Split with Boring Invincible Villain: Generic Doomsday Villain

I'm not sure when Boring Invincible Villain was renamed Generic Doomsday Villain, but the two should become different tropes. BIV implies it's the villain counterpart to Invincible Hero, formerly Boring Invincible Hero, and in fact it says right on that page "See also Generic Doomsday Villain, their Evil Counterpart." The defining trait of the BIV, like the BIH, is that they cannot lose and always win, or are otherwise shown as incredibly strong and difficult to defeat. GDV, on the other hand, implies a villain that is a Flat Character with no motivation or goal besides destroying/taking over the world. That's something entirely different from BIV.

There seems to be confusion about this on the page itself because it lists both examples, for example Bane in the comic section is explained as being built up as an invincible villain, but he isn't a flat character who wants to destroy Gotham, thus he's a BIV and not a GDV. Furthermore, when I see BIV on character sheets it's usually used for villains in the same way Invincible Hero is used for heroes.

So, while Generic Doomsday Villain is a fine trope on its own, I think the Invincible Villain trope should be remade as something different, because the two are entirely different tropes.

So...no one has any thoughts on this?

I agree. Flat Character Villain is different from Invincible Villain.

edited 9th Jun '11 3:00:09 PM by nrjxll

I too agree wholeheartedly. This was a poorly thought out combination, in my opinion - I am surprised it's lasted this long!

I participated in the original change. It wasn't intended as a merge; Boring Invincible Villain was just a poorly-chosen name for Generic Doomsday Villain. Nothing about the trope's definition was changed.

We do not have, and have never had, a generic trope for invulnerable villains. This trope has never been that one (although a small number of people confused it for that, the description has always basically said what it does now.) So you should go to YKTTW with that idea, not post it here — the issue has nothing to do with Generic Doomsday Villain aside from the fact that this trope once had a misleading name.

edited 9th Jun '11 6:47:00 PM by Aquillion

Actually, now that I remember, I think that's right - it was meant to be "boring" in that the villain had no real depth, not boring in the sense meant by Boring Invincible Hero.

However, there might be some examples on the page that were misled by the old name - we should check for those before YKTTW-ing Invulnerable Villain.

AFAIK, you can't just decide to launch a new trope into an existing redirect. So yes, it should have been brought up here.

I don't think "YKTTW" will be of any use, if the decision is made for BIV, or Invincible Villain, goes ahead we already have a name, and examples can be weeded out from GDV.

I see exactly one entry on GDV that looks like it's actually written as an example of the proposed new trope: the pro wrestling New World Order thing. Every other example on that page that's not X Just X is written to be about lack of motivation, not invincibility. So weeding out examples isn't really an option. If you want to launch an invulnerable-villain trope, you really are going to need a pass through YKTTW to collect examples.

edited 9th Jun '11 9:33:45 PM by Micah

Fair enough, but once a page is made more examples could be added, the basic concept is there it just needs examples which I'm sure others participating in this discussion could provide. Frankly I'm finding a discussion over where to discuss a new trope over discussing said trope itself to be counter-productive, since IMO it doesn't matter, but fine, I'll take it to YKTTW.

edited 9th Jun '11 10:24:17 PM by DrakeClawfang

Okay I sent it twice and it's not showing up, so....wtf?

"Actually, now that I remember, I think that's right - it was meant to be "boring" in that the villain had no real depth, not boring in the sense meant by Boring Invincible Hero."

But there needs to be a trope for a genuine Evil Counterpart to the Boring Invincible Hero. A villain who's effectively invincible (to the point that the only possible outcomes are Deus ex Machina or The Bad Guy Wins) is just as boring as an invincible hero.

I maintain that these are two tropes and the rename was a poor choice.

Take Bleach's Aizen, for example. He gets characterization, a motive that defines the actions of almost every other character, and is generally much more important than the hero of the series, but even turning his own power against him, or using a move that could kill anything, can't beat him. Towards the end, the plot kept handing him power in order to not lose, and then he was just written out, not defeated. This is a guy who just can't be expected to lose; a villainous counterpart to Boring Invincible Hero.

Well, more accurately, the Boring Invincible Villain is the guy who makes the audience react in one of two ways.

• "Oh my GOD, would somebody beat this guy already?"
  They want to see the villain get beaten, but not for a "good" reason. Ideally, what a writer wants is for his villain to be a threat and make the audience wonder and anticipate how he's going to be beaten. Aizen was this up until everything in the story started going his way. Everyone fell for his clever gambits, and the whole plot was Just as Planned. By the time he started curb-stomping the entire cast of heroes (at the same time, no less), the suspicion of disbelief had been all but obliterated.
• "Only the Author Can Save Them Now"
  This is a problem for all of the reason it says on the trope page. You've made your villain such a credible threat that now, there doesn't seem to be any plausible reason to beat him. Anything that wins against him now will be accused of being all part of the plan, or people will question why did THIS attack work when all the other ones didn't? All of his limits and weaknesses have been so thoroughl discredited that the only discernible reason why he'd lose is because the author wants him to right now.

Glad to see this debate kicking up again. Perhaps we could actually move foreward with action this time?

Bump. We should act on this.

Just throwing in my two cents here. I was in the original discussion about renaming Boring Invincible Villain. It was never two tropes, and if I remember rightly, a troper called Xenu removed the 'Boring' part from the name. This was a dumb thing to do, and so we all argued for ages about what to change it to. I argued for switching it back to Boring Invincible Villain, since there was nothing wrong with that name. But we went for Generic Doomsday Villain, because it was the best anybody could come up with at the time.

I think it should be split, even if it wasn't originally two tropes, because it seems that way now.

Agreed.

Agreed

I'd like to see a "Boring Invincible Villain" and "Motiveless Villain".

Two tropes that are Exactly What It Says on the Tin, with BIV being a direct counterpart to Boring Invincible Hero.

What's the difference between Motiveless Villain and Card-Carrying Villain?

A card carrying villain is an evil dick, and proud of it, even to the point where they would carry a card advertising that they are a villain.

A motiveless villain is a villain who exists without a motive.

Not that I know many examples of that. It's the Boring Invincible part that I'm here in defense of, as I understand those to be distinct.

Isn't Motiveless Villain pretty much the same as what's on the page now?

Generic Doomsday Villain is doing fine (no bad example, a clear description which match the name), so I don't see why it should be changed except if you want the redirect name Boring Invincible Villain, to which I say go ahead.

However, I am afraid that the new trope is too much like Only The Autors Can Save Them Now, so you will have to demonstrate the real difference between them.