Your favorite non-white villian (spoilers)

[Malty Milk Whistle]

All you guys are missing out on that sweet sweet Dr Facilier lovin'.

Spoiler

Dang son. He got the song, he got the looks, he even got the adorable voodoo dolls!

 

[mecegirl]

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.

All you guys are missing out on that sweet sweet Dr Facilier lovin'.

Spoiler

Dang son. He got the song, he got the looks, he even got the adorable voodoo dolls!

Stole two of my favorites.

I'm going to have to add Black Manta. Or rather the version of him from the Young Justice Cartoon. And actually the New 52 version isn't that bad either. In past versions the motivations for him were really weird so I guess that why I prefer more contemporary versions. It's sad that his son wasn't interested in being really evil. And it was really sneaky of the writers to have the day that Kaldur revealed to his father that he was undercover to be so close to father's day.

 

[Ieyke]

Yea, Young Justice Black Manta finally made that dumbass helmet not look dumb. Seemed kinda like a badass.

 

[XMark]

Oh my god, I can't believe I forgot about one of my favourite villains of all time here - Gustavo Fring from Breaking Bad. Dude was scary as hell when he was taking care of business on the show.

"Get back to work."

 

[Scarim Coral]

THe demon sisters aka Scanty and Kneesock from the anime Panty and Stocking seeing how their skins are red. I just loved how lawful evil those two gals are and being polar oppersite to the angels (they are pretty much chaotic good).

 

[happyninja42]

I've enjoyed Vaas from Farcry 3. He's delightfully charismatic and enjoyable to see in scenes. Can't really think of many examples of non-white bad guys in movies/games off hand. I'd have to sit down and actually consider this for further examples.

 

[Ninmecu]

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

Amon.

Gotta be honest, I had a hard time seeing/taking Amon seriously as a villain. In any sense of the word. He was twisted and wanted power, sure, but he never really struck me as villainous in his actions, just differently viewed.

That and, well

Spoiler: Last Air Bender and Korra Season 1&2 spoilers

Given the fact that Avatar Aang learned how to bend energies within himself and others, much like the Lion Turtles did in the time before the material and immaterial realms became separate, and the fact that once an avatar achieves the Avatar State the memories of their past lives combine. Korra would've learnt it on the spot and undone the damage that was done, so the entire first season "villain" to me was little more than a "let's see how long it takes Korra to achieve Avatar state for the first time" and less of a "Holy crap the Fire Lord is one evil SoB I can't wait until we see what he looks like and how he actually acts!"

Even at that, I never understood his motivation. I mean, I just don't get what the point of it all was, maybe I didn't pay enough attention and missed a crucial plot point or something but he just never struck me as an appropriately powerful villain, given Avatar Korra's personality being, well, pretty hot. By which I mean badass that can take care of herself, while also showing signs of weakness because she ultimately realizes she can't do EVERYTHING herself.

On topic, I haven't seen enough non-white villains to really compare with, I guess the closest I can think of would be Scar, but that's cheating, I mean, he's not even an anthropomorphic brown lion, he just happens to be differently colored than the rest of them, as if to say "Lookie here he's the villain!" I don't know if it's just a lack of searching or what the case is, but it seems to me like more often than not, the villain is non white simply "because I said so" and less to do with it being a part of the character because of actual human motivations.

 

[leberkaese]

Do you mean by 'white' white people? Does GlaDOS count? GlaDOS isn't a white person! I'll choose GlaDOS!

What, her hull is white and therefore she doesn't count? Then I'll choose Vaas from Far Cry 3.
Did I ever tell you the definition of insanity?

 

[Ryotknife]

Agent Bishop from TMNT.

http://villains.wikia.com/wiki/Agent_Bishop

Even though he is essentially a bureaucrat, he manages to win a 7 on 1 fight unarmed with no gimmicks or powers against the turtles, splinter, leatherhead, and casey. He is The Matrix combined with an evil Men in Black

 

[bigfatcarp93]

Vaas is a fairly obvious option... "NAIL ME TO THE FUCKING CROSS, AND LET ME BE REBOOOORRRRRNNNN!!!!"

I also have to largely agree with Dr. Facilier and Black Manta, all good choices...

Also...

Spoiler

The Red Skull.

 

[[Kira Must Die]]

Kyubey from Madoka Magica.

Spoiler

Wait a second...

GODDAMNIT!

 

[Fijiman]

Hands down it'd have to be Dr. Nefarious from the Ratchet&Clank series. Otherwise I'd probably have to say Megatron.

 

[Ninmecu]

All you guys are missing out on that sweet sweet Dr Facilier lovin'.

Spoiler

Dang son. He got the song, he got the looks, he even got the adorable voodoo dolls!

But that's all he got. He didn't have a cohesive and well thought out plan, he didn't live up to the songs power and visual bombasity, he was, at best, a B- villain. Which sucks, because his villain song is among the best Disney ever produced.

Gotta be honest, I had a hard time seeing/taking Amon seriously as a villain. In any sense of the word. He was twisted and wanted power, sure, but he never really struck me as villainous in his actions, just differently viewed.

That and, well

Spoiler: Last Air Bender and Korra Season 1&2 spoilers

Given the fact that Avatar Aang learned how to bend energies within himself and others, much like the Lion Turtles did in the time before the material and immaterial realms became separate, and the fact that once an avatar achieves the Avatar State the memories of their past lives combine. Korra would've learnt it on the spot and undone the damage that was done, so the entire first season "villain" to me was little more than a "let's see how long it takes Korra to achieve Avatar state for the first time" and less of a "Holy crap the Fire Lord is one evil SoB I can't wait until we see what he looks like and how he actually acts!"

Even at that, I never understood his motivation. I mean, I just don't get what the point of it all was, maybe I didn't pay enough attention and missed a crucial plot point or something but he just never struck me as an appropriately powerful villain, given Avatar Korra's personality being, well, pretty hot. By which I mean badass that can take care of herself, while also showing signs of weakness because she ultimately realizes she can't do EVERYTHING herself.

Well depending on how you describe it a "villain" is really just the antagonist of the story, and Amon's views certainly put him in a very antagonistic position in relation to Korra specifically and benders generally. Sure he doesn't come across as blatantly evil, but that seems like a point in his and the creator's favor. Moral ambiguity is generally better than putting your heroes up against Hitler, unless you somehow make said Hitler fun to watch in some over the top way.

Spoiler: As for the rest...(spoilers)

The problem with that is that Korra is spiritually weak in the first season to the point that she can't even air bend, meaning that there's no reason (beyond the knowledge that the good guys will win) to think that Korra will just suddenly get Avatar powers to fix everything. In addition, there's a big difference between Aang's energy bending someone's power away and Amon's blood bending someone into being incapable of bending. I mean, sure Korra could energy bend, but theoretically there's no reason to expect energy bending to be able to fix something physical like what Amon's blood bending seemed to be. Obviously that turned out to not be the case, but once it was revealed that Amon wasn't using some spiritual power but blood bending, spiritual powers stop seeming like the universal fix.

And Amon's motivation was that he hated bending and believed it to be a source of evil. After all, he and his brother were abused by their father for bending and, when he left and went to Republic City, he found benders running everything. The four nations send representatives to rule the council, rather than have representatives of the city (which is especially grating when you realize that Tenzin has a spot on the council even though he represents like a few hundred people at most), and gangs of benders terrorize people. You aren't supposed to see him as an evil SOB because he's not--at most he's someone who just took things too far--and you aren't supposed to wonder about how he looks and acts because he's a constant presence who's always taking part in things instead of being relegated to someone who does nothing until the finale.

As for being appropriately powerful, maybe I'm not understanding your meaning properly, but Amon is a martial arts master and likely on of the most powerful water benders in the world who has an army with advanced technology that manages to conquer Republic City and repel the navy sent after him. Had the creators not deigned to make Mako so cool as to be able to overcome blood bending, Amon would have won.

Spoiler

You're arguably right with regards to "Good guys always win." but unless they'd gone the route of lolfakeout, I wasn't really that intimidated by his presence because of the afformentioned Avatar State knowledge. Now admittedly we couldn't know for sure that the physical removal was un-doable by the spiritual nature of Energy Bending, it was a fair gamble in my books, which turned out to be correct. Also, despite the fact that Aang was in fact very spiritually gifted and clung to it nearly to the point of Zealotry(as seen throughout the series but most prominently in the Nightmares episode and the Lion Turtle moment.) it was mentioned by Avatar Rokku that the Avatar state is a defense mechanism, meant to save an Avatar from certain death. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that inevitably, an Avatar would be faced with a life or death scenario and would unlock the Avatar State of it's own accord.

As for Amon, you're right, that's very likely his motivation. I just have a hard time seeing those because having been in a very similar position(Minus the bending, which would be awesome.) I came out of it with a dramatically different outlook to most who have those situations. As for Tenzin, while he might only have the feelings of a few hundred people, in the grand scheme of things, the Fire Nation owes his people a lot of restitution for their past actions, giving them equal say in the formation of the future is a good way of maintaining a semblance of balance, it's also been shown that Tenzin has the peoples feelings at heart, for better or worse. While true Amon is meant to have a more in your face section to this story, given he was a key player in the events and moved things around to suit his needs, I just have more respect for Ozai from a purely villainous standpoint, not trying to downplay Amon. He was a pretty solid character in his own right, just not a villain in my books. Antagonist, yes, villain, no.

Yes he's an excellent bender, gifted with a uniquely powerful ability and has a lot going for him, it's just that we never saw him get a chance to really exercise a considerable amount of what he COULD do, he was relegated more to the back burner to Korra's Teenage Problems, which, in my opinion, hurt his chances to really solidify himself. Which is basically saying I wish he had more screen time to show that he was, in fact, a powerful foe who's motivations were strong and had the will of the people behind him. If it was in a more adult situation I'm sure he could've been a very villainous Villain. Whereas in this show, it's hard to give a character like him the room to become as powerful a force as he could've.


Do not under any circumstances assume that I'm claiming Korra or Aang are purely a childs show, they've both tackled some pretty out there plots and problems with an excellent story telling ability, love both series and hope they continue to raise the bar. I just feel that Amon would work more in a more adult-esque storyline, he strikes me as a more restrained/intellectual equivalent to Jagang the Just in The Sword of Truth series.

I have, almost insultingly, high standards for villainy. I love villains, I love everything about them. I love analyzing, deconstructing, reconstructing and doing it all again just for shits and giggles. I've spent more time than I care to admit looking at Gaston from Beauty and the Beast(In a metaphorical sense, not staring at his "Perfect thighs" as he puts it.) Dr. Facilier, Jafar, Scar to name the popular disney ones.


I guess if I had to choose, since I largely sidestepped it so far, Jagang the Just from the Sword of Truth series...I don't know if he counts as a Spoiler because he's introduced in book 2/12? So...yeah spoilers ahead.

Spoiler: Jagang the Just

He's known as a dreamwalker, able to enter the minds of others in the space between thoughts, that infinitely tiny moment between one thought and the next. From that he can directly control other lesser beings and inflict great pain upon those he finds failed him. His motivations are to unify man by ultimately removing free will, which he sees as a taint on the human spirit. The series follows him as the main antagonist and shows the two main heroes Richard and Khalan as paragons of righteousness, which is...well, honestly it's a bit sickening how /noble/ they get at times, you almost hope Jagang wins, but then he does something so purely evil that it almost makes you start rooting for Richard and Khalan again. Jagang is as A-moral as it gets, doing whatever he has to in order to conquer the lands that stand in his way, while his tactics seem brutish and savage with little thought, he has a wizened mind that is further amplified by all the studying he can do within the minds of others. He can literally learn everything in another persons mind within seconds and add that knowledge to his own. All in all, he's a pretty well fleshed out villain, if a bit one sided. I'd rate him about a B+.

 

[tbok1992]

On topic, I haven't seen enough non-white villains to really compare with, I guess the closest I can think of would be Scar, but that's cheating, I mean, he's not even an anthropomorphic brown lion, he just happens to be differently colored than the rest of them, as if to say "Lookie here he's the villain!" I don't know if it's just a lack of searching or what the case is, but it seems to me like more often than not, the villain is non white simply "because I said so" and less to do with it being a part of the character because of actual human motivations.

Yeah, but that's kind of the point of increasing representation, getting out of that mindset that "straight, white, cismale" is the default and everything else is just a deviation from that; and making it so that we can have female; gay or nonwhite characters "just cause" rather than as a statement. Because, there's a reason that our popular imagination of who can be the protagonist is so limited, and the "straight white cismale as default" is the reason for that.

Though, ironically, my two fave nonwhite villains actually do have race as a not-insignificant part of their stories, specifically the charismatically devious Dr. Facilier from "The Princess and the Frog" and the eerie; memetic "Candyman," played by the excellent Tony Todd in the film of the same name.

 

[Barciad]

Stringer Bell from 'The Wire' (played by Idris Elba). A character of Shakespearean depth and complexity - it was neither his greed, ambition, not vanity that saw to his undoing. Rather (unlike his far more grounded partner Avon Barksdale) his lack of self-awareness. The man never seemed to realise, that beneath all his lofty schemes and pretensions, that he too was 'just a gangster'.

 

[Henkie36]

I'm seeing a lot of Avatar villains, and I agree with them. I think they're all good. The twisted personality of Zuko. The diabolical mental instability of Azula. The calculating schemer Amon. They're all absolute gold. Favorite lines?

Zuko: ''Growing up, we were taught the Fire Nation was the greatest nation in history, and that somehow, the war was our way of sharing our greatness with the rest of the world. What an amazing lie that was.'' (The Day of Black Sun Part 2 - The Eclipse)

Azula: ''You've beaten me at my own game. Don't flatter yourself. You were never even a player.'' (The Crossroads of Destiny)

Amon: ''I'm impressed. No one has ever gotten the better of me like that. It is almost a shame to take the bending of someone so talented. Almost.''(Endgame)

I feel kind of bad for Tarrlok, who is kind of left out here. At first I didn't really like him, but the more is revealed about him, the better a villain he became, the pinnicale of course being:

''Avatar Korra. I am truly sorry for all that I did to you. I thought I was better than my father, but his ghost still shaped me. I became a soldier of revenge, just like he wanted me to be, and so did my brother.'' (Skeletons in the Closet, my favorite Legend of Korra episode)

Ozai was decent at being just the sum of all evil, but too standard. They were going in an
interesting direction with Unalaq, but then they reveal that he is just in it for power. Here's hoping season three and four have good villains.

 

[Ninmecu]

Spoiler

You're arguably right with regards to "Good guys always win." but unless they'd gone the route of lolfakeout, I wasn't really that intimidated by his presence because of the afformentioned Avatar State knowledge. Now admittedly we couldn't know for sure that the physical removal was un-doable by the spiritual nature of Energy Bending, it was a fair gamble in my books, which turned out to be correct. Also, despite the fact that Aang was in fact very spiritually gifted and clung to it nearly to the point of Zealotry(as seen throughout the series but most prominently in the Nightmares episode and the Lion Turtle moment.) it was mentioned by Avatar Rokku that the Avatar state is a defense mechanism, meant to save an Avatar from certain death. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that inevitably, an Avatar would be faced with a life or death scenario and would unlock the Avatar State of it's own accord.

As for Amon, you're right, that's very likely his motivation. I just have a hard time seeing those because having been in a very similar position(Minus the bending, which would be awesome.) I came out of it with a dramatically different outlook to most who have those situations. As for Tenzin, while he might only have the feelings of a few hundred people, in the grand scheme of things, the Fire Nation owes his people a lot of restitution for their past actions, giving them equal say in the formation of the future is a good way of maintaining a semblance of balance, it's also been shown that Tenzin has the peoples feelings at heart, for better or worse. While true Amon is meant to have a more in your face section to this story, given he was a key player in the events and moved things around to suit his needs, I just have more respect for Ozai from a purely villainous standpoint, not trying to downplay Amon. He was a pretty solid character in his own right, just not a villain in my books. Antagonist, yes, villain, no.

Yes he's an excellent bender, gifted with a uniquely powerful ability and has a lot going for him, it's just that we never saw him get a chance to really exercise a considerable amount of what he COULD do, he was relegated more to the back burner to Korra's Teenage Problems, which, in my opinion, hurt his chances to really solidify himself. Which is basically saying I wish he had more screen time to show that he was, in fact, a powerful foe who's motivations were strong and had the will of the people behind him. If it was in a more adult situation I'm sure he could've been a very villainous Villain. Whereas in this show, it's hard to give a character like him the room to become as powerful a force as he could've.


Do not under any circumstances assume that I'm claiming Korra or Aang are purely a childs show, they've both tackled some pretty out there plots and problems with an excellent story telling ability, love both series and hope they continue to raise the bar. I just feel that Amon would work more in a more adult-esque storyline, he strikes me as a more restrained/intellectual equivalent to Jagang the Just in The Sword of Truth series.

Spoiler

In hindsight, it's a fairly good gamble to just assume that everything in the Avatar series will be solved by last minute spiritual powers. Aang survives being struck by lightning in the avatar state through magic water and doesn't have to give up pacifism because he met a Lion Turtle and learned energy bending, and Korra has not only had the Avatar state fix Amon's bloodbending, but also whatever the fuck you want to call the ending of the second season. That said, even if the Avatar state is a defense mechanism, Korra was never really in such a situation and, in fact, achieves the avatar state after the fact. I don't think Amon ever threatened to kill her or anyone else, just take away their bending, at which point they become harmless.

Well, while some people obviously come out of similar situations with different mindsets, there's also the fact that (and I'm assuming so sorry if I'm mistaken) you didn't have some incredibly clear trait to blame for the entirety of your and the world's problems. Bending resulted in child abuse, oppression, gang violence, death, and general inequality, which makes it a pretty good target. And I feel like it really just depends on how you're going to define villain, because there's a wide array of things it could be limited to from "an antagonist" to "cackling, genocidal madman."

That said, I feel like the lack of him showing his power really comes down to the way bending and fighting works in a city. The first episode shows what happens when traditional bending happens in a city: the city breaks. As such, you have more subtle displays of power. It's not until the second season when they're away from infrastructure that you see people really tear it up. In addition, Amon can't openly bend without blowing his cover, leaving his displays of power for most of the season to less fantastical things. He's a martial arts master who can defeat Lightning Bolt Zolt or Tahno in an instant; he can resist bloodbending out of sheer will (though bloodbending likely played a hand in it); and he has the power to take people's bending away; and he can blood bend without moving (putting him above King Bumi's chin bending). Seeing an actual bending fight would have been cool, but ill fitting, though just seeing more of the villain is also a plus.

And, while Tenzin is indeed good for the city, he doesn't represent the city and in the people's eyes I doubt it matters that the fledgling air nation got a position of authority because of genocide, it still leads to benders ruling over them.

This shouldn't qualify as spoilers, since it's ultimately just an agreement with the majority of your arguments and an admission that it would likely work better in an alternate medium, but all the same.

Spoiler

I think at the end of the day I would've simply prefered an actual book be written for the Amon saga, giving proper character growth for all parties involved rather than the glimpses we had because they were trying to introduce far too many characters and trying to stick to the story more at the same time, bit of a mishmash of Season 1&2 of Last Airbender, but compressed into a single season. Though I've said the same thing about many villains, so, it might just be me. I feel that the subtlety of Amon's takeover could've been better explored, with less emphasis on borderline fillerstorytwoforonespecial episodes. But, again, personal preference and all that.

Realistically, none of them represent the city, including the original council that Sokka was a part of, it's hard to really elect people that can properly speak for a city of that size, since it has several backgrounds and peoples who've come from various parts of various nations that were nearly unified through a war that lasted over a century. The whole affair is quite the mess, but they seem to have come up aces, given the circumstances. I know in The Promise it showed a lot of the early struggles and brought up some of the issues that would likely have come up if it were in a real world setting, tackling issues that are more complicated than simple Black and White answers that we tend to favor as humans. All in all, I'd argue that he's a beneficial aspect of the story, he was likely chosen because A) He's one of the earths only Airbenders and B) Is the son of the previous Avatar, who working with the other world leaders, essentially unified the four nations, for better or worse.

On topic, I haven't seen enough non-white villains to really compare with, I guess the closest I can think of would be Scar, but that's cheating, I mean, he's not even an anthropomorphic brown lion, he just happens to be differently colored than the rest of them, as if to say "Lookie here he's the villain!" I don't know if it's just a lack of searching or what the case is, but it seems to me like more often than not, the villain is non white simply "because I said so" and less to do with it being a part of the character because of actual human motivations.

Yeah, but that's kind of the point of increasing representation, getting out of that mindset that "straight, white, cismale" is the default and everything else is just a deviation from that; and making it so that we can have female; gay or nonwhite characters "just cause" rather than as a statement. Because, there's a reason that our popular imagination of who can be the protagonist is so limited, and the "straight white cismale as default" is the reason for that.

Though, ironically, my two fave nonwhite villains actually do have race as a not-insignificant part of their stories, specifically the charismatically devious Dr. Facilier from "The Princess and the Frog" and the eerie; memetic "Candyman," played by the excellent Tony Todd in the film of the same name.

I fully support the diversification of both Protagonists and Antagonists. However, what I don't support is it being shoehorned in without any logical reason beyond "lol diversity". If it informs the characters motivations through some way or enhances parts of a characters abilities, I've got no complaints. I just hate the argument that we need more non white characters because reasons.(Though admitedly, I'm a bit annoyed of the argument because I almost never hear the argument involve Native Americans, we tend to be put to the sidelines and when we are represented in a culturally accurate manner, it gets lauded as a negative. Take Connor for example, stoicism is considered by many tribes as an attribute that is greatly desired, but at the same time, I can understand why he wasn't seen as a good lead because of what we were brought up on.

 

[Rabbitboy]

I see Avater the last airbender and legend of Korra being mentiond a lot but i haven't seen Varrick anywhere. Some people mentiond Amon already he had some good points (even if I dont agree with his methods). And since I can't shoot fire out my fingers it was hard not to root for him.

Also James Earl Jones's Thulsa Doom from Conan the Barbarian. Perhaps not my favorite or the best written but it was the first one that came to mind after seeing the thread title.