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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
Revenge can be a great motivator, I think Tobias is thinking too narrow. A villain can want revenge against a hero for all sorts of valid reasons that aren't just "he keeps beating me". There are also plenty of reasons a villain could want to dedicate their life to taking down a hero that have nothing to do with revenge.
Tobias, you have ignored the greatest motto of TV Tropes: Tropes Are Tools.
Even some of the most derided tropes can make for good storytelling at the hands of a sufficiently skilled writer, and the best ideas can fall completely flat at the hands of an unskilled one.
For example, Doctor Doom: a lot of what makes him really fun to watch is the paradox of having what is quite possibly the greatest human being to walk on Earth having such a petty motivation as simply beating someone that bested him once.
But it makes sense, really: if someone was so great at everything he tried, who never loses, to the point he can honestly believe he's above the rest of humanity, then it follows that he would utterly obsess over the one time he didn't.
It like in My Greatest Failure: if you always wins, then your losses will define you far more than your achievements.
Edited by HailMuffins on Dec 11th 2018 at 10:12:28 AM
I also want to point out that I think it is a blasphemy to deny how heartbreaking Daniel Brühl makes Zemo's confession to BP at the end of the movie.
Don't watch Cloak & Dagger, but I must once again point out the existence of The Night Gwen Stacy Died, which remains to this day one of the comic book stories of all time.
Edited by HailMuffins on Dec 11th 2018 at 10:15:22 AM
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Like the Avengers, if you think about it. Being beaten by Thanos has made more of an impact to the MCU and to its audience than all the victories in the world did before.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"But it makes sense, really: if someone was so great at everything he tried, who never loses, to the point he can honestly believe he's above the rest of humanity, then it follows that he would utterly obsess over the one time he didn't.
It like in My Greatest Failure: if you always wins, then your losses will define you far more than your achievements.
Eh. The dichotomy of being a man who wants to lead the world into greatness but uses authoritarian means that undercut any claim to benevolence his actions may have is more interesting to me. Doom is wasted as a Fantastic Four villain; his best stories are always when he steps outside that realm to do something more meaningful than whining about "RICHARDS" for the umpteenth time.
There is a lot to like about the character. Even his rivalry with Reed Richards itself can be interesting when it's used for more engaging plots than "REVENGE". For instance, that he slotted himself into Reed's family role when he saved (and dominated) the Multiverse in Secret War (the recent one, not the original) was a clever application of Doom's pettiness that didn't rely on "And then he built a DOOM RAY for REVENGE."
Doom became God, preserving what he could about the Multiverse as every reality died around him, and creating a kingdom where the fragments of reality could survive and thrive, because. But he ruled over it as an authoritarian ruler because he's a shit person, and that's what makes him compelling.
Doom doesn't necessarily want to help people, so much as he wants to be revered for helping people. He dreams of a better world, with himself as absolute dictator over an authoritarian "utopia".
And then he took Reed's family as his own, erasing the knowledge of Reed from their minds so that they'd love and respect him in Reed's place, because even when he is literally God, Doom can't quite let the pettiness slide.
One of the great things about Marvel getting the rights to the F4 back is that it means Doom can finally be part of a good movie, because he no longer has to be shackled to the diminutive role of "The Fantastic Four's bad guy."
Edited by TobiasDrake on Dec 11th 2018 at 8:26:01 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.See, I wouldn't consider that to be a revenge plot. Doom had an aside "BTW F*ck You" bit, but most of his actions were guided by things other than screwing Reed. He engaged in a small act of pettiness in the midst of a much larger agenda.
Would Thanos be a more interesting character if his motivation was that he just doesn't like Thor and really, really wants to stick it to Thor? Even Loki knows better than to just be about screwing Thor, instead opting to play the Loyalty Dance and prance back and forth between screwing Thor and helping him.
Would Alexander Pearce of Winter Soldier be a more interesting character if he just hated Captain America and wanted to make Cap suffer?
Would Spider-Man: Homecoming have benefit if, instead of the plane heist, the third act had consisted of the Vulture gathering his men together and going, "Gentlemen, we must DESTROY SPIDER-MAN"?
There's nothing wrong with a villain disliking a hero or even having a petty grudge against him. But he needs to be about something more than revenge, because revenge by itself just isn't an interesting motivation.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.See, I'd also argue that, with good writing, revenge can be an interesting motivation. But then again, all the really good revenge stories I'm thinking about are about the good guys getting revenge on the bad guys.
Hmm. This one is more morally ambiguous: have you ever seen I Saw the Devil? It's a horrifying revenge film where the main character seeks to get revenge against a serial killer...but he ends up going way too far. The motivation itself might be simple, but it ends up making the character more complex in the way they go about it.
Killmonger has revenge as part of his motivation, too, and his character is one of the most morally complex.
Edited by alliterator on Dec 11th 2018 at 7:51:38 AM
I get that, but I just disagree that Zemo fits in with what you said.
It's no just a petty grudge he has, the man lost his entire family, and differently from other media, we see the pain that has caused him when he talks with BP at the end.
Again, Daniel Brühl is fantastic and doesn't get nearly as much attention for that as he deserves.
And it's not just his motivation: his small moments of decency, such as acknowledging how fucked up his bombing of the UN was and killing the Winter Soldier squadron, the sheer sticks, stones and brains he has to become one of the greatest threats the Avengers faced with a miniscule fraction of the resources and power the other villains had, it's all of the put together that makes him a great villain in my eyes, and saying the guy is just a plot device to advance the story, like Steppenwolf, Whiplash and the Abomination were is, I think, a disservice to the writing on display.
One word: Berserk. The manga, not the movie and certainly not the C Gi anime abomination.
It's pretty much the best He Who Fights Monsters tale I ever read, and on of the few who really sells how much, to quote Alfred, "vengeance blackens the soul".
Edited by HailMuffins on Dec 11th 2018 at 12:53:10 PM
Like I said, there can be revenge motivations rooted in more substantial writing than just "fuck this guy in particular". Vulture is a good example, his entire motivation is about getting revenge on Tony Stark, not because he has a grudge against Iron Man for fighting evil, but because Tony Stark is kind of a dick as a businessman.
Sure, but a villain is more than just his motivation. There are also other aspects, like how big of a threat he is, how successful he is aso.
So, I agree that revenge is not the most interesting of motivations. Something like internalised Racism or a specific philosophy is more compelling.
So, looking at Zemo, his motivation is not the most interesting, but how he, as a person without super-power, plans to take down the Avengers, that is interesting. And he succeeds.
I wonder if Zemo is now rueing that he did….
It's not really revenge. It is more "this guy is always ruining my business, that's it, I will now go for the big heist to secure my future once and for all".
Edited by Swanpride on Dec 11th 2018 at 7:54:30 AM
Like I said before, I consider Zemo to be a pretty shallow villain. Like, if the movie was JUST about Cap and Bucky fighting Zemo, it'd be pretty bland. Zemo has just enough substance to him to justify what's a significant but also somewhat lesser role in the film.
Zemo is a spanner in the works. His purpose in the narrative is to provide the excuse for Cap and Bucky to fight Iron Man. Stark is the movie's interesting and compelling antagonist, trying to stop Cap from going off on his own to fight evil. Zemo's just there to be the evil Cap wants to fight.
The movie is built on Tony and Steve's conflict, which allows Zemo to simply dance around in the background being serviceable but never having to actually be a clever and engaging character in his own right. Zemo's just here to facilitate the conflict; the story's not actually about him and at no point is he expected to carry its narrative weight on his shoulders.
No, it's not.
He hates Tony Stark, certainly. But he's not like, "We're doing this to f*ck Stark! Let's kidnap his girlfriend and ransom his businesses!"
Vulture's motivation is that he's a guy who wants to get paid so he can support his family.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Dec 11th 2018 at 8:58:50 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Personally, I disagree with the notion that any motivation is in any way inherently more engaging than any other. The ones you pointed out can, and I'm pretty sure have, been used poorly.
We're running in circles at this point, how about we just agree to disagree on Zemo?
Edited by HailMuffins on Dec 11th 2018 at 12:59:28 PM
I can agree to that.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.I think you're trying to alter the meaning of the word "revenge" just so that you can say that it doesn't make for a good motivation. Revenge has a broad definition, narrowing it down like you are is taking away from the meaning of the word.
Vulture's motivation is absolutely revenge against Tony Stark, it's just not the stereotypical flat "revenge" you're thinking of, because you've reduced the definition of revenge so much that it would be hard to make an argument for it as a motivation.
Revenge isn't a bad motivation at all, you're just changing the meaning of the word to suit your purposes, which is to talk about how much it doesn't work as a good motivation.
'd.
I think Zemo is pretty compelling for the amount of time he gets to work. I won't fault you your opinion, but I think his being there adds shading and emotion to the movie's central argument that wouldn't be there if Tony and Steve had gotten into their fight some other way. I'm not saying other ways couldn't have worked, but I liked the slow build of Zemo's plot, and the restrained performance behind the character. For someone who doesn't get to speak much, especially in a story that's crammed full of characters, he has presence, and I think Daniel Bruhl had a lot to do with that.
I really do hope we get Citizen V.
Edited by Unsung on Dec 11th 2018 at 9:23:19 AM
@swanpride: I agree, but that's the kind of thing that runs in cycles.
If, say, Internalized Categorism becomes the villain motivation de jour in the 2020's, by 2030's people will be complaining of overuse also.
What is and isn't fresh tends to change as time passes.
I also want to add my support to the Thunderbolts movie.
With the Guardians being able to fit in an ashtray now, the MCU needs another Anti-Hero team.
Edited by HailMuffins on Dec 11th 2018 at 1:20:52 PM

I take revenge over greed any day. Plus, what I liked about Zemo is that the thing he is seeking revenge about is not some random event which was made up for this movie, but something we saw happening in another movie from a very different perspective.
In a way, Civil War made the whole Battle of Sokovia better in hindsight.