I absolutely loved that line out of Nox. My fav villains are the ones that acknowledge they had the option to not be evil. It lends a sense of futility to their actions that makes them sympathetic imo.
My goal is to make enough money as an attorney to later support my intention to help complete particle physics as a serious hobby. I suppose the attorney portion could be potentially the evil part since I will be taking advantage.
While I don't think he'd do well as a teacher, and also it pays awfully so I wouldn't want him to try, I find him incredibly inspirational in his approach to fiction and people in general.
fans of media are often better at explaining media than academics are. you find this trait particularly in philosophy and in writing. the reason is because the academic gets lost in jargon and explaining the intricacy of their personal focus on a very minor aspect of the work, while the fan goes "you see how the villain didn't die? that sucked, they should have died."
@@targitausrithux2320 While of course that's bad to some extent, it's not like it's uncommon for people to inject bias in what they write. It doesn't make it invalid, but it's just that, a perspective. Be careful of confirmation bias. Just because you THINK something is wrong, doesn't mean IT IS wrong. Back up what you say.
The title says "Let's gripe about villains" The video is "Let's have a short lived existential crisis" Jokes aside, great piece. Got my grey matter working and it will surely get me to do some rewriting.
i tried and failed to make it through wakfu. honestly Nox was the only character i liked in that show, which is a shame because the others have a lot of potential. im glad i got to hear the rest of his story here
Why does this give me a weird feeling of listening to the HP lovecraft audiobooks again, now I want plague to read me the shadow over innsmouth while he draws me weirdly sexy cthulu.
Except Castle in the Sky, where Moska the creepy government man is the villian. Such a terribly underrated movie. Also, the Nausicaa manga had a few villians here and there, especially the High Priest and later Emperor of Dorok.
I wish I could give this video more than one like. I never would’ve given Wakfu a second look, let alone realize how great of a villain it apparently had. Plague saying the line “Nox wins” literally gave me goosebumps I run D&D games for my group of friends and lemme tell you, I am inspired and am definitely taking notes
Some lessons are taught early because they're that basic. When someone mocks fundamental lessons in education... Well, he who is taught only by himself, has a fool for a master.
Cool video plague. That Nox character is probably the most interesting villain backstory i've come across. Crazy how cool characters and concepts like that might go entirely unnoticed because they appear in an obscure french cartoon.
FINALLY someone is talking about the glory and greatness that is Nox's character in Wakfu :) I'm so glad that the character that mostly inspired me to write compelling stories in the future is being discussed and i'm glad it's on this channel Here's a like from France
what i love pointing out, was if he had succeeded fully succeeded and returned and been a normal father to his family...someone else would have found the cube, such is the way of objects with a Cthulhuian purpose, no matter how many times you can reweave the time line the who what where when and how it would be used could all be changed but in the end the cube will always be found, if you think of time as a tree as i prefer to because i love Yggdrasil comparisons you can change what the tree consists of, what color it is, the size of its dimentions/weight etc, the number of branches length of branches, and up to a near unlimited ammount of aspects about said tree but in the end the tree will always come from a seed, certain events in all possible timelines still occur as if set in stone
@@thunderborn3231 I think the more compelling thought is that even if if he had "succeeded", Nox would still lose. Remember that those inside the Cube's presence remember the time reversal, Nox's psyche would still be that of a man who spent 200 years committing atrocities and then watching them all over again in reverse. He would be at best a changed man and practical stranger to his family and at worst gone completely insane anyways.
He's only a villain because his ideals didn't pan out. Imagine if the powers of friendship, feelings, and willpower failed in a shonen, wouldn't that lead to some interesting villains?
To be fair, gods can be wrong in that universe, and he WAS right about being able to travel backwards in time. Its just that the amount of energy needed, and the resulting multiple mass genocides broke him and the front he put up. I mean it sounded flawless. commit horrible deeds, travel backwards in time, and prevent the event that kickstarted everything from ever happening so that he would never do those horrible deeds is a great plan. IF it had worked.
@@RohanSpartin Except it's not a "flawless" line of logic. To interject a bit of real-world concept into this, which I think is fine given the type of video this is and how it evaluates the concept of villains from real-world moral judgements, going back in time and preventing something from occuring would eliminate the reason(s) behind a character or group of characters *wanting* to go back in time to prevent said event in the first place. That would mean that the event would be able to occur as it originally did. This is what is called a "Time Paradox". The best that Nox could've hoped for is that his actions would have created an alternate timeline where the event he went back in time to stop didn't happen. However, the history of his reality's timeline would have to remain the same, and all the atrocities he had to commit in order to achieve his goal, likewise, would've had to have happened. The real tragedy of Nox's journey is the *absolute* futility in it.
@@MontySlythonalso ,I don't remember if he say it in the video,but wakfu is based on dofus which was the most played MMO in france. I thing that in term of popularity and context you can compare it to runescape,so you imagine the love this show got when it was airing
If it makes you feel any better, that episode was non-canon fan fiction written by the studio that animated it. The most we know about his wife was his depiction of her in that puppet show toward the end of Season 1. We don’t actually know what killed Nox’s family or if he was even responsible.
Immortalise yourself in a popular UA-cam video preferably a song or meme then watch as people comment what year they are watching it in for eons to come.
Imagine, some day aliens will be shitposting like that on the super internet under the inevitable dominion of humanity. I just wish I could be alive to see it.
@@someguy4405 Pretty much. The animation quality is very though, but the story is pretty standard kids stuff. If anyone watches it, just watch the episodes featuring the main villains since if there is ONE thing the studio behind this can do extremely well (besides the animation quality) it's writing really really good villains. They're cool, they're a major threat whenever they show up, and none of them are shallow or two dimensional. Season 1 Villain: See the video. Season 2: Silver tongued master manipulator whose entire plan on the surface is "Lets genocide an entire planet for fun because I'm bored of it and want to go to a new planet". Turns out he's completely immortal and continues to be reborn amongst his race with all his memories of his past lives intact while nobody else of his race does so (There are other immortals who can reincarnate like him, but they lose their memories between lives) He just wants to die forever but can't, his friends and loved ones will never remember him between life cycles, he has literally seen it all and done it all MULTIPLE times. Existence for him became dull and predictable long, long ago, so he plunged his race into a war with some space robot-bug things to get them to develop space travel just so he'd have something new to experience. Eventually they found him out one cycle and locked him in a blank, white, timeless pocket dimension inside Nox's Eliacube, where he went even MORE insane. Season 3: Mysterious magic owl man assembles a team of bastard demigod children and plans to usurp the actual gods of the setting and install themselves as the new gods of the world because he believes that their creators are a bunch of do-nothings who fuck with mortals and then leave everyone to clean up the mess they make. Turns out he's actually a future time-cloned version of the main character, accidentally created when the main character misused a bunch of magic macguffins to beat the final boss of a miniseries special preceding season 3. Apparently he created MULTIPLE time clones of himself that all inevitably ended up dying horrible deaths by being absorbed into their later selves once they hit the point in time the later self would exist. The villain of this season knows his ticket is going to be up sooner rather than later, considers the main character his creator/god (Who doesn't even know he created him because he hasn't experienced the point in time he would have been him and known what his future time clone self knows yet) and thus aims to usurp the gods both partially for his stated reasons but mainly to avoid his fated death. Similar to Nox in his goals, and also like Nox he also ultimately succeeds in his goals, in a fashion, except his plan ends up collapsing the entire universe into a singularity whilet he main cast just barely escapes the total annihilation of the universe by winding up in heaven, or the Realm of the Gods and leaves it on a cliffhangar there. Actually, season 3 I thought was honestly REALLY well written compared the previous seasons. They tackle a lot more mature themes consistently and the main villain gets way more consistent screen time compared to the first two seasons. They definitely hit that delicate balance of having something for everyone to enjoy in season 3, although younger audiences will probably have a lot of the story fly over their heads, especially the somewhat sexual innuendo in the background. Seriously, one of the big issues between the two main characters is how the main-main character ages super slowly compared to everyone else and his love interest wants to be with him but he might end up spending the next 100 years in his current childlike state, and he repeatedly states he can't really return her physical affections since he hasn't actually reached the point where he can even FEEL physically attracted to anyone. Further complicated by the fact that his evil Future Self IS fully grown and is totally jacked and awesome and also still has the same feelings his past self has for the love interest. TL;DR Seasons 1 and 2 just watch the episodes with the villains or the ANIME FIGHTAN', Season 3 is kinda all over the place like PoG said but is actually watchable start to finish and has exceptionally good ANIME FIGHTS.
Okay, so I just gotta say a few things right off the bat: Firstly, the moment you started introducing fundamental concepts of altruism, egoism, and ethical philosophy in general, I was grinning cheek-to-cheek. The finest armchair philosophy that I've heard in quite some time!! If we were ever friends in some separate, distant timeline, I would be honored to enjoy a fine glass and pipe with you while exchanging the different ideas of how morals have been constructed from a naturalist's and evolutionary standpoint. Second, your analysis of The Shining and how people project their insecurities onto others aka "villains" makes me want to rewatch this movie while thinking in this new mindset. It's a breath of fresh air hearing a new perspective on one of my favorite Kubrick movies (my most favorite being 2001), and of course Scatman Crothers is an absolute g. Third, I'll forever refer to french anime-style cartoons as oui-a-boo animation. Fourth, Nox's motivation to take back all the evil he has ever inflicted by "becoming evil" is a BEAUTIFUL moral dilemma I have never thought of. A utilitarian would agree with this sentiment, because the end is justified by creating a world of peace and harmony. However, a deontologist would objectify and claim any "evil", especially the destruction of life, regardless of the good consequences, is unjustified and thus undesirable. This right here is the BASIS of a great moral debate. So spicy~ This is a fucking fantastic analysis, so PLEASE keep this up!! I'm very much looking forward to your next work.
The tale of Nox is actually way worst than that but in order to explain I need to give some backstory. Wakfu, the anime, was based on an MMORPG of the same name, previous to Wakfu, Ankama (the developers of the game and the creators of the series) created a similar MMORPG named Dofus, the difference between the two is the timelines, Wakfu happens after an event know as the Ogrest's Chaos, in which Ogrest, feeling an enormous pain, sadness and anger, shred so many tear he flooded the world, killing countless people in the process, the event in which Nox lost his family was this one, the emphasis of how dangerous Ogrest is everywhere in the game, from the moment you create your first character the very first quest you get is one that lead you to climb Mount Zinit, Ogrest's lair, and slay Ogrest, this quest is one that starts since Lv1 and can be only completed once the player reaches Lv200, the maximum level, so Nox wanted to use the cube to go back in time and kill Ogrest in which, if he was successful, would make him the legendary hero that defeated Ogrest and prevented the death of countless people, so not only would all the murders he commit be forgiven, he would also save the world. What also makes this even sad is that, during the fight with Yugo, they actually managed to go back in time, in the background, the giant figure is Ogrest himself before the event, Yugo event noticed him before Nox killed him, but Nox was so short-sighted in completing his mission that he just didn't noticed, in the end, his commitment to his goal is what made him lose his opportunity to save his family, the same way that his commitment to understanding the cube was what made him lose them in the first place, it's poetic in a way and once you understand all this it's clear why Nox was, for me at least, the star of the show. As a Xelor main in the game, it's debatable that Nox is the strongest Xelor in the world, followed by Count Harebourg, just by the fact that he managed to do what the god of time and space himself couldn't, even if it was just for 20 minutes.
Thanks for writting this I never understood what was that monster Yugo saw. This is even more sad because Nox, blind because of his eagerness of beating Yugo he didn't even notice he had achieved what he wanted. That's ironic because he wanted to beat Yugo for reaching his goal. And that is never explained anywhere so good eye dude.
Two things. 1) he didn't want to kill Ogrest, merely stop himself from finding the cube. Thus preventing his family leaving and dying in the flood. 2) Yugo and Nox did not go back in time. They warped to Ogrest's location in the present.
...After having a glass of warm milk and doing about twenty minutes of stretches before going to bed, I usually have no problems sleeping until morning...
One of my favorite self made villans is a character from breath of fire 4. Fou-lou is an immortal dragon emperor that in his time period was worshiped all around the world and unlike most rulers wasn't horrible about it, he was very indifferent to his subjects and not in a vindictive way but in a way where you can see a tree or wildlife out in a forest. Yest it's beutiful sometimes endearing but ultimately it's just apart of life. Fou-lu wakes up a thousand years later to a made up prophecy about fou going to be the end of the world, while he almost had the power to do so, he didn't have the interest and would try to avoid attacking people as often as he could. His subjects would set whole forest on fire, summon beast to fight him and so on yet he stayed his hand. During one bout he got injured by a fire spell (he's an ice dragon so fire being nearby is like kyptonite for him for some reason) and ends up floating downstream and is found by a hick villager with a bell in her hair named mami. Despite the name she's kinda hot, and a budding romance between them starts, to the point fou is having second thoughts of leaving. Well we can't have nice things now can we? the generic ugly jealous landlord calls the capital army, people looking for fou and mami scarifices herself to stall them, hell the whole village does. Now would be a good time to bring up the [hex machine] so the hex machine is basically a magic nuke but it comes with a shitty side effect of not only killing almost everything nearby but the animals just outside the blast radius and the shockwave blast get to be turned into horrible monsters and some humans will also mutant into horrible abominations and even spirits and other demon like things will spring up from this. And the tyrant capital has this in their hands, but the really fucked up thing is: It requires a human soul to shoot. the resulting human becomes the hex (Imagine being atomized I bet it's painful). So back to fou-lu he's being beckoned by the villagers to go while they distract the guards, and fou questions why they would defend him when their lives are in danger, see he's been constantly hunted from the start so his trust was wavering and now he's got a whole village looking out for him. So he flees, trying to get to the capital first through secrent catacombs so he could take over again and stop this madness, not knowing they took mami...Or that they have a summon creature only one but the monster can teleport them. So fou is in the forest and he runs into an animal which was a prior boss battle/ (I kinda glossed over that) see fou fought this creature cause it was attacking the village and affected by the hex as well and wandered on over. Fou somehow beat the evil out of it and made it better. (fuck if I know) So he finds the enterence to the catacombs but it's been taken over by deamons in the past millenia and they don't want to open up without scarifice, fou refuses to kill anyone but the animal monster thing does a strange thing. It rams into the alter repeatedly much to fou's surprise and he even tries to stop it before it crumbs and the pathway opens, he questions why do all these creatures and people have so much faith in him that they'll give up their own lives for him. He's had enough and trenges on through to slay the demon and get across the tunnels to the capital, and as soon as he's out we find out what happened to mami. She's tried up and in the hex machine and she's going to be used, fou IS on the other side but the blast will still wipe her small village off the map, and she knows this, the screen goes black and you hear her bell jingle. Fou comes out on the other side and notices a bit too late that a hex is coming, ad it hits him square on, unfortunate for the capital it doesn't kill this god dragon, and we see the center of the hex, trees are destoyed, lakes dried and fish rendered to skeletons, birds either fall down dead or cough up bile and trasnform, ghost flies by and blue fire is everywhere. Fou is disguested by the hex and wonders why all this effort to destroy him, are humans THIS horrid? Then something lands infront of him with a jingle, it's mami's bell and through passing fou knows what this means and starts laughing like a mad man, he's finally broken and thus becomes the villan that the capital made him out to be.
@@noodleexpanding3407 You didn't even have punctuation. Keep that limp noodle un-expanded, thanks. Also, if that's too long for you to read, I feel sorry for what little grey matter you have.
@@Kayriel Wow look who's triggered. I'm fine with reading long stuff, but not long stuff that is also packed with misspelling. At that point I'm just wasting my brain cells.
I like the phrase "good and evil are limber concepts". It's a clever way of avoiding saying "relative" which may imply that they don't matter and/or there is no such thing as good and evil. Good and evil still exist and aren't simply "relative" to whatever context is present at the moment, but saying they are "limber" asserts that they're flexible enough to be applied to whatever you need them to, but leaves open the possibility that your application of those ideas maybe incorrect depending on how far you've exploited their flexibility.
No furries in the thumbnail? Plague I'm worried about you. Edit: Wow that was a really inspiring video, I love this sort of topic! I'm a sucker for a tragic villain
Me: **See Plague video** . Must be funny satirical video **Is actually an incredibly in-depth analysis into fictional villains** They had us in the first half, not gonna lie.
The Nox (sp?) character analysis was great. I never would have even known about this character, because I'd likely never watch the series. I'm always trying to improve my writing, and your Let's Gripe videos always offer something to consider and build on.
Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise? I thought not. It's not a story the Jedi would tell you. It's a Sith legend. Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith, so powerful and so wise he could use the Force to influence the midichlorians to create life... He had such a knowledge of the dark side that he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying. The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural. He became so powerful... the only thing he was afraid of was losing his power, which eventually, of course, he did. Unfortunately, he taught his apprentice everything he knew, then his apprentice killed him in his sleep. Ironic, he could save others from death, but not himself.
I really appreciate you talking about Nox's story. It really is one of my favorites of all time. You did a fantastic job with this vid, the format is also really great. I encourage you to keep at it.
The stuff about Nox's character traits being amplified to the point of villainy reminds me a lot of how LISA the Painful and LISA the Joyful treat its protagonists, who are also pretty much villains in their own right.
Plague, Eli. My dude. These are the kinda videos that you were made to do. You channel all of the thoughtfulness you muster for your Let's Plagues and both intensify your focus and narrow your scope. This was an immensely enjoyable watch. I know your true love will always be borderline furry porn, but please consider making more of these dude.
Kofi Smith definitely, especially because they are not nearly as susceptible to having a milk-toast morality. You can actually experiment a bit with ideologies with consequences.
@@midshipman8654 i think its more that people love villains because their written as actual human beings rather then having the moral disposition of a 4 year old
@@midshipman8654 i've recently been keeping up with the one punch man web comic and garous story is amazing because he wants to become to ultimate monster so all of humanity will unite against him in a utopia like society saving the 'unwanted' of society from harassment based on their differences
thunderborn 32 I think that’s relatively novel ground, while others have definitely done similar stuff, like the first half of 00 Gundam. Although, imho it seems like kinda an unsubstantiated position. People don’t always band together against a great opposition and doesn’t take into account the complexities of social interactions. I guess it might be ok for a megalomaniacal force, but I don’t know if it would be quite as compelling as a more relatable/reasonably motivation like the villains in the video above.
@@midshipman8654 true, but its compelling to see someone so enthralled by their ideology only to have it thwarted by a guy whose entire reason for beating him was you wont turn down your radio at night when i try to sleep
This video is sooooo underrated. There was so MUCH put into it, I'm sorry it didn't got nearly the same views as other similar "let's talk about X" videos. Fuck, I hadn't ever given a crap about Wakfu and you managed in 5 minutes to make Nox my favorite villain ever, I absolutely adore that character story.
Banderi there’s so many cool stories out there to discover. My favorite protagonist is Guts from Berserk, an old show with admittedly not so great animations but his character development is well made.
..I kinda want a Plague/Shädman crossover. Anyone who's heard him on Sleepycabin knows he also has a depth that reflects his art. What better villain than Shäd? Another corrupter of innocence.
Sippin' on that existential juice in that first five minutes I see. For real though, great video, Plague. Nox is a fantastic villain, because you know a villain leaves an impact when by the end of the series, you almost feel crushed for them, their failure, and their demise. Meruem from Hunter x Hunter is a really good example of that too.
This is pretty damn great. As someone who likes to think about characters and motivation for game projects, this got the creative juices flowing, as well as making me reflect on previous "big bad" villains both I or the team thought up. I'll be recommending this to devs I know if/when they're looking at creating characters. Also the "Let's Gripe" videos are some of my all-time favourite vids on UA-cam to watch.
Five minutes into the commentary and I’m blown away by how great it is so far. You teach us such great modern lessons on life and art that doesn’t exist anywhere else.
I love your gripe videos, whatever they focus on. It's so fun to hear your insight on certain topics and your apathetic sense of humor, it's strangely comforting to listen to.
Thank you, sincerely, I appreciated the insight and meaning this gave me. This feels like a much more practical approach to deconstruction of characters that will assist me in the future, as well as given me another great lens to view myself and others through. In the future, if you're thinking of it, I wonder if using this lens of viewing villains as more complex people could be applied to 'heroes" as it were, or better extrapolated to people as a whole. Also astounding work on the prelude, nice work.
This is one of my go to listens. Have the audio saved to my phone and when I'm at a lost what I want to hear while walking or working, I'll play it again. Great piece of work.
I thoroughly enjoyed this essay. It was less of a gripe about villains and more of an insight into a particular writer's understanding of the purpose of villains, heroes, or just the characters we choose to become in life.
honestly plague you are a really good critic, and your video essays have taught me a lot about writing and narrative construction. I've watched the naruto one like a dozen times.
Sometimes you see a video where you hit the like button after the first minute, and during the video get the urge to hit it again and again, only to realize you've already done so. This is one such video.
As always I appreciate your constructed, critical thought and entertaining presentation :) I feel inspired to bring more depth to my various characters, and have been writing for like an hour after watching this.
Okay wtf is this...this is such an AMAZING video, I go to your channel expecting to see similar high-end literary analysis on character tropes, fiction etc. and this is literally the only thing you have...and its better than 85% of other channels that do this style of video for a living. I really hope this is not a one time thing and you keep doing "Let's Gripe about X" videos. Amazing commentary, amazing editing and music. Keep it UP.
This is honestly my favorite video of yours. I feel inspired to write better motivations for my villains. I wonder if it's possible for you to write a video essay on heroes that carries the same insight.
So before Plague even started talking about wakfu a show i know nothing about i saw that villain and thought "I bet that robot dood was the one Woolie mentioned that Plague told him when talking about a villain who needs to complete their goal in order to fix everything and pleads to the hero to just let me win tho i can fix everything if i win"
@@Tiggy110 it was in one of the last few Castlesuperbeast casts sorry I don't recall the exact number... maybe in the week before this video dropped since that anecdote was still fresh in my head when watching this.
Reminds me of Walter White of Light Yagami. The traits that made them an asshole were always there, they just had a little push that sent them down a rabbit hole they never got out of.
This was a terrific video, Eli. In my opinion, it's one of your best. If I can ask a few questions, both for Eli and everyone else: 1) Why don't you write, Eli? 2) As someone who recently watched Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable, why is Kira considered a top-tier villain? It's interesting that he just wants a quiet life, one that involves him being free from societal morals because he enjoys taking girls' hands on dinner dates. But what I find dull is that he "just is." That's what I find lacks in Araki's characters in Part 3 and 4. There's no reasoning behind why they're the way they are; they just are. Dio at least has that development in Part 1 where he's made up his mind that he will destroy anyone he has to to become powerful, stemming from either his terrible upbringing or perhaps being born evil. It's left up to the reader/ viewer. Kira is simply "I want to live life my way. I hate defending my actions, but I will if it comes to it," which is fine, but there's no nuance or development there.
Honestly, this was more engaging than any lecture or lesson I've ever participated in. The entire video was genuinely thought-provoking. Thank you for the great content :)
Would you please make more of these. I am aspiring to draw/write comics and your viewpoints are beyond helpful at keeping myself from pigeonholing myself
Whenever I listen to a 'Lets Gripe', I always come away feeling better. More calm. More relaxed. The mechanics of something are laid bare to me and I see how it all fits together, how it all moves independently and co-dependently on one another. Thank you, Eli.
Eli, you okay my Dude? You're acting more black-pilled than usual... Did you lose your Delphox body pillow? Is Toei Animation taking a dump on Tien again?
@@StarboyXL9 I think it's less that men lost their thirst and more that we have super easy access to porn and also it can be a gamble to approach women in public now since anything you say or do can be labeled as creepy/rape and thus make men a target of being ostracized or imprisoned/sued. Society still unfortunately seems to take a woman's claims of harassment as 100% truth with no need for further investigation more often than not. Which is not a big dump on women, they've got their own problems too, and to be fair the further back in time you go, the more often men's behavior towards them when it came to expressing romantic or sexual interest gets increasingly rapey and creepy by todays standards.
"it can be a gamble to approach women in public now since anything you say or do can be labeled as creepy/rape and thus make men a target of being ostracized or imprisoned/sued." This may as well be from a manifesto of some retarded school shooter for all that it has in touch with reality. "Anything you say or do", huh? What, so some dude going up to a woman and asking her for directions somewhere is gonna get the cops called on him? Get off that bullshit. Harassment claims, especially ones that occur in public, don't arise from a man just being innocent and doing the furthest possible thing from harassment. Where there is smoke, there is fire. Yes, false claims exist, and more often than not, they're investigated and discovered to be false. The notion that there is "no need for further investigation" is horseshit. The only thing that really needs to change is a harsher punishment for knowingly making false claims.
@@MisterZimbabwe It's amazing how men who are the least likely to ever talk to women in a meaningful manner seem to have such vast knowledge about how conversations between men and women go.
Since I’m sick and bedridden today, I did listen to the whole thing. Very good narrative, Eli. I hope that Joker origin film brings us a great character piece to explore the hidden Joker that quietly chuckles within us all.
Always loved the villain in Tales of Phantasia. After seeing how many parallels he draws to Nox, the reasons why I liked him just come so much more into focus after watching this A great video, some actual thought provoking commentary and a good way to spend half an hour, cheers dood
"And, there is one blazzing moment in which you finally understand... that there was no Dragon. There was no Vader. There was only you. Only Anakin Skywalker. That... it was all you. IS you. ONLY you. You killed her. You killed her because... when you could have saved her, when you could have run away with her... when you SHOULD have been thinking about her... you were thinking about YOURSELF." Star Wars. Revenge of the Sith novelization. A good tragic villain is, in my opinion, not the one who can blame his or her tragedy entirely in external sources (like The Cube, or the Dark Side of the Force), but that is, ultimately, responsible for the tragedy that turned them into monsters.
I'm French and WAKFU was on TV every morning when I was in High-school. I never thought there were so much potential in this cartoon. Thanks for this video, man ;)
"We all need someone to embody change. An antagonist." Yes isn't it great to be in a position where the agents of change are the antagonists, rather than the agents of the status quo [stares at camera]
Oh crap!! You and I are among the few that actually watched Wakfu!! Damn at this point, your subscription is earned...and to think I subscribed because you dared the viewers in another video to NOT subscribe to you.
You know, looking back on a number of these essay or deep talk videos of yours I must say that this one is my favorite. I stand by the notion that while life is ultimately meaningless, it's only so in the future. The present has the meaning we can give it, and that it truly matters. The past is the past and has lessons we can learn from it. The future gives us the forethought to imagine what may come and a time limit. But the present is where everything happens and everything from the smallest happiness of enjoying a good minute in a bad day to the most wonderful evening spent revealing in the high of life has meaning. And, of course, the same is for the opposite as experiencing the awful has meaning as well. It's an positive outlook on life, I feel, because I don't think that history is driven by pain and evil or at the very least solely by it. This view may be in opposition to the one given in the beginning of the video, but I feel like the concept of the villain has the same importance as you described it. Villains can be the ultimate expression of change but also of stagnation. The intent may or may not be evil, but in actions tell the story. The difference between being an antagonist and being a villain is that the villain's actions are evil, or at least the results of those actions are. This is why I enjoy this video very much. It goes down to how a villain works. What makes it work as a device in fiction. I do hope we will see more these styles of videos from you, as at the very least it feels like you enjoy doing these deep dives into topics such as these.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
![Power Levels are Stupid [DBG #2]](/img/n.gif)
"If I succeed, I did nothing wrong. And if I fail, I don't want to live anyway"
I absolutely loved that line out of Nox. My fav villains are the ones that acknowledge they had the option to not be evil. It lends a sense of futility to their actions that makes them sympathetic imo.
That's basically Joseph Stalin's perspective.
@@Liberator130 "If I murder a hundred million innocent people and pretend it was america's fault, then nobody will blame me!"
@@Liberator130 Commie apologists need to just fucking die.
@@MrVlogman101 now now, no need for name calling here
Plague monologuing to the captured police in his "shed"
Also the Intro to the video is just a more soft-spoken version of the Animation your Icon is from....
Showing him his "Tri-fusions"
@@iller3 Which animation is it ?
My goal is to make enough money as an attorney to later support my intention to help complete particle physics as a serious hobby.
I suppose the attorney portion could be potentially the evil part since I will be taking advantage.
@@nosey2658
Do the evolution.
"The risk I took was calculated, but man, I am bad at math."
-Nox
Hello, doge.
did he say that after going back in time 20 minutes lmao
Actually he was right,Oropo just screwed him at the last second.
Get better at math then.
I'll admit it. You have made more sense to me in thirty minutes than four years of College English classes ever did. Thanks man.
While I don't think he'd do well as a teacher, and also it pays awfully so I wouldn't want him to try, I find him incredibly inspirational in his approach to fiction and people in general.
fans of media are often better at explaining media than academics are. you find this trait particularly in philosophy and in writing. the reason is because the academic gets lost in jargon and explaining the intricacy of their personal focus on a very minor aspect of the work, while the fan goes "you see how the villain didn't die? that sucked, they should have died."
Yal Rathol
I can account for this with my history teacher focusing a lot of native Americans plight through the period of the civil war to present day
FOUR YEARS?! You need to get a refund, friend.
@@targitausrithux2320 While of course that's bad to some extent, it's not like it's uncommon for people to inject bias in what they write. It doesn't make it invalid, but it's just that, a perspective. Be careful of confirmation bias. Just because you THINK something is wrong, doesn't mean IT IS wrong. Back up what you say.
"Evil and good are rather... limber concepts."
- Eli, as the police are looking through his hard drives
"No officer! I have no idea how that got on there!"
"P-Please officer! My Patrons are the real villains here not me! They paid me to do this!"
Two Star Players The cops would never reach his hard drives. That's why he built a fence after all
“Evil is a point of view, Anakin.”
While holding a giant purple dildo-bat ready to defend his glory
The title says "Let's gripe about villains"
The video is "Let's have a short lived existential crisis"
Jokes aside, great piece. Got my grey matter working and it will surely get me to do some rewriting.
I like that the intro to the video almost works as Eli's own villain monologue.
What do you mean 'almost' ?
Is Eli going to kill everyone.
who is eli
@@themlgdinosaur1296 An old farmer who hordes all the hot Eldritch women to himself.
@@EstukoV who
Eli: "And he DOES reverse time... by 20 minutes."
Me: "HA!"
Part of me was hoping he'd include the video/audio, of Nox freaking out and breaking down about that very fact.
i tried and failed to make it through wakfu. honestly Nox was the only character i liked in that show, which is a shame because the others have a lot of potential. im glad i got to hear the rest of his story here
Immediately made me think of the climax to Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time, which did something very similar on the heroes' part.
20
measly
Minutes
ngl I almost cried at that
Ill reiterate here, if this new format of production suits, I highly encourage pursuing it more of it consistently. Great vid.
Its not even new tho.
He should do a video essay on Moby Dick, so I don't have to read it. The book is almost as long as the list of innuendos in it.
Strong disagree, the tone of this video is absurd and self important.
@@cokesucker9520 I take it you haven't been watching Plague for long? Thats kinda his schtick for his gripes.
@@cokesucker9520 Eli's cynicism gets to be a bit much for me at times, but I always enjoy it when he shows off his writing chops.
Why does this give me a weird feeling of listening to the HP lovecraft audiobooks again, now I want plague to read me the shadow over innsmouth while he draws me weirdly sexy cthulu.
That would be awesome
*This made me realize*
Most Ghibli Films have conflicts but doesn't really have a Villain
Duchi I recently started watching these movie and i have come out wondering what the characters were fighting besides the conflict itself
The only one was "Castle in the Sky" I think, but yeah Gibli was always good with making antagonists rather than villains.
Except Castle in the Sky, where Moska the creepy government man is the villian.
Such a terribly underrated movie.
Also, the Nausicaa manga had a few villians here and there, especially the High Priest and later Emperor of Dorok.
Most movies don't have an obvious antagonistic force. Sometimes even the heroes themselves turn into villains for moments during the movies.
@@nimboss Like in The Founder
All that work, all that effort. Proving a literal god wrong, only to *still* fail completely. Now that's amazing.
Eli: Eli go something something.
Pat: Go crazy?
Eli: Don't mind if I do!
"Gimme the Pat, Woolz!"
Arby W.
Why didn’t you just replace Wendy with Woolie? Oh well, haha
@@thepickles8833 Ha ha! Scary can!
the shinning
who is eli
I wish I could give this video more than one like. I never would’ve given Wakfu a second look, let alone realize how great of a villain it apparently had. Plague saying the line “Nox wins” literally gave me goosebumps
I run D&D games for my group of friends and lemme tell you, I am inspired and am definitely taking notes
Same here. I basically repurposed nox's story for the main villain my current campaign. Its a big hit with the players so far.
looool I've been planning on doing this for a while. no original ideas in the world, eh? @@metumortis6323
But Plague, "Themes are for 8th grade book reports." The writers for the Game of Thrones TV show told me so.
Some lessons are taught early because they're that basic. When someone mocks fundamental lessons in education... Well, he who is taught only by himself, has a fool for a master.
Is that an actual quote from them? I honestly wouldn't be surprised at this point
Game of Thrones.. the writers were the villains all along...
@@thepickles8833 I feel like I've been seeing you everywhere lately, but that may just be because I've been watching more ex best friends stuff lately
@@PlagueOfGripes
But wasn't stoicism taught by theirself? Sure Aralius is the best known, but eberything starts ofg as teaching yourself from nothing.
Cool video plague. That Nox character is probably the most interesting villain backstory i've come across. Crazy how cool characters and concepts like that might go entirely unnoticed because they appear in an obscure french cartoon.
Please watch it. It's awesome.
FINALLY someone is talking about the glory and greatness that is Nox's character in Wakfu :)
I'm so glad that the character that mostly inspired me to write compelling stories in the future is being discussed and i'm glad it's on this channel
Here's a like from France
what i love pointing out, was if he had succeeded fully succeeded and returned and been a normal father to his family...someone else would have found the cube, such is the way of objects with a Cthulhuian purpose, no matter how many times you can reweave the time line the who what where when and how it would be used could all be changed but in the end the cube will always be found, if you think of time as a tree as i prefer to because i love Yggdrasil comparisons you can change what the tree consists of, what color it is, the size of its dimentions/weight etc, the number of branches length of branches, and up to a near unlimited ammount of aspects about said tree but in the end the tree will always come from a seed, certain events in all possible timelines still occur as if set in stone
You mean Nox right?
@@legendarymarston9174 yeah, damn autocorrect
Why does your country make such amazing stories?
@@thunderborn3231 I think the more compelling thought is that even if if he had "succeeded", Nox would still lose.
Remember that those inside the Cube's presence remember the time reversal, Nox's psyche would still be that of a man who spent 200 years committing atrocities and then watching them all over again in reverse. He would be at best a changed man and practical stranger to his family and at worst gone completely insane anyways.
I come back to this video a lot because I think it's one of the best lessons on writing a villain ever published.
Damn, Nox from Wakfu is my favorite villain. The dude that just tried to fix everything, but overestimated his capabilities.
He's only a villain because his ideals didn't pan out. Imagine if the powers of friendship, feelings, and willpower failed in a shonen, wouldn't that lead to some interesting villains?
@@Wourghk Isn't that what almost happened with Guts from Berserk?
To be fair, gods can be wrong in that universe, and he WAS right about being able to travel backwards in time. Its just that the amount of energy needed, and the resulting multiple mass genocides broke him and the front he put up. I mean it sounded flawless. commit horrible deeds, travel backwards in time, and prevent the event that kickstarted everything from ever happening so that he would never do those horrible deeds is a great plan. IF it had worked.
@@RohanSpartin Except it's not a "flawless" line of logic.
To interject a bit of real-world concept into this, which I think is fine given the type of video this is and how it evaluates the concept of villains from real-world moral judgements, going back in time and preventing something from occuring would eliminate the reason(s) behind a character or group of characters *wanting* to go back in time to prevent said event in the first place. That would mean that the event would be able to occur as it originally did. This is what is called a "Time Paradox".
The best that Nox could've hoped for is that his actions would have created an alternate timeline where the event he went back in time to stop didn't happen. However, the history of his reality's timeline would have to remain the same, and all the atrocities he had to commit in order to achieve his goal, likewise, would've had to have happened.
The real tragedy of Nox's journey is the *absolute* futility in it.
@@RohanSpartin So he could have done what he set out to do if he had used the energy of about a 100 stars?
My God, Nox is the most tragic character I've ever seen in modern media. Good God, imagine the sheer guilt he felt afterwards.
the best thing is that it's a freaking kid's show . I remember watching the season 1 finaly while eating my breakfast before going to school
@@kyrioz2z834such a good show with such niche popularity
@@MontySlython niche unless your french ,this show is the childhood of a lot of people
@@MontySlythonalso ,I don't remember if he say it in the video,but wakfu is based on dofus which was the most played MMO in france. I thing that in term of popularity and context you can compare it to runescape,so you imagine the love this show got when it was airing
@@kyrioz2z834 I was aware of that, tried to look into it briefly back when I first found the show but saw it as too niche for me lol
Damn, Nox T-posing all over that anime fight.
Can you fucking not?!
@@lukevankleef4245 can you not be a ragekid?
T-Posing like Princess Leiah
Asserting his dominance over space and time
Honestly Nox's greatest crime was ignoring his wife. She was... wowsers.
I mean Nox realized that too and tried to undo it but sucks at math.
@@lmao2302
It's more the fact that he even did it in the first place lol.
C H I L D
B E A R I N G
H I P S
If it makes you feel any better, that episode was non-canon fan fiction written by the studio that animated it. The most we know about his wife was his depiction of her in that puppet show toward the end of Season 1. We don’t actually know what killed Nox’s family or if he was even responsible.
Thicc
Immortalise yourself in a popular UA-cam video preferably a song or meme then watch as people comment what year they are watching it in for eons to come.
Imagine, some day aliens will be shitposting like that on the super internet under the inevitable dominion of humanity.
I just wish I could be alive to see it.
Reading this comment in 2019
@@Sleepless_Sam Upvote if you're watching in [Current Year].
Don't worry he shall be immortalise
Who's reading this in 2020?
This essay should go down as one of the greats on UA-cam.
Fullstop
Just wanted to say: Really good use of music here in this vid
Damn, I never knew Zone-tan was that good a writer. I guess I should really check out this Wak-fu thing of theirs.
how about dem contracts?
Cokemonster
It’s not that good.
@@someguy4405 Pretty much. The animation quality is very though, but the story is pretty standard kids stuff. If anyone watches it, just watch the episodes featuring the main villains since if there is ONE thing the studio behind this can do extremely well (besides the animation quality) it's writing really really good villains. They're cool, they're a major threat whenever they show up, and none of them are shallow or two dimensional.
Season 1 Villain: See the video.
Season 2: Silver tongued master manipulator whose entire plan on the surface is "Lets genocide an entire planet for fun because I'm bored of it and want to go to a new planet". Turns out he's completely immortal and continues to be reborn amongst his race with all his memories of his past lives intact while nobody else of his race does so (There are other immortals who can reincarnate like him, but they lose their memories between lives) He just wants to die forever but can't, his friends and loved ones will never remember him between life cycles, he has literally seen it all and done it all MULTIPLE times. Existence for him became dull and predictable long, long ago, so he plunged his race into a war with some space robot-bug things to get them to develop space travel just so he'd have something new to experience. Eventually they found him out one cycle and locked him in a blank, white, timeless pocket dimension inside Nox's Eliacube, where he went even MORE insane.
Season 3: Mysterious magic owl man assembles a team of bastard demigod children and plans to usurp the actual gods of the setting and install themselves as the new gods of the world because he believes that their creators are a bunch of do-nothings who fuck with mortals and then leave everyone to clean up the mess they make. Turns out he's actually a future time-cloned version of the main character, accidentally created when the main character misused a bunch of magic macguffins to beat the final boss of a miniseries special preceding season 3. Apparently he created MULTIPLE time clones of himself that all inevitably ended up dying horrible deaths by being absorbed into their later selves once they hit the point in time the later self would exist. The villain of this season knows his ticket is going to be up sooner rather than later, considers the main character his creator/god (Who doesn't even know he created him because he hasn't experienced the point in time he would have been him and known what his future time clone self knows yet) and thus aims to usurp the gods both partially for his stated reasons but mainly to avoid his fated death. Similar to Nox in his goals, and also like Nox he also ultimately succeeds in his goals, in a fashion, except his plan ends up collapsing the entire universe into a singularity whilet he main cast just barely escapes the total annihilation of the universe by winding up in heaven, or the Realm of the Gods and leaves it on a cliffhangar there.
Actually, season 3 I thought was honestly REALLY well written compared the previous seasons. They tackle a lot more mature themes consistently and the main villain gets way more consistent screen time compared to the first two seasons. They definitely hit that delicate balance of having something for everyone to enjoy in season 3, although younger audiences will probably have a lot of the story fly over their heads, especially the somewhat sexual innuendo in the background. Seriously, one of the big issues between the two main characters is how the main-main character ages super slowly compared to everyone else and his love interest wants to be with him but he might end up spending the next 100 years in his current childlike state, and he repeatedly states he can't really return her physical affections since he hasn't actually reached the point where he can even FEEL physically attracted to anyone. Further complicated by the fact that his evil Future Self IS fully grown and is totally jacked and awesome and also still has the same feelings his past self has for the love interest.
TL;DR Seasons 1 and 2 just watch the episodes with the villains or the ANIME FIGHTAN', Season 3 is kinda all over the place like PoG said but is actually watchable start to finish and has exceptionally good ANIME FIGHTS.
I love how no one got that your refering to the porn site and just assumed Zone-tan was normal Wak-fu
mericka uni o fuck
Okay, so I just gotta say a few things right off the bat:
Firstly, the moment you started introducing fundamental concepts of altruism, egoism, and ethical philosophy in general, I was grinning cheek-to-cheek. The finest armchair philosophy that I've heard in quite some time!! If we were ever friends in some separate, distant timeline, I would be honored to enjoy a fine glass and pipe with you while exchanging the different ideas of how morals have been constructed from a naturalist's and evolutionary standpoint.
Second, your analysis of The Shining and how people project their insecurities onto others aka "villains" makes me want to rewatch this movie while thinking in this new mindset. It's a breath of fresh air hearing a new perspective on one of my favorite Kubrick movies (my most favorite being 2001), and of course Scatman Crothers is an absolute g.
Third, I'll forever refer to french anime-style cartoons as oui-a-boo animation.
Fourth, Nox's motivation to take back all the evil he has ever inflicted by "becoming evil" is a BEAUTIFUL moral dilemma I have never thought of. A utilitarian would agree with this sentiment, because the end is justified by creating a world of peace and harmony. However, a deontologist would objectify and claim any "evil", especially the destruction of life, regardless of the good consequences, is unjustified and thus undesirable. This right here is the BASIS of a great moral debate. So spicy~
This is a fucking fantastic analysis, so PLEASE keep this up!! I'm very much looking forward to your next work.
The tale of Nox is actually way worst than that but in order to explain I need to give some backstory.
Wakfu, the anime, was based on an MMORPG of the same name, previous to Wakfu, Ankama (the developers of the game and the creators of the series) created a similar MMORPG named Dofus, the difference between the two is the timelines, Wakfu happens after an event know as the Ogrest's Chaos, in which Ogrest, feeling an enormous pain, sadness and anger, shred so many tear he flooded the world, killing countless people in the process, the event in which Nox lost his family was this one, the emphasis of how dangerous Ogrest is everywhere in the game, from the moment you create your first character the very first quest you get is one that lead you to climb Mount Zinit, Ogrest's lair, and slay Ogrest, this quest is one that starts since Lv1 and can be only completed once the player reaches Lv200, the maximum level, so Nox wanted to use the cube to go back in time and kill Ogrest in which, if he was successful, would make him the legendary hero that defeated Ogrest and prevented the death of countless people, so not only would all the murders he commit be forgiven, he would also save the world.
What also makes this even sad is that, during the fight with Yugo, they actually managed to go back in time, in the background, the giant figure is Ogrest himself before the event, Yugo event noticed him before Nox killed him, but Nox was so short-sighted in completing his mission that he just didn't noticed, in the end, his commitment to his goal is what made him lose his opportunity to save his family, the same way that his commitment to understanding the cube was what made him lose them in the first place, it's poetic in a way and once you understand all this it's clear why Nox was, for me at least, the star of the show.
As a Xelor main in the game, it's debatable that Nox is the strongest Xelor in the world, followed by Count Harebourg, just by the fact that he managed to do what the god of time and space himself couldn't, even if it was just for 20 minutes.
Thanks for writting this I never understood what was that monster Yugo saw. This is even more sad because Nox, blind because of his eagerness of beating Yugo he didn't even notice he had achieved what he wanted. That's ironic because he wanted to beat Yugo for reaching his goal. And that is never explained anywhere so good eye dude.
Two things.
1) he didn't want to kill Ogrest, merely stop himself from finding the cube. Thus preventing his family leaving and dying in the flood.
2) Yugo and Nox did not go back in time. They warped to Ogrest's location in the present.
@@Xanegoh 2 do you have proof that was the case?
@@whiteeye9584well, there is the special episode that talks about Ogrest. That's the island.
My name is Yoshikage Kira I am 33 years old...
...My house is in the northeast section of Morioh, where all the villas are, and I am not married...
...I work as an employee for the Kame Yu department stores, and I get home every day by 8 PM at the latest...
...I don't smoke, but I occasionally drink. I'm in bed by 11 PM, and make sure I get eight hours of sleep, no matter what...
...After having a glass of warm milk and doing about twenty minutes of stretches before going to bed, I usually have no problems sleeping until morning...
Just like a baby, I wake up without any fatigue or stress in the morning. i was told there ware no issues at my last checkup.
You drawn furry porn and also monologues about existential problems
How can a man be so enlightened to the true workings of our own decadence?
Humanity is one giant heap of decadence!
One of my favorite self made villans is a character from breath of fire 4.
Fou-lou is an immortal dragon emperor that in his time period was worshiped all around the world and unlike most rulers wasn't horrible about it, he was very indifferent to his subjects and not in a vindictive way but in a way where you can see a tree or wildlife out in a forest.
Yest it's beutiful sometimes endearing but ultimately it's just apart of life.
Fou-lu wakes up a thousand years later to a made up prophecy about fou going to be the end of the world, while he almost had the power to do so, he didn't have the interest and would try to avoid attacking people as often as he could.
His subjects would set whole forest on fire, summon beast to fight him and so on yet he stayed his hand. During one bout he got injured by a fire spell (he's an ice dragon so fire being nearby is like kyptonite for him for some reason) and ends up floating downstream and is found by a hick villager with a bell in her hair named mami. Despite the name she's kinda hot, and a budding romance between them starts, to the point fou is having second thoughts of leaving. Well we can't have nice things now can we? the generic ugly jealous landlord calls the capital army, people looking for fou and mami scarifices herself to stall them, hell the whole village does.
Now would be a good time to bring up the [hex machine] so the hex machine is basically a magic nuke but it comes with a shitty side effect of not only killing almost everything nearby but the animals just outside the blast radius and the shockwave blast get to be turned into horrible monsters and some humans will also mutant into horrible abominations and even spirits and other demon like things will spring up from this. And the tyrant capital has this in their hands, but the really fucked up thing is: It requires a human soul to shoot. the resulting human becomes the hex (Imagine being atomized I bet it's painful).
So back to fou-lu he's being beckoned by the villagers to go while they distract the guards, and fou questions why they would defend him when their lives are in danger, see he's been constantly hunted from the start so his trust was wavering and now he's got a whole village looking out for him. So he flees, trying to get to the capital first through secrent catacombs so he could take over again and stop this madness, not knowing they took mami...Or that they have a summon creature only one but the monster can teleport them. So fou is in the forest and he runs into an animal which was a prior boss battle/ (I kinda glossed over that) see fou fought this creature cause it was attacking the village and affected by the hex as well and wandered on over. Fou somehow beat the evil out of it and made it better. (fuck if I know)
So he finds the enterence to the catacombs but it's been taken over by deamons in the past millenia and they don't want to open up without scarifice, fou refuses to kill anyone but the animal monster thing does a strange thing. It rams into the alter repeatedly much to fou's surprise and he even tries to stop it before it crumbs and the pathway opens, he questions why do all these creatures and people have so much faith in him that they'll give up their own lives for him. He's had enough and trenges on through to slay the demon and get across the tunnels to the capital, and as soon as he's out we find out what happened to mami.
She's tried up and in the hex machine and she's going to be used, fou IS on the other side but the blast will still wipe her small village off the map, and she knows this, the screen goes black and you hear her bell jingle.
Fou comes out on the other side and notices a bit too late that a hex is coming, ad it hits him square on, unfortunate for the capital it doesn't kill this god dragon, and we see the center of the hex, trees are destoyed, lakes dried and fish rendered to skeletons, birds either fall down dead or cough up bile and trasnform, ghost flies by and blue fire is everywhere. Fou is disguested by the hex and wonders why all this effort to destroy him, are humans THIS horrid? Then something lands infront of him with a jingle, it's mami's bell and through passing fou knows what this means and starts laughing like a mad man, he's finally broken and thus becomes the villan that the capital made him out to be.
⁰⁰⁰⁰
dam that was some good shit
Too long to read + terrible spelling and grammar
@@noodleexpanding3407 You didn't even have punctuation. Keep that limp noodle un-expanded, thanks. Also, if that's too long for you to read, I feel sorry for what little grey matter you have.
@@Kayriel Wow look who's triggered. I'm fine with reading long stuff, but not long stuff that is also packed with misspelling. At that point I'm just wasting my brain cells.
I like the phrase "good and evil are limber concepts". It's a clever way of avoiding saying "relative" which may imply that they don't matter and/or there is no such thing as good and evil. Good and evil still exist and aren't simply "relative" to whatever context is present at the moment, but saying they are "limber" asserts that they're flexible enough to be applied to whatever you need them to, but leaves open the possibility that your application of those ideas maybe incorrect depending on how far you've exploited their flexibility.
What do you mean good and evil still exist?
@@mario167100 They do. We made them up but they still exist.
Tyler McNeeley by a persons own morals, yeah. As some sort of universal rule, no.
Nothing is good or evil in some sorta universal term.
@@mario167100 That's not what you asked, you asked if they existed at all.
@@tylermcneeley3136 then the awnser would be good and evil exist for now. And it is relative to human existence
No furries in the thumbnail? Plague I'm worried about you.
Edit: Wow that was a really inspiring video, I love this sort of topic! I'm a sucker for a tragic villain
With a monologue like that, he must be making *REAL* human-animal hybrids …
Me: **See Plague video** . Must be funny satirical video
**Is actually an incredibly in-depth analysis into fictional villains**
They had us in the first half, not gonna lie.
I love this. Please, this is amazing. Keep up the good work.
The Nox (sp?) character analysis was great. I never would have even known about this character, because I'd likely never watch the series. I'm always trying to improve my writing, and your Let's Gripe videos always offer something to consider and build on.
What do you write?
I’d love to see a part 2 where he dives into more villains I quite enjoyed this vid
Yes please
Micheal corleone !
eli is the biggest villain because he still wont give up his drawings porn stash.
Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?
I thought not. It's not a story the Jedi would tell you. It's a Sith legend. Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith, so powerful and so wise he could use the Force to influence the midichlorians to create life... He had such a knowledge of the dark side that he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying. The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural. He became so powerful... the only thing he was afraid of was losing his power, which eventually, of course, he did. Unfortunately, he taught his apprentice everything he knew, then his apprentice killed him in his sleep. Ironic, he could save others from death, but not himself.
"... by twenty minutes. Not 200 years, 20 minutes."
Even in a simple recap of the plot, that hits like a goddam freight train holy shit.
I really appreciate you talking about Nox's story. It really is one of my favorites of all time.
You did a fantastic job with this vid, the format is also really great.
I encourage you to keep at it.
Too bad the backstory episode is fake. Written by an outside team, and contradicts the show itself, rather than enhance it,
this is one of my favorite youtube videos ever.
this comment is recent but ive watched this videos several times throughout the years.
The stuff about Nox's character traits being amplified to the point of villainy reminds me a lot of how LISA the Painful and LISA the Joyful treat its protagonists, who are also pretty much villains in their own right.
Can be said about jinx when she was injected with purple stuff
Plague, Eli.
My dude. These are the kinda videos that you were made to do. You channel all of the thoughtfulness you muster for your Let's Plagues and both intensify your focus and narrow your scope. This was an immensely enjoyable watch.
I know your true love will always be borderline furry porn, but please consider making more of these dude.
I love it when people talk about villains because they usually end up being my favourite parts of a story.
Kofi Smith definitely, especially because they are not nearly as susceptible to having a milk-toast morality. You can actually experiment a bit with ideologies with consequences.
@@midshipman8654 i think its more that people love villains because their written as actual human beings rather then having the moral disposition of a 4 year old
@@midshipman8654 i've recently been keeping up with the one punch man web comic and garous story is amazing because he wants to become to ultimate monster so all of humanity will unite against him in a utopia like society saving the 'unwanted' of society from harassment based on their differences
thunderborn 32 I think that’s relatively novel ground, while others have definitely done similar stuff, like the first half of 00 Gundam. Although, imho it seems like kinda an unsubstantiated position. People don’t always band together against a great opposition and doesn’t take into account the complexities of social interactions. I guess it might be ok for a megalomaniacal force, but I don’t know if it would be quite as compelling as a more relatable/reasonably motivation like the villains in the video above.
@@midshipman8654 true, but its compelling to see someone so enthralled by their ideology only to have it thwarted by a guy whose entire reason for beating him was you wont turn down your radio at night when i try to sleep
This video is sooooo underrated. There was so MUCH put into it, I'm sorry it didn't got nearly the same views as other similar "let's talk about X" videos. Fuck, I hadn't ever given a crap about Wakfu and you managed in 5 minutes to make Nox my favorite villain ever, I absolutely adore that character story.
Banderi there’s so many cool stories out there to discover. My favorite protagonist is Guts from Berserk, an old show with admittedly not so great animations but his character development is well made.
Great Essay.
The failure Nox found in triumph is also what drew me to the character in the end.
Well that and time magic. Time magic is cool.
He didn't pay his bills, become villian.
Is this a villains channel?
It might be a villain's channel
Uhh, yeah pretty much..
He introduced us to Sally Bones... so yes
..I kinda want a Plague/Shädman crossover. Anyone who's heard him on Sleepycabin knows he also has a depth that reflects his art. What better villain than Shäd? Another corrupter of innocence.
this is a not-Dragon ball channel
Sippin' on that existential juice in that first five minutes I see.
For real though, great video, Plague. Nox is a fantastic villain, because you know a villain leaves an impact when by the end of the series, you almost feel crushed for them, their failure, and their demise. Meruem from Hunter x Hunter is a really good example of that too.
A villain (the guy you're suppose to hate or at the very least dislike) that has you "care" for them in the smallest sense is nicely crafted...
dude your anime\ writing critiques are so good keep them up really love them
This is pretty damn great.
As someone who likes to think about characters and motivation for game projects, this got the creative juices flowing, as well as making me reflect on previous "big bad" villains both I or the team thought up.
I'll be recommending this to devs I know if/when they're looking at creating characters.
Also the "Let's Gripe" videos are some of my all-time favourite vids on UA-cam to watch.
*gripes watches Wakfu hentai* "... I am going to make a video about villains so I can talk about this series"
This has to be my favourite video essay of yours. It's just that good. This kind of commentary from you is what I look forward to most.
That was so good Eli. I love listening to you talk about "things" especially concepts surrounding the human condition. Cheers man
Five minutes into the commentary and I’m blown away by how great it is so far. You teach us such great modern lessons on life and art that doesn’t exist anywhere else.
This is great content. I hope some day you will make more of this.
I love your gripe videos, whatever they focus on. It's so fun to hear your insight on certain topics and your apathetic sense of humor, it's strangely comforting to listen to.
Thank you, sincerely, I appreciated the insight and meaning this gave me. This feels like a much more practical approach to deconstruction of characters that will assist me in the future, as well as given me another great lens to view myself and others through. In the future, if you're thinking of it, I wonder if using this lens of viewing villains as more complex people could be applied to 'heroes" as it were, or better extrapolated to people as a whole.
Also astounding work on the prelude, nice work.
This is one of my go to listens. Have the audio saved to my phone and when I'm at a lost what I want to hear while walking or working, I'll play it again. Great piece of work.
Wait a second this isn't a dragon ball video wtf dude.
came for this comment before posting it myself
UNSUBSCRIBED!
Still one of my favorite videos to come back to every while.
I thoroughly enjoyed this essay. It was less of a gripe about villains and more of an insight into a particular writer's understanding of the purpose of villains, heroes, or just the characters we choose to become in life.
honestly plague you are a really good critic, and your video essays have taught me a lot about writing and narrative construction. I've watched the naruto one like a dozen times.
So happy to see Wakfu getting some recognition Nox is up there as one of my favorite villains.
I hate how this dosnet have more veiws. This is a masterclass of a video. Definitely subbed
The landlord reminds me of something, can't put my nose on it.
Lol!
SHUT IT DOWN
Oy vey
Sometimes you see a video where you hit the like button after the first minute, and during the video get the urge to hit it again and again, only to realize you've already done so.
This is one such video.
..maybe there is a way to go back in time and hit the like button again
O_o
"The kind of evil that doesn't realize that it's evil, is the worst kind of evil there is."
As always I appreciate your constructed, critical thought and entertaining presentation :)
I feel inspired to bring more depth to my various characters, and have been writing for like an hour after watching this.
You just wanted to talk Nox, didn't you? I don't blame you, it was wonderful.
Okay wtf is this...this is such an AMAZING video, I go to your channel expecting to see similar high-end literary analysis on character tropes, fiction etc. and this is literally the only thing you have...and its better than 85% of other channels that do this style of video for a living. I really hope this is not a one time thing and you keep doing "Let's Gripe about X" videos. Amazing commentary, amazing editing and music. Keep it UP.
This is honestly my favorite video of yours. I feel inspired to write better motivations for my villains.
I wonder if it's possible for you to write a video essay on heroes that carries the same insight.
"We can AXE the idea he is the best character."
REALLY ELI!
So before Plague even started talking about wakfu a show i know nothing about i saw that villain and thought "I bet that robot dood was the one Woolie mentioned that Plague told him when talking about a villain who needs to complete their goal in order to fix everything and pleads to the hero to just let me win tho i can fix everything if i win"
Where was this mention? Just wondering so I can listen to the talk.
@@Tiggy110 it was in one of the last few Castlesuperbeast casts sorry I don't recall the exact number... maybe in the week before this video dropped since that anecdote was still fresh in my head when watching this.
@@lenmutt Thanks! I'll look around for it then.
@@Tiggy110 Wish I could give you better directions!
The section on Nox nearly made me cry. And I've never watched that series. Never even heard of it until you talked about it here. Damn.
Stellar work, Gripes. That intro made me have a mini-existential crisis, though. Thanks for that.
Reminds me of Walter White of Light Yagami. The traits that made them an asshole were always there, they just had a little push that sent them down a rabbit hole they never got out of.
This was a terrific video, Eli. In my opinion, it's one of your best.
If I can ask a few questions, both for Eli and everyone else:
1) Why don't you write, Eli?
2) As someone who recently watched Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable, why is Kira considered a top-tier villain? It's interesting that he just wants a quiet life, one that involves him being free from societal morals because he enjoys taking girls' hands on dinner dates. But what I find dull is that he "just is." That's what I find lacks in Araki's characters in Part 3 and 4. There's no reasoning behind why they're the way they are; they just are. Dio at least has that development in Part 1 where he's made up his mind that he will destroy anyone he has to to become powerful, stemming from either his terrible upbringing or perhaps being born evil. It's left up to the reader/ viewer. Kira is simply "I want to live life my way. I hate defending my actions, but I will if it comes to it," which is fine, but there's no nuance or development there.
(Ignore my comment. im only posting it so ill get notified of any replies, because your take on kira is interesting as hell)
Honestly, this was more engaging than any lecture or lesson I've ever participated in.
The entire video was genuinely thought-provoking.
Thank you for the great content :)
Nox is and will always be one of my favourite characters. I can only aspire to create a character that deep
Would you please make more of these. I am aspiring to draw/write comics and your viewpoints are beyond helpful at keeping myself from pigeonholing myself
As a fledgeling writer this was incredibly interesting, thank you Plague.
Eli: As far back as I can remember I had always wanted to be a gangster.
"...by 20 minutes."
...oh my God...
Whenever I listen to a 'Lets Gripe', I always come away feeling better. More calm. More relaxed. The mechanics of something are laid bare to me and I see how it all fits together, how it all moves independently and co-dependently on one another. Thank you, Eli.
We all know that the PlagueOfGripes is *the* ultimate Anti-Hero :^)
PlagueOfGripes the Edgehog
@@thepickles8833 more like puncnukles
This is the content I've been waiting for, you got a real talent for prose and dissecting concepts. Keep it up Plague
I watched this video in highschool and it stuck with me ever since. Something an out it just says a lot I guess
I absolutely love these type of videos, Please make more, it was such a great listen while I'm fixing my cupboard.
Eli, you okay my Dude? You're acting more black-pilled than usual...
Did you lose your Delphox body pillow? Is Toei Animation taking a dump on Tien again?
www.washingtonpost.com/resizer/lpPQCfvc6yMX_dmg3r67e7h6Foc=/1484x0/arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/4C7SSBIXSNFCLOJIGCWUOKDYTY.png
@@iller3 So happy to see that. Young men realizing the juice ain't worth the squeeze!
@@StarboyXL9 I think it's less that men lost their thirst and more that we have super easy access to porn and also it can be a gamble to approach women in public now since anything you say or do can be labeled as creepy/rape and thus make men a target of being ostracized or imprisoned/sued. Society still unfortunately seems to take a woman's claims of harassment as 100% truth with no need for further investigation more often than not.
Which is not a big dump on women, they've got their own problems too, and to be fair the further back in time you go, the more often men's behavior towards them when it came to expressing romantic or sexual interest gets increasingly rapey and creepy by todays standards.
"it can be a gamble to approach women in public now since anything you say or do can be labeled as creepy/rape and thus make men a target of being ostracized or imprisoned/sued."
This may as well be from a manifesto of some retarded school shooter for all that it has in touch with reality. "Anything you say or do", huh? What, so some dude going up to a woman and asking her for directions somewhere is gonna get the cops called on him? Get off that bullshit. Harassment claims, especially ones that occur in public, don't arise from a man just being innocent and doing the furthest possible thing from harassment. Where there is smoke, there is fire.
Yes, false claims exist, and more often than not, they're investigated and discovered to be false. The notion that there is "no need for further investigation" is horseshit. The only thing that really needs to change is a harsher punishment for knowingly making false claims.
@@MisterZimbabwe It's amazing how men who are the least likely to ever talk to women in a meaningful manner seem to have such vast knowledge about how conversations between men and women go.
One of the most underrated videos on UA-cam.
Since I’m sick and bedridden today, I did listen to the whole thing. Very good narrative, Eli.
I hope that Joker origin film brings us a great character piece to explore the hidden Joker that quietly chuckles within us all.
Always loved the villain in Tales of Phantasia. After seeing how many parallels he draws to Nox, the reasons why I liked him just come so much more into focus after watching this
A great video, some actual thought provoking commentary and a good way to spend half an hour, cheers dood
"And, there is one blazzing moment in which you finally understand... that there was no Dragon. There was no Vader. There was only you. Only Anakin Skywalker. That... it was all you. IS you. ONLY you. You killed her. You killed her because... when you could have saved her, when you could have run away with her... when you SHOULD have been thinking about her... you were thinking about YOURSELF."
Star Wars. Revenge of the Sith novelization.
A good tragic villain is, in my opinion, not the one who can blame his or her tragedy entirely in external sources (like The Cube, or the Dark Side of the Force), but that is, ultimately, responsible for the tragedy that turned them into monsters.
I'm French and WAKFU was on TV every morning when I was in High-school.
I never thought there were so much potential in this cartoon.
Thanks for this video, man ;)
"We all need someone to embody change. An antagonist." Yes isn't it great to be in a position where the agents of change are the antagonists, rather than the agents of the status quo [stares at camera]
(Great video otherwise)
Oh crap!! You and I are among the few that actually watched Wakfu!! Damn at this point, your subscription is earned...and to think I subscribed because you dared the viewers in another video to NOT subscribe to you.
This may as well be one of Plague's greatest works yet. I'm ready for more
You know, looking back on a number of these essay or deep talk videos of yours I must say that this one is my favorite.
I stand by the notion that while life is ultimately meaningless, it's only so in the future. The present has the meaning we can give it, and that it truly matters. The past is the past and has lessons we can learn from it. The future gives us the forethought to imagine what may come and a time limit. But the present is where everything happens and everything from the smallest happiness of enjoying a good minute in a bad day to the most wonderful evening spent revealing in the high of life has meaning. And, of course, the same is for the opposite as experiencing the awful has meaning as well. It's an positive outlook on life, I feel, because I don't think that history is driven by pain and evil or at the very least solely by it.
This view may be in opposition to the one given in the beginning of the video, but I feel like the concept of the villain has the same importance as you described it. Villains can be the ultimate expression of change but also of stagnation. The intent may or may not be evil, but in actions tell the story. The difference between being an antagonist and being a villain is that the villain's actions are evil, or at least the results of those actions are.
This is why I enjoy this video very much. It goes down to how a villain works. What makes it work as a device in fiction.
I do hope we will see more these styles of videos from you, as at the very least it feels like you enjoy doing these deep dives into topics such as these.