Who makes the better villain? Men or women? Or rather, who do you love to hate more?

[Catie Caraco]

I find it actually rather shocking that many people find men more villainous than women. Are we talking only in fiction, or can we consider real life? Cause let's look at how men and women operate. A man gets upset with his dude-bro, they slug it out, have a beer, things are all good. A woman gets upset with her lady-friend and she DESTROYS her. She talks the nastiest shit about her she can, poisons her relationship with the rest of their social circle, and if he does get violent, someone's getting scratched and losing some hair. I've seen this happen on the playground all the way up to grown adults.

As for the argument that women make better 'side kicks' than pure villains, aren't most side kicks cleaning up after their leader's messes or actually being the ones who get things done? Yup, sounds like a woman to me.

I'd also like to bring up the quality/quantity argument. Sure there might be more male villains in general, but not all of them are even worthwhile.

And, lastly, we haven't really established the criteria of "good" villain v/s "bad" villain. Someone said built like a brick shit house. Not necessarily villainous (see Hercules) or male-centric (see Brienne of Tarth). Someone said mustache twirly, but that's just a cartoonish enthusiasm for evil, which Yzma from the Emperor's New Groove had in spades, as did Ursula. So.. in all honesty this is too subjective to even be actively quantified unless you go for straight numbers of "bad guy"/"bad gal".

 

[knight steel]

So I was reading the Fairy Tail manga all caught up on the character arc and there's a current chick antagonist that I want to murder because she has ALL MY HATRED at the moment.

And that's when I started thinking and remembering stuff. And lots of wondering? So now I'm just asking you people.

Title is self-explanatory, it is. Let's hear your thoughts.

Feel free to give examples or whatever.

You wouldn't be talking about the incredible sexy and great character that is Minerva!

She can choke on a stick and be eaten by dragons...

In other words, yes.

OH MY HOW.........suggestive >_<

 

[axlryder]

I really don't see this as being all that different from asking whether black people or white people make better villains.

 

[Lieju]

If done right, ether gender can be a great villain.

However, why didn't you include "it" as an option too? Just look at GLaDOS.

Hey, hey, GLaDOS is a sexy lady!

Generally speaking, I'd prefer more female villains, but just because there are less of those.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I find it actually rather shocking that many people find men more villainous than women. Are we talking only in fiction, or can we consider real life? Cause let's look at how men and women operate. A man gets upset with his dude-bro, they slug it out, have a beer, things are all good. A woman gets upset with her lady-friend and she DESTROYS her. She talks the nastiest shit about her she can, poisons her relationship with the rest of their social circle, and if he does get violent, someone's getting scratched and losing some hair. I've seen this happen on the playground all the way up to grown adults.

That type of extreme emotional reaction isn't threatening at all. In fact, I see it as a weakness that can easily be exploited. I find a logical and emotionally detached person far more threatening than an emotional one. Regardless of gender. Emotions can be manipulated. Logic and reason can't.

 

[Baron von Blitztank]

My favourite villains are people like Handsome Jack, Hazama, General Sarrano and The Joker.
I like villains who are entertainingly evil. Villains who'll troll the heroes in the most sadistic of ways yet still keeping themselves funny enough that you don't quite want them to die just yet. I've yet to see a female villain that has pulled this off.

 

[Hagi]

I find it actually rather shocking that many people find men more villainous than women. Are we talking only in fiction, or can we consider real life? Cause let's look at how men and women operate. A man gets upset with his dude-bro, they slug it out, have a beer, things are all good. A woman gets upset with her lady-friend and she DESTROYS her. She talks the nastiest shit about her she can, poisons her relationship with the rest of their social circle, and if he does get violent, someone's getting scratched and losing some hair. I've seen this happen on the playground all the way up to grown adults.

As for the argument that women make better 'side kicks' than pure villains, aren't most side kicks cleaning up after their leader's messes or actually being the ones who get things done? Yup, sounds like a woman to me.

I'd also like to bring up the quality/quantity argument. Sure there might be more male villains in general, but not all of them are even worthwhile.

And, lastly, we haven't really established the criteria of "good" villain v/s "bad" villain. Someone said built like a brick shit house. Not necessarily villainous (see Hercules) or male-centric (see Brienne of Tarth). Someone said mustache twirly, but that's just a cartoonish enthusiasm for evil, which Yzma from the Emperor's New Groove had in spades, as did Ursula. So.. in all honesty this is too subjective to even be actively quantified unless you go for straight numbers of "bad guy"/"bad gal".

Erm...

I don't think you're supposed to be basing your gender views on soaps...

I'm certain you saw those things happen that one time in real life as well, but yeah... anecdotal evidence and all that...

Most men probably don't consider their friends to be "dude-bros" with whom they "slug it out", just friends with whom they hang out. Most women probably don't go around plotting the "DESTRUCTION" of their "lady-friends", just plans for a fun evening with their friends.

 

[TheDoctor455]

GLaDOS was actually a female originally and although she (it) makes a fair enough villain its really only capable of doing it in a cartoonish logical (whacky) computer way
i hate to say it but i can't think of a single decent female villain ever. pretty much any example i can think of lacks the certain over the top psychopathic lack of compassion that turns a villain from disney cartoon to kill first maybe ask questions later sorta deal

Hmm... I'd say the best villains are the ones that don't think of themselves as villains.

I.E. the ones that believe what they're doing is right.

This is why I found Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter so damn silly. He is the kind of over-the-top psychotic you're talking about, but I just can't take him seriously.

Now...

take say... Magneto, now THERE's an interesting villain. I'm sure everyone knows his motivation by this point?

Mutantkind over humanity, right? He genuinely believes mutants are better, and so sets about trying to put them in charge, because... he also seems to believe that would be better for all non-mutants as well.

Though, I would say that if well-written... an over-the-top psychotic could be entertaining as well....

On that note, that brings up one female villain I can think of...


Countessa from Sly Cooper 2. Oh... she doesn't really care about whether she's doing the right thing or not... (as far as I can tell)... but she's still fairly magnetic in her own right because 1) She's intelligent enough to dupe all of Interpol for decades (from what I can tell from her backstory), 2) She's one of the toughest bosses in the game, as much due to her physical prowess as an anthropomorphic spider and her own brand of hypnotic powers, and 3) While she did backstab some people in her backstory, she still has an interesting and quirky enough personality to draw you in.


But... yeah... I can't think of too many female villains that weren't manipulating and betraying everyone around them. Which... depending on who you're dealing with... can either be impressive, or just plain silly.


OT:

I don't think gender matters, only writing.

 

[Gearhead mk2]

Great villains are determined by thier actions, motivations, visual design, themes, motifs, and acting, just like any other character. You cannot judge wether a bad guy is good or not by what's in their underpants.

 

[AntiChri5]

I have always found gender largely irrelevant to how "good" a villain or even a hero is.

 

[game-lover]

Hm... reading the replies, I'm thinking I might have worded my Title improperly. Or didn't explain myself.

So let me try again.

First off: think of it in terms of the second question in the title. Who do you find that you love to hate more when it comes to rooting for the heroes to win?

In particular, when you have two villains of the opposite sex working together, which one do you find gets your ire going?

 

[AntiChri5]

There are so many factors that boiling it down to genders seems frankly silly. There are a dozen different reasons that i may prefer villain A over villain B.

I guess i could say that male and female villains do a better job of fulfilling different roles. Males are generally more effective as brutal, physically imposing villains then women generally are. But then again, the scarcity of such female villains makes them stand out more, making them more effective, novel and memorable.

 

[Gearhead mk2]

Hm... reading the replies, I'm thinking I might have worded my Title improperly. Or didn't explain myself.

So let me try again.

First off: think of it in terms of the second question in the title. Who do you find that you love to hate more when it comes to rooting for the heroes to win?

In particular, when you have two villains of the opposite sex working together, which one do you find gets your ire going?

I often find the male villains more hateable, but that's more down to there being more well-written male evil characters. I can only think of a few female villains who's design or presonality really extends beyond "big tits that want to blow up the world". Also, one of the things that really gets me hating a villain is stuff relating to sexuality, but there's a bit of a double standard. If a female character exhibits anything related to sexuality, nine times out of ten that's written for fanservice. Male characters are either treated as comedic, fanservice for girls, or really creepy. Relius from Blazblue for instance. That series has no shotrage of characters that were desinged with boobs in mind, but because Relius is a male, his stuff related to sexuality is written much more creepily. Heck, in Makoto's bad ending, he messes with her head to break her, and it's bassically a rape scene. The only female character I know of that is anything like that is Juri.

 

[lechat]

GLaDOS was actually a female originally and although she (it) makes a fair enough villain its really only capable of doing it in a cartoonish logical (whacky) computer way
i hate to say it but i can't think of a single decent female villain ever. pretty much any example i can think of lacks the certain over the top psychopathic lack of compassion that turns a villain from disney cartoon to kill first maybe ask questions later sorta deal

Hmm... I'd say the best villains are the ones that don't think of themselves as villains.

I.E. the ones that believe what they're doing is right.

This is why I found Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter so damn silly. He is the kind of over-the-top psychotic you're talking about, but I just can't take him seriously.

Now...

take say... Magneto, now THERE's an interesting villain. I'm sure everyone knows his motivation by this point?

Mutantkind over humanity, right? He genuinely believes mutants are better, and so sets about trying to put them in charge, because... he also seems to believe that would be better for all non-mutants as well.

Though, I would say that if well-written... an over-the-top psychotic could be entertaining as well....

magneto is the kind of villain you can sympathize with though. sure he may want to destroy all humanity is a naziesque kinda way but that is because of his treatment by humans and his argument that mutants are the next step in evolution mirrors the same way humans overtook Neanderthals as the dominant species.
voldemort is a fairly good example of a decently written villain but he does spend a bit too much time talking and not enough mindlessly killing.
the best example i can come up with is heath ledger's joker. now there is a villain that wants nothing more than to spread chaos and rack up a kill count

 

[Cpu46]

I like seeing women as villains, I mean full on villains who you know are villains from the start, only because they are so rare. Often times they are usually manipulative behind the scenes villains who get revealed right before the climax of the story. Nothing beats a woman who is evil and doesn't care who knows it.

 

[DeltaEdge]

Although I think that either gender can make an equally fine villian, based on how they are typically written I would say that they each have their own strengths and weaknesses.

In anime, the male villain will often be fairly large, maniacal, possibly monster-esque all around bastard who probably killed the protagonist's parents when they were a child, laughing all the while doing it, thus garnering all the hatred fueled passion of the protagonist. Even when they are just an antagonist, they are still often stronger than protagonist, and sometimes even a jerk about it, still causing the protagonist to despise them.

As for female villains in anime, if I include antagonistic characters as well, they tend to have a tendency towards playing mind games. Especially in school life anime, the antagonistic female will often be plotting to mentally destroy the lead female via turning her friends against her, spreading rumors to ruin her reputation, antagonizing her face to face, sometimes even physically hurting her, and even going as far as to deny that they've done anything wrong. When they are villains, they will probably murder people close to the hero, and possibly even flirt with him/her from time to time, causing both great anger and confusion for the hero.

Spoiler: The aforementioned Minerva is definitely the typical female villain, and very easy to dislike

But yeah, from the way I worded it, you can probably already tell that I garner more hate for female antagonists than male antagonists as female antagonists are usually written in a way that makes them completely detestable an inhuman, while male antagonists, although usually dicks, don't seem to have time to completely destroy your relationships, feelings, and sense of self before finishing you off.

Also, although it's unfair, I tend to expect males to be scummy villains, and it has less impact when I see an evil male versus and evil female simply because I see many more male than female villains.

 

[Dr. Cakey]

There's a very strong trend among female villains to go in one of three different directions. 1) to not actually be evil and be manipulated by the real villain in some way, 2) being spoiled or selfish and greedy a their only motivation - in other words, "I want a pony!" only with goth makeup, or somewhat more rarely, 3) she wants to destroy the world/something smaller than the world because it made her sad (this, by the way, is distinct from the Final Fantasy-type "The heart is pain" villain who wants to destroy everything because life sucks. That's nihilism stemming from a god complex, not a temper tantrum).

None of these particularly encourage me to respect the character very much. And if I don't respect the character, I can't be intimidated by her, thus I can't really give a crap.

I'm skimming my list of anime (okay, yes, anime, that's true, but still...) and the only major female antagonist I can think of who doesn't fall under one of those is Cornelia from Code Geass. And maybe Yuno from Mirai Nikki.

 

[kickyourass]

While the obvious answer is both make excellent villains if the writers know what the hell they're doing, I think I have more favorite female villains then male. Princess Azula, Glados, for most of the series Envy

Spoiler: You try telling me with a straight face this looks like a man

Demona, Sarah Freaking Karrigan, the list goes on.

 

[felbot]

This might sound a bit sexist, but I'd say male villains, because I find it hard to find a woman threatening.

Not to say that there aren't women who I'd feel threatened by in real life, but you rarely see female villains in media who are built like brick shithouses.

Oh how I was hoping to find the first person to say this.

Spoiler: Spoiler'd to not get mod wrath for picture spamming

And these are only movies I've seen and can recall off the top of my head. I don't know what movies you've been watching, but neither male nor female villains have to be "built like brick shithouses" in order to be threatening.

if I am going to be honest I never found any of those to be particularly threatening, nor did I absolutely hate them like I probably should have.
then again I can only name 2 male villains I like anyway so meh.

anyway on topic, well like I just said I can only name 2, that being the patriarch from killing floor and handsome jack from borderlands 2.
and the only reason i hate the patriarch is because he reminds me of my dad.