05-13-2004, 11:15 PM
And yet the Borg are the most hated villains in the Star Trek fandom? The real reason the D-Reaper cause a drop in popularity was the scientifically advanced explanations of it, which went right over kids' heads. It wasn't the soulless thing, at least not the same way you guys think it was. Quantum physics and all that shit goes over my head, and that's how they explained the D-Reaper.
You think it's because it was a faulty program? Isn't that exactly what every villain is? A bug or glitch in the system of the ordered world which they are opposed to? Something which feels the system has betrayed it by not allowing it to fulfill its own function? Or perhaps by not recognizing its function?
The most lovable (and hateable) villains are the ones who try to replace our order with theirs -- Vandemon who tried to cover the world in darkness, Lucemon who tried to rule the Digital World with absolute authority, even Kaizer Ken trying to control everything and "win" the game, all of them were lovable because they tried to take the existing order and replace it with their own.
The D-Reaper didn't have the benefit of replacing "our" order with its order -- it was going to replace our order with nothingness, no order, no anything. The borrg are no more emotional than the D_Reaper, but something in them causes them to be a more lovable (or hateable) enemy than the D-Reaper -- and I believe that something is the fact that they are trying to replace our order with theirs, rather than simply obliterating all order for nothingness.
Try to imagine a villain who's only purpose is to obstruct the hero, but not pose a truly difficult challenge. They have no ultimate goal of changing anything in the world, except to, in their own hopes, defeat the hero. This type of villain will not be truly despised, but no more will they be truly loved. They'll be considered a pest and annoyance, but noot a real villain.
Now give them the goal of taking the hero's greatest asset and using it for their own ends. Taking the hero's order and turning it to their own, in a way. You now have a villain which can be loved and hated, though not thoroughly or intensely.
Now give that villain a desire to change the world of the hero, and the hero is the only force between the villain and success. The hero is the only thing maintaining our order as the villain attemtps to turn our order to theirs. Regardless of characerization, we have a respect for the villain, for being ambitious enough to take the whole world, rather than just the hero. We come to love them because they love themselves, and to hate them because they try to destroy what we know and expect.
Now give that villain a background, a personality, a life on conflicts, and we have a reason to admire them, to not just look at them and say "they're crazy", but to look at them and say, "So that's where they're coming from." The D-Reaper is a nightmare villain, the sort of thing which terrifies, but does not inspire fear -- you can't feel anything for it, only for what it's doing, and all you can feel is terror, anger, and perhaps even a sort of hatred, at what's happening because of it.
Anyhow, that's my feeling son the subject -- D-Reaper wasn't a bad concept, but the explanations they used for it were, as was the fact that without any sort of characterization or any goal but deletion, it was a nightmare enemy, not a real villain.
You think it's because it was a faulty program? Isn't that exactly what every villain is? A bug or glitch in the system of the ordered world which they are opposed to? Something which feels the system has betrayed it by not allowing it to fulfill its own function? Or perhaps by not recognizing its function?
The most lovable (and hateable) villains are the ones who try to replace our order with theirs -- Vandemon who tried to cover the world in darkness, Lucemon who tried to rule the Digital World with absolute authority, even Kaizer Ken trying to control everything and "win" the game, all of them were lovable because they tried to take the existing order and replace it with their own.
The D-Reaper didn't have the benefit of replacing "our" order with its order -- it was going to replace our order with nothingness, no order, no anything. The borrg are no more emotional than the D_Reaper, but something in them causes them to be a more lovable (or hateable) enemy than the D-Reaper -- and I believe that something is the fact that they are trying to replace our order with theirs, rather than simply obliterating all order for nothingness.
Try to imagine a villain who's only purpose is to obstruct the hero, but not pose a truly difficult challenge. They have no ultimate goal of changing anything in the world, except to, in their own hopes, defeat the hero. This type of villain will not be truly despised, but no more will they be truly loved. They'll be considered a pest and annoyance, but noot a real villain.
Now give them the goal of taking the hero's greatest asset and using it for their own ends. Taking the hero's order and turning it to their own, in a way. You now have a villain which can be loved and hated, though not thoroughly or intensely.
Now give that villain a desire to change the world of the hero, and the hero is the only force between the villain and success. The hero is the only thing maintaining our order as the villain attemtps to turn our order to theirs. Regardless of characerization, we have a respect for the villain, for being ambitious enough to take the whole world, rather than just the hero. We come to love them because they love themselves, and to hate them because they try to destroy what we know and expect.
Now give that villain a background, a personality, a life on conflicts, and we have a reason to admire them, to not just look at them and say "they're crazy", but to look at them and say, "So that's where they're coming from." The D-Reaper is a nightmare villain, the sort of thing which terrifies, but does not inspire fear -- you can't feel anything for it, only for what it's doing, and all you can feel is terror, anger, and perhaps even a sort of hatred, at what's happening because of it.
Anyhow, that's my feeling son the subject -- D-Reaper wasn't a bad concept, but the explanations they used for it were, as was the fact that without any sort of characterization or any goal but deletion, it was a nightmare enemy, not a real villain.