So sick of villain stereotypes!
I am sick TO DEATH of stereotypical "evil" villains, bullies, creeps, perverts, abusers, and general antagonists in modern literature. They are ALL the same. Evil/Mean/Petty/Smarmy just because the plot needs an a-holes to abuse the protagonist to make "overcoming" them seem like actual character growth instead of, you know, writing REAL character growth.High school bullies beating a wheelchair bound "weak" protagonist student half to death...with zero consequences. Ugh! Group home pervert getting drunk and making efforts to assault the protag's childhood friend? Ugh! Rich kid with "special family status" casually setting up the protag to die because they're poor/common/lesser, etc. UGH!
I am so god damn sick of reading or listening to the same 2 dimensional stupidly "evil for devil's sake" antagonists in modern fiction. It isn't believable. It isn't fun. They do not drive anything forward except my frustration and disgust for the author's lack of creativity or skill.
I can could on my fingers how many books that I've read that have come out in the last ten years that had actually interesting and well-written villains that were not just cruel/evil "just because", and I'd still have fingers left. And I say this as someone who consumes over a hundred books a year.
Matthew Other December 20, 2025 at 3:53 am 1 1
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8 Rant Comments
These people aren't put in books because they're easy to write, these people are put in books because they are some of the realest villains that actually exist.
Just look at our current president as a current example.
Our Society rewards sociopaths all the time.
We have women who were willing to take orders to kill people from a white supremacist douchebag just because they thought he was hot.
And some people still think that he shouldn't be in jail for orchestrating those killings.
I'm not saying that your point isn't true, but sometimes the realest villains are the people that do awful shit for no good reason.
Because sometimes people really are just that shitty.
anonymous 3 months ago
Jake 3 months ago
For me it depends on the story. I do agree with you that sometimes certain tropes(like the "unforgivable" trope) can get old real quick but I think what matters more is how it works for narrative as whole. Sometimes stories reuse the same tropes over and over, often times rarely taking the chance to deviate from how it functions–but sometimes that lack of deviation works for the story.
For example, lots of media usually reuses the "power of friendship solves everything" trope, with very few stories taking opportunity to deviate from the trope(ex: the power of friendship is the hero's downfall) but it's constantly reuse doesn't inherently bring down the narrative.
On the topic of overusing the "awful person villian" trope, I do understand how this can get annoying. While the character isn't setup to be the main villian/antagonist of the story, I feel like Bakugou from My Hero Academia is an example of how annoying this trope can get. The character in lore frequently bullied the main protagonist, rarely had major moments of growth, and often rarely faced consequences for their actions(by "consequences", I mean both negative and postive consequences. At times it felt like a lot of the characters glossed over their behavior instead of feeling impacted by it.)
All that being said, I think the problem for me in this context is less to do with the presence of this trope in My Hero Academia and more to do with its poor usage in the story since I've seen other stories execute bullying based plots in ways that actually made the bullying feel important to the plot and not just an excuse to have a character be mean( Mean Girls[the first movie] is an immediate example that comes to mind)
I would say you should re-examine times when you were bothered by this type of villian trope and see if the issue at hand is the issue with the trope itself or with the way most storylines handle this trope.
anonymous 3 months ago
I get that -good- fantasy and science fiction, where characters both good and evil, important or side, have actual depth is rare. But Jesus Christ, it never used to be THIS rare.
I'm an escapist reader, and do so to relax. I can't escape into a hellish nightmare society populated entirely by rapists and killers to relax. Where are the thieves that just want your money without immediately trying to rape every woman they are? Where are the villains who use their supposed superiority to make the MC squirm or make their life difficult instead is just flat out trying to beat him to death, murder (and possibly rape) his family?
Why is it that every supposed adult MC has the coping skills and mental fortitude of a chronically abused and emotionally stunted 12 year old? Where are the worlds where things like laws, good guys aside from the MC, societies with actual morals, and consequences for actions for people other than the MC? Because I sure as hell haven't seen any in a long damn while.
Matthew 3 months ago
anonymous 3 months ago
anonymous 3 months ago
anonymous 3 months ago
While there is some wiggle room with returning titles, some you just can't (for example, if you pay anything other than full price or a credit, the title cannot be returned. So, if you bought a $25 for $20, and you find out the character is a raging moron you actively HATE in the first chapter...too bad. Waste of $20). My OG rant was specifically initiated by non-returnable purchased media that I ended up hating - usually because of false positive reviews, misleading synopsis, or just poor quality writing coddled by an inflated market with minimal standards of quality.
Matthew 3 months ago