Complaining: Generic Doomsday Villain

Pretty sure a GDV cannot have either. Otherwise, every villain who a troper found uninteresting will be labeled one even if they have a personality.

What does having "no personality" even mean? I've seen people describe characters as having "more personality" than their counterparts simply because they're more amusing.

That's what I'm saying. There's some characters from certain works who could accurately be described as "cardboard", but an uninteresting personality is still a personality.

No personality, to me, means an animalistic predator that does not speak or emote whatsoever.

For me no personality is the lack of noteworthy traits after Establishing Character Moment (and lack of positive traits at all), your first impression is exactly how they'll always act on screen, and their stated Evil Plan is literally the only thing they're shown do. If a villain gives a Humans Are Bastards Motive Rant as their indroductory monologue and it's never elaborated, it sounds like GDV to me.

i like that definition. Because i do feel like it's a thing— villains like saturday morning cartoon one shot villains who show up, do their thing, and get defeated. It's not a bad trope, nessisairly, it's just hard to define without invoking complaining.

In addition to what said, i would add— these villains have an evil plan with a clear and unambiguously bad motive ("i want to pollute because I'm evil and greedy!"), little to no backstory or sympathetic traits, and then never deviate from that initial appearance. (Sometimes they might briefly pretend not to be evil, but once revealed they immediately discard that) They have no emotional connection with the heroes— defeating them is an clear happy ending

Edited by Tremmor19 on Dec 23rd 2021 at 11:08:21 AM

Yeah that sounds like a good definition, with 's addendum as well.

This feels like the sort of thing we might need an agency rule for. That is, it's a little unfair to call a villain a GDV under that criteria if they're Made of Evil.

How about characters who are members of an Always Chaotic Evil race?

I think that could work if being inherently evil is the only thing their race is known for and the member isn't trying to disprove it. And to iterate my point, them having "evil genes" should not be a mystery. Not sure how the trope would work if there are multiple members of the race working together, it still could be. That reminds me, there was a discarded TLP about Generic Alien Invaders or something like that.

I think the evil plan is an important part of the definition actually- thats mostly what seperates this concept from like a random mugger that gets beat up by batman. They have a specific Evil Plan, and little to no characterization outside of that plan

I think changing it to YMMV trope and expanding the definition to include villains with threadbare characterization and motives as long as they’re defined far more by the threat they pose and never have their personality or motives elaborated on is a good course of action. Having a strict cleanup thread like Complete Monster or Magnificent Bastard is also something we should do.

Eh, I'm not so sure I see the benefits of such a thing, because while CM and MB are subjective and thus can allow for broader discussion, an objective trope doesn't need a panel of people reading EP's to determine if the examples count or not.

Plus, as Ferot said, making this YMMV will inevitably lead to mass complaining and making the problem even worse.

That explains how GDV could be more than just "Feral Villain". Thanks for helping me get that.

I'm still not sure how "specific Evil Plan, and little to no characterization outside of that plan" is distance enough from Flat Character to warrant being separate. And how/where do we draw the line for enough characterization to qualify or not?

I don't think Generic Doomsday Villains should only be defined as feral, mindless, or chaotic. It's not required they be boring, or lack personality or motivation. I see GDVs defined by four things:

• 1. A very basic selfish goal, mainly money ("I want to be rich!"), power ("I want to rule the world!") and destruction ("I want to destroy the world!").
• 2. The goal is purely ego-centric. E.g. they rule an evil empire only because it's a way to increase their own power. If this is reversed (they want to establish an evil empire, and power is the way to do it), that is disqualifying because it is a goal that exists outside themselves.
• 3. This is the predominant or even only facet of their personality.
• 4. There is no reason for why they are this way. They were simply created or born evil, and have no existence outside of being a threat for the heroes to fight.

Using this definition, one could argue Emperor Palpatine was a Generic Doomsday Villain. He's not uninteresting, however not because the character itself was particularly complex or engaging (especially in the original trilogy, his "character" was basically just "cackling man in a black robe"), but for the role his character plays in the Star Wars parable of a democratic republic sliding into absolutism. He doesn't lack for personality or motivation. But as we know:

• 1. His ultimate goal is just "UNLIMITED POWER." That's it.
• 2. The founding of his evil empire was a result of his quest for more power, not the reason he sought power in the first place.
• 3. This is the predominant facet of his personality. Actor Ian McDiarmid described his character this way: "When you're playing a character of solid blackness, that in itself is very interesting, in the sense that you have no other motivation other than the accumulation of power. It's not so much about not having a moral center, it's just that the only thing that mattered is increasing power."
• 4. We are never given any reason for why Emperor Palpatine is this way (certainly not in any of the films). He's an evil, power-hungry megalomaniac because he's a Sith, he's always been a Sith, and that's what Sith do.

As others have already said, what starts as a Generic Doomsday Villain may not remain so. Many series are long-runners and many villains are developed much further than their original incarnations, either in later films or in other expanded universe materials. But I see characters as diverse as Doomsday and Palpatine could both qualify as a GDV. It could be considered a sub-trope or Big Bad/villain-specific variant of Flat Character.

Edited by Jormungar on Dec 28th 2021 at 3:04:24 AM

But, as I have stated before, money and power are realistic motivators in and of themselves- plenty of bad things in real life have been done in the pursuit of both. Treating that like it’s not enough is akin to, as Warjay said, the belief that “ every character needs to be rounded and deep in order to be "good" characters.”

Right, and it's also bizarre to specifically point out when the Big Bad is a Flat Character. It just feels The Same, but More Specific.

Not enough for what? People can be one-dimensional and generic in real life too. I'm also not saying every character needs to be rounded and deep in order to be a "good" character. What's "good" is subjective anyway.

Palpatine from Star Wars can be both a Generic Doomsday Villain and a good and even interesting character. He just can't be one by merit of his deep and multi-faceted story or personality (based on the films, at least).

I think it fits being a sub-trope or villain-specific variant of Flat Character. If that's not enough to keep the Generic Doomsday Villain as a trope alive, then it should be deleted.

Edited by Jormungar on Dec 28th 2021 at 12:50:40 PM

Er... Real life people are not ever "one dimensional". That's literally not a thing.

Then why the appeal to "realistic motivators" or "real life" if what we're talking about doesn't exist in real life? We may not know details about a person, but they exist for us to find.

The difference with fiction is that not only do we not know the details behind a villain, they literally don't exist. One could imagine the generic doomsday villain CEO of the MegaCorp having the most fascinating or heart-wrenching backstory, but until it's written by the author, it doesn't exist.

People in real life may seem one-dimensional because we don't know them. But characters in fiction can actually be one-dimensional if the author doesn't write about them.

Edited by Jormungar on Dec 28th 2021 at 1:34:51 AM

We're appealing to real-life motivations because it's sort of flawed to say that a villain is a GDV id they do, in fact, have a motive. Greed is a fine villain motive. So is ambition. So is jealousy. These are all things real people feel and desire and base their actions around. A motivation being generic isn't the same as the villain being generic for having that motivation, because they're realistic motivations. They're common because people understand them, and they sort of inherently give the character some level of depth and realism- they influence personality traits, world outlook, and methods of achieving victory. These villains can still be flat, but a Flat Character is just a literary term that means they're simplistic and not fleshed out; they can still have motivations that make sense and have relevancy.

The only motivation I'd say is truly GDV-worthy is For the Evulz / Destruction for Destruction's Sake, because real life people don't think like that, and it's a motivation that only seems to exist in cartoony bad guys ripped out of works like Captain Planet. If the villain's only personality trait is "being evil" and their only motivation is "being evil", then I'd say that, yeah, they're a GDV, but it's because such a thing doesn't actually make sense as a motivation and has no basis in reality. To have such a motivation in the first place a character needs to already be evil, so you can't really even say that they have implicit characterization based on the effects of their motivation, because their motivation and their personality are the exact same thing, and the character themselves ends up seeming like they just spawned one day for the soul purpose of being evil.

Or, TL;DR: Realistic motivations matter here because if a character has a motivation that makes sense to the audience that character automatically becomes a little more realistic even if those motivations are generic. Motivations that only exist to reinforce how evil a character is do the opposite and make the villain seem all the more cartoonish.

Edited by WarJay77 on Dec 28th 2021 at 4:48:05 AM

Then I guess we fundamentally disagree, because by your definition a Generic Doomsday Villain can't have a motivation, but I think they can.

I think using your examples a good comparison would be Scar from The Lion King vs Palpatine from Star Wars. They're both ambitious and want to rule. But with Scar you see him being jealous of his brother and anxious and resentful about his status. He wants power because he wants respect.

With Palpatine, he's a cackling man in a black robe screaming, "UNLIMITED POWER!" There's no depth there. He wants power, he's always wanted power, and that's it. "Ambition" may be a recognizable motivation, but you can't "understand" him as a character or find him even remotely relatable.

Edited by Jormungar on Dec 28th 2021 at 1:54:06 AM

Nothing to do with relatability. Palpatine is like a lot of real-life dictators. Would you say that those sort of people are unrealistic? You might not be able to understand the psychology of Palpatine and people like him, but you can at least understand how their motivation has led to their actions and what it is that they actually want.

Edited by WarJay77 on Dec 28th 2021 at 4:57:15 AM

I thought you said one-dimensional people "aren't a thing" in real life? Is Palpatine as a character multi-dimensional? Even the actor playing him says he isn't.

Edited by Jormungar on Dec 28th 2021 at 2:01:00 AM