Transcript
Speaker: Hey there, this is Trevor, one half of the Trevor and B podcast hosts of the I Think You Should Pod, which you're listening to. We'd love to hear from you. If you have an idea for us to cover on the podcast, please email us at Ithinkyoushouldpod at gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from all of you and please enjoy the episode.
Speaker: Okay, welcome to another episode of I Think You Should, the podcast about stuff that you should like, ah or maybe not like, it depends. I'm one of your hosts, Trevor, and for the third time, I swear it's not on purpose. ah all right My co-host Bea is not here.
Speaker: Bea has food poisoning. It's it's a real shame. um She asked, and I quote, that we all think of her fondly as a once fully functioning human being. So there's that. And no, she did not eat the diarrhea lettuce. So she also wanted that on the record that that is not why she's not here. She's been avoiding lettuce.
Speaker: We don't know what caused it. it's It's very sad. But I brought in two other guests because I can't do this alone. I'm bringing back both of them, actually. But Burke was just here talking about horror movies. So I brought Burke Sabatini, our artist, back. And I brought my sister, Erica, back. ah and Hello. Yes, indeed. Hello. ah We're going to talk about villains. And part of what inspired this conversation was because when Burke and I recorded the horror podcast where we talked about villains,
Speaker: the new really good horror films that have come out this year, which were Obsession, Hocum, and Backrooms, we dab it a little bit in the online, ah guess I'm going to call it defense, even though it feels super gross and weird, of Bear in Obsession ah and why that was wrong and why people who didn't want him to be called a villain were being really...
Speaker: media illiterate. um So now we have a chance to actually talk about it. But before we do that, ah as is tradition, something you guys are currently like into playing, watching, doing whatever. Erika, you go first.
Speaker: Sure. um So i just read all available volumes in a new manga series ah called If It's You, I Might Try Falling in Love, which is written and illustrated by Maru Kubota. It's a coming of age romance between two high schoolers in Japan. And the story centers around Amane, who is an openly gay teenager who moves to a small seaside town to live with his grandmother. um And Ryuji, who is just a local um who Amane befriends and falls for pretty quickly. um
Speaker: And what is notable about this series in kind of like a sea of possible boys love stories, as they're called, is that Amane's sexuality is neither treated as a problem nor just like completely ignored, which is a good fit for the themes of growing up and learning about yourself and your identity and first love. And...
Speaker: and the main characters and their friends, the way that they like respond to this feels respectful without like going too far in the other direction where it's like, ah, yes, there's no homophobia here whatsoever. That's very realistic, which I appreciate. And it also has probably the sweetest love confession I've ever read. It's very charming and very wholesome. So if you're craving that, it is a good comic to check out.
Speaker: it was better than bear's confession at the beginning of obsession. Oh my God. I will say like the last time, the first and last time. Okay. Not the last time I laughed, but the last time I was like, I'm having a good time in the movie that ended real quick. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. I will say the, the billion dollar wish did make me laugh. Okay. That was funny. That was funny. yeah All right. We're not talking about obsession though. Sorry. Burke, what about you? What do you what do you got?
Speaker: Um, I'm almost done with the nanny. I have like five. It's still going. It's still going. I said it last time. I'm still hacking away through it. It's been all summer.
Speaker: Um, and then I'm also, i just started a new series on Hulu called the shards, which is coming out and it's Ryan Murphy, which people are iffy on Ryan Murphy. He's the one that did all the like, um,
Speaker: like crime docuseries. He did like the one about the Menendez brothers that was last fall. um But this series specifically is based on um the book written by um the guy who wrote American Psycho. I'm blanking on his name.
Speaker: Oh, oh ah Brett Easton Ellis. Yeah, Brett Easton Ellis. And I thought it was very interesting because while watching it, it it there's a lot of similarities to The Secret History by Donna Tartt, which is very, very relevant to me as a person. And I was like, wait, this is this is so similar.
Speaker: um and then i realized it was Brett Easton Ellis, which is funny because he started writing it in the 80s while he was going to school with Donna Tartt and they were peer reviewing each other's work.
Speaker: That's crazy. Yeah, a little bit of, I don't know what's going on there. But yeah, they would they he helped peer review The Secret History when they were at Bennington together.
Speaker: And it was also, she based it ah some parts of it on their group at Bennington. And then he said he he started writing it in the 80s and wrote it on and off. And then COVID like moved him to finish it.
Speaker: Wow. So he like published it recently. We will, we will have to do a Donna Tartt and Brett Easton Ellis pod at some point. They'll be separate. Yeah. Yeah. I, Brett Easton Ellis is tough. Cause we would have to talk about not American psycho. Cause everybody's talked that one to death, which is, is fine. The the film and the book are great, but like ah Donna Tartt, Jesus. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. We'll bring you on very talented writers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. I did not know those things. Yeah. but then Go ahead. Sorry. no The show's like, I've only seen the first episode because at the time that I watched it, that was all that was out at that time.
Speaker: um But It's definitely trying to be cool. So it's not great. But it is great to like the niche, the nicheness and be that like, is like, there's nothing really like this.
Speaker: But it's like so pretentious to itself. It's it's yeah pretty it's like amusing. That's pretty Ryan Murphy right there. It is so Ryan Murphy, which is like, I don't know. It's entertaining. That's what it is. I am of a firm believer that you get one of two showrunners now in like TV series and you either get Ryan Murphy or you get Mike Flanagan. Those are the two extremes at which you you get your shows. You either get Mike Flanagan who's going to craft this incredibly tight eight episode show.
Speaker: unbelievably thought out demands rewatching type of craft but he's only going to get one out every couple of years because it takes him a while to do these things or ryan murphy will simply unload a hose of 17 shows a month that will have moments where they hit and or a couple of like of them that actually have some depth or quality acting You know, yeah it'll be the American Horror Story where like there were a couple of really great seasons of that show. And then it was just like this show is totally batshit. I don't know what we're doing anymore. well Also, another fun fact I was going to mention about the Shards is that Ryan Murphy like did very specific casting. So he cast Kaia Gerber.
Speaker: in one of the lead roles whose mother is Cindy Crawford, 80s icon, and also casted Richard Gere's son. So oh wow Richard Gere and Cindy Crawford, who are obviously were married for a period of time in the 90s, their respective daughter and son are in the show together.
Speaker: I don't like not playing love interests, but they they did like a it was it's like weird. I don't know. That's interesting. He does. He's doing weird stuff over there. I don't know what he's up to. all Everything Ryan Murphy does is weird. I stand by that. It's just the way Ryan Murphy is as a person. um I would agree.
Speaker: Yeah, well, that's cool. ah So this is I think this is going to become a recurring bit on this podcast, which is Trevor's dad corner, because that Oh, I cannot wait. As the only resident dad, this is like this is my role in this. So.
Speaker: ah Erica obviously hits your nephew and Burke, you've met my son. So like, you know, but like Caleb is now almost eight. He really loves soccer. We went to a World Cup game earlier this summer. It was like one of the coolest experiences ever.
Speaker: And he's super into it, watching it, playing it, so on and so forth. However, My son's very anxious. He won't go to camps. We tried to get him to the local like pitch camp, which is the facility near us that has great coaches. and They do an awesome job, but like he can't handle the number of kids that he doesn't know and the sort of like the anxiety of not knowing the people there and how many of them there are and how people will react. He thinks about what will people do if I mess up or be if if I do something right.
Speaker: So like, you know, it's just a lot of stress. So we signed him up for it twice and twice. He did play or do the sort of camp activities for a couple days. And then it turned into us bringing him there and him basically just sitting on the sideline and not really participating because he was too nervous. Uh,
Speaker: The coaches did a great job, I have to point out, of like pulling him aside for private like practice and stuff. But anyway, the the upside of this is that I play this very community-oriented league in Belfast because we live pretty close to there.
Speaker: And Caleb... I convinced him to come with me one time because a bunch of like people bring their families and kids, one of whom is someone he knows. He ended up staying for three hours to play with the other kids and then to shoot on me in between sessions and now asks every day if there's a soccer game we're going to. So he has now graduated from he doesn't want to go to a camp, but he's going to play soccer with this small little cadre of friends he's developed.
Speaker: like three or four times a week. So I bring this up because I think sometimes like, you know, with a kid that's got anxiety or yourself, if you have anxiety, you want to push to to get past that sort of feeling.
Speaker: But like, to me, it's the the thing that I'm liking the most about it's like, he's just loving going to play soccer and he looks forward to and wants to go do it. I had to go play with him for an hour down at his school before this podcast because we didn't have soccer today and he thought we did. And he was like, well, we're going to play soccer anyway. okay sure um so yeah that was my that's that's dad corner for this one i'm sure there will be more to come up because his his birthday is soon but yeah um well cool that's that's our intro let's talk about bad people aka villains but yeah yeah um so i again this the reason this came up is because
Speaker: Burke and I talked about Obsession. I'd seen Obsession. I'd read about it online. First, we have to hype up ah Indy Navarrete, is that am I saying her name correctly? Yeah, you are. ah Got her bag today or earlier because she's going to be playing Rogue in the new X-Men movie. I honestly was like, oh, I will see that movie now. i was on the fence because they just keep screwing it up. I have questions. Will she have a Cajun? No, wait, she's not Cajun. Gambit's Cajun. Never mind.
Speaker: But does, I don't remember. Does Rogue have an accent in the cartoons or anything? I can't even remember. No idea. i know she I know when Anna Paquin played her, it was just like she was a straight-up suburban American, which was fine. like I really don't care, but it would be fun to see if Indy Navarrete has like accent work as one of her other ridiculous acting skills. But like if they lean hard on the Gambit rogue like and they make her a very central character, it's going to be awesome because I'm convinced this woman can do anything after seeing Obsession. She's so good.
Speaker: If she if she I'm going to say this right now, if she does not get an Oscar nomination for best actor, I'm going to lose my mind. I think that like this year is such a good year for obsession, because in the past two years, horror has finally started getting nods at the Oscars. Yep. I feel like she has a shot.
Speaker: Well, because Demi Moore got her attention for the substance, and then you had... I can't think of her name. It's going to upset me, but um Gladys from Weapons, the actress who played her, won Best Supporting Actor ah last year? Was Weapons last year? I believe so. yeah I think so.
Speaker: Yeah, which, by the way, fully deserved. like That performance is... Amy Magdalene. Thank you. Yeah. So, like, you're right, Burke. I think she's primed to get her, like, recognition. And, like, I just don't understand how anybody goes and watches that film and doesn't walk away going, that is one of the greatest performances I've ever seen.
Speaker: Yeah. um Particularly because it's all just her. Like, she's... There's no effects. There's no, like... There's no, like... so They're not even doing, like, sound distortion. Like, they don't have the budget for any of that shit. So they're just making...
Speaker: this incredible movie with her doing all the stuff. um Yeah. But anyway, we're not really talking about obsession, but we are talking about villains because I'm sure obsession will come up again. but like uh villains get done poorly or become very one-dimensional in a lot of media and so what we're going to do is talk about like the types of villains or the villains that we think often work and then we're going to talk about each of us has an example and some other doodads in there too but like in terms of the types of villains i was thinking about that work really well i had categorized a few so like
Speaker: the sympathetic villain. So a villain who you can sort of understand what happened to make them the way they are. They're a victim of trauma or of circumstance that they don't control.
Speaker: And while you don't condone who they are as a person, they are still like, you can still understand like what they've become. ah I think a lot of the game of Thrones characters fit this Erica, I would say.
Speaker: I mean, yeah, you basically, spoiler alert, described ah the character I will be talking about. Yeah, yeah. But, like, i mean, a sympathetic villain is often a good one because it gives the audience a chance to be like, oh, man, like, I i still got to take this person out or I want this person to lose, but I feel bad.
Speaker: and And, like, that feeling bad is... um part of the stuff that works it it is i would say yeah again bringing back obsession it's the thing about bear that's like you kind of sympathize with him in the beginning you know until he just refuses to go back and care about anybody but himself right yeah like that's that's what makes that movie so effective or it makes him effective um the other type of villain i had was your like um sort of the villain you love to watch fail because they're so, you know, they can be must mustache twirlingly evil. And so you just want to see them lose. They can just be so arrogant and self-assured that like watching them get taken down is the thing you're just like,
Speaker: can't wait to get to one of my favorite examples I don't know if either of you saw the third Guardians of the Galaxy film yes ah that takedown of the high evolutionary is one of the most satisfying moments in a movie I've ever seen because yeah Yeah, like like at every point, he's just he's such an awful human being or maybe he's an alien. don't remember. But like, he's awful.
Speaker: And his whole thing is that ah he thinks he's smarter than everybody else. I mean, he literally calls himself the high evolutionary. Like, it's a brilliant like, you know, you you can have truly almost cartoonishly evil villains they you give the audience the payoff of watching them get their comeuppance. I think it's when they don't get it that that becomes a problem, but we can get to that.
Speaker: um And then the the last type of villain I had thought of was sort of like the unintentional villain is always really fun because like They think like it's the classic story of like in terms of actual human history, none of the villains of history actually think they're the bad guys.
Speaker: They ah they always think they're doing at least in their, you know. broken view of the world the right thing and that's what makes it compelling and so when a villain is written well as like they actually don't think they're the bad guy i have not seen that much of the boys i saw the first season but i'm i've i've got a very strong sense that homelander really fits that mold as a character he also fits the mold of like he's a victim of like experimentation and everything but like for a decent chunk and especially of the first season even as he's committing obviously awful acts he genuinely like thinks he is the like poster child for what a hero is supposed to be
Speaker: And a lot of the things he does to like that it would be considered collateral damage happened to protect that image sort of. So those those are the three things I thought of. Do you guys have anything you want to throw in there that you also think works like makes a villain work or or should be considered?
Speaker: um I think the other time cartoonishly evil works for me, and it works for me rarely, is when it is so ridiculous, but it's played for laughs. um So an example i would give, a spoiler alert if anyone hasn't played, Danganronpa.
Speaker: uh so sorry about that but like uh Junko Enishima is just absolutely bonkers like she's got like seven personalities and she goes so off the rails in the end but you're just kind of like staring at her in fascination and like okay I actually kind of appreciate this um she has like there's no reason to root for her she's not sympathetic um she just wants to watch the world burn for the fun of it. So she's like an agent of chaos. So I guess that's also another kind of villain is the one that just wants to- Agent chaos is a good, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. That's a good way to, you're you're reminding me of, we've mentioned, um pretty sad Ellis, but like, American Psycho can be played, be basically like a cartoonishly evil person played for laughs is one way of watching that movie or reading that book.
Speaker: The other one I always think of is, as you know, Erica, my favorite movie is The Crow. And yes those villains are like, especially top dollar are cartoonishly evil.
Speaker: um And it is occasionally played for laughs, although I would say. the the performances in that film help make it more than just that. Like, they're so compelling.
Speaker: ah But it is similar. It's like, these guys are so ridiculously bad. they're really over the top. But it's fun because you're going to watch them all get, you know, what they deserve. Yeah.
Speaker: Burke, what do you think? Anything? I also, this is more of like a nod towards, I guess, authors or people who are writing these types of characters, but I do love when it's sort of ah you have to figure out who the actual villain is situation. Oh, yes. Like the misleading villain, the one that you're led to believe. So we were just talking about Donna Tartt, but like in the secret history, it's sort of like you think Henry Winter's the villain, but then it's actually Richard Papin, the narrator. So I love that in my... Yes. What I write, what I read, i love that.
Speaker: That's really good too in like The Watchmen where, surprise, they're all kind of bad guys. Like that's sort of the whole point. I mean... Not really, I can't think of her, the character's name now, but um Night Owl's love interest in that one. Oh, um Silk Spectre. Silk Spectre. She really is. She's probably the only good person in the whole thing. She's also boring, so it's fine. Yeah, that's well, I mean, it's I will never say that Alan Moore, as great a writer as he is, is good at writing women because he's not. He's terrible at it. But he's good at writing good stories. um
Speaker: But, like, in those stories, you know, The whole, like, spoilers for the Watchmen, but the whole mystery is trying to figure out who the actual, like, orchestrator of all the evil behind the scenes is.
Speaker: And when it's revealed, it's very much that sort of thing of, like, Adrian Veidt, who's been theoretically helping the main cast the whole time, has actually been manipulating the whole thing.
Speaker: And another interpretation of that, I guess, is you could, like... You could debate whether there's morality when it comes to Dr. Manhattan. Watchman's a complicated book, people, is what I'm trying to say. But like it's the same thing of like the villain you don't necessarily see coming is a lot more fun.
Speaker: um Yeah. yeah Those are good. So do we want to talk about villains done badly or do we want to talk about the villains we picked for today first? I leave it up to you, too.
Speaker: hmm we could we could do what we picked okay okay let's i have no notes for villains done badly i've been sitting here looking at the books in my room being like oh what's a bad one so i mean i think the the couple examples i can throw out i think are ones we can all have a turn sort of chewing on a bit um so let me get there erica don't feel like you have to have an example um But I can start with the villains that we really like that we picked. And I'm going to I'm going put a caveat in here and maybe a pin in this because Burke brought it up before we started recording. But another inspiration for this idea of this episode is I read this series of 40K novels that I'm going to do a pod with beyond where I kind of explain why you should read.
Speaker: the 40k black library because I do think it's genuinely some of the best sci-fi out there. And I know people aren't reading it because they aren't in the hobby. And also spoiler, these fucking books are impossible to get. And they cost a bajillion dollars if you don't buy them immediately when they're published, because this tiny publication house they have doesn't mass distribute.
Speaker: But there was a series written about one of the sort of evil factions where the main protagonist is a villain without question. He is a very, very, very bad person.
Speaker: And yet you are consistently rooting for him to succeed as the story goes on, despite the horrible things that he does. And I do think we should come back to that.
Speaker: But I bring it up because my example I went with is, I think, one of it's like a microcosm version of that so I'm gonna upset lots of chuds on the internet right now and I don't care but Joel from The Last of Us is a villain and he it's like the bear conversation it's not debatable For those who are unaware of the last of us basic plot, the entire thing is that Joel takes a girl named Ellie to reach a specific location where they are going to dissect this girl because she may contain the cure for a type of cordyceps, fungal zombie virus that has basically destroyed um earth.
Speaker: And the thing that happens at the end of the game is surprise Joel, who lost his daughter at the very beginning of this whole outbreak, ah can't bring himself to hand over his now surrogate daughter Ellie to this group that's going to try to produce a cure by dissecting her to figure out why she's immune.
Speaker: And instead, he murders a real large number of people in a hospital and lies to her about it. And the absolute spine chilling scene in that game that I described before we started recording as I had to put the controller down and sit there for a while.
Speaker: Is that the last cut scene is Ellie specifically asking him, is that really how it happened? Because he's told her a false version of like, there was no cure, there was nothing that could be done.
Speaker: And he says yes. And she just turns and looks the other way and the game ends. ah
Speaker: Spoiler alert, that's not true or might not have been true. There might have been a cure possible. that It's never really expounded on. um And Joel basically murders a whole lot of people for his own selfish need to have a daughter again.
Speaker: It's awesome. But you should think that Joel is a good guy because he's very much not. He is a real, real piece of work. ah I said earlier before we were recording again, like I do think that early in the game when Joel is just protecting Ellie to get her where they're going and he does commit because it's a video game. And of course, you got to kill a lot of people. um He does commit a lot of like, you know, acts of violence.
Speaker: But you can sympathize with him at those points because it seems like he's doing it for the betterment of potentially all humanity, ah which is what I think makes him a somewhat sympathetic villain. But man, he takes a hard turn and yeah man have a lot of people not interpret it correctly. What what do you two think of that? The Last of Us or Joel in general?
Speaker: I mean, me personally, i have not played the game. So my my take is based on just the content in the HBO Max show.
Speaker: Oh, sure. i mean, that's pretty much a one for one. Yeah, I know. yeah In terms of adaptations, it's a pretty good one. But yeah um I just I think I found it difficult to see him as a villain.
Speaker: um because I was just rooting for him so much, which I guess is the point. But also because it's Pedro Pascal. so that's Such a good point. ah So I was just like, yeah, Pedro, you do what you need to do. like but it was it was it's so difficult to be like, so the lying part, we can't really do that is the problem.
Speaker: yeah but Yeah. I don't know. I mean, That one's difficult because it is you want him to be happy. yep And her to be happy so bad. Yeah. And you like to sort of end the game on that note or the show or whatever you're referencing, like.
Speaker: it just you see them go through all these things together and grow closer and it's just sort of taints it in a way yeah and it's just so rough to sit with because you're like oh god that really was kind of bad wasn't it to be clear i'm i'm talking about the ending of the game which is like again i think if you are media literate enough to so to to tell what the story is trying to tell you recognize that like She genuinely deserves to know the truth and and spoilers in this in the second game, which, again, i didn't think was necessary, but I also don't think is a bad game at all. I think it's actually pretty good if they were going to do a sequel. um
Speaker: She does find out the truth and there is like a confrontation between them. where she's basically like, why did you lie to me kind of thing? And also Burke, to your point, I think the thing about Joel is like, you are rooting for him. Like that's the whole like beauty of a well-written villain.
Speaker: Like you want them to succeed. And then you reflect back on and go, Oh man, what was the cost of that? Yeah. oh
Speaker: Yeah. And I think like, especially i played the first game, um, And I think something you unique to video games is that they can like literally put you in the shoes of the protagonist. so Joel is doing all of these violent things. And like you said in the beginning, you're like, well, he's got to protect Ellie. He's got to protect like the other people that he's with throughout the game. It's understandable. And then the ending happens and you're like, what did what did I just do? Like, what did he just do? yeah.
Speaker: And it's interesting because it's, it almost feels at the end of the game, like the greatest crime you committed is that you lied to her about it. Yep. Even though like, you know, objectively killing all of those people was way worse, but like. um Well, cause he takes her agency away. That's that's yeah the actual villainous part of what Joel does. This sounds ridiculous. The actual villainy isn't all the people he kills.
Speaker: I realize that's a ridiculous thing to say, but it is the denying Ellie the choice, right? Because yeah what he could have done is he could have told her, we don't know if this will actually lead to a cure.
Speaker: It will cost your life to find out. what do you want to do? Right. That's the way if he wasn't going to be a true villain, the game could have ended.
Speaker: And then they didn't. And I actually think that's a really, for whatever reason that happened, and I don't know the backstory behind the making of the game or anything. That's a really bold choice that paid off in a way. I don't think they even maybe expected to to do it that way.
Speaker: ah To your point, Erica, too, i I'm guessing cause I'm old. Neither of you have heard of the game spec ops, the line, no The name is familiar, but I couldn't tell you a single thing about it OK, so very quickly to your point about the the way that video games play with agency.
Speaker: And I think this game actually deserves a lot of credit for having created that type of game more recently. So Spec Ops came out in the heyday of like the battlefields and the Call of Duties and all these like first person shooters that were like war is very cool, which is not true.
Speaker: Go read all quiet in the Western Western Front, please. So they make this game. It is very much like you drop into made up Middle Eastern country, go like, you know, kill a bunch of the people from this country because they're not white. So that's OK. You know, and it it sets it all up as though your character is out to rescue members of a different squad.
Speaker: What the game does that's genius is that it starts to force you. through the game's choices to do obviously horrible things. At one point, you drop white phosphorus on an area containing civilians.
Speaker: That's a thing that actually happens in the game. Jeez. Yes. And when the game ends, what is revealed is that your character is not some American super soldier hero. Your character is a traumatized victim of the military industrial complex,
Speaker: who has chosen to embrace like the monster within because they can't cope otherwise. I'm condensing it down an immense amount, but like it works so effectively because of what you said, Erica, of like, you have to push the button. You have to move the character through this area. You have to call in the white phosphorus strike, like, and the game continuously in the last third starts pointing you at the things you did and going, do you remember when you did that?
Speaker: you remember how you did that and making you sit with it? And this game came out in, I want to say 2006. Wow. And I
Speaker: and i think it had a huge impact on a lot of more recent games because ah it basically showed people you can make a game like this and make a game that does this.
Speaker: Yeah. ah Sorry, it's 2012. I was off by a bit, but yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Okay. So with that, Erica, do you want to talk about your but your villain? you pro Oh, I would love to you know, in some ways it feels appropriate. um Okay. Okay.
Speaker: Now I'm probably going to upset some fans of this series. I just missed off so many people online. Are you kidding me? There are people writing screeds right now about how I'm wrong about Joel and i should be canceled. and this is the thing that's happening. If anybody listened to this podcast, at least, but yeah.
Speaker: They got to have something to do. Um, So a Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin is full of characters that are all in like a shades of gray morality, save maybe three of them um that you could call objectively good. So i'm calling this character a villain with a little bit of a grain of salt.
Speaker: um And also i think Trevor, when you brought up this episode in terms of Bear from Obsession and how, um People were arguing that like he's not a villain, that he didn't do anything wrong when he clearly did. um i sort of feel like the showrunners who adapted the books kind of took this route with this character. So I thought it would be interesting to talk about. um So I'm talking about Tyrion Lannister.
Speaker: who is one of my favorite characters of all time. um And I would argue, even if he's not explicitly a villain, he is on a villainous route by the end of the last published book. um There are some pretty big differences in how he's portrayed in the show Game of Thrones versus is how he's portrayed in the book. um And I think it's important to talk about some of those notable differences. But just before that, if you haven't consumed a form of this story. Tyrion has dwarfism and he is treated as worthless from by most of society basically since his birth um for the way that he looks and his disability. and
Speaker: He deflects a lot of that hostility um by being hyper-competent. Like, he's incredibly smart. um If you give him a job, he will get it done, and it will be done very well. um And he's very funny. um And in both the book and the show, you see him show moments of genuine kindness, especially towards the Starks, who are the characters that you're rooting for when you read this story. Yeah.
Speaker: They are the closest to like, quote unquote, the good guys that you get. um He makes a contraption so that Bran can ride a horse after he can't walk anymore. He forms a genuine friendship with Jon Snow. He defends Sansa when she's being abused by Joffrey in King's Landing. So he starts off on a really strong, heroic path.
Speaker: um And to me, that's what makes him an interesting villain. Because in the books, when he is pushed to his breaking point, he makes a choice to become a monster.
Speaker: Because his take is, you all see me this way anyway, so why should I even try anymore? um There's a literal quote here.
Speaker: In the third book, um he's accused of killing Joffrey, who is a monster. um We're all glad he's dead. But he did not actually kill him. But Jaime comes, his brother, so help him escape.
Speaker: um And there's... there's A confession Jaime gives that reveals a lot of trauma that Tyrion went through was actually like a huge misunderstanding in a very, very bad way, which I might get into. um But he says, and I am the monster, they all say I am Yes, I killed your vile son, which he didn't, but he just doesn't see the point in even trying to defend himself any longer.
Speaker: and here's where I get to a big book versus show difference. In the show, Tyrion has a relationship with a sex worker called Shay, and...
Speaker: you are given the impression that she might genuinely have feelings for him in the show. And then it's later revealed that actually she didn't. And also she's been working with his dad, who's bad, the whole time and betrays him. And when he stumbles upon her in his father's bed, she pulls a knife on him, tries to kill him. He kills her first in self-defense.
Speaker: Here's what happened in the book. ah similar circumstances. um They were lovers. She's a sex worker. um It is like her literal job to like have relationships, physical and emotional with her clients.
Speaker: And I think Tyrion forgets that a little bit. And he, in his escape route, finds her in his father's bed And she realizes the shitty situation she's in and tries to seduce him and convince him that she really does love him um and uses a term of endearment with him that just sets him over the edge. um And he takes the chain of hands that marks the hand of the king that's around her neck, which is currently his father's, and he strangles her to death.
Speaker: um because he's mad that she didn't love him for realsies.
Speaker: Men will do anything before they go to therapy. Yeah, yeah. and I think what makes it work is that It's so heartbreaking because you've seen him be like a good, funny, smart person for a lot of incidences up to this point. And then he just snaps because he's been pushed to his breaking point and he murders her.
Speaker: And she didn't do anything wrong. Like, She was a victim in a lot of this case because powerful people decided to use her as they do in this series.
Speaker: um But there's not really a justification for him to just murder her in cold blood. I have two thoughts on this. But fort first, Burke, have you seen or read Game of Thrones?
Speaker: Um, her no. okay Okay. Oh my God. I'm so sorry. No, no, no. I like, I probably won't. I might watch house of the dragon, but I watched bits of season three because again, God bless you. Pedro Pascal.
Speaker: But ah ober I don't, I don't mind. you Do say as you please do as you please. i pro i i don't Well, my my my first thought is, and I know, Erica, we had talked about this before, but, like, one of the reasons the show changed Tyrion in very unfortunate ways is because Peter Dinklage was so goddamn likable.
Speaker: Like you said, Tyrion, the character, is a likable character because of his sense of humor and his ability to deflect the negativity pointed at him and everything. um But Dinklage just turned that up to 11 by being Peter Dinklage. Like, he's...
Speaker: an amazing actor and he just does an incredible job and so i think they pivoted to like well we can't make him too horrible right uh which was a mistake it's a big mistake i think big mistake yeah i think the the other thing about it is like villains that you don't necessarily root for but like they're They're characters that could have been you see all the good they could have been in them. yeah You see the possibility of getting out from under the ah like path everyone else has tried to set them on because that's the thing about Tyrion is it's like he's been put in this position by the way his family treats him.
Speaker: From his father on down. And in that quote you gave. It's the whole point. it's like Everybody thinks I'm monster. Fuck it. I'm a monster. That's what I am. right And.
Speaker: um I think that was another category of villain. we We should have included the beginning. Because that's the type. ah For the villain that I. have become obsessed with from the Warhammer series, which is Talos Valkoran. He has a whole scene that I read and immediately put down as one of the greatest written scenes i've ever encountered.
Speaker: And in that scene, So Talos is in charge of a faction of this group called the Night Lords. The Night Lords are basically if Batman murdered to make everybody scared to commit crimes. That's their whole setup. Like their idea is we will kill any criminal and we will kill them in horrific, terrifying ways so that no one ever dares commit a crime again. It's the only way to make people safe.
Speaker: um And he, as a child, is recruited to join this group and believes he's joining the good guys. And at one point in the novels, he is speaking with ah his navigator of his ship that he's on.
Speaker: who tell who they've kidnapped to force into her role, who says, like, I always wanted to navigate a ship and, you know, I didn't mean for it to happen this way, but it happened this way. And I got what I wanted.
Speaker: Every time you say I'm a warrior, you say it with disgust. What do you actually want to be? And his response is to laugh and say, i wanted to be a hero. Look how that turned out.
Speaker: And it just it guts me every time, because like As the novels progress and again, i'm going to talk with me about why I think these novels should be read by more sci fi fans later. But you see all the heroic qualities of this character and just are torn apart by the fact he he never gets to exercise them, really. Yeah, that's the thing. Tyrion is the same way to me. He has so many good qualities.
Speaker: And yet he's never allowed to fully get there. ah Yeah, I, uh... I really hope one day we get to read the end of his story.
Speaker: Um, but he was just on a, a drastically different and to me way more interesting trajectory than the show chose for him. And, um, I'd be so interested, like how far he'd go down the villainous path. Like if he gets a redemption arc, um,
Speaker: I personally feel like if we ever see the end of those books, I have a feeling he's going to die um probably i would agree trying to protect somebody else.
Speaker: i feel I think he'd go out strong. I feel like he gets a hound kind of treatment, which is he's a horrible monster. And yet he has one virtuous part of him and he chooses that at the end.
Speaker: And it doesn't make up for everything that he did, but it at least makes his ending not as much of a travesty as the rest of his life was something like that. It feels very yeah George R. Martin to me. And I just want to be clear too, because it came out recently.
Speaker: um Burke, I don't know if you saw this because you don't follow George R. R. Martin or Game of Thrones, but The man hasn't come close to finishing Winds of Winter. He's he's not going to. And he recently put out a blog post for the first time in like six months where he basically said he's very depressed. A lot of his close friends have died and he's just essentially having a hard time.
Speaker: And the response of too many of the fandom, which would be any of them, was, why haven't you finished the book yet? Jesus. Yeah. and And then also to be like, well, the man made millions of dollars off his show, so he doesn't care about finishing his book, which I can tell you right now, as somebody who writes books that tens of people read, if tomorrow it was a global sensation and I couldn't figure out how to finish it, like.
Speaker: The not finishing the story part the way I wanted it to would be the thing that bothers me, and I'm convinced that's the thing that he's struggling with is they finished the show and and and created an ending.
Speaker: with however much input they ever had from the guy. And I don't know how much that was. And now he's trying to write it with the ending he wants and he just can't do it. And I just think, Hey, you know what? That's okay. He doesn't have to finish it. I'd love to see his notes. Like you said, Erica, like I'd love to see his like, here's what I envisioned happening to some of these characters.
Speaker: um Cause I think that'd be super interesting and it doesn't need to be detailed at all. Like I hope those eventually are put out there, but like, Leave the poor guy alone.
Speaker: Like he's a person people like he's a human being. and and he's been an unproblematic artist his entire career. Like I do not know of any controversy surrounding George R.R. Martin.
Speaker: Like outside of people being like, why isn't he writing his books? He's jumping on a trampoline. Okay. I don't care. Like let the man live his life. Like, you know, he's yeah, I just it's it stinks. But I also I agree with you.
Speaker: having read the first game of thrones book and watched the show through like season six or something like peter dinklage is magnetic in everything he's in but it would have been much more interesting to let him be bad would been so much more interesting because he could have done it so fun for him uh burke strong recommendation of a film for you and erica knows where i'm going with this because it's peter dinklage related go watch the station agent the station agent Yes, you will adore it.
Speaker: It is, I personally think, Peter Dinklage's best performance. um it's It's not a fun watch. Although i it's not as... It's not it's on a downer watch. It's just a tough watch at certain points. but like it's it's It's like human drama.
Speaker: it's and And it doesn't end in a terrible way, right? like it ends It doesn't end on an uplifting note, but it also doesn't end on an everything is shit note, right? Yeah. It's basically Peter Dinklage is the operator or the, i don't know what they call it. Actually, I don't know what they call that role. think Doesn't he just watch the trains?
Speaker: I guess, yeah. He's, like, responsible for making sure they come through the stop or something. And, like, reporting issues. I don't know. I can't remember exactly what his role is because that's not really critical to the film. But yeah, he's like at an old train stop and his job there is to basically make sure like things run as they're supposed to.
Speaker: ah And then human drama happens and it's it's amazing. and And again, his character is not ah Made to be like oh he's he's so likable why doesn't anybody like him like that no nope that's not what he is and if they let Peter Dinklage play in those waters a bit with Tyrion he could have put out a master class I think.
Speaker: Agreed. All right. So, Burke, tell tell us about your apparently discovered this morning experience with a villain. Yeah. First thing this morning, I made the executive decision to read Harlan Ellison's I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, um which is crazy that I did that at 8 a.m. m I don't know why. Oh, 8 a.m. is rough. Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, it's a great story, but yeah, that's a tough, tough choice right after getting up. Yeah. For literally rolled over, opened my phone and just started reading it. um And which is basically like a, it's like a 20 to 30 page ah short story, sci-fi horror short story about,
Speaker: this mechanical artificial intelligence that has taken over of everything and everything manmade. It literally kills all of the population except for five people. It is four men and one woman.
Speaker: um And it just, it goes, up they've been they've been trapped in the belly of this mechanical monster for, i believe he made them immortal. So it's like 109 years when the short story starts. And then it when by the time it concludes, it's been like another hundred years.
Speaker: And it is so awful because it is basically just the narration of the youngest of the group who is the only one who didn't have his mind altered by the the villain's name is AM, um which it started as like artificial machine or something something along those lines, like a ah genuine name that was given to this,
Speaker: like clump of code by the humans that created it and then when it gained sentience it it named itself am as in like cogito ergo sum i think therefore i am which is so crazy um but uh it is often reference the reason why i chose to read it bright and early this morning um was because it is often referenced as one of the most like like it's a not redeemable villain there's zero qualities that that you look at am and you're like
Speaker: there you' No one's rooting for Am. It's basically what I'm trying to say. no one No one is wanting Am to succeed more than he already has. um And then you also, it gets into like the human the five humans that are being tortured for years on end.
Speaker: um And like the little villainistic qualities that each of them have when interacting with each other, because it is... awful. Like, everything that happens in this short story is awful. It starts off with them being in this sort of cave, and Am is just, like, totally, like, just messing with them and, like, says, if you hike to these ice caves, they'll be canned food, because they haven't eaten in three months.
Speaker: and And they're like, okay, let's go. Don't know why they... believed him after 109 years of being tortured by this thing. But they hike for, I believe it's ah not an additional three months.
Speaker: o And it is just like detailing the way that they have, the way that the ways that all these humans hate each other and how One of them was a professor and he's been like now doesn't have any thoughts and one of them was like this intelligent, attractive man and Am made him into what is basically an ape. Like distorted his entire body into what is basically an ape. He doesn't have thoughts. He like drools all over himself and ah one of them doesn't have much dialogue. Another one doesn't also doesn't have much dialogue but Am made everyone refer him for him by a different name because he said the sound was funny. And then there's the woman who is basically
Speaker: only referred to in the story as a tool for the men to survive, which is awful. And how she's described as before being captured by Anne, she was pure.
Speaker: and now she's basically described as as like a whore and like someone who is just there to service the men, which is also awful. And that her mind has been altered that she's like this doesn't have like a train of thought. it's It's everything about... It was just making me mad. I was like so i was reading this at 8am and I was mad. Because I was like, what is happening? like What is going on? And...
Speaker: It's just Am, like, there's this giant bird that, like, gives them a hurricane, creates a hurricane with its wings that they are in for years. They're in this hurricane, flying through the air, hitting, like, cords and, ah like like so like, metal hardware that is a part of Am's makeup. And it is, like, they're just being battered and bruised, but the thing is is that Am will never let them die.
Speaker: And there's a moment in the book where the the person you're following, who is the one who hadn't had his mind altered, Am goes into his head and starts talking to him and just goes on about how ah there are eight, like,
Speaker: 300 million miles of printed circuit circuits in his complex and there's not like he hates them if like hate was the word that was engraved in all of those circuits he would hate him more like he hates these people like and it's like this it's so insane like it's genuinely insane and um it then goes on to sort of make this character realize that the reason why um am was doing this to the five of them it i have this little quote pulled and it says we had given am sentience inadvertently of course but sentience nonetheless but it had but it had been trapped am wasn't god he was a machine we had we had created him to think but there was nothing it could do with that creativity in rage and frenzy the machine had killed the human race almost all of us and still it was trapped am could not wander and could not wonder
Speaker: and could not belong. He could merely be. And so, with the innate loathing that all machines had always held for the weak, soft creatures who had built them, he had sought revenge.
Speaker: And in his paranoia, he had decided to reprieve five of us for a personal, everlasting punishment that would never serve to diminish his hatred, that would merely keep him reminded, amused, proficient at hating man.
Speaker: Another, like, crazy, like like, so insane that this is a villain that has been created. It's 30-ish pages. like I was reading on my phone, so I think it was around 40. But it was... it was i With every new thing that it was describing, I was like, this is insane that this is something like something that has even been created and like put pen like put pen to paper.
Speaker: i don't... It's just this pure... evil. Like there's no going, there's nothing good about it. There's no like, Oh, this is not rooting for anyone here. And it kind of comes to a point with this main character is the last one left because he has this realization that am is just reminding himself of the hate he has for man. And so in these ice caves, when they get to the canned food and cannot open it because am wouldn't give him a can can opener. And apparently that's the only way they've could figure out how to open a can. um
Speaker: He takes like sharp pieces of ice and puts all the other five people out of their misery um before Am can do anything because they aren't really immortal. They still can be killed.
Speaker: And it's just this lead character. And it's this the ending is so awful because it's like it's been another hundred years. He's still on the floor of this ice cave.
Speaker: And surrounded by the the the people that he freed by way of murder. And Am has distorted his body so that his eyes are clouded over and he does know he no longer has a mouth.
Speaker: And so then the final line is, I have no mouth and I must scream. Because Am is now only focused on him and he cannot put himself out of... this awful thing. It is so, it's like mind-bogglingly bad. And not ah good, but like so awful to see this being done to like humanoid characters.
Speaker: So that was my morning. um so I then went and had some breakfast after that one. So I just, I could not wrap my head around, like it just, it was like times it by a million and then make it worse was just what I kept thinking about. I was like,
Speaker: it it I don't even know. It just kept getting worse. And I was just like, wow. This is awful. And it was going into themes of like, this was a result of World War three where there was at one point in time, like,
Speaker: a Russian AM and a Chinese AM and oh an AM for the EU and an AM for the US and an AM for like all of, like, it was basically kind of almost as if all the places that currently have like nuclear weapons, they had created these artificial intelligence ah in order in order to outsmart their opponents and in turn wiped out the entire population of the world.
Speaker: Which was, it just kept it just kept getting worse. that h With each word I read, i was getting more upset and more angry. And yeah, it was Harlan Ellison. It's crazy what he was doing.
Speaker: I don't even, i don't know when that came out.
Speaker: people since. Yeah. So that is what I was, I'm, that was my sort of bringing in a villain that I think is well-written and it is also just pure evil, like no redeeming quality whatsoever.
Speaker: No rooting for them. Just yeah purely bad. Yep. Yep. I mean, the great thing about, uh, you know, I have no mouth and I'm a scream is like you said, none of the human characters are likable either. They're all like none of them is a true protagonist, including the narrator. Like, yeah you know, it's like one of the things I love about that story is that all of the grotesque and awful things that Am does, it's like, yeah. And yet the people who created him might've been worse. Like, you know, like that is heavily implied that like he is a product of,
Speaker: his creators, which I think is so intelligent and what makes it not descend into like a, the category like a torture porn type story. Cause I don't think it is. It's not, it's, it, it just goes in like, there's a moment when they get to like their first stop after their first stint of this arduous hike.
Speaker: And the, Man, one of the men that is in their group that has been reduced to what would be the physical representation and sort of intelligence of an ape. He decides that he's going to try and escape because on this hike they are sort of leaving the belly of the beast and can see this break. Not that it would lead to anything, but he would be out of Am's control in some way.
Speaker: Um, And he sort of he climbs up all of these blocks of hardware and gets to a point where he could get out and is stopped by Am.
Speaker: And it's just like this internal dialogue of the the narrator... detailing how no one's doing anything and the only one that's upset is the woman and he's like it's probably because this the ape character his when am made him into what he is every part of his body had increased in size and that was why the woman wanted him back Like it was because she he was the best to sleep with.
Speaker: Yep. And I was like, like, what are we talking about? Maybe she doesn't want him dead. Like maybe that might be a reason. Oh, I was just getting so mad at the narrator and so mad at all of the characters because it was just like, you guys have been doing this for a hundred years. Like, where did your logic go?
Speaker: Where did it go? Please come back. I'm scared. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, if it does feel like one of the things he's set up is that logic has essentially decayed over time, yeah right? Like, like, Am can keep them alive and prevent their, you know, death from normal circumstances, but he can't preserve their brains.
Speaker: Like, that that seems like a big factor in the story that people often overlook is like, their deterioration, like, because you're looking through the narrator's eyes, your assumptions are sort of like, well, all these other people around the narrator have deteriorated, but the narrator themselves has not. yeah And that's not true. Like the narrator has equally deteriorated and is just as, you know, broken as the rest. Like, it is a great short story for a reason. I don't know why you read it at 8 a.m., m but hey, you know, choice.
Speaker: Yeah, but I think those those are three real strong examples. um
Speaker: Burke, you had suggested the idea of like talking about villains that you still root for. did you have someone in mind for that that you thought of? like Well, I was going to say, I keep circling back to Donna Tartt, but again, that's like my whole life story. so um I love it. Yeah.
Speaker: Henry Winter in The Secret History. Yeah. um But that's also just because like, I think Coming from... I read that book when I was 14. Let's preface this situation. remember. Yeah, because you got it for me. yeah um Because our library didn't have it. Whatever.
Speaker: I was... probably I have not stopped thinking about that book. And one of the things that is so... There's there's not really... any morally good character in the book besides maybe maybe this side character named Judy Povey who is a fashion major who just like keeps saying, yeah, I went to this party and it was crazy and Richard Papin is just like, you're so annoying. And she's just like, you should be normal. And he's he's like, no, I'm going to go to this like weird pretentious classics class. But no other character is morally good.
Speaker: And so you kind of have this weird situation where you have characters that you prefer that you're rooting for, but all of them are pretty equivalently bad.
Speaker: So I would honestly argue that majority, if not all of the main characters in that book are somewhat of a villain and yet Henry Winter you're rooting for or he's the one who kind of had the whole plan to kill Bunny and Richard Papen there has a very large group of people who are like he is I root for him I want him to succeed and i I love his character art the most and I like want to see him do well so there's so many characters in that book in their like core group and all of them have these
Speaker: on you can't like You can't ignore their faults to the point where like their faults are so bad where you're like, you are high-key evil and I kind of love you. Sorry. like Henry Winter is evil.
Speaker: i will like He's awful. He has these horrible takes. like He did not need to kill his classmate and seemingly friend, but apparently not. But he did anyway, just because he was like, well, kind of seems like the natural course we're going on here. And then you have their teacher, Julian, who's also evil, but technically not the villain of the story, who's like leading them to do all of these awful things through his teachings.
Speaker: Francis isn't good. Camilla and Charles are incestuous and have their faults in that nature. And Richard Papen is a completely unreliable narrator who skews the entire story and says weird stuff about everybody and needs to stop doing that. And has this weird like weird thing with Camilla where he has some crazy internal dialogue and he has this weird thing with Francis and with Henry and with Bunny and with Julian and with Charles. So Richard is kind of
Speaker: the everyone else just kind of is the lesser of the however many evils in comparison to him. But i would argue that they're all kind of villains in their own right, which means that no matter who you're rooting for, you're not really rooting for anyone that isn't morally corrupt in some way, which i think is an interesting thing to look at because who whoever you're... If you're like, oh, i love Camilla, then you're like, oh, well, she was really weird with Richard and Henry and her brother. So then you have, like...
Speaker: You know, there's not there's not much moral goodness happening. If you say your favorite character is Judy Poobie, then I'd say, look at you, you're like a ball of sunshine.
Speaker: But that's what's interesting about that, though, is like who you choose to feel connected to kind of is like a window on yourself that no one wants to see. Yeah, no. Yeah. well I mean, it it is like it is the thing that I saw somebody point out really well about the like backlash to people calling Bear a villain, which is, hey, ah the reason you feel weird about that is because you see some of yourself in him.
Speaker: Right. Like, that's the thing that made that character work so well. ah And like, that's what makes villains that you're sort of like rooting for. Great. Have either of you ever heard of Glenn Cook's The Black Company?
Speaker: Ah. It sounds vaguely familiar. It sounds quite familiar. This is a fantasy series that has been written starting in the seventies and is still going. ah Glenn Cook is still going. um The first three books, I would still encourage anyone to read. They're all good, honestly good though.
Speaker: But the idea is you're following a mercenary band that is in service to a dark, like sorceress and her sorcerer companions in a world where magic is terrifying, like where it is portrayed as a thing that.
Speaker: Is like nuclear weapons in the hands of potentially unstable people, right? um And there are two quotes I want to give you from this that I think illustrate what's being said really well. So the premise of the story is that the main character, whose name is Carver, and all of them have like nicknames. They don't have real names because they're they're given a name based on what they do. Carver is the medic, hence the title. He's also...
Speaker: The person who's been instructed to be the chronologist basically of the company. So he tries to write down the history of what has happened to them. And he says two quotes. I'll give you the first one is evil is relative.
Speaker: You can't hang a sign on it. You can't touch it or taste it or cut it with a sword. Evil depends on where you're standing, pointing your indicating finger. And so that that that illustrates very much the idea that the black company serves anyone who will pay them and whatever is defined by the by the paying party as evil.
Speaker: That's the direction the finger points. And then the quote that is very famous from this that I think is just masterful is comes ah a little later in the same book. And he addresses you as the reader.
Speaker: You who come after me scribbling these annals by now realize that I shy off portraying the whole truth about our band of black guards. You know they are vicious, violent, and ignorant. They are complete barbarians, living out their cruelest fantasies, their behavior tempered only by the presence of a few decent men.
Speaker: I do not often show that side because these men are my brethren, my family, and I was taught young not to speak ill of kin. The old lessons die hardest. or And he says this right after they've taken ah a town from an enemy army.
Speaker: And so the heavily implied bit of that is some members of the company are engaging in, you know, what you would consider the historical pillaging acts, you know, assault, murder, rape, theft, all of it.
Speaker: And Carver doesn't chronicle those things. Right. Uh, But it is such a genius line to sneak in there because what Glenn Cook is basically saying is like, hey, I know you like this guy, but like the whole group he's working for are a bunch of savages.
Speaker: And you should. Yeah. Yeah. So like and again, as the series goes on, like they become increasingly like easy to root for. They have like one of the things that makes them so interesting is so many members of the group have these ah virtuous qualities, but it's buried under this pile of filth, which I think.
Speaker: Like it's so easy for audiences, readers, whatever, to take a hero who has some negative qualities. So there are a bunch of heroic qualities with a bit of darkness mixed in and be like, but I can get past the the bleak stuff.
Speaker: I don't know why it's so hard to go the opposite direction, to see a truly horrible person with a couple glimmering shades of like things you just genuinely admire and go, eh, but if you're really checking the balance here, they they don't pass the snuff test, you know? Like, yeah.
Speaker: to To your point with, like, Game of Thrones, Erika, like, Jamie Lannister is such a good example of that, you know? Like, yeah. he's he's He's a bad person, but he has a lot of virtuous qualities.
Speaker: That's a cool and interesting character, right? Yeah. Did you have one you wanted to share for a a bad villain or or, sorry, not a bad villain, a, uh,
Speaker: like other villain you root for something like that. e
Speaker: No is an acceptable answer. I mean, honestly, I'm still rooting for Tyrion. I'm like, I hope something something good comes out of that ordeal, but I'm sure there is another one that I haven't already talked about, but it's not coming to me.
Speaker: I feel like there's also villains that you're like, I hope they go out embracing the better side of who they are, right? Like that's sort of the hope of Tyrion. Yes. Like maybe he does something like his, he he gets his, his comeuppance, but at least he, he serves his better qualities in doing so.
Speaker: If you want a character who has that story in the books, Theon Greyjoy. oh my god. i sobbed. i saw and i And Theon's an asshole.
Speaker: I do not like him. But I was crying at a certain scene in the fifth book. so Yep.
Speaker: I think then the the thing that I've jumped ahead on was the the idea of like, OK, so do we have examples of what we think are maybe bad villains or maybe more broadly? It's like ways villains are done poorly.
Speaker: um My example of this that may upset some people is Thanos in the Marvel Universe, the the cinematic universe. Gotcha. I will explain this by saying I don't think his whole create balance in the universe by snapping half of them into non-existence.
Speaker: One makes no goddamn sense. ah But two also is like,
Speaker: anyone who's gone like well he kind of has a point there's like too many people i'm like well then you snap the ones that suck and not just a random half of them for god's sake like if you're actually trying to make things better wouldn't you be selective um he's a crappily written villain i say this because are you familiar either of you with thanos in the comics no no okay In the Marvel comics, essentially the same story that happens in like Avengers Endgame and all the stuff with him getting the gauntlet and the stones, all of that is like the same.
Speaker: But the reason for him pursuing this incredible power is to kill as many people as possible to impress the literal manifestation of death.
Speaker: He is in love with death, who is a thing that exists in the Marvel universe. I would make the case that's a much more interesting villain.
Speaker: Yeah, I think like it would have been way cooler if death was a thing that existed in the Marvel Universe that he was constantly trying to get the attention of because he was a broken, obsessed person.
Speaker: And so he was willing to go to whatever end to get her attention. Yeah. Like that's way more interesting than this really shoddily drawn up villain.
Speaker: and And that's a problem. I think that all the Marvel cinematic universe movies have is that like these villains are given no time or space to be fleshed out in a way that makes them interesting because they all have to be beat by the end of the film they show up in.
Speaker: You know, who's the one that does work for me though. Yeah. Killmonger and black Panther. Oh, hell yeah. oh my God. Yeah. Like, oh, my God. And that's a great example of like, uh, Jurgas has a point. Like, like, he wasn't wrong. He was going about it poorly.
Speaker: hey Hey, surprise, Ryan Coogler made that movie. I wonder why yeah that worked. I wonder why it was good. ah Which I think at this point, we should now have to talk about Sinners because, oh my God.
Speaker: ah and As far as villains that you actually are sympathetic to and kind of get where they're coming from, Renick is amazing. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: ah and And because if you know anything about your history... there's a heavy amount of implication that he is a victim of like the genocide of the Irish by the English that like, that's his origin story. Uh, and also when he initially makes his quote unquote offer, ah to smoke and the rest, it's basically like you come from a people that are never going to be treated fairly or equally and are oppressed. What if you joined us and we got our revenge on all of them?
Speaker: Pretty good sell. Not going lie. yeah I was like yeah you know he's not wrong right like i mean he is clearly a monster like but and yet you do see where he's coming from which again is the mark of a well-done villain and I think what's interesting about that is like to the Thanos it feels to me like they wrote Thanos like well we have to give like some sort of like logical reason to why he's doing what he's doing so we understand where he's coming from it's like No, just make him obsessed with death. It's fine. Renick is like a psycho that just like revels in his sudden power over others and wants to like use that to his advantage. He's still so compelling and understandable. Like...
Speaker: the misunderstanding I feel like about villains is we have to make them sympathetic somehow. And that does work. Sometimes there are villains. You can be like, I know why they are the way they are and it sucks, but also like it becomes a crutch for bad writing.
Speaker: At least I think so. It's funny you mentioned the Thanos. I don't know if either of you have seen the new Spider-Man that just came out. Not yet. Erica has. Yeah. Yeah. Because there's, this is not a spoiler, but there's a scene, um, Mark Rufflo is in this movie playing, obviously Hulk.
Speaker: Um, And he's in a situation where he's being asked a question and the the person just goes, if Thanos had the power to do anything he wanted by snapping his fingers, why? And he was concerned about overpopulation. Like, why didn't he just snap his fingers and double the amount of food and like livable land in the globe?
Speaker: One of my favorite parts of that movie. And I was just like, wait, look, yeah. Like, why didn't he do that? That's a great point. Because they just like, with that one, like, two second clip of the movie, they kind of just made Thanos even more irrelevant.
Speaker: And I like, okay. I love it. I mean, yeah. That's awesome, though. They acknowledged it. They're they're right, though. like it's it's It doesn't make sense. I think it was honestly just making... i feel like it was, in my opinion, i believe it was to make Thanos seem even more just, like, defeatable and insignificant because they're about to bring on ah Victor Von Doom. Yeah, that's going to be... I don't know.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't know how that one's going to go, but we'll see. That's another villain I'm curious about. But in the, in the comics, at least he's a fantastic villain. Oh, he's a great villain because he's a villain that is completely relatable and who you do kind of side. but He's very Magneto coded that way. Cause Magneto is another villain that you're always like,
Speaker: sorry, man, dude's got a point. Like Victor Von Doom has a point. Like he really does. I wonder if they're willing to go there. I hope. Yeah. I'm also, a bit, I kind of, we can briefly touch on this cause I know what we've, we've been talking yapping for a bit, but, uh,
Speaker: T-Pol and then also I don't know Erica if you read or write anything but I'm curious your take on writing villains because you have done quite a bit of that um and where your opinions kind of change or say the same for that area of villains yeah I mean Erica's read my stuff so like she knows one of the characters that went through the biggest transformation is Valissa Ulfren my fave yeah so like Valissa in the books is originally sort of cast as femme fatale villainous character who, as the story progresses, you kind of realize is just like someone who's been overlooked for her own abilities, saw a chance to be recognized for what she is capable of and then realize the horrors of what the group she signed on for is and.
Speaker: Switches sides and it's like, no, not doing that, um which doesn't undo all the crimes she's complicit in. i think that for me, Like, I think there's a wide range of villain types.
Speaker: in my book or that I try to make them a wide range. Like I have sycophants and I have the mustache twirling just in it for the love of the game villains. And then I want to have villains that you sympathize with. Like the, the main villain for the first three books is really Wolfbane.
Speaker: And I hope by the end of the third, if you read it, you feel like kind of bad for him because i wanted him to feel like the Talos Valkyrie type thing of the guy just wanted to save the world. And it turns out,
Speaker: that wasn't going to happen. ah I think that those villains are really interesting to me because is that It's like, as somebody who's now 41, like, you reach a point where you sort of recognize that, like, the things you want to accomplish or impact the world may not happen. And you either come to grips with that, or I think you kind of go crazy.
Speaker: And depending on how many resources you have, you take a bunch of us down with you or not. See Elon Musk. But, like, yeah that is sort of how I think... people deal with their mortality is like wishing to be something recognizing that they either never completely met their own lofty expectations or won't have time to get there and then what they do after that revelation is what sort of defines you uh yeah that's how i i tend to look at the villains is like a lot of them have these aspirations that either they can't reach or they can only reach by
Speaker: crossing a line they know they can't go back from because I think that's more interesting yeah that way um yeah agree yeah I I think that like you know like my favorite villains have always been villains that like
Speaker: had moments where either I went, I get where they're coming from, or man, I wish they made that one other choice. They did that one other thing because they could have been this.
Speaker: They could have been something else. um It's really hard to write a villain that is just sort of like in it for the love of the game and evil. Like there's only so many jokers you can conceive of Like we've seen how many times that character is played badly looking at you, Jared Leto.
Speaker: um But like, I mean, i think, I assume you've both seen the dark night. Yes. he ledger course. Portrayal of that type is unassailably perfect.
Speaker: Like, it's just... 100%. It hurts still to this day that he's not still making films because, my God. Yes. But, like, his performance of that character is just mind-blowing because he really is just absolutely doing it for no other reason than...
Speaker: fuck it, let's go. Like, that's his whole character. And that could be so bad and so dumb. Again, if you saw Jared Leto's version of it in either a Suicide Squad or whatever the hell he made, it's he's playing that version of the character. And like, but you're a fucking joke. Like, there's nothing about you that's interesting because you're like,
Speaker: you're you're not actually, that character that he played didn't feel like they actually bought into their own unhinged philosophy, if that makes sense. her It felt very much like everything Jared Leto does, which is I'm playing a role. Whereas with Heath Ledger is like, oh no, he is this person, which I get is the difference in acting quality as well. But like, that's also the only way to do a truly like,
Speaker: over the top villain is to lean into it fully. Another good one is like um the Baron Harkonnen from Dune, either the book. Oh, yeah. i don't know if you guys have read that. I've not read it. I read the first two books. Yeah, the film is extremely loyal to the book. So like, but like, yeah, Baron Harkonnen, which is I think it's Stellan Skarsgård that plays him in the movie. yeah Yeah. Yeah. Like he is he is a disgusting monster.
Speaker: And like, there's nothing redeemable about him. But yet he's such a greatly portrayed villain in those stories. Like ah you you can do just a cartoonishly bad person, but you have to make them compelling in some way. And they have to be believable as that thing.
Speaker: Yes. And the problem I think a lot of the media also runs into is they make these cartoonish villains or these like for love of the game villains. And then they try to retcon in some sort of like decency or or like yeah two to them and it's like that type of thing has to be sort of organic like this i don't i don't think this is how it happens with harconan in the book or the movie but like it would make sense for that character to care a lot about his children and their reputations and their sort of like status and therefore be a good dad in that sense
Speaker: Like that's a virtue that would make sense for the character because he's all about power and it's consolidation. So his heirs need to be capable of that. And therefore he's kind of a good father in the sense that he's like, Hey, if they show promise, I, I, I support them and help them. Right. Like,
Speaker: You're it. Yeah, you know, but like it gets shoehorned in all the time. It's honestly, this is this is a ah classic reference, but like it I think it works. It's it's the like, well, Hitler loved dogs, though, right? Like, you know what i mean? It's like, you know, real world example. But it's like, yeah, the most monstrous you one of the one of the most monstrous human beings in all of history.
Speaker: was an animal lover it's like yeah that doesn't really make me care anymore about him like i don't have any better positive feelings toward him because he liked dogs you know ah and if you're writing fiction unfortunately not unfortunately i think one of the responsibilities is you have to um Cause like Hitler being a dog lover is almost like bad fiction. You know, you know how they say like there's, there's stories from actual history that if you made it into a book or a film, no one would actually believe it. Like, yeah, that happens a lot. But so one of the responsibilities of telling a story, if it's fictional is, well, you have to avoid those pitfalls.
Speaker: So you can't just try to work that in. cause it's going to feel either ham fisted or poorly done, or like you're trying to generate an emotion that a character doesn't deserve. And that's not just villains either, right? Like, ah and so when it's done really well, like the examples we've looked at of the ones that are good, like it hits hard and it leaves you feeling a lot of introspective thoughts, I think.
Speaker: Like, that's what a good villain does, is you sit back there and go like, whew, okay, I have to now reevaluate my worldview a bit, because why am I sympathizing with this character I hate? Or why am i sort of agreeing with their worldview? Or why am i regretting that this awful person is gone, right?
Speaker: Like, you're supposed to be sitting there thinking about how you felt in the end. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: Uh... So I don't know if we have anything to throw on here at the end. ah I was trying to think if there were any other villains across all media that still stand out to us that we still are like really either love to hate or have a certain like weakness for.
Speaker: do you two have any thoughts on that?
Speaker: um for Oh, go ahead. Sorry, just the first one that came to mind was like, because we've we've talked about Marvel a lot, but a Venom and yeah the the dichotomy of like the person versus the thing inside of him. Like, yeah, that came to mind. was like, you do root for Venom, obviously.
Speaker: Yeah, he's a good one. I personally am a bigger fan of the idea of Venom than the idea of Deadpool in the hero category. Like I I ride very hard for the original Deadpool film.
Speaker: i I like Brian Reynolds and his performance. Unfortunately, that is a character whose fandom has just made me despise them because the people that glom too much on to them. ah But yeah, Erica, did you have another one we didn't mention that should probably get thrown out there?
Speaker: Um, I think in the spirit of I have no mouth, but I am a scream. Um, I haven't read the story, but I came across, I'm sure we've all been on TV tropes and lost a lot of hours there.
Speaker: How dare you? Listen, I'm there too. we we all, we share the flaw, but um that is a trope and it applies to one of my favorite villains from video games, which is Flowey from Undertale.
Speaker: yeah ah So just a shout out to Flowey ah for being so delightfully evil and then making me cry.
Speaker: Burke, have you played Undertale? I have not, no. Yeah, you should at least watch a Let's Play of it because the story and the way that it uses player agency is mind-blowing in terms of its, like, execution, I would say. It is my favorite game of all time. Yeah, Erica rides very hard for that. um my My villain that I had, I've mentioned on a previous podcast, it was when I...
Speaker: did a bit grab bag with B, but it's, it's John Aranicus from Baldur's Gate two, which I know Erica knows about this cause it's still my favorite game, probably of all time. But the thing that I liked about that villain so much was that there was his entire plot is he's out for revenge and he wants to do it on a scale that is so beyond the slight that he personally feels from his, like the people who offended him.
Speaker: And yet, Like his both his demise and his just general downfall, even though you're the one that creates it, you still feel for him because I do think he's a great example of a character that if a couple things had just gone a different way would have been.
Speaker: A force of, if not good, at least would have helped manifest good in other people. And I love those kinds of villains. And they don't have to have anything redeeming about them. If there was that one point where they could have gone left instead of right, and they would have been something else.
Speaker: and yet they're just a disaster across the board now because of what they chose to do i love it i think that's ah that's always cool oh my god trevor you just made me think of somebody you're gonna appreciate this yeah ah my original my original villain boy my original love do you know if who i'm gonna say i feel like i think you mentioned it before but go you're gonna be like oh yeah uh racelin Oh, yeah. i know I know Burke has not read those books because she's not old enough for those books.
Speaker: which Which books? It's it's called Dragonlance, and it was in the 1980s. And there used to be tons of these paperbacks available when I was a kid in the 90s that you could find at, like, used bookstores. You probably still can find them. They're they're great. I think people are still into them. I think it's a, like, niche interest. but Burke, you are aware, but I don't think you play D&D, right?
Speaker: Yeah, I do not. Yeah. So like there is a Dragonlance source book and adventure in D&D that exists. So it's like still alive. The main reason for that is the person who created or one of the two people who created it was a guy named Tracy Hickman.
Speaker: And he is like very famous for his lore and stuff in the D&D setting. But like they wrote this trilogy and then followed it with an even better trilogy, which is all about two characters, one of whom is the one Erica mentioned.
Speaker: And it's essentially their twins, one of whom is this big, strong jock warrior type who all the girls like. And then the other is a sickly, bitter, but unbelievably powerful wizard.
Speaker: And you follow the essential like so chase of for power that Raistlin goes on throughout the series and how he basically casts aside all the good parts of himself or most of them just to pursue it and it's it's amazing he's such a great character yeah i was looking at the i just looked up the i was gonna say the the cover art looks very much like a dnd playbook Yeah, even the early book art was very like of its time kind of thing. Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, I would still recommend those books. I think that like, you know, you've been reading Donna Tartt and Ellison and all these like more. more like accomplished writers like it's like a early teenage like book that really hits and then as you read it as adult you see all the kind of tropey parts of it and that sort of like drags it down and yet erica i don't know you how recently reread them but like racelin and caramon his brothers still hold up as an adult that's good to hear because i would like to go back to them
Speaker: Yeah, I think not every character does. i think that some of the sort of it's ah it's a very by the numbers classic like adventure story. But like there are a few characters that stand out as as being extremely well written. The twins are one. The other one I still really love is Sturm, who's the knight who's a classic example of like.
Speaker: a cop who wants to do the right thing, but then he has to do it by the law and the law is messed up. And so does he break his oaths and do the right thing or does he stick to the book? And it's done in a really like, it's, it's really well articulated throughout that series, how he, he changes like his view on things.
Speaker: That's a, that's a good one though, Erica, that's definitely the right pick. Also, just like on a side note, I think there is in the, the realm, like the umbrella category of villains, I feel like in my age group and age demographic, there's been a lot of things and in recent years where it's this other sort of subset of villains that are made to be liked in a way like there was this whole resurgence with of a lot of people my age who read Harry Potter as a kid and then in like COVID era
Speaker: everyone was like, oh my god, I'm in love with Draco Malfoy and he's the best person ever. And and he's awesome. And then on ah beyond that, there's people who are like, oh my god, I love Barty Crouch Jr. And he's also an evil person. and Or Lucius Malfoy. And there's all now there's like there's obviously a lot more dark romance where the like very morally gray stuff going on there which um I wrote a paper once about that and how it's kind of messed up, but is weirdly a safe space for people.
Speaker: But there's like a this weird certain area of villains where it's like they're sort of made so that there's like this niche audience that's like blokey, blokey,
Speaker: want that like yeah yeah like there's a lot of villains that are coming out now where there is this element to ah to them that is attractive in some way oh too yeah it's like the i can fix them category yeah yeah so definitely yeah I mean, yeah that's not the whole yeah like thing. yeah like that I can fix him, like but daddy, I love him. like There's this whole thing. He did nothing wrong. Yeah, no like like yeah I'll change him. like all of these There's so many villains that were either from a lot of people my age's childhood, where they were like, why is he kind of hot? yeah Or like other ones that are being created created actively that are a part of them that is made to be
Speaker: liked because they're attractive in some way or have attractive qualities even though they're doing some fuck shit yeah i i mean i'll i'll end this with uh a fun one because we mentioned game of thrones and erica you brought up joffrey briefly but like oh yeah um you know at no point is he in any way likable and if you you like anything about joffrey i i don't want you to ever contact me ever um That's fair. That's fair. But Jack Gleeson, the actor who plays him, is notoriously like one of the nicest, the sweetest person alive. so I watched a film my friend Andy recommended to me called The Land of Saints and Sinners, which is and I told him, you motherfucker, you ticked all the boxes. It's a period piece. It's set in Ireland. It has Liam Neeson. And then I texted him when he showed up. Holy shit, Jack Gleeson's in this movie. um Jack Leeson, for those who don't know, hasn't really been in anything much since. He's been doing a lot of stage stuff since Game of Thrones, but he's like kind of quietly just like gone and lived his life and been a wonderful person and acted when he feels like it.
Speaker: um He's in this movie, and if you just want to see Jack Leeson and really, really, really like him instead of see him as Joffrey and be like that son of a bitch, go watch Land of Saints and Sinners. It's great. It's such a good movie. He's delightful in it, and It seems like he and Liam Neeson are having a really fun time.
Speaker: ah Yeah, ah that's my that's my end of episode throwaway about the guy who played Joffrey. Yeah, it's it's again, it's fun watching actors put on different hats and do different stuff, and he's really good. yes Yeah, I mean, they couldn't have cast that role better for Game of Thrones because, my God, he just... Oh, he was Joffrey. It was...
Speaker: It was incredible. Yeah, and and that's again, you know, to to the point we've been talking about, that's a cartoonishly evil villain with no redeeming qualities that like you're totally on board with. You buy it and you want to see them get their comeuppance and you're just, you know, you're cringing for a lot of scenes they're in, but you're delighted at the same time. Like that's that's a good villain. That works.
Speaker: Yeah, he's definitely in the love to hate category and he gets what he deserves. So does he ever? Yeah. ah But anyway, ah you can send us messages about this podcast for future topics and ideas to I think you should pod at gmail.com.
Speaker: You can catch me on blue sky at TH Paul or check out my website, Trevor H. Paul dot com. ah Burke, Erica, do you want to plug anything about you, your stuff, or do you just want to stay as anonymous as possible?
Speaker: I'm rocking with the anonymity. same here same here good good uh well that was an episode thanks for coming on both you uh it was fun and i hope everybody enjoyed listening bye bye
