What Happened to Sinister and Diabolical Villains in Media?
The Blind Eternities forum
Posted on Dec. 4, 2019, 9:44 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
I have noticed that, in recent movies adapted from comics, video games, or other “nerdy” media, the villains have been different from past depictions; those villains, such as Zod from Man of Steel, Brandon Breyer in Brightburn, Thanos in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and so forth, are all cold, stern, and nearly emotionless, behaving in an emotionally distant and detached manner, appearing to take no enjoyment from their actions, and, occasionally, believing themselves to be righteous.
I have no problem with such villains, because it is good to have a variety of characters in fictional media, but my issue is that they are now the standard model of villainy, and there are few, if any, “classical” villains still around: i.e., the villains whom I remember (and fondly so) from my childhood, the villains who were sinister and diabolical, who fully acknowledged and embraced their own evilness, and who enjoyed causing pain and suffering to others. A very good example of this trend is with the Walt Disney Corporation’s animated movies, which have produced numerous iconic villains, but, as far as I can recall, there has not been a traditionally-diabolical villain in those movies since Mother Gothel from Tangled, which was released in 2010, almost an entire decade ago.
What happened to those villains? I noticed that such villains seemed to become less popular around the beginning of the new millennium, coincidentally (or not) around the same time that nerd subculture began to become more popular; thankfully, not all villains have changed, as Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars, various villains from the Avatar: the Last Airbender franchise, and Norman Osborn from Sam Raimi’s first Spiderman movie were all wonderfully diabolical, but they are now the exception, when they used to be the norm.
What does everyone else say about this? Why have sinister and diabolical villains become less popular, recently, and is there any chance of them becoming popular, again?
You throw out Thanos as an example, but let's look at some other MCU movies:
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Spider-Man: Far from Home had a delightfully diabolical villain. Not quite as fun as Willem Dafoe, but who is?
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Black Panther had Andy Serkis' Ulysses Klaue, who fit this model pretty well.
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Thor: Ragnarok had Jeff Goldblum's character as the amusing, over-the-top slave lord, as well as Hela, who was every bit as evil as a classic Disney queen.
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Both Guardians movies had a whole host of fun bad guys.
Dark and brooding is in right now, but there's a whole lot of exceptions, and I think the pendulum is swinging back to more fun villains.
December 4, 2019 10:15 p.m. Edited.
DemonDragonJ says... #4
greyninja, I cannot believe that I forgot about Lord Business, and Queen Watevra Wanabi from the second Lego Movie also (initially) seemed to be diabolical, as well.
December 4, 2019 10:36 p.m.
seshiro_of_the_orochi says... #5
There are different types of foes for sure.
The category you talk about as evil can many times also be described as egoistic or hedonist in that they care for their own advantage and/or joy (Gothel fits that category as she just wants to stay young). You could even put Norman Osbourne in here, as he, as insane as he might be, still wants a better world for people like him with special powers in some way.
Then there are those like Thanos: They objectively know others consider them evil or cruel, but they are convinced they are heading for the right thing.
The first ones are more entertaining on a superficial level, but are hard to modelate (Compare Ledger's joker: He just wants to watch the world burn, but his motives are extremely deep.). The latter ones easily appear more complex if done properly, and they give the viewer this thrilling feeling of "damn, I can get into this".
Both have their appeal. I did realize the trend, but I like it.
Transfered to Magic:
Xenagos is a fun enemy. But Heliod is a freaking badass.
December 5, 2019 2:09 a.m.
Syndrome, from The Incredibles seemed diabolical... I use his game theory all the time to manage some surprising wins, after all: "when everyone is super, no one will be" :), ah... nothing like good old parallel effects to "level the playing field" and get a game moving. But yes, this is timely with the new Bond movie coming out, it has been years since there has been a proper diabolical villain in that franchise. Even beyond diabolical, one with a memorable motive or MO.
greyninja says... #2
December 4, 2019 10:14 p.m.