A Villains End – Villain Series
Villains in stories rarely come to a good end. They are either obliterated by their overzealous protagonist, incarcerated indefinitely (or a short time if you run Arkham Asylum), or they escape to live and fight another day. This is all and well but sometimes it’s nice to spice up villainy from time to time.
In another post I had shared my enthusiasm for Tales of Vesperia and their final boss. While Duke was certainly not my favorite villain of the series, the writers of this story were able to put together something that rarely happens…the protagonist and antagonist work things out.
say what?!
That’s right. You fight the last boss and instead of ending his life, you actually help him see your side of things. Albeit you sort of beat him into thinking like you, which isn’t healthy, but it’s different and I like it. In fact the villain in this series has a legitimate claim to his cause since yours–well I won’t go into detail but your plan sort of screws a lot of people over.
The point is it’s nice to not see a bad guy who curses you with even his final breath or doesn’t want to destroy some major city or star collection because of some delusional plan.
This brings me to the arguably main antagonist of Mass Effect, a game I just finished. You go through this entire game hunting down this alien who has no regard for human life. Then things start to change. You start seeing his doubts and how even though he’s using others as pawns for his own personal gain, the same is being done to him. Now depending on how you play the game, the endings can be very different. I prided my character in being able to talk down people from situations. And surprisingly…I don’t so with the last boss.
The cutscene plays and I can feel a last boss fight coming on. But wait…I start talking down the villain. I let him know he’s being used. And you know what…he’s sorry. He’s so sorry he puts a bullet in his brain, crysis averted. Now at that point I’m sure many gamers would have been pissed.
What, no last boss fight?!
But to be honest, I was completely content. I had helped an wicked man see the errors of his ways. No gratuitous overdone fight where killing him solves all my problems…well not right away anyway. No matter what ending you pick you still fight Saren’s metal bones possessed by Sovereign. Sovereign was a boring character and I could care less about him because he wasn’t relatable, he was just a machine, and like most machines in the future, it had a penchant for wiping out all living life. Had I been left with just that the game would have really disappointed, but allowing the user to use meaningful dialogue with Saren (the relatable antagonist) it made the game that much more emerging and real.
So all of this to say…don’t take the easy way out. It’s easy for us to simply kill off our villains when it comes to the end of a story. Or have them escape so we can use them in the sequel that is no doubt paying our rent. But instead lets delve into endings that are seldom used. Now I’m not saying that villains should go soft. No, what I’m saying is its okay if the final villain realizes his mistake.
Want to take it a step farther? Think of different actions for the villain after they’ve been bested. What do they do now? Perhaps they would rather die than live with the same. Maybe they must fight even harder to undo the evils that they have unleashed. Then again, what if the main villain–simply walked away.
Is that cheating the consumer of the story? It all depends on how you write your story. Is is a bit unorthodox? Maybe. Will people be pissed and feel like they’ve been cheated–oh most definitely. But are you taking your villain and story to another level instead of the same recycled stories and arcs we see over and over again? You betcha.
Now get out there and start mixing things up!
