Topic: Video Game Villains: Why They're Simply Evil?

How come in almost all fiction stories, but since we're in a gaming website well keep it about gaming, villains are doing what they're doing simply because..."they're evil"?

Is it an easy to trope to make them this way because the fiction writers can simply justify their existence and create a dichotomy for the narrative of the story (ie darkness to the protagonists' good which will make 'everyone' know which side is good and bad)?

You can see this trend through historical writing and mythologies, but let's keep it a discussion about modern writing...why modern game writers not make 'villains' more complex.

Were there any games where you sympathized with villains and or where you felt like the character/good guys were the real a-holes of the story?

PS Okay it's not absolute and there are exceptions. I haven't finished Pokemon Sun but I think I could kinda see them playing on the complexity of 'good vs. evil' in terms of Team Aether and Team Skull.

@Lloiddd
They are EVIL probably :
1. Want to Dominate the World with their Mighty power.
2. Want to Destroy the World / Universe because of hatred / sickness.
3. They were possessed by Evil powers that Hypnotized poor peoples.
4. Envy. Usually this villain are good peoples, but because of their Envy feeling, it changed their attitudes to become Evil. (Evil Spirit in Miitopia)
5. Just want to destroy everything WITHOUT any motives.
6. Broken hearted, then lead to a Feud, then lead to Wars, then lead to Genocide.
7. Greediness. When there is a chance to become almighty, these peoples suddenly revealed their darkside.
8. Misunderstanding. Sometimes the villains are Not as evil as their looking. Probably other peoples misjudged the "villain" as an evil people before fully understand about "villain" condition.
9. Faking. There is a villain who behave like nice people, never show their evil attitudes, but at the end they revealed their true identity. Their kindness just Fake. They were Acting.
10. Traumatic experiences. Since then, it might changed their mindset about something forever (Hatred of something) unless if someone can comfort them.
11. Rivalry.

In Fantasy Life 3DS, there is NO Villain at all. It just ONLY about Misunderstanding between peoples. There are some mean looking folks but actually they are not as evil as their looking.

In Miitopia, Dark Lord was an Evil Spirit from Envy & Hatred feeling of someone who abandonded and isolated from other peoples. After you beat them twice, the Evil Spirit could transform back to Human again if you want to rescue them.

In Final Fantasy X-2, Le Blanc and her gangs (Ormi & Logos) appeared as a Rival of Gullwing team (Yuna, Rikku, Paine), but she gave up her rivalry with Gullwings when she was in the Farplane (She provides Important items to survive in the battle).

I think Bowser is one example of Villain that Evil in the games but still being Nice outside the games. Remember Parental Control App for Nintendo Switch ? He take care his son, Bowser Jr when Bowser Jr is playing with his Nintendo Switch and when Bowser Jr shares his experiences + his ideas about games he played on Nintendo Switch.

1. Games have generally focused more on the gameplay than the story, it’s easier to just say the villain is evil and BOOM you’re done!
2. Complex villains are easy to mess up. If you do complex villains wrong they can be unmemorable and weak. Ex. compare Gaston with Hans from Frozen

@Anti-Matter Thanks for replying, good points.

I think 8, 9, 10 is where my point is mostly (that characters aren't simply 'evil' for the sake of evil; real life people are rarely motivated simply/purely by an idea or thought to do what they do ie there are logical/practical reasons for their actions or explainable reasons beyond their control eg mental trauma...why do fictional villains have to be?)

Good examples too (although most of those games I haven't played).

They just need a hug.

@Mrtoad Good points bro. I like the idea of how 'evil' character makes a strong character archetype because I think (though this isn't exactly what you mentioned) for the sake 'hate-ability'.

I think it goes back to my point about dichotomy of good and evil and how the player falls in place in this neat good vs. bad polarity.

I think your point about 'practicality' regarding gameplay vs. story in game design is really why they do it.

Games just don't have that good storytelling in general, that's the main issue.

Some villains do have more interesting backstories though.

Ardyn in Final Fantasy 15 was especially good. One of the best villains in the series.

@Lloiddd Really? I find "evil villains" who are bad just because they are evil to be extremely rare these days. Bowser doesn't really count, since he was created decades ago and today largely isn't even a bad guy - just a trouble maker. In fact, I was recently complaining that a lot of writers try too hard to make the villains sympathetic. As though, yes it's a bad guy, but they are doing bad things for a good reason. Or, they were betrayed and are trying to right some perceived wrong against them - thus making them a victim too. There was that new fighting game with the predominately female roster. NintendoLife did an article mentioning how it was questionable content because the male bad guy presumably captured all these women and is making them fight. Like.. duh. He's a bad guy. That's what they do. He probably does get off on it. It's his thing.

Fact is, selfish people exist. Perverts who act on their perversion do exist. Cruel people exist. Bad people exist. One doesn't need to always try to have that sympathetic villain to write a good villain. Palpatine in Star Wars, he is bad because has chosen to be dark side. For him it was a means to his end of pushing his world view on the galaxy no matter who disagrees. No sympathy for him but still makes for this lovely malevolent entity. We ultimately know that he turned Anakin into Vader. Palpatine is the bad man who chose evil, while Vader was the good man twisted to it.

The worst villains in my mind are the ones who are less villains, and more plot points. The bland forgettable characters who are just there to be the monster of the day for the hero to kill. Or the extremely basic guys who have no defined motivations aside from "I'm gonna take over the world!... Because I feel like it!"

My favorite villains are the ones who choose evil, even when given every chance not to. Characters like Kilgrave in Jessica Jones. Whom I consider one of my all time favorite baddies, and one of the few genuinely intimidating bad guys for his combination of insanity and powers.

Villains that are simply evil allow developers to create games that are less focused on the story and more focused in other elements of the game. Games that don't focus that much on the story can develop other elements much further and I appreciate that.
Sometimes a more complex and interesting story can be good too, but for the most part I think that games should be something different than that and keeping things simple story wise is a great help to that.
I like variety, I like to have different types of games, but for me it's not like they have to be 50/50. For my taste games that focus on storytelling should be considerably less in number.

Good points guys. Sorry not gonna rebut not because you guys didn't make good points or ignoring, but I'm just too lazy to type. lol.

Good subject let's keep putting on opinions for people to ponder.

I'd say The Last Story is a good game for interesting, ambiguous villains and some questions about which side are the heroes and which the villains.

@Heavyarms55

Wow, that sure is a bitter view on people.
I would argue that there was hardly anyone ever in the world who thought of himself as "evil" or a "villain".
People usually do what they are convinced is best and even if it requires doing something horrible they rather do it because they think it is for a greater good.
Probably not even Hitler or Caligula or Osama Bin Laden stood up in the morning, looked in the mirror and thought "Man, what an evil person I am.".
They just had a different vision of what life should be like for the people they sympathised with.
(And all probably had severe mental issues, because otherwise you wouldn't fight for your goals so recklessly that you would kill that many innocents. Really, you cannot even explain those things with "they were simply selfish and cruel", because there are so many character traits combined, especially being confinced enough by your own idea that other people just don't matter anymore.)

I think this also makes villains in general so fascinating, because you kind of want to understand their motivation.
Simply evil villains are kind of a relict of the beginnings of video games, where stories couldn't be that complex. Also they help serving an easy motivation for not-so-story-heavy-games like most platformers without distracting from the gameplay too much and overcomplicating things.
Also there are games where sympathy for your enemy might make the gameplay completely unenjoyable. Shooters or RPGs, where you usually kill all the time, would be hard to enjoy if you had too much empathy with your victims. Even when the villain is relatable there still needs to be a clear morally superior goal that you yourself are fighting for.

Edit:
By the way I think comic-books also showed a similar development from "good vs. evil" to "comparably good I guess vs. kind of evil though relatable".

@Tiefseemiez Hitler and Bin Laden were acting for political reasons and their own beliefs. I'd bet a pay check they weren't laughing maniacally about their evil plans. But that doesn't mean for a second that they weren't evil. However there are people who choose to go against what society has defined as good. There are people who kill out of hatred or greed, who force themselves on others even though they know that's wrong. Those people are simply evil. They aren't making a mistake, they haven't been tricked, they choose to do a horrible thing. Maybe it sounds bitter, but the fact is, it's true.

I don't mean to imply that I don't enjoy a good sympathetic villain at times, but it sometimes seems as writers try too hard to force that sympathy. Sometimes I think it's better to portray that sociopath(I actually don't like using that word anymore because it makes it sound like a mental illness. No being a sociopath is not the same kind of thing as having Asperger syndrome) with no regard for right and wrong as just plain evil, because that's what they are. Even if they aren't laughing about it, or consciously thinking "I chose evil!" I don't want to sympathize with a mass murderer who gets off on raping the corpses of his victims. Now that's an extreme example, but such atrocities have happened. Monsters like that have existed and are proof that evil people exist.

@Heavyarms55

I understand your point better now and do agree.
There are horrible people out there. Especially reckless and ignorant ones.
Though I do think most of have good traits aswell, as everyone does. Nobody has an all evil character.
I would argue aswell that people that become mass murderers and/or rape corpses or similarly horrible things also don't do it because "they are simply evil", but because they have psychic diseases and horrible things happened to them in the past that shaped them. I think looking closely you will always find some "reason". And even though they still would be considered as bad persons, they wouldn't fall into the category of "being simply evil" villains as meant by the OP (I think? After all they have a motive, but it surely depends on how well that is explained in the game aswell.).
I think this kind of villain is the most common compromise between "too flat of a character" and "too relatable to hate", at least when it comes to villains that act for lower goals (=mainly for their own ones).
For those that act for higher ones (=mainly world domination) the main reason probably is that they have some sort of vision for society and try to achieve that no matter what.

@Tiefseemiez Yeah, I do agree that even the worst people to ever live are likely to still have some aspects that are good, Hitler was said to have had a taste for art for example. Also I agree that there can be those villains in fiction who are clearly just bad guys because they are the bad guy. That's just lazy writing.

Trouble with going into detail about the source of the evilry is that you risk offending someone in some way. Keep it safe and just use generic baddies and you don't risk losing sales due to some controversy.

Also, the more detail you go into with the story for one game, the harder it may be to write another game in the series, as you need to navigate the whole continuity issue.

In Bioshock Infinite the so called baddie is actually just confused.
At the end you realize that Evil is subjective.
In some games you may become evil and fight against evil like in the Fable series.

In Castlevania Dracula is EVIL beyond evil but the first game explains that he just lost his wife and was filled with hatred because of that. Later Dracula tried to be happy again with Lisa but people burned her as a witch. And again he lost all compassion for humans thus going back to being evil and seeking revenge.

@Heavyarms55 Also he was known to be quite the protector of animals and openly against animal cruelty.

@Zuljaras insert "the more you know" meme here