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- He/Him
"That other villain, with their own distinct motivations and conflict with you, was really just another part of MY plan All Along!"
I have never seen it done well.
I have never seen it done well.
Cliches you can't stand
- Thread starter Mithras
- Start date
- Location
- SV's Only Complete Persona Quest
- Pronouns
- She/Her
- Ganondorf Dragmire, 2006
- Location
- Cardassia Prime
"So character who has served me loyally and done countless nigh-impossible deeds on my orders, I no longer trust you because you said or done something that wasn't 110% in line with what I want, so I instead started trusting these new guy I just met literally 5 seconds ago who says you can't be trusted and I fully believe Ratso Untrustwortho because he's saying what I want to hear."
And yes I'm aware this happens a lot in real-life.
And yes I'm aware this happens a lot in real-life.
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- She/Her
Even when the villain is more of a plotter/manipulative they still turn into a giant monster for some reason. Even do they where doing fine just before! And made themselves a big dumb target! Like if the muscle of the group turns into the hulk that makes sense
I'm reminded of a fanfic (don't recall the title) I ran across years ago that had a funny bit where Superman confessed that he had a subtle mind control power that influenced enemies into fighting him hand-to-hand where Superman is strongest, including "smart guy" enemies who really should know better.
"Even Lex Luthor. Especially Lex Luthor."
Like one example who didn't quite become *giant*, but Aizen from Bleach. He used manipulation and minions and a broken as heck illusion power (in just his shikai- his bankai should be even better. Not that we ever see it), and trades them (including disposing of his minions, ones that could still fight and all) for being a strong butterfly immortal. Who gets promptly beaten and imprisoned because now that he's just a strong immortal, hitting him hard is *all* that's needed to do. So Ichigo hits him hard.
And I've seen multiple telekinetics/magnetism types decide that the best way to fight is 'form a giant kaiju body around myself,' to the point they do so at the cost of fine control. Happened very recently in a major game that came out last month.
RE Village, Heisenberg pretty much kicks your ass every time with his personal magnetism and is especially hard to deal with indoors where there's a lot of stuff for him to use, but then he fights you in a big open field as a big metal kaiju that uses remote magnetism *far* less, and in that location you can use a magnetism-proof tank.
Hah
Yea, good example! Half of the 'make them grow,' are when they're already losing/lost (it doubles as a heal, so cool), a lot it's just used during an even fight as an escalation, but there really are monsters that are kicking the ranger's tails with their personal powers, get turned big, and lose to the Zords.
FortePlus
The THRILL from Green Hill
- Location
- Toronto
- Pronouns
- He/Him
????
Aizen explicitly wanted to evolve because he had reached the limit of what he could do as a shinigami, and was aiming for a higher station. His minions were beatable and had reached the end of their usefulness, his illusions were beatable especially by people with strong gimmicks, and the way he lost involved a multi step process that included the heroes buying time for the main character to use a dangerous desperation move just to knock him down enough so that he could be defeated and incapacitated.
When Aizen transformed he was so untouchable at one point that he could glance in one direction and it would disappear if he felt like it. He didn't reduce himself by any degree when he chose to transform.
Aizen spent 100? years plotting and manipulating with a single purpose.
To grow past his limits as a Shinigami.
That is what all the betrayal and abominable experiments were for. Plot the path, feed souls to his wishing machine and learn how to awaken and manipulate said wishing machine
To grow past his limits as a Shinigami.
That is what all the betrayal and abominable experiments were for. Plot the path, feed souls to his wishing machine and learn how to awaken and manipulate said wishing machine
gyrobot
One China One Nation/Weeping for Concord
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Assassins being seen as one man armies who can solo legions of people rather than as opportunists who rely on sucker punches and better information than waves of mooks they fight. People would consider Black Widow a top notch fighter even though it is her abilities as an information gatherer that serves her the best.
Yea, sure, he became an untouchable really strong thing. But he dropped his gimmick. And figuring out how to beat his illusions was the interesting challenge for him before that point (especially as we hadn't even seen his bankai).
Sure, we saw a multi-step process for the heroes to beat him... but in the 'get strong enough' sense. Aizen may have gotten more powerful but he went from logic puzzle boss to my power is greater boss.
Meaning we never got to see the logic puzzle side beaten. That's the 'cliche I can't stand'- the stronger form can be legit stronger, but switching from a complex normal form to a simple ultimate form is less interesting to me.
FortePlus
The THRILL from Green Hill
- Location
- Toronto
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Except we did see this. We were shown multiple different ways to defeat it through encounters with different characters, with more and more of them starting to succeed. Aizen was just strong enough in other areas and had planned things out enough over a century that he could turn around and make an attempt to counter them.
The assertion you made was that Aizen trading in his limited illusion powers and shinigami strength for immortal and transcendental (and constantly adapting) power was akin to a villain giving up their yet uncracked power set just to turn big or hit harder when they don't need to. But that's not what happened with Aizen at all. My issue is not whether you liked it or not, it's the events of the material.
Comrade Future
Man from Zeerust
- Location
- USSR
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
The next cliché refers to a very specific area - probably only Russian will understand. But all the same I will speak out.
I love films of the classic Hollywood era, and sometimes they were released in the Soviet distribution, and they were even given full dubbing. In general, I like the full Soviet dubbing of foreign films - when I hear the original, and imagine how it would sound in Russian, then it's worth turning on just such a dubbing and say "perfect!" To myself. However, there is one caveat ... this is "hello". How to understand that the film was dubbed in the USSR? You will hear how Russian-speaking people use this word as a greeting. For us, these are generally even stereotypes called "Hello Bob" (a set of stereotypes about the United States of the Soviet era). However, this is confusing. Usually it is typical for a dub of a comedy or musical.
I also do not like it when the dubbing is incomplete (voice acting over the original soundtrack), while this is a musical, and the voice actor mumbles over the song. No - when Fred Astaire is singing, then you should be silent in a rag and not break my buzz!
I love films of the classic Hollywood era, and sometimes they were released in the Soviet distribution, and they were even given full dubbing. In general, I like the full Soviet dubbing of foreign films - when I hear the original, and imagine how it would sound in Russian, then it's worth turning on just such a dubbing and say "perfect!" To myself. However, there is one caveat ... this is "hello". How to understand that the film was dubbed in the USSR? You will hear how Russian-speaking people use this word as a greeting. For us, these are generally even stereotypes called "Hello Bob" (a set of stereotypes about the United States of the Soviet era). However, this is confusing. Usually it is typical for a dub of a comedy or musical.
I also do not like it when the dubbing is incomplete (voice acting over the original soundtrack), while this is a musical, and the voice actor mumbles over the song. No - when Fred Astaire is singing, then you should be silent in a rag and not break my buzz!
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When Humanity Fuck Yeah! Fiction and other types of science fiction say humans are different then other species it's often Means traits Western liberal Culture has. Like a technological progress fetish, hatred of the rules man, individualism and other shit. I thought about this while reading GURPs Uplift and it said Most humans don't like the idea of the Uplifting client system. Even do it highly resembles colonialism which you know was practiced for a few hundred years or even a few thousands years depending by how you define colonialism. But modern Western liberal culture doesn't like colonialism so their for all humans hate it.
Speaking of Science Fiction and Uplifting the idea that going and contacting indigenous populations of aliens then giving them high tech is a good thing. Which feeds into many colonist policy's in the real life. Rest assured just contacting a "primitive" culture and giving them higher tech has a possibility of going very wrong and permanently screwing up a society. Read a history book. That's why I like the Star Trek Federations policy of letting other species contact the Fedration when they chose to.
Speaking of Science Fiction and Uplifting the idea that going and contacting indigenous populations of aliens then giving them high tech is a good thing. Which feeds into many colonist policy's in the real life. Rest assured just contacting a "primitive" culture and giving them higher tech has a possibility of going very wrong and permanently screwing up a society. Read a history book. That's why I like the Star Trek Federations policy of letting other species contact the Fedration when they chose to.
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- Location
- Somewhere
Should point out that most of the rest of the world isn't fond of it either, mainly because they are the ones the Western Liberal Cultures colonized. Which is a good way to make you not like it.
The last time he used his illusion power he got the shinigami to stab one of their own while Ichigo could only yell about it after the fact. I wouldn't call that 'beaten,' and we didn't even get his bankai. We knew, flat-out, he has a much better form that he didn't even bust out.
Even if the immortality butterfly mode was in-universe better, I think it's more boring.
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Yes but claiming Humans as a whole group don't like colonialism is laughable considered a group of humans totally did dig colonialism. Also "uplifting" animals and giving them a human type of thinking has lots of ethical issues like a minefield. Considering why a humans thought process is "better" and animal rights. In general just contacting a species and giving them tech is terrible idea. And most kind of hard science fiction series have councils and protocols they suppose to follow which is better. Like individualism and selfishness as human traits when many human societies lived under collective cultures.
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- Somewhere
I'd say it depends on the setting. Recall for example, that Star Trek has a dislike for it after the mess that happened after their WWIII.
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Stories like the Krogan and Yeerks show that upsetting a species natural right to culture unmolestied can lead to intergalactic wars.
and I wonder what Indigenous Science fiction writers would do about the galactic councils, and first contact tropes? It is probably fascinating. Any Indigenous Science fiction you would like to recommend.
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Comrade Future
Man from Zeerust
- Location
- USSR
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- He/His/Him
Well, I would not say that this is incredible - since most modern states are heavily westernized. And in fact, we have already approached the described state. The mistake is that they project a society tied to a specific capitalist formation, which would rather start a nuclear war than fly to Alpha Centauri.
It's simple - science fiction writers are rarely able to invent completely different societies. In addition, some "base" is needed with which the viewer could associate himself.
- Location
- The Old Dominion
I have to admit while I don't care for stories how humanity is the greatest thing ever I still find it more tolerable than stories that seem to imply that the world or universe apparently would be better off if humans were subjected to xenocide or otherwise die off because they are apparently evil incarnate.
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I would like it if humans where utterly average in a Science fiction story . only noteworthy because of the female menstruation. Bleeding every moon cycle of aborted eggs is pretty rare and other aliens are grossed out by the expulsion of dead fetus. Humans scientific name roughly translates to bleeds mounthly or something
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Can I recommend The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks then?
Though I'm not sure that "urgh, periods and shunting babies out the hoo-hah" is gonna go down that well...
Keep in mind that the alternative is at best letting them get farther and farther behind, and by the time thousands of years later that they discover alien cultures exist they are both hopelessly far behind and stuck in a tiny little reservation surrounded by the older culture that has colonized everything else around them.
Not many. What they liked was colonizing other people; not being colonized. Ruthless ideologies tend to be like that; the person/character who claims to believe it's moral and beneficial to massacre, enslave, exploit and so on other people suddenly changes their mind when they are the ones who will be massacred, enslaved or exploited.
I think that's a major reason why so many "honorable warrior" type characters get respect; most of the time they do accept it when they are the losing side and appreciate a "glorious death" rather than suddenly complain that it's no fair when they are losing. People appreciate the lack of hypocrisy.
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