Do you want to see the villain cry?

[zombiejoe]

You really know what I'd like to see in a video game?

The main villain cry.

Intense, ugly, pathetic sobbing.

I mean think about it.

The villain has spent years creating this plan that they think is right. He has hired countless henchmen who on some level agree with the villain's motives (maybe). He has sunk immeasurable hours and funds into this. And suddenly, everything falls apart in a single day because of one person.

What would the circumstances be to have the main villain crying like a baby in front of the main character, and therefor the player?

Would seeing the villain crying make you stop and think about how you wanted to handle him?

Would the devs make it turn out to be a trick so that you wouldn't feel bad if you killed him?

And don't take this the wrong way, I'm trying to see this objectively, but what if the villain is a woman? Would seeing a man crying feel any different than seeing a woman cry?

And how do you think players, gaming journalism, and everyone else feel about seeing the person they've been trying to defeat in such a weak state?

Does anyone else want to see the villain cry?

 

[MysticSlayer]

Well, there was always this [http://earthbound.wikia.com/wiki/Negative_Man] guy, and Bowser did show some sorrow at the end of Super Mario Galaxy 2 about not being able to have a slice of cake (skip to about 5:35 in this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fYGYljLmV4] video to see).

But yeah, I get what you mean. I don't think people would react too negatively, especially since there have been times when villains literally beg for their lives from the protagonist, such as Captain Cumore in Tales of Vesperia. I've never seen it criticized when it does happen, and actually people really never bother to bring it up, so I think it is just treated as something as expected to happen at some point.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Although it's not crying, I think one of the best moments of Ganondorf's was in Wind Waker when he has that short little moment before the final fight where he talks about the desert and wind.

I also remember Elpizo at the end of Megaman Zero 4, after the final fight he's laying against a broken piece of ceiling, without any ability to put up a fight physically or emotionally as he thinks about what he'd done and what it could have cost him if he had succeeded.

The thing is, I don't recall any games (At least right now) where the villain had a moment of weakness about their plan failing or what had or was going to happen when it wasn't something that could be portrayed as them doing what they thought was best for everyone or that they weren't being controlled or manipulated by something or someone. So a situation where they're upset over a clearly evil plan and it's not being portrayed comically, is something I don't know of.

 

[Ryotknife]

While he didn't cry Judge Nemo ("Judge No One"), the villain of Disgaea 4, does express remorse and turns good BEFORE the final battle. In fact, the final battle wasn't even necessary. The world was going to be saved, the villain was going to sacrifice himself (and destroy his soul in the process).

The final battle occurs because one of the protagonist (who was close to the villain. In fact what happened to her is what started the villain down this path in a twisted way to redeem himself) wanted to save his soul (and the world). Except due to the villians actions, this would mean he would spend near eternity in hell. Even the main protagonist mentions how saving him would be perhaps the cruelest thing one can do to him. You do feel really bad for the villain, as the universe just seems to take a dump on him.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

You mean showing a shred of humanity or weakness in the villain?

A lot of people just won't do it. They need their villain to stand up on being incorruptible and inhuman, instead of being a well-written or in the right mind set. Some villains simply aren't in that mindset of being able to cry (imagine if Joker cried, we might not buy into his criminal insanity as much), but a lot more should be. And they don't.

We need more of those villains.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Not cry. At least not most of the time, if the villain is not intended to be sympathetic.

I usually enjoy seeing a villain rage quit when things go bad. The longer their winning streak and the more smug they are about it, the more satisfying it is to watch. Disney villains usually have good ones, also most video games villains when they're on their last tick of health.

However, many sympathetic ones can be just as effective when they realize they've been wrong all along and tear up. If it's tears of remorse, then you know they're redeemable. If it's tears of frustration, they're just spoiled.

 

[renegade7]

There are some cases where the sympathetic villain works very well.

For instance, Saturos and Menardi from Golden Sun. When you start to reach the end of the second game and realize what their motivations actually were, you feel pretty awful for killing them.

Other times, it might just not make sense. A villain like Kefka is meant to be hateworthy, it would make little sense if he started bawling about how he was wrong all along and now suddently understands the meaning of life and happiness after spending the entire second half of the game frying people with a giant laser for no other reason than his own boredom.

 

[rednose1]

Well, in Breath of Fire 4, you get to play as both the final boss and main character at different times. While he doesn't cry, he does go lose his mind from grief/anger. At the time, I really felt for the guy. I didn't see him as evil, as he had the cosmos dump on him pretty hard.

Even better, at the end he gives you the choice to join him or not....and you can! At first, i actually joined up, as what he went through was pretty bad, and liked being able to finally join the villain when he offers, tired of all the bad guys offering you a chance, only to have the main character refuse.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

Spoilers for Avatar The last Airbender, big ones relevant to the very last episodes in the series.

Spoiler

While not the big bad, she is the main antagonist for nearly 2 full seasons.

Azula:

I always found this sequence to be brilliantly played out. The fall is seen long before it lands, but you spend quite a while seeing the character go from chilling confidence to unbridled mess. It's a little heavy handed, but for a kids show (relative, more for young adolescents and older) it was a pretty intense mental breakdown of a key character.

Something similar happens in the first season of the sequel series. Not so much a breakdown as a hardened villain letting their emotional guard down. That sequence was much more unsettling and shocking and less emotionally packed due to the conclusion to that arc.

OT: It depends on the Villain really. If the Joker started crying sincerely I wouldn't buy it. The man is extremely sociopathic and he only emulates emotions, he doesn't feel anything beyond a sick and twisted satisfaction of bringing people down to his level of madness. If the joker cries, I would only assume its a ruse.

I can see the problem that your bringing up though. If a story build itself up to a conclusion where the hero gives the villain a painful beatdown, turning them into a sobbing mess would rob the hero of a sound victory.

Imagine if, upon getting the upper hand over his nemesis, the sudden realisation that their plans had crumbled entirely and they were facing their doom, were to suddenly ball up in a foetal position and cry like a baby, only for the "hero" to make the final blow killing the already subdued enemy. Yeah, that would rob the wind out of that victory.

We fancy our bad guys as ever defiant monsters who fail to show any sympathetic human qualities (bar maybe tragic back stories). This is why the Avatar moment mentioned above is so powerful. There is a lot going on in the moments leading up to it. A villain painted as a monster for the longest time, constantly harassing and tormenting the protagonists, to suddenly crack under pressure and show themselves to be all too human.

While the character in Avatar was pretty irredeemable at that point, that whole scenario completely flattens any desire I would have had to see the Hero of the moment put their tormentor down. Again, really well done.

So to answer the question, yes I would. I would love to see more villains that sincerely buckle upon defeat rather then fake outs or duplicitous pleading.

EDIT: Just to clarify, I'm aware we are talking games here, but I can't resist plugging Avatar.

 

[Godhead]

You mean showing a shred of humanity or weakness in the villain?

A lot of people just won't do it. They need their villain to stand up on being incorruptible and inhuman, instead of being a well-written or in the right mind set. Some villains simply aren't in that mindset of being able to cry (imagine if Joker cried, we might not buy into his criminal insanity as much), but a lot more should be. And they don't.

We need more of those villains.

The Joker does cry at the end of The Killing Joke.

Spoiler

OT: It all depends on the motivation of the main villain, in addition to how you have interacted with them and their minions throughout. I couldn't see Emperor Palpatine crying, but I could see one of the antagonists in Dishonored crying (if only because the lot of them are usually cowards)

 

[Sandjube]

Spoiler

Nox from Wakfu cried when all of his plans went south, before finally just giving in and dying on his family's grave, everything that kept him alive dissovling to ash and blowing away in the wind.

 

[Yopaz]

Spoiler

Nox from Wakfu cried when all of his plans went south, before finally just giving in and dying on his family's grave, everything that kept him alive dissovling to ash and blowing away in the wind.

Spoiler tags are useless if you don't give an explanation of what's in them.

OT: I don't think crying is necessary, but showing humanity other than the negative qualities makes me like the villains better.

In Tales of Phantasia you'll eventually learn that the main villain

Spoiler

Is really trying to save his own dying world and doesn't intend to dominate or conquer the world

In The Wheel of Time you learn that Ishamael (who can pretty much be considered the main villain there) that his intentions are

Spoiler

to die because he's simply sick of fighting the same battle every time the wheel turns and the ages before the Last Battle comes again. He knows that the only way to stop the fighting forever is to let the dark win and then he can finally be allowed to die

 

[Squilookle]

There was a game in the last 5 years, a war game no less, that had the villain cry at the end. It worked just fine because we still didn't develop sympathy for him, but we could see his internal torment at the game's events laid bare. So unexpected and effective it was, in fact, that when I regained control and had opportunity to kill this bastard I'd spent the entire game hunting... I couldn't. I held him in my sights expecting him to try something, ANYTHING, that would allow me a kill-in-self-defence, but instead he just cowered, watching me and expecting the end. Eventually he let himself fall to his death, and I lowered my gun without having fired.

I found it to be a pretty memorable ending, particularly with the leadup to that moment. And while I didn't kill him myself, I still found it pretty cathartic.

And before you ask, no, I won't say what the game was. Everyone had the chance to check it out when it came out and most ignored it. So for the few of us who got it and experienced the true little gem that it was, I'm going to let us have that to ourselves, because we earned that ending by playing through the game. A game that so many didn't even bother to try.

 

[Mid Boss]

I know it's not a video game, but Blade Runner had that powerful scene at the end where the villain cried and lamented the cruelties of life and what will be lost when he's gone. And that stands out as one of the most powerful scenes in any movie I've seen. Same goes to Darth Vader's final moments where he saves his son and gets those few fleeting moments together before dieing.

Villains, to me, are more human than heroes. Heroes are an ideal so shiny it becomes a parody of itself at best, an annoyance at worst. Batman and Superman are partially responsible for all the people their villains kill because they don't kill their villains. They hold their own virtue and ideals above the lives of those they are trying to protect. To me, that is extremely asinine.

Villains do what almost anyone would given cruel circumstances or vast amounts of power. They are the ones who would seek that power to begin with. As I often say, no honest man succeeds as a politician and no good men become corporate CEOs.

Real people would give into the dark side. Almost immediately. God knows I would. They would seek world domination. They'd go "I can bench press a mountain. Why am I flipping burgers for a living when I could tear open a vault with my bare hands?"

The comic series "The Boys" does this best with the heroes often being just as bad, or even worse, than the villains they fight. They're the cast of Jersey Shore given the power to destroy cities. They're selfish, greedy, bigoted, murderous, thieving, psychotic, and almost always complete ass holes with very few actually trying to be real heroes and not just developing a brand name to make money off of.

 

[Pariah Dog]

There was a game in the last 5 years, a war game no less, that had the villain cry at the end. It worked just fine because we still didn't develop sympathy for him, but we could see his internal torment at the game's events laid bare. So unexpected and effective it was, in fact, that when I regained control and had opportunity to kill this bastard I'd spent the entire game hunting... I couldn't. I held him in my sights expecting him to try something, ANYTHING, that would allow me a kill-in-self-defence, but instead he just cowered, watching me and expecting the end. Eventually he let himself fall to his death, and I lowered my gun without having fired.

I found it to be a pretty memorable ending, particularly with the leadup to that moment. And while I didn't kill him myself, I still found it pretty cathartic.

And before you ask, no, I won't say what the game was. Everyone had the chance to check it out when it came out and most ignored it. So for the few of us who got it and experienced the true little gem that it was, I'm going to let us have that to ourselves, because we earned that ending by playing through the game. A game that so many didn't even bother to try.

or you just made that one up.

dont be greedy and share.

I think he might be referring to Spec Ops: The Line.

 

[Sofus]

I have never seen a grown man cry outside of movies, and I don't think anyone I know has been witness to such a thing either. I do however imagine that anyone could risk experience some sort of mental breakdown after surviving an almost fatal event... or perhaps if they have children and something happened to them?

 

[Nouw]

Well if it made sense tone-wise, sure, cry some moar. Emotions doesn't have to be shown through crying either, but whatever works best I suppose.

snip

Come on dude, spoiler tags.