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+--- Thread: The Tropes of Playing a Villain in FFXIV (/showthread.php?tid=10681)
RE: The Tropes of Playing a Villain in FFXIV - Warren Castille - 03-20-2015
...this thread is meta, right?
RE: The Tropes of Playing a Villain in FFXIV - Gegenji - 03-20-2015
(03-20-2015, 04:07 AM)Natalie Mcbeef Wrote:(03-20-2015, 03:51 AM)ArmachiA Wrote: I think what makes a good villain is what also makes a good hero - well roundedness. A Villian should be just as fleshed out as a hero would be, having motivations behind what they do beyond "I am evil".
That's it, really.
Even Hedonistic Villains can fall into under umbrella, provided they are fleshed out well enough. There are plenty of very good Hedonistic Villains in fiction and as long as they aren't pressuring or harassing me for ERP, they can be a hedonistic as they like.
The problem is, as Verad says. Many villains aren't logical or have good motivations. That's part of what makes villains scary. They don't play by the same rules as 'normal' people.
I think many villains do have good reasons for why they're doing what they're doing. However I don't think it's a prerequisite.
That's the thing for me, though. I find some of the best villains to be the ones where you can actually see the reasons for what they do. You hate them for doing it, but it makes... sense in some twisted sort of way. From their point of view, they're perfectly in the right and justified in their actions - even if it seems evil and crazy to everyone else. Qhora's mentioning of the Batman villains works well, and to use a more recent example - Senator Armstrong from Revengeance.
Not to say crazy evil doesn't have its place - my favorite Final Fantasy villain is still Kefka, after all.
RE: The Tropes of Playing a Villain in FFXIV - ArmachiA - 03-20-2015
Kefka still has his own motivations, even if we don't understand them. Every villains should have their own internal logic, even if they are crazy as all hell.
RE: The Tropes of Playing a Villain in FFXIV - Gegenji - 03-20-2015
(03-20-2015, 08:14 AM)ArmachiA Wrote: Kefka still has his own motivations, even if we don't understand them. Every villains should have their own internal logic, even if they are crazy as all hell.
Right, and there's the bit that there's a reason why he's crazy. It's more or less a throwaway line you can miss entirely, but his mind snapped under the pressures of Magitek conditioning. Maybe that's why I like him so much - he's not crazy for the sake of crazy, there's reasoning behind it.
... I'm reminded of a Joker quote. I forget the specifics, but I believe it went like this:
"(to Batman) I don't hate you because I'm crazy. I'm crazy because I hate you."
Which is an interesting look into the Joker himself.
RE: The Tropes of Playing a Villain in FFXIV - C'kayah Polaali - 03-20-2015
I'm another of the resident villains, so along with agreeing with the lovely and talented Xheja, I'll add a few things:
There are many types of villains under the stars. You will not want to play with all of them.
C'kayah, for instance, is a criminal. He's a smuggler and the head of an organized crime syndicate with the aim of amassing power in Ul'dah. He's very distinctly in it for the money, but that's because money can be thought of as potential power in Ul'dah (in the same way that gasoline is potential flame). By the criteria of the OP, he's not a villain, so the OP probably wouldn't want to RP with him.
Askier, when he put together large arcs, played villains with world-shattering goals: Killing thousands of people in Ul'dah; blowing up Ul'dah; etc. He would be someone the OP would want to play with, I imagine.
I've seen a lot of people who's villain RP largely revolves around specific kinds of ERP. I don't have a problem with this - some of them are fun to play with. But if they bother the OP so much, the obvious solution is to not play with them.
RE: The Tropes of Playing a Villain in FFXIV - SicketySix - 03-20-2015
I say Manasas is a villain because, well, he is. He is a pirate, pirates are villainous. He is not a prostitute, nor a whor....okay he might be that, but I RP a pirate because a pirate's life for me (see what I did there)
However if you Reed (see what I did there again) the wiki for him, it even states he will not rape a woman, that being said, he is a pirate. If I, being IC, ran into a pirate wench or a whore-ish character at some point, sure, ERP would be a possibility. But I don't go looking out for it, nor has he been created with that purpose in mind.
RE: The Tropes of Playing a Villain in FFXIV - OverlordOutpost - 03-20-2015
A villain needs to be understandable, but not necessarily relatable. Â There are very few villains that bask only in the fact that "Yes, I'm evil! Â Evil is what I do!" Â And it's generally just a mask. Â Villain characters need to believe that they are right in what they do, or at least that it's then only correct way to go about their goal. Â If your villain is simply a black cloak figure in the back of the tavern who kidnaps women and makes them sex you... well, you're certainly evil, but you're not quite a villain. Â Mad possibly, or criminally insane. Â
Unfortunately at the end of the day, criminally insane or mad villains are not that interesting. Â They're one dimensional tropes that don't have any redeemable value. Â There's no moral questioning, no thoughts on how they work or function, they just do because do. Â There's very little there to play off of outside of "behead it and call it a day." Â
Even villains that are traditionally insane, Kefka and Joker which are constantly brought up here, have reasoning behind their actions. Â Joker wants to break Batman. Â Kefka wants to attain godhood because he learnt the only true good in the world is nihilistic (and it's a damn good way to get revenge).
Reversed morality is another good, understandable, goal for a Villain that isn't relatable. Â Jack the Ripper's motivations could have been surmised by his victims and a very extreme sense of morality when it comes to sex. Â See also Jason Vorhees and his Mother; it certainly becomes a bit of a tropish/parody, but laziness/sexual promiscuity and the negligence that came from it plays deep into both characters.
Ultimately, playing a villain, you should at least try to leave a trail or some hints on your true reasonings. Â Give a purpose for the heroes to debate and theorize over, craft them a story. Â As a villain, it isn't about you. Â It's about everyone who is going to stop you or is afflicted by you.
As a villain, you are essentially a DM for a free-form RP event. Â If your own personal OOC reasons are greedy (I want to powertrip/I want ERP/I want to make players suffer/They're playing wrong and should pay), then the villain isn't your character. Â It's you, the player. Â If your character is nothing short then a one-dimensional insane criminal, then you're just an exceptionally powerful kobold that needs to be put down for XP and loot.
Don't be that.
RE: The Tropes of Playing a Villain in FFXIV - Loki - 03-20-2015
Side Note: I hope I can say that I wrote this topic when I was half asleep at 2 AM in the morning and therefore some of my views were askew and just thrown out into the mix. (I.e. Villains don't need money, power,or women.)
Back on subject of current posts; I agree with most of what you all say and while I am not actively seeking RP on my main as he's been retired due to both OOC/IC reasons, I've merely heard word of the current happenings of Villains in RP and I was using the Quicksand as a single location to reference.
RE: The Tropes of Playing a Villain in FFXIV - CrookedTarot - 03-20-2015
One of the kickers about villains is that (and yeah, too long didn't read the whole thread) that motivations (like some have said) don't have to make sense. It all comes back to that 'everyone is the hero in their own story' thing.
While it could be argued that Kefka is batshit insane (argue? Yeah no, dude is), his 'heroic' goal is nihilism. The reason for the goal? He makes it obvious in the end--he fears being disappointed. He fears loss. He sees the end as being that--the end. Everything fades and he will inevitably be left alone and with nothing, so why not simply destroy it now to spare him the disappointment that comes with attatchment later?
Kuja is another fine example--a 'heroic' insanity stemmed from exestential dread. He was raised to tihnk he was perfection and more than that, immortal. And then he finds out he's going to die. He will die someday and then he too will (in his mind) mean nothing. While his motivations are largely childish (if I can't live why should anyone else?) this shows his own mental maturity or lack thereof. He's afraid of dying and so takes it out in the only way he knows how.
This is actually one of the reasons why I think the Joker (while being entertaining) is largely one of the WORST villains in the grand scheme because he has no set reason for doing what he does; the Dark Knight at least gave him a goal--he wanted to prove his point. He was being the 'hero' by proving that he was right and the rest of the world was wrong. The Joker has been everything from homicidal maniac to petty thief with a gimic but he rarely has a consistent goal which every villain needs regardless.
Poison Ivy is a champion to her 'people' the plants.
Dr. Freeze wants to restore his wife.
These are personal goals that, while in and of themselves are fine and noble, come out all wrong because of the methods--they would, in any other setting with the right decisions be heroic.
That's what separates a 'good' villain from a bad one. That's what, in my opinion, people fail to realize. They want to have the motivation without the motivation. WHY does your villain seek hedonistic delights? Are they craving money to makes themselves feel more powerful but then discover, 'Hey, money buys sex and I have a LOT of money right now!' and so the hedonism springs forth from that?
To use literary references, I think another great example is The Mountains of Madness.
"Whatever they were, they were MEN."
The aliens dissected humans--they dissected them in the same way humans dissected the aliens. It wasn't out of cruelty but rather a ntraul curiosity that, to the opposite side, would be a horrific idea.
RE: The Tropes of Playing a Villain in FFXIV - Sophia_Grave - 03-20-2015
Villain is simply a bad, bad term to use in day to day RP, and really goes to show how different roleplay writing is from typical writing.
By definition (at least, as it pertains to writing, film, etc), a villain does not exist without a plot. An unlawful person is not a villain by virtue of being unlawful; it is merely a role to fulfill. They are nothing more than some player's character otherwise.
There's an enormous spectrum of unlawful, chaotic, and or evil people, so I won't even touch on that. I will say that, however, any of these (in addition to many 'good' characters) can fulfill a villainous role in a plot, so long as they're willing to do wrong against a protagonist. Again, there's a wide spectrum of what constitutes as wrong, from stealing from the rich and corrupt all the way to genocide.
That, as far as I'm concerned, are the only rules to villainy. The Joker is a literal crazy person and is one of the most beloved characters in comics. The xenomorph is nothing but a predator, and winds up being a horrifying villain. I can't even count the number of logical computer AI villains there are.
RE: The Tropes of Playing a Villain in FFXIV - No Longer Exists - 03-20-2015
(03-20-2015, 01:10 PM)Apl_Juice Wrote: Villain is simply a bad, bad term to use in day to day RP, and really goes to show how different roleplay writing is from typical writing.
By definition (at least, as it pertains to writing, film, etc), a villain does not exist without a plot. An unlawful person is not a villain by virtue of being unlawful; it is merely a role to fulfill. They are nothing more than some player's character otherwise.
There's an enormous spectrum of unlawful, chaotic, and or evil people, so I won't even touch on that. I will say that, however, any of these (in addition to many 'good' characters) can fulfill a villainous role in a plot, so long as they're willing to do wrong against a protagonist. Again, there's a wide spectrum of what constitutes as wrong, from stealing from the rich and corrupt all the way to genocide.
That, as far as I'm concerned, are the only rules to villainy. The Joker is a literal crazy person and is one of the most beloved characters in comics. The xenomorph is nothing but a predator, and winds up being a horrifying villain. I can't even count the number of logical computer AI villains there are.
*Reaches out from under his hat and points to this post*
Thematically, an antagonist (see: Villain) is the plot device that works against the protagonist (see: Hero). So technically speaking, in open RP, there is no such thing as a villain or antagonist unless those individuals pertain to a specific story within the Open RP.
Example:
Mister A is an adventurer who saved a village from pirates bent on loot and plunder. Mister B was one of those pirates who survived the battle and vowed revenge on Mister A for the defeat. <-This is an antagonist in fiction.
Example 2:
Mister A is an adventurer who saved a village from pirates bent on loot and plunder. Mister B is an angry ex-merchant whose business was ruined and happened to be bumped into by Mister A on the Ruby Road Exchange. Because of that perceived slight, Mister B seeks to mess up Mister A's life. <- This is an antagonist in fiction.
Example 3:
Mister A is an adventurer who saved a village from pirates bent on loot and plunder. Mister B was exposed to too much aether and it warped his mind, so he stabs Mister A in the throat with a fork. <- This is not an antagonist in fiction.Â
The difference is the plot. Random acts of chaos and violence don't make a villain specifically, because that character's random acts of chaos and violence are the story that player is telling at the time. Technically, that makes the crazy fork-stabber-guy the protagonist and anyone who reacts to it would become the antagonists. (Don't let me blow your minds now)
Now, to further make things more confusingly clear (Yay, I love oxymorons), in RP; Fork-stabber is telling his story of chaos and throat-poking but invites Mister A, C, and Miss D to join in the story. Whose the protagonist then? Still Fork-stabber. A,C, and D are now support characters in the tale. They are meant to enhance the story with their actions, regardless of if they decide to stab people with forks too or attempt to apprehend and browbeat Fork-stabber for being a psychopath.Â
Finally, upon the conclusion of the story (be it Fork-stabber's success or failure), A,C,D and even Mister B or anyone else watching the event unfold from the sidelines has the capacity of creating their own story about the events in "The Marvelous Adventures of Fork-stabber" and thus become the tellers of their own stories. This makes them the protagonists and Fork-stabber becomes a plot device, not the antagonist (unless Fork-stabber decides to mess with whoever has begun their story and stab them with his mighty forks, at which point he becomes the antagonist.)
Point being: RP is a fluid progression of stories where we as PCs jump from role to role (protagonist, antagonist, support, and plot device) willy-nilly.Â
And whether a character is a protagonist or antagonist depends entirely on who is telling the story at the time. Mr. Freeze's crusade to save his wife by stealing diamonds from rich people is only a villainous tale because it's told from the perspective of Batman. Otherwise, he's a man trying to save his wife. For more on this, check out a film called "Falling Down".
P.S.: On the subject of villainous ERPers. A simple quote will suffice: Whatever floats your boat.
*Retreats under his hat*
RE: The Tropes of Playing a Villain in FFXIV - Loki - 03-20-2015
Thank you all for the incredible amount of feedback and information! It's nice to see everyone's stand point on what is correct and incorrect on the Villain/Evil/Dark associated characters and it has definitely helped me realize more than a few things that I missed or may have miscalculated in my Original post.
As always; keep the feed back coming for future or current evil-doers!
RE: The Tropes of Playing a Villain in FFXIV - Ciel - 03-21-2015
Just my opinion, but if someone's 'villain' is just out looking for a little nookie in one form or another, that doesn't necessarily make them a villain. It might make them a jerk if they're out to use someone, or it might make them a criminal if they're actually out to rape, murder, etc, and not much else. Yeah, these things might define a villain on a personal level if said jerk/criminal has caused a person or character direct, personal harm. However, sticking just to these things makes the 'villain' superficial. A well-defined villain doesn't need sex, money, or power.
Many of the responses in this thread have already made some great points about what it's really all about, and given some great examples as to why specific characters are (or are not) great villains.
As someone who has an alt, I like to treat the details and histories of such a character no different than any other. Everyone has a beginning and catalysts which brought them to where they are in life, it's just a matter of how these things define the character. What sort of childhood did he/she have? What sort of influences did they have growing up? As they grew, how did those influences change and effect the character's perspective of the world and their motivations?
These are all important questions to ask.
One of the most fun parts is having people with a common background who are willing to help define the character, and vice versa. This gives you allies, enemies, and influences on both sides. I love a villain with motivations, even if their sole motivation is repaying some kind of debt owed to a higher power, whether that debt is monetary or the higher power is some sort of political or military force. This also lays the groundwork for a sympathetic villain, someone whose reasons are understandable, even if the actions resulting from it would be considered repugnant by the population at large.
RE: The Tropes of Playing a Villain in FFXIV - Verad - 03-21-2015
(03-20-2015, 08:12 AM)Gegenji Wrote: That's the thing for me, though. I find some of the best villains to be the ones where you can actually see the reasons for what they do. You hate them for doing it, but it makes... sense in some twisted sort of way. From their point of view, they're perfectly in the right and justified in their actions - even if it seems evil and crazy to everyone else. Qhora's mentioning of the Batman villains works well, and to use a more recent example - Senator Armstrong from Revengeance.
Not to say crazy evil doesn't have its place - my favorite Final Fantasy villain is still Kefka, after all.
And yet people enjoy the works of Lovecraft, and the appeal of those monsters are based largely on the inability of the human mind to understand what they are and their motivations. Madness comes not from the creatures, which are probably perfectly well-adjusted manifestations of the color Z, but from the protagonists as they struggle with the revelation of their own cosmic insignificance and their failure to comprehend.
And if we move from the realm of the inhuman to the more personal, raise your hand if Othello's Iago is your favorite Shakespeare villain. And Iago has no motive. He says "I hate the Moor" and all, but the more you read his soliloquies on that subject, the more you realize he's kinda making up the hatred as he goes along - sometimes he's bitter that Othello got the promotion, sometimes he loves Desdemona, sometimes he thinks Othello slept with his wife, it goes on. In Coleridge's essays on Shakespeare, he praises Iago for his "motiveless malignity," and it seems an apt way to put it. There's nothing understandable because there's nothing to understand - Iago's doing what he's doing for its own sake, and all the justifications are after-the-fact.
A bit like what's going on in the Mary Sue thread with the idea of power fantasies, we're seeing a collision here between contemporary tastes in the portrayal of villainy and the needs of RP as a medium, and getting "This is the right way to play a villain" conflated with "This is the right way to write a villain." There may be a correct way for the former, but there really isn't one for the latter.
Edit: Also, a note on players engaging in the trappings of villainy for sex, since that's OP's problem. It's not really to my tastes, first because it's a very conservative form of villainy - only villains do nasty things like sex - and second because of the all-too common problems with the portrayal of rape in roleplay. I try to skip it as a primary goal.
RE: The Tropes of Playing a Villain in FFXIV - Harmonixer - 03-21-2015
I won't really be repeating anything that any of the others have posted, since I feel the points have already been made- but I will comment on the subject of villain rpers using it as a vehicle to get ERP.
I guess, I find it amusing that was even said in the first place, because I haven't run into enough of it myself? I mostly see do-gooders and everyone else using their characters to achieve the same goal.
Understand that, I am not against ERP or people that do it. I just think it's a lot like 'pot calling the kettle black' scenario. I honestly don't believe it's limited to any particular type of RP. There's plenty of people guilty of this and they are 'public' RP figures and both openly and privately do the same things. This extends to all games with RP I find.
So, there's that.
Also, Verad makes and excellent point on unrelatable villains. I hadn't thought of it that way. I do love monsters, especially the ones we can't actually understand. Kaiju, for example.