It's good to be bad

I had a whole post written up about my annoyance at feel good statements like "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but that doesn't stop today smearing poo all over your new shirt" (notanactualquote) but it seemed a bit over the top and pointless. That in turn got me thinking about other things that are over the top and pointless. And that's stories (it happens most often in games, where the need for a horde of easily moralisable henchmen outweighs the need for any type of in depth though, most of the time) in which an entire race of naturally occuring/commonly encountered evil creatures exist.

Ignoring for a moment the entire illogicality of an entire race of evil creatures (presumably autonomous intelligent, for the sake of this perspective, since the evil insect race has been done to death), stemming from the fact that the social contract wouldn't be worth the paper it wasn't written on, and as such any society they create would come crashing down in a collapse of hedonism and pointy things. Ignoring that for a minute we come to the fact that it's just lazy and boring.

I'm in the minority (I believe) who think that Vader was at his most badarse when in Episode 6. Anyone who gets his hand cut off by his own son after trash-talking him, has a sudden moral crisis and then saves said-son while being electrocuted. Post hand-cutting kick-arsery and sudden Heel-Face-Turn seems more badarse to me then choking someone to death for parking too close to the curb.

I mean planet.

Why did I suddenly tangent into Darth Vader? Because as a villain he had style, panache, ruthlessness and the ability to play the keyboard from ten feet away, but he still had a sense to him that there was a depth, something underneath the plastic and wheazing that gave his character a bit more then "Boring evil enforcer in black armour" going for him. Then Anakin Skywalker showed up and turned into the most boring Mary Sue imaginable.

And so it is with entire races of evil people. It doesn't matter how detailed you make their history and backstory, they still seem shallow and pointless. Make an entire race of bad guys and you might as well make them wear armour saying "XP & lootz here. Form orderly line" since that's all they are.

A villain who has a reason for their villainous acts rather then "It's what my people do" is infinitely more entertaining and enjoyable for all intents and purposes. And while "I'ma doin' it for money and profits" can be just as one-sided as species-orientated-evil, in the hands of a good writer it much easier to sympathise with the villain (and as such feel both elated and defeated when he ultimately is beaten, which should be the goal).

Note, this only occurs in the hands of good writers. Villain from Neverwinter Nights 2, I'm looking at you here. You were such a poorly written cookie cutter example of "Feel sorry for him while beating him" it was just shoddy.

Huh, I managed to get through a whole criticism arguing against why I dislike an entire species of evil creatures without mentioning the inherently unnerving racism arguement.

... Ahh dang.