Keeping Villains Around: Some Examples Which Worked

[selenak]

For me, that is. These things are extremely subjective.

Villains usually come with an inbuilt expiration date when we're talking about tv shows. Especially if their objective is to destroy the hero; they can try only so often before losing all credibility as a genuine threat. Also, if you compensate by letting them destroy everyone else but the

Comments

[wee_warrior]

It strikes me that Ben Linus is well on the way to becoming a multi-season villain who is "the hero of his own story," and can therefore stick around until the end of the show.

I'd argue that he has been exactly that since The Man Behind The Curtain at least, and in Season 4 he is only ever the ambivalent "good" guy. (Not least because Widmore is the unambiguous bad guy, whose one redeeming quality it seems to be that he has a nice daughter.)

[selenak]

I'm still very impressed by the way Joss Whedon never gave into the temptation to bring back either Angelus or The Mayor (two of the best TV villains ever, IMO) while he was the showrunner on BtVS. Given their popularity, and the fact that DB was still available in various ways until S5, I'm surprised (and grateful) that Angelus's screentime, in particular, was limited. And I'm grateful *because* I enjoyed him so much. I think that bringing him back would eventually have led to storylines that diminished the impact of landmark scenes like Miss Jenny's death. Oh, agreed entirely. I mean, I loved the Mayor showing up in Faith's dream in s4, and the First Evil choosing the Mayor to look as when talking to Faith in s7, because that made sense given their relationship, but I'd never have wanted an actual return of the Mayor. As for Angelus, flashbacks aside, I think it was wise not to bring him back on BTVS at all and on AtS only in season 4, not earlier, and even then just in a few episodes, not as the Big Bad but a secondary threat and a

[greenpear]

I've got all of Farscape but haven't gotten to it yet. I know - I know. It's a good show and I should be ashamed for not having gotten to it yet.

Good view of what makes a villain more than a one-note character. I always thought Bester was one of the best villains ever created. He never really got old. There was always a new facet begin opened up somewhere.

One show that took the one-dimensional villain and gave him some depth was the Sci-Fi channels' Flash Gordan. Ming was so much the "Must Destroy Flash" but the show actually made him a much better character. He was also not displayed as incompetent and petty or going against the "100 things I wouldn't do if I were an evil overlord"

[selenak]

Well, Farscape doesn't go anywhere. *g* But it's really worth watching, though the first season is a bit shaky. Just stick with it, and you'll have a great time watching.

The two versions of Flash Gordon I'm familiar with are the old black and white serials and the Dino de Laurentiis movie. Is there a third one?

[greenpear]

The Sci-Fi channel here in the states did one season a year or two ago. It's campy but fun. And like I said Ming isn't a complete idiot. You should be able to find it somewhere. If for nothing else it will give you a good laugh...

[wee_warrior]

Interesting thoughts!

It's fascinating to me, since I hardly ever like villains, and those I like are usually either of the "bad, but more" (Ben Linus, Baltar) or the "gets redemptive death, and is probably dark grey, anyway" sort (Crais, Damar, and I would actually add Jack Bristow here). I also have a soft spot for evil minions, like Mr. Morden, but I don't think that sort usually gets redeemed, anyway.

[selenak]

Oh, Morden was fun - for what he was. And he got written out at the right time. Can you imagine a network reasoning "hm, Ed Wasser looks great in that suit, why not keep him, redeem him and give him a love story with Ivanova?"

(There is a Woobie!Morden showing up in one of the novels. We shall not speak of it. Bah.)

[wee_warrior]

There is a Woobie!Morden showing up in one of the novels.

*headdesk*

At least in this case I'd think the role was much too small for any network exec to say "hey, let's keep him!" Although it would have been fun to see what JMS would have done to him, given what happened to that poor heroic fighter pilot in Season 2.

[selenak]

Woobie!Morden shows up in the novel The Shadow Within, where the tale of the Icarus expedition is told, and it turns out he did it all for his dead and lost family and some hope the Shadows would return them to him.

This moved from being an annoyance to being a challenge when I participated in a B5 ficathon and got the prompt “Anna/Morden, something that’s both fucked up and includes Morden’s family in some way, be it as a comment or a reason for his actions”. Now, for one thing, I was absolutely unwilling to write Woobie!Morden from the novel, and for another, Anna/Morden while she was being used by the Shadows would have skeeved me out because NO FREEDOM OF CONSENT (which presumably wasn't what the prompter had meant by "fucked up"). However, I'm happy to report I came up with a scenario that managed to satisfy the prompt without making me write Woobie!Morden. *is still smug about that particular rabbit out of the hat* It's here.

[skipthedemon]

Ooh, nifty essay. Question - how does the Master of Doctor Who sort of work, despite hitting every bad cliche in this essay? Is it because it is so clearly *very* personal between them that we all go along with it? The exception that proves the rule?

Or am I just a delusional fangirl?

[kalypso_v]

Isn't the point about the Master that he's really out to impress/upset the Doctor, rather than kill him? There's that scene where the Delgado Master finds the Doctor in a bad way, and seems quite anxious as he fusses over him until the Doctor regains consciousness.

[selenak]

The former two, I'd say. And the Master doesn't always work. I had the misfortune of first seeing him in the TV movie of doom (and Roberts!Master really is the worst of the lot, though there is competition with Crispy!Master from The Deadly Assassin), and thought, what a lousy, lousy villain. Then I saw him as Ainley in Survival and got something of the connection with the Doctor and the slashiness, but still couldn't see much reason for the popularity. THEN I saw my first Delgado and Three serial, and by Jove, I got it completely - both the love for the Master and why he was brought back so many times. But leaving aside that his first on screen incarnation was so damn charming, what makes the character sort of work is that a) his goal isn't really "kill the hero" (not when in the second Master serial ever shown on tv, he totally panicks when the Doctor has a heart attack, and does his best to save his life), it's to continue the game, possibly to win, but most of all to make sure nobody gets the same amount of attention from the hero

[penknife]

I think this similar to the reasons Magneto so often makes a good recurring villain (although heaven knows he gets his share of bad writing) -- because most of the time, he doesn't want to destroy Xavier and the X-Men, he just wants to achieve his own agenda (which is, granted, often violently antisocial) while proving to Charles and the X-Men that he's right.

But, yeah, enemy relationships where you can envision either the hero or the villain stopping in the middle of a battle to freak out over actual injury to his enemy and attempt to save his life are their own special category anyway. (And I think often read as slashy, no matter what the canon creator's intent, because screwed-up romantic love often seems to be a more understandable explanation for this behavior than any kind of normal state of either friendship or animosity.)

[lizamanynames]

WORD!

Also: how *NOT* to deal with this problem: ALIAS. *snarls*

[nomadicwriter]

Oh, I think Alias did it fantastically well... In seasons three and four. Then they apparently realised five episodes from the end that they needed somebody to play the role of ultimate big bad and ran over four years of established characterisation with a crunch you could hear from space. (Seriously. When you kick off your series-ending "return to the dark side" arc with a death scene SO BAD that Ron Rifkin is unable to make his acting look convincing, there are no words for how badly you've screwed up.)

[lizamanynames]

Sorry, yes, that is what I was referring to. Season four remains my favourite - someday I'll figure out a way to reconcile S5, but mostly I try to forget it happened.

[nomadicwriter]

Yeah. I just wrote fic to try and reconcile it. (I'm a new convert and only finished watching a few weeks ago, though I was fully spoiled for how the ending went down. I think "30 Seconds" was possibly even worse than I was warned.)