<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>And by pathetic, I don't mean villians that just suck, but rather villians that you're supposed to feel sympathetic toward. Earlier today I was arguing with someone over Fate Stay Night and I was told you're supposed to sympathize with Sakura because she was abused and sexually molested as a child and no one ever helped her, so even though she tried to open the gate to hell which would result the death of a bizillion people on top of the tons she has already killed while trying to open the gate, it is somehow meant to be forgiven because of her past. And then I realized that F/SN is hardly alone in this kind of characterization. I think ever since Sephiroth in FF7 (who is responsible for way too many trends), RPGs, and indeed games, have leaned toward 'villians with a sad past'. Now there's nothing wrong with villians being more than just a being of absolute evil, but what annoys me is when games try to make it sound like you're supposed to sympathsize with someone trying to become a god or whatever because he didn't have candy when he was a little kid. Villian is someone you're supposed to hate. In what can only be described as a shallow attempt to add depth, we have the pathetic villian archtype born, and I really hate it. I want my villian to be hated. When you see Sephiroth kill Aeris you shouldn't be thinking 'well he was lied to about Jenova and everything I'm sure he has his reasons for what he did.' It's supposed to be a relief when the villian falls, not regret. It's fine for villians to have sob stories. My favorite one, Ilya, has enough messed up childhood sob stories to fill 3 RPGs, but she never attempts to pull the 'I was messed up so I can be bad' card. That is something that's truly missing in most villians I know of. Aside from the truly evil who just exists to be evil, it's almost as if villians need to pled child abuse or similar factors to justify their actions. Why? Evil should be evil just for evil's sake.
Actually, I'm reminded of Maria Balthasar in Xenogears, even though she's clearly a hero. She always talks about how she's the black wings of death to Solaris, and obviously it made no difference to her that maybe not all of Solaris is evil. Why can't villians have that kind of pride or attitude? Some villians try to do that but they borderline more on being honorable instead, and a villian that is too 'honorable' really isn't a villian at all. Generally such villians invariably gets defeated by you and end up giving you some powerful item and/or information, which makes you wonder why the said villian didn't just help you to begin with. Maybe they're still under contract to be evil?
On another note, it wouldn't hurt if villians have some class after you thwart their evil plan of whatever. I mean I don't expect them to congratulate you or anything but seriously, spare the 'how did I lose I was God!' or any equivalent of such speech. It's like every villian has their home hard-wired for self-destruct immediately after they go on a tantrum about how it's impossible for someone with their power to lose (and yet they're thoughtful enough to leave self-destruct devices!) before blowing everything up. Can we have a villian who just dies in peace?</div>
Actually, I'm reminded of Maria Balthasar in Xenogears, even though she's clearly a hero. She always talks about how she's the black wings of death to Solaris, and obviously it made no difference to her that maybe not all of Solaris is evil. Why can't villians have that kind of pride or attitude? Some villians try to do that but they borderline more on being honorable instead, and a villian that is too 'honorable' really isn't a villian at all. Generally such villians invariably gets defeated by you and end up giving you some powerful item and/or information, which makes you wonder why the said villian didn't just help you to begin with. Maybe they're still under contract to be evil?
On another note, it wouldn't hurt if villians have some class after you thwart their evil plan of whatever. I mean I don't expect them to congratulate you or anything but seriously, spare the 'how did I lose I was God!' or any equivalent of such speech. It's like every villian has their home hard-wired for self-destruct immediately after they go on a tantrum about how it's impossible for someone with their power to lose (and yet they're thoughtful enough to leave self-destruct devices!) before blowing everything up. Can we have a villian who just dies in peace?</div>
