Watch the video and let’s chat about the villains shown in the video, but also the villains in the media that are also like that.
We can even discuss our very own villains as well! So, we got options and plenty of things to chat with each other, not just with me. This is a discussion for everyone here on villains throughout television shows, films, fiction novels, comic books, anime, manga, video games, plays, animation, and so much more.
What are your overall thoughts and feelings?
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Tell your opinions on why it is we make excuses for villains? Does every villain need a redemption arc? Should we water down evil so that it can be understood? Are you able to relate to a villain more than a protagonist?
I’m a be real with you, Azula and Zuko are like if someone seperated Vegeta into his best and worst traits.
Should Azula have gotten a redemption arc like Zuko? Was it better to leave her as the villain that she is?
Azula needs to get therapy, then we can talk about forgiveness.
Interesting thought. With Azula and Zuko, their lives would have been so different if Ozai was a loving and caring father rather than a horrible abusive parent and menacing tyrant.
Yes Zuko has his uncle who was more of a father figure than his own father along with the love for his mother, who he yearns to see, but Azula had nobody and the father she idolizes and wanted to be like, care nothing for her.
Zuko had it all even when he lost everything, Azula believed she had everything until losing it all showed that she never had anything in the end.
So, Azula needed therapy, but she also needed a better childhood like her brother. I am saying this in a manner of, her life would’ve been different if this happened.
But Azula did so many horrible things and never wanted to change, so in the end therapy would be a moot point.
You can’t save everyone, even the ones who don’t want to be saved…
It is a difference in tone between Dragon Ball and Avatar.
Definitely.
I am glad Frieza didn’t get a redemption arc or Perfect Cell. Hell, I would never accept Majin Buu as some tragic villain, when that is far from the point.
Majin Buu is…a freak of nature that would never show up in Avatarverse…
Exactly.
Some villains maybe, but most don’t need to be redeemed.
There are certain villains I’ll “make excuses” for or allow redemption arcs for, like Loki from the MCU, for example. He not only showed remorse for the bad things he had done, but was also forced to do them under someone worse’s hand (Thanos), or never meant to take it as far as he did in the first place (the first Thor movie) and was just trying to pull a prank that went way too far because of extenuating circumstances. He was conflicted the entire time, throughout all the movies he appeared in. It was entirely in character for him to make a sacrifice and redeem himself in the end, therefore, I don’t see him as a villain, but more as a misunderstood antihero.
But I don’t see the point of offering that much leniency with many other villains, including Azula. You can argue she had a poor childhood because her father favored her over Zuko, but first of all, that favor may have helped her do horrible things, but it was all to her advantage, so I don’t feel any pity for her there. It wasn’t a horrible childhood for her, even if it was under toxic parantage. And secondly, why do you think her father favored her in the first place? It was because she was already born a psychopath just like him. She was already severely lacking in empathy before he groomed her to become worse. All he did was encourage the traits that she already had. Because she’s a psychopath, she also has no remorse for her actions, even when she loses. She has self pity, not remorse. I don’t feel bad for her at all. Uncle Iroh was right. She was crazy and needed to go down. She doesn’t deserve a redemption arc because it would be completely out of character for her and she never would have accepted an opportunity for one in the first place. You let her come back and she’ll go for revenge, not redemption.
To be honest I didn’t watch the whole thing. I fell asleep when he said villains are more interesting because they have more freedom to act as they please, while heroes have to be perfect. Maybe heroes have to be, but protagonists don’t. And it’s boring when they are.
Not long ago, someone here created a thread (maybe it was you?) about what flaws our main characters have. A lot of people listed things that aren’t really sins. A character who never sins is boring, so I guess that’s why so many readers prefer villains? A better strategy is to let your mc freaking sin like a normal human, and then redeem your mc.
As far as a redemption arc for villains, that’s a favorite trope of mine but isn’t really necessary as long as you write your villain well. And to write a villain well, you have to do for the villain what you do for your mc–make the villain well-rounded. Give your villain some good qualities. Everyone’s a mixture of good and evil to varying degrees; it’s just that in villains the evil surpasses the good. ¯\_(ﭢ)_/¯
Are any of you willing to discuss about your own villains in your novels?
Just curious. 
Azula is a spoiled psychotic child, so by that saving her was never warranted because it was already said and done.
So, she’s a screwed up fourteen year old, only caring about herself.
Interesting. Is there a villain who you felt did not need an redemption arc or rather their character didn’t deserve it even though it happened anyway?
Yeah, I’m willing to talk about my own.
For instance, Evander is the villain in the first book and is completely irredeemable because he is so entitled to power that he thinks he can just make an entire person, own them, and abuse them without any consequences.
Errol will be an antagonist later on in the series, but he starts off as a friend to Alma (the MC and protagonist). He only becomes an antagonist because he thinks he’s doing the right thing for Alma and other synthetics. He doesn’t realize that his anger and hatred towards humans has made him a violent and dangerous person. He’s willing to start a war just to get justice for synthetics, even if that means many of them will die or be mistreated even worse because of fear. As long as they win in the end, he thinks it’s worth it. It’s not, but he believes it is. He is capable of redeeming himself eventually though, and I do plan for him to. But he’ll have to go through the work of earning that trust back from Alma and becoming a better person.
So I have one of each kind of villain in my story, at least. I do love redeemable villains, but I also love well written villains that are just steaight up evil.
Nope, I can’t think of any villains who ever got a redemption arc. One could say that Javert in Les Misérables redeems himself at the end when he commits suicide rather than arrest Jean Valjean, but to my mind he’s not really a villain per se–just an overzealous cop trying to do his duty. ¯\_(ﭢ)_/¯
But did he deserve it? I mean there are villains that DON’T deserved a redemption arc, but it happened anyway.
No, he didn’t deserve one. He was a symbol of merciless blind duty in the book so he didn’t get a redemption arc and didn’t deserve one. All he did was let the mc go free at the end and thus performed one good deed in his life.
Some of my favourite villains in media:
Rogue from the Jet Li film War.
*Al Swearengen from Deadwood.
The Agent from Serenity.
Ra’s al Ghul from Batman Begins.
*Michael Sands from Spooks, season seven.
T-1000 from Terminator 2…Rumours abound, the actor had to slow his running pace in the mall car-park scene because he kept overtaking the dirt bike…
Osnard from The Tailor of Panama.
Cunningham from Rob Roy.
Clyde from Law Abiding Citizen.
*Micheletto from The Borgias series.
Kruger from Elysium.
Neil from Heat.
*Gavrik from Spooks, season ten.
*Number Six from the Battlestar Galactica series.
Francis Urquhart from the House of Cards UK series.
*These characters could be considered anti-heroes compared to the other villains in their respective series.
More to be added later.