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Aya

A story is only as good as its villain! Who are some of your favorite villains that are underrated or not as appreciated as they should be? (Note: I'm aware that many of these aren't exactly unpopular villains, I'm just saying I feel like they deserve more recognition)

Syndrome (The Incredibles): I feel like though the movie is a masterpiece, people often ignore the main villain of the story. This is just what I think, but I feel he represents toxic fan culture, basically, fans that are overly obsessed with something or someone, and when it disappoints them or don't live up to their expectations, they declare war on it and could possibly even lash violently, against the writers, actors or other fans. So, he's a metaphor, for a very problematic group of people.

Barty Crouch Jr. (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire): At number two we got Barty Crouch Jr. who disguised himself as their DADA teacher Mad-Eye Moody for an entire term. I feel like his connection with Harry is just completely ignored or pushed aside, let's not forget this dude managed to gain Harry's trust, and even his admiration, all while pretending. He even taught students, and managed to fool Albus Dumbledore himself. Barty is so badass, and his most dangerous skills aren't even his magical abilities. He fooled everyone, and convincingly taught students for entire year despite not even being a real teacher!

Jafar (Aladdin 2019): While the live action remake of Aladdin was generally liked by fans, many said that the worst part of the movie was Jafar (portrayed by Marwan Kenzari), they said he just wasn't menacing enough, and his voice sounds way too soft to be a scary villain. I agree to some point, his acting could use some work. However, I found it interesting that they would make the villain much more physically attractive than the hero, other than constantly following this: "All the good guys are beautiful, all the bad guys are ugly!" trope commonly found in fantasy films. He acts as a foil to Aladdin, they grew up in very similar circumstances and Aladdin could have turned out to be like him if he didn't have Abu, Genie and Jasmine. It's also nice that he has a backstory now, a reason to be evil. I think he's much more vile and menacing than the classic, cartoon Jafar, because this guy murdered someone by pushing them to their deaths during his first scene, and he wanted to marry Jasmine out of spite and to punish her father rather than lust and attraction (I'm not saying that's better or anything, I'm just saying it's a change), and his: "Steal an apple and you're a thief, steal a kingdom and you're a statesman." quote is pretty dark for a Disney movie, but sadly also reflects on the real world.

Ghost (Ant-Man and the Wasp): I felt like Ava Starr was totally underrated, yes she's genderbent, but I feel like that actually made her character so much more interesting. She has really cool powers, she's literally like a ghost, she phases through walls and could turn invisible, not to mention she's an assassin/spy too. I feel like she was totally wasted character that could have had so much more potential.

Ally Allston (Superman and Lois): Okay, I didn't reach the final few episodes of season 2, but I did watch some clips on it. So, I'll be judging Ally based on the first few times I've seen her in the show, and why I think that she's a villain that is not only very cunning, but someone who could be found all around us in real life too. She represents those awful, greedy people that just want to make profit out of other's suffering and sadness, she reminds of those people on the internet that reach out to people in unfortunate situations not because she genuinely wants to help, but she just wants everyone to know how kind and helpful she is, it's all just for attention and good public image. She also reminds me of people who would come to you at your lowest point, and try to take advantage of you in some way, all for their own gain. Plus, most importantly, she's very smart, she could cover her tracks, she makes depressed and mentally unstable people completely dependant on her, she does so by isolating them from others and making herself seem like Jesus or something. Not to mention, also gaslighting, using social media to target people she dislikes (usually unfairly) and gathering scandals and lies about you for blackmail.

Amber Bennett (Invincible): Well... yes, she's not exactly a villain, but as I watched the show, I felt like there were so many moments where she was completely awful, and even more unlikable than some villains, if that's possible. I know that Mark isn't the best boyfriend, and he's constantly a no-show, which would make me angry too, but even after she discovered that he's a superhero, she still gave him hell about being late or disappearing. Girl, there are people dying, the world might be destroyed, and you're mad that your boyfriend couldn't show up to your lunch date because he was too busy saving the planet? I'm disappointed, I actually started off really liking Amber, I felt like she was a cool and spunky character. Not anymore!

O-Ren Ishii (Kill Bill): Can we take a moment to appreciate how awesome Lucy Liu is? She plays an ex assassin and Yakuza boss that was downright terrifying but also very graceful and elegant. Whenever I see a list of Scariest female villains I almost never see her up there, which is very disappointing to me. Honestly, she smokes all the other female villains on the list, and not to mention she's a tough and reasonable leader for the gang, she declared that her advisors should never be afraid to ask any sort of questions, and they're allowed to disagree with her on anything, the only thing they can't talk about is her heritage.

There's definitely more than that, but these are just the ones that come to mind. I'd like to hear some of your opinions on villains!
Killmonger from Black Panther. He didn't have good methods but he brought up a lot of good points about the oppression of people who looked like them around the world.

Ratigan from The Great Mouse Detective. I know it's obscure, but I loved this movie as a child and he was clever, sadistic and insane.

Carmilla, Striga, Lenore and Morana in Castlevania. I especially liked Striga, she was powerful and spoke bluntly.
Silas from "Transformers: Prime". As a human, he gets largely overlooked in the series, but he represents the raw greed that brings out the worst in people. His desire to exploit Cybertronian technology is proof of this, and it eventually becomes his undoing.
Here are some underappreciated villains.

Roulette: Not only did this woman found "The House", which is a super villain gambling establishment, but its also used for capturing lesser known heroes and forces them to fight for the amusement of the villainous audience. Here's a woman who breaks the "I want to conquer the world" trope and just wants to make money, to get ahead in the world. All for entertainment. This has so much story potential, but sadly she's underused.

Tattooed Man: Doesn't matter which version of the character we're talking about. This guy can make any tattoo he has come to life and that makes him a threat to just about anyone. Yet, he's only used every once in a blue moon against Green Lantern and no one else. Why? He'd be a great villain for anyone he comes across, especially if those tattoos were tailor made for, say, Superman. So much potential wasted here.

ZOOM!: Imagine, if you will, you're a Cop, a profiler to be exact. When it comes to criminals, its you're job to come up with a profile on them. Then imagine you're married and outside of being a Cop, you have the perfect life. Now imagine one of you're closest friends happens to be none other than the Fastest Man Alive, the Flash. But then tragedy strikes, you're wife dies because you said the killer wouldn't have a gun based on the profile you did of him. But you were wrong, he did have a gun and he used it to kill you're wife. You beg the Flash to go back in time and save you're wife, but consistently says no. So you try doing it yourself but going on the Cosmic Treadmill, something the Flash uses to travel through time. But in the attempt, the treadmill explodes in you're face and gives you the ability to alter time all around you and make you seem as if you move even faster than the Flash himself.

That is pretty much the story of Hunter Zolomon AKA Zoom. A man who was good, but corrupted by the tragedy of his past. Now obsessed with turning the Flash into the hero he's meant to be by inflicting more tragedy upon him. A great villain that was also a great replacement for the Reverse Flash. Unfortunately, when Barry Allen returned and reclaimed the mantle of the Flash, so too did the Reverse Flash return and Zoom took a backseat as he became overshadowed by Eobard Thawne. Which is unfortunate because Zoom is such a great villain with a lot of potential.

Bizarro: Its a sad shame this villain isn't used much in the modern world of comics. Sure, he appears in Red Hood & The Outlaws on a regular basis (depending on the writer), but outside of that, he's not appearing in much else. Maybe its the backwards speech that gives the writers a headache that stops him from appearing more often. Who knows. But if this guy had normal, but broken, speech I bet he'd be easier to write and handle. Either way, Bizarro is an underappreciated villain. But perhaps "villain" is the wrong word to describe him and perhaps "misunderstood" is far more accurate. He's a tortured soul who just wanted to be Superman but tragically finds out the job is already taken. And he looks like a monster on top of it. Not only that, but some versions of the creature have all of Superman's memories. THat alone sets this guy up for being the ultimate figure of tragedy. And he's underappreciated and hardly ever used.

Maybe I should take this guy as a character, maybe then he'd get some love. >.>

Two-Face: Ever play the Arkham Games? The voice actor playing Two-Face gave a phenomenal performance. And yet, he was overshadowed by just about everyone in the game. Worse, he hasn't faired much better in the comics or movies either. The duality and conflict of his character demands more focus and yet writers seem totally uninterested in further exploration.

Prometheus: This guy is Batman's opposite in literally every way possible. Where Bruce's parents were humanitarians who wanted to help Gotham (at least, some versions of them anyway), Prometheus's parents were criminals shooting up and killing people. Whereas Bruce's parents were shot and killed by a criminal, Prometheus's parents were shot and killed by Cops. While Bruce devoted himself to training his mind and body to fight criminal scum, Prometheus did the same except he dedicated himself to taking down anyone who called themselves a "hero".

And yet, Prometheus is not appreciated very much because he's frequently taken down far too easily and tossed aside almost as if he's nothing more than "the villain of the week." Prometheus deserves better. A LOT better. There is so much unexplored potential here its not even funny. In fact, he has all the makings of being a serious threat to the entire DC universe, but he isn't. Sad.
I am going to be a little weirdo and add a anime villain.

Satana (JJBA: Battle Tendency): He was one of the Pillar Men and unfortunately one of the forgotten ones. He was a stepping "stone" (I am not going to spoil much) to the great dangers of the upcoming villains. He was taken in as an child by Kars, the creator of the Stone Masks which transformed Dio into a vampire, and was left behind in Mexico by Kars, who deemed only useful as a guard dog. As a result, Santana would be unaware of the energy called Ripple which the other Pillar Men learned and developed defenses against. He was turned into stone by the sun and his remains are kept somewhere in the Speedwagon Foundation.
Phillip from Overlord.

Not because he's threatening, but because he is entertaining. Of course, you could argue he's not a villain at all, since the main cast of Overlord are all monsters dead set on taking over the world.
Rattlesnake

The most underrated villain of all time is Rattlesnake Jake from Rango. Flawless character design, mercilessly ruthless, but also had a neat semi-redemption arc. He was freaky and scary as a kid, but when I got older I thought “****ing hell this guy is amazing!” His voice acting is perfect and he legit sounds like a snake without being cringey. 10/10 best villain I’ve seen.
I end up agreeing with villains a lot more than heroes in fiction in general, probably because they're more relatable and I more easily see myself in villains than heroes. I used to think that was because I was evil or selfish, but it's actually because a lot of stories are designed to uphold a status quo I don't agree with to begin with or because the writer accidentally makes the villain bring up a good point and "forgets" to write the part where the heroes are supposed to have a good answer.

I suppose this is my way of saying that I struggle to appreciate good villains, because that would require me to appreciate stories with allegedly good heroes, and I have rarely seen a story that frames a conflict as "good vs evil" be able to pull its weight compared to a story that frames problems as more systemic or natural. "Bad people" in good stories are rarely, if ever, the actual problem, as much as a symptom of that problem manifesting in a person.
Emet-Selch, Final Fantasy XIV, specifically Shadowbringers. Ask about him to the fandom (xivtwit especially) and you'll find out opinions of him are that he is loved or he is thoroughly reviled, no in-between. Hands down, the best written villain I've ever seen. He was made with a window for you to understand his motives, but not to excuse them.

Spoilers for FFXIV: Shadowbringers.

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He wants to kill you, the player, and return the world to its true state. You, the hero, are a piece of a piece, incomplete and a result of a sundering of the world in its true form, and by your death he is able to usher the world into its true state.

The key here is that millions must die for his old world to be restored, and you must stop it.

He is the hero of his world, and you are the villain that stands in his way.

Similarly, you are the hero of your world, and he is heralding the destruction of yours.

It's pure poetry how you clash, similar in ideals, and history will only be written by who emerges as victor. You both are right in your own way (though Emet-Selch makes it painfully clear that because you are not truly alive, that he will not be guilty of murder if he kills you, and let's not mention the millions of people he helped usher to death by way of conquest simply to bring about enough bad vibes to cause a rejoining) and that's just the beauty of it.

He was wrong is in methods, but I will take him out to dinner, propose to him in front of his husband, and divorce him the next five minutes.

And let's ignore Endwalker Emet-Selch.

Interesting idea for a thread.

I will say Emperor Georgiou from the mirror universe in Star Trek: Discovery, only because she doesn't have her own show yet (although I believe a spinoff is being contemplated).

Also the mysterious aliens from Star Trek: The Next Generation who abducted Commander Riker and others in their sleep, like a futuristic version of the typical UFO story. They debated bringing that species back in later episodes but never did because, although the plot was interesting and compelling, they decided that the costumes they had given those aliens were just too ugly. So they didn't bring them back. True story.
Aya Topic Starter

I agree with all of you, literally. And yes, a story is only as good as the villain. But unfortunately, recent stories, films, shows etc. are failing to develop actual villains that we could appreciate. It started off with one dimensional bad guys that are just bad for the sake of being bad. Then the villains that have an annoying: "I was bullied as a child, so I'm gonna be mean to everyone!" complex. Which is simply childish in my opinion, not at all any kind of villain that we could truly fear and admire. I just wanna tell em: Grow up ya big baby!

But we also have amazing villains such as the Joker, Walter White, Omni-Man, Homelander etc. Unfortunately, society has become so morally gray and so pessimistic about our own personal welfare that we choose to root for a villain. Like Jafar from Aladdin, sure he's not exactly a nice guy, but if you pay attention to the actual city of Aghraba, you'll notice that this whole entire time, it was Jafar that was running things, not the Sultan, so he is definitely the right person to sit on the throne. Princess Jasmine legit doesn't even know what money is, and she wants to run a kingdom?? I mean, who is better at running a country? An experienced statesman or a little girl that doesn't know anything about anything? I'm not saying Jafar is a good person, but from what we've seen in the movies, he does seem better at ruling a country than Jasmine. Imagine you're running a country, you have no personal life, you've dedicated everything to the throne, you're not afraid to get your hands dirty.... then some spoiled brat who's never even left the palace and doesn't know how money works starts wagging her finger at you as if she'd be better at your job than you.

And Joaquin Phoenix's Joker is absolutely one of my all time favorite villains and favorite portrayals of the Joker. He represents all of us, every single person that is being beaten and broken by the world, it just takes one bad day for any of us to become the Joker. The movie also emphasizes that if you don't get proper help or surround yourself with people who want to support and uplift you, you could go down a terrible path.

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