Which one is it?!: For The Evulz

Alright, enough beating around the bush. I gotta ask this.

Which one is this trope:

• a character who does not have a motive except that "he's evil" as in Always Chaotic Evil?(justified Designated Villain, background one step below a Freudian Excuse, Stupid Evil)
• a character who does evil for the fun of it, without a higher motive? (Loves the Sound of Screaming)

The two are not the same at all. The first is one is either bad writing or playing the enigmatic-ness of the villain for scaryness. The second is sadism, rebelling against the system, or whatever but either way it's a motive - the motive of taking joy in the harm that you cause.

Let me give an example: here's a quote I was searching for a good page for:

->"What does your character want? What motivates him?" Ed prompts. ->"Uh," I say, "he wants to be chaotic and evil?" I offer. ->"But *why*?" Ed asks, "That's the real question." ->"Oh," I say, finally understanding. "Because he's a jerk, of course." —> — Jeff Freeman, Background: I'm Evil!

Example two: Dark Knight's Joker, purposefully enigmatic (not clear if he takes joys in sadistic acts, implied to have a twisted philosophy in the Dent scene and apparently anarchist leanings in his goals but ambigous enough to leave the door open for the possibility that they are not his real goals).

Third: character whose crimes are varied but he clearly enjoys them for sadistic pleasure?

Fourth: character who is obsesses with the idea of "evil", reads book on the theory of it and commits crimes to fulfill that ideal?

I can imagine all four of those being separate types. But for now I only wanna know keep the two mentioned at the top separate.

Y'know, looking around it really is time to make a "motivations" subcategory on the Villains page. Maybe I'll go and organize one.

edited 14th Sep '10 9:07:46 AM by Vree

They sound like two sides of the same villain to me, with the second aspect implied by the first. The very lack of any other motive for the first kind of villain makes them the second type by default: since Shakespeare never gave Iago any sort of motive in Othello, the audience can assume he's just an emotional sadist who likes making people suffer. Some stories come right out and say the villain's in it for the "fun" of it, while others just leave you to assume that's the case. Separating which is which, especially in children's stories where sociopathy and sadism almost have to be inferred rather than stated outright, would just lead to a mess as people try to defend their favorite villains as type two ("he's a badass, nihilistic sociopath who enjoys his victim's suffering!") and attack their least favorites as type one ("he's a one-dimensional caricature because the writers are morons!").

edited 14th Sep '10 9:10:43 AM by BritBllt

I was expecting that objection, but really, the type you describe is my type two- villain whose motives are intentionally left ambigous, because the author has a reason to do so.

On the other hand while they can be two sides of the same villain, what are we to do with the examples were they are not? I'm fine with it if the defnition is "two sides of the same villain, intentionally used that way", but it should be unambigous that the trope is about that particular writer's technique in that case.

edited 14th Sep '10 9:26:21 AM by Vree

But they're not fundementally different, unless we're judging the quality, which is exactly what we don't do. To give two extreme examples: in the critically acclaimed movie In The Company of Men, the villain's asked at the end why he did everything he did, and he answers with a simple, satisfied "because I can." On the other hand, we have Skeletor from Masters of the Universe, who's just plain evil, treacherous and megalomaniacal at every turn, for little reason. Why, unless we're making judgement calls about what the writers intended, wouldn't we say Skeletor is doing it "because he can"? They're both in it For the Evulz: type two is essentially type one wearing a lampshade.

Or to put it another way...

On the other hand while they can be two sides of the same villain, what are we to do with the examples were they are not?

That's where the minefield's hidden: how do we distinguish between them? The villain might be poorly written or they might be an accurate portrayal of a sociopathic monster. Picking which is which is where it'd turn into a fight, with fans saying the sadistic pleasure is implied and critics saying it's a two-dimensional villain.

(Edit: Let's say Skeletor, he's even less redeemable. )

Re-Edit: I guess you could call Type 2 something like Self Aware Evilness. It's just that I'm not sure there's much of a difference tropewise between Vilgax bragging about being evil in Ben 10 and the Joker doing it in The Dark Knight. There IS a big difference, but it's in how maturely the trope's handled rather than the trope itself. Still, a trope about philosophically motivated evil, if it doesn't exist already, may be worth a try.

Actually, though the word's overused, I think you could honestly call Type 2 a deconstruction of Type 1: a look at how such For the Evulz villainy would define itself and appear in a psychologically realistic setting. I think it's still playing with the same trope, but if the page is getting crowded, soft-splitting it might work.

edited 14th Sep '10 9:58:52 AM by BritBllt

There should be a differentation between kid's villains who are evil because kids can't comprehend any better (but Cardcarrying Villain already mostly covers that) and villains with mysterious motives for others where this is expoloited for scaryness factor.

Villains usually have several (sometimes dozens) motivations at the same time because they are supposed to be unsympathetic. A Blood Knight who is also a domestic abuser and a compulsive liar does not get a raised eyebrow because villains are supposed to be "bad bad". But we still have tropes for those motivations separately, because, especially with sympathetic "single cause ruined my life" villains they have to be separable. Eg. we have It's All About Me for egoism, Visionary Villain for those with huge goals, etc. Other motivations are no different For example, "because I can." simply means that the person enjoys the fact that he can get away with something - in other words, he's on a power trip. That's not an ambigous motivation at all. But the "mysterious villain for adults" trope still applies, because we still know that that can't be all the motivation he had.

Similarly with your Megatron example - for megalomania there is A God Am I, for threacherousness we have Chronic Backstabbing Disorder, and if you wanna call him out on doing unjustified evil things, or acting like a cartoon villain at the same time, you can, but those are two other tropes.

(For the Editz!:)

That's where the minefield's hidden: how do we distinguish between them?

We don't. If there is no reason given, there is no reason given, and that's what put in the description of the trope. Simple as that. Everything else is Alternate Character Interpretation and not our place to decide.

I mean, we don't keep all villains a single trope just because Your Mileage May Vary either. We just don't take sides.

edited 14th Sep '10 10:07:43 AM by Vree

I always interpreted this one as "Doing/Being evil for the hell of it."

^^ I dunno, it sounds more like there's a new trope hidden in there, maybe a subtrope of For the Evulz. Maybe something like Inscrutable Villain, a villain whose motives are deliberately left unrevealed to the audience?

Thinking further on it, it seems like For the Evulz could be a major trope, and then the two subtropes would be Card-Carrying Villain ("I'm evil because I'm a villain, mwuhaha!") and something like Inscrutable Villain (where the villain's evil and there's a deliberate lack of explanation for why).

But then you still get grey areas like Smith from The Matrix movies, the poster boy of For the Evulz. Rightly so, too, but his motivation does come from a maturely presented philosophy of nihilism, so... yeah.

edited 14th Sep '10 10:16:17 AM by BritBllt

There are examples that could cover both depending on how you view the charecter. Like Agent Smith from The Matrix.

Rawr @ ninja edit.

edited 14th Sep '10 10:20:30 AM by Raso

To me, this trope is about villains who are Evil without any kind of overarching motivation. They aren't out to force a delusionary agenda, make the world a "better" place, or redress their suffering. Within this definition, a wide variety of villains are possible, from those who have no defined motive at all to those who are explicitly in it for the kicks.

When I think about it, though, the "undefined motive" villains may not really qualify under the precise definition of For the Evulz. You can certainly infer motivation from behavior to a certain degree, but I don't see that Skeletor necessarily qualifies just because he's a Card-Carrying Villain without any defined rationale for his actions. Lazy (or kid-friendly) writing doesn't confer For the Evulz chops; it just makes for a one-dimensional villain.

But that's making value judgements on the trope, and Tropes Aretools. If two villains call themselves evil and say they're doing stuff for that reason, how can we say that one of them counts because he's in a critically acclaimed story for adults, and the other doesn't because he's in a merchandise-driven Saturday morning cartoon for kids? The trope isn't a statement on how well the villain's written, just on the motive; I think this demonstrates how flexible tropes are, how the same idea can be used to such drastically different effect depending on the story.

edited 14th Sep '10 11:57:02 AM by BritBllt

The line of "bad writing" villain vs this trope though is pretty subjective fanboys love seeing the best out of a charecter.

^ Yep, that too. Take a diehard fan, tell him that his favorite villain isn't For the Evulz, he's just one dimensional, and get ready for a torrent of justifications for how we're just not getting the nuance of the character. Alternately, such a judgement on the writing opens the doors for a hatedom attacking villains based on whether they're sufficiently "justified" as For the Evulz by the writing.

Well, does Skeletor ever have a motive addressed by the cartoon? I'm not proposing a "bad writing" vs. "good writing" distinction, I'm proposing a "defined motive" vs. "undefined motive" distinction.

Anyway, if it comes down to it, I'd be just as happy to leave the page alone. I'm just playing along with the discussion.

Standard "rule the universe" stuff if I remember it right, but I picked him over Megatron (the first example) because he actually talked about being "evil", whereas Megatron might concievably think he's the best one for the job. I totally agree it's a one-dimensional portrait meant to make his villainy relatable to kids, but I think it's the same basic trope as the Joker in The Dark Knight or Johan in Monster. It's just broken down to a very simple, kid-friendly level.

There's surely an even better kiddy example of a For the Evulz villain out there, someone who doesn't even have a trace of ambition to justify his villainy, but my brain's not coming up with anything.

edited 14th Sep '10 12:06:47 PM by BritBllt

Let's see Bowser from Mario Bros sometimes comes across like this.

EDIT :Maybe not

let's see.... I really can't think of one

edited 14th Sep '10 12:21:38 PM by Raso

I think Skelletor was one of the long line of villains with Take Over the World as their goal set. I always mentally paired For the Evulz as the in-universe reason for Kick the Dog.

Hmm, it's actually rather interesting - Take Over the World acts like it's a motivation in and of itself and makes no mention of For the Evulz. It's hard to imagine both motivations in a serious villain; for comedy you get folks like Xykon who have Take Over the World as a goal more out of an obligation to Card Carrying Villainy than any real desire to run things.

edited 14th Sep '10 1:33:08 PM by Fighteer

Hm, I'd say anyone who wants to rule the world because it means more defenseless victims would count as both. On the literary side, the Inner Party of Oceania in Nineteen Eighty Four is in it for For the Evulz: they want power, but the only thing they do with their power is hurt and oppress people, not as a side effect of incompetence, but as an intentional, sadistic end in itself. On the, erm, not quite so literary side, Freddy Krueger from the Nightmare On Elm Street series has aimed for world domination at times, and he's definitely doing it simply because he wants more victims. I'd almost soft divide Take Over the World between the villains who are in it strictly for themselves, and Knight Templars and Well Intentioned Extremists who believe that they can do a better job of it.

Or I would if it weren't for all the villains who don't have any idea what they're going to do once they've won.

edited 14th Sep '10 2:30:40 PM by BritBllt

OP: I'm pretty dang sure that it's number two.

I don't think Loves the Sound of Screaming really covers the whole spectrum of people who are evil for the sake of being evil and/or for fun; sometimes it's just amusing for some people to be "bad" on a level that transcends mere sadism. For that matter, I don't think Always Chaotic Evil races are necessarily For the Lulz types; some (D&D Devils, for instance, especially the older and craftier ones) have a shared ideology that they want to impose on the world, and that ideology happens to be evil by everyone else's standards.

^^^ I rather thought that the Party in 1984 was in it for the power, and hurt people only to that end. That's why they don't do anything else with the power; the power is their goal, so it's not a tool for anything else.

Or maybe not. Never mind. (Isn't there a "delete post" option?)

edited 8th Jan '11 5:33:39 AM by VVK

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