Good thread
The most
villainous FFIX characters... guess that'd be the servants of Terra. So Garland and Kuja, primarily. They were created by the Terrans to do a job, so it wasn't their idea to be 'evil', but the Terrans' purpose is pretty grim: to eradicate all life on other planets, so that they can take that planet for their own and abuse it until it dies, before continuing the process on yet another world. We don't know how many civilisations were completely erased by Terra's depredations; all we know is that it was a
lot. It's a purely selfish and wasteful strategy. Kuja and Garland knowingly served that purpose. You can argue that they aren't wholly responsible since that is what they were
designed for, yet Zidane was part of the same plan and chose a better path.
Now, on a more light-hearted note... Tantalus are actually pretty evil in my opinion. Including Zidane. They're a thieving pack of criminals. They prey on the innocent, satisfying their own greed by abusing people whose only fault is that they've got some small amount of wealth. Not only are they thieves, they're violent offenders too. All armed, all carrying knives and swords whenever they're on a heist. Not only are they violent criminals, they're arrogantly self-righteous about it too, especially Zidane. Remember the flashback to his first encounter with Amarant? Amarant's earning an honest living as a guard for a wealthy family. Zidane has robbed that family at knifepoint, and Amarant's trying to stop him. Zidane blows him off as a 'bully' or 'thug' or somesuch, and boasts that he'll "knock [him] out in 30 seconds flat!"
He's going to beat a man unconscious for trying to prevent a crime... "you don't need a reason to help people" indeed. Never mind that you can't easily 'knock someone out' using a dagger. What Zidane really means is, "I'll stab you to death, or wound you so badly I can run away with something that doesn't belong to me".
Sure, there's the possible excuse that "Tantalus only steals from rich people, who deserve it!" which is dumb. Rich people aren't rich once they've been robbed. Tantalus are pretty wealthy thanks to their life of crime, but they'd murder anyone who tried to rob them, I think. The violence inherent in Tantalus is most evident when Baku punishes Zidane for 'breaking the rules' and trying to find the Princess following the airship crash. Baku
attacks him with a sword. That's just smurfed up.
Speaking of the Princess... only Baku knew that his gang were abducting Garnet to protect her from Brahne. He never told his crew about this. So, what did the others think? Probably that they were abducting her for ransom. They were willing to take a 16 year old girl out of her home,
by force, and incarcerate her to extort money out of her mother. If that's not evil, then I don't know what is. Especially when you consider that ransom demands are often accompanied by threats (or acts) or physical and sexual torture, if the money isn't paid in time.
I'm not actually that serious about all this, of course, though I am serious when I say that it's annoying to see Zidane treated like a saintly, awesome heroic figure when in reality he's a self-serving crook with an attitude problem.
:edit:
Originally Posted by
sillybuttons™
I'll put a fun size mars bar up as the ante that you cant find any villain in anything without a sympathetic motive.:mog:
These stakes are too high to ignore...
I'd nominate Ultimecia for this. She's probably the least sympathetic of the lot. What's her motivation? To absorb (all?) time and space, becoming the absolute power in the universe. The only thing remotely 'sympathetic' about her is that, as a sorceress, she's a feared figure, "the world's enemy". But she probably wouldn't
be the world's enemy if she didn't want to, you know,
destroy the world.