RWBY General Discussion

Because Cinder has shown herself to be a shallow person. She is a bully, a sadist and an unrepentant monster. Her actions do not suggest that she has any benevolent motivation or any decend Freudian Excuse for that matter. Neither did Adam's actions, really, but with him you can at least see what the writers were going for. Any sympathetic backstory for Cinder would feel out of place, especially since nothing like that has been foreshadowed in any way thus far.

You seem to be under the impression that moral greyness makes a character or a conflict automatically better. While it may be the case for you — everyone has their own set of preferences — not every villain needs to have an understandable reason for their actions. It's cool to have an antagonist who blends the line between good or evil, but it's also cool to have a villain who revels in their cruelty, either to invoke horror or hatred amongst the audience. I can list you multiple villains who manage to be interesting characters without having a trace of goodness in them to speak of.

Edited by Tharkun140 on Mar 18th 2019 at 1:01:32 PM

While I can't speak for everyone but I think for many people evil for the sake of evil doesn't always make for an interesting character.

I think every good villain has imo a semblance of goodness or greyness inside them. The key word is semblance, something that gives him some sort of moral complexity or point of view, even if it is as tiny as an ant. Even someone like the Joker has either the "one bad day" backstory, that he is an utter nihilist, who can only see the world as a joke or that he wants to expose humanity for what he believes is is true self.

That doesn't mean the Joker is anything but evil, but it makes him and his world view and character more nuanced as it gives him something relatable or understandable, some modicum that could be seen as not black/evil. As I said a semblance that doesn't make him pure evil. He is still very evil though. Even something that is made of evil has the excuse of being made of evil, thus having no real choice.

There are of course villains that have absolutely nothing even remotely sympathetic but those are seldom if never the main obstacle. I honestly can't think of any good villain who doesn't have something that makes even a bit sympathetic, relateable or less evil.

Even that can work, if it is spin in an interesting way, like how the character is psychologically incapable of doing anything good. Like he was born that way. Or how he is someone who just wants to be happy, and that he only feels happiness by committing evil, that every else makes him feel joyless.

Edited by bandersnitch on Mar 18th 2019 at 5:36:34 AM

Gee, what a surprising topic.

Azula.

From her introduction to the end, she's completely evil, through and through, with no real justification. All she wants is power, and the only time she ever breaks down is when that power is denied to her, because while she does get it, a new, more powerful position comes around to take her achievement away. She spends her entire time onscreen being the biggest obstacle in the heroes' way, and ultimately, is the more compelling villain in the entire series. With no shades of grey whatsoever, no relatability, nothing making her less evil.

Not that I completely disagree with you, mind. But I had to respond to that last paragraph, because it is just simply not true.

Edited by TheLovecraftian on Mar 18th 2019 at 9:39:01 AM

That she felt unloved by her parents and I think she probably was, that she has some serious psychological issues, that she genuinely liked Ty Lee (or even loved if what her VA said is true) and Mai only to be betrayed by them, that tried to emulate her father without realizing that that only works if you are 100% a sociopath. She was practically groomed by a monster in human form. We spent an entire beach episode with her issues and later we saw just how unstable she became, when those she considered her friends were gone. I mean by the time she was defeated it was more pitiful than anything else.

Just looking at her character page shows many tropes that evoke some sympathy.

Yeah her last few episodes showed she was mentally unwell and was absolutely convinced that her mother hated her, so I'm not sure what show you watched but it wasn't the one that aired.

He'll the show made sure to illustrate that the big bad was once upon a time a innocent and normal child.

Those tropes are speculative, though. They're different analysis of her character, which may or may not be true, but are not confirmed by anything. This isn't a case of "she has a flashback that confirms she was good until X happened". There's nothing of the sort. She can just as easily be read as a sociopath with a bad case of Evil Cannot Comprehend Good who brings her own downfall on herself as a result of that. She even mentions in that beach episode that her mother thought she was a monster, meaning that whatever drove Azula's mother away from her might very well have already been there, and Ursula abandoning her only worsened it. Ultimately, there's no real, concrete in-story justification for her actions. She's just evil.

Edited by TheLovecraftian on Mar 18th 2019 at 9:59:46 AM

From what we do know her mother she would never have thought that Azula was a monster (something the sequel comics shows), the hallucination which offers nothing but love is probably a spot on indication of how she really felt.

Edited by Shaoken on Mar 19th 2019 at 12:09:20 AM

Hm. I never did read the comics. I'm going off on just the show, so maybe there is something the comics have that I'm just not aware of.

Yeah I definitely didn't get a pure evil vibe from Azula from her appearance in the show and comics. Especially with role in the last one where she is more antagonist than actual villian.

She really only has more of a different view of morality than the average person. She also definitely has quite a few issues stemming from what she believed her mother thought of her along with having a father like Ozai.

Uhh Cinder I'm fine with Being Pure evil. But...yeah Azula definitely wasn't.

That said? There are plenty of good examples of pure evil Villains. Bill Cipher, Palpatine, ECT.

Edited by Kylotrope on Mar 18th 2019 at 6:48:17 AM

No idea who Bill Cipher is. Palpatine is from Star Wars, right? Isn't the main antagonist Darth Vader? There can be pure evil villains but they seldom are the main obstacle to overcome. At least not without the story suffering from it.

Bill Cipher was the Big Bad of Gravity Galls. A Sadistic Cosmic demon who burned his own universe down and wanted to turn our world into a Hellish landscape where he and his legions of nightmares would rule the Universe while torturing Mortals. And was essentially Laughably Evil incarnate.

And....Palpatine is the Big Bad of star wars...no offense but he's ALSO the 'Picture for Big Bad'.

As someone Who helps with the Complete Monster cleanup. Your points....aren't backed up well. You seem to think that "Pure evil = Generic Doomsday Villain".

Edited by Kylotrope on Mar 19th 2019 at 1:32:11 AM

It may be personal taste, but I find characters who are evil just because to be boring and rarely well written. Even if it's something simple I like to at least know why a villain became a villain.

Plus I keep reading Shark [[https://www.deviantart.com/tigerpaw90/art/The-Shark-Returns-753379796 Cinder]] and it is my favourite interpretation of Cinder. Headcanon is that Cinder will be about to kill Ruby when Salem threatens to share her baby photos with everyone.

Edited by Shaoken on Mar 19th 2019 at 8:14:37 PM

So, Cipher is a demon is a demon so there is no question of choice, as he was essentially born evil. Being Laughably Evil does qualify as something, since being funny makes him more relatable. It doesn't change his evilness. But he becomes more sympathetic for the audience and more likeable.

Palpatine is still not main antagonists the protagonists have to overcome. That's still Darth Vader. Darth Vader is the one everyone knows.I quickly googled and Palpatine has in all three movies a total screen time of around seven minutes. That's not exactly what I would consider main villain.

Cipher wasn't born evil, he wouldn't be a Complete Monster otherwise. And, his humour makes him Entertaining. Not "Sympathetic".

Your Standards on Main Villain Are weird....he Appeared in '5' films, was responsible for everything that happned, was The Corrupter to Vader. and...I'm not going to spoil the film's for you. This is like Saying Cinder Was the Big Bad of RWBY and not Salem.

I THINK I can sort of see a semblance of your perspective. You want villains to have personality. Being morally Grey or sympathetic is not needed to have personality.

At the end of the day, your villain should be engaging first and deep second, I think. There's nothing wrong with shallow, petty people as villains or antagonists, and there's plenty of successful ones. If you want to give your villain depth, it's probably best to ask yourself this: what will this "depth" give the villain? A sympathetic edge? An excuse to do their evil deeds?

We will need Cinder's backstory eventually, but I'm not counting on that until long into the series, should they run to the end.

The issue is, if you chararter is pure evil then the challange is to make it: a threat to beat and engaging enough and so far, neither Cinder or Adam fit this.

Cinder because she havent show anything of mercy but no deph of any reason, she is "I want to kick puppis just because", everyone else, hazel, tyrian and even watts got a reason.

With Adam is hard to said he have freudian excuess because the history doge every mention of it, biggest of it waswhen he took the blindfold, show his scar and....talk about how blake hurt him by leaving alone, at this point one even wander if the scar bother him at all.

I feel Adamis kinda of a paradox, he got a sympathy motivation(because he suffer most of any racism) but he complete act like he wasnt a deal at all, instead focus on blake, it feel like elephan in the room.

Someone needs to make a parody of that scene:

During their fight, Yang asks Adam about his scars and why he doesn't seem to care about them very much. Adam launches into long speech about forgiveness, turning the other cheek and not letting your past control you. After he's done, he returns to ranting about how Blake ruined his life and how he will have his vengeance, without seeing any sort of contradiction.

Edited by Tharkun140 on Mar 19th 2019 at 10:30:56 AM

Cinder has a Clear motivation, she wants power, She wants other People to fear her.

And with Adams past "Contradicting" his actions? Textbook The Dark Side Will Make You Forget.

But why does she want power and to be strong? That's her goal, not her motivation.

She’s (CINDER)ella, so untill contradicted, we can assume her backstory is at least similar to her namesakes. She wants what she grew up without.

Well probably get it down the line, til then, Does she need a reason? Some people just want power cause they like power

While I clearly don't have the Opinion. Seeing other people's ophinons on the Charachter had me think this should be added to the ymmv page.(I'm suspended so I can't add it)

Creator's Pet:While hardly a Universal opinion, Many feel that Cinder Fall is a One Dimensional villain who Long Overstayed her welcome. And hate how the show keeps giving her the Focus rather then Salems other Lieutenants like Tyrian, Watts or Hazel who have proven to be popular in n the Fandom.

Edited by Kylotrope on Mar 19th 2019 at 4:25:55 AM

Seriously? Cinder doesn't meet any of the four criteria for Creator's Pet. What you just wrote simply means that she is a major antagonist who some people dislike. Not exactly the same thing as Creator's Pet.

Edited by Tharkun140 on Mar 19th 2019 at 12:29:33 PM