It's boring and toothless to make villains "well intentioned extremists" or "good guys deep down but troubled" or any other variation. There is essentially one main problem with this type of character, and it's expressed on a spectrum. At one end of the spectrum, they are too villainous, making any notion of grayness or redemption laughable or insulting to the audience. At the other end, they don't do enough villainous things to warrant their status as a villain, so you can't take them seriously. In most cases, these characters fall somewhere in the middle. Theoretically that should make them more balanced, but instead the archetype is just massively overdone. It has become predictable and boring because so many writers use the formula as a crutch to make the character "interesting" instead of giving the characters something actually interesting about them. If you're going to have a villain, you can make them interesting without resorting to this cheap tactic, and if you really want morally gray characters you don't need to bother framing the story as heroes vs villains.
>>47467normies want mid wit slop and the Market must provide.
you know, people who read real books don't start autistic arguments like these.
If you are going to critique, give specific examples.
>>47467It's because the taste-makers in media have been pushing the idea that the highest form of art is some kind of character drama, and consequently the more character-driven a story is, the better it is. Consequently, your villain not really being a character, but a plot device is "bad writing."
I forget the specifics, but isn’t Ganondorf fighting an anti-colonial struggle and his only flaw is becoming the same kind of Tyrant he fought against?
good writers don't make use of "tricks", they tailor the characters to what the overall work needs to be, which is a question that needs to be answered on multiple levels (what are the implications of the antagonist's triumph or defeat? what do they represent? in what ways does the antagonist guide the story? what effect do they have on the arc of the protagonists?). only incidentally does this result in grey-and-grey or black-and-white or whatever-else morality.
>but i'm not talking about good writers
then the thing you're talking about would have been shit anyway.
>>47542>but isn’t Ganondorf fighting an anti-colonial struggleNo, he's a despotic warlord from the east who hates Hyrule's freedoms. The closest he gets to a clear motive is in Wind Waker, but he still does nothing good. He's not a particularly good example of a well written villain, but he makes for a great example of a villain who makes no sense to redeem.
I don't respect the "Villain" as a concept.
>>47571I mean I feel like the games imply that his role in events is basically a historical constant like Link and Zelda, so he doesn't really need to have strong motivations, it's like saying "why does Link simp for Zelda", because he wouldn't be Link otherwise
>>47573that's if you take Skyward Sword prophecy and ending at face value,where their bloodlines are cursed to be revived and fight again
>>47467this bait might take off more on twitter js
>>47467even the works of Homer have morally gray villains. It's a trope as old as the written language.
Villains are the trope actually. An antagonist does not need to be le heckin bad, they're just an obstacle to the protagonist. You're too Marvel/videogame/abrahamic brainrotten.
>>47612good point, here, have an upvote.
>>47611Good and evil was not yet a literary device in Homer.
There were no "villains" per se.
The idea of a villain is in the personification of evil (e.g. the devil), which is a later cultural product, such as Mara or Satan.
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wind waker ganondorf
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