Candidates for the Villains HALL of LAME!

[seawasp]

In various discussions of anime, Kathy and I have come to the conclusion that there are certain villains who are, not to put too fine a point on it, just plain LAME.

We're not talking about the villain who Monologues Too Much, or is Overdramatic, or who may have failed to read any of the Evil Overlord list, we're talking about villains who simply fail at being interesting AS VILLAINS, and yet are held up either by a contingent of fans, or by the creators of the series, as someone that we somehow SHOULD be interested in seeing. The creators of course demonstrate this belief by shoving the villain in our faces FAR too often.

Currently we have three top contenders for this type of villain and are (mildly) interested in hearing about others.

#1) Sasuke, from Naruto/Naruto Shippuden. Here's a guy who Could Have Had It all. Despite being a total angsty dickwad because of his Shameful Past, he happens to get teamed with a girl who goes gaga over him and a guy who's got an even WORSE secret -- and who somehow manages to not only see the sunny side, but ends up being friends with him, angstness and all. So instead of turning to his friends or anything else, he sells his soul to the next closest thing to Satan, maintains his "I'm such an angsty dark antihero" attitude, and doesn't develop much more in the way of a personality for the next umpty-ump volumes of the manga. When it turns out that what he THOUGHT was true about his family... wasn't, instead of saying "Ooops, maybe I need to rethink things", he decides to continue along and do what Mr. Evil wanted anyway. Still without developing any personality other than "Dark haired, brooding, angsty". God we're getting tired of seeing Sas-sucky. All he needs to do is get hit with a cluebat, but no one seems willing to give him one. He even has the example of Sociopath Gone Responsible Gaara to show him where he's going wrong, but refuses to see.

#2) Anakin Skywalker, AKA Darth Lamer. It's amazing how much he has in common with Sasuke. Both of them end up serving the Big Really Smart and Really Cool Evil Guy, both of them spend most of their time looking angsty (and get darker makeup when they Join Evil's Clubhouse), both of them have almost no justification for their actual Turning Dark, and both of them are lame, lame, LAME. Syndrome would mock them both, and Mr. Incredible would be right there with him.

#3) Envy, Fullmetal Alchemist. No matter how you slice him, he comes up lame. Superpowers, nasty, but a sort of sniggery little schoolboy nasty. He's got no majesty, he's got no style, he's got nothing except nastiness. He whines like a schoolgirl when things don't go his way, he's a coward, and he can't even manage a little COOL.

Any other candidates for the Hall of LAME?

Comments

[ross-teneyck.livejournal.com]

I remember at one point noticing that the villains of a lot of JRPGs have some variation of this motivation:

"Once upon a time my feelings got hurt; now I will DESTROY ALL OF CREATION so that NOBODY will ever experience pain EVER AGAIN!"

Naturally, I am now blanking on specific examples. But still: lame.

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

Lex Luthor. Never mind the lame reason for his vendetta against Supes (gee, you're bald? Buy a wig, loser!) let's just revel in the fact that this supposed super genius never really twigged that coming directly at Superman was doomed to failure, as Supes was a God incarnate. I think I've seen three stories where Lex acts intelligently and actually plots a way to get Superman out of the way.

[denelian.livejournal.com]

i don't know if this counts or not, because they were *supposed* to be a joke - but the "Evil Trio" from Buffy season 6.
why were they evil? well, one was evil bcuz Buffy found out that he made a robot, that was supposed to be like his ex-girlfriend, in Season 5. one was mad that Buffy found out and broke a spell that made him "the coolest" in season 4 (i think). i don't remember why the 3rd was there. and they actually had the "evil overlord" list...

[xander-opal.livejournal.com]

Megatron, for not shooting his overly trusted second-in-command in the head, repeatedly.

Still trying to decide whether StarScream was an Autobot provocateur, or just plain stupid. The good guys were seldom the reason Megatron's plans failed-- it was always StarScream's fault!

Mind, I'm referring to the cartoons. Be nice if someone made a live-action Transformers movie. Ow, I bit my tongue there...

[salkryn.livejournal.com]

As far as Envy is concerned, the one-dimensional personality of his character is kind of the point. In the manga at least, the Homunculi's names are quite literal descriptors of what they are. You would expect the physical manifestation of Envy to be a vicious, whiny little sumbitch, and Envy delivers it in a way that makes you want to watch him die SLOWLY. In the anime, however, he is just a whiny little bitch. Also, it's good to hear such a wonderful summary of why Emosuke is such a pathetic little wanker. I was tired of that asshole before he went evil.

[guy-jin.livejournal.com]

My nomination is for Sephiroth. No good reason is ever established for his evilness; he's just a sociopath.

[cordova829.livejournal.com]

The Anointed One from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Consider this for a moment. He was supposed to lead the Slayer to her death. Check. Then what? Well, apparently Mini Evil Lame-o never heard of CPR nor did he think the Master really was kind of lame. He had the creepy factor working for him, true, but the Anointed One really never showed any sort of true villainy that would be associated with evil. I mean, it's not like Buffy was the first (or as proven later, last) Slayer. Oh boy, you killed a Slayer. Brav-o! Now you just need to wait for the next hero to come along and slay you. Good planning, junior.

Of course, I think Whedon was still feeling his roots out and more than made up for it with Spike. Then when Spike went ga-ga, he came up with the Mayor, who was the epitome of cool villains.

[sorek.livejournal.com]

"Syndrome would mock (Vader)"

Right up to the point where Vader would find his lack of tact...disturbing and force-chock Syndrome so he couldn't breath, let alone talk.

Besides I think Syndrome would like Vader, big black cape, scary tech voice and chest piece.

I also think we need to separate first three movie Vader from second three movie Vader. "Eps 4-6 trilogy" Vader, hall of fame. "Eps 1-3 trilogy Ani/Vader" hall of lame.

[qinshihuangdi.livejournal.com]

1) In fairness, it is possible that 'Mr. Evil'* has an ability to do deep mental work on a susceptible subject without being very noticable. Sasuke ending up a broken tool would also fit the whole 'human cost of the ninja system' theme of the series. It is clear that he is not a rational actor, and a lot of the stuff involving him seems pretty useless. Maybe he is just a MacGuffin at the moment. I'm holding off judgement until the manga finishes, or at least the current plot arc ends. Maybe I am excessively charitable.

2) I quit Star Wars after buying the SW III novel and soundtrack, after reading the novel, before watching the movie or listening to the soundtrack for entirely different reasons, but I see where you are coming from.

3) Do not have enough data to judge.

My suggestion would be Light/Kira from DeathNote. I hate him, and think the author cheats in his favor. To expand on this, I think that someone who genuinely was able to pull off the schemes he did (justified in story by his supposed genius), would be able to see the flaws in his methodology that I could. Or at least some of them, others were more dependent on my knowledge of how other parts of the world are very different from Japan and Tokyo, and of the cussedness of Americans. Then they string out the whole series around tracking him down, which shouldn't have taken as long because he was a crazy idiot.

*I'm grabbing this for a fic.

[coldservings.livejournal.com]

From Superman comics: Toyman.

Batman generally has a lot cooler Rogues Gallery than most superheroes (being more "psychological" than super if you know what I mean) but Calendar Man? Lamelamelamelamelame.

Harry Osborne from Spider Man II. What a whiner.

Simon Gruber (Die Hard 3 "With a Vengence.")

Boba Fett: Supposed to be this master bounty hunter and the one bounty he gets he doesn't even capture--it's handed to him. And then he gets accidentally (not even on purpose) knocked into the critter in the desert. Lame.

Velociraptors: Built up as these unholy engines of death and they're taken down (at least temporarily) by two kids in a kitchen.

That should do for now.