Do the "Villains" need to be presented better in the TV show? Or can Mazrim Tain and other characters be used to make them sympathetic?

[Scarloc99]

On the back of re reading the book series again, as well as thinking about how writing styles have changed over the decades since Robert Jordan wrote WOT, especially in terms of TV writing I wonder, are the Baddies, as they are portrayed in the book, too cartoonish for the TV show? 

In the modern era viewers want to understand and in some ways sympathise with the "villains" in the movies and tv shows they watch, especially sci fi or fantasy, and those that are able to present the motivations and thinking behind the actions of these characters in a way that makes people go "I understand that" tend to do much better. Some examples in recent years.
Homelander is a great villain because we understand where his psychopathy comes from and can sympathise.
Adar, in his exchange with Galadriel makes the viewer ask, is he all bad and she all good. 
Thanos, at the end of Infinity war so many people sat and thought and said, I get it, I mean, it is awful, but I understand it. 
Anakin, you can see his descent (ignoring how well or badly it was written), and understand why he turned to the dark side. 

Now compare this to WOT and really, what reasons are we really given in the books for why the Forsaken are how they are, for why Darkfriends became darkfriends (with the exception of Ingtar which, in the context of the books is a blink and miss it moment)? But it goes deeper then that, the Red Ajah, there is not really a single sympathetic member of the Red in the books, no effort is made by anyone including the other Aes Sedai of other Ajah to explain why they are a necessary part of the tower. White cloaks are an almost cartoon villain, who are explained slightly better but tend to be very one dimensional. 

Will the TV show have to present its villains in a different way to how they are in the books? Will it be enough to handwave the forsaken as turning to the dark because of jealousies, arrogance or a fear of death. Will they need to use some of those scenes from the age of legends to present them as sympathetic characters and help the audience get a sense of "I understand the why". Will they need to show the situation and circumstances that leads an aes sedai joining the black in a more nuanced way then "I like hurting people" or "I got caught and turned". 

Mazrim Tain might be a good character to tell this tale, I imagine like Logain, we will see his early story onscreen as opposed to off, if he can start out as someone the audience like, and then if we can see him slowly descending and making that choice willingly, maybe that is enough to then understand how the Forsaken could also make their own journey. On the Aes Sedai side, having a character or 2 explain the importance of the red, even with their excesses, or a sympathetic red or 2 might help. The white cloaks, showing more of Galads journey to joining them, and, through him how they then have become twisted from the original purpose probably requires the least amount of additional made up story. 

Or maybe you think nothing needs to be done, WOT is a story of good vs evil, we don't need the Villains to be sympathetic, bad guy is a bad guy because they do bad things?
 

Edited November 15, 2022 by Sir_Charrid

[WhiteVeils]

They are already doing this for the show.  Dana has a far more sympathetic presentation and persuasive argument than any darkfriend presented in the book series, except Ingtar and perhaps Melindra.  Padan Fain gives an explanation for his own opinion, and it's not the same reason as Dana's.  

 

On the other hand, the books aren't as simplistic as you might suppose.  The Foresaken are petty and selfish, but so are a lot of the regular people.  Taim has a persuasive storyarc in the books from a man who just wanted glory and credit for the things he does. He could have otherwise been very good, he did build the tower and do what Rand wanted, but he never got the respect he was due and eventually it turned him towards the dark. We just don't see it in his own POV.

[DojoToad]

58 minutes ago, WhiteVeils said:

On the other hand, the books aren't as simplistic as you might suppose.  The Foresaken are petty and selfish, but so are a lot of the regular people.  Taim has a persuasive storyarc in the books from a man who just wanted glory and credit for the things he does. He could have otherwise been very good, he did build the tower and do what Rand wanted, but he never got the respect he was due and eventually it turned him towards the dark. We just don't see it in his own POV.

I would expand it to say that a lot of 'good' people are petty and selfish.

 

But I think the show needs to be more organic about how this is shown.  Dana gives a little speech to the 'good' guys.  She was telling instead of showing.  Saves time, but a pretty ham-fisted way to explore character depth.

[WhiteVeils]

2 hours ago, DojoToad said:

I would expand it to say that a lot of 'good' people are petty and selfish.

 

But I think the show needs to be more organic about how this is shown.  Dana gives a little speech to the 'good' guys.  She was telling instead of showing.  Saves time, but a pretty ham-fisted way to explore character depth.

It's a speech Jordan didn't find time to include in 14 books though.  

[DojoToad]

14 hours ago, WhiteVeils said:

It's a speech Jordan didn't find time to include in 14 books though.  

Right, because that would be telling instead of showing.

 

But you are correct, he didn't spend enough time fleshing out the 'bad' guys.  They could have been much more interesting had he showed  motivations other than grasping for power/immortality.  Just as he could have shown the darker side of the the 'good' guys - and I mean beyond them quarreling and making bad decisions.

 

Rafe had a chance to correct that, but whiff...

Edited November 16, 2022 by DojoToad

[AdamA]

I'm not actually sure I agree they were one-dimensional in the books. Some were a bit cartoonish, say Semirhage and Graendal. But Ishamael seemed to have understandable motivation. Taim wasn't obviously all bad at first. Asmodean hardly seems bad at all, just caught on the wrong side. Lanfear seems more chaotic than true evil most of the time, and her and Moghedien both are more pitiable than despicable. Pevara is Red Ajah and ends up as one of the principle heroes by the end and one of my personal favorites. Whitecloaks aren't all bad, either. They ultimately fight for the good guys. Sebban Balwer practically becomes Perrin's right hand man.

 

Perhaps the issue is just the Dark One himself being so over the top in terms of behaviors encouraged among his followers that make darkfriends unimaginably cruel to each other.

[Scarloc99]

10 hours ago, AdamA said:

I'm not actually sure I agree they were one-dimensional in the books. Some were a bit cartoonish, say Semirhage and Graendal. But Ishamael seemed to have understandable motivation. Taim wasn't obviously all bad at first. Asmodean hardly seems bad at all, just caught on the wrong side. Lanfear seems more chaotic than true evil most of the time, and her and Moghedien both are more pitiable than despicable. Pevara is Red Ajah and ends up as one of the principle heroes by the end and one of my personal favorites. Whitecloaks aren't all bad, either. They ultimately fight for the good guys. Sebban Balwer practically becomes Perrin's right hand man.

 

Perhaps the issue is just the Dark One himself being so over the top in terms of behaviors encouraged among his followers that make darkfriends unimaginably cruel to each other.

While I get what your saying they are still very much presented as doing bad things because they are bad, at no point did Jordan try and show any redeeming features of the Forsaken. Lands they control are full of cruelty, they use compulsion at will to make women and men do things for and to them. They are just bad and so should be destroyed. 

I feel in the modern era there would be questions asked, for instance Bela or Rahvin you could have shown the land being ruled tyrannically but with no crime, or you could have shown them manipulating and enticing the people using honey to try and get them to come across to the darklord. I am thinking something similar to Sauron in Numenor. Now, you could argue that possibly Shara was that, but, that is all off screen. 

I just find compared to other book series and considering just how many pages of text Jordan had the forsaken do come across as generic villains. Taim I feel we never really got to understand fully why he went from man who wanted to be the hero but then became angry that he would play second fiddle to the Dragon, to then being willing to be what 7th in line for the dark lord. He was never going to be naeblis 

Pevara is a sympathetic red, but, I feel she is always presented more as a women who maybe picked the wrong shawl then as a way of explaining why the Red are truly necessary and why their methods are needed, she explains that she sees gentling men as her way of fighting the darkone but that doesn't explain the focus of the Red, they are just a bunch of man hating women who love nothing more then gentling or killing a man they think might be able to channel.  I would have loved for the Red as a whole to have been presented as being more then just either cruel or stupid/foolish which is how most of the red are presented. 

Whitecloaks for me are the easiest one to understand and are the best explained in the book, a group of religious fanatics who over time have had there teachings twisted by those who see the political benefits rathe then necessarily being true believers. Galad really shows that story well. 

Fain, I agree is an understandable character. His original story is obviously a nod to Golumn, many forget that Sauron changed Golumn to make him more sensitive to the ring after he visited Mordor the first time. This is very similair to Fain returning and being "refined" over and over. Then he gets taken by SL and turns into something very very different. For me that is all the backstory you need for him, he can be a character who is evil and therefore does evil things. But I still feel for the TV show more motivation is going to be needed for many of the forsaken. 
 

[Wassup]

The forsaken do not deserve any sympathetic back story or character arc. They are the extreme of humanity. They were the most powerful out of a group of people who only sought their own power/glory or chased after immortality and their own morbid enjoyments. They were there because of their vileness that helped them win out over the others.  
 

They sided with the dark one for blatantly selfish reasons with their ambition and spent decades fighting in the war of power before being imprisoned with the dark one. That is where they were and are when they are set free and introduced to us. 
 

Maybe one or two showed some slight remorse in the later books for how things turned out, but they stuck with the dark one because they wanted to win. Even Asmodeon only stayed around because he did not want to die. Lanfear wanted the power and only wanted to be on the winning side, preferably with her above everyone else. 

 

Or, maybe I am remembering it wrong. 

[ForsakenPotato]

It would be great to have a mix of sympathetic/understandable baddies, legit scary baddies, and fun/campy baddies. There's enough forsaken and darkfriends to have a bit of everything, and they need to in order to keep it interesting.

 

The books have some of this already. Asmodean and Lanfear, in my opinion, we get to spend enough time with to understand their characters and motivations. Demandred is actually scary in the last battle, and Rahvin's treatment of Morgase could be terrifying if we see it onscreen, so they could fall into the second category (would love to see more scary villains honestly, I felt in the books the foresaken were pretty goofy and incompetent for the most part). Then characters like Fain and Graendal can be villains where the actors have a lot of fun with the roles because they are so over the top and dramatic, and they can be evil while still providing a bit of comic relief.

 

I'm really interested to see how they handle the villains who aren't purely evil but are still major obstacles to our protagonists. Elaida, for example, could really fall into a lot of different types of portrayals depending on the actress and the writing.

[ForsakenPotato]

An example of a villain who, if even included, could be way better in the show than the books is Halima. She spends a lot of time hanging around Egwene (and therefor the reader) without any real character development, and her biggest impact on Egwene (and frankly myself) are headaches. That's not even touching some of the problematic gender stuff that has already been discussed on this forum.

[DojoToad]

1 hour ago, ForsakenPotato said:

An example of a villain who, if even included, could be way better in the show than the books is Halima. She spends a lot of time hanging around Egwene (and therefor the reader) without any real character development, and her biggest impact on Egwene (and frankly myself) are headaches. That's not even touching some of the problematic gender stuff that has already been discussed on this forum.

Agreed.  Way too much time was spent on the nuisance headaches that in the end didn't amount to anything,

[Scarloc99]

On 11/16/2022 at 7:05 PM, Wassup said:

The forsaken do not deserve any sympathetic back story or character arc. They are the extreme of humanity. They were the most powerful out of a group of people who only sought their own power/glory or chased after immortality and their own morbid enjoyments. They were there because of their vileness that helped them win out over the others.  
 

They sided with the dark one for blatantly selfish reasons with their ambition and spent decades fighting in the war of power before being imprisoned with the dark one. That is where they were and are when they are set free and introduced to us. 
 

Maybe one or two showed some slight remorse in the later books for how things turned out, but they stuck with the dark one because they wanted to win. Even Asmodeon only stayed around because he did not want to die. Lanfear wanted the power and only wanted to be on the winning side, preferably with her above everyone else. 

 

Or, maybe I am remembering it wrong. 

By the times of the books yes maybe they have become that parody of "I am bad because I like doing bad things" but, these where intelligent people, the best of there field at a time when humanity was living peacefully. War had been ended, crime apparently eradicated, so what led these individuals, who had influence and power in their own right, to risk it all by giving themselves to the dark lord. 

All bad people have motivations and reasons and viewers have reached beyond simply accepting the bad guys in series "just are". They want to understand, not just fictional villains but real life and if that is not explained it makes a TV character feel very one dimensional. Now the argument that "the wheel turns an infinite amount of times, the Creator, through the Dragon, must win every time, the dark lord only once" is an argument that can be explained.

Ingtar explaining he turned because he saw it as a way of saving his people, no one else was fighting the blight but maybe worshipping the dark lord would save his people. 

But 

I turned to the darklord because I liked hurting people, over and over by various characters from Black Ajah, to Heavies like Kadere to even some forsaken just won't cut it anymore. I find from re reading that the constant parade of Darkfriends who are "just evil" gets a bit much and in a TV series. People are not just Vile and Wicked for no reason, a baby is not born that way, and some of the most powerful Aes Sedai in the age of legends where not just all that way. Something happened to each of them to get them to make that life changing decision, fully aware of what they where doing or maybe, in some cases not. That is a story I would like to be told on the screen for at least some of the villains.

[Scarloc99]

17 hours ago, DojoToad said:

Agreed.  Way too much time was spent on the nuisance headaches that in the end didn't amount to anything,

I mean, maybe it was meant to inspire the rediscovery of Paracetamol 🙂. Halima's plan was to reinstate the idea of Big Pharma, and, a nefarious plan it was indeed 🙂 

Edited November 18, 2022 by Sir_Charrid

[DojoToad]

1 minute ago, Sir_Charrid said:

I mean, maybe it was meant to inspire the rediscovery of Paracetamol 🙂. Halima's plan was to reinstate the idea of Big Pharma, and, a nefarious plan it was indeed 🙂 

It is a money-maker!!

[A Memory Of Why]

I think it would be difficult to shine Semirage in a sympathetic light.

 

She sounds like a complete psychopath who really doesn't understand why people would have problems with her sadistic price for her gifts.

 

What I'm trying to say is.. I think Semirage is a cat 🐈 

[Chivalry]

I do think there will be an effort to carve out more complex villains...as is the norm these days. What I'm not a fan of is the idea that the good guys need to be altered to fit modern viewing sensibilities. Mat Cauthon is always 'Chaotic Good', but not everyone needs to be Han Solo. 

[Scarloc99]

10 hours ago, Chivalry said:

I do think there will be an effort to carve out more complex villains...as is the norm these days. What I'm not a fan of is the idea that the good guys need to be altered to fit modern viewing sensibilities. Mat Cauthon is always 'Chaotic Good', but not everyone needs to be Han Solo. 

I agree that the good characters in the book are already more complex, probably because we see from their POV and I don't feel the tone of WOT calls for those shades of grey amongst the heroes individually. there are already some broad themes in that grey space, the Seanchan for instance are a complex culture to understand, the journey the whitecloaks take as an organisation, even Massena, if he is included, will give that sense of how that religious fanaticism can go too far. The dragon becoming that Messianic figurehead and then having to deal with the followers who go too far. 

 

[Sabio]

RJ would never want the Forsaken to be portrayed as Sympathetic.  He made them evil, all of them have done horrendous things and are responsible for tens of thousands of deaths.  They kill anyone without hesitation or remorse.  They're suppose to be the evil beings that give people nightmares and whose names make people tremble in fear.  They all went over to the shadow for selfish reasons.  He even said Samm was a vile being not worthy of a better death scene.   

 

There are a few DFs that you can feel sorry for Verin and Ingtar are a couple.  DF's aren't just bad people, they are the worst who have pledged their soul to the DO.  There are plenty of people in Randland doing bad things that would be horrified at the thought of being a DF.  DF's have the same motivations as the Forsaken the desire for power, wanting revenge, etc...  

Edited November 20, 2022 by Sabio

[king of nowhere]

the forsaken are despicable people who only care for power. the dark one himself handpicked them for this.

 

everyone else should be more nuanced. darkfriends should run the whole range from "i want power and immortality" to "i want to make some easy money" to "my mom was darkfriend and she introduced me to this since i was a kid". whitecloaks range from stern but reasonable, to crazed fanatics.

 

the books mostly did this already. though the books did have some issues there. the congars and coplins are depicted as a family of miscreants. the red ajah is the more infiltrated by darkfriends and it has one single positive character in it. the shaido are aiel without the positive traits that separate aiel from rampaging barbarians. and while we know there must be darkfriends among the aiel, we only see one... and she's a shaido. and by the way, why are there so many black aes sedai, but apparently no black wise ones?

 

in general, when you take a large group of people - people that were not handpicked for a specific trait - you get a lot of variability within. in some cases, the books failed to depict that, and that representation can be improved.

you could say this problem goes all the way up to gender representation, with all men shown as displaying certain traits and all women shown as displaying certain other traits, virtually no exceptions. failing to represent human variability when appropriate is a minor failing of the books - I say minor because it doesn't prevent enjoyment.

later books by RJ already improved - with a congar being the wisdom and a good red aes sedai.

[Scarloc99]

On 11/20/2022 at 12:26 AM, king of nowhere said:

the forsaken are despicable people who only care for power. the dark one himself handpicked them for this.

 

everyone else should be more nuanced. darkfriends should run the whole range from "i want power and immortality" to "i want to make some easy money" to "my mom was darkfriend and she introduced me to this since i was a kid". whitecloaks range from stern but reasonable, to crazed fanatics.

 

the books mostly did this already. though the books did have some issues there. the congars and coplins are depicted as a family of miscreants. the red ajah is the more infiltrated by darkfriends and it has one single positive character in it. the shaido are aiel without the positive traits that separate aiel from rampaging barbarians. and while we know there must be darkfriends among the aiel, we only see one... and she's a shaido. and by the way, why are there so many black aes sedai, but apparently no black wise ones?

 

in general, when you take a large group of people - people that were not handpicked for a specific trait - you get a lot of variability within. in some cases, the books failed to depict that, and that representation can be improved.

you could say this problem goes all the way up to gender representation, with all men shown as displaying certain traits and all women shown as displaying certain other traits, virtually no exceptions. failing to represent human variability when appropriate is a minor failing of the books - I say minor because it doesn't prevent enjoyment.

later books by RJ already improved - with a congar being the wisdom and a good red aes sedai.

However, as I have said already, the Forsaken did not start out that way, we see glimpses of this i the books, vain, selfish yes, but downright evil no most of them where not. I like to think that some of them where tricked in some way to joining the dark lord, and, in that moment lost what little good qualities they had, there negatives being magnified to almost cartoonish levels. But, why dd they take that initial step, that is always something that fascinated me. Much as I am fascinated by why Morgoth and Sauron turned from the light. 

[KakitaOCU]

The only thing I'd really argue is against the idea that villains need a sympathetic backstory.  They don't all have one. 

For every character like an Anakin Skywalker or Killmonger who has reasons the reader can make the mistake of sliding in line with there are villains like Sauron or Anya.

Even the complete monster villains can still HAVE things that make them relatable.  I mentioned Anya from Recluce.  She is a fully bore Nihilistic Hedonist.  A woman cursed with forsight who walked away from knowing the future with the attitude that nothing matters so manipulate, take, kill and do whatever based purely on what YOU will enjoy.  She's irredeemable, she's a monster.  She still comes off interesting and human without any real tragedy or sympathy coming up.

[bringbackthomsmoustache]

Was Ryba so much better than Anya - she was willing to do some very dubious things in the service of making the future she saw come into being even though she knew from her foresight that it was ultimately futile.

[Mailman]

 

On 11/19/2022 at 9:43 AM, A Memory Of Why said:

I think it would be difficult to shine Semirage in a sympathetic light.

 

She sounds like a complete psychopath who really doesn't understand why people would have problems with her sadistic price for her gifts.

 

What I'm trying to say is.. I think Semirage is a cat 🐈 

As horrible a person as Semirage is she only joined the Dark One to avoid being bound by the oath rod which would have halved her life as well as preventing her from exacting her price. If I remember correctly her choice was binding or severing. 

 

She clearly had a desire to hurt people but her defection had a fully understandable cause and effect.

[Elendir]

Forsakens call themself chosen. They wasn't chosen because of their power only. Their character played its role as well. Being cartoonish villain would fit such selection proces.

 

Then I find Ishamael had some reasoning in his motives. Dana`s "end of suffering" is from his motivation.

 

WoT has several different villains. I prefer mix of real assholes and sympathetic weaklings.

[A Memory Of Why]

13 hours ago, Mailman said:

As horrible a person as Semirage is she only joined the Dark One to avoid being bound by the oath rod which would have halved her life as well as preventing her from exacting her price. If I remember correctly her choice was binding or severing. 

 

Pretty much, she was one of the greatest healers of the age with her crime being torturing her clients and thinking they should be greatfull. 

 

My point was it would be difficult to relate to her, well without changing the source.

 

I guess we could go with.. Girls just want to have fun 😘