Villains Are Serious Business

I ate too much on Wednesday, and it’s entirely possible that I’m eating less for the next few days because of it.

I’m going to whale on Riordan for a bit more. But to be fair, I don’t think this is a problem he usually has.

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Villains Should Probably Be Serious Business

Re-reading Heroes of Olympus I’m struck again by how seriously none of this is taken? I mean there’s a lot going on in the Plot that is taken very seriously, but there's also a lot that’s just… not that serious at all. I’ve talked a bit about how the gods are pushed from being eternal archetypes to being punchlines, and that’s not great. But in Mark of Athena, the villains are also jokes, and that’s also pretty egregious.

I’ve never watched the animated series Adventure Time, but I remember reading somewhere on TV Tropes that there was a note passed around the team making the series which read ‘The Lich King Is Not Funny.’ Which was odd considering how wacky of a series that is. There are candy people and bacon pancakes and jokes about animators and it’s not really the type of show that, at first glance (which is what I’ve had), you’d think had a serious villain. And that’s a great idea to implement: that even though the work isn’t serious most of the time, there’s something there that’s just not funny and that’s the villain.

To be fair Rick Riordan’s not too bad about this outside of Mark of Athena, because while there are some joke villains, most of the antagonists are played seriously. Mark of Athena just had the problem that the main villains for the book, the giants Otis and Ephiliates, are just… joke characters. They’re these two doofuses that are acting like caricatures of theater kids. Their plan is to destroy Rome, but with weird monsters and explosions and crazy outfits. They’re meant to be the anti-Dionysus, throwing revelries so insane that they make Dionysus’s look tame by comparison, but their schtick in-book doesn’t seem like parties as much as a plan from Dr. Draken on steroids. Then there’s Arachne, who is mostly played as a legitimate threat, but then she’s undone because Annabeth pretends that she’s going to be her art agent. And I get that it feeds into Arachne’s whole hubris thing, and it is definitely in line with the myths for someone to be tricked by something like that, but along with the giant twins being jokes (and really, the Mark of Athena quest being really disappointing) I’m not inclined to give it much credit.

Heroes of Olympus is sort of nominally a comedy, but it’s also meant to be a story that we take seriously: a Greek myth set in modern day. And when all the other major villains, like Kronos, Luke, Octavian, Gaea, and Porphyrion are treated like major threats that can actually kill our heroes if they’re not careful, then these two clowns prancing about arguing about whether or not to do ballet during their attempt to destroy Rome is just… it’s a bit lame, ya know?

I get that there are ways to do villains who are funny, but it’s a careful trick. GLaDOS from Portal comes to mind; she’s hilarious, but I think that it works for two reasons: first because the tone of the series is built entirely on dark humor from the get-go, and secondly because she’s not revealed as the villain right away. And even though GLaDOS is pretty silly  and hilarious, by the second game she’s also given a bit of a tragic dimension that fleshes out her character more.

[I also think it’s worth noting that incompetence is a running theme in the series; GLaDOS can’t kill Chell because she’s just really bad at it, Wheatley can’t run the facility because he’s a moron, GLaDOS killed her former handlers because, well, they made an evil AI just ‘cause… it all amounts to people who are smart at one thing being hopelessly stupid when it comes to practical matters.]

I don’t know if Terry Pratchett ever has a villain who is just a joke villain. I mean, there are jokes made about the villains, certainly, but off the top of my head I can’t think of an antagonist in Discworld that’s a joke. They’re all serious villains. That doesn’t mean that the books aren’t funny at all, but that there’s something serious. It gives real stakes to the story and characters.

There are exceptions, like I said, but I think it’s more effective when they’re not. And that’s not even to say that they don’t get funny moments or the like. But a villain comes across strongest when he or she isn’t a joke,or  isn’t even funny. It spells out a mood for the audience about what to expect for the audience. If you’re making a silly comedy where none of it means anything more than a joke, then… yeah, go ahead and make your joke villains. But if you’re using comedy in a serious story, or if you’re using a parody to make a point, then don’t make your villains jokes. Make them actual villains.

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-EAHC