Could a serious Villain Protagonist work in animation?

Many western animated shows have Villian Protagonists (Invader Zim, Pinky and the Brain, Dan Vs, anything involving Seth Mac Farlene) But all of them are comedic.

Is the Age Ghetto to strong for a serious villain protagonist? Could a serious villain protagonist work?

edited 23rd Nov '13 12:00:46 PM by Smasher

I don't see why not, the problem with most western animation is that it's main market is children where you can't have a really serious bad guy most of the time, especially as the protagonist.

Might not do well from a market standpoint but it's certainly possible.

Oh really when?

In mainstream television, it basically boils down to whereas a non-comedic Villain Protagonist can be done for children's television. Personally, I think it can, though only a suberb writer could pull it off.

In regards to non-children oriented western animation, however, of course! Aeon Flux, for example, though you could argue it's a tad comedic... in the black way.

I think a key problem with a Villain Protagonist is that they can't accomplish anything, if they did the show would achieve The Bad Guy Wins and end up looking rather dark. However making the protagonist a constant loser can be out and out depressing if Played for Drama. I think this is why most villain protagonists are comedic and basically extreme variations of an Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist, whose downfall is designed to be amusing and what little victories they gain are petty or Played for Laughs.

Adding Cerebus Syndrome to likes of Invader Zim I suppose is possible, but it would likely up the age rating a great deal.

The thing is most of the time young kids are still rather moral bound, and even for shows that blatantly put a lot more sympathy on the villain, they'll usually root for the hero, only later realizing how bland and uncharismatic they are in comparison when their tastes mature.

edited 24th Nov '13 4:00:42 AM by Psi001

So like The Lorax, where the bad guy wins and therefore loses.

It might be worth mentioning Bruce Timm once revealed they, at one time, considered giving the Joker his own DTV movie (I don't remember it too well, but he was part of a line of characters to possibly be given their own movies, IIRC with the perspectives of giving them spinoff series if the movies worked well).

look to animes...it works there. In fact, you can find stuff like this in a lot of animation made for adults. It would be problematic for a children's movie, but animation is not just a for children. Sadly most western animation is still geared for children...but the question should be if it is possible to do a serious villain protagonist in a children's movie, not if it would work in animation.

Well, children are impressionable, and therefore, if you gave a child a show with a serious villain protagonist, chances are they'll change their morals, which isn't what parents want. They'll think the best way to deal with your problem is to get revenge. the only question left would be wether to use vicious pranks or decapitation.

Dakota's blog An odd agent of justice

It's not JUST that animation in the West is primarily geared towards kids, it's also that the adult audience for animation in the West, regardless of what we animation fans might like to think, is comparatively pretty small, at least for animation that is not of the Simpsons/Family Guy variety.

You don't find a lot of "villain protagonists" in any medium in Western entertainment. In anime, though, the two that pop most readily to my mind are La Louche (gad, I hated that name) from Code Geass, and Light from Death Note. Anime doesn't seem to shy away from seriously unlikeable protagonists.

I know there's several anime with serious Villain Protagonists. This thread refers to western animation.

There's a lot of video games with Villain Protagonists too, so could an adaptation of one of them be ok?

edited 24th Nov '13 11:30:22 AM by Smasher

Oh, you mean like Dick Dastardly from the Wacky Races? Or Wile E Coyote from the Road Runner cartoons? Or The Grinch as portrayed by Chuck Jones? Or the titular Megamind?

Especially in the first two cases, the Villain Protagonist is forever Doomed To Failure, and thus cannot succeed in wreaking death, doom or harm on another character. This would be where our VP overlaps with Harmless Villain. The latter two cases involve a character getting a rethink which results in a Heel Face Turn.

So, I don't see why a Villain Protagonist couldn't work just fine in an animated series. Come to think, DePatie-Freleng's Misterjaw is one.

Everything animes do is also possible in Western animation - and the other way around. The only limits are the ones the industry sets for itself.

The OP asks for serious villains. It's right there in the title.

Re: Megamind, I would argue that he was always a hero at heart, just that his childhood made his take up the villain's cloak for a while.

Two things.

One, if you're letting your TV babysit your children, you're doing it wrong.

Two, just because you're telling the story from the villain's perspective doesn't necessarily mean you're glorifying their behavior.

edited 28th Nov '13 6:30:07 AM by kylerthatch

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

You probably can't get any better then Invader Zim or The Grim Adventures Of Billy And Mandy.

A cartoon wouldn't really be a cartoon if the main character was "deadpan serious" about being a villain.

Once you remove the younger audience, the sky's the limit. But if you've got kids watching, you're not getting any further then Gargoyles, ReBoot, or Exo Squad.

Akira Toriyama (April 5 1955 - March 1, 2024).

And three, animation is not just a medium for children's movies. There are very serious western movies which are animated.

I'm pretty sure the OP was mostly thinking in terms of conventional children's animation. And honestly I'm inclined to think an animated film or series for kids focused on a non-comedic Villain Protagonist would have severe difficulty getting picked up by a production team, even if the villain loses in the end and the moral is Being Evil Sucks. Note that both Despicable Me and Megamind advertised themselves as films breaking convention by showcasing the villain rather than the hero, and yet both films just took the easy route by not having their supposed Villain Protagonists doing anything really evil throughout most of their lengths and instead pitting them against other villains or painting the supposed "heroes" as shallow Jerk Asses.

Though to be fair, Villain Protagonists played completely for dramatic effect aren't that common in western media, period, so this is probably only in part due to the age gettho.

As animation is viewed now by the public and networks the same a series with a serious villain protagonist would not even make it past the cutting room floor. When we leave tv networks are gone, and we are all using a TV on demand service, probably.

Lelouch is more of an Anti-Hero than actual Villain Protagonist, as much as the latter is invoked here and there.

Light though is a straight up example. Ditto Lucy from Elfen Lied, though a little more tragic and screwed up a la Carrie.

Western animation as a whole is lighter than anime, which isn't stuck inside the kiddie/comedy ghettos.

How so? She doesn't really do anything evil over the course of the series. In flashbacks, yes, but I think the whole plot was basically about her redemption. There is breaking free from the facility, but I don't really think that counts.

She's a Type II Anti-Villain to be exact. A Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds.

That said, she still does stuff that can't be justified, like murdering Kouta's family out of jealousy. And she kind of believes that humans and diclonii can't coexist in peace. Not that she's completely at fault here, but still...

I just realized something. I was thinking long ago that I wanted a Star Wars series about a female Sith protagonist. You could maybe do a Clone Wars style CGI series about such a thing.

"War without fire is like sausages without mustard." - Jean Juvénal des Ursins

If someone is going to bring up Elfin lier on here, i'm going to bring up an underatted anime movie villain who I thought was very dark. In the movie, Hammer Boy, the Big Bad, Monk, was a pretty dark lord who would go so far as to kill the innocent just to gain power. I say he inspired the creation of Firelord Ozai!

Dakota's blog An odd agent of justice

You can easily do that. Just have that character be part of an evil organization as the one to "...kick names and take ass..." and accomplishes what the others can't, get him 2 contrasting 50% less competent sidekicks that will eventually(and ultimately)push him out of the focus and he'll remain as the no non-sense uber-competent guy in the show until the writers forget about him.

YO. Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie.

Or it could just be a series called the Misadventures of Steve. About a lowly Volcano base checkpoint guard.

"War without fire is like sausages without mustard." - Jean Juvénal des Ursins