X men, beautiful use of that idea
Join me seems to work best only when the villain's goals have some ethical overlap with the hero's in some obvious way. A smart villain that can identify common ground and goals and make them enticing, overcome objections that the hero has...also interesting if the hero thinks about taking them up on it to end the fighting.
There's a UK show called Utopia which does this fantastically. One of the lead characters Wilson Wilson gradually starts to understand where The Network are coming from until eventually he can't even understand why they're fighting against them, it's a great character arc that goes throughout both seasons
I'm actually a fan of the "join me" scene if the villain has been set up well.
For example, if they're a good leader or their proposals are actually enticing to others. This can be especially powerful if the villain's offer is something the protagonist *would* have accepted before their growth.
Even though there were other issues with the movie, I felt in The Last Jedi they really built up the dynamic between Rey/Ben. When he offered her to join him to rule as equals - since Rian Johnson was "trying to subvert expectations lol" - the movie would have been redeemed in my eyes had she said "this cycle of death, the war between light and dark sides needs to stop, Ben I will join you if you will stop the neverending violence/conflict with me". Then the movie ends as both give orders to stop the battle with them looking outside of the ship like ESB but in a completely different way.
This would have allowed SW to move in a completely new and interesting way asking if the struggle between good and bad in itself is evil by the destruction and misery it causes, and what can be done to change it. It would also have subverted expectations of this cliche.
I think you touch upon a good point here. Even if we know the hero won't accept the offer, seeing WHY they refuse is an important dimension. After all, there is a reason why we're following this character and not one ofcountless others.
@@leepatterson5710 I think that would be a fantastic ending to the sequels. Because the sequels are an excellent demonstration that revolution and rebellion usually only lead to more revolution and rebellion, and that the new republic is at best a naive fantasy attempting to reclaim a failed past. A jedi and a sith deciding to end the cycle of violence, leaving behind those titles and the dead republic would be an amazing end to the journey. A story about letting go of the things that no longer help us, and how new generations must be allowed to sail their own stars. It would be so perfect!
Or they even can team up to fight a bigger threat before becoming foes again, that's a nice change
The Empire Strikes Back has the best "join me" pitch in cinematic history. First, Vader offers all the typical 'let's team up to destroy our mutual enemy', ultimate power pitch. When it's summarily rejected, he reveals the 'well why don't you go into the family business' surprise that's an actual temptation and motivator for Luke.
I love when a monologue is used against the villain. For example, in the resident evil 4 remake, right before the end of the Castle, Salazar starts a monologue before Leon pulls out his handgun and says "you talk too much" before shooting him. I like it because it's in line for both characters
Or Leon reaching for his gun as krauser talks to him the first confrontation. But krauser super speed got him in front
I love the monologues best when they are turned on their head, which doesn't happen often enough.
Done really well in 'The Incredibles' when they get Buddy/Syndrome monologue and almost stop him right there.
Done amazingly well in 'Watchmen.' "I triggered it 35 minutes ago." The heroes lost before they even got there.
should be used more often
Every villain in John Wick: *monologues*
Also every villain in John Wick: Fucking dies
He does it with Saddler too. Leon is so over it.
The best joke about fatal monologues in a movie is definitely the "When you have to shoot, shoot, don't talk !" punchline by Tuco in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly 😂😂😂
Oh, and about stylish throwaway villains, Supreme Leader Snoke has entered the chat 😅
That is one of my top ten favorite lines from movies EVER!! And really, it can be applied to so many situations in real life. Tuco is the strongest and most complex character in that movie. Eli Wallach was awesome in that role.
Yeah, I was thinking about that one too.
Stole my thunder, I was just about to comment that.
Snoke was not stylish or charismatic or interesting in any way. So no he’s not part of that category
@@buffoonustroglodytus4688 If it's anybody, it's Phasma, right?
Best twist on the villain end monologue was in Watchmen when Ozymandias tell the other Watchmen "ok I can waste my time explaining my plan since I've already put the final part in motion 30 minutes ago" wich totally flip that thrope on it's head.
This is where my mind went when watching that section.
I also love when Mr Incredible almost escapes from Syndrome and gets stopped with the "you sly dog, you got me monologuing!" line.
in one episode of Animaniacs the kids confront the villain and ask him to reveal his plans. you think I'm stupid? he answers. I tell you all about my plans, and then you escape my carefully laid out trap and spoil everything. nope, I'm staying silent!
but it says you must, right here in your work contract!, they say, and produce said contract.
oh! he says. Very well then, listen up...
Villain monologue before starting the final part of the Evil Plan: Bad.
Villain monologue after starting the final part of the Evil Plan: Good.
Or when in Kingsman where one of our main characters just gets shot after the villain says "it's not that kinda movie"
One of the worst is when the villain captures the hero and has the chance to outright kill him, but instead just puts him in some trap/obstacle course and walks away, allowing the hero to eventually escape unnoticed. Several of the James Bond movies do this, but DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER was one of the entries to do it the most.
So much so that the Austin Powers movies took it and ran with it as such a good parody that meant it could never be taken seriously ever again 😂😂😂
The best example of this of all time is definitely from The Great Mouse Detective.
My favourite subversion of this is from the first Kingsmen film.
"Is this the part where I put you in a death trap that’s easy to escape from?"
"Yes, that would be nice."
"Yeah, well this is not that kind of movie!" *shoots him in the head*
(Yes I know the next film undoes this but that doesn’t stop it from being a good subversion in the first place.)
I think, the best example of this is the scene with crocodiles in "Live and let die" with Roger Moore.
Well, the best, i can remember right away.
This is what I hated in Digimon: Adventures (the original one, not the stupid pseudo-reboot). Vamdeemon, who is even portayed of the smartest villain up to that point, has had several chances to stop the Digi-Destined and make his plan a success. But yet he took NONE. Two ot the instances are somewhat explainable/ explained (one in-universe and one sort of in-character), but that still leaves at least two more. And what freaks me out about it most is that stupid two-episode hyper-villain arc that follows it. They could've incorporated things far better here with a lot less author showing his hand ...
Funnily enough, Maul's return in the Clone Wars, while possibly a cheap retcon to resolve cliché 2, actually provides a pretty solid example where cliché 3 works. (Spoilers)
Maul makes a "join me" offer to Ahsoka, but it's not a standard "You're cool, we could do a lot together if you would just be evil." His speech is based on the fact that he knows Palpatine's about to take over the galaxy, and we as the audience know that's true. He asks Ahsoka to work with him, and while his desire to kill Palpatine is definitely selfish to a major degree, their interests do genuinely align. Furthermore, it is quite legitimately a "We're not so different" since they've both rejected their respective allegiances to the Sith and Jedi. It kind of makes sense for Ahsoka to work with him, and she actually says yes at first. It's only when he reveals that they have to kill Anakin to stop Palpatine (something we also know to be true) that Ahsoka's loyalty causes her to pull back, and that's not a given since she's walked away from Anakin in the past. Same structure as the cliché, but a legitimately compelling argument for the hero to join, and even though we kind of know Ahsoka and Maul have to fight, there's a much more interesting conflict within Ahsoka as she weighs the merits of Maul's argument with her previous allegiances.
Yeah, and in that case, we *want* Ahsoka to accept the offer because we know what’s coming and want her to survive it, or even stop it
yeah, that was one of my favorite moments from season 7 and the series in general. it's tense because we know its a realistic offer that we actually want the hero to agree with, and she considers it but then decides not to because (apologize if i misremember) Maul wanted to kill anakin, even though we know that it would actually be a good thing if he did. season 7 in general (mainly the parts about order 66 and such) did an absolutely amazing job of creating a compelling story even when we knew what was coming
Disney needs to start telling stories chronologically and quit resorting to lazy and often times contradictory retcons to crank out their "stories," but, they won't.
@@Magneticlawyou do realize that the clone wars wasn't disney besides the last season (which was the best CW season). SW always wrote stories out of chronological order and I don't think you understand that it wasn't Disney who made it like that
Beat me to it. That was a great use of the "join me" trope.
I absolutely HATE the 'villain wants to destroy / rule the world' trope. Usually that's as deep as they get. They want to do it because reasons.
Not necessarily.
If done right, it can absolutely work.
I mean, take the most infamous real life villain for example - Adolf Hitler.
His main goal was to make Germany the ruling global power/assure world-dominance.
Surely, he himself had a reason for wanting to achieve that goal.
For us however, it's not something that makes sense.
'The world', 'the galaxy' or 'the universe' are all very 'absolute' things.
For a character who seeks to gain power, it's only reasonable to desire conquering/destroying one of these.
Of course, the villain should have a reason for why this is a goal to achieve. If a villain doesn't know himself why he even wants to rule/destroy 'the world', then yes, that is pretty flat.
Villains don't need to be deep to be good
@@murfreehills7410Ah yes, my favourite fictional character
@@blokvader8283 As I said, 'real life villain'.
@@murfreehills7410 I suspect their point was "in fiction, usually it's destroy/rule the world and that's all there is to the character"
I love the term "Selectively Dangerous Villain." Its definitely the most abundant bad villain out there.
The villain cliche I really hate is when the villain kills their henchman / accomplice in the opening act. The reason why is because, in theory, it's actually a *great way* to establish them as ruthless and deadly. What's more dangerous than a person who'll easily kill even those who serve their ideas if they fail? Right... right? But in over 90% of the cases in practice, what follows is that same villain not killing or attempting to kill the hero or some more important characters for challenging them in significantly more dangerous ways. For instance, if you establish that your villain kills his henchman in the first scene because he smirked at their bad joke, you simply cannot have them *not kill* (or try to) the hero or hero's love interest who calls them a moron to their face. If you establish that person as someone who's willing to kill for anything, follow that through. This way, it's a clunky way to say that an obviously bad person is obviously bad, and then continuing with the plot as if nothing happened.
I love how in the end of Batman (1989) the Joker asks his number one, his closest man, for his gun, and when Bob hands him the gun the Joker shoots him. Just a great blink-and-you'll-miss-it few seconds that show how deranged the Joker really is.
I thought of this idea where one of my villain's henchman says a bad joke which gets the villain to smirk, but then when one henchman makes an insult (referencing something traumatic) the villain gets a crossbow saying "That's funny, I got a joke for you" then straight up shoots the man before saying "You guys didn't find it funny? I found it amusing"
I thinki most writers do this "killing the henchman" thing because Darth Vader, which is probably the most recognizable villain of all time, did it first. Most of them end up missing the point entirely, Vader never kills actual henchman, you know storm troopers, he kills high ranking corrupt and incompetent officers.
Also he never kills because of ego, which is the basic mootive most villains kill their allies as you pointed out, making them seem petty, childish and easy to manipulate.
Let’s say that there’s a villain who can kill their henchmen from a very far distance. And now I know it sounds weird but what if that villain kills a henchman to protect the main character? (Provided the main character has some sort of worth to the villain)
I hate the "last stab" cliche: where the villain has been defeated and the hero has decided to spare them (already a cliche in itself), so they take one last stab at the hero, usually behind their back, and are promptly done away with.
It’s always an excuse for the hero to kill the villain and still be morally right
One of the "join me" villain moments I remember and enjoy was on Avatar: The Last Airbender cartoon. It didn't happened with Aang (the protagonist) but with Zuko, who is still very important to the story.
We saw Zuko's struggles and how hard he was trying to cope with the fact he was a dishonored prince while still looking for his own path. We thought he changed, that he was a better person who understood the terrible things his father did to other nations and people, but when Azula (his sister) offers his honor back in exchange of fighthing the good guys, he takes the offer even if it means go back to the side of his megalomaniac father and crazy sister. He was never a bad person, but he wanted to be accepted by his family so much it clouded his mind.
Maul definitely still counts as an example despite being brought back *because* he was brought back *because* of how obvious it became that the mistake had been made.
And I think that "join me" works in two situations:
1. The villain is a delusional megalomaniac that thinks that their goal is objectively heroic, and they think they've met an equally heroic person who has merely been deceived.
2. It's an amoral and pseudo-friendly mercenary type character who makes this offer to anybody that they encounter and then flip-flops based on convenience.
The Join me idea also works if there's another stronger character the hero and villain decide they both need to overcome together. Infinity blade does this pretty well
Darth Vader making his offer to Luke. Now that had some real power behind it, on top of the big reveal. Trouble is, the trope has been done to death so much since then and by so many poor writers.
Darth Maul is Boba Fett v2.0, a minor "awesome" character designed to sell toys
@@Conserpov I mean not really, since Maul served a key role in the plot and had badass moments. A better comparison would be Phasma.
I can't think of any examples offhand but a 'join me' that results in the hero unexpectedly but sincerely saying 'yes, I'll join you' is actually an amazing trick to pull off.
honestly, morally gray villians are wearing out their stay. recently every villian needs to have some back story explaining their psychology and some of it ends up being cheesy or just feels like filler. Sometimes a very horrible character just works, because bad people are real
Well-written ones are great. I think the problem here is that companies like Disney have inundated the market with hacky, childish writing and have mass produced bad versions of this trope, making everybody bored and/or frustrated with it.
Well, except for me since I don't watch Disney crap!
totally agree, but i think the fatigue of these villains is that they’re not well written and believable. sympathetic villains are some of the best written characters in media but it feels like writers just take that idea and apply none of the nuance and skill it takes to be effective. Disney’s cruella is a good example of this being done poorly whereas a good morally grey villain will even have people defending their actions like Walter White.
I disagree on wearing out their stay. But I do agree we need more very horrible villains
yea the glorious bastard villain are so much nicer.
He is magnanimous, powerful, competent charismatic. He is great and he knows. The heroes really don't have a chance, at least not in act one.
The glorious bastard drives the entire plot, and the reason for his eventual act 3 failure is directly related to his own primary vice (pride). And when we get that act three turn and see him lose control it comes off super satisfying.
And why did the glorious bastard became a villain in the first place. Did he watch the tragic death of a loved one, was he beaten as a child, did he lose his choocho, NO he just likes being evil and is damn good at it.
Yes! I'm sick and tired of Freudian excuses.
about maul: I love how dave filoni (the creator of the clone wars series.) basically salvaged maul because he knew his character was done injustice. they made him so much more interesting and threatening and made him an actual character instead of a throwaway first movie villain. :)
A lot of times in Disney Movies, the villains aren't selectively dangerous. The hero often finds the villain's weakness and figures out how to exploit it. In "Aladdin," the titular character used Jafar's lust for power when he realized that the genie had a much greater power. When Mike and Sully fought Randall in "Monsters Inc.," they used the terrain by knocking him into a door and trapping him with humans. Other times, the villain makes a mistake in their ruthless attempts to attack the hero. They let their rage cloud their judgement. Clayton was unable to reach Tarzan, he was reckless with his machete and cut the vines holding him above the ground. Gaston stabbed the beast in the back while holding onto a gargoyle with one hand in the rain. He took a risk that cost him his life.
While it's not specific to villains, the "you and I are not so different" spiel is something I find rather groan-worthy. It's especially bad when the similarities are just things within the essential human experience such as caring about your loved ones, or being angry at injustice. It's more excusable if the story calls out how full of crap it is.
Agreed. Most of all, I hate it when the villain gives either this line or the "you're the *real* villain because ___" line, and then the hero in the face of blatantly obvious logic fails to give any kind of reasonable reply in their defense.
Belethor in Skyrim. he isn't a villain as such (just sleazy) but he says "You and me, we're the only people who aren't complete fools." which immediately makes me think he's trying to manipulate me.
This is another trope that is overused, and mostly used badly, but in its core, it can be done right. If the story established that the hero and the villain indeed have some striking similarities, and even partially the same goal (only the hero's way of executing it is peaceful, while the villain's goes overboard and too violent), then this can work well. It can even come off as a logical step in their dynamics. But the issue is that in the vast majority of cases, their similarities are too superficial, and the scene exists only because the authors saw it in other stories, without knowing why it's there. Usually, it's executed in a pointless, throwaway way, and the audience is left with a raised eyebrow on why did the villain even say it in the first place.
Quite often on a basic level they are very similar but choose to work for opposite ideals. Superheroes and villains fit this. They both have powers but it is their choice of use.
Then plenty of villains end up that way because they think what they are doing is for the greater good. In that they are not that different, just lack using morals.
@@Dominic-he7sgthat's right but the villain doesn't need to say it out loud. The audience can see it for themselves without characters taking their hands
I've always hated the villain monologue as well. The villain can straight up kill the hero without having to explain their goal. It's like you have your opportunity to kill them but instead you tell them the reason, just have the villain straight up do their goal which would put a struggle within the hero. And most realistic enemies never go on a monologue, they just do their actions.
I think the comments in a previous video addressed a scene in Van Helsing where Kate Beckinsale is confronted by the last of three vampire brides of Dracula. Instead of killing Kate straight away, she wastes time explaining how, allowing Kate to retrieve a stake and stab her. And what’s interesting about this is that as she stabs her, she calls out how the bride should just kill her victim and not waste time talking about how.
The writer just has to armor that plot with some steel by having the villain explain everything we already know before handing us a happy ending on a platter.
Prepare to Die! has way too much hesitation in it. You'd think an opportunistic villain would just jump at the chance without having to put the action on hold for the obvious intent reveal.
The only time I've forgiven a villain monologue is terrorblade in Dota: dragon's blood. All throughout the show, he exert his influence by persuading random characters to let him take control. His whole schtick is plunging people into despair so he can break them. The beginning of his final fight is him trapping the heroes in illusions so he can monologue them into giving up.
So when he takes the time to float when he think he's won, I'm not surprised at all. It's his very essence to delight in the despair of others, so he wouldn't miss a chance to inflict even more.
I think they work sometimes if they actualy make sense in the context of the story.
Like Colonel Kurtz (Apocalypse Now) making a monologue which had small hints to Captain Willard that Kurtz wants Willard to kill him and end his suffering.
Antman and The Wasp: Quantumania was the last example of the villain pulling punches that really bothered me. Kang is vaporizing hordes of nameless extras. Then Scott, Hope and Cassie are in his sights, the people he most wants to kill, and suddenly he stops using that weapon. Good writing would have found a way for the heroes to defeat him or actually had one of them sacrifice themselves, instead Kang pulls his punches and allows them to get close.
They should have at least come up with a reason, like maybe the weapon ran out of ammo or something.
His tech was damaged.
Kang did actually tried to laser them, but they shrunk out of it.
Lot of words to say “I wasn’t actually paying attention.”
And why so many critiques fall flat.
FFS… The explanation for how Pym tech works doesn’t correspond with ANY of its examples in the movies. Things don’t shrink and retain their mass, they have exactly as much mass as the user desires them to have. How else could Hank carry actual vehicles around in a Hot Wheels case, or drag a building like luggage?
But Kang being absolutely walloped by a high tech ant army and not being able to use his most potent weapons in the final fight is “bad writing?” In what universe?
Mind control is my least favorite villain trope. Kind of like the “offer to join” it’s usually not pulled off well. Even when it’s something like hallucinations, or affecting emotions, it often has someone acting very out of character for how they’d be in that scenario.
Mind control! Great call on that one. It's a cheap/lazy way to make heroes do things for the sake of the plot
Word of advice then, never even look at, never mind play Far Cry 5. It's the most egregious, enraging, idiotic example of mind control (of two entirely different types) that I have ever seen in a piece of media.
I’m going to just say I like mind control and leave it at that. It’s fun. Witcher the last wish is an example for me, or in the clone wars right after the geonosis arc
@@InfiniteEscuro Lol, too late, I beat it before you even commented. I will say, I like the types used, (Addiction and conditioning) but the execution is nonsense. Even though it's not technically mind control, I think ice kings crown from Adventure Time, or the cyber psychosis in Cyberpunk anime was much better put in narration.
@@Eloweh I'm not completely against mind control when done right, and I'm not super familiar with the examples. When it's soft magic against jabroni's it doesn't bother me as much, but I prefer hard magic anyway. The Mistborn series has a good hard magical version of it, more towards influencing emotion.But it's often the staple for hard magic anyways sooo yeah.
I think the "Join me proposal" was very effective in Spiderman. Osborne was affected by his experiments and so had mental health issues affecting his judgment, and while the audience knows Spiderman is incorruptible, Green Goblin at this time does not. A short dialogue showed Green Goblin rational in his thinking and being much smarter than we had previously seen him, and simultaneously completely deranged and detached from reality in his goals, plus creating some mystery because the audience does not know how sincere he was.
Not to mention Norman, and by extension the Green Goblin, knew of Peter's genius and saw him as a peer, or at least a protégé.
Agreed. Plus, while most like me were familiar with Spider-Man, lot of kids at that time were just learning about him, so his incorruptibility was not known to some of the audience. That said, and to Brandon's point, it was implied as all watching knew Spidey is a superhero.
@@PlazDreamweaver don't think osborne knew spidey was peter at the time he gave him an offer. but yes, goblin saw spidey as a peer in power
On top of that, it's an opportunity to show how the villain sees the conflict. It doesn't need to be all about the protagonist's answer.
Yes to all this. Spider-Man’s rejection was necessary to give Goblin a more personal reason to hate Spider-Man other than “You have spoiled my plans once again!” Plus, Norman’s desire to have Peter as his heir/personal weapon was in the comics too.
Reminds me of the “Evil Overlord Checklist” - a gag list with 30 stupid things villains shouldn’t do like: “Shooting is not too good for my enemies.”
My least favorite is an extension of 5, when they brag about their plans to the hero for no reason other than to reveal backstory or key plot points. Like Lord Voldemort in virtually every scene. The obvious comparison is Sauron who we know only through his actions - because he never appears.
I love the Evil Overlord Checklist. Especially the one about giving the henchmen insurance because it's smarter to have your workers be motivated to work for you. The whole list is clever.
My favorite: never turn into a giant snake. It never helps.
The one I like the most is "When I employ people as advisors, I will occasionally listen to their advice."
These are all great picks. This one is similar to #5 but another cliche I hate is when the hero fights a villain that’s way bigger/physically stronger than them. When the hero gets grabbed, for some reason the villain always just chucks them across the room instead of doing the sensible thing like choking or crushing them. By throwing them away from you, you’ve not only just given them distance from you and lost your close range advantage, but you’ve bought them time to either run away, attack from far away, or bought them time to come up with a plan.
Terminators seem to do that a lot lol. In T1 there was a lot of banging in a room and I think Sarah was like "what's going on in there ". Sure there could an explanation for it, maybe it's because they need information or simply because throwing someone might do less damage to them self which if you are a terminator and need to blend in is important. But I do hate it whenever villains go easy on the hero by chucking them about seemingly to savour the moment for absolutely no reason.
But the cliché I also really hate is the "head vampire" one. Where the villain has an entire army or the world is teeming with villains and it seems all is lost for our heroic band of stragglers. It introduces this concept as a way of showing the extremely dire circumstances they are in.
But wait! Actually, it turns out all they have to do is kill this one leader and all the others will just die, or turn back into human or whatever. It just makes a joke of the whole scenario and we roll our eyes wondering what the big fuss was about. It's this stupid cliché that destroyed Game of Thrones for me.
that’s what i love so much about Mistborn.
(MISTBORN SPOILERS)
When they kill the Lord Ruler, Vin, Elend and the others find that nothing’s even over yet. They have to deal with assassinations, politics, and armies that try to kill them twice every week. It’s realistic and stressful
Isn't that more or less what (also) happens in The Phantom Menace with the destruction of the droid control ship?
@@EngelSpiel The phantom menace was about the politics and Palpatine gaining power. This led to the senate taking decisive action, and in turn, making the people of Naboo and other small systems love Palpatine even more. The new, stronger senate was (presumably) able to take the ship down.
Agreed. I was emotionally uninvested in the show after that. Of course, I couldn't actually see what happened in the rest of the episode anyway. Not that it already hadn't been disappointing me for a while by then, but that moment crossed the point of no return. After that, I was just watching because I'd invested all that time in it, but I didn't really care anymore.
That’s a good point. 🤔 For me, though, the Head Vampire bit can be useful because the heroes have to find a way TO the head villain. It’s the uncertainty of being able to even make it there past the hordes or what-have-you. Especially if the villain is smart and can communicate long-range while obliterating things close to the heroes. It doesn’t ease the destruction, like with the Shire (in the LotR movies, if I recall correctly, the hordes were defeated when the One Ring/Sauron was destroyed, but the Shire was ruined, though they glossed over it in the movie).
My least favorite villain arc is when the narrative justifies the villain and makes it out as if their villainy isn't really their fault. Allow your villain to be evil. Or make them sympathetic. Or even redeem them. But make it believable, and remember they are a villain.
Are you autistic? The binary of antagonist = villain and protagonist = hero is one of the most brainless and predictable tropes. Although it takes a good writer to pull it off, it is much more interesting to realise the main character is just the focus, and the story is told to make them the favourite, not to make them the bastion of morality against evil.
Think of an unhealthy romantic relationship from someone you know. Very few are an evil person tormenting a good victim, or even an evil person at all. And most of us see very small fragments of it, and only hear from one side, from unreliable narrators.
Real stories aren't discrete sets of heros and villains
But remember a villain isn't going to be nasty 100% of the time. Even the Nazis went home to wives and children they loved. That is what marks out the Joker in Batman films and Teatime in Diskworld.
@@seriousmaran9414I pity the wife and children, well mostly the children, I'm not surprised some women can sometimes have bad taste in men but spawning children to continue a cycle of evil is just disgusting.
I don't like the redeem part, that to me just makes them out like they get a free pass as if they are any less evil for every evil deed that has crossed too many lines. If you are gonna due that then write it like Zuko. With him he's not evil at heart like his dad is, he is just a misguided kid who is trying to get approval from an abusive parent and eventually later when he's labeled a traitor he learns just how terrible his dad is and gives up trying anymore.
This makes his arc believable because he never crossed any serious lines and he did care about innocent ppl like saving a village from a bunch of Fire Nation soldiers (unfortunately got kicked out for revealing who he is). He grows with Aang's team and learns more how to be his own person instead of being like his sister and father and tries to be more like Iroh who was his only real father figure.
It's actually a good to write a character like Iroh who can be positive role model to characters like Zuko as it's proven in real life having one can help keep ppl especially young on the right path in life. If you ever want to make a villain have this arc then here's are some basic rules:
Make them sympathize with the good characters and show they are capable of caring about the innocent and they truly do not want to harm people on purpose. Second, show they have a moral compass like the heroes albeit with exceptions like maybe they steal from the rich to help poor ppl ala Red Hood style, that way it contrasts that the said villain and hero both have the same goals to help make their community or home better just with different methods. Third, do not make them do evil things that cross the line say like killing someone's beloved pet or burning down a building with ppl inside as that will make them unsympathetic and just want the viewers to hate them which is not what you want if you want them redeemed, you have to keep the villain where they are not sinister and willingly to do stuff like that. And finally, have it where they conflict with the hero and that they are about to do something that does cross a line but have them stop and show mercy to the hero as a way to prove they are not evil at heart and realize they almost went too far and turns themselves in. This is where they can start changing their methods where they don't have to take extremes to improve their community or whatever and therefore redeemed after they are released from jail and can help ppl like they planned to but with alternatives rather than having to steal.
This to me is the best and only to write this arc for a villain.
Of course not. And I like it when villains are complicated. What I mean is when the narrative justifies their actions. Or when redemption arcs aren't earned and we're just suddenly told that they weren't really evil after all and their actions weren't their fault.@@seriousmaran9414
What do you think about the "join me proposal" when the main character rejects the villain at first, but end up in a situation when he realizes joining the villain is the best choice they can do and end up joining in?
The problem he stated is cases where it isn't practical or believable. Your example would likely be an exception since it's practical and, if written well, believable.
youd have to write the mc so that the choice is understandabel
I'm not convinced that this is a bad cliché as the offer might be sensible from the villain's perspective. But again, I guess it boils down to how the author builds towards the offer 🤔
I just had to think about Thunderbolt Fantasy. While Lin Setsu A isn't the main villain (at least not up until now, but he certainly is very, very shady), he had a bit of a hard time bringing the protagonist to join him. In the end of episode they ended up as a team (to fight a greater villain) and stayed like this for three episodes, never fully trusting each other. And as I said, Lin is very, very shady and it wouldn't surpise me that much if he turns out to be the evil mastermind in the end.
This is how The Last Jedi SHOULD have ended.
One of the worst for me is where the villain needlessly kills one or more of his own henchmen, just to establish the fact he is evil. In some cases this works well, such as when Tuco beats his henchman to death in Breaking Bad, because Tuco had already been established as a deranged psychopath who was high on drugs almost all the time and we later find out he is direct family of a ruthless mexican drug cartel. Nobody would challenge him and that is understandable. Yet there are many more examples where the villain, often in the early part of the story, kills a henchman for minimal or no reason and you just immediately think "Why would the other henchmen tolerate this? Why would they work for him? Why wouldn't they just kill the villain themselves and walk away?" A loose cannon is not someone that would command respect from an army of henchmen unless they had serious connections.
That's my worst villain cliche, just saw it again in Tulsa King.
I would say a good example of this is stars wars the original trilogy- because Darth Vader doesn’t hate the soldiers, he hates the officers.
Nailed all of these Brandon! My major cliche is the villain not killing the hero when they have the chance. I'm currently writing/drawing my own manga series where the villains are ruthless, no monologuing with their master plans to the hero. Their motives will be discovered over time from other sources. I've always found it weird when villains describe their plots to the hero, very counterintuitive for someone trying to accomplish a goal without interference.
Yeah, in that situation, the villain is usually describing their plot to the audience. You have to work hard to make it sound necessary and natural
What will you call it? How far along are you? I think it sounds interesting and would love a read 😁
What's with villains having their sadism or narcissism act up with the hero, just deal with them now.
Wasn't there a film, where the villain told the heroes his plan and ended his monologue with something like "And it has been executed half an hour ago... Did you realy think I would divoulge this to you with any chance of you intervening?"
@@ondrejmrazek8209 I don't recall the movie but does sound familiar. That's an awesome way to have it explained to the protagonist.
On the flipside, I think the betrayed villian is a really good underused trope. Amy from Gone Girl, and Harvey Dent are good examples of this. Meg from Hercules is almost an example of this. When you understand the hurt it makes them compelling.
This is a common theme in the Boss Baby franchise.
Hehe, *flip*side.
On the Spiderman example, I think the actual offer is a lot more meaningful than it seems.
It shows both of their conflicting ideologies, Goblin has no reason to believe Spider Man wouldn't take him up, after all he lived through what he told him. At least from his perspective he made Oscorp what it is and how did they thank him for his heroic act? They backstabbed him. He thought of himself as someone better than them and the Goblin serum proved him right. Normal people are beneath him, which is why he takes interest in another extraordinary individual like Spider Man. Heck, he accomplishes his actual goal midway through the film and spends the rest of the runtime, for Spider-Man to see that his ideology is right.
And it isn't like Peter would always have rejected such an offer. He did take the easy way when he was robbed out of his money before, if uncle Ben hadn't taught him the importance of responsibility than he might have accepted to rule the city.
Goblin didn't outright say he wanted to destroy it, he had no reason to, since he already did and it is debatable if a less selfless Peter wouldn't have taken him up on that offer.
I agree. Osborn was a company founder and CEO. He was used to negotiating deals and acquiring talent. It makes perfect sense for that character to behave the way that he did. We all knew Spiderman would never go for it, but to cut it out would not only lessen the complexity of the character of the villain, but also take away the opportunity for the audience's understanding of the hero to be confirmed in a movie where he blames himself for his uncle's death and his superhero persona is being perpetually smeared by the papers. Believable characters are written according to their motivations, not the perceived audience's expectations.
It's also a great illustration of how Osborn doesn't really understand people who aren't as greedy and vicious as he is (something that I'd argue applies to both his Osborn and Goblin personas). He can't imagine why Spider-Man _wouldn't_ join him.
In defense of The Hunger Games, Clove had no character development to say that she is a person who is guided by common sense and logic. In fact, from what little is known about her, it is implied that she was very arrogant. So yes, Brandon, it was a bad example.
Also, Clove had been training her whole life for the Hunger Games. She was there by choice. In their tribute skill rating scores, Clove scored a 10, and Katniss scored an 11, and Clove was clearly very envious of this. It makes sense she'd revel in the moment.
My most hated villain cliché is when they’re just evil for evil’s sake. Like, they need to have some sort of underlying motive; it can be an amoral or evil motive, but it has to have some kind of logic behind it.
It could just be someone who is ridiculously sadistic,you dont need much of a reason to be evil when you finf it to be so fun in and off itself i think.
There is such a thing as a psychopath.
Is this even a thing anymore? It feels like every villain nowadays has 1 million and one reasons for what they're doing and some deep tragic backstory
I kinda miss mustache twirlers tbh
I don't agree with #2, i think that the reason Darth Maul is so iconic is precisely because he is so mysterious. I mean, it's much easiwr to create just an intriguing design and an illusion of depth than actual depth, I don't think they'd ever be able to flesh out a back story matching the audience expectations.
I was thinking the same. A chief henchman with little to no backstory is a staple of fiction. They don’t need a back story because that is not required for their role in the story. Does anyone complain about Jaws or Oddjob's lack of backstory? Ok maybe Jaws doesn’t count as he actually has an arc Moonraker.
Darth Maul was a henchman, a fully expendable minion. I agree it would have been better if he had returned for episodes 2 & 3, but that doesn’t diminish his role in the first film.
Watch Clone Wars and then Rebels. Maul actually does get fleshed out there, and they did an amazing job with it
I'd say the "proposal" one is, when cleverly done, a way to give you the time to calm down after the action while further cementing the hero's choices. You know what's gonna happen but you also realize the hero has to make a point and refuse, to show they're morally right and proud of the path they chose. I'd say it can be a transition scene from the hesitant hero to the driven and proud of themselves one.
About convoluted villain plans, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire has got to be the worst offender. Voldemorts plan was to wait for an international wizarding tournament that only takes place once every 5 years so he could sign Harry up for the tournament that lasts for an entire school year and make sure not only that Harry survive the dangerous tournament where people can die but also that he wins it all so Harry would touch the trophy which is a portkey (a teleportation device) that teleports him to Voldemorts lair where he could kill him in secret.
The problem with this plan is that anything could be a portkey in this world, even a random boot. Why not just have your henchman who is already working as an undercover agent at Harrys school invite Harry for tea one afternoon and be like "Yo Harry, could you hold this "pen" for me?" Takes 10 minutes to kill Harry Potter that way instead of an entire school year where a thousand things could go wrong.
#3 is interesting since I have a short story with something similar. But it has a little twist, and I think it’s one of my best short stories I’ve ever written.
"Well... here we are... the long awaited final battle". A young woman said, tightening her grip on her sword.
A tall figure, clad in armor, stood at the edge of the cliff, facing the sunset.
"Appropriate, is it not, Elizabeth"? He asked.
"Just as the sun sets on this day, so too does it set on our story. This is indeed the end, one of us will die here, the other will return to their loved ones and live out the rest of their days in peace... only, I don't have any loved ones. You saw to that, didn't you?" He said.
"I never meant to kill your wife Jaren, I meant to kill you, but she sacrificed her life to save you". Elizabeth looked away sadly.
"I wanted to respect her wishes, to let you live, but you made that impossible" She said.
"Why are you trying to stop me, Elizabeth"? The tall figure, known as Jaren, asked.
"You're a lunatic, that's why. You've killed billions of people, you've destroyed *entire kingdoms*! As long as you live, no one is safe, I won't allow a world like that. A world of suffering and pain, of death and destruction, of sorrow and despair, I won't live in that kind of world, so I'm going to do anything to stop you from making it that way.
"Ah, so even the hero can be selfish" Jaren said.
"Selfish? What are you talking about"?
"You said, *you* won't allow a world like that, *you* don't want to live like that, *you* are trying to stop me without even knowing my true motives".
"Well... what are your intentions if you think they're so just, and why was it worth so much death"? Elizabeth asked.
"The purge of corruption".
Jaren began to turn, sword in hand, and Elizabeth readied herself.
Jaren began pacing slowly as he explained, "Humankind, is corrupted. There is no good, they have done nothing but evil, no matter what they *say* their intentions are. They have wronged me, time after time after time. Humans have taken everything from me every day for a thousand years, all because I tried to play hero... and failed".
Jaren lifted his hands and removed his mask, revealing to Elizabeth a face that she knew all too well.
Her brother's.
"Look around, Elizabeth. Can you look at all of this ruin and destruction and still call yourself a hero"?
She scanned her surroundings, he was right. There was nothing left except shattered swords, broken shields, and burning corpses. And she could have prevented it all with only a few words. All she had to do was say to the emperor, "I will not fight in this war", and he wouldn't have launched his invasion, Elizabeth wouldn't have had to kill Jaron's wife, she wouldn't have had to imprison his children. A thought occurred to her then, 'Am I even the hero? Was I ever a hero in the first place'?
"I... I don't..."
"No? Well humans can, they see this desolate wasteland as a victory, no matter how many of their comrades that they lost. It's all a game to them, they are nothing but cruel, weak minded, savages, driven by violence and greed. You know of what I speak of, for you've witnessed it firsthand."
"When they killed my first son, and tortured my daughter just to hurt me. When they stole everything that I ever cared about and burned it down right in front of my eyes. All before I became the way I am now, when I was the hero, before I did anything to deserve the scorn of these weak wretches".
"N-no... stop... no more, I don't want to hear anymore". Elizabeth cried.
"But you know that I'm right, maybe you won't accept it, but you know. You and I... we've ascended beyond their mortal strife. As immortals, we have an obligation to look after the world, and all the humans do is destroy it. So I will destroy them first."
"Join me... please, you can rule with me, together we will put an end to their pathetic suffering". Jaren put out his hand.
"If you kill the humans, what will there be left to rule"?
"Oh, how ignorant you are, there are an uncountable number of realms beyond this one, we can purge the evil in all of them and then create our own race, free of the human plague."
That made her remember something. The words of her master, the one who taught her how to use her powers.
"Long ago..." Elizabeth recalled aloud. "The power to dimension swap and to strike down evil were one in the same. But when twins were born to the previous hero and the black dragon in human form, her powers were split and given to her offspring, and the same regarding the powers of the black dragon." Elizabeth finished.
"The legend of the Black Dragon and the White Wolf" Jaron said, recalling the story told to him as well. "Why does this matter right now"?
"Don't you see, Jaren? The past hero was the White Wolf, our mother, and the Black Dragon was our father. You Inherited mothers ability to dimension swap and fathers ability to release his restraints and unleash all of his power. I inherited mothers ability to destroy evil, and fathers sheer combat prowess."
"I grow weary from listening to this, get to your point Elizabeth", Jaren growled.
"...Maybe your not wrong about humans being purely corrupt, but your not right to eliminate them for it. I have another way."
"You have the ability to enter the dimension of spirits, and I have the ability to combat evil. Let us join our powers and fight the source of the evil, not the vessels."
"The demons in the dimension of spirits"? Jaren asked.
Elizabeth held out her hand.
"Join me, help me, and we both get what we want."
Jaren smiled.
"That actually sounds like a good plan".
He said, taking her hand in his, he would never admit it, but he was relived to be on the same side as his sister, and she was glad to have her brother back.
"What about your daughter, will she be alright"?
"I know her, she will be fine" Jaren said with a smile.
"We may not be fighting each other, but we still have a long battle ahead of us, are you ready to face what follows"?
Elizabeth took a deep breath, then spoke.
"I am". And they were absorbed into the dimension of spirits.
Legend has it, they're still there, combating the demons that contaminate the minds of the humans throughout all of the countless realms.
Fighting side by side, as brother and sister, until their mission is fulfilled, though it would last till the end of time.
"Let the Chaos ensue, let all evil be devoured by my hatred."
That was awesome!
@@galacticgamingguy5906 thank you. I mainly wrote this as a test of my writing skills. I’m glad that I didn’t fail horribly. 😂
It’s great, man!!
I think the most obvious example of the needlessly complicated plan was Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. So, you're one of Voldy's minions and you've managed to infiltrate Hogwarts and gain the trust of Harry Potter. Mission basically accomplished. Prepare a portkey, cut Harry, wipe away some blood and then teleport away before anyone can ask questions. Or if the Dark Lord insists on dueling and killing Harry personally, then bring Harry in your office where a gift is waiting for him. Or a strange magical device that you're going to use as a teaching device. Have Harry pick it up, and psych! it's a portkey. Or break into Gryffindor common room and turn Harry's toothbrush into a portkey. Or Stupefy him and put him in that handy-dandy little kidnapping trunk of yours.
I agree with you about Voldemort’s plan in GOF, There is just one problem with the portkey idea, they don't work inside Hogwarts, like apparitions, and you can't use them to get in and out of the castle, Barty Jr. would have to catch Harry outside, though that shouldn't be too hard, I think the easiest would probably have been kidnapping Harry before Hogwarts began, Owl him a portkey while at the Dursley, or even send someone to kidnap him, if I remember right he was only protected from Voldemort there not the Death Eaters. They could have also taken him to the Quidditch World Cup. Barry Jr. was just a few feet away from him, Ron, and Hermione in the woods no one else nearby. It would have been easy to knock out Ron and Hermione and grab Harry, though I'm not sure if Barty Jr. was helping Voldemort at that point or if he didn't start until after, but yeah there were easier ways to get Harry than using the Triwizard Tournament.
@@saphiramystique2086How about "kidnap Harry during a Hogsmeade weekend"? If pulled off right, he wouldn't be missed for hours and by the time a search party would even begin to form, everything would be long over.
Great video, Brandon! also, I love that in the original Incredibles, they poke fun at the "Fatal monologue" trope twice. once with Frozone talking about his glory days and Baron Von Ruthless, and Syndrome dodging and acknowledging it.
"You sly dog, you got me monologueing!"
Yeah, it's kinda hilarious that he doesn't use the first Incredibles to call out that trope. Such an obvious and excellent way to bridge the two tropes.
indeed
I hate when Hero instantly forgives the villain for all the bad stuff they did because the villain has a tragic backstory. Like no no no no no, we are not going to ignore the dozens of innocent people you slaughtered because you were sad once. If you want a redemption arc, earn it.
I'm going to second the convoluted plans one. I actually would love to see/do a video about terrible ways to write smart characters. The "genius" villain is always shown to be super smart because they have complicated plans that go off almost without a hitch, but the plans basically require every single thing to happen perfectly and it's often incredibly contrived that so many of the steps happen the way they do. They'll perfectly predict the behaviour of other characters even when those characters do things that don't make sense, and even if not, the plan hinges on people acting in a very specific way and any number of factors could change that. A better way to write a smart villain is to have them have solid contingency plans and adapt when plans don't go the way they should. This was demonstrated effectively in Die Hard, where Hans Gruber had a good solid plan but unexpected circumstances threw multiple wrenches in his plan (an unexpected guest who happens to be a cop is hiding in the building, some of his men get killed, his detonators get stolen, John pulls a fire alarm, etc) and when those things happen, it provides major setbacks to his plan but he comes up with smart ways to deal with it and keep everything on track. Things aren't supposed to go smoothly for the heroes, but writers often forget that they shouldn't go smoothly for the villain either. It makes the story more interesting and believable, and adds a lot of great tension.
A character can only be as smart as the writer...
You'd think a genius villain would understand plans don't survive contact with the enemy and has carefully considered all manner of problems that could arise and has incorporated countermeasures and solutions in his robust plan
@@andrewgreeb916 I think people can write characters smarter than themselves but you do have to have a certain amount of smarts to actually understand what makes people smart. Too many writers write smart characters as just having a bunch of specific traits: They use big words all the time (and/or use strict/archaic grammar), they know lots of languages, they invent/concoct/jury-rig things, they're instantly good at a number of activities, and sometimes they just Sherlock everything to a ridiculous degree. Such characters will superficially appear smart but sometimes are incredibly dumb.
I think the "join me" cliché can work in some circumstances, such as when there's a corrupting influence on the hero, like maybe the hero is slowly turning into a vampire, or being corrupted by the Dark Side of the Force, or something as simple as financial problems. (A great example of this is the scene in "It's a Wonderful Life," when Potter tries to offer George a job working for him.)
That's a great example, actually. Things are so bad for George at that point and Potter's offer is so genuinely tempting in that circumstance that even the audience is kind of like, "You know, that's not a bad deal."
#5 also sometimes works in my opinion when either used comedically like Syndrome from Incredibles or when it is short like in Demolition Man when Simon Phoenix gloats that this is "the best day of my life," before Spartan grabs a nearby ice ball and smashes it at Phoenix's feet freezing him. Was memorable.
It's ironic that after using Incredibles 2 as an example, the very next cliche was made fun of by the original Incredibles.
The villain cliché I have little care for are the Know-it-all types who know everything about everything, and in their infinite wisdom, haven't set out to do what they said they would do
I think you nailed something about the "Join me" cliché... "You and I aren't so different" and so on... Because a lot of times there is no point to it.
Now I would like to voice a contradiction to that; I do actually like when the speech delivered upon such a moment actually makes the protagonist doubt their own actions and motives, whether because the "baddie" is a great manipulator (not a bad villain's trait, after all) or because there was some actual misleading from them. Especially if those doubts reside even after the end of the confrontation (no matter how it went).
The one villain cliche that I hate is the getting captured on purpose one. This annoys me when it's done poorly or over elaborately. Best examples of it being done well is the joker in the dark knight his contingency was put in place after he was captured and was done within an acceptable amount of time. The second is the opening to the blacklist as it was a carefully planned surrender with an option for release. When it's done poorly you get silva from skyfall an impossible plan that he would have needed nostradomis levels of foresight to execute with it all being dependent on being captured at the exact right time. It's a cliche that needs to die or at least be done well.
Number 4 reminds me of an episode of Wordgirl, titled “A Simple Plan”, that plays around with this trope, which ironically highlighted the episode’s words of the day, “Simple” and “Complicated”.
I hate the "I'm so evil i'm not human" and "I just want to destroy existence (including Me)" trope
The one cliche I hate usually occurs in anime.
The cliche is how villains would stop mid fight to explain their backstory.
I hate this as it breaks the pace of the fight and it looks stupid to see the protagonist just sit there instead of trying to fight the villan.
This happens an awful lot in anime like dragon ball, it is genuinely frustrating and pace breaking.
What would be funny is a subversion of this cliche where the villain drops their backstory and then the hero just kills them mid speech.
Good video. You gained a subscriber.
Edit: spelling and grammar.
This reminds me of Bruce Lee, and when an opponent started to break out into a speech before the fight begins, Bruce would cut them short with "Do we talk, or do we fight?"
I dislike the capricious ally / subordinate killer. When the villain is a leader of an organized team or force but consistently murders subordinates or allies just for startle points. It’s ok if it’s a lone wolf unpredictable guy, but a situation where a villain is somehow organizing disciplined forces but the only benefit to rising in those forces is getting knocked off just makes me think “what are these guys hoping to gain by following this guy”
What if the villain is sort of a God figure to those people he rules over so that when he murders some of them out of sheer madness they still continue to obey him?
The "join me" in Ahsoka episode 4 was pretty good since the hero actually accepts. It'll be interesting to see what happens with that later on in the show.
As a parent who has seen too many kid's shows, I can't stand the, "I was only being mean because I didn't have any friends.
If Pete stole all of Mickey's sheep because he was bored, then including him might give him fewer opportunities to give in to his bad impulses, but it's not going to magically erase his bad tendencies.
Similar to the convoluted plan, my most hated is a plan that will harm the villain as much as everyone else. For example, in the first Blade movie, the villain's plan is to become a blood God that can turn humans into vampires just with his presence. Vampires win the war, so it's great, right? Only one problem - if it becomes so easy to vampirise humans, then who do the vampires have left to eat?Genuinely crazy or self loathing villains get a pass on this one.
What villain cliche do you hate most? Let us know!
Probably when the villain has the power and the perfect oppertunity to kill the hero but then gets interrupted by a supporting characters and they all survive without injuries. I would accept it if it's a reason that makes complete sense but most of the time, no.
Villains who rely on henchman to deal with their equals, instead of doing the fighting themselves.
Not sure if it's a cliche but I hate forced sympathy.
Oh ye. I hate when the vilain got the hero and instead of simply killing him he turns to a henchman tell him to "deal with it" turns aroind and go do other stuf... You are right there, you won, just end it and deliver the cou de gra for fs sake...
When the villain explains their entire plan. Like why? No reason other than to waste everybody’s time
My anti hero actually DOES join the villain with her 'join me' speech, but only does so to double cross later. I like turning cliches on the heads
Darth Maul had the greatest redemtpion arc in all of film. Not in the way he becomes good, but how he became one of the greatest villains in media.
Amen
For me the worst is "irredeemable monster" where the villain is just so evil it leads to plot holes and often makes no sense
Care to give an example of a "irredeemable monster" type villain? I'm curious as I prefer if the villain is just a straight up ass hole to everyone and everything. I'm tired of every villain being "sympathetic" because it doesn't really add much to the story (sometimes at least). Especially if the villain is doing horrible things, yet the writer wants us to feel bad for them?
@@Tabletopcloud20 Stella from Helluva Boss?
@@gamerstheater1187 I've never heard of that show, sorry
@@Tabletopcloud20i think michael myers is a good example, he just kills because he kills
Hey Brandon, thanks for the video! The Stylish throwaway villain is definitely somewhere at the top of my most hates cliches because it just feels like the character wasn't even written in until the end or the writers just made a perfect villain for the hero and then decided to not use it for some reason.
On a somewhat similar note, what is your opinion on the "it was a dream / hallucination from the start" cliche, to me its one of the worst cliches and makes me feel like the whole series / movie I just watched was worth none of the time I invested in caring for the story.
That one is mentioned in, I believe, the video about good and bad plot twists. Now, guess which of those the dream thing is :p
Yep, I covered dream stories in my Bad/Good Endings video: ruclips.net/video/lQ6dnHp82jQ/видео.html
I appreciate that The Incredibles played this trope off by having Syndrome begin monologuing and then acknowledge that he did that. Or when Cap asks Ultron about what he's doing and Ultron responds, "I'm glad you asked because I wanted to take this time to explain my evil plan to you..." Love it when films acknowledge the trope like that
I particularly hate when the villain, at some point in the story, tells the hero, “We’re not so different, you and I.” And the hero has to proclaim, “I’m nothing like you.” Done, redone and overdone.
I agree on all but the example for number 3 hits close to home so I have to defend it 😅 I believe it works in Spider-Man because the Goblin is an egomaniac, and believes he has already bested Spider-Man by having control of the situation like he says "I could squash you like a bug right now" but he sees that there is potentially more to gain from the situation. Goblin knows he can wreak havoc alone but if he had the one person who could/would be willing to stop him on his side? Then its game over for New York. It also works to show that Spider-Man isn't invincible in the sense that he technically was defeated in the encounter that lead to him being drugged and kidnapped. As the Goblin says, either way innocent lives will suffer by way of innocent bystanders being in harms way, or by sadistic intentions of causing massive chaos and devastation so therefore he ultimately does not care which choice Spider-Man makes, as he knows he gets what he desires both ways. Overall I agree that it is a cliché but this is my defense for why it works for that particular example, not to mention the movie has several elements of early 2000s campiness in it and so this trope fits right in.
Great video. I dislike the villain with "tons of money that simply wants to rule the 🌎". Lazy writing for this one; they never provide any depth of why the desire is there or why the villain thinks he should do it. The villain is hollow. Also, the conflict leans too much of an extreme situation which also feels hollow.
Plus, there are tons of those in the real world anyway. They're "too realistic" to fit in fiction without something being added/changed to make them interesting.
lmao indeed. Ive got 100 billion dollars in stocks and assets , but not fuck that guy in particular I want to kill that guy.
dude you just won LIFE (tm). enjoy yourself.
My favorite is, "This is _____, and this man has forgotten more about the art of torture than you and I have ever known."
I agree in everything, but when it comes to Darth Maul I think all that mistery around him made him even better
The #3 worked in Star Wars Empire Strikes Back when it was used to also set-up the plot twist of Darth Vader and Luke being father and son.
And in Star Wars an inherent part of the struggle between light and dark is that each side secretly wants to convert the other side to their cause. Part of strengthening their side involves recruitment, and it’s so much easier if you recruit someone already trained, and every Jedi has to do an internal battle with their dark side, which sith know about and will try to exploit.
@@intergalactic92 Exactly what I was talking about. #3 really works in Star Wars.
Absolutely. In ESB it works well because Vader delivers a revelation that completely rocks Luke's world (and the audience's). Luke also has his back to the wall and finds himself in a situation where it's "Join Vader or die."
The "selectively dangerous villain" is due to unimaginitive writing rather than lazy writing, it seems.
This is underlined in detective fiction where a Veronica Mars detective is much harder to write-as-you-go because the reader ain't buying it if she kicks down a door with a gun in each hand when the author gets stuck.
That ends up meaning that the author has no choice but to wait until a clever solution comes to mind instead, which can have some nice results.
How about the giant monsters, sometimes even with CLAWS, who pick up the hero and throw him at something breakable instead of just kill him? 😂
“We’re not so different, you and I.” Is one of my all time most hated villain cliches
For a trope I don’t like: Recurring villains that are more of a nuisance than a threat. They’re more annoying than anything and in some cases are there just for comic relief (Team Rocket from Pokémon, Dr. Eggman from Sonic, Emperor Pilaf from Dragon Ball).
2:42 I kind of have this one in my novel, but in a different way. The villain offers the "join me" proposal right at the beginning, and the protagonist accepts because of the opportunity to create connexions and get resources that would help her in her personal goal, an opportunity that she's afraid will never appear again. The moral implications of that choice and the impact it has on her as a person will determine how the story progresses
Hey! It sounds cool. By now, how much of the novel did you complete?
With my story. Before the final battle the Villain doesn't ask the protagonist to join him, he demands him to join him and his army, the protagonist refuses but the villain trys to make him join.
My most hated cliche is that they underestimate the hero WAYYY too much. I used to watch an anime show were the main villain would always send his henchmen to do his dirty work and when he finally shows up, he temporarily defetes the hero but resumes sending his henchmen after that episode. and the most annoying part was that after every faliure, he thought that his henchmen were just making excuses not knowing that the heroes were getting more powerful by every episode.
"My god. Do we really suck, or is this guy really that good?!"
-Hertz, "Shoot 'Em Up"
@@barret-xiii lol
That’s Power Rangers for you
@cyrax9226 yeah...😔
@@barret-xiii That movie is an underrated classic
Loyal underlings. When a villain shows they are perfectly willing to kill their overly loyal underlings when they fail and the underlings just accept that fate. Fear only gets you so far before the next guy decides to off you in your sleep to save his own hide, or turn informant for the hero in order to escape his fate.
Agreed. Anytime I see that trope occuring my respect for writer/director is diminished.
In WHAT reality does wantonly offing the finite number of followers/ underlings/ whatever you have count as a smart tactical decision?
Where does that endless procession of suicidal sycophants come from, and at what point do they realize that working for a psychotic murderer may not be the best career choice available.
It's very clearly lazy writing- as it's only real purpose is to show the audience how evil the bad guy is.
Evil, and incredibly stupid- as any real world Darth Vader wannabe would quickly discover, either in depleted reserves or a ray blast to the back of the helmit.
The "join me" moments can be great at times.
I don't remember where I saw it, but one vilain was talking about how the hero and himself were similar, and how he should join him. Ofc the hero refused it, but all this time the vilain didn't care as well, he just wanted to buy time for sthg else.
And instead of being annoyed by such an obvious cliché, I was rather impressed by the vilain cunningness.
Great video, Brandon! To me, your videos are sacrosanct.
I've made some major improvements in my novel writing ever since I found your channel.
Thanks! I appreciate that a lot
And best of luck with your writing going forward!
@@WriterBrandonMcNulty ♥️
A good example of 4 done well can be seen in Arrow season 1 and 2 (before the show jumped the Sify shark) I loved when Merlin comes with this over the top plan. The good guys celebrate and then Merlin pulls out a last Uno on them. That was smart thinking. Then in season 2 with Deathstroke with an over the top plan that actually work as he killed Oliver's mom.
I love Deathstroke one of my favorite comic villains! Minus ttgo and Smallville versions
"I'm surrounded by idiots" The supposed genius villain who relies on the most incompetent henchmen, especially when there's no obvious reason.
Like Scar in lion King could have killed Simba himself after the stampede, but instead left it to the hyenas whose intelligence he openly criticized.
Demogorgons in stranger things they are op against unimportant soldiers but lose to a kid with a metal bat
Here's one that I think should be on the list (although maybe it's sort of a combination of Selectively Dangerous and Unnecessarily Complicated Plans?): since stories largely follow the protagonist with interjections involving the villain, sometimes it really doesn't make sense when you think about what the villain is doing to occupy their time between appearances. Maybe this could be called the Sitting on Their Thumbs Villain.
An example that comes to mind for me is Voldemort in almost any of the Harry Potter books, but especially the Order of the Phoenix. Every once in a while, there will be a sentence along the lines of "Voldemort's on the move" to remind you he's doing something, but also "Why would he do anything when the Ministry are so helpfully pretending he's not back?" to justify that he's NOT doing anything. Did it really take him an entire year to send an envoy to the giants and send a couple of people into the Department of Mysteries? It doesn't actually make sense, it's just to artificially make the final conflict happen at the school year's end.
You know, the throwaway villain trope isn't limited to movies either unfortunately, as it was also present in anime as well. An infamous example is Raditz from Dragon Ball Z.
The join me proposal only works if the MC would actually consider it and they would have reason to trust the villian.
In Incredibles 2 Evelyn is perfectly explainable, as a narcissist. Countless real life versions of villains think they are the smartest and most skilled at whatever they do, so their flaw is having to make it all about them, they have to be the one who makes their goal happen
The only "Join me" proposal that ever felt right to me is Star Wars (knowing that they are father and son), but everything else that came after just felt so forced and cliche.
Also considering the fact that Anakin actually accepted the "join me" proposal in episode 3. Although he was probably already considered a villain by that point.
The problem, imo, is the fact that most join me offers are attempting to convince polar opposites to join together. A join me offer should be
1. Deserved. Make the hero show strength and work for it
2. The hero needs to be enticed by having moral code met or at least in a reasonable boundary and the clear benefit of joining + the risk of loss if the offer is rejected that isn’t a threat by the offerer (example such as someone who is in danger can get protection and the danger is eliminated otherwise if rejected the person in danger may succumb to that danger)
@@duerphykat8809 I'd say it also works if the villain is losing... while it's also a cliché, if the villain is losing why wouldn't he try anything and everything to try and win.
More & more they write villains to be empathetic victims of society rather than being responsible for their evil nature. Joker being a prime example.
“We’re not so different, you and I.”
I’m convinced that phrase is the Wilhelm Scream of villain cliches at this point.
1:22 this sequence in the manga was very different as it involved different characters who were cutted out
I reccomende to everyone to always read the manga as it is way better
You uploaded this video just in time! I was gonna go eat a midnight snack while watching some writing advice haha.
Haha glad I got it in before the buzzer!
James Bond villains are notorious for deciding to give a grand speech or display when they have the moment to deliver a kill.
I hate when the villain has the opportunity to kill characters, but doesn't kill them for some reason.
Hi Brandon, I’m writing a story that changes perspective between 4 different characters. All storylines connect multiple times and come together by the end. Can you do a video on how to do stories like this? Examples I know of are Pulp Fiction and Requiem for a Dream.
I'll add this to my list. Thanks!
4 different characters? That's a lot. I would recommend Steven King's best book, "Rage" (with the Bockman nom de plume). The first half is through the perspective of the killer, and the second half is through the lens of the victim. What is amazing about that book is that you, the reader, become fully supportive of the opposing positions. Details are here, on RUclips. The first few "Saw" movies occur at THE SAME TIME. You see the creative overlap with characters running past characters from the other movies. Clever and alarming.