The Villain Makes the Plot: Difference between revisions
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== Comicbooks ==
* [[Incredible Hulk]]. His comics are generally not
* ''[[Watchmen (comics)|Watchmen]]''. The ([[Gray and Gray Morality|arguable]]) [[Big Bad]] {{spoiler|Ozymandias averts any major challenge to his plans, even managing to keep the "heroes" (including a nigh-invulnerable [[Reality Warper]]) ignorant of the extent and rationale of his plans and impotent to stop him until [[Dangerously Genre Savvy|it's too late to act]].}}
* Part of the reason [[Superman]] is so popular is because his villains are very rarely dumb. [[Lex Luthor|His archnemesis]] is stated to be, quite possibly, the smartest man on the planet. However, he often acts dumb, frequently with a Went Crazy Because of Factor X reasoning, where X is something like [[Super Serum|kryptonite]] [[Drugs Are Bad|doping]] or an [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|alien robotic parasite]] influencing him for its own purposes, but often enough because he's [[Insufferable Genius|too much of an overconfident jerkass]] to [[Too Dumb to Live|check his work,]] despite [[Fridge Logic|failing all the time]], or because [[They Just Didn't Care]]
Note that while crazy exceeding self-interest destroys Lex, it is [[Power Born of Madness|mother's milk]] to the Joker and his ability to be a serious example of this entry. Although L.L. being, y'know, relatively sane, he actually has goals in life...
* [[Batman]] is also popular because of his memorable [[Shadow Archetype]] [[Rogues Gallery]]. This trope especailly applies to his more intelligent enemies like [[Genius Bruiser|Bane,]] [[The Chessmaster|Hush,]] [[Trickster Archetype|the Riddler,]] [[Mad Scientist|Hugo Strange,]] and [[Ubermensch|Ra's al-Ghul]] to name a few.
** And [[The Joker]], of course - if not for him, Batman probably wouldn't be ''half'' as interesting to modern-day audiences.
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** In the first film, [[Wicked Cultured|Hans Gruber]] is a sly and sophisticated crook with a very clever plan, to the point that hostages are surprised to learn that he's "just a thief." The benefits of a classical education.
** The plan in ''Die Hard With A Vengeance'' was so good, the FBI questioned the writer as to how he got the information involved in the scheme, because they were worried it would actually work.
* One of the reasons ''[[The Dark Knight Saga]]'' was so widely hailed as brilliant is that the Joker feels smart; his plans are very much plausible, if [[Gambit Roulette|relying a bit too much on luck]] (though that also fits the character). Arguably, the whole reason that the Joker is so incredibly difficult to defeat is the ''unpredictability'' in his plans. If his plans relied on logic or concrete goals or desires they would be relatively decipherable. Instead his genuine desire of merely causing as much chaos as possible and driving everyone including Batman to be as insane as he is generates pure unpredictability, which is difficult to beat. Why? Because it's unpredictable. Hard to break a pattern when there is no pattern. Thus setting up his constant defeats to Batman, and verifying this law to the fullest
It's also possible that the reason the Joker is so effective against Batman is because Batman's main source of [[Awesomeness By Analysis]] is very dependent on there being a detectable form of logic to break [[Batman Gambit|and exploit]].
** The Joker may be terrifying, but his plans are anything but plausible. How exactly did he kill the police commisioner and the judge?
** You forget, at that point in the movie the Joker had access to the mob's resources. The poison and car bomb were probably snuck in by cops on Maroni's payroll.
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* Big aversion in ''[[Fargo]]'', in which the criminals are dangerous precisely ''because'' they're incredibly dumb.
** Not an aversion per se; you don't watch ''Fargo'' because it's a smart [[The Caper|caper]] film, you watch it to be amused by ordinary people bumbling along.
* Why do think [[James Bond (film)|James Bond]] has been chugging along for 40-plus years? He is ''constantly'' pitted against [[Diabolical Mastermind
{{quote|'''Dr No''': "[[Nebulous Evil Organization|SPECTRE. Special Executive for Counter Intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, Extortion.]] The four great cornerstones of power headed by the greatest brains in the world."<br />
'''Bond''': "Correction- criminal brains."<br />
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* ''[[24]]'' also makes good use of this concept.
* ''[[Babylon 5]]'' features a number of very intelligent villains, such as Mr. Morden.
* ''[[The Wire]]'' asserts the [[Truth in Television]] nature of this trope: "Stupid criminals make stupid cops." With one exception) all the truly smart villain characters who are killed or otherwise taken out -- {{spoiler|Stringer Bell, Proposition Joe, Omar and Brother Mouzone}}
* ''[[The Thick of It]]'' showed us that an [[Anti-Hero]] is also only as good as his enemies. In the first series spin doctor Malcolm Tucker only had to contend with hapless cabinet ministers and ineffectual civil servants. In series 2 he came perilously close to losing his job to a rival, and from then on the writers began to introduce more interesting conflicts. [[The Movie]], ''[[In the Loop]]'', saw him pitted him against genuinely powerful US politicians. Series 3 then gave him an [[Arch Enemy]], rival spin doctor and [[Smug Snake]] Steve Fleming.
* ''[[Flash Forward 2009]]'': Not only are the bad guys very, very smart (having a scheme that revolves around advanced quantum physics will do that...), they also have the benefit of knowing quite a bit about the future, not only "the future that will happen," but about all sorts of possible futures that might happen if certain events go certain ways.
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== Tabletop Games ==
* ''[[Warhammer 40000]]''. One of the top-level antagonists is [[You Can't Fight Fate|the god of fate]]. Although it's kind of hard to tell whether he's winning, given that he's in many ways the Joker with tentacles.
* Averted in ''[[Unknown Armies]]''. While there are [[Manipulative Bastard]] [[Big Bad
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*** {{spoiler|It could be argued that Fontaine was a [[Magnificent Bastard]] in his own way, outplaying Ryan through cunning and a keener understanding of supply and demand than the uber-capitalist himself. The plot just falls down when everything is revealed in [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|Ryan's quarters]], and there's nowhere to go but to turn Fontaine into just another boss fight.}}
* Most of ''[[Deus Ex]]'' is spent sprinting up the various sorting orders of villainy.
* Averted entertainingly in ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines]]''. Technically the [[Big Bad]] of the game would be {{spoiler|The [[Smug Snake]] Camarilla Prince Lacroix, who tries to pull off an [[Evil Plan]] to acquire the [[MacGuffin|sarcophagus]] and actually gets pretty close. However even in the endings where he ''does'' succeed, he's revealed to be a mere [[Unwitting Pawn]]; instead of the rumored antediluvian he had planned to drain to [[Took a Level In Badass|take a level in badass]], powerful explosives are inside the sarcophagus, which kill him a few seconds into his [[Villainous Breakdown]]. The real [[Manipulative Bastard
** Played straight, however, with Ming Xiao, albeit on a smaller scale.
* ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'': Without [[Mad Scientist|Hojo]], there would be no [[Big Bad|Sephiroth]].
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