How the VILLAINS could be so much more!
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- Опубліковано 7 лип 2024
- Villains are not always one of the better parts of a Pokemon game, yet they remain an important part of them... here's what we could learn from them!
0:00 Intro
0:57 Understanding their purpose
5:42 Principles of designing them
9:12 Tools to give them impact
16:18 Villainous motivations
17:11 Reviewing the Villains of Pokemon
25:08 Conclusion
Music:
“Marble Machine” and “Vastanberg” by Wintergatan
These tracks can be downloaded for free at www.wintergatan.net
Free License to use these track in your video can be downloaded at www.wintergatan.net
Imagine if Giovanni got the master ball and managed to catch Mewtwo, becoming the true final boss for RBY, or even coming back at the end of GSC after hearing the radio signal.
We saw how dangerous Team Plasma was with an indoctrinated N defeating the champion, and then again when they had Kyurem under their control.
20:07 We actually fo know. In platinum you can talk to his grampa and learn that he was actually a great student but didn't met his parents expectations, being locked away with only machines to play with. He also wasn't good a socializing which actually helped to worsen his situation.
So, he basically fo have a good motive and a pretty damn relatable story.
they specified that they were looking solely at DP/BDSP (aka the lackluster originals and the terrible remakes)
when looking at platinum then yeah team galactic and Cyrus are much better just not in the originals and by extension their lame rehashes
To give Cyrus some credit, I believe the lore is that Pokeballs are supposed to weaken Legendaries (and regular Pokemon?), which is why Cyrus decides to capture Dialga and Palkia with the Red Chain instead. Releasing the Lake Guardians was a huge mistake, though. There is also some NPC dialogue around Sinnoh about the Rotom in the Old Chateau and Cyrus' abusive family in Sunyshore that gives some insight into him, but it's all very missable, which doesn't do him a lot of favors.
On a different note, I like how you can run into Ya Boi Guzma's house long before you even meet the man himself and see evidence of how he always came up short in competitions, how he came from an abusive household, the anger issues that he deals with, etc. So when you actually meet him and beat him in a battle and he starts going "Guzma, what's wrong with you!?" afterwards, you definitely get a very unsettled feeling like you just got a peek of something familiar under the surface of his smug veneer.
One thing I have noticed about pokemon villains is that at their core they do two things. They threaten and/or disrupt the peace of the pokemon world and they threaten the livelihoods of the people of that world. The people of the pokemon world has finally achieved world peace and they are desperate to keep it. This does mean that their response can be overly harsh particularly if it threatens the bond between humans and pokemon. If you manage to threaten that you will be met with a fury like no other, and hurting pokemon or using them solely for their power is a sure fire way to get everyone there to hate you. Giovanni is well liked and respected because he is simple yet competent. He wants money and power yet even he values his pokemon and the bond they have albeit in a twisted way. The power of bonds is a tangible thing there and Giovanni is no fool to ignore it nor is he the kind of guy to shoot himself in the foot. That's another thing evil teams or at least villains in pokemon do very well. Since everything revolves around the bonds between people and pokemon the evil teams usually twist or are a product of that bond being twisted into something monstrous. The movie villains are also really good with these points as regardless of all the technology they bring to bear or the goons they have, they always at their core disrupt the peace and harmony of the pokemon world, hurt pokemon, and makes everyone's lives miserable and that is what identifies them as villains rather than just selfish fools. They range from collectors to obsessed former researchers that do not understand the nature of what they are messing with to fanatics to power hungry bad eggs but regardless of what form they take those points are at the core of their classification and identification. In short pokemon villains twist, warp, and to a lesser degree defy the values that governs and is at the heart of that world, what everything revolves around and springs forth from. In a reboot I would imagine that the villains would be very careful in how they act and go about their plans and goals because if they make too much of a mess they will attract the bad attention of a legendary and their schemes will be placed on indefinite hiatus. Giovanni was smart in opting to leave the legendary birds alone dispite their power because he knew that if he got on their bad side they will take away everything from him and lay it to waste. The villains of gen 6 and 8 are made to look stupid because their motivations and goals do not work within the world of pokemon. This is particularly so for Rose as it is impossible for that world to have an energy problem when they had long since mastered complete energy to matter conversion and often employs pokemon for power generation.
I want to mention the TTRPG Pkmn game I played again, though I will admit this story was probably a bit dark for a mainstream Pokemon game, but it was really engaging, and also helped explain why our plucky set of teenagers were wrapped up in events that could save/destroy the world.
We had a bunch of time-travel happenings going on, mostly centered around Celebi, one of the Gods of Time. And we learned quite early on, that at some point in our future, we made/would make a decision or take some action that would bring about a Demiurge. This Demiurge was sending minions back in time to ensure that we would do the thing that would ensure their timeline became the true timeline, while forces from a more generous timeline were also sending help back in time to prevent that.
The named villains we ran into just straight up wanted to exist, and one of them was kind of a sympathetic character (the other two were still absolute monsters, both literally and metaphorically), but none of us could kill each other, because the paradox would destroy everything if it happened before we "did the thing."
Very wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff.
Cypress is a good fanmade Pokémon villain. Guy whose only friend were Pokémon so he became a professor. But grew in distrust when trainers use Pokémon for battle. So he created a evil team to make a portal for a new dimension like team galatic. Unfortunately Temtem didn’t get the memo and think people like cypress because the twist that the professor is the evil team leader.
Oh my..... I can see why he did it. I need to get tamtam one day
imagine, how interesting it could be for a section of a pokemon game to have your strongest party pokemon temporarily stolen. perhaps once you walk into an evil base till the boss/ admin.
22:45 About the grunts saying everything and handing you thing when there defeated, I believe they do it because your Pokémon is treating them and they have nothing to defend themselves since all there guys are knock out. If I was in there place I would in there place I would also give items to the protagonist, so I won’t be for example sliced to bits by there Kabutops.
This makes me think of pokemon xd! The snag machine got stolen from the main character, and there's even a battle with a shadow pokemon that you can rescue. Later you get it back, and can rematch, but the game really makes you feel powerless during that section of the game considering rescuing pokemon is kind of the whole point 😅
Also badges getting stolen reminded me of Ash lol
"Villains should have a motivation instead of being a roadblock" is the primary reason I hate Final Fantasy 10 (and especially Seymour) so much. Like, he's less of a compelling antagonist and more of a roadblock/plot device. It's so infuriating that he has no real depth and is just there to be an immense pain in the ass.
Like, I have a ton of reasons to hate Final Fantasy 10, but the sloppy dialog, poor writing, and 'plot device' characters are a big reason for me. And it hurts me as a writer to know this game both exists AND is popular.
To give Seymour some credit, I believe he has a backstory that fits well in the setting and gives reasonable explanation to be an antagonist. The problem is that not only do his actions have almost no consequences, with his most major act of killing most of the Ronso not even mattering until the sequel game, his steps getting there don't even make sense. "I need you to like me, Yuna, so I can become your Final Aeon and become Sin. That's why I'm going to do everything in my power to get you to hate me and also try to murder you right now in this boss fight."
I have been binging your pokemon world building videos and man! They are so helpful!!! I am in the works of making a pokemon dnd campaign and your videos have honestly helped better shape my characters and plot. And this certainly is gonna help in how I flesh out my big bads within the campaign. Keep up the good work :)
Thank you! That's awesome to hear!
i’m so sorry to come be that guy and genuinely i did enjoy this video so much. i’m loving your breakdowns of storytelling it’s such an interesting topic and i love how you talk about these things! but ☝️🤓 um acktually
cyrus giving the player the specific tools they need to defeat them (in all versions) was a very intentional thing. in fact he mentions in platinum how he knew full well that the lake guardians could subdue dialga/palkia and his background and motives are shown through npcs mentioning him, old diaries, and his grandpa who you can speak to post game. though all those things are easy to miss on a casual play through, especially considering the mentioned diary is locked in a room only accessible with an item you had to go physically get from distribution events lol. but his story and true motivations are there, just not laid out very clearly
Galactix lesson is probably you need emotion and soul to achieve your goal(that rhymed)
Brilliant video :D
Cheers!
Honestly Guzma was pretty fun. Yeah he wasn’t exactly a villain but honestly he’s kinda goofy and is the reason why skull is my favorite of the recent teams.
You know what's a good plot for a villain character? A Rival that solely focus on himself and will do anything to win even if it cost destruction to anyone
I've subscribed. Also, I think the Japanese names of "Rocket Gang" and "Skull Gang" may fit those respective groups better. Perhaps Rocket Gang was initially changed to Team Rocket due to localization guidelines?
OMG YOU USED THE WINERGATAN SONG OMG
Do gym leaders next hoss
Pokémon can make pure evil villians, but they never really bother with one exception…
Ironically, every other villain gets blown out if the water by Explorers Of Sky Darkrai in terms of pure evil, and success. Even Rainbow Rocket Giovanni comes up short.
Darkrai didn’t just win, he didn’t just cause the apocalypse, he caused the apocalypse and ruled the dark future for over at least 100 years with Dialga as his puppet, we are only told that it’s many generations so it could be even longer. Eyeryone lived in constant fear, most Pokémon went feral and anyone who opposed dialga got taken to a stockade and killed. Not only that, but because Arceus intervened and simply allowed the altered world to continue, Darkrai ultimately got the last laugh as he left a permanent scar on the world. Then his past self was smart enough to stop a time travel threat, then when that failed, he knew go into hiding, and try a different approach, shrouding the entire world in a nightmare and manipulating the heroes into trying to off themselves.
The only real thing he lacks a backstory….but he pretty much checks everything else
I think that the point of villains using people would really work, because even if it wasn't the bad guys doing it and as much indifference as I had towards the story by gen 8, it felt really wierd and wrong to me that hop never did achieve his goal of beating Leon and becoming the champion
I though it's making the world, then story of the world second
Unless there main locations then you add onto the map
excellent video ! 😊 just wish gamefreak would make a dark villain for a change