Have you ever wanted the bad guy to win?

[thejboy88]

Title says it all.

We all know that most stories follow the pattern of the heroes and heroines overcoming the odds and putting the villains in their place and all that good stuff. But, have you ever wanted the villains, antagonists and such to be the ones to come out on top? Either because you found them more enjoyable characters or perhaps some other reason?

 

[Private Custard]

Law Abiding Citizen. A film which inexplicably tried to paint Gerard Butler as the bad guy, when in reality, Jamie Foxx (especially that fucker) and all of the authority characters were a bunch of self-serving, smug, arrogant arseholes, who really should have been killed off.

What they had there, was a brilliant revenge flick, only to ruin it in the last 20 minutes. Easy enough to remedy, just don't watch the last 20-minutes. But it's the movie equivalent of a denied orgasm!

 

[Zannah]

Quite regularly actually. Mostly because hack-writers often take the omniscient morality license given to action-y heroes in western media and stretch it way, way too far.

For example -

Imagine a sci-fi movie.

Earth has withered and died and only a few hard-boiled soldiers survived and are now on a quest to retrieve a key with which they can activate the cryostasis chambers full of infants that would allow humanity to be reborn. But the one person that could help them save our race is a scout that was sent ahead and has gone full native, and sides with them over his own species. He tries to keep the key for himself and attacks them. When they take the key by force (after having also been attacked by the locals repeatedly) they hastily try to initiate a terraforming process, since they have to assume they will shortly be overwhelmed if they don't act fast. In retaliation the former scout destroys their ship, killing off all the unborn infants and forever dooming his own species to extinction. The last survivor of the soldiers that fought so hard to save humanity has a heroic breakdown and lets himself be killed out of desparation.

What a horrible downer ending, am I right?

Now replace "Earth" with "Krypton" and "Race-Traitor" with "Clark Kent", and you have the plot of man of steel.

 

[Someone Depressing]

In Disney movies, 90% of the time, the villain is the best character, hands down.

I wanted Yzma from The Emperor's New Groove to win, so, so badly. Mostly because both her and the "hero" were just such terrible people, and yet they were both just so awesome, it was hard to choose.

So I chose Yzma because Eartha Kitt. Eartha Kitt is my reason.

 

[Smooth Operator]

I do about 90% of the time, because the crazy baddies have cool plans that would make some real awesome shit go down, and then those pesky heroes come in and ruin it all so everything stays the same old dull shit... just no damn fun.

 

[DefunctTheory]

Law Abiding Citizen. A film which inexplicably tried to paint Gerard Butler as the bad guy, when in reality, Jamie Foxx (especially that fucker) and all of the authority characters were a bunch of self-serving, smug, arrogant arseholes, who really should have been killed off.

What they had there, was a brilliant revenge flick, only to ruin it in the last 20 minutes. Easy enough to remedy, just don't watch the last 20-minutes. But it's the movie equivalent of a denied orgasm!

This is probably the best answer to this thread. Even though Gerard was undoubtedly a villain, the fact that its born out of love and a belief in justice (Which was sorely lacking) made you want him to kill everyone, especially Jamie's character, who was a massive dick.

Though I think you read the ending wrong. In the end, Gerard did win - he wanted them to kill him. He set up a scenario where they had to choose between true justice (stopping him) or bureaucratic justice (Pissing about and playing by the rules), and they ultimately did what he wanted them to do - to stop hiding behind protocol and actually fight for justice.

As for other examples...

Psycho Pass - An anime on Netflix I watched recently.

Spoiler: SPOILER WARNING

The anime takes place in Future-Japan, where the entire world has gone to shit except for Japan, as it has turned its government over to the Sibyl System, a massive computer network that handles food production, all government functions, and which eliminated most crime by scanning all citizens brains, identifying people's 'Criminal Coefficient' and punishing imprisoning them on that basis alone. Firearms are illegal, and the only police force left use pistols that actively scan people and decides for the user whether the can stun, kill, or not fire, effectively meaning even the police have no ability to administer justice as they see fit. It also determines what you can do with you life, based on a single test .And at the beginning of the show, this is said to be the perfect government.

This notion is instantly dissolved when the Sibyl System labels a recent rape victim as a criminal, and tells the police to kill her. We meet 'Enforcers', latent criminals with high criminal coefficients who are effectively bullied into becoming slaves to police detectives, or be locked into solitary confinement for the rest of their lives. We then get thrown the main antagonist of the show, a psychopathic narcissist who believes the Sibyl System has destroyed all freedoms, and who the Sibyl System cannot read, effectively making him immune to police intervention since their firearms wont work on him. And you want him to win so bad, because he's trying to destroy what is effectively Uber Fascism IN THE FUTURE. Your urge for him to win is doubled when you find out that Sibyl is not a computer, but over 200 psychopath's removed brains linked together.

But alas, they eventually kill him, and Sibyl, who's secret is been revealed to the main protagonist, gets a pass because 'everyone's happy in ignorance.'

The show isn't over yet, but the acceptance of Sibyl with only the pathetic remark that 'When we have a better way, we'll stop using you' is just frustrating as hell.

It's dinner time. I'll think of some more later.

 

[viscomica]

Usually I root for the bad guy when the good guy is a one-dimensional, uninteresting, plain, overly moral person. If that's all the good guy has going for him / her besides I don't know... a superpower? hell yeah I want the bad guy to win. If only to make things more interesting.
The best of both worlds is when the "good" guy is actually not that good at all, or maybe they are simply an asshole. When that happens the laughs are guaranteed.

 

[Vault101]

101 Dalmations

why is Cruella the bad guy? she just wanted to buy some puppies

not to mention Anita immediately giving up her highly sought after job in fashion to marry that dork and pop out babies, I'm no expert or anything but I doubt fashion is a job you just kind of cruise through until you decide to start a family

oh and nannys waxing poetic about the joys of motherhood....blegh

 

[jademunky]

Avatar (the James Cameron one, not the anime) would be one where I was actively rooting for the hero to fail.

The Grand Admiral Thrawn trilogy from the Star Wars EU would probably be the best example. Seriously this is a guy that would be really good at running the galaxy people!

 

[L. Declis]

Breaking Bad; I wanted Walter to win. I shall say no more, but if you haven't watch it, do so. But be warned, Season 3 is not very good.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Solidus Snake actually wanted to do what Snake does in MGS4, and what Big Boss will want in MGS1. Hell, he gave up his Presidency because he believed in the rights of his people to be free.

Real Life: I want the traitor Edward Snowden to win. I want everything he tried to expose to be accepted as wrong by the American people.

"He who trades liberty for security deserves neither"

 

[Azure23]

Most of the Templars in the later Assassin's Creed games. As a guy with a pretty Hobbsian view of humanity, the idea that everyone deserved complete, absolute freedom was always pretty laughable to me. And generally the assassins did a terrible job of implementing any kind of grand scheme, seemingly content to be a mostly reactionary force and just kill Templars whenever they got too "uppity." Contrast this with the later Templar characters, who are actively shaping systems of government in a sincere effort to bring the best standard of living to as many people as possible, who are effectively indoctrinating slavers, gaining control of their estates, and freeing their slaves.

In no game is this better illustrated than. Black Flag, you play a pirate, a motherfucking mass murdering, innocent killing, looting and marauding pirate (he was actually my favorite assassin for the very reason that he wasn't originally one).

Anyway I don't really want to get into a discussion about the nature of humans, or the advantages of one governmental system over another. I just thought the (later) Templars had some good points and that the assassins didn't really do much beyond murdering people.

 

[jademunky]

Breaking Bad; I wanted Walter to win. I shall say no more, but if you haven't watch it, do so. But be warned, Season 3 is not very good.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Solidus Snake actually wanted to do what Snake does in MGS4, and what Big Boss will want in MGS1. Hell, he gave up his Presidency because he believed in the rights of his people to be free.

Real Life: I want the traitor Edward Snowden to win. I want everything he tried to expose to be accepted as wrong by the American people.

"He who trades liberty for security deserves neither"

I was with you on #s 2 & 3, not so much on Breaking Bad. Aside from Gollum from LOTR, I cannot think of a fictional character as lacking in redeeming qualities as Walter White.

Team Jesse Pinkman FTW!

 

[AntiChri5]

Most of the Templars in the later Assassin's Creed games. As a guy with a pretty Hobbsian view of humanity, the idea that everyone deserved complete, absolute freedom was always pretty laughable to me. And generally the assassins did a terrible job of implementing any kind of grand scheme, seemingly content to be a mostly reactionary force and just kill Templars whenever they got too "uppity." Contrast this with the later Templar characters, who are actively shaping systems of government in a sincere effort to bring the best standard of living to as many people as possible, who are effectively indoctrinating slavers, gaining control of their estates, and freeing their slaves.

In no game is this better illustrated than. Black Flag, you play a pirate, a motherfucking mass murdering, innocent killing, looting and marauding pirate (he was actually my favorite assassin for the very reason that he wasn't originally one).

Anyway I don't really want to get into a discussion about the nature of humans, or the advantages of one governmental system over another. I just thought the (later) Templars had some good points and that the assassins didn't really do much beyond murdering people.

I am so with you on this. I really liked Haythams rant in AC3 and the Templars in AC4 actually had their shit together. The assassins mostly exist as a spite army, going on out of a desire to stop the Templars more then having an actual independant cause.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

Avatar (the James Cameron one, not the anime) would be one where I was actively rooting for the hero to fail.

I would have to more or less agree with this.
Despite the fact that the military guy was a massive douche along with that other business guy, I don't think the morality was quite as clear cut as they played it. Sure, invading an alien planet and destroying their way of life (the abysmally transparent allegory for imperialism) is certainly a terrible thing. But the earth is completely fucked, are the humans just supposed to lay down and die? Obviously this goes both ways, the Na'vi are perfectly within their rights to fight for their planet too, but i just don't believe the ending was the grand, happy finally of the heroes defeating the villains that it seemed to be played as.

 

[jademunky]

I would have to more or less agree with this.
Despite the fact that the military guy was a massive douche along with that other business guy, I don't think the morality was quite as clear cut as they played it. Sure, invading an alien planet and destroying their way of life (the abysmally transparent allegory for imperialism) is certainly a terrible thing. But the earth is completely fucked, are the humans just supposed to lay down and die? Obviously this goes both ways, the Na'vi are perfectly within their rights to fight for their planet too, but i just don't believe the ending was the grand, happy finally of the heroes defeating the villains that it seemed to be played as.

Yeah, pretty-much this.

It was not even the Na'vi as a people I had a problem with as much as it was Jake Sully in particular. It was that line in the epilogue where he refers to the humans being packed away back to earth as "the aliens" that clinched it for me. I wanted to shout "you self-entitled douchnozzle, these are the people you were raised with. They vat-grew you a whole other fucking surrogate-body and are the reason you can walk again. Right or wrong, they were your people, you betrayed them hardcore and the whole thing should've ended like Farcry 3. Either ending"

 

[babinro]

Constantly.

The ability to relate to a villain is often what makes them so great. Two major examples for me is Frances X Hummel of The Rock and Light Yagami of Death Note.

The other kind of villain I root for is the one whose simply more interesting than the heroes. This is can often be the case in typical slasher flicks. How often have you been kind of disappointed that the killer was foiled by some boring kid who got lucky.

 

[Story]

Sure. Usually the hero is so unlikable that I want them to fail.
All of the iterations of Ben 10 come to mind. There was a time when I was on Light's side in Death Note for awhile.
I'm sure there were movies where I felt this way too.

 

[klaynexas3]

I kind of wanted the Red Lotus to have won in the third season of Korra. First off, most of the rulers are horrible fuckwits in this universe, but also this would finally destroy the major gods of this world. Vaatu is clearly growing again inside Raava since Unalaq died in the Avatar state, and so killing them both would mean neither would exist anymore. It'd be interesting to see their world without gods.

 

[carnex]

Way to many times. Simply put, I most often cheer for the looser. It's just seems more fun that way.

For example, throughout Terminator 2 i imagined, over and over, new ways hot T1000 would rip them to shreds in seconds just because a) it was destined to loose and b) as usual movie forced several situations to take turns where t1000 doesn't do logical thing and wins.