Villains who are TOO easy to hate?

[CountVanBadger]

I've been watching One Piece, and I'm on the Sabaody Park arc with the Celestial Dragons. I'm at the part where they're trying to rescue their friend from the human auction, and...is it just me, or are the Celestial Dragons too hatable?

Yeah, I know, you're supposed to hate the villains. Half the fun of writing a villain is thinking of ways to make your audience hate them as much as possible. But watching this, I can't help but feel like there's a right and wrong way to make your villains hatable, and what it comes down to is depth. The Celestial Dragons have no depth. They're just a bunch of spoiled manchildren who take whatever they want and kill anyone who tells them no. And that's it, there's nothing else to them. They're a bunch of walking cliches bundling all of humanity's worst attributes into human form. Yes they're hatable, but they didn't earn that hate. It's just our natural visceral reaction to seeing something so horrible, the same way you'd react to seeing somebody eat a turd sandwich. Yes, you're rooting for the heroes to give them a beatdown, but it's not because you want them to pay for all the horrible things they've done, you just want them out of the story as quick as possible. With a good villain, you get excited when they show up so they can give you more reasons to hate them. With villains like the Celestial Dragons, you dread every moment they're on screen because "Ugh, not these idiots again."

Am I alone here? Does anyone else feel this way?

 

[Corty]

I like easily hatable villains. Sometimes we just need a simple bad guy.

Also, face slapping is fun, so manchildren are the best characters to receive some correctional tooth-loosening.

 

[JayMark]

Celestial dragons kind of mirror the way our leaders act much of the time. I wish they were just bunch of walking cliches. But yeah, they're fine as simple nobless villians. One Piece has a lot of characters, so it also has some villians of the other type. My position is for more variety and less formula, so I am fine with all of this.

The first celestial dragon shown in the anime really did give a "Ughh not this idiot again feeling." But he's just a story punching bag at this point. Easy times create weakness and snot drip boy was living proof Oda understands that.

 

[Eldoria]

Cartoon villains, those who are evil just for the sake of being evil, are characters designed to be hated by readers. The goal is to leave readers emotionally satisfied when they fall and are defeated (or killed). By the way, if I were writing cartoon villains, these characters would usually last less than 10 chapters before being eliminated by the protagonist.

 

[Worthy39]

Cartoon villains, those who are evil just for the sake of being evil, are characters designed to be hated by readers. The goal is to leave readers emotionally satisfied when they fall and are defeated (or killed). By the way, if I were writing cartoon villains, these characters would usually last less than 10 chapters before being eliminated by the protagonist.

I agree with most of what was said here. But if you ever wrote cartoons, I'd probably avoid watching them, not because I think it would be bad, but because I think it would continuously get worse unless it's just really short, but that defeats the general purpose of cartoons. Even cartoons need conflict, and if the villains get eliminated constantly, you'd need to replace them, with a new one, and eventually, you'd run out of good villain motivations that are acceptable for children, leading to either the series being canceled, or suddenly a villain you probably held off on writing earlier (for good reason) becoming the eternal villain, and that's how you get the entire Fandom saying "season 1 was better." Wow, I went off topic.

I like easily hated villains, but ones with depth to them are nice, too.

 

[ACertainPassingUser]

One piece was kinda made for 15yo to begin with, back in 1999.

Thats the shounen genre.

By 2009, the 15yo fanbase has become 25, and generations of 15yo flooded in.

The author has to keep the story canon continue while keeping it interesting for 15yo, and the 25-35-45yo adult with 15yo spirit in mind.

The comical style and no-grey-zone nature of One piece is the bane of shounen genre.

 

[Bartun]

Oh, I'm writing an absolutely despicable villain for my next book. I like simple villains who are easy to understand.

 

[AliceMoonvale]

I remember when I first watched Inuyasha as a kid, all my school friends who watched it too, plus eventually people online would like, dog pile on Kikyo. It was like, I hate her! She's fucking everything up! But then it's like, can you blame her after everything that happened? BUT STILL! I HATE HER!

God, those were good times.