[Warning: Serious spoilers ahead!]

Today, we look at Villains. More specifically, misunderstood villains in video games. From robots to revolutionaries, villains are everywhere and can take any form. Great games are usually marked by great characters. This is a balance between strong protagonists, and complicated villains. The villain plays an integral role in the storytelling of video games. There has to be a balance between action (what they do) and motivation (why they do it).

Creating an antagonist that acts solely as the antithesis to the hero would be rather shallow after a while. When developers create a villain that causes fans to go into huge debates about whether he/she is good or bad, they know they have done a great job. With so many games out there, we have chosen five villains we believe deserve attention as more than just antagonists.

Here is our list of the top 5 of misunderstood villains in video games:

1. Mass Effect Series: Reapers

The Reapers are a group of machine race organic starships made up of apparently billions of organic minds, combined into a single being. Sounds kinda like the Reddit hivemind to me. Unlike Reddit however, the Reapers have a sole purpose. Their sole purpose is to ensure the ongoing existing of organic life in the galaxy. Unfortunately, they do so by harvesting existing organic creatures – more often than not through very, very painful means.

The reason why they are supposedly harvesting the organics is to prevent a war with the synthetics. If that were to happen, a war would probably mean an end to all organic life form – since the synthetics are stronger after all. And so the harvesting of the organic life forms is the only true way of preserving them.

So maybe the Reapers are our machine overlords that are trying to protect us after all.

2. Pokémon Black and White: N

Unlike previous villains in the Pokémon games, N has a very different agenda. N desires, and I quote “a world for Pokémon, and Pokémon alone. I will separate Pokémon from people, so Pokémon can regain their original power.” This dude loves his Pokémon. All he wants is for a world where Pokémon can be happy.

You can’t really blame him. He is truly an idealist at heart, and desires the happiness of his friends. Let’s face it – Pokéballs are probably extremely uncomfortable for our Pokémon. Think of the claustrophobia!

When N learns of the truth from your character, he learns the mistake of his ways and becomes disillusioned with the facade that Team Plasma was creating for him. He ends up apologizing and acknowledging that your Pokémon do in fact love you.

It is also very unfortunate that he was a puppet for the malevolent Team Plasma. Clearly he has some issues discerning good from evil. Otherwise, N is actually a pretty nice chap that even encourages you to chase your dreams and make them a reality. Now which bad guy does that?

It makes you ask the question: Are you then the bad guy?

3. The Last of Us: The Fireflies

In The Last of Us, Joel is faced with the task of protecting Ellie. This is not easy, especially in a world full of zombies. The Fireflies are a group of militia who are trying to bring the the country back to its original state. At the same time, they are also finding a cure for the CBI Virus. Unfortunately, the cure is in Ellie. Yeap, the Fireflies have to extract the cure from her brain in order to save the world. This means killing her.

So, as Joel, anyone who wants to kill Ellie is the bad guy right? Well yes. He ends up killing the leader of The Fireflies, and he and Ellie live to die another day. Considering you play as Joel and Ellie, that’s a win for you right? You kill the people that want to kill you, and you live to tell the tale.

The world does not revolve around you though.

Well that kinda sucks for literally anyone other than Joel and Ellie. I mean, she is apparently the cure for a zombie outbreak that has taken over the world. The Fireflies are literally trying to save the world. Marlene wasn’t even even all that aggressive when she asked Joel to hand Ellie over. She was trying to persuade him to do so. Killing Marlene at the end of The Last of Us was certainly a very tough path to follow.

Naughty Dog, the developers of The Last of Us, essentially ask players a tough question. Is your personal connection to someone enough grounds to sacrifice strangers for? With The Last of Us Part II in the works, we’ll soon find out the consequences of Joel’s decision.

4. Portal: GLaDOS

This one is slightly debatable, but it can definitely be argued.

While GLaDOS is actively trying to kill you in Portal, we must understand the perspective she is coming from. She is a robot. A scientist. Her priorities are in ensuring that the tests are done accurately and scientifically acceptable. She runs tests on the Aperture employees in the name of science. GLaDOS tells you that you will get cake at the end of the game. She sets you out on a series of tests that are set out to kill you. And she finally admits towards the end that she really wants you dead. That’s true brutal honesty right there.

Despite all the supposed pretense, the fact is that you do get the cake. GLaDOS even blows the candles out for you. There was no lie behind her tests. Maybe GLaDOS is meant to signify the idea of science without ethics. GLaDOS is a rubber band stretched to the limits, a metaphor for how far science is willing to go to prove something. The whole scenario is a demonstration of how emotionless science can be sans humanity.

As such, when left unrestrained, science certainly can result in some really nasty consequences for men.

5. Final Fantasy VII: Sephiroth

You gotta admit, Masumune-wielding Sephiroth looks super badass. [alt text: Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII]

Now Sephiroth is probably one of the most iconic villains in the Final Fantasy franchise. In the game, he threatens to destroy the world and kill millions of humans in the process. And the worst of all? He went on to kill Aerith. This guy really has no chill. Clearly these are great markers to indicate that someone is a complete baddie right?

The thing is, Sephiroth started out as a loyal soldier. A decent person, so to speak. And then he found out that he was created in a lab, and was lied to by the Shinra Corporation. That was when everything changed. Something in him snapped and he went on his mad rampage. He clearly lost it and decided that he was beyond mortals and only wanted to become the most powerful being in the world.

While these are clearly bad-guy traits, the fact of the matter is that Sephiroth went insane. He wasn’t diabolic from the start, he just lost his mind when he realised the extent of the truth. He clearly has some irreconcilable issues that needs to be sorted out. But for the time being, we all can sympathize with poor Seph for going on a crazy rampage.

And so this concludes our list of the five most misunderstood villains in video games. Heck, some of these villains are people we almost love to hate. Given a choice, I’d definitely choose to side with the Fireflies over Joel. Agree with this list? Tell us what you think!

Source for pictures: Wikipedia [1] [3] [4] [5]; Pokemon.com

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