What is a "generic villain"?

[chaos control]

I have been hearing a lot of power haters say that so and so is or will be a generic villain? One question: What the heck would classify a villain as generic and what kind of villain would be non-generic?

To me personally, there are only 2 types of villains:

Epic villains: Villains that either have a lot of power, are great strategists, are generally successful throughout the plot of the series until they are defeated in the end (or until they win if it is one of those tragedy type series), or have a combination of these traits. They can also have ideals of peace.

Examples include: Madara, Obito, Kaguya, Plankton in the spongebob movie, Metal Sonic in Sonic Heroes, Mephiles the dark in Sonic 2006, Master Xehanort from Kingdom Hearts, Ganondorf from the Legend of Zelda series, Princess Hilda in A Link Between Worlds, etc...

Then there are...

Lame/Crappy villains: These villains are generally weak, stupid, unsuccessful and leave me with a feeling that a 4 year old could do a better job than them.

Examples include: Dr. Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb, Dr. Eggman from the sonic series (most of the time), Team Rocket (pokemon), Orochimaru, etc...

Tell me: What types of villains do you have and what are the qualifications for your categories?

P.s. I really don't see how a villain can be generic. They are either successful or they are not. They are either good at heart or they are evil. What other options are there?

 

[Bad Touch Yakushi]

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Have fun.

 

[Sage Moonblood]

Orochimaru ? Nah son

 

[ObitoGokuKakashi]

Take a look at Lord Freezer & your question shall be answered.
Definition of PURE Villain.

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[giostep]

Lol a villian is just someone that opposes the main characters goals.
So Madara/Sasuke/Nagato/Orochimaru, etc are villians of naruto as they oppose narutos goal to become a hokage. If kiba actually decides to challenge naruto for kage then he is a villian as well...

on the flip side

if the manga was named madara and he was the main character naruto/sasuke/kakashi/eventually obito would be villians...

 

[Bad Touch Yakushi]

If you don't think in all of fiction there's such thing as a 'generic villain' then you need to look again my friend.

Vladimir Propp...character archetypes...pretty basic stuff. And Madara falls into his archetype big-time. It's this one panel that cemented him as a shallow generic shounen villain.

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A evil grin out of nowhere. Stick a monocle onto him and an evil moustache and the cliche look is complete.

 

[Snape Uchiha]

A generic villain is someone like Voldemort who is just an evil person who wants to kill people and take over the world. That does not mean generic villains are bad. I am a huge fan of Voldemort, Aizen, Madara etc. who are all generic.

A non generic villain goes outside of this. For example Meruem from HxH has some great development that generic villains lack. Light Yagami is a very well written character who we as an audience can actually identify with, making him non generic.

 

[ThatOfLegend]

"Orochimaru is a lame villain"
*Leaves thread*

 

[chaos control]

Take a look at Lord Freezer & your question shall be answered.
Definition of PURE Villain.

You must be registered for see images

So are you saying that a villain must be pure evil to be non generic or really strong? Also, if you are going with the former, then I disagree. In fact Freiza would be more generic than someone like Madara. All he wanted to do was take over the universe and be immortal. He didn't even have a backstory as to why. There are billions and trillions of villains in literature that just want to take over the world and let that be end of story. That is a trillion times more villains than there are antagonists that really make for philosophical debates. Frieza is the most generic of them all.

 

[MinaButt]

A generic villian just follows the generic vilian archtype.
Arrogant
Overpowered
His arrogance is his weakness
Most of the time evil for the luz/or hypocrite that means well.
Aka Madara

Oro is the best to 2nd best villian in the series btw.

 

[chaos control]

If you don't think in all of fiction there's such thing as a 'generic villain' then you need to look again my friend.

Vladimir Propp...character archetypes...pretty basic stuff. And Madara falls into his archetype big-time. It's this one panel that cemented him as a shallow generic shounen villain.

You must be registered for see images

A evil grin out of nowhere. Stick a monocle onto him and an evil moustache and the cliche look is complete.

A generic villain is someone like Voldemort who is just an evil person who wants to kill people and take over the world. That does not mean generic villains are bad. I am a huge fan of Voldemort, Aizen, Madara etc. who are all generic.

A non generic villain goes outside of this. For example Meruem from HxH has some great development that generic villains lack. Light Yagami is a very well written character who we as an audience can actually identify with, making him non generic.

Did you two forget about Madara's inspiration behind this stuff? Did you forget about the deaths of his 4 brothers and about the fact that he constantly witnessed the deaths of innocent children in his childhood? Did you forget that Madara is not actually evil and that he never actually tried to take over the world? Taking over the world is when you control everyone. Madara actually gave everyone their dreams! How many villains do that? How is that generic?

Most villains I know want to control everyone rather than give them their dreams.

 

[chaos control]

A generic villian just follows the generic vilian archtype.
Arrogant
Overpowered
His arrogance is his weakness
Most of the time evil for the luz/or hypocrite that means well.
Aka Madara

Oro is the best to 2nd best villian in the series btw.

Madara is not evil for the lulz. He is not even evil. He gave everyone their dreams.

Also, what do you see in Orochimaru? He is crap! He always fails! Always!!! Destruction of Konoha: fail. Get Itachi's body: fail. Get Sasuke's body: fail Get every jutsu in the world: fail in that he only ever uses snakes, mud clones, edo tensei and that wind jutsu. He gets beat the crap out of in every fight he gets in.

How is this fun to watch?

 

[Rogerr]

This guy right here.

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[TRE MERCER]

A generic villian just follows the generic vilian archtype.
Arrogant
Overpowered
His arrogance is his weakness
Most of the time evil for the luz/or hypocrite that means well.
Aka Madara

Oro is the best to 2nd best villian in the series btw.

Thank you for this post.

 

[1000 Chirping Birds]

seen it all before

 

[Conspirator.]

A generic villian just follows the generic vilian archtype.
Arrogant
Overpowered
His arrogance is his weakness
Most of the time evil for the luz/or hypocrite that means well.
Aka Madara

Oro is the best to 2nd best villian in the series btw.

I agree with his,+rep

 

[Bad Touch Yakushi]

Did you two forget about Madara's inspiration behind this stuff? Did you forget about the deaths of his 4 brothers and about the fact that he constantly witnessed the deaths of innocent children in his childhood? Did you forget that Madara is not actually evil and that he never actually tried to take over the world? Taking over the world is when you control everyone. Madara actually gave everyone their dreams! How many villains do that? How is that generic?

Most villains I know want to control everyone rather than give them their dreams.

It's weak and recycled. Madara's change was SO sudden.

It was a stitched on reason as an excuse for a power-hungry arrogant villain. He's a walking contradiction. A pacifist 'hero' that wants to save the world but also a power-hungry fetishtic nut who loves to fight? ummmmmmmmmm.

 

[Bad Touch Yakushi]

A generic villain is someone like Voldemort who is just an evil person who wants to kill people and take over the world. That does not mean generic villains are bad. I am a huge fan of Voldemort, Aizen, Madara etc. who are all generic.

A non generic villain goes outside of this. For example Meruem from HxH has some great development that generic villains lack. Light Yagami is a very well written character who we as an audience can actually identify with, making him non generic.

Voldemort was actually better than that. His motives were just elitism. He saw muggles as scum he had to rid the world of, call that irrational but that sh*t actually happens in real life. Cough cough Holocaust.

 

[ShiroShonen]

A generic villian just follows the generic vilian archtype.
Arrogant
Overpowered
His arrogance is his weakness
Most of the time evil for the luz/or hypocrite that means well.
Aka Madara

Oro is the best to 2nd best villian in the series btw.

Second this ^^

 

[BenjerminGaye]

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Have fun.

Solo'd

Maddy is a Villain God-Mode Sue the heroes needed deux ex machina(sage powers) to beat him

Obito is a villain sympathetic sue. Neither of the two are ground breaking...both are according to tvtropes quite generic.

Freeza is the same as maddy the deux ex machina would be SSJ