Warning: Possible spoilers ahead.
Back in 2008, Christopher Nolan release The Dark Knight, a big-budget sequel to the Batman Begins movie. In this movie, Batman had to face his archnemesis, The Joker. A charismatic and insane criminal, The Joker not only caused destruction and seemed to be always ahead of Batman and the rest of Gotham, but also managed to corrupt one of the most incorruptible characters in the movie. Hell, he even made Batman go into a dilemma. He seemed to be virtually unbeatable.
Three years later, Nolan came up with the concluding installment on the Dark Knight franchise which featured Bane. Just like The Joker, Bane also caused a lot of trouble, invading Gotham, putting Bruce Wayne in a prison in a land far away and making him watch as his town gets torn. He too seemed to always be one step ahead and also developed a relationship with Batman. A militarized version of The Joker, you can say.
But the 'charismatic and virtually unbeatable villain' trope stretched it's tentacles beyond the Batman franchise. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows featured Moriarty, a cunning villain responsible for the death of a beloved character and for actually making Sherlock fail. That's a big deal, you know, since Sherlock never fails. Then, came Raoul Silva, the big bad Bond villain in his last installment Skyfall who had planned a very complicated scheme and was responsible for the death of an important Bond character. Later on came Star Trek: Into Darkness, which featured Khan, who was also responsible for the death of a beloved character and appeared to be a cunning super-soldier, able to give a lot of people headaches.
Oh, but that's not just enough. Videogames started using this trope too. It all started with Black Ops 2 which featured Menendez, also a charismatic leader with a complicated scheme responsible for the death of several character. Another Call of Duty game also used this, namely, Call of Duty: Ghosts. It had Rorke, who was basically a Bane parody.
The following video contains spoilers about The Dark Knight Rises and Call of Duty Ghosts.
Another recent game had us deal with Majid Sadiq, a charismatic former-MI6 who was the first villain to ever DIRECTLY attack the protagonist and his crew. I am talking about Splinter Cell: Blacklist. This is kinda unusual since most Splinter Cell games never go for the over-the-top villains.
So much for originality, folks.
Back in 2008, Christopher Nolan release The Dark Knight, a big-budget sequel to the Batman Begins movie. In this movie, Batman had to face his archnemesis, The Joker. A charismatic and insane criminal, The Joker not only caused destruction and seemed to be always ahead of Batman and the rest of Gotham, but also managed to corrupt one of the most incorruptible characters in the movie. Hell, he even made Batman go into a dilemma. He seemed to be virtually unbeatable.
Three years later, Nolan came up with the concluding installment on the Dark Knight franchise which featured Bane. Just like The Joker, Bane also caused a lot of trouble, invading Gotham, putting Bruce Wayne in a prison in a land far away and making him watch as his town gets torn. He too seemed to always be one step ahead and also developed a relationship with Batman. A militarized version of The Joker, you can say.
But the 'charismatic and virtually unbeatable villain' trope stretched it's tentacles beyond the Batman franchise. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows featured Moriarty, a cunning villain responsible for the death of a beloved character and for actually making Sherlock fail. That's a big deal, you know, since Sherlock never fails. Then, came Raoul Silva, the big bad Bond villain in his last installment Skyfall who had planned a very complicated scheme and was responsible for the death of an important Bond character. Later on came Star Trek: Into Darkness, which featured Khan, who was also responsible for the death of a beloved character and appeared to be a cunning super-soldier, able to give a lot of people headaches.
Oh, but that's not just enough. Videogames started using this trope too. It all started with Black Ops 2 which featured Menendez, also a charismatic leader with a complicated scheme responsible for the death of several character. Another Call of Duty game also used this, namely, Call of Duty: Ghosts. It had Rorke, who was basically a Bane parody.
The following video contains spoilers about The Dark Knight Rises and Call of Duty Ghosts.
Another recent game had us deal with Majid Sadiq, a charismatic former-MI6 who was the first villain to ever DIRECTLY attack the protagonist and his crew. I am talking about Splinter Cell: Blacklist. This is kinda unusual since most Splinter Cell games never go for the over-the-top villains.
So much for originality, folks.