Big Bad & Greater Scope Villain VS The Dragon & Big Bad

Sometimes both pairs of tropes are closely related and I have trouble differencing one situation from another. Can someone share some tips to tell them apart? For example, I don't know if Darth Vader should be The Dragon and the emperor the Big Bad, or Darth Vader the Big Bad and the emperor the GSV. Practical differences, anyone?

This is one of the classic trope relationships that often gets confused, so it's worth revisiting here. The tropes The Dragon, Big Bad, and Greater-Scope Villain are used to describe how significant to the story each character is, and can shift around between stories within a larger continuity.

Usually, it only makes sense to use them in context with a work when taken as a whole. For example, individual episodes of a season or chapters in a serial novel don't have distinct Big Bads, Dragons, etc. Rather, they may have a Villain of the Week, with an overarching Big Bad who drives the conflict and is eventually fought in the season finale. (The Big Bad may be fought during the season, but never conclusively.) The Big Bad's boss may be the Greater-Scope Villain, and often gets moved to Big Bad for an arc-concluding season, once the heroes figure out who they are and move to take them on directly (or they get tired of their underlings' bungling and step in to get their hands dirty).

Feature films, regardless of their membership in a series, are usually treated as individual works for purposes of these tropes. For example, A New Hope was intended to be taken as a single work even though it exists within the scope of a greater story. This means that it can have all three elements: Dragon, Big Bad, and GSV. ^note Counterexample: some films are expressly meant to be taken as chapters of a single story; this would include such things as The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, but not The Matrix.

Now, let's look at the tropes themselves:

• Big Bad: The primary driver of the conflict in a story, whom the heroes must confront (and usually defeat) for it to have a conclusion.
• The Dragon: The penultimate challenge faced by the heroes in order to confront the Big Bad. Usually but not always the Number Two as well; the Dragon acts as the gateway boss. If you can't beat him, you can't get to the Big Bad.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The man behind the man; the driver of a conflict that is outside the scope of the current narrative, but who lurks in the background as a threat that the heroes will probably have to face to achieve their ultimate goal.

Applied to the Star Wars OT, this gives us:

• A New Hope: Vader is The Dragon to Grand Moff Tarkin's Big Bad. It is Tarkin who seeks the destruction of the Rebel base, with Vader as his enforcer and heavy. Vader is the challenge that Luke has to beat in order to get in his shot to destroy the Death Star. While the Emperor is mentioned, he's not a direct threat in the story, making him the Greater-Scope Villain.
• The Empire Strikes Back: Vader steps up as the Big Bad in this film. Despite the backdrop of the Rebellion vs. Empire conflict, the main story here is Luke against Vader. It's Personal now for the latter, as he seeks out the would-be hero that he knows to be his son and tries to turn him to the Dark Side. The Emperor, despite having a larger presence, is still the Greater-Scope Villain, as he doesn't do anything but offer holographic instructions. There is no clear Dragon; that trope is not present for TESB.
• Return of the Jedi: Vader is demoted to The Dragon again as Emperor Palpatine steps into the Big Bad's shoes to take on the Rebellion directly. Note that the narrative is now about him "personally overseeing the construction of the new Death Star", and the heroes' ultimate goal, to defeat the Empire, is now within reach. Luke's duel with Vader is now about proving his worth so he can stand up to the Emperor, victorious, and claim, "I am a Jedi." Then Vader does a Heel–Face Turn to defeat his former boss for good. ^note There is no Greater-Scope Villain in ROTJ, despite the EU's attempts to introduce "greater threats" that Palpatine was supposedly trying to protect everyone from.

edited 11th Jul '16 8:02:21 AM by Fighteer

Courtesy links: The Dragon, Big Bad, Greater-Scope Villain.

Without perusing the trope descriptions to refresh my memory, I'd say Vader and The Emperor's roles are different depending on which movie you're talking about. In A New Hope, where The Emperor only gets a brief mention, I'd say he's a Greater-Scope Villain, Tarkin is the Big Bad, and Vader is The Dragon. In The Empire Strikes Back, Vader gets promoted to Big Bad and there is no Dragon. If you're talking about Return Of The Jedi or the trilogy as a whole, The Emperor gets directly involved in the action, so he's clearly not a Greater-Scope Villain; he's the Big Bad and Vader is The Dragon.

Edit: in other words, what Fighteer managed to say in more detail faster.:)

edited 11th Jul '16 5:42:17 AM by tbarrie

The complication comes largely from the difference between a serial Big Bad and a cinematic Big Bad, and the relationships between them and The Dragon. In a single story it is fairly straightforward, but trying to assess the saga as a whole it becomes more complex. The important distinction between all tropes is rooted in who, exactly, is calling the shots in the story. The Greater-Scope Villain can serve as inspiration, but they are not deploying minions to give the heroes trouble. Individual examples can play with it, which is why we also have Dragon-in-Chief.

Big Bad: The main antagonist, the one that drives the plot.

The Dragon: The main antagonist's right-hand man.

Greater-Scope Villain: More dangerous/powerful than the Big Bad, but not directly involved in the current plot.

That idea of The Dragon is incorrect. You're thinking of Number Two. The Dragon has a very specific narrative role as the gateway challenge that the heroes face before they confront the Big Bad. The threat posed by The Dragon is usually contrasted with the Big Bad in some way. If the Big Bad presents a mental or moral challenge, The Dragon will most often be a physical challenge; if the Big Bad is a physical threat, The Dragon will be a moral challenge of some sort. Regardless, it's the dude you fight right before you reach the climax. It's often the Number Two, but not always; in many works, it's a brute that the Big Bad keeps around for such occasions but that doesn't otherwise have a major role in the story. This last is how the trope gets its name: the Evil Sorcerer plotting against the kingdom always seems to keep a dragon around for the hero to hack his way through.

While the Sorting Algorithm Of Villain Threat means that a Greater-Scope Villain is usually superior in threat to the current Big Bad, this is not a requirement of the trope, nor is it a requirement that the GSV be the Man Behind the Man to the Big Bad; these are just how it's used most often. The trope requires only that the setting contain a larger conflict than the one currently being engaged by the heroes, and that said conflict is represented by an discernible individual.

edited 14th Jul '16 5:24:48 AM by Fighteer