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11-13-2010, 08:41 PM | #41 |
Im Charming
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Location: The Mitten
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Ken O
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11-13-2010, 08:52 PM | #42 |
Banned
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although i find the above post very well written i would for a no better reason then explanation like your take on Col.Walter E. Kurtz from apocalypse now
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11-13-2010, 10:58 PM | #43 |
Mad Scientist at Large
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Portland, OR
Posts: 14,793
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Been way too long since I've seen the movie for me to offer any meaningful opinions. I've had the extended edition sitting in my dvd pile now for months and haven't gotten around to it or the book it was based on.
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11-15-2010, 06:34 PM | #44 |
Crimson Guard
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Location: houston
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Quote:
What you're describing is referred as a "Fraudian Excuse" (see the TV Tropes link for more on this), but 'll get to that in a minute. There's no such thing as a villain without motivation. No matter how cool, badass, or dangerous they might look or be, such a character would be irrevocably boring and forgettable. They would have to be completely devoid of will or intelligence, akin to a force of nature.
Even a two-dimensional lump of sh*t like Doomsday had an actual reason he was so pissed off at Superman. Galactus, despite being described as a living force of nature, has a motive; he's hungry, he needs to eat to survive. To him we're all just some ants that crawled on his picnic table. Motives don't have to be complex, but they have to be believable. Blaming someone else for their problems is a popular one in Marvel. Doom took a dangerous risk with an experiment and blamed Reed when it (literally) blew up in his face. Eddie Brock failed to investigate his source on a story and lost his job when Spiderman unmasked the true Sin Eater, but rather than accept responsibility, as Parker would have, he blamed someone else. Loki never got the attention his dad's favorite son did (dumb, but common and as old as the Bible). I could go on, but in the end one can be assured in the fact that every antagonist has some kind of motivation for their actions. Even the shark in Jaws was just looking for something to eat. Sometimes the motivations make no sense to us (see: Blue and Orange Morality) but they make sense to the one who counts, which is why it's not necessary to have an intense background in psychology to write a decent Joker story. We don't know exactly why the Joker is the way he is, how much was brain damage from the chemical bath or if he was always unhinged on some level, but as long as the audience is sure he has a goal that makes some kind of sense to him, he can get away with his insanity (there's also the hints that he believes none of the people he kills is even real, which in a meta sense may make him hyper-sane!). I'm not above having my opinions challenged though, and would defy anyone to prove me wrong and name a memorable, iconic villain that was devoid of motive or even excuse in their own mind. |
11-15-2010, 07:18 PM | #45 |
Mad Scientist at Large
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Portland, OR
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Quote:
I was thinking more so in reference to actual people who could be considered villains,rapist,serial killers,bullies etc. Also I understand that villains real and fake has to have reasons why they do what they do,even if its simply to satify a need to hurt others. What I should have made clear was that I was mainly refering to when a villains past is revealed,they are to often depicted as some type of victim and was driven to be bad. Its kind like how women who do porn are always asked what happened in their past to make you do this,was you molested as a child,was you raped,did you not get enough attention,when in actualality most of them just enjoy it and have a different set of moral standards than most.
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11-16-2010, 10:05 AM | #46 |
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This is what I was talking about before. The motivation doesn't need to be explained. Sometimes, even, the reality of the motive is ignored in favor of projecting that villain onto one self.
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