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Times You’ve Sided with the Villain

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

Previous topic - Next topic

DrGreggles

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on July 01, 2022, 10:20:23 PMDonald Pleasance as the the wine collector in Columbo.

YES!

I think that's my favourite episode of 'Lumbo too.

Sonny_Jim


Pink Gregory

Quote from: Sonny_Jim on July 02, 2022, 09:24:34 AMDog?

Well Spike usually teams up with Jerry so not necessarily.  I've studied this.

jonbob

The babadock, who wouldn't want to kill the whining little shit bag kid?

Dex Sawash


Third Sister off Ben Kenobi series but they kind of fucked it toward the end unless the point was trauma response doesn't really need to be logical/coherent or something. Likely I am too thick to grasp what was going on.

Deliciousbass

Quote from: Pink Gregory on July 02, 2022, 08:01:02 AMMy favourites were always when they teamed up against a greater foe.

But then they'd regress to animosity by, at the latest, the next episode, which would panic and upset me when I was a child. It felt like the show was trying to teach me some terrifying lesson about life. I think that's why I so sided with Tom, just so it can all be over.

QuoteI also love the idea of a cat and a mouse having a 'greater foe'

Yeah and I agree, I don't think it's a dog. Dog is a foe to Tom, sure, but not Jerry who isn't even really fazed by cats. It would have to something like a marmoset or car.

Endicott

Jerry is the bloody villain anyway. Tom's just a cat doing what he's programmed to do, and he's pretty dumb with it. Jerry is the evil genius plotting Tom's downfall. And yes of course you side with Jerry.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Surely Jerry is acting in self defense?

Quote from: jonbob on July 02, 2022, 11:37:37 AMThe babadock, who wouldn't want to kill the whining little shit bag kid?

"Can't we just do something to his voicebox?"

I liked that film, but I thought the sound design was overrated. It's not like it's difficult to make a shrieking child sound annoying.

Endicott

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on July 02, 2022, 05:31:48 PMSurely Jerry is acting in self defense?

In theory you'd think so, but he's a massive fan of the preemptive strike.

Endicott

Obviously the tone varies depending on what the creators found funny that week, and that does mean it's not that difficult to find counter examples. Still, exhibit one is Fraidy Cat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xl6e7ExUwCk&list=PLMQfC1L93soVta2BIs1BaKB1QJ6ksBooN&index=1

kalowski


Deliciousbass

Quote from: Endicott on July 02, 2022, 05:46:14 PMIn theory you'd think so, but he's a massive fan of the preemptive strike.

Yeah but even the phrasing here suggests there's an emptive to be preempted which in this case is the fact Tom's resting state is to hunt and kill Jerry, thereby rendering pretty much any form of J's combat as defense.

Quote from: Endicott on July 02, 2022, 05:55:31 PMStill, exhibit one is Fraidy Cat.

Fundamentally, I think you're supposed to be ok with Jerry shooting boiling water into Thomas' arse. Just listen to the music that's played as Tom is, off screen, beaten by Reece Shearsmith's Tina Turner impression.

I empathise with what you're saying, it would be much more comforting if you were supposed to side with Tom, but I do not believe this is the intention of the show.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth


I think this may have influenced Hugo Weaving's performance in the third Matrix film.


Coming back full circle: Smith was far more likable than the po faced crustie hipsters he was fighting.

Deliciousbass

Veering off topic but I found this funny, came up when I googled 'Tom and Jerry'



Anyway, Hector Barbossa.

Sebastian Cobb

Jerry's a prick and Tom's often minding his own business until he makes his presence known.

Endicott

Quote from: Deliciousbass on July 02, 2022, 06:18:26 PMYeah but even the phrasing here suggests there's an emptive to be preempted which in this case is the fact Tom's resting state is to hunt and kill Jerry, thereby rendering pretty much any form of J's combat as defense.

I have to concede you've got me there.

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on July 02, 2022, 07:58:18 PMJerry's a prick and Tom's often minding his own business until he makes his presence known.

Yes. But not always. Ha! arguing against myself now.

My one flimsy defence is that this is a cartoon that portrays a cat drinking milk, which in reality we know is a no no. You just can't trust it to consistently portray an accurate relationship between mice, cats and dogs, and several interpretations can co-exist. And post.

Blue Jam

Mice are little shits.

Did Alvin and the Chipmunks have any foes? I fucking hated Alvin, that too-cool-for-school little prick.

Catalogue Trousers

Robotnik, because Sonic sucks shit.

(Ditto Shredder and the Turtles.)

colacentral

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on July 01, 2022, 01:12:40 PMI 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.

Plus Endgame makes it clear that the motive was a load of bollocks and just an excuse to murder lots of people. "This time I'll kill the entire universe and start over with me as their god" doesn't sound much like someone who ever actually cared much about "resources."

The entire premise of "overpopulation" is bollocks from the get go anyway but neither film bothers to challenge the concept.

Kankurette

Was Dave Alvin's nemesis?
Quote from: Catalogue Trousers on July 02, 2022, 11:08:14 PMRobotnik, because Sonic sucks shit.

(Ditto Shredder and the Turtles.)
Agreed if it's AoStH Robotnik because he's voiced by Long John Baldry.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Bruce the shark from Jaws (Shark Film) is a bit of a shit, sure, but when all is said and done he's just a hungry shark who's found a fecund food source. Happy days. When Brody, Hooper and Quint sail out to sea to kill him, it stands to reason that he'd fight back.

Well it doesn't really stand to reason, as no shark in real life would ever do that, it would think to itself, "Sod this for a game of soldiers, I'm off." But Jaws is a fictional shark film, not a shark documentary. A fictional shark film in which a weirdly aggressive shark kills a load of innocent people and a dog. So maybe I'm not on his side after all. Dunno.

Mister Six

Quote from: Dark Sexy Dangerous on July 01, 2022, 11:45:23 AM
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.


I thought Hannibal did quite a good job of making it clear that he's a horrible fucking cunt, even if he is played by a sexy man with a fantastic tailor.

When's that shitty Clarice Starling show going to get properly sacked off so we can get a revival?

Quote from: Blue Jam on July 01, 2022, 01:15:17 PMBenny Wong voiced an Elon Musk type in Prey as well. You just can't help rooting for Errol can you?

Ahhh, but
Spoiler alert
then the twist is that you are the villain, and when you decide to try to undo your own dastardly plans, he has a bit of a breakdown about the fact that you persuaded him to do loads of fucked up stuff in the first place under the auspices of the greater good, and now the erosion of his soul will have been for nothing. I felt properly bad for him at that point.

Although then there's the other twist, where it turns out he's just a simulation of your brother created by your actual brother, and I lose track of how I'm supposed to feel. But I love that game all the same.
[close]

Ant Farm Keyboard

It happens for Lecter as soon as the self-titled film (and I guess novel), which is a dark farce. Lecter is turned into a surrogate for Thomas Harris, who was constantly pestered about writing a sequel to The Silence of the Lambs, and someone with an extremely cruel sense of humour. Happily retired, he has to return, pressured by idiots. An early victim (the Gary Oldman character) just wants to reenact what he had to endure, and basically embodies Hollywood as an out of imagination machine. And of course, Ray Liotta plays an imbecile, and the audience is almost supposed to cheer when he starts eating his own brain.

Dreyfus, in the Pink Panther films, is a doomed figure that you can't help sympathizing with.

The Villain, starring Kirk Douglas, Ann-Margret and Arnold Schwarzenegger, is a live-action take on Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner. Douglas plays an hapless bandit who relies on traps, and Arnie plays a naive and extremely lucky escort who doesn't understand Ann-Margret's double-entendres.

Anyway, if we look at more serious films, the grandaddy of it all would be Fritz Lang's M, where Peter Lorre, even if he's a monster, doesn't seem to deserve the fate arranged by the mob.

And there's a subgenera in which we're supposed to side, even partially, with the villain, until the rug is pulled from under our feet. Unless I'm even more of a psychopath than what I assume, I believe that, like the female lead, we're meant to feel pity and empathy with Henry, until the moment we realize how serious his trauma is and how dangerous he is.

RetroRobot

Robotnik because even in the worst Sonic media he's fun. No idea what his proper motivations are, and while the comics have tried to flesh it out (the Archie one is particularly silly, hes a human and at one point humans and animals were at war. At some point he's a robot clone because the writers killed him off between the Mega Drive and Dreamcast games without realising that of course he'd still be the baddie...), I believe in the video games he just wants to turn the planet into a giant theme park. Which is a noble goal, get rid of the one liner spouting rodents, build a roller coaster. Win win.

Pink Gregory

Quote from: Blue Jam on July 02, 2022, 09:34:20 PMMice are little shits.

Did Alvin and the Chipmunks have any foes? I fucking hated Alvin, that too-cool-for-school little prick.

The Chipettes.

Brutal gang rivalry that spilled on to the streets.

Blue Jam

Quote from: Pink Gregory on July 03, 2022, 12:14:50 PMThe Chipettes.

Brutal gang rivalry that spilled on to the streets.

I used to get inordinately annoyed by the end credits where Alvin poses with a guitar:


I bet he brought it to parties too. Bit rapey, no wonder the Chipettes didn't like him.

Egyptian Feast

Starr from Preacher is a ruthless power-hungry sneering cunt with a head like a bell-end, but in the hugely-flawed TV adaptation is played with such relish by Pip Torrens I was rooting for him as soon as he appeared. It may have helped that the showrunners bizarrely decided to make the hero Jesse Custer a complete cunt in this version of the story, but the evil bald villain was one of my favourite characters in the comics and Torrens inhabited the role so perfectly he was the true Starr of the show for me, fnarr.

Spoiler alert
I was so happy he got away with everything in the end and became a game show host. I really didn't want him to be killed by that wanker Jesse, so that was one thing they got right in the whole mess.
[close]

dontpaintyourteeth

Quote from: Egyptian Feast on July 03, 2022, 01:16:20 PMStarr from Preacher is a ruthless power-hungry sneering cunt with a head like a bell-end, but in the hugely-flawed TV adaptation is played with such relish by Pip Torrens I was rooting for him as soon as he appeared. It may have helped that the showrunners bizarrely decided to make the hero Jesse Custer a complete cunt in this version of the story, but the evil bald villain was one of my favourite characters in the comics and Torrens inhabited the role so perfectly he was the true Starr of the show for me, fnarr.

Spoiler alert
I was so happy he got away with everything in the end and became a game show host. I really didn't want him to be killed by that wanker Jesse, so that was one thing they got right in the whole mess.
[close]

Great shout. They kind of made a mess of the story -and I have no idea why they made Jesse and Tulip so relentlessly unpleasant- but the show was always lifted whenever he was on screen