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

But Freeza is not the "bigger" bad. He's the big bad. No Freeza, no Saiyan Princes in the planet trading/pest extermination business, no meeting between Vegeta and Goku. Maybe some other alien business still would have made contact with the Saiyans and whatnot but would be strong enough or paranoid enough to destroy them? The whole entire Dragon Ball story in between Radizt to Freeza doesn't work without Freeza. King Cold I suppose you can make an argument for. You could easily remove his entire existence from the whole thing and it could still work. But no. The page you are looking for is Arc Villain.

I read the description too. That part about not being merged is just a recent addition. How do you know it will last? Outside-Context Villain used to be part of the description too. That's how You Know That Thing Where works, we workout the description.

edited 24th Aug '14 4:01:06 PM by IndirectActiveTransport

I made the YKTTW, and I accept what I want, but I have no plans to merge these two tropes. I will personally make sure that the merge doesn't happen.

And Freeza is the Bigger Bad of the first arc. He has influence in the arc (blowing up the planet Vegeta), but no involvement(Vegeta was the Big Bad). Freeza steps down to become the Big Bad in the next arc. You know, for someone who claims that BiggerBad is too narrow, you are really trying to cut down on the examples.

That's because Square Peg Round Trope. Freeza didn't just blowup the planet, he also set Radditz, Nappa and Vegeta in motion to get him more afterwards and uses their activity on Earth to further his own plans. Vegeta flat out admits he's not the worst of his organization and when Goku meets Freeza on Namek, its painfully hammered in that Freeza is the reason Vegeta is what he is.

If I was really being limiting, I'd say as an ongoing narrative with multiple unrelated conflicts, Dragon Ball has no big bad. Somebody beat me to that though, so Commander Red, Hermit Crane, Commander Red, Freeza, maybe Dr. Gero, Bibidi and maybe Babadi are all qualifiers for the root cause of this conflict. Vegeta, he at best appears to be when we still don't know about Freeza but it became pretty clear he's not. He's not even the big bad for his section of the plot because eliminating him doesn't resolve that plot. The setting's expansion to space and the need to meet aliens, especially Freeza, that occurs whether Vegeta is gone or not. Ridding themselves of Freeza, that decapitates his enterprise, which won't be a threat to anyone for another fourteen years and not in any way that resembled Freeza's position on top of it.

Dr. Gero has the same problems on top of not even being more powerful than the androids he's supposedly the bigger bad to. No, he made kill bots, which go on to kill things. That they kill him too doesn't change the fact its all his fault, that the whole of the android crisis centered around his actions. He's the big bad. It's not quite the same as Freeza, in that you'd definitely have to remove Gero before his work starts moving, he's much more of a hands off big bad (ironically, given his powers) but without him getting started in the first place, no problem there. The real question is if Commander Red is the real big bad, since Gero was part of his army and his actions are specifically in the name of that army. We really don't know enough about the two character to say.

The thing is, the big bad is the corrupting force for the conflict of this story. The "evil" outside of his influence should either be there for window dressing, bonus material or another plot all its own. If, say, Vegeta's part of the story could have come to fruition without Freeza, could have met resolution with Vegeta's defeat/retreat and then Freeza showed up doing something unrelated, we could say Vegeta was the big bad and Freeza is a new one, but their thing is ongoing. Gero at least was going to be a scientist in the Red Ribbon Army, Freeza or no Freeza. That those two became even slightly entwined is a contrived coincidence.

edited 24th Aug '14 5:51:40 PM by IndirectActiveTransport

No, Big Bad is the one directly causing the conflict of the story. Freeza is a Bigger Bad for that first arc because he doens't directly cause the conflict. Freeza set in motion the events, but didn't actually participate in them. You really don't understand the definition of Big Bad and Bigger Bad, do you?

edited 24th Aug '14 6:14:13 PM by SatoshiBakura

See, that's why in this case the arc villain is not the big bad. The next arc villain is directly responsible for him, this is made explicitly clear in Dragon Ball itself. The Saiyan attack on Earth wasn't some development they came up with on their own, they did it because of Freeza.

Honestly, I'd have changed it already but I found out about it relatively recently. I've got two eyes and ten fingers, that's not nearly enough for curate the whole wiki with the speed of my typing and internet connection. But you'll have to explain better what exactly I'm missing here to convince me

Here's what it says on the character page:

Bigger Bad: Was this to Vegeta, who at the time was the Big Bad and the main threat to the Z warriors. Despite never coming into contact with the protagonists until much later in the story, his transformation of the Saiyan race into genocidal killers-for-hire and his decision to ultimately destroy their planet, Vegeta, ultimately sets the entire Dragon Ball series into motion.

Vegeta was the first Big Bad. Freeza was behind him, but all he did was corrupt the Sayans. Just because he caused the corruption doesn't mean he's the Big Bad. Big Bad has involvement, Bigger Bad has influence. Freeza had no involvement at first, only much later.

edited 24th Aug '14 7:07:42 PM by SatoshiBakura

As I mentioned a while back, a Big Bad is the person whom, if defeated, ends the CURRENT conflict that they set in motion or engineered. In DBZ, Frieza had nothing to do with the Saiyan saga. At all. Beating Vegeta ended the Saiyan saga and the threat they posed. If the good guys had never gone to Namek, they never would have even been threatened by Frieza save for some obscure far off date later.

At the same time, Frieza set the framework that Vegeta's plot stood upon. That makes Frieza the PERFECT example of a Bigger Bad that later becomes a Big Bad.

Once again, I'll point out that whether or not someone counts as the Big Bad is a matter of perspective. Most of the confusion surrounding Bigger Bad has to do with differing ideas of who's the Big Bad in the first place. Given that, what if we just removed the words "Big Bad" from the trope description and replaced them with "current villain"? I'm thinking something like this:

edited 24th Aug '14 9:49:19 PM by RavenWilder

This is actually making me think more and more about how people get caught up with the wording of a trope description (a la "It says 'therefore' NOT 'because' so that means...") and sometimes the act of trying to define a concept TV Tropes is forced to set boundaries or even diminish it because we have to catalog examples. This wiki was not peer reviewed, and Trope Decay can happen almost immediately in the worst case scenarios.

Just so we're aware, the term Big Bad came from Buffy The Vampire Slayer in reference to its seasonal Myth Arc villains (and is probably inspired by terms like "big bad wolf" but Buffy brought the term into writing vernacular). By the definition some people are throwing around, the trope namers are simply Arc Villains, they show up for a story arc and have little influence outside of their specific season.

So I say we try to simplify things with an attempt at laconic definitions, and let's use Buffy examples:

• Arc Villain: A main villain the heroes have to face for a story arc, typically a short one compared to others the serial has done. Spike fits this role in season two, starts off as a major threat in his first few episodes and after being injured, is forced to take a back seat when the real Big Bad, Angelus, comes in.
• Big Bad: A villain who is at the top of the enemy hierarchy who's involved, directly or indirectly, with the major Myth Arc or the entire mythology itself. The seasonal big bads, in order: The Master, Angelus, The Mayor, Adam, Glory, Warren, The First Evil.
• Bigger Bad: A villain with reach and influence that extends beyond the known jurisdiction of those who have already been the big bad, and may eventually become a Big Bad of their own arc. The First Evil came from a one-off episode in the third season where they were an ancient, incorporeal being who is supposed to be a Satan analog as a great tempter, and when they came back in the seventh season its implied they had been watching and biding their time until the best moment to take their turn.

Thinking that those three basic tropes are fundamentally incompatible is not clarifying the definition, but making it more complicated by adding more rules.

I know, right? People are always trying to tighten up the descriptions, trying be as specific as possible. That means that tropes that are apparently between Big Bad and Bigger Bad are locked out. I want the range of both tropes to border eachother.

As it's relevant, I want to again bring up this post I made a while back.

edited 25th Aug '14 4:23:38 AM by KingZeal

My definition may of may not have ambiguities to be cleared up. I will post it here again and if you find any ambiguities, let me know.

The Bigger Bad is the villain who has greater influence on the setting as a whole than the Big Bad, but doesn't directly affect the story, as they would then be the Big Bad. How much they are involved in the plot, how much influence to the plot they have, or if they're connected in any way to the Big Bad or not doesn't matter. They are just the villain that has greater influence on the setting than the Big Bad, but have limited to no affect on the story.

Be more specific, or else I can't fix it.

edited 25th Aug '14 5:28:17 AM by SatoshiBakura

That whole thing is ambiguous. I can tell you're trying, but I think you're trying a bit too hard.

The Bigger Bad is the villain who has greater influence ^What? What is "influence", and what counts as greater? on the setting as a whole than the Big Bad, but doesn't directly affect the story^What? What counts as "directly affecting"?, as they would then be the Big Bad. How much they are involved^What? What counts as "involvement", and how is that different from "direct effect"? in the plot, how much influence to the plot they have, or if they're connected in any way to the Big Bad or not doesn't matter. They are just the villain that has greater influence on the setting than the Big Bad, but have limited to no affect on the story.^What? See above. How are these terms defined?

edited 25th Aug '14 10:26:21 AM by KingZeal

I hope this helps.

The Bigger Bad is the villain who is a greater evil in the setting as a whole than the Big Bad, has limited to no participation in the story, as they would then be the Big Bad. How much influence (e.g. reason why a villain is a Big Bad, reason why everything is screwed up) to the plot they have or if they're connected in any way to the Big Bad or not doesn't matter. They are just the villain that is greater evil in the setting than the Big Bad, but have limited to no participation on the story.

edited 25th Aug '14 10:57:45 AM by SatoshiBakura

I can't tell any difference at all, I'm sorry to say.

Let me take a crack at it:

---

The Bigger Bad is a character, force, entity, or organization that is responsible for a non-ideal (i.e., pessimistic, cynical, dangerous or flat-out Crapsack) reality or worldview that fuels the fictional setting in which the story takes place. They are responsible for antagonizing the setting as a whole, while doing little or nothing to actively harm or hinder the Protagonists like the Big Bad currently is. They may or may not have a connection to the Big Bad, but the Big Bad is the person that has caused or engineered the current Conflict. The Bigger Bad is just in the background of the story, doing their own thing, and it just so happens that "their thing" is on a higher level that the Heroes can't or won't deal with in this story.

edited 25th Aug '14 11:11:55 AM by KingZeal

Honestly, your definiton is a lot better than mine. Lets use yours from now on.

Edit: Have we come to an agreement? We will use the above definition for Bigger Bad if we agree.

edited 25th Aug '14 11:10:28 AM by SatoshiBakura

Slow down. That was only one suggestion, and we would have to make a crowner before any changes are made.

Sorry, I just feel like yours is better than what I could have done.

I will be waiting to see if anyone else comes up with a good definition. Please post yours, and I will review it.

Edit: And why that definiton is so good, it talks about what I listed for Bigger Bad, only in much more detail. So far, that's the best definition.

edited 25th Aug '14 11:30:16 AM by SatoshiBakura

It is a good definition, but I think it needs a more descriptive name than Bigger Bad. Perhaps something more like Background Villain.

If we had to rename the trope, then I would call it Greater Evil. Remember, the purpose of this trope was to be a being greater in evil than the Big Bad. Personally, I don't want to rename this trope since it will take away the significance of the comparison to Big Bad.

edited 25th Aug '14 3:32:03 PM by SatoshiBakura

Greater Evil could work. I really don't see why we need a comparison to the Big Bad in the trope name. The Dragon, Arc Villain, and other tropes are all at least partially defined by their relationship to the Big Bad without actually referencing that relationship in their name.

edited 25th Aug '14 3:44:33 PM by shiro_okami

Well first, lets resolve issues with the description. Then we will worry about renaming.

Question: does a Bigger Bad have to be a character? Big Bad specifically notes that it is not necessarily a character. "A Big Bad could be a character with Evil Plans or it could be a situation, such as a comet heading towards the Earth." So the Big Bad of Armageddon is the meteor, the Big Bad of The Day After Tomorrow is the sudden climate change, etc. Can a Bigger Bad be similarly impersonal?

For example: let's say that Alice is the superhero protector of Trope City, while Bob is her supervillain arch-nemesis. The story focuses on the epic battles between Alice and Bob. Meanwhile, the world outside of Trope City is being slowly overrun by the Zombie Apocalypse. Alice is clearly The Hero and Bob is the Big Bad — would the zombie threat be a Bigger Bad? Or does it not qualify, because "the zombie infection" isn't a character?

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

The zombie threat is a force so yes, they would be a Bigger Bad until they get into the city. However, they wouldn't be a Bigger Bad if Bob was controlling them, or leading them.

Edit: Nevermind, it's not.

edited 26th Aug '14 3:34:51 AM by SatoshiBakura