Villain clichés I can't get enough of

Continuing the villain cliché theme of the last post, here are some villain clichés I won't get tired of in a hurry. This is not a complete list by any means. To be honest, I'm a sucker for villain clichés, starting with the typical villain look (pale, thin, icy eyes, sharp features). These clichés are just a few of my favourites I can name from the top of my head. If I were to write down every well-worn villain trope I enjoy the moment I think about it, I could easily get material for a follow-up post or two. But that might just be too much like hard work.

"You and I are not so different" I think Arthur Conan Doyle might be the one to take credit for the widespread popularity of the "mirror image" villain, who resembles the hero in all sorts of ways – except he's bad. Certainly, when I think of famous villains before Professor Moriarty, they tend to be contrasts to the hero. The hero is brave, the villain is cowardly. The hero is kind and generous, the villain is mean-spirited and bitter. The hero is good-looking in a reassuringly homespun way (too much conventional handsomeness can sometimes be a red flag), the villain sports the pale, thin etc. looks outlined above (which I consider fairest of them all, but which aren't generally appreciated) or is downright deformed. And so on. The same often applies to heroines and villainesses. The heroines are pure and unbelievably big-hearted, the villainesses are grasping sluts. Look no further than Dickens, or Shakespeare for that matter, for numerous examples.

But then we get Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty, similar in so many ways that it's easy to think of "what-if" scenarios where they might have been friends, either both fighting for good or both becoming experts in villainy. No-one else is at the same level as them. They have a unique understanding for each other. We get a grasp of all this during the span of one single short story. The "mirror image" villain has been a staple of popular culture ever since.

What's more, the "they could have been friends" scenario has often developed to a scenario where the hero and villain actually were friends until things went pear-shaped. Doctor Who's Doctor and Master friendship/rivalry is only one of many highly enjoyable Holmes-Moriarty rip-offs. As I've found out while doing my X-Men homework, there's Xavier and Magneto (though Magneto's case is more complicated than simply "going bad"). Not to mention the countless times we have heard the villain in a Bond movie or similar say "you and I are not so different/more alike than you realise" and the hero respond hotly "we are nothing alike". I know it's a cliché by this time. But as it forces the hero to question his own smugness – after all, aren't the villain's weaknesses the same as his own? – to me, it never gets old.

The hero-villain team-up This is squarely a popular culture thing, seldom attempted in a more literary context, more's the pity. At least once or twice or three times in a long-running TV series, there's a plot line that goes like this. The hero and villain – or heroes and villains, it can be a question of teams joining forces – face a bigger threat; realise that they have to team up to defeat it, sometimes after a little too much pointless squabbling; are successful in their fight because of their different skill sets and then go their different ways again, generally because of some betrayal on the villain's part, but sometimes because both parties tacitly understand that the harmony can't last. 

I'm not too fond of the ultimate villain betrayal cliché, but otherwise I love a good hero-villain team-up. The villain can ensure success by making the hard decisions and, say, kill off an antagonist without the hero getting his or her hands dirty, while the hero can shine when a more understanding approach is needed. You could argue that too frequent team-ups with the good guys can weaken the threat level of the regular bad guy, but I'm not too bothered by that. I'm only sad it always has to end.

Let's twist again (within reason) I'm aware that I'm being a bit contradictory here. Like everyone else, I got sick of twist villains in (fairly) recent animated Disney films and demanded a front-and-centre villain in the good old Scar or Jafar mould. Consequently, it seems that I can get enough of twist-based clichés.

Let me try to explain. Twist villains, and sometimes twist heroes, have a part to play in stories that are otherwise very black and white. Complex characters are always to be preferred to flat ones, but failing complexity, a character with all the attributes of a good guy turning out to be bad or vice versa throws heroes off balance and gives them a reason to reassess their world view, always a desirable goal for a villain-lover. If not everything is at it seems, then there's at least potential for complexity. Plus, I admit, I enjoy a good rug pull now and again – it's a shame so few twists really deliver that. 

The reasons I objected to the Disney twist villains are that there are too many of them in a row, and that the "villain-coded" characters of old (you could see they were bad just by the animation) were so delicious. But there is a case to be made for the much-maligned Disney twist villains too. I may get back to that in a future post.

Villain clichés I'm sick to death of

The other week, during a walk, I came up with (well, when I say "came up" I mean nicked from Nostalgia Critic on YouTube) two possible blog topics which didn't seem all that demanding: the pop-cultural clichés I'm really tired of and, as a companion piece, the clichés I can't get enough of. Now that it's time to start on the first post, though, I'm wondering if the topic is as undemanding as all that. Maybe if I limit it to merely villain clichés? I can rant about the overused "peaceful village and grizzled veterans face and defeat a large hostile force" plot some other time.

Generic evil tyrant vs generic good rebels A bit of a cheat, this, as I'm as fed up with the good rebels as with the evil tyrant. The Swedes have a word meaning the "romance of revolution" which tends to be in play when rebels pop up in fiction (and not just popular fiction, either: looking at you, Victor Hugo).

But let's focus on the evil tyrant, and why I'm heartily sick of this villain cliché. There's a hint of political didacticism about the whole setup (now, children, you're never going to support tyranny, are you?), but for once, preachiness is not what bothers me the most. Ironically, I suspect that the reason so many fictional despots are dull is that the authors didn't want to get too political. The plot of a thousand and one fantasy and sci-fi adventures, where the hero falls in with a plucky band of rebels in order to fight against an oppressive regime and ends up saving the day, hinges on the audience whole-heartedly embracing the hero's cause. In which case, it's risky getting too specific about the nature of the regime's evils. One person's dystopia can sound pretty OK to someone else.

But we all hate oppression, right? No matter how your dream society would play out in real life, you want the opportunity to pick your poison. So the generic evil tyrant does a lot of harassing of the populace, to very little purpose. He – or she – has a purposefully vague agenda of getting and sticking to power, without any clear idea of what to do with it except be aggravatingly vile. I can hardly believe I'm saying this, but I almost wish that fantasy writers would risk getting just a little political at times when explaining the villain's motives. At least a pinch of misguided idealism would add some interest to the character.

Generic evil tyrants seldom have much of a private life, either; meaningful personal relationships are thin on the ground. They are more an idea to be fought against than a character in their own right. I'm not saying all fictional tyrants are wash-outs – I have a soft spot for Palpatine – but it's time to add some zest to the tired old fantasy formula. Why not reverse it once in a while? Good ruler vs evil rebels? You can argue the Harry Potter franchise comes close.

Human bigot vigilantes The Watchdogs in Agents of Shield. The Quarrymen in Gargoyles (yes, I spend more time watching cartoons than an adult strictly should, but hey, Puck is in this one!). Friends of Humanity in X-Men, The Animated Series (necessary Marvel preparation, I swear). Whenever bigoted vigilantes show up as occasional villains in a series, my heart sinks. Because they are just so boring. 

This type of villain group shows up exclusively in stories which want to tell us something about Fighting Prejudice, and I already have problems with many of these earnest parables. At least the mutants in X-Men and the Inhumans in Agents of Shield (mutants in all but name) are part of the human race, and are thus a better stand-in for various minorities than, say, bears or clones made of gloop or alien shrimp. But the people who are freaked out by them aren't given any reasons for their wrong-headed behaviour, which means that the good guys have no opportunity to come with intelligent counter-arguments. Instead, we get a number of variations on the "you are a monster" theme (from the bigots).   

You'd think that the whole point of using a parable would be to address sensitive themes a little more freely, but script writers clearly draw the line at giving bigots of any kind anything interesting to say. I'm left preferring even the most annoying supervillain (hello Apocalypse) as threat of the week to these unshaved dunderheads.

Faux Nazis Last seen in Rebel Moon, Part One on Netflix which contains many clichés that irritate me, as well as some I rather like. The troops of the generic tyrant are sporting uniforms in a style which one could label Evil Dictator Chic and which, like Moff Tarkin's riding breeches and General Hux's ranting in Star Wars, are clearly meant to make us think of Nazis.

Why would you want to saddle your baddies with such a parallel? Why not let them be villainous in their own way? If it's an attempt to make sure everyone understands just how evil they are, it's lazy shorthand and it doesn't work.

Grand Moff Tarkin blew up Alderaan. That's pretty horrible, and hard to excuse even someone with lovely cheekbones. But his crimes are firmly situated in a fictional galaxy far far away. Not ours.