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Times You’ve Sided with the Villain

Started by Armed Traffic Warden, July 01, 2022, 01:55:35 AM

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Armed Traffic Warden

Putting this in Tv but it could be a comedy or film as well.
   It doesn't need to be the actual villain but moreso occasions you feel your morality, instincts or just that little voice make you go against the intent of the screenwriter/performer.
  Personally I'm a sucker for going against a sanctimonious, self righteous character. I'll root for pretty much anyone if they're coming up against a holier than thou, hypocritical poo hole. I could be wrong but I think I remember hating Amanda Redman's character in At Home with the Braithwaits for that reason.
  Also the amount of times a villain does the 'humanity is a plague ...' speech and I find it difficult not to nod along. Interesting the Hero seldom makes a good retort.
  When have you found yourself bucking the writers intent and willing that prat in the white get-up to fall off their horse?

Shaky

Honestly can't think of any, unless the "villain" is much more of an anti-hero type... and even then, it's more occasional admiration that full-blown sycophancy.

Any ultra-baddie that goes to town on the usual cliches is generally pretty dull and not worth getting behind. Can't wait for the hero to blast their cock off.

grainger

#2
The obvious one (not for me, but for lots of people) is Game of Thrones. Lots of people really liked Daenerys - some named their kids after her - even though the signs that she was Evil were there all along. But then again, recent politics shows that people are still terrible at idenitfying early signs of evil.

OK, she wasn't openly presented as an antagonist for most of the show's run (did anyone name their kid after Joffrey?) so it's not quite the same as siding with the villain.

bakabaka

The most obvious one is Michelle Gomez whenever she's the villain, from The Green Wing onwards. She stole the show from the very start when she was Missy in Doctor Who and proceeded to strut around with an air of "well, take it off me if you're big enough" for the rest of the series.

Stringer Bell in The Wire. But in that show heroes and villains blurred massively. There's just a point where it looks like he can translate his business acumen into something legit and leave the streets behind.

Sonny_Jim

Alan Rickmans sherrif of Nottingham.  Robin Hood is a prick

grainger

Two other obvious ones are Walter White in Breaking Bad and Tony Soprano. Both are the protagonists of their shows, but certainly aren't heroes. Fans of these shows felt more positive about their lead character than the showrunners expected.

IIRC David Chase deliberately made Tony less sympathetic towards the end because he felt that fans were siding with the character too much. I don't know what specifically, but stuff like the asbestos contract for the school, where you literally saw the money go from the site to Tony's pocket is probably one of them.

When Breaking Bad first aired, there was a lot of "why is Skylar whinging" sentiment online. For many viewers, Walt's family got in the way of their power fantasy. Obviously, we weren't meant to side with Walt to that degree.

Sonny_Jim

I suppose you could paint Hank as the villain in some way, as he was trying to catch the 'good guy'.  I definitely sided with Hank on my last rewatch.  Walter White is a prick.

Des Wigwam

More generally I side with the killers in CSI unless they are out and out murderers or intentional moral vacuums. Moreso in Miami as they tend towards being out and out hypocrites.

The Law and Order ones are even more likely to have me shouting "just let the rapist explain things!"

DrGreggles

Lost - I wanted Smokey to leave the island

dontpaintyourteeth

Quote from: Sonny_Jim on July 01, 2022, 08:06:24 AMI suppose you could paint Hank as the villain in some way, as he was trying to catch the 'good guy'.  I definitely sided with Hank on my last rewatch.  Walter White is a prick.

He's also a prick right from the start, he's just repressed/downtrodden/whatever at first. I can't go for any of that "this is where he becomes Heisenberg" shite.

phantom_power

Killmonger in Black Panther was the first one that sprang to mind. Even though his methods are wrong, his motives are pretty sound.

dontpaintyourteeth

Mr Freeze just wanted to help his wife

bgmnts

The most egregious example of siding with the villain in recent years was Thanos from the stupid marvel films. His solution to the problem of overpopulation and overconsumption isn't restraint or regulation or anything, but randomly murder half the universe with a click of his finger. The fact that so many people were unironically on board with that made me a bit sick and fittingly made me want to wipe out the entire human race with a click of my finger.

I think I sided with Hummel in The Rock, his cause is so just and methods so relatively nonviolent it's a bit gutting when he dies and doesn't get what he probably deserves. In a fucking Michael Bay film as well.

Kankurette

Warren had it coming. Go ed, Willow. And the one time I was very much Team Sasuke in Naruto was when he killed Danzo, because that vile old cunt REALLY had it coming. He and Orochimaru are responsible for about 90% of bad things that happened in Konoha.

Not me, but there's someone on TV Tropes who's a massive fan of the Dreamstone and keeps harping on about how Rufus and Amberley are evil little cunts and the Urpneys are victims.

AngryGazelle

[quote author=bgmnts link=msg=4961883 date=1656664628

I think I sided with Hummel in The Rock, his cause is so just and methods so relatively nonviolent it's a bit gutting when he dies and doesn't get what he probably deserves. In a fucking Michael Bay film as well.
[/quote]

A Just cause but the methods were definitely fucked up; hostages, seizure of chemical weapons! Air your grievances through the correct channels, buddy. 

Love that movie, incredibly quotable

Thursday

Quote from: Sonny_Jim on July 01, 2022, 08:06:24 AMI suppose you could paint Hank as the villain in some way, as he was trying to catch the 'good guy'.  I definitely sided with Hank on my last rewatch.  Walter White is a prick.

Didn't side with Walter, but I could never really side with Hank much either, racist, small minded machismo cop.

bobloblaw

as a teen I cheered on Ferris as he stuck one to his school and family.

as an adult it's clear that Ferris is an entitled prick.

phantom_power

Quote from: bgmnts on July 01, 2022, 09:37:08 AMThe fact that so many people were unironically on board with that made me a bit sick and fittingly made me want to wipe out the entire human race with a click of my finger.

I don't think people were on board with the solution so much as sympathised with the problem

Dark Sexy Dangerous

#19
I've found myself wanting to buck the writers' intent when you get a villain like Hannibal Lecter - the TV version, who, among other things, cuts a teenager's lungs out while she's still alive - and the writers clearly can't get enough of him and want to push him and our protagonist/anti-hero as gay icons. Hannibal is an incredibly compelling villain, but I'm not the sort of reprobate whose idea of escapism is going "Ah yes, quite right" at someone very brutally torturing, killing and eating 'rude' people.

More relevant to the thread, there's a scene in Daredevil where Wilson Fisk/Kingpin bombs the hideouts of a group of powerful Russian child traffickers, though I'm not convinced the writers wanted viewers to nod along like I was doing. Seemingly, we're meant to think Daredevil already goes beyond the pale by duffing them up, so they're unlikely to look fondly on blowing them sky-high.

Pink Gregory

Quote from: Kankurette on July 01, 2022, 10:45:47 AMWarren had it coming.

I still think Warren is the most hateable antagonist in all of Buffy.

The Master/Drusilla/The Mayor/Glory/The First are supernatural beings, fine, those are the stakes but you expect ancient supernatural beings to be evil.

Adam is just terrible all round, so he doesn't count.

But Warren is just a creepy little manipulative misogynist who gets a few breaks and thinks he's a master criminal and shows little if any remorse.  They sort of try to do the 'evil misogynist' thing again with Caleb but I just found that tedious.

Plus he sort of gets extra credit for the whole Andrew/Jonathan thing, even though it's not technically him.

JamesTC


Sonny_Jim

Quote from: Thursday on July 01, 2022, 11:32:50 AMDidn't side with Walter, but I could never really side with Hank much either, racist, small minded machismo cop.
It was only after he'd had the breakdown and started collecting rocks minerals did I think out of all of them he was the one who didn't deserve what he got.  But yeah maybe he did, kinda forgotten about the racist cop stuff.

dissolute ocelot

I could certainly stand to see Homelander kill most of the good guys in The Boys. That show has a massively compelling villain and frequently annoying heroes.

If you didn't want Skeletor to beat He-Man you're inhuman. There's a lot of kids' shows and films that pit insipid children or young adults against entertaining villains, like the 90s Sabrina the Teenage Witch, The Thundermans, Casper, most versions of Robin Hood and King Arthur, Torchwood, etc. And The Dark Knight Rises, in which locking policemen in a dungeon is meant to be a bad thing?

bgmnts

Quote from: AngryGazelle on July 01, 2022, 11:26:26 AM[quote author=bgmnts link=msg=4961883 date=1656664628

I think I sided with Hummel in The Rock, his cause is so just and methods so relatively nonviolent it's a bit gutting when he dies and doesn't get what he probably deserves. In a fucking Michael Bay film as well.


A Just cause but the methods were definitely fucked up; hostages, seizure of chemical weapons! Air your grievances through the correct channels, buddy. 

Love that movie, incredibly quotable

It's established at the beginning that he has indeed exhausted all the peaceful avenues. He says "I've tried, you know I've tried everything to get their attention" or something like that. So he is just end of his tether.

Blue Jam

Quote from: Sonny_Jim on July 01, 2022, 08:06:24 AMI suppose you could paint Hank as the villain in some way, as he was trying to catch the 'good guy'.  I definitely sided with Hank on my last rewatch.  Walter White is a prick.

Hank is the closest thing BrBa has to a hero. He was full of racist machismo at first but I think we saw how a lot of that was a front to try and play the tough guy at work, and how he went through a lot of character development and became a much better person. My favourite character on my last rewatch too!

BCS is a more complex one. Howard Hamlin is a prick but I love him.

Bently Sheds

I was rooting for Dr Strange to get utterly demolished in that new film of his, mainly through not being much of a fan of Cumberbatch. Also the villain's aim was just to find happiness; which is way more sympathetic than all of those "the world shall be miiiine!!! Ahhhhahahahahaaaaa!" twats you usually get in this kind of film.

Benny Wong's sound, though, I wanted him to be ok.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

I see Thanos as a sort of cosmic version of your billionaire tech bro type. The sort that claims they can fix the world's problems, but only on their terms. A lot of people (smartarses) asked why he didn't simply use the infinity gems to conjure up more resources, but that's the crux of the character: He's too much of an egomaniac to act so selflessly, same as Musk and the like won't help the world by just paying their taxes.

Blue Jam

Benny Wong voiced an Elon Musk type in Prey as well. You just can't help rooting for Errol can you?

dontpaintyourteeth

Hank is definitely the closest BB gets to a hero. The racism in the early episodes is never really addressed but his redemption arc is still pretty solid overall