Your favorite non-white villian (spoilers)

[Erttheking]

We never really do appreciate villains who manage to break the mold and manage to not be white do we? I think part of the problem is that a lot of stories have trouble giving the good guys more than one token black guy at best, therefor the main villain being black when we're so short on black heroes is a bit iffy. Or it could just be simply that most of them aren't very well written. With that being said, let's dedicate this thread to the dastardly villains who manages to break that mold by being well written, enjoyable to watch, or just plain old fun.

My favorite was from Persona 4

Spoiler

I think I"m going to have to go with Adachi from Persona 4. Yeah it's cheating a little considering that it's a Japanese game and therefore every single character in the game was Japanese, but Metro Last Light being filled with Russian characters didn't stop me from appreciating the Russian villains so what the hell, am I right? This guy is just so in love with what he does that it's fascinating. The interesting thing is that for the majority of the game he doesn't even take part in any of the attempted murders the main characters are trying to stop, he manipulates someone else into doing it for him while he sits back and watches the show. As an added bonus on top, when he final gets cornered and rants about his motivation, it's not an over the top screech fest (Well it was in the animation but it was still interesting to watch) he spoke calmly and rationally, saying things that make you stop and think for a moment. It was a very engrossing experience.

Anyway, what about you? What was your favorite non-white villain?

 

[Queen Michael]

If there are spoilers in your post then you should use spoiler tags, because otherwise people can't know if you're spoiling something they're interested in or not. You can't just say "spoilers" and then serve up a spoiler without first warning people about which work will be spoiled if they continue reading. Just writing "spoilers" in the subject line is completely useless.

I haven't played that game yet, so you just spoiled it for me. Please learn to use spoiler tags or don't post spoilers.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I don't know if he's my favorite but Sam Jackson nailed his role in Django and personally think he deserved that Oscar nom/win way more than Waltz. The man usually sticks to his cool hand shtick but the role required a transformation I could've never believed possible from him. Would love to see him in more bad guy roles.

 

[Queen Michael]

I don't know if he's my favorite but Sam Jackson nailed his role in Django and personally think he deserved that Oscar nom/win way more than Waltz. The man usually sticks to his cool hand shtick but the role required a transformation I could've never believed possible from him. Would love to see him in more bad guy roles.

I dind't know he was going to be in that film, and it wasn't until after I watched it that I read that it was Samule Jackson playing the butler. Damn amazing.

Right now my favorite villain is Izaya from Durarara!! I haven't finished the series yet, but he's damn cool so far.

 

[Ieyke]

Megatron?

Yeah.
Megatron.

OH. No.
Amon.

 

[Flutterguy]

I struggle to remember a characters race unless it is a big part of the story line.

I'll go with Fool from Tail Concerto.

(He's purple)

 

[Seracen]

Not my faves, but I might add that Clancy Brown (a white guy) voiced Lex Luthor (who was black). Incidentally, my fave version of the character. Also, while Kingpin is traditionally white, Micheal Clark Duncan killed it in his rendition.

As far as truly despicable villains, the author of Sword Art Online did a good job of making his villains truly detested. Sure, he utilized a lot of literary shorthand to get there (ie: rape, bigotry, etc), but it gets the job done.

Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series featured several good villains. However, there were just as many villains who grated from annoyance factor as anything approaching traditionally "evil" archetypes.

 

[renegade7]

I guess Prince Zuko, though I could never fully tell if he was supposed to be white or Chinese, he was just that typical anime racially-neutral beige.

And Kefka was purple in the final battle, so I guess that counts as a runner-up.

 

[Objectable]

Do robots count as not white?
If not...
http://www.pinkfoxstudios.com/dump/ShockwaveFinalsmall.jpg

 

[Erttheking]

I guess Prince Zuko, though I could never fully tell if he was supposed to be white or Chinese, he was just that typical anime racially-neutral beige.

And Kefka was purple in the final battle, so I guess that counts as a runner-up.

I actually think that he was supposed to be Japanese, what with the Fire Nation culture most heavily representing that. I always thought that the Earth Kingdom was supposed to be Chinese.

 

[Ieyke]

Not my faves, but I might add that Clancy Brown (a white guy) voiced Lex Luthor (who was black).

Uh...no he wasn't...

Do robots count as not white?
If not...
http://www.pinkfoxstudios.com/dump/ShockwaveFinalsmall.jpg

^I support this too.

 

[renegade7]

I guess Prince Zuko, though I could never fully tell if he was supposed to be white or Chinese, he was just that typical anime racially-neutral beige.

And Kefka was purple in the final battle, so I guess that counts as a runner-up.

I actually think that he was supposed to be Japanese, what with the Fire Nation culture most heavily representing that. I always thought that the Earth Kingdom was supposed to be Chinese.

But most of the cultural allusions referred to feudal China in regards to the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom, though I guess it does make sense historically since Japan, an island country (like the Fire Nation) tried very hard for a very long time to conquer the mainland (ie the Earth Kingdom). But there's also a pretty good mix of nationalities, some characters had a much more mainland Asian look than others and spoke with a mixture of Japanese (assorted Fire Nation characters) and Chinese (Iroh) accents (when they did have accents), even within the Fire Nation.

I'm going to go with it being a mixed thing...Zuko does sound like a more Japanese name, but Mae and Tai Lee are ostensibly Chinese names.

Also, on the subject of names, something just a little interesting quirk. "Iroh" sounds like the Latin word that roughly means "Temperamental" or "aggressive" and "Zuko" sounds like the first part of the Latin "Succoro", meaning "Assistance in times of serious hardship" or (more significantly) "peace in times of distress and chaos". Roles seem to have been reversed xD

I'm thinking too hard into it, but I just re-watched the show and it's still fresh in my head.

 

[Seracen]

Not my faves, but I might add that Clancy Brown (a white guy) voiced Lex Luthor (who was black).

Uh...no he wasn't...

Really? Huh, then he must have a hell of a tan. My friends and I totally saw him as non-white when we saw the series, or at least mixed race. I recall thinking "kudos to them for just going with it and not bothering to explain anything," because it was done in such a nonchalant manner.

Ah well...still one of my fave renditions of Lex. Jesse Eisenberg has the acting ability...dunno if he has the natural gravitas that comes with age. It'll be odd to see a young Lex (no, I never got used to it in Smallville, what few episodes I saw...though he did an amazing job as Flash's voice-over).

 

[Thaluikhain]

Main villain being black is a bit rare, but random villain goons tend to be black a lot (often the only people in the movie who are). Let's hear it for random thug #2

Then you have being not-white as part of their villainy, and gets lots of big villains for that. Stuff about terrorism tend to do this, but also when the villain is going for the "savage" thing.

(Stargate was pretty good in avoiding this, had mixtures of both heroes and villains)

 

[GabeZhul]

I think we are short of colored villains simply because of the internalization of the PC attitude, where you cannot have a black or latino or asian villain without jumping through hoops to justify it in order to avoid being called a racist pig.

I honestly can't recall a good example, but I do remember a bit of a subversion... well, "remember" might be a bit of a stretch, since I can't actually recall the title of this book. It was something of a post-apocalyptic story set in Africa (though it wasn't stated until the very end) where the protagonist and his small caravan tries to survive by traveling through the wastes and trading with settlements when they get robbed by one of the towns and thrown into their mines. The protagonist's friends help him escape but they get recaptured, so he goes around the settlements he already visited to get help, inadvertently forms the first "state" in the wasteland and returns to the town to free his friends, and at the very end we learn that the leader of the town was actually a white guy, and the bigger reveal, that everyone was black all along but the author never drew attention to it until the very end.

It was a pretty old book I read in the local library and I don't even know if it's translated into English or not, but int that context it was a villain of different color than the rest of the cast, so I suppose it might count...

 

[renegade7]

But most of the cultural allusions referred to feudal China in regards to the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom, though I guess it does make sense historically since Japan, an island country (like the Fire Nation) tried very hard for a very long time to conquer the mainland (ie the Earth Kingdom). But there's also a pretty good mix of nationalities, some characters had a much more mainland Asian look than others and spoke with a mixture of Japanese (assorted Fire Nation characters) and Chinese (Iroh) accents (when they did have accents), even within the Fire Nation.

I'm going to go with it being a mixed thing...Zuko does sound like a more Japanese name, but Mae and Tai Lee are ostensibly Chinese names.

I'm pretty sure the Fire Nation is supposed to be early 20th century Japan mixed with a bit of Nazism under recent Fire Lords, at least in culture/allusion. They're both small, volcanic, island nations that rapidly modernized/developed and went on to invade, defeat, and colonize a much larger country (Earth Kingdom/China), and they instituted a strict, nationalistic society complete with propaganda as well as the original claim that the war is to "unite" the nations under the splendor of the best of them.

While some of the names and accents (Iroh's could probably be explained through his openness to other cultures) might be more Chinese than Japanese, I don't really think that should be enough to outweigh the fact that the creators pretty much just plopped Japan down in a fantasy world and gave them all fire powers.

OT: I'm going to have to agree with this person

Amon.

According to the Wiki, you seem to be right on most of that...except that the geography was modelled after, of all places, Iceland xD

 

[Ieyke]

*shrug*
Color varied, but nothing outside the realms of a normal tan.

 

[MrMixelPixel]

I really don't feel that choosing a villain of Asian descent is much better than choosing one of White descent. There's plenty to choose from. With that said...

I'll be choosing Azula from Avatar.

Spoiler: Azula

 

[XMark]

James Earl Jones was awesome in the old Conan movie as the main villain. So much gravitas behind his every motion and every word. You totally believe that he could lead a cult and gain tons of fanatically devoted followers.