Discussion - Villains and heros.

Alright I want to know what sort of heros and villains you like! There are a number of types from the enigmatic hero with a dark past and severe Emo-itus to the Jaded hero who's only saving the princess for the chance to steal her priceless heirloom, heck, even the Almost-as-annoying-as-the-first-one hero who is good through and through.

I like smart heros and even smarter villains. I love a villain that manipulates those around him and uses them as a front until he's able to take power. I also like when they are SLIGHTLY relatable, that way you are lulled into thinking they are not AS evil as they are and maybe start to like them a little... then they kill a beloved character and you're torn between that little bit of humanity you see in them and the hatred for their deeds. Then there's the amiration of their being able to outsmart an ingenious hero the whole way, even if the deeds aren't admiable.

I like the "out forthemselves" heros. They don't care about the world, just their place in it. I like them to be smart, witty and have forethought. I also like them to be able to learn from their mistakes.

I HATE most emo heros. We don't need anymore Clouds. Seriously. I don't mind being down once in a while but JEEZE!
I hate stupid villains. I hate that they are just mindless fools that bash other's over the head and call themselves rulers. I love when the intelligent villain owns their asses though. X3

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"i have killed many in my life."
Justin.
(Quote taken out of context)

hm... well i like Heroes and Villains to be completely devoted to there cause... when each party believe that what there doing is will lead to the ultimate answer... and there willing to do anything to get there... that to me is good...

i don't hate any type of villain because they are all needed... but the one i like the least is the puppet villian... well kind of... i mean... you can always see the shadow king villain from a mile away... i'm sure it can be done and be a total surprise and not be out of the blue... but yeah... i think it's just a little too overdone

i'm tired of heroes that are so perfect that theres a constant Hallelujah corus in there wake... i also would love to see more female heroins that aren't so cold hearted they come across as manly or so voluptuous that when they turn around things get knocked over. whats wrong with a strong woman who isn't a cold hearted B*tch who can't possibly ask anyone or thing for help...

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but there's no sense crying over every mistake
you just keep on trying till you run out of cake

Hmm, I like puppet master sorts but I like it when there's a twist. Like the puppet master looks like a normal guy, he's forgettable and very few people are able to recognize him. Ir even better, he's been running around with the hero. I admit I hate the superbly obvious ones where the villain just sits on a throne and tells people what to do, not doing any of the hard work.

Oh god, the 'fairytale prince' sort of hero. Those are almost as bad as the emo hero. At least you can make fun of the 'perfect' hero.
I agree on the heroine thing, I mean jeeze, it's the guys that tend to not want to stop for directions, how come it's the women heros that are such assholes? I mean I have my fair share of antisocial females, but they know when it's time to put down their pride and they aren't assholes all the time.
Also, why can't there be a non-mary sue NORMAL heroine in popular literature? I mean, aside from a few writers (tamora pierce for example and the win) there's an epidemic of female characters that, well, are just plain old bitches with either boobs or an invisible penis.

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"i have killed many in my life."
Justin.
(Quote taken out of context)

I've seen a wide variety of characters over the course of many different books and the ones I've come to like the most are ones where your not really sure if they are a hero or villian.

For example, you have heroes fighting for causes they don't understand or believe in. And you have characters that oppose the main protagonists but turn out to not be villians at all. Or villians that side with the good guys because something more villianous comes along.

I do not like Heroes that are one dimensional, they may have a trait that is a big part of them but it can not be all there is to them. For example a hero with a tragic past should not be Emo all the time or a hero that is a savage killing machine is allowed to have intellectual/philisophical moments.

In short Heroes and Villians that are more real are better, because in real life good and evil are not clear cut. A cliche hero or villian is okay sometimes but ones that break (or mock) the archetypal mold are the best.

(if anyone wants me to elaborate on what i mean I'd be happy to. I have examples for most of these.)

Lestat.

That is all.

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"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster...when you gaze too long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes back." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Lol, Juu, YOU need to elaborate! I've only seen the movie and this is a discussion, not a "Yell the name" thread XP

Stavvy, about the villains that aren't villians, I don't really count them as villains so much as antagonists. To me villains are those with intentions the majority feel are evil. At least ones that go further than killing someone they have a grudge against or are getting revenge.
I have two "villains that aren't villains" in the first story of the Wanderer Chronicals, Aldal and Era. Aldal is a constant antagonist from the point she shows up - She wants to kill the main protagonist because they have a violent rivalry ( Aldal blames her for what happened to her and her brother and the protagnist hates Aldal because aldal and altaice replaced her ) but she's not evil. She joins with the main protaginist just long enough to kill someone else and then tries to kill the protagnist.
Era, she goes back and forth. She starts out as a protagonist, becomes an antagonist but joins with the protagonists (or rather, they join her) then is a protagnist for a while more before going off on her own again. She's not evil either.

I do like villains that are balanced, I like where you have a manslaughtering villain who has brains. I mean I think you're not going to find many that are well versed in quantum physics, but just because a character kills a whole villaige doesn't mean they should be all brawn. I DESPISE the all-brawn ones. I can't stand them. I hate moronic characters. I don't have a single idiot character because of this hatred. I have a number who are a little slow, but none that are flat out stupid. I really like my villains super intelligent.

On the note of not emo all the time, I agree. Everything in moderation. I mean a character that's constantly depressed is not interesting. It makes the other characters stand out a lot more and dammit, a secondary character should not be more fleshed out than a main character! ( Inuyasha, I'm looking at you! It's bad when a minor villain is more developed than your undevoloped, same-old same-old ass that never grows up an ounce and is exactly the same as the first episode. ) It also pisses me off when there is zero growth in a character over a long time. I mean in a short story you're not going to get a ton of growth. However when you have a sixteen year old prince traveling the globe for two years he's going to have to grow up fast or die.

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"i have killed many in my life."
Justin.
(Quote taken out of context)

indeed. One other group of heroes and villains that i am found of are the ones that embody the tired archetypes to a degree that is absurd, just so you can laugh at how stupid they are.Or they are what would happen to an archetype character if you kept following them past the borders of their tales. Mostly I'm thinking of discworld characters I'll give some good examples (mostly heroes).

1. Cohen the Barbarian: Your typicial barbarian hero...plus another seventy or eighty years. here we see a fine example of what a dose of reality can do to an overused archetype. The man is the worlds greatest hero but has unfortunaly outlived the golden age of heroism, by a lot. He is now a skinny old man with false teeth doing what he's always been doing, Hero stuff.

- "What is it that a man may call the greatest things in life?"
- "Hot water, good dentishtry and shoft lavatory paper."

-- Cohen the Barbarian in conversation with Discworld nomads (Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic)

2. Captain Carrot: Orphaned then raise among dwarfs, Carrot is you standard hero character. He is honest, just, kind, etc,etc, etc. plus he's the rightful king of Ankh Morpork which pretty much everyone seems to know except him (well there are hints that he might know but doesn't really care). His archetypal character is used to create amusing contrast with everyone else around him

3. The Igors: the name should be fairly explainatory but if you want to know more go here -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_%28Discworld%29
The Igors are a taken strait out of the horror movies and are good for a laugh due to their unusual lifestyle (for example if someone says that an Igor "has his grandfathers hands" you'd better believe it. you can probably see the stiches if you look hard enough)

My favorite hero actually has to be Garion from The Belgariad series of books...
ok so he's a whiny little naive brat who's constantly asking why me and doing stupid stuff... but you really love him... (or hate him when he describes the queen of that snake place to Ce'nedra... stupid Garion) and i can't really name another book where you get to see the growth of a hero... you know him from when he's very very young till he completes his journey in the series which i think is in his 20's somewhere... and in the secodn series you even see him having his own kid and i gave up halfway through... because the mallorean is just not as good as the belgariad....

on that same note... Torak (or Kal Torak if you wanna get all technical) is the best villain ever... i mean he's one of the gods... and he scared the hell out of me as a kid... and... it's just so well done ^^

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but there's no sense crying over every mistake
you just keep on trying till you run out of cake

Lol, That's great. I usually read more serious fiction. There's comesdy in it but nothing that blatant. XD I like a balance there, too.

I like my heros to be a little self centred but to grow. I really can't stand the ones that are all good and lovely... They've been soured in my mind because of their being so over used.

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"i have killed many in my life."
Justin.
(Quote taken out of context)

	Raichana wrote:
	i can't really name another book where you get to see the growth of a hero... you know him from when he's very very young till he completes his journey in the series which i think is in his 20's somewhere... and in the secodn series you even see him having his own kid and i gave up halfway through.

Harry Potter?

Haha.

From the first chapter, where he's only a year old, to the last chapter, where he's got his little kiddies and his wife.

Very Happy

Talk about angsty heroes, though...

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"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster...when you gaze too long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes back." - Friedrich Nietzsche

	Raichana wrote:
	on that same note... Torak (or Kal Torak if you wanna get all technical) is the best villain ever... i mean he's one of the gods... and he scared the hell out of me as a kid... and... it's just so well done ^^

Yes scary gods make good villians, but Manipulative ones make great villians! In my current favorite book series (Malazan Book of the Fallen) There are many people with godlike power, there are also gods with human like tendencies. but the Current villian of the series is a being that uses more than sheer power to accomplish his goals; This being is known only as the Crippled God, a being of great power that exists only to share it's pain with the rest of the world. He is evil, malicious, and insane; as are most of his followers. Among his evil deeds he has poisoned not only part of the earth itself with his chaotic influence but the paths of magic as well. His every gift to his servants are edged, his every blessing is also a curse. He is cruel to his followers and enemies alike.

He has also collected some powerful allies and forged some might pawns. for example:

The Crippled God had a sword made that he made sure fell into the hands of a young warrior. The warrior died with the sword in his hands but the blade could not be removed from his grip. The young warrior was prepared for burial in the traditional way of his people, with gold coins fused to his skin. It was during this process that the sword cause him to return to life, as scarred mentally as he was physically. Shortly following this event was the warriors rise to power and a conquest of a powerful neighboring kingdom. Everytime the man. now an Emperor, is killed he rises again more powerful and less sane than before.

I think i'm getting the point across, Crippled God= uber evil. I find the way he breaks and then uses his servants to be far more evil than Even Torak (Or Azash another of David Eddings evil gods).

Oooh. I am officially in love with the concept of the Cripple God. What's the name of the author so I can put it on my christmas list?

I like uber god villains, but I like something that the goodguys can fight against. There are only two or three god-like characters in Amarantha ( Shalon, Juu and Anima'Due - the last one is tentative and they are all finite beings ) so there's little room for a villain god. I would have to make a god-like hero to combat them or a crippling weakness which would really annoy me. I make the villains for the story, not the other way around.
However, I'd love to read some super-well done uber villains.

I like humble heros. Not the humble knight sort (though I don't dislike them if done proper) but some similar ones.
I also like heroes that don't think of themselves as heroes. That or the ones that do and try to live up to the title (failing in their own minds for a while) are some interesting sorts.

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"i have killed many in my life."
Justin.
(Quote taken out of context)

The author is Steven Erikson,The first book in the series is Gardens of the Moon. The Crippled God is introduce in the third book, Memories of Ice, if I recall.

A lot of the characters in the series would fit your "heroes who don't think of themselves as heroes" discriptions.

one of the other things about Eriksons books that you might like is that Gods and Acendants (like gods but without worshipers) are not invincible. They can be hurt or killed, even by mortals.

Oooh~ That'll rock!

>.> I'm going to have a lot of books on my christmas list.

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"i have killed many in my life."
Justin.
(Quote taken out of context)

well that series has seven books so far, so if you add the entire series your going to have a ton of books on your list. it's worth it though.