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Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
For me, it would be GLaDOS.
Portal 2 spoiler
She deleted the one remaining human part of herself because it was just too much to deal with. She releases you at the end of Portal 2 as a path of least resistance measure because "killing you is hard."
What about you, what is your favorite media villain?
Final Fantasy XIV has some good ones. The most signature would be Emet Selch, from Shadowbringers. The big challenge on his part was that the "Ascians" were seen as these cringey, Kingdom Hearts-style grimdark villains for a long time, and Shadowbringers had the challenge of turning them into complex characters.
His voice actor, René Zagger, isn't even known for much more than that role and he plays it very well - achieving both jesting Kafka-esque mocking and jesting, as well as earnest, righteously-driven rage.
Another one, I'll only refer to as The Mastermind, from Ace Attorney Investigations 2. The whole game structures its 5 cases towards that pinpoint much better than you'd realize, while still telling a great story up until then. The Mastermind themselves acts in a somewhat melodramatic way before you identify them, but has some appreciable complexities to them that add to the character journey Edgeworth is getting in that game.
Sneaky, invasive advertising.
Your favourite media villain
Easy answer: Rupert Murdoch
Australia's most embarrassing export
Followed by Ken Hamm
And Nicole Kidman is awful, she's friends with Murdoch
Shigaraki Tomura, Boku no Hero Academia.
For starters, he’s this regular emo kid (about 19-20), except he’s got like a dozen disembodied hands grasping him from his torso and arms to his head and face.
The reason for the hands is pretty bizarre. Spoilers for the second half of season 5:
Tap for spoiler
He killed his whole family, including his sister, parents, and grandparents, and was adopted by the world’s greatest villain, who preserved the hands and attached them to him to remind him where he came from.
Oh, his super power? “Decay.” Anything he lays all five fingers on turns to ash. It’s as awesome and terrible as it sounds. What’s worse? Final season spoilers:
Tap for spoiler
Decay wasn’t originally his power. The greatest villain can steal and give out powers. He actually took Shigaraki’s original power and replaced it with Decay. He set him up for failure and then adopted him to turn him into a monster.
The author, Horikoshi Kohei, is a huge Star Wars nerd. If Shigaraki Tomura sounds like “anime Darth Vader,” that’s intentional. Except when “anime Luke Skywalker” tried to turn him back to good, final season spoilers:
Tap for spoiler
It doesn’t work. Shigaraki tells Midoriya he’s too far gone and gives him a message to tell his best friend, another, minor, villain he played League of Legends with — I’m not kidding, they drop that name — and Midoriya delivers the message. Which is basically that right up to the end, he wanted to destroy everything. The message has the intended effect of showing the younger man that he was wrong.
And the kicker? Minor season 5 spoiler:
Tap for spoiler
Shigaraki Tomura wasn’t even his name. Shigaraki was the family name of the villain who adopted him. His birth name was Shimura Tenko — he was also the grandson of Midoriya’s mentor’s mentor.
Note that all names use the Japanese naming convention of giving the family name before the given name (e.g. “Lincoln Abraham”), and the show is known outside of Japan as My Hero Academia.
Edit: I also like GLaDOS. YSK she’s also in Cyberpunk 2077, if only in spirit. Ellen McLain reprises her role and reuses some lines while voicing a psychotic robotaxi. I assume, with permission from Valve (who probably loved the cameo).
Genuinely the scariest movie villain
It has to be this way.
Time to watch that Videogame Dunkey explainer again
The dlc variant of him is insanely difficult
I'm going to pick a slightly more obscure one: Kane from Command & Conquer.
Obscure? I think every gamer in my age group (Xennials) knows the leader of NOD.
Catherine Foundling, the Protagonist of A Practical Guide to Evil.
But I don't know if this counts. Catherine has only the best intentions and many Heros are kinda Dicks in PGtE. She definitely causes a lot of (what she considers) necessary suffering to end unnecessary suffering. And in-universe she undeniably is a Villain, but as the villain protagonist it's hard to argue that she's on the same page as villain antagonists.
I like the black knight from the same work.
None of it is earned. It is handed to them, and this offends me.”
“You asked me what I want,” Black said. “This once, just this once, I want us to win.”
The smile across his face was a cutting, vicious thing.
“To spit in the eyes of the Hashmallim. To trample the pride of all those glorious, righteous princes. To scatter their wizards and make their oracles liars. Just to prove that it can be done.”
There was something his eyes burning like coals and embers.
“So that five hundred years from now, a band of heroes shiver in the dark of night. Because they know that no matter how powerful their sword or righteous their cause, there was once a time it wasn’t enough. That even victories ordained by the Heavens can broken by the will of men.”
Oh yeah! Soooo many of the things that make Cat cool she learned as the Squire to the Black Knight. I love his worldview, his genre-savy and blunt pragmatism.
His little speech of why he chose Catherine over Akua is just Chef's kiss
I chose you Catherine Foundling, because I remember what it's like... that feeling in your stomach when you look at the world around you and you know you could do better.
The things Heiress knows, you can learn. Will learn.
But that indignation you have boiling under your skin?
That is not something that can be taught.
And that is exactly why, when the time comes... you will beat her.
Andrew Scott as Moriarty he was so fun
I've always been fond of Magneto. He's a dick about it, but I see where he's coming from.
An old one, but the Emperor from Gladiator. His death is among the most satisfying in movie history. Absolutely amazing performance by Joaquin Phoenix.
I just watched gladiator to show the kid for the first time and for me it was the first time in 20 years, he was wonderful. I then watched "space camp" a few days ago which id never seen and Phoenix's 11-year+old face jumped out of that.
Showing the kid "Sneakers" now, and the kid was blown away Phoenix had a brother (River) who was also an actor.
Abijah Fowler from Blue Eye Samurai, one of the only four white men in Japan who might be the father of the protagonist. He's one of the few who manage to challenge the protagonist in combat, but you're not just watching for that. The dialogue for the show is top notch, but any time he comes up you know you're in for a treat. My favorite is still "Are you--still alive? Why?", but here's a reasonably spoiler-free scene.
Donald Trump?
/j
Ketheric Thorm from Baldurs Gate 3. He has one of the coolest character introductions ever. Honestly I felt kind of bad for him learning his story. Also JK Simmons is one of my favorite actors.
"Try again" axe drop
Biff Tannen, because we should have seen the signs.
OP asked for media villain, not real life…
Joe Morden in Babylon 5. I do not know much about the actor, but he was cast perfectly.
Or Bester. Koenig did a great job of making that character hateable.
Truthfully, while i thought he was a great villain, i think Bester was even better. Walter Koenig played him perfectly. But, the main thing that made him better was his complexity. He believed he was doing the right thing even when hunting down his fellow telepaths, and on some occasions, he was right, and rogue telepaths were a threat. So, sometimes Bester was in the wrong, and sometimes he was right, which in my opinion made him a better villain than one who is always evil.
JMS (or his casting director) really did make some excellent casting choices, didn't he?
Here are the test results: You're a horrible person. That's what it says. A horrible person. We weren't even testing for that.
Oh, it's you. It's been a looong time; how have you been? I've been really busy being DEAD. You know? After you murdered me? Look, we both said a lot of things you're going to regret, but I think we can put our differences behind us. For science. You monster.
I find... we'll just say "the villain" of Undertale compelling, but it's one of my favorite games so I'm a little biased.
emm, actually, that's from half life 2!
