What is a Villain Sue?

Apparently Caius Ballad is a Villain Sue because of the following

"A villain sue is often a villain who's unreasonably powerful/competent, has no notable weaknesses, and never faces a downfall. They're like an amateur writer's attempt at making a badass villain, while forgetting that the heroes have to actually compare to them for the story to feel at all meaningful. Caius fits the description. Overly long post ahead:

His strength is a mish-mash of unrelated powers that just happen to be cool. He's an immortal time traveler who can summon meteors, turn into a dragon, and be in multiple dimensions at once. Who shares his heart with a goddess. Most of Caius's abilities aren't really thematically consistent and don't symbolize anything, he's just overpowered to be overpowered. And he can never be beaten; final fight aside (which he lost on purpose), every time you win a boss fight against him he either kicks your ass in the cutscene afterwards or simply restores himself from "dead" to perfect health and goes about his business as if your actions mean nothing (and really, they don't). It's like he came from a fanfic.

Speaking of fanfiction, Caius's role in the plot is contrived. His existence and job received a grand total of 0 foreshadowing in the first game, yet out of nowhere he's Lightning's arch-nemesis. Plus he'd be a complete non-factor if Etro wasn't a sentimental idiot; he's waging war against the goddess with the power she herself gave him.

And his plans work far too perfectly. He has multiple backup plans but none are ever necessary because the heroes fail to stop the main one in the first place. Like the fal'Cie of the first game, even when the heroes are blatantly told what he wants to happen and how they can avoid it they just go with the flow an way and he succeeds effortlessly. The difference is that the fal'Cie actually die in the end, while even when Caius's plan is supposed to involve some sort of sacrifice on his part he still comes out unscathed. XIII-2 ends with memories of his words mocking the heroes as his plan dooms the world; the 100% completion ending features Caius mocking the player and revealing that he's still alive when his whole highly-successful master plan relied on him being killed. With no actual explanation provided for the phenomenon. XIII-2's gimmick was time travel and paradoxes and to follow suit the villain itself was a paradox."

I approve.

You can count Genesis as a Villain Sue because he does seem to come out of a really bad fanfiction that rewrites the plot.Not to mention the guy is treated by the narrative as supposedly being sympathetic even though by his actions he doesn't deserved to be redeemed.In fact he does a Heel Face Turn without even earning it or going through any suffering so all his horrible actions are swept under the rug and never paid for.Not to mention he pops up in stuff that he originally wasn't supposed to be in.

Genesis doesn't fit the description at all. He's not even close to overpowered, nor do his plans ever go well. He survives mainly through luck and Zack being a nice guy.

Ironically, Sephiroth in FFVII quite nearly fits the bill but for his glaring flaw of pride. He was extremely overpowered, could have killed the heroes at most any point he wanted (he defeats most of the team at the Northern Crater, but chooses not to kill them), and jerked them along most of the game -- even gambling the key to his larger plan on allowing Cloud to have the Black Materia twice, just so he can fuck with him some more -- but he loses it all in the end because of his ego.

Hawkeye said:

Genesis doesn't fit the description at all. He's even close to overpowered, nor do his plans ever go well. He survives mainly through luck and Zack being a nice guy.

Ironically, Sephiroth in FFVII quite nearly fits the bill but for his glaring flaw of pride. He was extremely overpowered, could have killed the heroes at most any point he wanted (he defeats most of the team at the Northern Crater, but chooses not to kill them), and jerked them along most of the game -- even gambling the key to his larger plan on allowing Cloud to have the Black Materia twice, just so he can fuck with him some more -- but he loses it all in the end because of his ego.

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You have a point there about Sephiroth.

I always thought seph fit the description. Exdrath could fit as well.

Caius was outmatched by Lightning a couple of times. What caused him to win was his immortality.

e's an immortal time traveler who can summon meteors, turn into a dragon, and be in multiple dimensions at once. Who shares his heart with a goddess. Most of Caius's abilities aren't really thematically consistent and don't symbolize anything, he's just overpowered to be overpowered.

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Caius has a problem with EVERYTHING IS AWESOME OMG YEAH like a twelve year old designed it but there is a consistency. Beside meteor, which thematically appears in multiple titles of the franchise, it's a callback as much as putting Yuel in the water was. But Caius is not in multiple dimensions at once, not in the way the guy is thinking about it.

Caius isn't time traveling, he's immortal so whenever there is time traveling involved, he's going to be alive in that instance. That's why his attitude to Noel is a bit different, he might know his Noel is because he listens to the prophecies but he hasn't met him.

The turning into a dragon thing is related to his immortality, and linked to being a l'cie which the game points out he was. There are Bahamuts already linked to this world, but rather than simply summoning it, he can transform into it.

I mean, yeah it's mishmashed but the common link is his immortality. Even his scheming and winning is linked to his immortality, his edge is given by the fact that he's had hundreds of years to plan.

I understand where they are going with this but I'm suspicious of the word sue being thrown around, especially when it comes to a franchise that consistently has villains that are either super powered or play with the Xanatos Gambit trope.

Caius just happens to be the one that wins.

/imayjustbeafantardofCaiusthoughsoagrainofsaltpls

Splintered said:

Caius was outmatched by Lightning a couple of times. What caused him to win was his immortality.


Caius has a problem with EVERYTHING IS AWESOME OMG YEAH like a twelve year old designed it but there is a consistency. Beside meteor, which thematically appears in multiple titles of the franchise, it's a callback as much as putting Yuel in the water was. But Caius is not in multiple dimensions at once, not in the way the guy is thinking about it.

Caius isn't time traveling, he's immortal so whenever there is time traveling involved, he's going to be alive in that instance. That's why his attitude to Noel is a bit different, he might know his Noel is because he listens to the prophecies but he hasn't met him.

The turning into a dragon thing is related to his immortality, and linked to being a l'cie which the game points out he was. There are Bahamuts already linked to this world, but rather than simply summoning it, he can transform into it.

I mean, yeah it's mishmashed but the common link is his immortality. Even his scheming and winning is linked to his immortality, his edge is given by the fact that he's had hundreds of years to plan.

I understand where they are going with this but I'm suspicious of the word sue being thrown around, especially when it comes to a franchise that consistently has villains that are either super powered or play with the Xanatos Gambit trope.

Caius just happens to be the one that wins.

/imayjustbeafantardofCaiusthoughsoagrainofsaltpls

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Of course when I countered every point they never replied.

It's interesting that this topic came up. I've been thinking about villian sues lately. More in relation to my writings, but in general too. We so often work on making our heroes and heroines well-rounded that sometimes we can forget to make our villians as complex.

Sephiroth would definitely be a villian sue if not for his pride. But that's what makes him very fun to me. He would succeed in most of his plans if it didn't have so much hubris. It trips him everytime. Watch it: it's like clockwork.

Kefka's flaw would be his insanity. Honestly, that's what gets him. It makes him impossible to work with others (remember what happened to his boss?) and makes planning extremely difficult. He's still very successful with it, but that's essentially why he cannot win in the end: he cannot ally with people, full stop.

There are others, but in the end, a villian must make mistakes, have weaknesses and have have similiar character flaws to heroes or else they're just that laughing guy in a cape that you run through with your sword every second week. xD

Pride is defiantly Sephiroth's downfall and also his foe yay with Cloud.I mean in most of the spinoffs all he can think about is Cloud and how he trys to find many ways to stick his sword into him or dominate him.

Its just flanderization but man these days they make Sephiroth obsessed with Cloud.

Except for maybe Caius, I think all the FF villains are well written enough to not be villain sues. They all do have weaknesses, and heroes do find a means of matching them in ways that allow their defeat to have meaning and relevance.

Now some anime villains on the other hand...

I don't know much about formal literary analysis but, I feel kind of weird about applying the same rules of a hero as to a villain when it comes to "what makes a good villain." I just feel like they are made for different things, an unreasonably powerful hero in an epic is bad writing because it takes away from the tension. But an unreasonably powerful villain, especially in epics, is there to create tension.

A villain that always plans and is competent is not necessarily bad either, especially in stories that are psychological. Being mentally one step in front of the hero provides frustration for the hero.

I mean, compelling villains don't even need to be human. They can be an idea. Like Silent Hill, not a dynamic villain, not something that can really be defeated, but I know plenty of people that consider it to be the villain. And sometimes the less we know about a villain, the better.

And flaws with heroes aren't necessarily flaws for heroes. I don't consider insanity a flaw for Kefka the same way I would think it the same way for some heroes, it's just the way that character operates.

Victory for a hero is considered standard, but victory for a villain would probably put them in danger of villainsuing, wouldn't it?

I stopped reading the first post after two paragraphs. Out of all the books, games, comics, movies etc I've come across, there are A LOT of Villain Sues (I love that expression btw!) and Caius is certainly NOT one of them. He might come across as 'omg so cool' but his story is much more interesting than simply being the Antagonist.

I think the author of this post really wants to prove a point, but sorry, no. Not ranting atm cus on my phone.

Edit: The "Villains must have a weakness" to me is the same way you say "a good character has flaws". With Mary Sues, one of the accepted traits of a Mary Sue is that she does everything the correct/appropriate/right way and has no darker side. Well a villain already has a dark side, but you still need something in a villain that makes him/her "human" - which in this case can be called a weakness. It's something about their motivation that makes them subject to failure.

Caius comes a long way by outsmarting our protagonists, but that doesn't mean he's not subject to failure. IMO, Caius' "weakness" is Yuel. Everything he does, he does to save her and stop the endless misery he himself feels when seeing her die over and over. So it's not easy pointing out that one "villain weakness", that doesn't mean he's not a rich character, = it doesn't mean he's a "Villain Sue".

To beat Caius, they'd have to outsmart him (which has proven to be hard), or to convince him that Yuel really wanted to sacrifice herself, because that's the part he fails to see because all he can think about is saving her. His human side of wanting to save someone no matter what is a flaw, but it's not easy for us to call that a flaw since it's a natural human trait to want to do anything for the ones you care about. This is where the complexity comes in, and it is a complexity I love about the XIII-2 trio (Caius, Yuel, Noel).

Sephiroth still wouldn't be a Villain Sue even without his pride. In terms of character, Sephiroth cannot be said to exist simply to be sexy and cool. The first time we met him he is quickly reduced to a mindblown mess because of what Shinra did to him. He literally goes running to mommy. He looked cool with the Nibelheim firewalk but it was still pretty clearly him lashing out because he can't handle what he just learned about himself.

In terms of planning and success against the heros, even though he took Aerith quite seriously, he failed to stop her from summoning Holy as effectively as he would have liked. And he wasn't the one that took the Key from the party, Cait Sith and the Turks did, he wasn't the one that ultimately broke Cloud's mind, Hojo did. These aren't Sephiroth's allies or pawns, those are other villains AVALANCHE had to deal with.

Genesis doesn't even come close, his attacks on Shinra were a failure, his attempts to turn Angeal to his side were ultimately a failure, he was outmatched by Sephiroth and before long Zack as well, when he did find Jenova it turned out it was of no use to him, he needed Sephiroth, who he failed to turn to his cause as well, he ultimately succeeded in restoring his health through hardwon trail and error alone. He created an incredibly amount of trouble for the hero but that's what you want from a villain.

Makoeyes987 said:

Except for maybe Caius, I think all the FF villains are well written enough to not be villain sues. They all do have weaknesses, and heroes do find a means of matching them in ways that allow their defeat to have meaning and relevance.

Now some anime villains on the other hand...

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Maybe primarch Dysley from FFxiii can be count as one. Every actions of the heroes somewhat fits to his plan

Ffxiii1ll said:

Maybe primarch Dysley from FFxiii can be count as one. Every actions of the heroes somewhat fits to his plan

Spoiler

to destroy Cocoon, which is eventually did, what made it fail is the action of the Godess.

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Yeah, we spent the entire game following the yellowbricked road he laid out for us, nothing the group did surprised him in the least, he brough Raines back from the dead easy as that, every battle against him was shown to be 100% meaningless, except for the one in he which he wanted to die.

Minato Arisato said:

Yeah, we spent the entire game following the yellowbricked road he laid out for us, nothing the group did surprised him in the least, he brough Raines back from the dead easy as that, every battle against him was shown to be 100% meaningless, except for the one in he which he wanted to die.

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Cept Raines wasn't dead.

But an unreasonably powerful villain, especially in epics, is there to create tension.

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I'm gonna disagree with that. If the villian is too powerful, way above the heroes, then the possibilty of his/her defeat becomes nigh on impossible. If that's the case, then the tension is gone simply because there is no expectation that the heroes can win and the reader/gamer/etc. might lose interest (who really wants to see their favorite character get their ass handed to them over and over and over again?). If they do manage to defeat the villian, aganist all logic, then that just kills the credibility.

IMO, the villian needs to be just a bit more clever and a bit stronger than the hero(es). Enough to make his/her defeat possible, but extremely difficult. It's a delicate balance--tip one way and the heroes seem like Superman on drugs and tip the other and it looks like a 2-year old facing off against Warmech.

Edit: also, found this link that talks about villain sue http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VillainSue

Minato Arisato said:

Sephiroth still wouldn't be a Villain Sue even without his pride. In terms of character, Sephiroth cannot be said to exist simply to be sexy and cool.

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You wouldn't know that based on his fanbase about ten years ago. =P

Minato said:

The first time we met him he is quickly reduced to a mindblown mess because of what Shinra did to him. He literally goes running to mommy. He looked cool with the Nibelheim firewalk but it was still pretty clearly him lashing out because he can't handle what he just learned about himself.

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You have a point there, but I don't know. The hardcore Seph fans I've known have never seemed to look at it that way.

Minato said:

In terms of planning and success against the heros, even though he took Aerith quite seriously, he failed to stop her from summoning Holy as effectively as he would have liked.

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That's only because he was trying to use her death as a way to further torture Cloud by making him do it himself. Really, that's the only point (other than his defeat) where his plans didn't go as he intended them to -- and that was still all related to his pride, as he was trying to make Cloud suffer because of the defeat five years earlier.

Minato said:

And he wasn't the one that took the Key from the party, Cait Sith and the Turks did, he wasn't the one that ultimately broke Cloud's mind, Hojo did. These aren't Sephiroth's allies or pawns, those are other villains AVALANCHE had to deal with.

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The Kyestone seems rather irrelevant as far as Sephiroth is concerned. He didn't exactly need it to get into the Temple of the Ancients, and probably could have just taken it from Dio on his own if he had been more concerned with getting Meteor summoned than fucking with Cloud.

As for Cloud's mind breaking, Hojo's words wouldn't have meant anything without the lies that Sephiroth had been telling Cloud. Cloud had already accepted that he was one of Hojo's Sephiroth clones before they ran into him at the Crater, and Sephiroth ensured that the entire definition of what being a Sephiroth clone is had been misrepresented to Cloud before Hojo ever confirmed that Cloud had, indeed, been an experiment in his lab.

That was all still Sephiroth's dickery.

Hojo actually did very little:

Cloud
Everyone, thanks for everything. And... I'm sorry.
...Sorry.
...Sorry.
Especially you, Tifa. I'm really sorry.
You've been so good to me...... I don't know what to say...
I never lived up to being 'Cloud'.
Tifa...... Maybe one day you'll meet the real 'Cloud'.

Hojo
Ha, ha, ha... this is perfect!!!
It means that my experiment was a complete success.
What number were you? Huh? Where is your tattoo?

Cloud
Professor Hojo... I don't have a number.
You didn't give me one because you said I was a failed experiment.

Hojo
What the--? You mean only a failure made it here?

Cloud
Professor... please give me a number. Please, Professor...

Hojo
Shut up, miserable failure...

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As you can see, Cloud was already falling apart based just on what Sephiroth had done. Hojo didn't do anything but "confirm" what Sephiroth had already gotten Cloud to believe.

At this point, Cloud already had the Black Materia and was about to hand it over to Seph anyway. That's how fucked up he was based just on what Seph had told him.

That's only because he was trying to use her death as a way to further torture Cloud by making him do it himself. Really, that's the only point (other than his defeat) where his plans didn't go as he intended them to -- and that was still all related to his pride, as he was trying to make Cloud suffer because of the defeat five years earlier.

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Because he'd still just automatically know exactly where to find her and everyone else on the world without Cloud? He's in Cloud's head, we don't reason to believe he knew where she was until he did. And him fucking with Cloud served a practical purpose in this, it's the sole reason she was alone rather then with the entire rest of the group.

The Kyestone seems rather irrelevant as far as Sephiroth is concerned. He didn't exactly need it to get into the Temple of the Ancients, and probably could have just taken it from Dio on his own if he had been more concerned with getting Meteor summoned than fucking with Cloud.

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Why do you believe that? He didn't enter it when he done screwing with Cloud in particular, or when Cloud got there. He entered when the Keystone was used to open it and not a moment sooner.

As for Cloud's mind breaking, Hojo's words wouldn't have meant anything without the lies that Sephiroth had been telling Cloud. Cloud had already accepted that he was one of Hojo's Sephiroth clones before they ran into him at the Crater, and Sephiroth ensured that the entire definition of what being a Sephiroth clone is had been misrepresented to Cloud before Hojo ever confirmed that Cloud had, indeed, been an experiment in his lab.

That was all still Sephiroth's dickery.

Hojo actually did very little:



As you can see, Cloud was already falling apart based just on what Sephiroth had done. Hojo didn't do anything but "confirm" what Sephiroth had already gotten Cloud to believe.

At this point, Cloud already had the Black Materia and was about to hand it over to Seph anyway. That's how fucked up he was based just on what Seph had told him.

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When Cloud was a drooling Mako poisoned mess, it wasn't anything Sephiroth or Tifa said that preoccupied his mind, the only words he'd get out was about his number. It wouldn't have meant much without Sephiroth, no, but it still trumped all the rest.

Minato Arisato said:

Because he'd still just automatically know exactly where to find her and everyone else on the world without Cloud? He's in Cloud's head, we don't reason to believe he knew where she was until he did.

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Seph already knew she was there, as made evident by Cloud's dream of Aerith and Sephiroth in the Sleeping Forest. Cloud himself even says when he wakes up that Sephiroth knew where Aerith was:

Cloud
......City of the Ancients. Aeris is headed there.

Barret
By herself!? Why did she go by herself!?
Hey, we're goin' too.

Cloud
Only the Ancients, only Aeris can save us from Meteor...

Tifa
Then we must go. What'll we do if something happens to Aeris? If Sephiroth finds her, she's in trouble.

Cloud
Sephiroth... already knows.

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And, if anything, Seph is the one who led Cloud to Aerith when they were in the Ancients' city. They found nothing upon their initial search, went to sleep, then Cloud awoke in the middle of the night being able to sense Aerith's location and knowing that Sephiroth was there too.

Minato said:

And him fucking with Cloud served a practical purpose in this, it's the sole reason she was alone rather then with the entire rest of the group.

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The rest of the group was irrelevant. Seph could have killed them all any time he wanted starting all the way back to when they were locked up in the Shin-Ra HQ. Sephiroth slaughtered the personnel outside their cells and opened the bloody door to Cloud's -- all while they slept. He could have murdered Aerith and the rest of them then and there if he wasn't more interested in his grand plan to torture Cloud.

Seph could have looked like anyone at any time, then walked up to them and shanked them in the streets -- or just blown up an inn when they stopped for a nap.

Look at what he does to "the entire rest of the group" at the Northern Crater. He knocks out four members of the team (but chooses not to kill them), tricks a fifth into bringing the Black Materia to Cloud, makes it so that neither Cloud nor the party member carrying the Black Materia is able to hear Tifa speak, and has literally turned Cloud into a puppet by this point.

I really don't think the rest of the team was ever much of a concern to Sephiroth.

Why do you believe that? He didn't enter it when he done screwing with Cloud in particular, or when Cloud got there. He entered when the Keystone was used to open it and not a moment sooner.

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I believe he didn't need the Keystone to enter because we see Sephiroth phase through solid walls/floors more than once, including inside the Temple itself.

And, yeah, of course he didn't enter before Cloud did. He was dicking Cloud along most of the game.

Anyway, you didn't address my point that if Sephiroth was so concerned about the Keystone, he could have just taken it from Dio himself whenever he wanted it. By your own concession, if Cloud knew where something/someone was, Sephiroth did too.

When Cloud was a drooling Mako poisoned mess, it wasn't anything Sephiroth or Tifa said that preoccupied his mind, the only words he'd get out was about his number. It wouldn't have meant much without Sephiroth, no, but it still trumped all the rest.

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Hojo literally didn't do anything. Sephiroth was the one to bring up the number business:

Cloud
Hojo!? What does he have to do with me!?

Sephiroth
Five years ago you were...
...constructed by Hojo, piece by piece, right after Nibelheim was burnt.
A puppet made up of vibrant Jenova cells, her knowledge, and the power of Mako.
An incomplete Sephiroth-clone. Not even given a number. ...That is your reality.
Ha, ha, ha......

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Cloud already believed it by the time he ran into Hojo, and it was Cloud himself who told Hojo that he didn't get a number:

Hojo
Ha, ha, ha... this is perfect!!!
It means that my experiment was a complete success.
What number were you? Huh? Where is your tattoo?

Cloud
Professor Hojo... I don't have a number.
You didn't give me one because you said I was a failed experiment.

Hojo
What the--? You mean only a failure made it here?

Cloud
Professor... please give me a number. Please, Professor...

Hojo
Shut up, miserable failure...

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That's it. That's all that Hojo ever says to him at the Crater. And it plays no further role in Cloud's breakdown. All that happens after this is Cloud shakes his head in despair and then floats up to hand the Black Materia over to Sephiroth.

So, yeah. Cloud had already taken the Black Materia from Red XIII (or Barret) and was going to give it to Sephiroth. That was already decided. Cloud already had chosen to let the world end. He already believed Sephiroth's lies. Hojo's "confirmation" of those lies really meant diddly dick. You're remembering things wrong.

Was the Sleeping Forest vision induced by Sephiroth? I can't remember any others like it in the game except for the flashbacks, whirlwind maze, and Life stream events.

Why exactly does Sephiroth go through all that nonsense to break Cloud? Wouldn't it be smarter, easier and faster to just go and get the black materia himself and then deal with Cloud later...if he even survived the disaster? Or was Sephiroth so revenge-driven, prideful, based on how Cloud knocked him off the platform in the Reactor, that such revenge takes precedence even over such a grand scheme of becoming a God? Is it just me, or is that just downright stupid?

You have a point there, but I don't know. The hardcore Seph fans I've known have never seemed to look at it that way.

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I don't know if you'd consider me hardcore but what Minato said is exactly what I was thinking. If Sephiroth was really so level-headed, so calm, so calculating he'd never have taken the revelation of his origins so drastically. But I think that goes back to pride: if you were told you were superior to those around you and then you learn it's simply because you're an alien offspring, that would do a number on anyone who is really arrogant.

I think it's all just bad writhing....

Novus said:

Was the Sleeping Forest vision induced by Sephiroth? I can't remember any others like it in the game except for the flashbacks, whirlwind maze, and Life stream events.

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By Aerith, actually. Seph just wandered into it.

Dawnbreaker said:

Why exactly does Sephiroth go through all that nonsense to break Cloud? Wouldn't it be smarter, easier and faster to just go and get the black materia himself and then deal with Cloud later...if he even survived the disaster? Or was Sephiroth so revenge-driven, prideful, based on how Cloud knocked him off the platform in the Reactor, that such revenge takes precedence even over such a grand scheme of becoming a God? Is it just me, or is that just downright stupid?

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It isn't you. He's just stupid.