Twist Villain
“And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids!”
– the statement that sinks every Scooby-Doo villains’ legal defense
I enjoy a good twist villain when they’re handled well, but it always annoys me when the character’s been acting amiable and charming for the entire story, only to switch into a full-blown villain persona right after the twist is revealed. And then they just stop being friendly to anyone or even acting like a person that might still need allies going forward. They obviously understand the value of good publicity and relationships, so why do they immediately drop their most valuable skill as soon as the hero says, “Wait a minute, YOU were behind this!”?
I just recently watched The Bad Guys (spoilers ahead if that’s a concern) after hearing the animation side of the internet sing its praises for so long and I found myself pretty underwhelmed with how the story handled its villain. Like, the whole point of Professor Marmalade was that he was so skilled at manipulating everyone into thinking he was the nicest person in the world, but as soon as Wolf highly suspects (I can’t even say he knows for sure at that point) him of being the true mastermind, Marmalade just stops using his biggest asset! Then he’s just “mad scientist” for the rest of the film and I found him to be a lot less interesting.
Same goes for Amphibia (also spoilers ahead) when King Andrias – who has apparently been acting as a benevolent and cheerful king for, like, centuries or something(?) – just becomes a ruthless and cruel dictator after his villain reveal in the second season finale. I mean, it would be one thing if he stopped acting friendly towards the humans and other non-newts, but he starts acting like an asshole to his own people! For no reason! So of course they all rebel against him! Again, I found him to be a far more interesting villain when I thought he could also be a cool guy to hang out with – I mean, genocidal tendencies notwithstanding.
– James
