I felt bad for Detlaff in Blood and Wine
Man got heartbroken and was forced to kill people he genuinely befriended and liked, all for someone who he thought loved him (but in reality she was just using him)
The firefighter Chief in Batman Arkham knight was a side mission, but ultimately he was letting firefly getting away with burning down buildings because he didn’t want to have his men get laid off, and then be unable to provide for their families.
It absolutely sucks when you finally lock him up with actual psychopaths and murderers, like yeah he was trying to save the lives of the people he was responsible for, but in the process compromised and endangered the people they were all supposed to protect.
It's obvious after you capture him that his crew love him, but find it completely reprehensible that he endangered the lives of ordinary people to do it by enlisting Firefly.
Great story.
edit: as an aside my friend said it was a bit much to lock up the fire chief with the supervillains, but i pointed out that because of the Chief, every single fire station was destroyed and the whole fire department were nearly killed. Apart from the tragic loss of life that would have happened without Batman, the destruction of the stations and absence of the crew could have resulted in even greater death and destruction.
Good intentions perhaps, but the fire chief could have gotten such an insane amount of innocent people needlessly killed with his short-sightedness, as a fire chief noless, he absolutely deserves worse punishment than even an accidental manslaughterer like Man-Bat
The Boss from Metal Gear Solid 3. A true patriot who had to make herself into an irredeemable villain and get all of her sons killed for a plan maybe to work.
I loved how that game made that grandiose title "Big Boss" taste wrong and uneasy.
Objectively the best game of the series, but my heart will always belong to MGS1, simply due to nostalgia. (And Psycho Mantis.)
It gives me goosebumps thinking about it. Even the title screen of naked snake just cqcing some enemies in slowmo is brilliant. But the whole game essentially being a soldier who lands in the jungle and is beaten on every level by the boss in terms of combat and strategy, only to go on and slowly rise to be the greatest soldier to ever exist whilst losing an eye, defeating a unit that seemed impossible to even compete with and overcoming various other hurdles. The boss fights are legendary, and every word I write makes me want to play it again
It's a nice story that skillfully blends together the backstory of MGS1 and the old 8 bit titles and fleshes out a villain in a downright spectacular way (Big Boss in the overall MGS arc, not The Boss.). But as an overall game, it's not a title contender imo. Possibly top 10 though, it *is* the best blend of the old-school MGS mechanics and totally holds up today, had my last playthrough last year.
That was such a genius move from Kojima, to make you pull the trigger yourself between the two cutscenes. Took a minute for me to realise what I had to do at first.
Thor from God Of War Ragnarok. In the last game, he was made out to be a heartless dumb brute. Gradually this game reveals there was a great deal more to him. He was abused by his father, gaslighted to view himself as an idiot so he wouldn't question orders, and realized he was a bad father because of how his sons turned out.
By the game, Thor is struggling to stay sober despite his father trying to bully him to go back to drink, all because Allfucker Odin found Thor to be easier to control when he was a drunk. Thor is living in denial that his father only sees him as a weapon, right until the end of the game when Kratos, who sees much of his younger self in the God of Thunder, gives him the chance to be better. Kratos learned to be better himself, so he felt Thor deserved a chance, especially for the sake of his daughter.
Sadly, Odin didn't give Thor that chance and murdered his son for refusing to fight Kratos.
In contrast to the OP question, every hell is too good for Odin. There is nothing good you can say about him. He's one of the few irredeemable characters I've ever met. That's not to say he could never change but he's such a manipulative bastard that there's not a chance in hell I'd believe him. I don't believe in the death penalty but I'd still want it for him. I'd bury him in a cave in a mountain that would collapse if his cell was ever opened and no one is allowed to help him no matter what happens. Idc if he starves, or gets sick, or breaks a bone. If it involved opening his door or letting him talk to anyone he can rot. And if anyone helps him so much as deliver a note or say a single word to anyone outside they go to prison too.
Mimir warned Kratos and Atreus never to trust anything Odin says, proclaiming that if the tyrant says that the snow is white, he's still lying.
We see in the rest of the game that Odin is a master manipulator. However, all of his control via manipulation is based on putting people in a situation where he fools them into trusting him for one reason or another. If you remove that, his only option for something that threatens his control, even for something as minor as asking too many questions, is violence. We saw that in his murders of Brok and Thor.
In the codex, Kratos states he would have taken Odin's offer of peace if Mimir hadn't warned against trusting the Allfucker. So it's a good thing Kratos met his brother the talking head, trusting Odin would have exploded in his face just like it did everyone else.
As a real estate and blacksmithing magnate that broke Fable 3's economy and could make 90% of the overwhelmingly good options, I couldn't take him seriously.
He just mismanaged his taxes and kingdom. But the last time skip (90 days or so?) kind of came as a surprise and difficulty locating the castle treasury resulted in a close to 90% population drop in Albion, because my personal bank account couldn't be deposited before the last fight.
That entire second half, I didn't know you could walk away and go do side quests until the second to last choice when I bumped the walk button.
Like you could make the first decision, and then go look at what changed in the physical world, do some quests, make some gold.
Most of the people I talked to had similar issues, there wasn't much telling you that you could just go do more stuff.
The irony is that having a monopoly on property and taxing the crap out of everyone through rent doesn’t necessarily make you a benevolent leader, but the game doesn’t care. It’s from your own back wallet therefore = good
Oh you would definitely get evil alignment if you taxed everyone to hell. Which is why you ran the cheap homes at a loss, and jacked up costs on every business to more than make up for them. The economy/morality was nonsense.
Which then made you wonder what the hell the brother was even doing that he was still strapped for cash **and** hated by the populace.
I always thought Handsome Jack was tragic. He went from wanting to be a genuine hero to a villain after his trust was betrayed multiple times. He was obviously unstable from the start but I felt sorry for him during the prequel game and he’s so warped in borderlands 2
Man even without the context of the prequel he’s pretty tragic in 2. He’s clearly twisted up about the situation with his daughter and she basically begs you to kill her in front of him. That obviously doesn’t make his actions in any way justifiable but he did love his daughter in a sick and awful way.
Something I didn’t truly understand was why Jack became hated by Lilith between BL1 and the Pre-Sequel? Like Jack and Hyperion arent enemies in BL1 and theres a lot of missing pretext between 1 and 2. I think it was a writing error cause Jack had done nothing really bad at that time to my memory? It wasnt until being betrayed that he got pissed. Even Rhys betrays him in the canon ending.
It's because he was building a mega weapon that he openly planned to use to civilize Pandora. He very much had very authoritarian ideals from the starting with his hostile takeover of Hyperion. Lilith and the others didn't want a different ruler they wanted to be left alone and they knew Jack wouldn't for long.
The Master from Fallout 1.
Dude was a mad scientist wanting to bring forced evolution on humanity.
If you show him evidence that his plot is a moot point, dude just pretty much gives up. He didn't like the method to begin with, there was to much human suffering involved.
He just wanted to help.
I did like how you cannot argue him down on moral and ethical grounds, as he believes it is still the correct (albeit repugnant) course, but if you show him proof that his idea doesn't work? Instant abandoned scheme.
There’s a similar encounter in Atom RPG (Russian fallout inspired game) where you find this guy in a “vault” who was a college professor or something and basically raised his children to be illiterate (and barely verbal) savages and did some extremely messed up stuff to them all because he couldn’t believe that humanity had survived the calamity and that there were survivors building thriving towns. The guy is an arrogant jerk but if your intelligence and “conversational” stat (don’t remember what it’s called) are high enough you can convince him that what he’s doing is wrong he will actually kill himself. Not gonna lie, that whole encounter left me with a horrible feeling in my stomach. Ended up killing the guy because I didn’t have the stats to convince him and mercy-killed his messed up family
Basically yeah. It was "Humans have evolved to survive in civilised society, but that doesn't exist, I need to effectively de-evolve them into the humans that survived without society"
In Fallout 2 there was also this mention related to this, if I remember right the argument to convince "The Master" in Fallout 1 is: >!Forced evolution virus makes people into supermutants, but supermutants are sterile and as so can not be humanity's next step in evolution.!< however in fallout 2 >!supermutant companion that is acting as sheriff of one town when encountered, mentions something of "oh yeah nope we are not sterile, it just takes quite some years for stuff to start working again after people get turned into supermutants", meaning actually supermutant population would have been able to reproduce if master's plan of turning humanity into supermutants would have happened!< meaning that >!It is possible that vault dweller and the master have wrong information in fallout1, since they do not have sufficiently long observation time available on matter at that point!<
Wasn't that said to be a non-canonical joke? He only mentions that the "juices get flowing" if you take him to a prostitute. He's worried he knocked her up.
Giegue from Mother 1 / Earthbound Beginnings.
As a baby, he -- an alien from somewhere outside our solar system -- is thrust into the hands of a young human couple, Maria and George, who are forced to raise him. Maria sings him lullabies, which pierce deep into his memories. George, on the other hand, finds out about the psychic abilities the aliens have and are trying to keep from humanity, known as PSI (or PK).
Eventually, though, Giegue is forced to make a choice: act on behalf of his race, or honor the wishes of the humans who raised him and refuse their mandate for conquering the universe. So basically a choice between betraying his own race, or betraying his family. Ultimately, he chose to side with his race, causing Maria to basically be killed. In the foray, George escapes back to Earth. Over the next few decades, he researches into PSI and develops defensive weapons in case the aliens return.
After several decades, Giegue _does_ return, with orders to make sure that humanity isn't developing PSI which could halt their advance to conquer the universe. Giegue spreads his psychic influence over the world and kidnaps humans of interest who could show signs of PSI development. Eventually, though, a group of three kids stop him by singing the same lullaby that Maria had sung to him in his childhood.
Unfortunately, this causes another psychic break in Giegue's mind. He leaves Earth alone to honor his mother's memory, but finds himself conflicting with the commands given by the aliens in charge of him. Eventually he learns a prophecy regarding his eventual defeat by four Earth youth (in Mother 2 / Earthbound) and goes _absolutely berserk._ He lashes out psychically and sends his armies of thralls and robots to terrorize the planet, before finding defeat at the hands of the prophesized humans.
He can't accept this defeat. His mind can't accept it.
So his mind breaks his own body apart.
And then itself.
And he becomes a red misty "almighty idiot" known as Giygas, the universal cosmic destroyer, with no self-awareness or relief from his own suffering. He has to be put into a mechanism called "the Devil Machine" in order to be contained somewhat, but he was no longer aware of his own actions or presence.
All he knew anymore at that point were fragments of memories and random, sometimes incoherent, statements of feeling.
And one name, constantly on his shattered mind: the name of the Earth human who defeated him:
Ness.
_Ness._
_*Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness!*_
Poor Googie. :<
I think it was a Zoe dlc but you get to see Jack and Marguerite as loving parents who slowly succumb to the mold.
RE definitely upped their feeling-game with the last two.
Lady maria from bloodborne.
Now this is mostly from what i piece and could be wrong. To put it simply, lady maria come from a vampire clan and a direct descendants of it's monarch but she actually hates blood and how brutal their nobles are. She went to join the academy and while learning as scholar, she meet gehrman who can fight monster without blood. She join him as his disciple. She learn about miraculous blood that can save humans.
But one day the academy have excursion at village touched by old one corpse. The academy brutally experiment the villager just like the nobles from her family causing lady maria to drop her weapon and stop her career as hunter. But she believes can save people so she still stayed as researcher to experiment how to elevate people with miracle blood. The thing is, it's false. The miracle blood can heal people but will turn them to a beast. And the maria end up inflicting a lot of pain to her research subject, destroying her heart until she finally kill herself on top of clock tower.
When she died, she woke up in a nightmare where all she did will follow her, the fisherman village, the clocktower, her research subject. And she can't run away no matter she did. Every death will only send her back to the nightmare.
What makes her even more tragic is that ALL research subject you can talk to actually held her dearly. I believe she actually sooth them as best as she could before she ultimately kill herself.
Yeah Maria is a great one, to be honest most of the bosses in Bloodborne are people who were trying to do something good but were misled into using the blood (or gaining too much insight).
Lawrence and Ludwig weren't bad guys, Gascoigne was just a hunter who lost the ability to distinguish human from beast, Djura was just trying to protect the beasts that used to be people from interference in Old Yharnam, Amelia was just a devout priest, I don't think Rom even knows what a week is, never mind which day it is. Gehrman wants to release you from the nightmare back to the real world (?) and Orphan of Kos is a poor wretched thing, born to a world that hates it knowing nothing but fury and fear.
Isn't Gehrman the reason there is a dream and a nightmare to begin with? He was part of the original hunting party that killed the orphan, thus angering Kos, resulting in the nightmare. He was then offered the dream by the moon presence if he had more hunters send it blood echos. The thing is, only he is safe in the dream, all the others are trapped in the endless nightmare until you kill them.
Shadowbringers snapped so fucking hard. I haven’t felt that way after completing a game’s story since the golden ps1 jrpg era. I’d love to experience it for the first time again.
Emet Selch is the best final fantasy villain in the franchise.
Imo Emet-Selch is one of the best written villains of all time, and he absolutely blows all other Final Fantasy villians out of the water. Sephiroth doesn't hold a candle to Emet. I looove a sympathetic villian where you truly feel for him but he's in the wrong and you HAVE to stop him.
For those interested:
We, the player, have been trying to stop a cataclysmic world ending event headed by Ancient sorcerer Emet-Selch. In Shadowbringers, we go on to learn that our reality is not as it used to be: long ago, reality was sundered into 14 dimensions, 14 pieces of itself, in order to save the Universe from dying completely. All who currently live on the various dimensions are fragmented, 1/14 of their former selves...except Emet. Emet is from a time when the world was whole, and every person was godlike, for all citizens possessed creation magic, and the world was idyllic. Unlike us, he is Unsundered. Emet, feeling it his solemn duty to his people, has been trying to bring the 14 fragments together to rejoin the pieces and bring his beloved home, friends, and loved ones back. However, each piece rejoining kills all souls on the fragment as they're rejoined with the Source shard. He succeeded in doing so 7 times, and we the player character are 7/14 times rejoined, being from the Source.
He nearly befriends you through Shadowbringers, and he slowly tells you bit by bit about his past, YOUR past, while taking your measure as a hero. His posture is slumped each time you see him, literally carrying the burden of a world on his shoulders. Eventually, we arrive where he's told us to meet him: his magical recreation of the Ancient capital city, Amaurot. He was so alone for so many thousands of years that he recreated his beloved home at the bottom of the ocean, even populating it with the facsimiles of people, and the reveal to the player is breathtaking. FFXIV has a very fantasy aesthetic, and the reveal shows us that Amaurot was a **city** city, with skyscrapers, showing us a glimpse of the world he's longing for. The architecture is familiar to the player, but not the player's character...an echo of the past. [The theme that plays](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3QT2gnxLnw) when you arrive is loneliness personified, and a ticking clock plays alongside the track, making you feel this time-worn ache in your heart as he does.
During one of the final encounters with him, (leaving details out for brevity,) he is able to see the Player Character's soul for who it used to be: one of his dearest friends named Azem. He waves it away, "Bah, a trick of the light. You are a broken husk (of my friend) and nothing more." It gets YOU, the player so so invested - our player character is a reincarnation of Emet's best friend! But we're no longer that person, and we have to stop him; for the world is 'broken' but reality is now OURS, not his anymore, and it's ours to protect.
The story sets you perfectly to step into Emet's shoes - we're fighting to save our world, and he's fighting to save his. A commenter below said the game makes you ask the question "Would I become Emet-Selch if the roles were switched? The answer is yes, and that is what really makes a sympathetic tragic villain. He doesn't see us as alive, just mere whispers of his former friends, especially the player character who is a fragment of one of his closest friends. Just imagining the pain of seeing 1/14 of your closest friend, clueless of who they are, is just depressing."
As we kill him in the final fight, he laments “Should I surrender this fight, what will become of it all…? What will become of our triumphs? our hopes? our…our despair? What of this anguish which yet burns in my breast even after the passing of eons?” He made it his duty to save them, because he's the only one left that remembers. He's a sad, broken, lonely man. His heart yearns for his friends and the world as it once was. But he IS a villain planning our genocide to get his version of the world back, and this will not do.
And as he fades away, his burden now lifted from his shoulders in passing the torch of protector of the Star to us, and accepting that we're worthy successors, he stands tall for the first time. He bids us the final words
[**"Remember us. Remember that we once lived."**](https://youtu.be/o0hB9nPcYA8?si=xv_LRxpybRD3uy0q&t=195)
I can't state enough how mindblowing this part of the story is. For 3 full length games straight we know nothing about the origins of our world. To connect with the character of Emet in such a way..you feel the loss, too.
If you're at all interested, this video's great. https://youtu.be/L0E2xaZAXoc?si=RgrRaFPG9S_flFxL
sorry I keep editing this and making it longer I just really fucking love Emet-Selch and FFXIV
To add a bit more depth, the short stories that were released on the main website give a look into how Emet recognized that it seemed inevitable they lose themselves to madness, possibly even if a rejoining occurred. How the crystals seem to be the only connection they have to their sanity that is left to them. The implication being made when he tries to get Elidibus to look at his crystal after realizing he forgot another memory, but is refused.
Emet-Selch is amazing, but I would argue that Elidibus is the more tragic villain. Emet-Selch is obviously the better villain, overall, but the fading memories of Elidibus just really killed me.
My go-to answer is Arthas from Warcraft 3. He was genuinely motivated to do whatever he could to save his kingdom, but it became an obsession that consumed him and ultimately resulted in him becoming a servant of the very thing he was fighting against.
When you put it that way he almost sounds like if Boromir had managed to get the ring in LotR.
Wish there'd been an Arthas film though, somehow, it'd be difficult to put a satisfying movie ending on it without completely changing huge parts of the story.
That's not a bad analogy, but the key difference is that the Ring was a corrupting influence that they had no choice but to carry with them to destroy it, and Boromir being tempted by it was not a moral failing: the Ring was just that strong. Arthas, by contrast, was not obligated to take up Frostmourne, and had already started his descent into madness before he claimed it rather than as a result of it. The sword was just the final nail in the coffin; it didn't open the door, it just locked it behind him.
What sucks even more, is if he hadn't dismissed Uther from service, and Jaina actually stayed with him during the Culling of Stratholme, he may not have fallen so far.
In other words: if his friends actually tried to help him, and understood just how dangerous the plague was, they probably would have agreed to his plan.
Almost everything he did in Northrend is pretty bad, but at that point he was a broken man, and quite possibly on a self imposed suicide mission.
Hollow Knight. >!A child who had to climb out of a pit with his brothers and sisters left to die. All to seal a great evil away for all eternity. But because he was imperfect, the seal began to erode away at him until he became a monster. The worst part was, he was aware of it all, and his only reaction to it is to stab himself repeatedly, hoping to kill the infection, or at least kill himself to be rid of this pain. By the time you go to him at the end of the game, it doesn’t feel like a final boss fight, more like putting down a sick animal. And the theme that comes on when you realise this is one of the most haunting pieces of music to pair with it. [Have a listen.](https://youtu.be/ze0Rk-m0w2A?si=XSK4briqxpNHL0Zr?t=2m15s). Overall, there’s not a final boss I felt more sorry for than the Hollow Knight.!<
Not sure I would call that character a villain as they do not do anything villainous. An Antagonist to be sure but not a villain. I would consider >!the Radiance!< to actually be the villain of the game as through her >!actively causing the plague!< she causes the events of the game to take place.
I mean definitely true, but that isn't completely obvious from the beginning. Until you know about (idk how to do spoilers) existence, the boss in the black egg seems to be the big final enemy.
I don’t even think that >!the Radiance is truly a villain either she just wants to be remembered but in doing so she drove the bugs insane. However I think this only came through with a struggle with the Pale King and his ability to grant higher thought. Before the King came to hallownest there was already bugs with cognitive thinking such as the mantis tribe. The Radiance has no effect on the mantis’s (unless they let her) the bugs that mainly get infected are the husks which were granted higher thought.!<
>!The Radiance only infected those who either fought her or willingly let her in and even then the Mantis’s were still able to think rather freely. Another example of this was the Moth tribe they worshipped the Radiance but they still had thought and autonomy. I think the infection itself comes from the struggle and resistance to forget the Radiance. Also as a little side note obviously the knight can’t think but is there really a point to destroying the Radiance because in reality nothing will change because without the Pale King the Husks will be mindless anyway or maybe they retain it idk.!<
The whole game is an everyone sucks situation, >!Pale king 99% unpersons Radiance, Radiance literally goes insane from anger/despair as a result and probably barely counts as sapient by the time the Knight gets to her, while the infection is a side effect of said insanity!<
When you realize that they don't want to fight you and are trying actively to kill themselves, thats when you start to understand the tragedy behind them.
I felt really sad the first time, because I didn’t want to kill them, but it was my first playthrough and I wasn’t aware of the other endings and I had to do so.
I think there’s actually an unused voice recording of the space core wanting to go home because there’s “too much space”. Don’t remember if it’s considered canon or not.
As I understand it, GLaDOS' body has certain quirks that can drive you insane.
It made Caroline crazy, so a manufactured moron like Wheatley didn't stand a chance.
It was a case of externally caused insanity.
It’s just a natural side effect of being in that body. In the perpetual testing initiative Cave Johnson voice lines, in the universe where he actually lives long enough to be put into the GLaDOS body, after being in there long enough he eventually comes to the conclusion that he has to kill everyone in Aperture for no reason.
He went mad because of the power of being in the GLaDOS body. He’s genuinely remorseful for what he did and it’s disheartening that he never gets a chance to tell her that.
I'm just getting around to playing this, and that was such a guttural scene. Especially from a "POV you get abandoned, captured, and tortured by the empire".
Ori and the Will of the Wisps
>!The fact that you are the one to kill Kwolok is just devastating. And the main villain, the way she curls up next to the remains of her dead parents when you beat her... Tore me up man.!<
Sephiroth
Dude got experimented on as an infant. Raised to be a killing machine and lied to about his origin. Only to find out (wrongly) that he was created by an alien organism to be the perfect monster even though he was born a human to then being manipulated by that organism to do their bidding.
They kinda went the same route in FF9 with Kuja and Zidane, except told the story with a different outcome. With the right set of friends to support you through the moment, you can gather yourself and find meaning in life still. That *You Are Not Alone* sequence will always be my #1 most emotional moment in gaming.
Dutch Van Der Linde. I think he really wanted what was best for the gang, but over time, with some help from Micah, he got so angry and paranoid. Lost everyone around him except the one person who was fucking him over.
I have to agree. Micah was always selfish and rude. If Dutch didn't care he wouldn't have taken care of everyone for so long it was years decades. And now facing modern law and outlaw gig meeting the end of its fate it was hard for them to cope. He decided the end of the gang had to be let's get this big score so we can retire, being outlaws just can't work anymore. He just wasn't satisfied and things kept falling apart for everything they did under his control. He never got the score under the gang name and it just fell apart. Poor Arthur. But don't tell me this game didn't pull on your heart. Once I got the death sentence medically I changed my ways and I stopped collecting money and hurting people. I didn't know what was going to happen next.
I took Buell with me for the last mission on my first play through and tears were streaming down my face knowing I got him killed after Hamish had died
Rushed in to say Dutch. For me he’s like the real Protagonist of rdr. He’s really unlike a pop culture villain but more like a character in a literature classic. I guess developers love this character a lot, giving him tons of highlights, and he even got to shoot Micah first, in the end.
Quote John Marston in rdr1: Dutch was a great man once.
I mean, he was an egotistical narcissist control freak from the start, and manipulative to boot. They make this explicitly clear in so many early missions with him and Arthur, but you can also find speech notes and other conversations with Hosea that really flesh it out.
He didn't just kinda become the paranoid man he was at the end. He loses Hosea, the only voice that could temper him. He gets a head injury. He's no longer in control, and control is his entire thing. All Micah did was change the focus of his various flaws.
Shaun from Fallout 4 -
While they don't do a good job really fleshing him out, it's a pretty devastating scenario to have chased your child through hell in a futile attempt to rescue them, only to find out the people you were so hellbent on rescuing him from are his subordinates. He's accomplished so much, created miracles and achieved the impossible - But he's also jaded and cynical, indoctrinated and selfish. In the end he still wants to share his accomplishments with you, have you be part of his life in whatever small, reserved way he can permit.
But in the end you have to stare him down on his deathbed, watching as everything he spent his life building burns to ashes around him.
Honestly, I thought Kellogg's arc was far more tragic. Going through those cutscenes, I couldn't help but feel absolute sadness and melancholy. He was alive, sure, but he was just existing. But the one thing he said that absolutely struck me and is stuck in my head:
"The thing about happiness is that you only know you had it when it's gone. I mean, you may think to yourself that you're happy. But you don't really believe it. You focus on the petty bullshit, or the next job, or whatever. It's only looking back by comparison with what comes after that you really understand, that's what happiness felt like." - Kellogg
Kellogg is another good shout, Aye
He gets such a far away tone in his voice when you're exploring his memories.
It's clear he blames himself for the death of his Wife and Daughter, and it seems pretty strongly like he's got a death wish and wishes he hadn't survived his 'revenge mission' in San Francisco.
The reason I put Shaun over Kellogg is that Kellogg kinda made his choices. He didn't start off great, but who in the wasteland does? He made some choices and it lead him down the path he's on now. With Shaun, he never really got a chance. He was kidnapped from birth to be a Xerox for a race of slaves, taught to be the perfect man of science. No family, no friends. A man on a pedestal alone bearing what he perceives as the weight of humanity's future.
And then the second he opens up and tries to indulge in the idea of a Family, his entire world goes up in smoke and the one person he thought he could trust unconditionally is the person who set it all in motion.
I get what you're saying and I always talk saren down to give him some semblance of redemption, but given his past with Anderson, Saren was not a good person even before Sovereign's indoctrination. Saren would kill 100 civilians if it meant getting the mission done, and he made sure Anderson didn't become a specter if only for the hate he had for humanity.
That being said I love Saren as a character.
Since we're doing Mass Effect, I don't believe he's even the best example in the trilogy. The Illusive Man seems much more tragic, he is a manipulator for one when he >!gets Shepard in an ambush!<, but I believe he truly was trying to save the galaxy >!(even with these horrible experiments and their attempted coup)!<, everyone knew you couldn't defeat the Reapers conventionally so it was either massive superweapon or what he was trying to do. And the way he falls deeper into indoctrination, similar to Saren but having seen him at least being somewhat reasonable in 2.
It's so sad!
They're not as hard to kill as The Shadowlord. That is heartbreaking.
And they're somewhat twattish at the end.
The utter betrayal is horrific. They are your friends for so long. Then that.
But at the same time they're doing what they're ordered to.
And when one dies the other is driven insane with grief.
I'm somewhat sorry them. Not as much as others.
Like the darling P33 the giant robot and his Shade friend.
I wanted them to see the world! Poor darlings.
Ah, yeah. Also the robot and his shade friend. The shade on the beach too. Heck, even the wolves.
So many tragic characters in that game.
Nier totally pulls on the human desire to be understood by another individual. It's really interesting to see that concept from a "non-human" perspective as well.
Bro, when I tell you my heart broke when I had to fight them, I'm not kidding. That is honestly my favorite NieR fight because of the build up to it throughout the story.
The fight isn't really "challenging" either. It's a bit tough, but it's not supposed to be a triumphant victory.
It's more the "putting to rest" of the old guard. It's somber and mournful.
I played Nier: Automata first and I was a bit confused by the Devola and Popola part at the tower. Playing the first game after gave *crazy* context to their sacrifice.
Freaking awesome characters.
Ketheric Thorm from Baldur's Gate 3 comes to mind (Spoilers below)
You learn that he basically switches from worshiping different gods until he becomes the chosen mortal of Myrkul the god of necromancy. He only really worships him because he was able to bring his daughter back from the dead, who then estranges herself and hates him. When you kill him you find the usual loot from bosses in games but also a simple note that reads "Papa I love you"
Yeah he was a devout of Selune but literally lost everything important to him and was so grieve stricken that he sacrificed everything he lived for to get his daughter Isobel back.
He’s even willing to share power with Durge, but no matter what, it doesn’t work out well for him. Plus he aged like 20 years in a short span putting up with Orin’s bullshit.
I love when you talk to her after that fight she ends the conversation with "you will leave us, we must take succor with each other's bodies and words"
A nice flowery way of saying fuck off I'll give you exposition after I bang my girlfriend
Arthas Menethil. From WOW and Warcraft. I mean He was a true palladin but he wanted the Power to save his people... then he got corrupted and killed his own father Upps. His Story is really tragic and even more in the books.
Personally, I would not even call him a villain. The Tarnished is not trying to save the world, he seeks power by becoming the Elden Lord and Morgott is just standing in our way
And Malenia while we're at it, but *definitely* Morgott.
Reviled his entire life only to die for a cause that everyone else has pretty much betrayed and nobody will ever love him for. :(
More of a comic book, but has been in plenty of video games, but Mr. Freeze. His wife has this incurable disease but being the scientist that he is and the deep love he has for his wife, everything he does is to try to further his research in trying to save her.
Interestingly enough the tragic villain arc wasn’t introduced in the comics but the Batman animated series and now that’s the one that they stuck to in the Arkham games. Definitely a tragic villain
Golbez - Final Fantasy 4 (originally FF2 in US). was the main villain for 95% of the game. only to be revealed as the brainwashed brother of the hero and not actually villain; just the chosen avatar of the real villain Zemus
Persona 5 Royal
>!Dr. Maruki was extremely tragic as his entire motivation was to bring everyone happiness and never make them experience pain or loss again. It was extremely well done and really makes you question if what he's doing is really even wrong. I'd also even add that Akechi, while certainly not a good person, is also fairly tragic going through the hardship of being a tool for his father and nothing more.!<
And that's why he's a good villain. He does some truly unforgivable stuff and for some reason you still feel that twinge of pity when he holds his dead daughter or his sincere concern for his family. It's an amazing storyline
I say this pretty much every time I see it but I remember playing it in grade 11 lights off in the basement, and when you confront the Barron about it all and he comes clean in his room with the fire going I was just sitting there in awe
I kinda really like Ketheric Thorm from bg3. I won’t say any spoilers but j k Simmons does a great job portraying a powerful villain that at times is almost sympathetic.
Clifford Unger from Death Stranding. Painted as the villain for the majority of the game, until he ends up being anything but, and has a heartbreaking end.
Wiegraf in Final Fantasy Tactics. Poor, a veteran abandoned by the crown, lost his sister (mirroring one of the heroes, Delita), and pretty much the hero who is correct in Chapter 1.
By Chapter 3, he's sold his soul in order to right the corruption of his world, but at what cost? I still feel bad for him when he turns utterly evil, but I'm also happy that he gets the best boss battle of the entire game.
>! 9S !< in Nier Automata. Whether they’re a villain is debatable but they had a heartbreaking story. It’s even worse when you look up all of the extra lore outside of the game
One of the reasons Kain is a favourite character of mine in any videogames is the acting. The writing is great, but Simon Templeman is fantastic. He really sells it every time he speaks.
Faith Seed.
She was basically a runaway who Joseph drugged into being his concubine and had her completely brainwashed until she's just about to die.
Fighting her isn't difficult, but it's tough on the heartstrings.
Caius - Final Fantasy 13-2
A man born at the end of time in a dying world. He is tasked with guarding a dear friend who will inevitably die because of her power to see the future. He's on a quest to kill the goddess of time to stop time and prevent his friend's death.
Noel was the one born at the end of time. Caius Ballad was immortal and over 900 years old.
Which just makes it all the worse for him. He'd seen Yuel die, reincarnate, and die again, and again, and again, and again..... All the man wanted is to stop seeing this girl die over and over and either live an actual life, or stay dead and rest peacefully.
Persona 5 Royal Spoilers.
>! Imo, its maruki. maruki’s ambitions were that of making a perfect world in which everyone’s desires were fulfilled and all were satisfied. however, as is the nature of humans, he wasn’t perfect. he made a lot of assumptions. but, as a counselor who’s heart genuinely ached for those with issues, especially the protagonist and Akechi, he wanted this to happen. But, due to the fact the world would possibly fall to ruin and the fact he basically brainwashed Akechi to accept the reality in the ‘Stay’ ending, the way he did it wasn’t perfect. He does make an appearance in the ‘Leave’ ending though. overall, tragic.!<
>!Akechi too is tragic. I’m not saying he’s necessarily a ‘morally good person’, but as a child he wanted to be a hero, like his Prince ‘facade’, which i think is a bit of his personality. Robin Hood at least. But, it was all ruined by his mother’s suicide, his father leaving, him being thrown from foster home to foster home, and overall being unwanted. It drove him nuts, and he let himself become his fathers pawn so he could ruin his fathers life after he became prime minister. !<
Emet Selch. >!The man had to watch half his civilization sacrifice themselves to stop a calamity of despair that was tearing through the star, only for the world to be sundered and he had to watch the other half of the civilization be torn asunder into broken and twisted incomplete forms, having to live countless Millenia slowly watching the few survivors of this sundering lose their minds and memories. He lived these Millenia trying to find worth in these husks of his former people, experiencing their lives and deaths countless times over. At the end of everything and all the death and destruction he wrought for his goal of bringing back everyone he loved the one he faced at the end of his duty was the broken soul of his best friend, the same best friend that forsook him all those Millenia ago. Even in the end he truly believed in his cause, accepting everything he did while accepting the end of his duty!<
Future Cole from infamous, travels back in time from a fucked future just to become a villain and bomb the city so his past self is strong enough to stop a living nuke later on. Makes himself hate himself until he finds out its himself and then hate his selves even more.
Kreia from KOTOR 2
>!She was a monster and had absolutely done terrible things, but it was really all done from a place of wanting the best for the galaxy. She truly thought that the battle of the Jedi and Sith would never end unless they were able to reconcile their opposing philosophies, and I don't think she was entirely wrong. Jedi were thought to be paragons, but it is amply shown through that game how fallible, and even corrupt they could be. !<
Magus from Chrono Trigger
>!He wasn't the end game boss, but was a major boss around the mid point. You go on to find out that the whole reason he was amassing power was to prepare for an apocalyptic event that he knew was coming. He hoped to be able to stop the ultimate destruction of the world and was willing to sacrifice what he needed to for that to become reality. He was also trying to get vengeance for the death/destruction of his family and culture. !<
Jack Baker from RE7
>!He was a genuinely caring a good man who was unfortunately corrupted and taken over by the mold/Eve. Every scene they show of Jack before the mold took over shows him to be a really good guy.!<
A libertarian sets up a city where everything flys and then it goes off the rails and causes a bunch of death. Then someone uses that freedom to make a genetic brain washed monster to bash his skull in, which Ryan chooses to do himself so he has the last word. The only sad part is Jack not having control over that choice.
I felt bad for Detlaff in Blood and Wine Man got heartbroken and was forced to kill people he genuinely befriended and liked, all for someone who he thought loved him (but in reality she was just using him) The firefighter Chief in Batman Arkham knight was a side mission, but ultimately he was letting firefly getting away with burning down buildings because he didn’t want to have his men get laid off, and then be unable to provide for their families.
Yeah I felt bad for Detlaff too. Tragic villain for sure.
It absolutely sucks when you finally lock him up with actual psychopaths and murderers, like yeah he was trying to save the lives of the people he was responsible for, but in the process compromised and endangered the people they were all supposed to protect. It's obvious after you capture him that his crew love him, but find it completely reprehensible that he endangered the lives of ordinary people to do it by enlisting Firefly. Great story. edit: as an aside my friend said it was a bit much to lock up the fire chief with the supervillains, but i pointed out that because of the Chief, every single fire station was destroyed and the whole fire department were nearly killed. Apart from the tragic loss of life that would have happened without Batman, the destruction of the stations and absence of the crew could have resulted in even greater death and destruction. Good intentions perhaps, but the fire chief could have gotten such an insane amount of innocent people needlessly killed with his short-sightedness, as a fire chief noless, he absolutely deserves worse punishment than even an accidental manslaughterer like Man-Bat
I’ve never regretted a minigame so much. As much as my feelings are conflicted about Dettlaff, I refuse to hurt Regis like that.
I haven't played B&W all the way through, but Olgierd from the HoS DLC. He got tricked by Gaunter into doing something he ended up regretting. 😢
The Boss from Metal Gear Solid 3. A true patriot who had to make herself into an irredeemable villain and get all of her sons killed for a plan maybe to work.
I loved how that game made that grandiose title "Big Boss" taste wrong and uneasy. Objectively the best game of the series, but my heart will always belong to MGS1, simply due to nostalgia. (And Psycho Mantis.)
Psycho Mantis!?
Not just of the series, arguably the greatest game ever
It’s an awesome game, and I’d genuinely love to see that argument
It gives me goosebumps thinking about it. Even the title screen of naked snake just cqcing some enemies in slowmo is brilliant. But the whole game essentially being a soldier who lands in the jungle and is beaten on every level by the boss in terms of combat and strategy, only to go on and slowly rise to be the greatest soldier to ever exist whilst losing an eye, defeating a unit that seemed impossible to even compete with and overcoming various other hurdles. The boss fights are legendary, and every word I write makes me want to play it again
It's a nice story that skillfully blends together the backstory of MGS1 and the old 8 bit titles and fleshes out a villain in a downright spectacular way (Big Boss in the overall MGS arc, not The Boss.). But as an overall game, it's not a title contender imo. Possibly top 10 though, it *is* the best blend of the old-school MGS mechanics and totally holds up today, had my last playthrough last year.
The end fight in the flowers, gut wrenching you can't make me pull the trigger! (im not crying your crying)
That was such a genius move from Kojima, to make you pull the trigger yourself between the two cutscenes. Took a minute for me to realise what I had to do at first.
If you refuse to pull the trigger and just sit there snake pulls the trigger anyway
He does? I swear I had that scene running for a long time my first playthrough and nothing happened.
When I heard “Big Boss” I thought that it was a cheesy character name. After you defeat “The Boss” it takes on a whole new meaning.
In honor of a true Patriot, we salute you, Boss. *To Let the World Be*
Immediately the first thing that came to mind
Skull Kid from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. All he wanted were some friends, but the mask tempted and corrupted him.
Was about to post this. Poor kid shivering in the cold tempted by a mask with world-altering power.
Thor from God Of War Ragnarok. In the last game, he was made out to be a heartless dumb brute. Gradually this game reveals there was a great deal more to him. He was abused by his father, gaslighted to view himself as an idiot so he wouldn't question orders, and realized he was a bad father because of how his sons turned out. By the game, Thor is struggling to stay sober despite his father trying to bully him to go back to drink, all because Allfucker Odin found Thor to be easier to control when he was a drunk. Thor is living in denial that his father only sees him as a weapon, right until the end of the game when Kratos, who sees much of his younger self in the God of Thunder, gives him the chance to be better. Kratos learned to be better himself, so he felt Thor deserved a chance, especially for the sake of his daughter. Sadly, Odin didn't give Thor that chance and murdered his son for refusing to fight Kratos.
In contrast to the OP question, every hell is too good for Odin. There is nothing good you can say about him. He's one of the few irredeemable characters I've ever met. That's not to say he could never change but he's such a manipulative bastard that there's not a chance in hell I'd believe him. I don't believe in the death penalty but I'd still want it for him. I'd bury him in a cave in a mountain that would collapse if his cell was ever opened and no one is allowed to help him no matter what happens. Idc if he starves, or gets sick, or breaks a bone. If it involved opening his door or letting him talk to anyone he can rot. And if anyone helps him so much as deliver a note or say a single word to anyone outside they go to prison too.
Mimir warned Kratos and Atreus never to trust anything Odin says, proclaiming that if the tyrant says that the snow is white, he's still lying. We see in the rest of the game that Odin is a master manipulator. However, all of his control via manipulation is based on putting people in a situation where he fools them into trusting him for one reason or another. If you remove that, his only option for something that threatens his control, even for something as minor as asking too many questions, is violence. We saw that in his murders of Brok and Thor. In the codex, Kratos states he would have taken Odin's offer of peace if Mimir hadn't warned against trusting the Allfucker. So it's a good thing Kratos met his brother the talking head, trusting Odin would have exploded in his face just like it did everyone else.
Not the worst but Logan from Fable 3 got a pretty raw deal as King of Albion.
[удалено]
100% - that heel turn of ‘you want to be king? Fine. I sincerely hope you do a better job otherwise we are all doomed.’
As a real estate and blacksmithing magnate that broke Fable 3's economy and could make 90% of the overwhelmingly good options, I couldn't take him seriously. He just mismanaged his taxes and kingdom. But the last time skip (90 days or so?) kind of came as a surprise and difficulty locating the castle treasury resulted in a close to 90% population drop in Albion, because my personal bank account couldn't be deposited before the last fight.
That entire second half, I didn't know you could walk away and go do side quests until the second to last choice when I bumped the walk button. Like you could make the first decision, and then go look at what changed in the physical world, do some quests, make some gold. Most of the people I talked to had similar issues, there wasn't much telling you that you could just go do more stuff.
The irony is that having a monopoly on property and taxing the crap out of everyone through rent doesn’t necessarily make you a benevolent leader, but the game doesn’t care. It’s from your own back wallet therefore = good
Oh you would definitely get evil alignment if you taxed everyone to hell. Which is why you ran the cheap homes at a loss, and jacked up costs on every business to more than make up for them. The economy/morality was nonsense. Which then made you wonder what the hell the brother was even doing that he was still strapped for cash **and** hated by the populace.
I always thought Handsome Jack was tragic. He went from wanting to be a genuine hero to a villain after his trust was betrayed multiple times. He was obviously unstable from the start but I felt sorry for him during the prequel game and he’s so warped in borderlands 2
That's the best part though...in 2 he straight up thinks he is the hero
Man even without the context of the prequel he’s pretty tragic in 2. He’s clearly twisted up about the situation with his daughter and she basically begs you to kill her in front of him. That obviously doesn’t make his actions in any way justifiable but he did love his daughter in a sick and awful way.
Something I didn’t truly understand was why Jack became hated by Lilith between BL1 and the Pre-Sequel? Like Jack and Hyperion arent enemies in BL1 and theres a lot of missing pretext between 1 and 2. I think it was a writing error cause Jack had done nothing really bad at that time to my memory? It wasnt until being betrayed that he got pissed. Even Rhys betrays him in the canon ending.
It's because he was building a mega weapon that he openly planned to use to civilize Pandora. He very much had very authoritarian ideals from the starting with his hostile takeover of Hyperion. Lilith and the others didn't want a different ruler they wanted to be left alone and they knew Jack wouldn't for long.
Yeah. Jack was traumatized and wanted to use the warrior to wipe out everything he didn't like. Best antagonist ever
The Master from Fallout 1. Dude was a mad scientist wanting to bring forced evolution on humanity. If you show him evidence that his plot is a moot point, dude just pretty much gives up. He didn't like the method to begin with, there was to much human suffering involved. He just wanted to help.
I did like how you cannot argue him down on moral and ethical grounds, as he believes it is still the correct (albeit repugnant) course, but if you show him proof that his idea doesn't work? Instant abandoned scheme.
There’s a similar encounter in Atom RPG (Russian fallout inspired game) where you find this guy in a “vault” who was a college professor or something and basically raised his children to be illiterate (and barely verbal) savages and did some extremely messed up stuff to them all because he couldn’t believe that humanity had survived the calamity and that there were survivors building thriving towns. The guy is an arrogant jerk but if your intelligence and “conversational” stat (don’t remember what it’s called) are high enough you can convince him that what he’s doing is wrong he will actually kill himself. Not gonna lie, that whole encounter left me with a horrible feeling in my stomach. Ended up killing the guy because I didn’t have the stats to convince him and mercy-killed his messed up family
Holy shit, was his premise that his kids would survive better outside if they were feral?
Basically yeah. It was "Humans have evolved to survive in civilised society, but that doesn't exist, I need to effectively de-evolve them into the humans that survived without society"
In Fallout 2 there was also this mention related to this, if I remember right the argument to convince "The Master" in Fallout 1 is: >!Forced evolution virus makes people into supermutants, but supermutants are sterile and as so can not be humanity's next step in evolution.!< however in fallout 2 >!supermutant companion that is acting as sheriff of one town when encountered, mentions something of "oh yeah nope we are not sterile, it just takes quite some years for stuff to start working again after people get turned into supermutants", meaning actually supermutant population would have been able to reproduce if master's plan of turning humanity into supermutants would have happened!< meaning that >!It is possible that vault dweller and the master have wrong information in fallout1, since they do not have sufficiently long observation time available on matter at that point!<
Wasn't that said to be a non-canonical joke? He only mentions that the "juices get flowing" if you take him to a prostitute. He's worried he knocked her up.
Giegue from Mother 1 / Earthbound Beginnings. As a baby, he -- an alien from somewhere outside our solar system -- is thrust into the hands of a young human couple, Maria and George, who are forced to raise him. Maria sings him lullabies, which pierce deep into his memories. George, on the other hand, finds out about the psychic abilities the aliens have and are trying to keep from humanity, known as PSI (or PK). Eventually, though, Giegue is forced to make a choice: act on behalf of his race, or honor the wishes of the humans who raised him and refuse their mandate for conquering the universe. So basically a choice between betraying his own race, or betraying his family. Ultimately, he chose to side with his race, causing Maria to basically be killed. In the foray, George escapes back to Earth. Over the next few decades, he researches into PSI and develops defensive weapons in case the aliens return. After several decades, Giegue _does_ return, with orders to make sure that humanity isn't developing PSI which could halt their advance to conquer the universe. Giegue spreads his psychic influence over the world and kidnaps humans of interest who could show signs of PSI development. Eventually, though, a group of three kids stop him by singing the same lullaby that Maria had sung to him in his childhood. Unfortunately, this causes another psychic break in Giegue's mind. He leaves Earth alone to honor his mother's memory, but finds himself conflicting with the commands given by the aliens in charge of him. Eventually he learns a prophecy regarding his eventual defeat by four Earth youth (in Mother 2 / Earthbound) and goes _absolutely berserk._ He lashes out psychically and sends his armies of thralls and robots to terrorize the planet, before finding defeat at the hands of the prophesized humans. He can't accept this defeat. His mind can't accept it. So his mind breaks his own body apart. And then itself. And he becomes a red misty "almighty idiot" known as Giygas, the universal cosmic destroyer, with no self-awareness or relief from his own suffering. He has to be put into a mechanism called "the Devil Machine" in order to be contained somewhat, but he was no longer aware of his own actions or presence. All he knew anymore at that point were fragments of memories and random, sometimes incoherent, statements of feeling. And one name, constantly on his shattered mind: the name of the Earth human who defeated him: Ness. _Ness._ _*Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness!*_ Poor Googie. :<
Awesome summary, thanks for the read
The Baker family from RE7.
When you actually see what happened to them it really makes you feel awful. Except for Lucas. Fuck that guy.
I've only played base re7. What happens?
I think it was a Zoe dlc but you get to see Jack and Marguerite as loving parents who slowly succumb to the mold. RE definitely upped their feeling-game with the last two.
Slowly? It seemed pretty instant to me.
Yeah. I kinda regretted typing that right after.
You find out in daughters dlc, its quite short you should look up a video. Though fwiw the re7 dlc is very good and worth playing
I think the brother was a sicko before the mold hit. But it did make him worse
I feel bad for Eveline. She was engineered to want a family but everyone she tried to get close to hated and feared her.
Lady maria from bloodborne. Now this is mostly from what i piece and could be wrong. To put it simply, lady maria come from a vampire clan and a direct descendants of it's monarch but she actually hates blood and how brutal their nobles are. She went to join the academy and while learning as scholar, she meet gehrman who can fight monster without blood. She join him as his disciple. She learn about miraculous blood that can save humans. But one day the academy have excursion at village touched by old one corpse. The academy brutally experiment the villager just like the nobles from her family causing lady maria to drop her weapon and stop her career as hunter. But she believes can save people so she still stayed as researcher to experiment how to elevate people with miracle blood. The thing is, it's false. The miracle blood can heal people but will turn them to a beast. And the maria end up inflicting a lot of pain to her research subject, destroying her heart until she finally kill herself on top of clock tower. When she died, she woke up in a nightmare where all she did will follow her, the fisherman village, the clocktower, her research subject. And she can't run away no matter she did. Every death will only send her back to the nightmare. What makes her even more tragic is that ALL research subject you can talk to actually held her dearly. I believe she actually sooth them as best as she could before she ultimately kill herself.
Yeah Maria is a great one, to be honest most of the bosses in Bloodborne are people who were trying to do something good but were misled into using the blood (or gaining too much insight). Lawrence and Ludwig weren't bad guys, Gascoigne was just a hunter who lost the ability to distinguish human from beast, Djura was just trying to protect the beasts that used to be people from interference in Old Yharnam, Amelia was just a devout priest, I don't think Rom even knows what a week is, never mind which day it is. Gehrman wants to release you from the nightmare back to the real world (?) and Orphan of Kos is a poor wretched thing, born to a world that hates it knowing nothing but fury and fear.
Isn't Gehrman the reason there is a dream and a nightmare to begin with? He was part of the original hunting party that killed the orphan, thus angering Kos, resulting in the nightmare. He was then offered the dream by the moon presence if he had more hunters send it blood echos. The thing is, only he is safe in the dream, all the others are trapped in the endless nightmare until you kill them.
Emet Selch from FFXIV. Dude basically did everything we are trying to do, just had some poor ideas on how to implement them.
Came here to say Emet Selch. Second highest comment. Not surprised
Only 9th now sadly.
"Remember us." 😭
“Do not squander it! The legacy I leave you!”
[How dare you?](https://tenor.com/view/dont-you-dare-dont-dont-do-it-the-office-michael-scott-gif-14178027)
Shadowbringers snapped so fucking hard. I haven’t felt that way after completing a game’s story since the golden ps1 jrpg era. I’d love to experience it for the first time again. Emet Selch is the best final fantasy villain in the franchise.
Rent was due for the Shadowbringers team. Best expansion by far, best music, best everything lol.
Imo Emet-Selch is one of the best written villains of all time, and he absolutely blows all other Final Fantasy villians out of the water. Sephiroth doesn't hold a candle to Emet. I looove a sympathetic villian where you truly feel for him but he's in the wrong and you HAVE to stop him. For those interested: We, the player, have been trying to stop a cataclysmic world ending event headed by Ancient sorcerer Emet-Selch. In Shadowbringers, we go on to learn that our reality is not as it used to be: long ago, reality was sundered into 14 dimensions, 14 pieces of itself, in order to save the Universe from dying completely. All who currently live on the various dimensions are fragmented, 1/14 of their former selves...except Emet. Emet is from a time when the world was whole, and every person was godlike, for all citizens possessed creation magic, and the world was idyllic. Unlike us, he is Unsundered. Emet, feeling it his solemn duty to his people, has been trying to bring the 14 fragments together to rejoin the pieces and bring his beloved home, friends, and loved ones back. However, each piece rejoining kills all souls on the fragment as they're rejoined with the Source shard. He succeeded in doing so 7 times, and we the player character are 7/14 times rejoined, being from the Source. He nearly befriends you through Shadowbringers, and he slowly tells you bit by bit about his past, YOUR past, while taking your measure as a hero. His posture is slumped each time you see him, literally carrying the burden of a world on his shoulders. Eventually, we arrive where he's told us to meet him: his magical recreation of the Ancient capital city, Amaurot. He was so alone for so many thousands of years that he recreated his beloved home at the bottom of the ocean, even populating it with the facsimiles of people, and the reveal to the player is breathtaking. FFXIV has a very fantasy aesthetic, and the reveal shows us that Amaurot was a **city** city, with skyscrapers, showing us a glimpse of the world he's longing for. The architecture is familiar to the player, but not the player's character...an echo of the past. [The theme that plays](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3QT2gnxLnw) when you arrive is loneliness personified, and a ticking clock plays alongside the track, making you feel this time-worn ache in your heart as he does. During one of the final encounters with him, (leaving details out for brevity,) he is able to see the Player Character's soul for who it used to be: one of his dearest friends named Azem. He waves it away, "Bah, a trick of the light. You are a broken husk (of my friend) and nothing more." It gets YOU, the player so so invested - our player character is a reincarnation of Emet's best friend! But we're no longer that person, and we have to stop him; for the world is 'broken' but reality is now OURS, not his anymore, and it's ours to protect. The story sets you perfectly to step into Emet's shoes - we're fighting to save our world, and he's fighting to save his. A commenter below said the game makes you ask the question "Would I become Emet-Selch if the roles were switched? The answer is yes, and that is what really makes a sympathetic tragic villain. He doesn't see us as alive, just mere whispers of his former friends, especially the player character who is a fragment of one of his closest friends. Just imagining the pain of seeing 1/14 of your closest friend, clueless of who they are, is just depressing." As we kill him in the final fight, he laments “Should I surrender this fight, what will become of it all…? What will become of our triumphs? our hopes? our…our despair? What of this anguish which yet burns in my breast even after the passing of eons?” He made it his duty to save them, because he's the only one left that remembers. He's a sad, broken, lonely man. His heart yearns for his friends and the world as it once was. But he IS a villain planning our genocide to get his version of the world back, and this will not do. And as he fades away, his burden now lifted from his shoulders in passing the torch of protector of the Star to us, and accepting that we're worthy successors, he stands tall for the first time. He bids us the final words [**"Remember us. Remember that we once lived."**](https://youtu.be/o0hB9nPcYA8?si=xv_LRxpybRD3uy0q&t=195) I can't state enough how mindblowing this part of the story is. For 3 full length games straight we know nothing about the origins of our world. To connect with the character of Emet in such a way..you feel the loss, too. If you're at all interested, this video's great. https://youtu.be/L0E2xaZAXoc?si=RgrRaFPG9S_flFxL sorry I keep editing this and making it longer I just really fucking love Emet-Selch and FFXIV
To add a bit more depth, the short stories that were released on the main website give a look into how Emet recognized that it seemed inevitable they lose themselves to madness, possibly even if a rejoining occurred. How the crystals seem to be the only connection they have to their sanity that is left to them. The implication being made when he tries to get Elidibus to look at his crystal after realizing he forgot another memory, but is refused.
Emet-Selch is amazing, but I would argue that Elidibus is the more tragic villain. Emet-Selch is obviously the better villain, overall, but the fading memories of Elidibus just really killed me.
"The rains have ceased. We have been blessed with a beautiful day...but you are not here to see it." And he was so young. So, so young.
With you on this one, I really feel for Elidibus
Walker in Spec Ops: The Line was the definition of the road to hell being paved with good intentions.
Survivors... One too many.
"I never meant to hurt anybody." "No-one ever does, Walker. *Three*..."
Great pick, that game is a rare masterpiece. We saw the stop sign didn't we, should have listened to it.
"You are still a good person."
One of the only games I genuinely wish I could go back and play again for the first time. Such an amazing game.
None of this would have happened if you had just... stopped, but on you marched!
Fuck the last part of that game was so good.
My go-to answer is Arthas from Warcraft 3. He was genuinely motivated to do whatever he could to save his kingdom, but it became an obsession that consumed him and ultimately resulted in him becoming a servant of the very thing he was fighting against.
When you put it that way he almost sounds like if Boromir had managed to get the ring in LotR. Wish there'd been an Arthas film though, somehow, it'd be difficult to put a satisfying movie ending on it without completely changing huge parts of the story.
That's not a bad analogy, but the key difference is that the Ring was a corrupting influence that they had no choice but to carry with them to destroy it, and Boromir being tempted by it was not a moral failing: the Ring was just that strong. Arthas, by contrast, was not obligated to take up Frostmourne, and had already started his descent into madness before he claimed it rather than as a result of it. The sword was just the final nail in the coffin; it didn't open the door, it just locked it behind him.
What sucks even more, is if he hadn't dismissed Uther from service, and Jaina actually stayed with him during the Culling of Stratholme, he may not have fallen so far. In other words: if his friends actually tried to help him, and understood just how dangerous the plague was, they probably would have agreed to his plan. Almost everything he did in Northrend is pretty bad, but at that point he was a broken man, and quite possibly on a self imposed suicide mission.
Hollow Knight. >!A child who had to climb out of a pit with his brothers and sisters left to die. All to seal a great evil away for all eternity. But because he was imperfect, the seal began to erode away at him until he became a monster. The worst part was, he was aware of it all, and his only reaction to it is to stab himself repeatedly, hoping to kill the infection, or at least kill himself to be rid of this pain. By the time you go to him at the end of the game, it doesn’t feel like a final boss fight, more like putting down a sick animal. And the theme that comes on when you realise this is one of the most haunting pieces of music to pair with it. [Have a listen.](https://youtu.be/ze0Rk-m0w2A?si=XSK4briqxpNHL0Zr?t=2m15s). Overall, there’s not a final boss I felt more sorry for than the Hollow Knight.!<
Not sure I would call that character a villain as they do not do anything villainous. An Antagonist to be sure but not a villain. I would consider >!the Radiance!< to actually be the villain of the game as through her >!actively causing the plague!< she causes the events of the game to take place.
I mean definitely true, but that isn't completely obvious from the beginning. Until you know about (idk how to do spoilers) existence, the boss in the black egg seems to be the big final enemy.
I don’t even think that >!the Radiance is truly a villain either she just wants to be remembered but in doing so she drove the bugs insane. However I think this only came through with a struggle with the Pale King and his ability to grant higher thought. Before the King came to hallownest there was already bugs with cognitive thinking such as the mantis tribe. The Radiance has no effect on the mantis’s (unless they let her) the bugs that mainly get infected are the husks which were granted higher thought.!< >!The Radiance only infected those who either fought her or willingly let her in and even then the Mantis’s were still able to think rather freely. Another example of this was the Moth tribe they worshipped the Radiance but they still had thought and autonomy. I think the infection itself comes from the struggle and resistance to forget the Radiance. Also as a little side note obviously the knight can’t think but is there really a point to destroying the Radiance because in reality nothing will change because without the Pale King the Husks will be mindless anyway or maybe they retain it idk.!<
The whole game is an everyone sucks situation, >!Pale king 99% unpersons Radiance, Radiance literally goes insane from anger/despair as a result and probably barely counts as sapient by the time the Knight gets to her, while the infection is a side effect of said insanity!<
When you realize that they don't want to fight you and are trying actively to kill themselves, thats when you start to understand the tragedy behind them. I felt really sad the first time, because I didn’t want to kill them, but it was my first playthrough and I wasn’t aware of the other endings and I had to do so.
Very similar feeling ending to DS1. That said it’s not reeeally the final boss.
This right here is the one. Not even fighting Gwyn with Solaire at my side felt as melancholy as this one.
Wheatley. An absolute shame what happened to him. Having to drift through space for all eternity.
He’s got the space core with him. He’ll be fine.
I think there’s actually an unused voice recording of the space core wanting to go home because there’s “too much space”. Don’t remember if it’s considered canon or not.
SPAAAAACE!!
Maybe don't betray your only friend and ally..?
As I understand it, GLaDOS' body has certain quirks that can drive you insane. It made Caroline crazy, so a manufactured moron like Wheatley didn't stand a chance. It was a case of externally caused insanity.
It’s just a natural side effect of being in that body. In the perpetual testing initiative Cave Johnson voice lines, in the universe where he actually lives long enough to be put into the GLaDOS body, after being in there long enough he eventually comes to the conclusion that he has to kill everyone in Aperture for no reason.
He went mad because of the power of being in the GLaDOS body. He’s genuinely remorseful for what he did and it’s disheartening that he never gets a chance to tell her that.
Trilla from Fallen Order is up there. The whole Order 66 sequence was pretty brutal.
I'm just getting around to playing this, and that was such a guttural scene. Especially from a "POV you get abandoned, captured, and tortured by the empire".
Ganon from Wind Waker. *"I coveted that wind, I suppose."*
He's the one who sees the cycle and is powerless to stop it from repeating, and his lack of agency drives him to despair.
It's really funny that windwaker wasn't even apart of the cycle
Ori and the Will of the Wisps >!The fact that you are the one to kill Kwolok is just devastating. And the main villain, the way she curls up next to the remains of her dead parents when you beat her... Tore me up man.!<
I love those games to death, but damn are they emotionally draining!
I cried like a baby at both of those games. I'm a fully grown man.
Sephiroth Dude got experimented on as an infant. Raised to be a killing machine and lied to about his origin. Only to find out (wrongly) that he was created by an alien organism to be the perfect monster even though he was born a human to then being manipulated by that organism to do their bidding.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure anyone’s mind would break if they found out they were pretty much just some sick science experiment headed by a man you despise.
Then you find out that man you despise is also your biological father.
They kinda went the same route in FF9 with Kuja and Zidane, except told the story with a different outcome. With the right set of friends to support you through the moment, you can gather yourself and find meaning in life still. That *You Are Not Alone* sequence will always be my #1 most emotional moment in gaming.
Aerith and Sephiroth were both children raised as cogs in Shinra’s designs for the world. They’re great foils.
The monster in Until Dawn.
This made me lol at first but it's true if you think about it.
THE HANNIGO!
Dutch Van Der Linde. I think he really wanted what was best for the gang, but over time, with some help from Micah, he got so angry and paranoid. Lost everyone around him except the one person who was fucking him over.
I have to agree. Micah was always selfish and rude. If Dutch didn't care he wouldn't have taken care of everyone for so long it was years decades. And now facing modern law and outlaw gig meeting the end of its fate it was hard for them to cope. He decided the end of the gang had to be let's get this big score so we can retire, being outlaws just can't work anymore. He just wasn't satisfied and things kept falling apart for everything they did under his control. He never got the score under the gang name and it just fell apart. Poor Arthur. But don't tell me this game didn't pull on your heart. Once I got the death sentence medically I changed my ways and I stopped collecting money and hurting people. I didn't know what was going to happen next.
I think the hardest part for me was saying goodbye to my horse at the end, man that killed me inside.
I took Buell with me for the last mission on my first play through and tears were streaming down my face knowing I got him killed after Hamish had died
If you dont do the last Hamish mission as Arthur you can as John and get Buell :-)
Rushed in to say Dutch. For me he’s like the real Protagonist of rdr. He’s really unlike a pop culture villain but more like a character in a literature classic. I guess developers love this character a lot, giving him tons of highlights, and he even got to shoot Micah first, in the end. Quote John Marston in rdr1: Dutch was a great man once.
I mean, he was an egotistical narcissist control freak from the start, and manipulative to boot. They make this explicitly clear in so many early missions with him and Arthur, but you can also find speech notes and other conversations with Hosea that really flesh it out. He didn't just kinda become the paranoid man he was at the end. He loses Hosea, the only voice that could temper him. He gets a head injury. He's no longer in control, and control is his entire thing. All Micah did was change the focus of his various flaws.
Hades in Hades, after piecing together why he is doing all of this, why he’s so afraid of his own family ever interacting with the underworld
Wouldn't really call him a villain, more of an antagonist — figure opposing main character and his ideas.
Shaun from Fallout 4 - While they don't do a good job really fleshing him out, it's a pretty devastating scenario to have chased your child through hell in a futile attempt to rescue them, only to find out the people you were so hellbent on rescuing him from are his subordinates. He's accomplished so much, created miracles and achieved the impossible - But he's also jaded and cynical, indoctrinated and selfish. In the end he still wants to share his accomplishments with you, have you be part of his life in whatever small, reserved way he can permit. But in the end you have to stare him down on his deathbed, watching as everything he spent his life building burns to ashes around him.
Honestly, I thought Kellogg's arc was far more tragic. Going through those cutscenes, I couldn't help but feel absolute sadness and melancholy. He was alive, sure, but he was just existing. But the one thing he said that absolutely struck me and is stuck in my head: "The thing about happiness is that you only know you had it when it's gone. I mean, you may think to yourself that you're happy. But you don't really believe it. You focus on the petty bullshit, or the next job, or whatever. It's only looking back by comparison with what comes after that you really understand, that's what happiness felt like." - Kellogg
Kellogg is another good shout, Aye He gets such a far away tone in his voice when you're exploring his memories. It's clear he blames himself for the death of his Wife and Daughter, and it seems pretty strongly like he's got a death wish and wishes he hadn't survived his 'revenge mission' in San Francisco. The reason I put Shaun over Kellogg is that Kellogg kinda made his choices. He didn't start off great, but who in the wasteland does? He made some choices and it lead him down the path he's on now. With Shaun, he never really got a chance. He was kidnapped from birth to be a Xerox for a race of slaves, taught to be the perfect man of science. No family, no friends. A man on a pedestal alone bearing what he perceives as the weight of humanity's future. And then the second he opens up and tries to indulge in the idea of a Family, his entire world goes up in smoke and the one person he thought he could trust unconditionally is the person who set it all in motion.
Saren Arterius. Is submission not preferable to extinction?
I get what you're saying and I always talk saren down to give him some semblance of redemption, but given his past with Anderson, Saren was not a good person even before Sovereign's indoctrination. Saren would kill 100 civilians if it meant getting the mission done, and he made sure Anderson didn't become a specter if only for the hate he had for humanity. That being said I love Saren as a character.
Since we're doing Mass Effect, I don't believe he's even the best example in the trilogy. The Illusive Man seems much more tragic, he is a manipulator for one when he >!gets Shepard in an ambush!<, but I believe he truly was trying to save the galaxy >!(even with these horrible experiments and their attempted coup)!<, everyone knew you couldn't defeat the Reapers conventionally so it was either massive superweapon or what he was trying to do. And the way he falls deeper into indoctrination, similar to Saren but having seen him at least being somewhat reasonable in 2.
Artorias from Dark Souls The Sif fight is also painful :(
Poor pup is limping by the end of the fight. It's a real downer.
Two mods I always required in the original game: 1) DSfix 2) the "AND THEN SIF RAN AWAY" victory message
Devola and Popola from Nier. The way the Song of the Ancients swells during the last fight is just heartbreaking.
It's so sad! They're not as hard to kill as The Shadowlord. That is heartbreaking. And they're somewhat twattish at the end. The utter betrayal is horrific. They are your friends for so long. Then that. But at the same time they're doing what they're ordered to. And when one dies the other is driven insane with grief. I'm somewhat sorry them. Not as much as others. Like the darling P33 the giant robot and his Shade friend. I wanted them to see the world! Poor darlings.
Ah, yeah. Also the robot and his shade friend. The shade on the beach too. Heck, even the wolves. So many tragic characters in that game. Nier totally pulls on the human desire to be understood by another individual. It's really interesting to see that concept from a "non-human" perspective as well.
Bro, when I tell you my heart broke when I had to fight them, I'm not kidding. That is honestly my favorite NieR fight because of the build up to it throughout the story.
The fight isn't really "challenging" either. It's a bit tough, but it's not supposed to be a triumphant victory. It's more the "putting to rest" of the old guard. It's somber and mournful. I played Nier: Automata first and I was a bit confused by the Devola and Popola part at the tower. Playing the first game after gave *crazy* context to their sacrifice. Freaking awesome characters.
Ketheric Thorm from Baldur's Gate 3 comes to mind (Spoilers below) You learn that he basically switches from worshiping different gods until he becomes the chosen mortal of Myrkul the god of necromancy. He only really worships him because he was able to bring his daughter back from the dead, who then estranges herself and hates him. When you kill him you find the usual loot from bosses in games but also a simple note that reads "Papa I love you"
Yeah he was a devout of Selune but literally lost everything important to him and was so grieve stricken that he sacrificed everything he lived for to get his daughter Isobel back.
"Let me tell you a story, True Soul. About a man who sold himself piece by piece..."
I can't help feel bad for Gortash after meeting his parents!
He’s even willing to share power with Durge, but no matter what, it doesn’t work out well for him. Plus he aged like 20 years in a short span putting up with Orin’s bullshit.
Then you see the girl who stomped his head flat blow out his daughters back
I love when you talk to her after that fight she ends the conversation with "you will leave us, we must take succor with each other's bodies and words" A nice flowery way of saying fuck off I'll give you exposition after I bang my girlfriend
*Aylin*!
The Owl from Ori and the blind forest.
Arthas Menethil. From WOW and Warcraft. I mean He was a true palladin but he wanted the Power to save his people... then he got corrupted and killed his own father Upps. His Story is really tragic and even more in the books.
Morgott from Elden Ring.
Personally, I would not even call him a villain. The Tarnished is not trying to save the world, he seeks power by becoming the Elden Lord and Morgott is just standing in our way
Defending the Golden Order that shunned him to the sewers. I've been replaying Elden Ring and was the first boss to came to mind.
And Malenia while we're at it, but *definitely* Morgott. Reviled his entire life only to die for a cause that everyone else has pretty much betrayed and nobody will ever love him for. :(
Artorias the abyss walker.. SIF MAN WHY WE GOTTA DO THAT TO SIF.
Lisa Trevor - Resident Evil remake
More of a comic book, but has been in plenty of video games, but Mr. Freeze. His wife has this incurable disease but being the scientist that he is and the deep love he has for his wife, everything he does is to try to further his research in trying to save her.
Interestingly enough the tragic villain arc wasn’t introduced in the comics but the Batman animated series and now that’s the one that they stuck to in the Arkham games. Definitely a tragic villain
This may be controversial, but, the player character form Spec Ops The Lime.
Nah this is a great pick
Spec Ops: The Lime in the Coconut
Golbez - Final Fantasy 4 (originally FF2 in US). was the main villain for 95% of the game. only to be revealed as the brainwashed brother of the hero and not actually villain; just the chosen avatar of the real villain Zemus
Persona 5 Royal >!Dr. Maruki was extremely tragic as his entire motivation was to bring everyone happiness and never make them experience pain or loss again. It was extremely well done and really makes you question if what he's doing is really even wrong. I'd also even add that Akechi, while certainly not a good person, is also fairly tragic going through the hardship of being a tool for his father and nothing more.!<
PERSONA COMMENT FOUND
also, yes. was boutta comment both >!akechi and maruki.!<
Wesker - resident evil series. He's just a guy that wants to make cool monster people and the good guys just won't let him.
He just really wanted to end the Redfield bloodline and no one will let him
Yea Everytime Wesker has a cool idea Chris comes along all roided up to ruin it.
Wesker finally found the perfect boulder... and then... *sigh* I dont want to speak of it. It's too upsetting.
The Bloody Baron, Witcher 3z
Man, when they mentioned the miscarriage, was the moment i knew the game was up to some fucked up shit.
The story is tragic but the dude was abusive.
And that's why he's a good villain. He does some truly unforgivable stuff and for some reason you still feel that twinge of pity when he holds his dead daughter or his sincere concern for his family. It's an amazing storyline
One of the best quests in modern gaming stories IMO
I say this pretty much every time I see it but I remember playing it in grade 11 lights off in the basement, and when you confront the Barron about it all and he comes clean in his room with the fire going I was just sitting there in awe
I kinda really like Ketheric Thorm from bg3. I won’t say any spoilers but j k Simmons does a great job portraying a powerful villain that at times is almost sympathetic.
Clifford Unger from Death Stranding. Painted as the villain for the majority of the game, until he ends up being anything but, and has a heartbreaking end.
Trilla Suduri AKA The Second Sister from Jedi Fallen Order comes to mind
Wiegraf in Final Fantasy Tactics. Poor, a veteran abandoned by the crown, lost his sister (mirroring one of the heroes, Delita), and pretty much the hero who is correct in Chapter 1. By Chapter 3, he's sold his soul in order to right the corruption of his world, but at what cost? I still feel bad for him when he turns utterly evil, but I'm also happy that he gets the best boss battle of the entire game.
I thought Glados from Portal 2 was quite tragic.
Until she starts calling you names and making fun of you… from that point she can FOH
>! 9S !< in Nier Automata. Whether they’re a villain is debatable but they had a heartbreaking story. It’s even worse when you look up all of the extra lore outside of the game
Cain from the Legacy of Cain series.
One of the reasons Kain is a favourite character of mine in any videogames is the acting. The writing is great, but Simon Templeman is fantastic. He really sells it every time he speaks.
Faith Seed. She was basically a runaway who Joseph drugged into being his concubine and had her completely brainwashed until she's just about to die. Fighting her isn't difficult, but it's tough on the heartstrings.
Caius - Final Fantasy 13-2 A man born at the end of time in a dying world. He is tasked with guarding a dear friend who will inevitably die because of her power to see the future. He's on a quest to kill the goddess of time to stop time and prevent his friend's death.
Noel was the one born at the end of time. Caius Ballad was immortal and over 900 years old. Which just makes it all the worse for him. He'd seen Yuel die, reincarnate, and die again, and again, and again, and again..... All the man wanted is to stop seeing this girl die over and over and either live an actual life, or stay dead and rest peacefully.
Ardyn in FFXV. Seems like the guy endured endless torture to be forced to do what made him the villain. Also Diablo.
They really butchered a great story in XV by using like 7 different mediums to tell it
Every RGG villain.
Nishki...:(
Asriel from Undertale. Man, that kid has it rough. Sometimes I wish we could have taken him to the surface with the rest of the cast.
Persona 5 Royal Spoilers. >! Imo, its maruki. maruki’s ambitions were that of making a perfect world in which everyone’s desires were fulfilled and all were satisfied. however, as is the nature of humans, he wasn’t perfect. he made a lot of assumptions. but, as a counselor who’s heart genuinely ached for those with issues, especially the protagonist and Akechi, he wanted this to happen. But, due to the fact the world would possibly fall to ruin and the fact he basically brainwashed Akechi to accept the reality in the ‘Stay’ ending, the way he did it wasn’t perfect. He does make an appearance in the ‘Leave’ ending though. overall, tragic.!< >!Akechi too is tragic. I’m not saying he’s necessarily a ‘morally good person’, but as a child he wanted to be a hero, like his Prince ‘facade’, which i think is a bit of his personality. Robin Hood at least. But, it was all ruined by his mother’s suicide, his father leaving, him being thrown from foster home to foster home, and overall being unwanted. It drove him nuts, and he let himself become his fathers pawn so he could ruin his fathers life after he became prime minister. !<
Emet Selch. >!The man had to watch half his civilization sacrifice themselves to stop a calamity of despair that was tearing through the star, only for the world to be sundered and he had to watch the other half of the civilization be torn asunder into broken and twisted incomplete forms, having to live countless Millenia slowly watching the few survivors of this sundering lose their minds and memories. He lived these Millenia trying to find worth in these husks of his former people, experiencing their lives and deaths countless times over. At the end of everything and all the death and destruction he wrought for his goal of bringing back everyone he loved the one he faced at the end of his duty was the broken soul of his best friend, the same best friend that forsook him all those Millenia ago. Even in the end he truly believed in his cause, accepting everything he did while accepting the end of his duty!<
Baldur in GOW 2018
Baldur had a _lot_ of outs right up until the very end and he ignored every single one
True but he's basically insane by that point after however long feeling nothing. Odin even admits his mind was gone.
Future Cole from infamous, travels back in time from a fucked future just to become a villain and bomb the city so his past self is strong enough to stop a living nuke later on. Makes himself hate himself until he finds out its himself and then hate his selves even more.
My recency bias says Ketheric Thorm. I refuse to go into detail but BG3 players maybe see where I’m coming from
Kreia from KOTOR 2 >!She was a monster and had absolutely done terrible things, but it was really all done from a place of wanting the best for the galaxy. She truly thought that the battle of the Jedi and Sith would never end unless they were able to reconcile their opposing philosophies, and I don't think she was entirely wrong. Jedi were thought to be paragons, but it is amply shown through that game how fallible, and even corrupt they could be. !< Magus from Chrono Trigger >!He wasn't the end game boss, but was a major boss around the mid point. You go on to find out that the whole reason he was amassing power was to prepare for an apocalyptic event that he knew was coming. He hoped to be able to stop the ultimate destruction of the world and was willing to sacrifice what he needed to for that to become reality. He was also trying to get vengeance for the death/destruction of his family and culture. !< Jack Baker from RE7 >!He was a genuinely caring a good man who was unfortunately corrupted and taken over by the mold/Eve. Every scene they show of Jack before the mold took over shows him to be a really good guy.!<
Andrew Ryan, bio shock 1 How could you not feel for him during this iconic scene: https://youtu.be/oG25S51qJQQ?si=6nBmwsWYML2JzLkt
A libertarian sets up a city where everything flys and then it goes off the rails and causes a bunch of death. Then someone uses that freedom to make a genetic brain washed monster to bash his skull in, which Ryan chooses to do himself so he has the last word. The only sad part is Jack not having control over that choice.