What makes for a good villain?

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

Zoraal I think could've been good, but Dawntrail followed the same issue as Endwalker in that it feels like they tried to deliver way too much in too short of a timespan.. Like it felt that by the time you started to care, is when they were just about getting ready to terminate the character.... Dawntrail would've been a lot better if they just skipped the whole rite of succession arc entirely.

I think for me to be interested.. I think they need to consider having us as the villain... Not intentionally... But by just pure circumstance.. Have us nerfed in a way that makes everything feel impactful going forward... Part of Shadowbringers being as good as it was is because there was that sense of helplessness which they were slowly teasing until Rak Tika - Innocence ... Give a break from this "new bad guy wants to end or conquer the world" ... This is kind of why Zenos was (even if I HATED him) a bit of fresh air... Man was just in it for the thrill of strong opponent..

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Zoraal def had potential before his reveal. But to play the devil advocate a bit here I was approaching DT with the mindset of going on a vacation since that's what YoshiP said. So once I realised what kind of position Zoraal Ja held it became clear that ok we're not looking for another world ending villain here just yet.

It could be interesting to see us be villanized in some way, there's however hardly any real leverage there unless they lean on the aspect of us shutting down the memories in Living Memory.
It could be great to see if there's like an actual moment of disagreement within Aldenard whether or not that was a good choice or not.

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Originally Posted by Kirutsuki

Zoraal def had potential before his reveal. But to play the devil advocate a bit here I was approaching DT with the mindset of going on a vacation since that's what YoshiP said. So once I realised what kind of position Zoraal Ja held it became clear that ok we're not looking for another world ending villain here just yet.

It could be interesting to see us be villanized in some way, there's however hardly any real leverage there unless they lean on the aspect of us shutting down the memories in Living Memory.
It could be great to see if there's like an actual moment of disagreement within Aldenard whether or not that was a good choice or not.

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Something minor that bugged me about how he was handled was that there were a couple of points where Krile apparently had an Echo vision that gave her a glimpse into his mind, but we obviously never saw it, she never explained what she saw, and we just got her commentary to herself on how horribly evil and cruel he was. I know that her Echo is more strongly tuned toward transcending the boundaries between souls, but the crux of it is that we weren't allowed to judge him for ourselves, and it felt like it was just the writers telling us how we as players were supposed to view him. Given that the first occurrence of this was before the Rite even formally began, everything else with him just became a matter of waiting for the mask to finally come off so that we could get it over with.

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Originally Posted by Deejudanne

look at thanos for example a perfect example of a good "villain" from the peoples perspective he's this evil giant but from his perspective he's saving the world, gotta have some depth and not just "guy is evil for the sake of being evil

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Originally Posted by Daralii

"Evil for evil's sake" antagonists can be good, but they need to either be so over the top or insane that it's fun or feel like a genuinely insurmountable threat.

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It all depends on relatability really. You can have both of these as long as there's a reason to be invested in the character. I don't think that people would care much about Thanos if he was not already teased in Avenger's 1.
And I don't think someone like Joker who's generally portrayed as being evil for the sake of evil; would be a great villain unless he had a certain type of backstory that you are interested in.

You need to have those attachments for you to get invested in whatever type of evil doer it is.

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Originally Posted by RedLolly

It's already a vastly better start to developing a character than who was our big bad in base DT. We have backstory, motivation, personality, and quirks. Calyx makes sense already.

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Will see where it leads, cause it honestly could go any way possible. He could very well meet his end in 7.55 and we're again wondering what the next evil thing is.
It's really difficult for me cause I don't particularly like Calyx right now, he's ok, but it would 100% take a lot for him to be an actually interesting villain, simply because his backstory and who his is right now isn't all that interesting.

So however much they add to him, his backstory will probably stay relatively the same as just a smart kid from the past. And especially since nothing from his past is something we as players can relate to cause he's from another reflection.
The only option is for him to somehow grow as a character by either experiencing stuff outside of his world or experiencing something happening to him and that would take such a long time that I think Calyx would have to stay as this background character
for a full expansion atleast who's just visiting places and getting his ass whooped or something.

As much as I dislike Zoraal Ja, he at least had the decency to stay dead after we were done with him.
The moment in 7.3 when they gave boring anime nerd kid the Asahi treatment - only a few minutes after we wiped that stupid grin from his face - was when I finally gave up on DT. Been there, done that - not doing it again.

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Originally Posted by Kirutsuki

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Final Fantasy has already pulled off an Evil for Evil's sake villain that matches the standard set here; Kefka Palazzo.

He's an over the top weirdo meant to look and act like the court jester despite being an army general, but he's also an open sadist that takes delight in what he does. He chews up the scenery whenever he comes up. But then half way through the story of FFVI, he wins. The heroes are defeated. He destroys the world and achieved godhood. So, the entire second half of FFVI is trying to find any of your remaining allies in the newly ravaged world and hope you can defeat this evil god made from a cackling psychopath in clown make-up.


And, Kefka's really popular! He's often put up as a fan favorite in FF but also with fans of JRPGs in general. He's *fun* in a way that's terribly difficult to nail.

https://youtu.be/EtRc4egv4-k?si=V4y-KSi7RTOHV03h A killer breakdown if you aren't familiar.

The question this makes me think of is, ‘is it the villain that’s good or the writing?’

Like, look at the more famous FF villains like Kefka and Sephiroth. Their character and backstory could easily become more comical than interesting (magic clown and magic alien man with katana lol) in the wrong hands. But I think, the way they’re written and how the characters are situated within those contexts ‘make it work’ basically. We see things throughout the plot that gives the characters some depth beyond ‘just an evil guy’ like the reason for Kefka’s madness or the truth behind Sephiroth’s identity/origins.

I guess what I’m saying is that I think it’s less about having a ‘good’ villain and more having ‘good writing/worldbuilding/context/etc’. Even a villain that draws heavily on well-known tropes can be executed properly if written well (and the situation/plot calls for such an adversary)

The sassy immortal goth guy that teleports around and stalks you while posing as an enemy politician who actually wants you to win had already been done in FFXV.

A good villain is someone who does the wrong things - wrong from your perspective, not necessarily objectively wrong - for either the right reasons, or misguided reasons. Someone who has a strong set of moral values and follows them through, who's willing to endure and sacrifice things dear to them, even themselves, for these goals. Someone who's goals are opposed to yours, but still understandable. Someone who is, in many ways, a mirror of you.

In another world, another time, this person could be an ally. They could be your friend. Maybe they even were your friend.

They're Londo Mollari from Babylon 5, Dagoth Ur from Morrowind, Katrina from Quest for Glory IV, Thrawn from Star Wars.

he/she has to be hot