See, I had the opposite reaction - the guy did what was necessary to save his boat and his crew, and to hell with honor. That’s the cherry on his fudge sundae of badass, as far as I’m concerned.
"I know well thy query, mortal: didst I fire six bolts of divine wrath, or merely five? Verily, I tell thee mortal, in the clash of battle, I myself no longer recall. But consider: a bolt of lightning strikes unerringly and can fell even the mightiest troll in one blast. In such straits, thou must surely ask thyself, ‘Do I feel fortunate?’
Well, dost thou… varlet?"
(I’ve been reading a lot of Walt Simonson’s Thor comics lately.)
Holy craps, no one has mentioned Kayser Soze!
The James Bond movies with Ernst Stavro Blofeld. The man built underground lairs, hijacked submarines and rocket ships, and still found time for Ursula Andress.
The one problem I’ve had with the rebooted Bond franchise is that they haven’t rebooted Blofeld.
Khan is kind of my poster boy for this, in both original and reboot. Pissed off and not afraid to take on the Federation.
In the book, it’s God making him make stupid decisions. Pharoah acquiesces more than once and God, “Hardens his heart”.
cough
Bad translation is bad.
Speaking of “The Usual Suspects”, the guy who won’t give up the case. I assume he lets himself be shot cause he knows if he gives up the case, his family will be killed. I wonder however if he recognizes Keiser Soze. I assume so, since it’s Soze who shoots him.
I did rather like Sideous fighting Yoda in Ep. 3; Sure, he was going to try to get away first. He didn’t really have much to gain by killing Yoda. But when it became apparent that wasn’t practical he had no problem throwing down like a boss.
The only downside was that Ian McDiarmid was better than the dialogue, but not a really good stage-fighter.
I have no problem Voldemort ending up that way - far from it. It’s just that he never really had any worthwhile qualities. Even as a kid he was a sociopath and there’s never even the hint of a virtue. He’s basically a vile person start to finish. I.e., he never had any depth as a character whatsoever, but no matter how inhuman he looks there’s nothing really monstrous about him, either. He’s just a petty douchebag with superpowers. He’d be no more than a second-rate thug in a superhero book. He has no real ambition that we see; he wants power but has no real plan to do anything with it, and displays no self-awareness whatsoever.
Are you saying that the Pharoah thought about chasing the Hebrews and rather than “God hardened his heart” it says, “Got a hard-on?”
Not sure if it’s Russell Crowe’s character’s courage that I admire in that one but I did admire that he had a sense of fairness, even if by many people’s standards it was rather skewed.
Also Hackman in both “The Quick and the Dead” and “Unforgiven”. More "Unforgiven of course, but he does express some regret at … and tries to get him to stand down in the Quick and the Dead.
This was the first to come to my mind, too. He gave his all… 
In the last book when it starts to look like he’s won, he states his plan to establish the rule of wizards over the world; eliminating “mudbloods” was simply to get rid of magical people who might object to seeing their relatives enslaved.
Well, yeah, but this amounts to saying he’s going to pursue more power. That’s not a goal; it’s a method. If he achieved that aim, he’d have to find some other power he could take, because he has no real plan in mind.
I’m saying it’s ancient (even for the Torah/Bible) idiomatic expression. There’s a couple other examples of it, but it’s attempting to do a word-for word translation. The much more likely translations is “Pharaoh hardened his heart against God.” One may quibble over whether that’s reasonable as well - presumably Pharoah didn’t much believe in the Hebrew deity, and the Pharoah in question later claimed that he totally wiped out the Jews.
What? Why? It doesn’t take courage to whip a bound man to death, kick an unarmed sober mans face to hamburger when your boys are armed and covering you, and it doesn’t take courage to beat a sick old man senseless.
Pretend he never mentioned his exploits to the writer, what ‘strength of character’ does his actions show in the movie?
I’ve always had to admire the courage of Lucifer, the Prince of Darkness, Satan. How big a pair of balls do you need to take on God, the Lord of Lords, the Almighty? Fucking big brass ones. I have to say that Satan has to be the bravest villain of all time. OK, he got his ass whipped and was kicked downstairs, but still the guy keeps on fighting against God and probably will for ever. That’s courage!
You know…for all the pedantic arguments atheists make against the omnipotence of God (and really, isn’t that a human idea? I don’t think it’s in the Bible…Hell the whole story of Lucifer and a third of the Holy Host uprising is a human story isn’t it?)
Continued: I never hear the argument, "How can God be omnipotent if Stan and a third of the Holy Host rose up against Him and fought a bloody war? 1) God could stop it in a blink of the Eye. 2) Are you telling me Satan didn’t know God was omnipotent?
And why does an omnipotent being have to rest in the first place?
Well, he’s building a house of course. Have YOU ever built a house??
I agree that Voldemort not a very complex or interesting character (although I think that was kind of the point, that evil isn’t cool), but he does have an ultimate goal throughout the series. While he doesn’t care enough about others to want or fear much, he is afraid of dying and wants to achieve godlike immortality for himself. That’s what’s behind his various evil plans, including his multiple attempts to kill Harry. Voldemort’s pursuit of immortality is shown to be self-defeating and probably a fool’s errand to begin with – while wizards can magically prolong and protect their lives, it apparently is not possible to truly escape death in the Harry Potter universe – but it is a goal.