To-do list:
- Move wicks to the tropes on the Overarching Villain disambiguation page if they fit, and remove them if they don't. For reference purposes, here's the list of tropes on the disambiguation page:
- Antagonist Title: A villain important to the work such it's after them.
- Arc Villain: Standalone villain of a single story arc in a much longer story.
- Big Bad: The cause of all the story's bad events which the hero(es) must resolve.
- Breakout Villain: A villain becomes a series mainstay in response to their fan popularity.
- Demoted to Dragon: When a past Big Bad returns as The Dragon to a new Big Bad.
- Ex-Big Bad: A former Big Bad returns but is no longer the main threat, being overshadowed by a new Big Bad.
- Greater-Scope Villain: A threat/villainous presence that's more dangerous, affects more people, or is more significant than the story's current Big Bad in the setting as a whole, but isn't causing the conflict of the immediate story.
- The Heavy: The villain that moves the plot forward and gets the most focus among the antagonists, even if they are not the Big Bad.
- Hijacked by Ganon: An old villain turns out to be behind a new threat.
- Joker Immunity: Villains who are too good or too popular to be Killed Off for Real.
- The Man Behind the Man: A bigger villain is revealed to be behind the actions of the original villain.
- The Man Behind the Monsters: A human (or something resembling a human) leads an army of monsters.
- Mascot Villain: A villain who serves as a Series Mascot.
- Returning Big Bad: A previous Big Bad returns to be the main threat later on in the story.
- Villain on Leave: When a Big Bad is absent for the second installment, but is present in the first and third.
- Villainous Legacy: The villain is no longer around, but the plot continues to be driven by things they did while alive.
Background
This began when I thought I was dealing with a unclear description, so started a Trope Talk discussion (here
). That talk established both the original purpose for Overarching Villain, and the fact it doesn't appear to be doing its intended job.
Trope's Original Purpose
The original purpose for creating Overarching Villain was to solve Big Bad misuse (here and here), specifically, that the Big Bad should not be viewed as having to span the entire work (and that Arc Villain and Big Bad are therefore not mutually exclusive). Overarching Villain was created to spin-off this Big Bad misuse into a separate trope that captures a villain (or multiple villains) that spans the entire work.
During the course of that discussion, there was a general feeling that the trope description doesn't explain this very well, and that if its sole purpose is to address the idea that people should stop thinking of the Big Bad as a villain that must span the entire work, then that should ideally be addressed by amending the Big Bad trope description to point that out.
Instead of solving the Big Bad/Arc Villain confusion, the new trope has increased the confusion of which trope should be used to describe a villain's role in the work. I therefore did a wick check to see how Overarching Villain is currently being used, which is summarised just below:
Wick Check
Summary (Potholes not separated out):
- Correct Use: 24%
- Misuse: 50%
- ZCE: 14%
- Unsure: 12%
Summary (Potholes separated out):
- Correct Use: 12%
- Potholes: 28%
- Probably Correct: (42.9% / 12%)
- Probably Misuse: (14.3% / 4%)
- ZCE: (21.4% / 6%)
- Unsure: (21.4% / 6%)
- Misuse: 46%
- ZCE: 8%
- Unsure: 6%
The misuse was caused mostly by placing a character under Overarching Villain because they're the Big Bad or Arc Villain or Greater-Scope Villain, etc., or because they're the most recurring villain. Where they're a different trope, there's no indication that the alternative trope is inadequate, or missing essential trope elements, that would indicate another trope is needed. One troper in the original trope talk did suggest that there might possibly be a role for this in works that have no overarching conflict, but do have antagonists that stick around for most of the arcs. However, their concern was that even this is just Arc Villain, but a bit more specific. My additional thought to this idea is that it would again be interpreted as "most recurring villain".
Suggested Outcome
My feeling is that this trope causes more problems than it solves, doesn't seem to be finding a genuine niche that Arc Villain, Big Bad or Greater-Scope Villain, etc., can't already cover, and therefore should be removed. The issue it was trying to solve should be clarified in the Big Bad trope description, which can be done in a single sentence.
Edited by GastonRabbit on May 16th 2022 at 5:45:34 AM
"Cool. Coolcoolcool."
About these examples.
- Overarching Villain: The Skywalker Saga has Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious, while the Thrawn: Ascendancy Trilogy and High Republic sub-franchise has "Jixtus" and Marchion Ro respectively.
- Senator/Supreme Chancellor/Emperor Sheev Palpatine, aka Darth Sidious, in the Skywalker Saga and associated works, The Man Behind the Man behind other series antagonists such as Nute Gunray, Darth Maul, Count Dooku, General Grievious, the Grand Inquisitor, Grand Admiral Thrawn, Director Orson Krennic, Grand Moff Tarkin, Darth Vader, Fleet Admiral Gallius Rax, Supreme Leader Snoke, Kylo Ren, the Knights of Ren, Alligiant General Pryde and the Sith Eternal cult, with supplementary material post-Episode IX also revealing that he and his Sith Eternal cult were also behind numerous notable events post-Battle of Endor, such as the Sentinels, the Contingency, Rax's plan to rebuild The Empire out in the Unknown Regions, the Acolytes of the Beyond, the creation of Supreme Leader Snoke and Ben Solo's fall to the Dark Side.
- Marchion Ro, who quickly cemented himself as the greatest active threat to the Galaxy, after having secretly orchestrated the Great Disaster, murdered his father's supposed killer, manipulated the Nihil into declaring them their overall leader following the death of one of their own, allied himself with the series' other major villains, the Drengir, publicly attacked the High Republic on Valo and sucessfully unleashed the Great Leveller on the Jedi.
- The Ascendancy Trilogy and associated works has the Grysk Hegemony, particularly their agent, "Jixtus", who was secretly nudging the Nikardun Destiny under General Yiv the Benevolent on their warpath as well as being directly in charge of Haplif's False Flag Operation within the Chiss Ascendancy.
Palpatine better fits Big Bad, but there are seemingly as many instances where Greater-Scope Villain may fit as he's ruling but not personally involved in the works conflict. Should we say Big Bad overall GSV case-by-case, or if they don't consistently fit one or the other are they neither?
Marchion and Jixtus sounds like Big Bad and Grysk Arc Villain as the trilogy is basically a small arc in the overall series.
- Overarching Villain: He is the one who was behind the creation of the Portal, and was the one the Author was hiding his journals from. His ultimate plan is merging his home dimension, a Nightmare Realm full of other demons and abominations, with Earth, to try and rule both realms and cause the Apocalypse (or "Weirdmageddon", as Ford calls it). The end of "Dipper and Mabel vs. The Future" shows him finally having opened the gateway.
He's the Big Bad of Season 2, but that's not fully established until the last quarter of the series. S1 seems to fit Greater-Scope Villain as he's more dangerous but acting independently of the current main villain. What to do for Bill?
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Big Bad for the series and Arc Villain for S2, maybe?
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
Yeah, a character can be both. We don't necessarily need a trope that covers the gap if both tropes fit at different times.
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
By the way, if we do disambiguate Overarching Villain, should Villainous Legacy be one of the tropes that are part of the disambiguation? You know, like John Kramer or Green Goblin are the big bads of their respective works despite dying in the third and first film respectively?
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
I'm going to do what I did for Critical Research Failure and Darth Vader Clone and move the page's contents to a sandbox (so examples can be sorted through there), so we can put the disambiguation page up.
Edit: Done. The examples are now at Sandbox.Overarching Villain for anyone who wants to sort through them, and the main page has been disambiguated.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Feb 8th 2022 at 11:40:20 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Mysterious Fan
@ Ferot_Dreadnaught, Funnily enough, I’m the guy who wrote that particular section in the Star Wars Expanded Universe trope page and after seeing the original post, I was thinking of editing that section to better reflect the Overarching Villain trope. So if you are anyone else want to change it, go ahead!!
Edited by The10thGeek on Feb 10th 2022 at 3:59:09 PM
Will change them.
I'm going to add Mascot Villain to the disambiguation unless I hear any objections. Thoughts about adding Antagonist Title as well?
Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Feb 10th 2022 at 10:43:21 AM
the Retromancer
Is Breakout Villain also there?
TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
There's no problem with adding more tropes to the disambiguation page. The list I put there wasn't intended to be static, and was simply made using what I gathered from looking through the thread.
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Uh oh. I think I might've added another crowner by accident, I thought I was just voting. I'm sorry, I'm relatively new to this and don't understand how this crowner stuff works just yet.
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
The fact that new entries can be added to closed crowners is a known bug. I wouldn't worry about it too much since it was an accident.
I see we have Sandbox.Overarching Villain which is where we're keeping the subpages. Is there a reason we're holding on to them for now other than example sorting?
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
No. I just put them there to hold the examples while I put the disambiguation page up.
So should we cut the pages now or is there still reason to hold onto them for the moment?
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
That depends on whether the examples need to be moved to other tropes. If they don't need to be moved, then the page can be cut.
Are we cleaning the sandbox? I've defaulted to removing some examples I know are already troped under their disambig options.
Edited by Wyldchyld on Feb 23rd 2022 at 6:56:47 PM
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
I moved them there in case any of them need to be moved, and so the disambiguation page could be put up.
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
How sweet it is
Deleted the video example, as disambiguation pages don't need them.
557 (not counting the Ambiguity Index) wicks need to be moved or removed.
Peeks from Under Rocks
Typo on the disabig?
- Antagonist Title: A villain important to the work such it's after them.
should that be
- Antagonist Title: A villain is so important to the work that it's named after them.
?
the Retromancer
On the disambig page, Hijacked by Ganon and The Man Behind the Man are listed. These are two of the sub-tropes of Obvious Villain, Secret Villain, which is not mentioned on the page. Other sub-tropes of OVSV that are also not listed on the page are The Dog Was the Mastermind and The Man in Front of the Man.
Should the other two sub-tropes be added? Should OVSV be added?
Also, given that Villainous Legacy is listed, should Resurrect the Villain be added, too?
Edited by Wyldchyld on Apr 26th 2022 at 9:50:49 AM
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
the Retromancer
Don't really see how The Dog Was the Mastermind or Resurrect the Villain fit the disambig aside specific cases, its use before TRS as "A Big Bad of multiple stories". The Man in Front of the Man may arguably work, but somehow it's not giving me the same impression as The Man Behind the Man.
TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
Well, it's original use was supposed to be "the villain that spans the entire Myth Arc", but it was mostly used as "most recurring villain".
But, yes, I see your point about the purpose of the list.
Did we ever clarify the Big Bad description to make it clear that a Big Bad can, but does not have to, span the entire Myth Arc? That was the reason Overarching Villain was created in the first place, to collect the "must span the entire Myth Arc" interpretation of Big Bad.
Edited by Wyldchyld on Apr 26th 2022 at 10:40:57 AM
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
Crown Description:
What should be done with Overarching Villain?
Edited by TiMBer1566 on Feb 5th 2022 at 2:12:04 AM