Misused (titles crowner 10/2/14): Bigger Bad

Vote tally:

• Greater Evil: 16-10 yea/nay.
• Bigger Background Danger: 12-11 yea/nay.
• Greater-Scope Villain: 1-0 yea/nay.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

In that example, the sun burning out would count as this trope, just like it would count as the Big Bad if that was the focus of the story. This trope doesn't have to be about individuals (which is, incidentally, one of the reasons I prefer the use of something like "threat" or "danger" for the name over something like "villain" or "evil").

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

And that's why I said this is "the character responsible for a non-ideal in the story's setting". It doesn't have to be a danger or conflict or even a problem the heroes recognize. The hero could even WORK for the bigger bad and either be blind to what their influence caused or even not see it as a big deal. Like I said, OCP in Robocop is a perfect example.

Unfortunately, under that idea any abstract "non-ideal" could be allowed as an example. It's not about threat or danger levels but the impact they have on the story. The dying sun would only count if it is a plot point cause, well, all stars are dying. Even then, it should be implied to be the cause of something relevant. Otherwise we are just running into the Hurricane example I was talking about.

and Well in the description, I changed that little detail from "non-ideal" to "anything evil or just bad" since it makes a lot more sense. The just bad part indicates that a Bigger Bad doesn't have to be specifically evil or causing evil, but the bad stuff in the setting is their fault (again with the unknown lord from Prydain, he's not evil like Arawn, but he rules over who pretty much seems to be the Grim Reaper).

The dying sun would be a Bigger Bad, but it wouldn't be a character.

edited 16th Oct '14 2:39:43 AM by SatoshiBakura

Another vote tally; Greater Evil is now the only one in green but at only 17-10 yea/nay.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

I vote for Greater Evil

This "new era" they talk about is a load of shit. The age where pirates dream is over!? THE DREAMS OF MEN NEVER END! AM I RIGHT? -Big Bad

I find it supremely amusing that "Greater Evil" is literally synonymous with "Bigger Bad". Less so is the fact that it remains a terrible name for this trope for many of the exact same reasons.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

The reasons that Bigger Bad was a bad name in the first place was because it was a snowclone name of Big Bad, and thus able to be confused with The Man Behind the Man. I purposefully made the name synonymous to carry the intended feeling of Bigger Bad without a confusing connection to Big Bad.

The problem is that a) the trope isn't necessarily about someone who is more evil than the Big Bad, it's about someone who is more dangerous than the Big Bad — or at least dangerous on a larger scale — so changing "Bigger Bad" to "Greater Evil" isn't likely to fix misuse, it's just likely to cause different misuse, and b) Greater Evil is virtually guaranteed to get confused with Eviler than Thou as well.

edited 22nd Oct '14 10:47:53 PM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Do we need to destroy Bigger Bad as a trope?

Hey Harmonica, when they do you in, pray that it's someone who knows where to shoot.

Did you read the rest of the thread?

Well Greater Evil has consensus, though we should wait a while for any changes.

I only recently glanced about the wiki and noticed all the misuse. I fully support your guys' efforts to clean it up and I wish I had some ideas to contribute.

Anyway, the main reason I'm posting is I just wanted to make sure I'm not part of the problem. I've put up a few examples which I thought were true to the concept, but I'd like to make sure, particularly given the whole discussion about characters who are the Big Bad of one story becoming the Bigger Bad of another. To pick an example:

In the original Mobile Suit Gundam, the Zabi family, and more specifically Gihren, is the Big Bad of the story. They turned the Principality of Zeon into a fascist dictatorship, kicked off the One Year War by murdering half of humanity, and are responsible for everything the protagonists go through. Every villain in the show is working for them (or working for somebody who is working for them) and the only way for the show to end positively is with them dead. Their Villainous Legacy even outlasts the show, with various other Neo-Zeonic movements taking up their cause.

The08th MS Team is a sidestory taking place during the One Year War. The protagonists are a group of redshirts, fighting on a more or less forgotten front that has next to no impact on the war as a whole. The main villain of the story is Zeon admiral Ginias Sahalin. He commands the research facility that the heroes are trying to take, and his encroaching insanity and obsession with protecting his project is what drives the entire plotline. The Zabis are still out there leading the war effort as a whole, and it was either them or one of their subordinates who commissioned the project in the first place, but within the scope of the actual storyline, Ginias is the Big Bad and the man who has to die for the story to end well. The Zabis are the reason why the setting is what it is, and they're the actual Big Bads of another story, but getting rid of Ginias is the actual focus of this story.

As I understood it, it would be acceptable to list the Zabis as the Bigger Bad of the 08th MS Team, despite their also being The Big Bad of the original MSG. Was that an appropriate use of the trope, or did I screw up?

edited 7th Nov '14 9:41:32 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Offhand I would say yes, there is a clear primary villain and anything above them in the hierarchy does not have a direct presence.

I would be careful in general about using side stories like that, though, because sometimes they are only an Arc Villain and are not connected to the greater enemy.

In the case of the various MSG sidestories it's pretty safe. The villain will almost inevitably be somebody in Zeon's chain of command.

One thing that's always confused me about this trope: is it possible for a villain or villains to move between Bigger Bad and Big Bad status? I know there are cases where the Bigger Bad of a movie or game becomes the Big Bad of a sequel, but what about serial works that don't quite have the same clear-cut distinction between installments? And conversely, is it possible for a Big Bad to become a Bigger Bad? I can think of at least one example but I'm not sure if the definition of Bigger Bad actually allows for it.

I can see such a switch happening in long-running works.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

In theory, yes, kind of like Dragon Ascendant. But it's a complicated scenario to play out. A villain has to be confronted directly, disappear for a time, ascend to some greater position and not be directly involved with later events affecting the protagonists.

If anyone here wants to get caught up to speed on what we were originally doing, please see read are revised description from earlier and suggest any changes.

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A Bigger Bad is a threat that's actually more dangerous, or affects more people, than the story's current Big Bad. While the Big Bad is directly responsible for the current story — the Big Bad is the villain or situation that the protagonists are attempting to defeat or overcome — a Bigger Bad isn't a major force in the plot. They are just responsible for a non-ideal (i.e., pessimistic, cynical, dangerous or flat-out Crapsack) reality or worldview that fuels the at least a part of the fictional setting (how much of it depends on how scope of the Bigger Bad's influence) in which the story takes place. A Bigger Bad may be the Big Bad's superior, but just as often they're completely unrelated — indeed, a Bigger Bad may threaten the Big Bad just as much as they threaten the protagonists. Whatever the relationship between the Big Bad and Bigger Bad, the Bigger Bad is always Out of Focus — the threat they pose is general and in the background, while the threat posed by the Big Bad is specific and immediate.

A Bigger Bad doesn't always have to remain a Bigger Bad, however. One arc's Bigger Bad can become the next arc's Big Bad if the previous Big Bad is defeated and the Sorting Algorithm of Evil kicks in to provide a bigger threat for the heroes to face. Alternatively, the Bigger Bad could show up and try to ruin everyone's day, becoming the new Big Bad and possibly forcing an Enemy Mine situation between the heroes and the previous villain. Inversely, a Big Bad can be Kicked Upstairs to become a Bigger Bad.

There can also be more than one Bigger Bad — either multiple Bigger Bads working together (a la Big Bad Duumvirate), multiple Bigger Bads each with their own agenda (a la Big Bad Ensemble), or in multiple layers of Bigger Bads, each bigger than the last (eg, the Big Bad threatens a city, the first Bigger Bad threatens the country, and an Even Bigger Bad threatens the whole world).

Not to be confused with The Man Behind the Man. Usually, it is when it turns out that the character that you thought was the Big Bad actually had someone else pulling the strings. However, The Man Behind the Man and Bigger Bad can overlap if The Man Behind the Man remains distant enough from the story. The Bigger Bad must not give orders to the Big Bad, but they can corrupt the Big Bad to make the Big Bad work for them. They allow the Big Bad to do their own thing and don't interfere unless it's in their interests to do so.

See also Sealed Evil in a Can and Villainous Legacy, which are often a Bigger Bad.

Got another example I wanted to run by people before I put it up. It's a case where a Bigger Bad may have become a Big Bad, but I'm honestly not quite sure.

So in Justified's third season, The Big Bad is Robert Quarles, adopted son of Detroit mobster Theo Tonin. Having screwed up one too many times in Detroit, Quarles has been exiled to Harlan, Kentucky. He takes over the local mob operations, and eventually, after Theo cuts him off, goes solo. He's the main threat of the season, and both Raylan and Boyd end up devoting all their time to bringing him down. Here, Theo is a fairly clear Bigger Bad. He only makes two appearances—once when hiring somebody to get rid of Quarles, and once when talking to Quarles himself about what it would take for him to be forgiven.

In Season 4, the plot revolves around finding a witness who saw Theo kill somebody and who can, therefore, bring down his whole empire. Theo, naturally, doesn't want this to happen and a series of his agents come to Harlan to try and kill the witness. Sounds like he's the Big Bad, but here's the catch—throughout the entire season, Theo never appears. The search for the witness is coordinated by Nicky Augustine, who could best be described as his left-hand man. It's Augustine who sends men down to Kentucky, Augustine who contacts local criminals for assistance, Augustine who eventually flies down to Kentucky himself, and makes enemies out of both Boyd and Raylan. In the end, Theo flies to Tunisia to avoid arrest, and Augustine tries to take over his organization, and its him who has to be disposed of to bring the season to a close.

So my question is, going with the definition that you guys have worked out (and which I heartily approve of), what would you classify Theo as in Season 4?

As you describe it, in Season 4, Theo is actually the Big Bad. If a villian is identified as the source of the direct conflict of the story, they are the Big Bad. Whether they actually appear or not is irrelevant. No matter what Augustine does, if it is only in the interest of his boss, he only qualifies as The Heavy and The Dragon.

edited 8th Nov '14 9:47:03 AM by shiro_okami

The primary characteristic of a Bigger Bad is that any influence they have on a current story is very indirect and obtuse. They're not personally responsible for anything, like sending out minions to harass the heroes, but their existence may be an influence or inspiration for the current Big Bad.

Like we brought up before, Frieza exists in Dragonball Z relatively early on, Vegeta mentions him as the reason for seeking the Dragonballs so that he could become powerful enough to kill him. Vegeta is technically a minion of Frieza's, but is acting of his own accord and the ultimate resolution of the story is to defeat Vegeta. Frieza doesn't show up until much later, but that is because he has no bearing on the plot and not that he is a shadowy Man Behind the Man.

I'd been starting to suspect as much. There's always been some questions as to just who was the real villain of Season 4, but since Theo was in back of all of them, calling him The Big Bad (with Augustine as Dragon-in-Chief) makes sense.

Uh guys, we have a bit of a problem on the Terminator character page under Skynet.

• Big Bad: The ultimate villain of the franchise and leading a genocidal war on humanity in the future.
• Bigger Bad: Before Salvation, whatever Terminator unit was chasing the heroes was the actual Bad of the film, because defeating it eliminated the immediate threat. However, those threats will keep coming because of Skynet.