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Old 11-15-2021, 05:07 PM   #31
Varyon
 
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Default Re: Villains worth Stealing!

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-Jules-Pierre Mao clearly recognizes the profound potential of the protomolecule to move humanity forward into the future, and considers any lives sacrificed in the short term to be worth the benefits gained for billions of people in generations yet unborn. (Sometimes, big-picture guys make the best villains -- just remove from them any sense of compassion for lives ruined, in the short term.)
I really liked the sequence of him interacting with the children. We see that he does indeed have some humanity left, from how he interacts with Mei (who appears to remind him of his own daughter, dead thanks to his work with the protomolecule) and how he opts to shut down the experiments when he sees Mei's friend seizing up. But then, when the head scientist ignores his orders and they experience a breakthrough, he excitedly authorizes further experimentation - he has clearly recognized they are making a terrible sacrifice, but in that instant he decides it's worth it.
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Old 11-15-2021, 08:10 PM   #32
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By the way, if rewatching Blake's 7 to study Servalan, also look at Roj Blake. He devolves into a fairly interesting villain himself.
And then there's Kerr Avon, who was a villain in a lot of ways. By the time the final season of the show was on it was a toss-up as to who was going to get his crew killed first -- Avon or the Federation.

Hannibal Lecter, especially if met while he's on the run and operating under an alias.

Judge Holden from Blood Meridian. Possibly the most disturbed thing you'll ever encounter.

The Yellow King from True Detective. Was there really something otherworldly going on or was it all imagination?

Agent Richard Chance from To Live and Die in LA. Well before The Shield, this was the bad cop.
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Old 11-16-2021, 03:25 PM   #33
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Default Re: Villains worth Stealing!

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I really liked the sequence of him interacting with the children. We see that he does indeed have some humanity left, from how he interacts with Mei (who appears to remind him of his own daughter, dead thanks to his work with the protomolecule) and how he opts to shut down the experiments when he sees Mei's friend seizing up. But then, when the head scientist ignores his orders and they experience a breakthrough, he excitedly authorizes further experimentation - he has clearly recognized they are making a terrible sacrifice, but in that instant he decides it's worth it.
Yep, and that scene illustrates his character, perfectly.
It was beautifully written, and absolutely horrifying.

As for Strickland, himself, he was more of the same "big picture/no compassion" villainy, and not nearly so interesting as either Jules-Pierre or Dresden.

Strickland's greatest contribution to the series was to make Amos one of everybody's favoritest sci-fi characters in any story, in any medium, EVAR! :)
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Old 11-17-2021, 09:31 AM   #34
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Yep, and that scene illustrates his character, perfectly.
It was beautifully written, and absolutely horrifying.

As for Strickland, himself, he was more of the same "big picture/no compassion" villainy, and not nearly so interesting as either Jules-Pierre or Dresden.

Strickland's greatest contribution to the series was to make Amos one of everybody's favoritest sci-fi characters in any story, in any medium, EVAR! :)
Personally, I didn't feel Strickland was really a "big picture" kind of guy. He seemed more like the scientists that had their empathy surgically removed (albeit still able to feel fear, and thus not inclined to take similarly-extreme measures). All he seems to care about is the research itself, without any real goal in mind. At least, that's how I interpreted the character.

Amos himself could make for an interesting villain. He seems to have a similar affliction to what the scientists inflicted on themselves, but has just enough of a conscience to feel it's better to be on a morally right side than a morally wrong one (the scientists don't consider morality to be a legitimate factor in decision making). The problem is, he himself only has an incredibly vague sense of right and wrong, so he tends to attach himself to someone who he considers to have a good understanding of that (Naomi initially, but Holden later; I only just started watching Season 5, so I don't know if he handles things differently there or not). The Expanse's writers seem to like to play with this a bit - the above scientists are sort of like "Amos, with his shriveled speck of conscience gone," while Chandra Wei (Murtry's second-in-command in Season 4) is basically "Amos, but attached to the wrong person."
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Old 11-18-2021, 05:45 PM   #35
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One heroine who would make a terrifying villain is Flora Poste from "Cold Comfort Farm." "Cold Comfort Farm" has been described as a "Jane Austen heroine visits a episode of the Beverly Hillbillies." Mine you I'd much rather visit the Clampets than the Starkadders.

Still Flora Poste would be a terrifying foe. She's both devastatingly smart and gifted with Empathy , Intuition and scary high social skills. You won't see her attacks coming, even if you are a substance not delt with in the main syllabus.
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Old 11-25-2021, 09:52 AM   #36
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Default Re: Villains worth Stealing!

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One heroine who would make a terrifying villain is Flora Poste from "Cold Comfort Farm." "Cold Comfort Farm" has been described as a "Jane Austen heroine visits a episode of the Beverly Hillbillies." Mine you I'd much rather visit the Clampets than the Starkadders.

Still Flora Poste would be a terrifying for. She's both devastatingly smart and gifted with Empathy , Intuition and scary high social skills. You won't see her attacks coming, even if you are a substance not delt with in the main syllabus.
While we're on canon-switching, we could take the Simon Tam we were set up to expect and run with it. In the original he is just a desperate guy trying to save his sister and his sinister appearance is mostly from his frat-boy background (though he does take Kaylee as a hostage as a bluff).

However a guy rather like him could make a good villain. Make him really be someone who smuggles slaves for border world barons for instance.
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Old 11-25-2021, 06:22 PM   #37
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Agreed, the very things that make Simon Tam a skilled doctor and a good brother could, corrupted, make a nasty villain.
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Old 11-25-2021, 10:41 PM   #38
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Simon proved adept at being a criminal mastermind when he planned their heist of the Alliance hospital. It really wouldn't take much to have him in an adversarial role.

A truly criminal Simon would have a handlebar mustache, though. He's a stickler for the classics. :)
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Old 11-29-2021, 07:23 AM   #39
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Agreed, the very things that make Simon Tam a skilled doctor and a good brother could, corrupted, make a nasty villain.
Honestly, I think part of what made the Firefly characters so interesting is that many of them could probably be an absolute monster with the right motivation, and without making a conscious choice to be a decent person. I don't think Wash, Kaylee, and perhaps Inara have much darkness in them, but I could see them serving on an "evil" counterpart of the Serenity without much modification (Wash's primary motivation for serving is Zoe, Kaylee's is that she absolutely loves the ship - and the crew actually values her skills, rather than seeing her as just another pretty face - and Inara's presence is almost purely business, along with harboring some hidden feelings for Mal; I don't see any of that changing if the rest of the crew were outright villains, so long as they didn't act like Reavers or the like).
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Old 11-29-2021, 01:40 PM   #40
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Simon Delicata, From the Modesty Blaise book "A Taste for Death" Simon Delicata is a giant who is inhumanly strong, impervious to pain and highly intelligent. Also quite sadistic. Short of a bullet to the head the only way to put him down was to cripple his limbs.
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