What makes a great villain?

What makes a great villain?

Motivations are understandable, but you still want to defeat him/her.

Memorable dialogue
A silhouette you can immediately recognize

If a villain does not have both, they are shit.

Wait a minute...I know this

COMPLEX MOTIVES

Rape

>Viper art
Best looking hentai

If you were under their circumstances, you could totally see yourself becoming them

you can't find a single reason to contest their goal other than that it'd get in the way of yours

In video games its simple. Have them show up a few times, say something cool and soundbite-y and have an "epic" fight against them at the end.

when it turns out he did nothing wrong

Agreed. It's important to understand their point of view. It really rounds out the story, in my opinion. If a villain is too simple, it feels less important to defeat them. If they're too complex, it detracts from the story and makes them feel out of place compared to other characters.

Wholly disagree. Some of the greatest villains I've ever seen had totally mysterious/insane/megalomanical motivations.

Really? Which ones? I'm curious.

Goddamn the Viper series had gorgeous artwork.

Not him and not vidya, but Dr Doom.

Just someone you want to beat in the end really. Doesn't have to be complex or deep. Just as long as you have some feeling that beating him is what you want to do in the end the villain service his or her purpose

Depends

You can go on the "2 Deep 4 You" route, which ends up making the guy just feel like an asshole all around

You can make an empathetic villain, but its really hard to make them still feel like a villain while also making them understandable.

Then of course, my favorite, you can just make big fuck you dragons, not weeb dragons, but proper, force of nature, horde treasure, steal wenches dragons.

when hes correct.

This really, it's only a fantastic villain that needs these qualities;
A "good" villain you just need to want to beat, kick their ass. Even if it's just because they piss you off.

...

The moment they understand.

Fair enough, user. I guess a good megalomaniac/insane vidya villain would be the pontiff from DkS3, now that I think about it.

>you can't find a single reason to contest their goal other than that it'd get in the way of yours
I disagree in this one.

There are obviously good villains who have this. But having this every time, it's too much.

Being able to understand their motivations, the reasons why they do it, but always going 'But the villain is the real hero' or the likes, diminishes the few times it's actually interesting to go with that.

I would be bored if every villain was basically the shadowlord.

I'm so glad I watched Macross 7.