[three characters looking awfully bland] The protagonists:
- Annoying goody two shoes leader who’s a paragon of virtue
- Nerdy scientist with no backstory who keeps doing poor puns
- Super bland dude who’s an obvious self insert for the writer
- People die because they’re “good” and refuse to break the rules
- They win battles through plot armor and the power of friendship
[a cool looking grizzled character smokes a cigar in a spaceship interior, a foot up on the controls, while a spaceship blasts a mega laser outside in space] The super evil antagonist:
- Played by the most charismatic actor available on the market
- Keeps doing the coolest looking things (but you must hate it)
- Has the coolest secret lair and his henchmen love him
- Is named Adolf McMurder and genocides with a smile
- Says an awesome one liner before murdering an orphan
[a nerdy dude in flannel points at a storyboard of the two previous images] The naive screenwriter:
- At least this time he’s not writing women, phew
- Has too much trust in his audience’s media literacy - About to give the super evil antagonist yet another zingy one liner
- Surely if we show him killing an orphan the audience will hate him
- Right, guys?… Right??…
One thing that annoys me is when the “bad” guy not only has all the style and charisma, but also starts making too much sense and ends up completely in the right, but they can’t let them win because that would change the sacred status quo. So they gotta make them do something really fucked up so everyone can see that they’re supposed to be the bad guy, even if the thing they do is random, out of character, and/or has nothing to do with the entirely valid point they’re making. Like what they want is basic civil rights, but they also murder orphans. So the good guys gotta stop their nefarious plan to give everyone basic civil rights.
Something something Legend of Korra’s first villain?
The exact one that came to my mind. It’s wild that the totally legitimate movement just died overnight because their leader was revealed to be a bender. I know they mentioned the government reforms to appease non benders, and realistically the show just wanted to move on, but it definitely still sticks out to me over a decade later