Stupid Villains

Edit: (December 1, 2011) I'm not dead, just busy. There will be a post sometime this week most likely, then I'll probably have a game review post after. It won't be a rant post like this one though. The views to the blog have gone up a bit this month as well... even though I said I'd probably be away for most of it. I did notice activity/discussion about the first game picking up a little on various forums. I'm seeing a lot of traffic from fusionfangaming.

There are certain types of villains that I really really hate. I mean HATE! Not from a, "I want to hurt this guy because he's evil" type of hate, but a "I want to hurt this guy because he's completely illogical and impractical in every way and would never have succeeded at this or come even close to this by employing these methods" type of hate. I could talk about a lot of the villain stereotypes and tropes out there, but there is one in particular that has REALLY been bugging me as of late as it has come up quite often these days.

We need a new paragraph to talk about this.

Maybe even a second one. The villain behavior I'm talking about is the one where they kill off their own henchmen when one makes either a mistake, or fails to succeed because the protagonist did something to thwart this minion's efforts. WHY DO THEY DO THIS!? Is it to show how evil they are and that they're just THAT confident with themselves and believe that they can't lose? If that was the case, then why do so many villains do this? It's completely illogical. Most of the time, the minion didn't even do anything wrong, yet the villain is just ready to kill off a highly trained, and loyal follower over a slight mishap. AND THEY WONDER WHY THEY LOSE! The protagonist is already offing their minions for them, (Or rendering them useless in some way.) and the villain is only assisting them by removing his own staff, which is necessary manpower since the protagonist has plot armor. That's powerful stuff.

This also assumes that all henchmen are mindless idiots who follow blindly. That doesn't happen in real IRL. No one keeps followers with methods like these. The minions would unionize or revolt. Seriously, if my manager at work killed a coworker (even one), I can guarantee you 100% that none of us would be working for him. We'll pretend, for this, that the manager could get away with it. You still have the other workers in this scenario, so legalities don't even have to be a part of this scenario.

This angers the logistical side of my brain so much. If there are any writers reading this, I ask you to please PLEASE stop writing these types of villains unless it actually makes sense with the villain him/her/itself, or to speak an important point about the character to the viewer. One that actually has an impact on the viewer. The only thing this serves in 99.99% of media with these types of villains is to make everyone double facepalm at the sheer stupidity that it is.

One of the only characters where this villain type made sense was Kefka from FF6. (If you haven't played Final Fantasy 6, then go get it right now from one of the many many available ports of it. Emulate (Yes I did suggest it (Hell yes triple parenthesis)) it if you have to, every gamer that even slightly likes RPGs should play it.) [/rant] The theme of FF6 was life itself, how appropriate is it that the villain represents the antithesis to that.

Other Stuff
Slaix reported no issues with the last update I sent him. I'm pretty sure that's a first, or at least the first I'm remembering at this time. This is awesome because it means I don't have to stop to fix bugs and it means, you know, things are getting better. He also got a power up (a heart piece) before I was able to get it. (I mean legit anyway.)

TWO MORE DAYS TILL SKYWARD SWORD!! Though I won't be able to play it till Monday, so busy. D:

Also the above rant came about when Jeremy and I were watching something and the above mentioned villain type was prominent in this viewing and I ranted. So he abruptly (and jokingly) said, "Go blog about it." So I did!

P.S. The villain in DT3 does not do the above.