@Lurker His demeanour broke twice.

Once during the Euphinator incident (in which he looked absolutely horrified.) and then again when Lulu broke into the damocles (in which he looked EXTREMELY pissed off)

Again, I LIKED how he could always come away from an encounter with something, or if he could change his plans on the fly, I didn't WANT to see him completely fail before the end. He's supposed to be the ultimate challenge, the foe that Lelouch could never beat. As an obstacle to the hero (which an antagonist is) Schneizel was REALLY effective.

But again, just me

edited 1st May '12 12:38:00 PM by gingerninja666

@Sereg I thought that was Poorfag.

But that makes a strange amount of sense. Didn't know she would like cheese so much, though.

edited 1st May '12 12:41:37 PM by crowlover

So when's out next stream again?

I still have yet to watch R2 so I don't have much of an impression of Schneizel.

Though on the subject of villains does anyone think it is possible for a villain to be too "effective"?

edited 1st May '12 12:45:18 PM by Mio

Oh shoot, did I miss the stream today? Nuts.

Also Ginger, what's your opinion on sympathetic villains? Not like an Anti-Villain or a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds, but a pure, undeniably evil villain who still manages to wring out pathos.

edited 1st May '12 12:47:37 PM by kegisak

Yes, a story gets boring if the villain trumps the hero on every occasion. I believe a certain balance should be upheld.

Nononono I meant which steam is next.

edited 1st May '12 12:48:51 PM by Chadaman99

@Kegisak: I don't think we were streaming today. If we were I totally missed it.

Goddammit Mio!

No, I don't think they can. and I personally have never felt like an ending was an Ass Pull because of that fact. I don't like seeing a hero triumpth too much. Heroes to me are most interesting in defeat

but again, THAT'S JUST FUCKING ME!!!

or a situation where the villain and the hero BOTH come away with some kind of victory

edited 1st May '12 12:50:34 PM by gingerninja666

I like it when the heroes and villains have a good trade off when it comes to victories and defeats. The heroes can do minor damage to the villain as long as the ultimate threat is still there. Having the villains win everything just makes them seem too perfect; I want both sides to have to work at it. I think The Order of the Stick is a good example of that; both the good guys and evil guys get in some good hits on each other, so there's always a lot of tension in how any given encounter will turn out.

@kegi I ALWAYS prefer Villains who are at least somewhat sympathetic.

It's partially why I like Tywin Lannister, not that anyone else shares that opinion

If a hero were to succeed, I'd rather have them win against a secondary threat, not the big guy himself

edited 1st May '12 12:52:44 PM by gingerninja666

@Ginger: You know Ginger I was just trying to start up a conversation. No need to get all defensive.

I think we are streaming today, but it's not until sometime from 6-8.

I thought that we weren't streaming until Wednesday.

It's kinda weird, I want the hero to be introduced dealing a blow to the villain, proving to the audience that he ultimately has the ability to prevail, but then have the villain have him on the ropes up until the ending after that.

Hero successes from then should come from secondary threats

edited 1st May '12 12:55:29 PM by gingerninja666

@Ginger

Boring Invincible Villain exists for a reason. If the villain just gets lots of Diabolus ex Machina saving them all the time, it gets boring. If the heroes constantly end up in an Only The Author Can Save Them Now situation, then you have bad writing. There needs to be a balance, and villains need weaknesses.

edited 1st May '12 12:55:47 PM by PerpetualLurker

I have never encountered a villain that I think is boring (or if I have then it's because of their personality, not their effectiveness). but that's just me

edited 1st May '12 12:57:06 PM by gingerninja666

Mm. The show hasn't gotten far enough for me to see Tywin as sympathetic. To me he's just an old bastard.

I ask because I was curious of your opinion on a villain I'd been developing for my next fic. If you recall some time ago I mentioned Salem in this thread, the genocidal hunter? I've been giving some thought to making it clear throughout the story that he knows, on some level, that he's evil, but he's so far gone that he's unable to stop. I like the notion of putting in small moments of self-loathing and the notion that he has literally nothing but his crusade in there.

I honestly don't think we have a trope for a villain like that, someone who's unrepentantly evil, never makes any attempt to validate or explain their actions, but still becomes sympathetic.

edited 1st May '12 12:57:14 PM by kegisak

Not even generic Complete Monster, Take Over the World types?

edited 1st May '12 12:57:30 PM by PurpleDalek

@kegi Don't worry. No one but me finds Tywin sympathetic. All the guy wants is to make his family successful. Not him, his family. So his family name can once again be respected.

Depends. As I said, personality is what makes them boring for me, not their competence

edited 1st May '12 12:59:38 PM by gingerninja666

Sounds like somebody needs to read a few Terry Goodkind books. For perspective.

I think the best example I can think of for a villain that's too perfect is Aizen from Bleach. He was so powerful, that he needed to get the Idiot Ball glued to both hands to even have a chance at being defeated, and even then he still nearly won. You just can't have the villains be perfect, or their very defeat seems impossible, and there's no way out aside from either an Ass Pull or stupidity on the villains part.

edited 1st May '12 1:01:06 PM by PerpetualLurker

@Ginger: Ah, that actually makes sense. I did get some degree of sympathy for him in the one scene he showed up in(Just because he seemed so disappointed in Jamie, who by that point I did not care for), but he disappeared before I gave it much though.

@Steve: who, me? Or Ginger?

Yeah, the resolution to Aizen wasn't at all satisfying. Gin's sneak attack was a good start, but he just brushed it off. They had to resort to the biggest of all Ass Pull's, and they didn't even have the decency to end the series afterwords, as would have been the logical result.

edited 1st May '12 1:05:04 PM by kegisak

Hao Asukara is even worse.

edited 1st May '12 1:04:40 PM by DavidtheMouse14

@Kegi I was joking Nobody should ever have to read that series. It drags on gets repetitive and has the worst case of Purple Prose that I have ever seen.

@Perpetual: Holy Crap, did Aizen bug me. When he first got revealed I was like "Holy Crap! What an awesome twist!" Then he spent the entire rest of the dang manga winning every single conflict even though he's kind of an idiot.

Don't forget "This was no chicken. This was Scootaloo evil manifest."

edited 1st May '12 1:05:02 PM by JapaneseTeeth