Archived Discussion

This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.

Funny so i'll put it here:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.drwho/msg/a0e5d11c6ebc7f66

discussion leading up to creation of the entry

I don't think there's a name for it, but it's definitely a trope: the tendency of a recurring villain to be less scary with time, especially on action series. Since Failure Is the Only Option for a lot of villains, they fail and fail until it's just impossible to take them seriously. (Think Ferengi, Borg, and just about any villain on kid's TV.) Usually, the writers figure this out and begin writing the villains as if they had always been weak. I thought of "Villain Overexposure," "Villain Decay," and so on, but none of them seemed quite to the point. Anyone have an idea?

Gus: Actually, Villain Decay seems to get it pretty well.

Janitor: This ...

* Semi-Exception: Hexadecimal from Reboot starts off as a powerful chaos virus and even after being converted is still powerful enough to attack Daemon's fleet. Ironically, the plot introduces the Villain Decay as a virus scan that converts her into a powerless sprite until she converts back into a virus in order to attack Daemon full on

... is unclear. I'm not familiar with the series, which doesn't help much, and the writing is a bit murky.

Sci Vo: Pulled this for redundancy:

To do: Put in more examples of VG boss decay

This entire wiki is one big to-do list. There's always call for more examples of everything, and there always will be (because any entry that becomes overgrown can be divided into subtropes). VG boss decay is nothing special in that regard.

Charred Knight: You do know that Kingdom Hearts and Dissidia are not set in Final Fantasy VII continuity? Neither of those games have anything to do with what happens to Sephiroth in FF VII continuity.

Caswin: Removing

The Borg wasn't the first victim of this on Voyager: The Kazon swiftly went from ersatz Klingons to sub-Ferengi nuisances.

because while I won't dispute the Borg (in another context, I could probably carry a lively debate about it, but I won't deny it here), claiming the Kazon fell to being a "sub-Ferengi nuisance" is a huge exaggeration. They were still putting Voyager against the ropes well into the second season - I haven't seen all the Ferengi-villain episodes, but I don't recall them causing serious damage to the Enterprise, let alone on a regular basis - and were presented as a major threat all the way 'til "Basics", when they managed to take over the ship, and proceeded to keep it all summer. On a side note, does Zant really count? He did become less menacing, of course, but it was in the space of a single game, and clearly a conscious move on the writers' part.

Citizen: Moved the Zero Punctuation quote to Go-Karting with Bowser, which seems to need it more.

Luc: Doesn't mean it can't also be here

Charred Knight: Yes it does! Why the fuck would we have the same quote for two different pages? We have enough Zero Punctuation quotes already. We don't need one for every page, let alone the same quote for two different pages! If you want to add a Zero Punctuation quote, find one that hasn't been posted, and post it.

Archived Discussion Main / VillainDecay