# Unintentionally Silly Over the Top Villains (Spoilers) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 12, 2023, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-silly-over-the-top-villains-spoilers/978136 "2023-01-12T22:25:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2023, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-silly-over-the-top-villains-spoilers/978136/1 "2023-01-12T22:25:24Z")
I’m probably going to regret starting this thread, for want of brain bleach, but I’m reading the first Jack Reacher book (some open spoilers to follow.) It’s very gripping in parts, but I’m a little sensitive to the horror elements. So when I initially read what the villains do to their victims, I was disturbed. Spoiler - really disturbing or possibly stupid They show up in slick protective gear, nail you to the wall, cut off your balls and force your wife to eat them. Then they mutilate your wife while you watch, and kill her, then kill you. Objectively this is a nightmare scenario. The kind of thing that would normally keep me up at night. But the longer I thought about this, the stupider it sounded. Apparently these teams of four show up in hazmat style rubber gear and pull all of this off in just ten minutes. They wear little plastic footies. And they’ve bought out the entire town. And they are also killing everyone everywhere at this point which seems pretty sloppy. Plus is it actually possible to swallow a testicle? Have you ever read a scary book or seen a film that just tries too hard, backfires and becomes unintentionally silly? Is it just me? Still an enjoyable read! ---
**Author:** ![pjd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pjd/32/3009_2.png) [@pjd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjd)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2023, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-silly-over-the-top-villains-spoilers/978136/2 "2023-01-12T22:30:22Z")
Agreed ! I’m thinking the same about the Lincoln Rhyme series. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2023, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-silly-over-the-top-villains-spoilers/978136/3 "2023-01-12T22:36:55Z")
007 went up against some pretty silly villains. > **[James Bond: 10 Most Ridiculous Villains, Ranked](https://screenrant.com/james-bond-007-most-ridiculous-villains-ranked/)** > > While James Bond has gone up against many formidable villains in his adventures, some of 007's adversaries have been more laughable than threatening. > **[James Bond: The Silliest Villain Plots In The Franchise, Ranked](https://movieweb.com/james-bond-silliest-villain-plots-ranked/)** > > Supervillains? Yes. Super geniuses? Not so much. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2023, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-silly-over-the-top-villains-spoilers/978136/4 "2023-01-12T22:37:20Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > Spoiler - really disturbing or possibly stupid Jeez! I thought from the thread title that you were going to be talking about guys like **Turner D. Century** or **The Codpiece** > **[Turner D. Century](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turner_D._Century)** > > Turner D. Century is a fictional supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. > Turner D. Century first appeared in Spider-Woman #33 (December 1980). The character later appeared in Marvel Team-Up #120 (August 1982). Turner was killed by the Scourge of the Underworld in Captain America #319 (July 1986) but resurrected by The Hood in Punisher Vol. 7 #6 (2009). He was created by J. M. DeMatteis, Steve Leialoha, and Bruce D. Patterson. > Turner D. Century received an en... > **[Turner D. Century](https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Turner_D._Century)** > > Turner D. Century is a supervillain in the Marvel Comics universe. He is an enemy of the following superheroes and antiheroes: Spider-Woman, Spider-Man, Dominic Fortune, Deadpool and the Punisher. Turner D. Century's true identity is Clifford F.... > **[Codpiece (New Earth)](https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Codpiece_(New_Earth))** > > The Codpiece is a Doom Patrol villain with a massive... inferiority complex. He was told that he wasn't big enough in High School, and though the girl who said it meant his height, he thought she meant his...penis. Due to an inferiority complex about... > **[DC's Weirdest Villain is So Much Crazier Than You Think](https://screenrant.com/dc-weirdest-villain-codpiece-comic/)** > > Nothing can stop the power of CODPIECE! Castration is more a bit further over the top than I expected. They didn’t even castrate The Codpiece ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2023, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-silly-over-the-top-villains-spoilers/978136/5 "2023-01-12T22:38:26Z")
any villain that declares themselves “evil” or calls on the spirits of evil … ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2023, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-silly-over-the-top-villains-spoilers/978136/6 "2023-01-12T22:43:21Z")
Just curious, haven’t read that book although I have read at least one Reacher book, what was the point to all that gruesomeness? I mean, was there some mastermind with a plan, or was it just mayhem for the sake of it? ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2023, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-silly-over-the-top-villains-spoilers/978136/7 "2023-01-12T22:45:52Z")
It’s actually a really interesting question, because most of the time in modern cinema (books being slightly different), those villains are _intentionally_ over the top, so childishly evil that at some level you are being pointed at laughing at them as fools / tropes / safely unrealisticly evil and therefore safe. Most of the first dozen OTT antagonists all fell in the category. It’s a Lot harder to find a villain that was intended to be played straight but comes off after the fact as silly / trying to hard. The closest I can think of in recent memory is Jigsaw from The Saw franchise, although I could still argue that it’s still in the above category. I mean really, why the hell go through all that work just to mentally torture a few people. Sure, there’s the extra thrill, but with all that work… nawwww. Possible overlapping tropes: [For the Evulz](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ForTheEvulz), [Stupid Evil](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StupidEvil) ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2023, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-silly-over-the-top-villains-spoilers/978136/8 "2023-01-12T23:05:47Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > Just curious, haven’t read that book although I have read at least one Reacher book, what was the point to all that gruesomeness? In the TV series, Reacher says it is a message to the other employees. “Don’t fuck up!” ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2023, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-silly-over-the-top-villains-spoilers/978136/9 "2023-01-12T23:45:42Z")
I remember being fairly impressed by the Chung Kuo series - despite having far too many characters than it truly needed - and expecting to be reading it for quite a while, to get to an exciting end. When suddenly, the author realized that he’d forgotten to make the bad guy “bad” and felt like he needed to make up for the lost time. So, without any warning, you turn the page and an otherwise fairly ordinary character… puts on a spiked metal penis-sheath of enormous size and murder-rapes someone with it. I think I finished the book and then decided…nah. If you’re writing stories this complicated and yet can’t develop a proper villain, it’s probably not going to be worth waiting to see if you can pull all of this together into something coherent. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2023, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-silly-over-the-top-villains-spoilers/978136/10 "2023-01-12T23:46:00Z")
> [@Typo\_Negative](#): > > In the TV series, Reacher says it is a message to the other employees. “Don’t fuck up!” Same in the book. The guy they did it to fucked up and they were sending a message to the others. It felt a little, I don’t know if gratuitous is the right word, but you could tell the same story effectively without all that. Also this is just getting into preferences for villains, but there’s no attempt to flesh out any of these baddies. Even the regular henchmen are nondescript looming adversaries. The result in my opinion is that the book drags on the back end because they’ve already done the scariest thing, so where can the stakes go at that point? Afterwards people are dying and it’s like, “Yeah, but they only got stabbed. Big deal.” Lol I swear I’m not a sociopath. I’m normally really disturbed by things like this. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2023, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-silly-over-the-top-villains-spoilers/978136/11 "2023-01-13T00:06:53Z")
Wasn’t there a Hannibal Lecter book where he cuts open some guy’s skull and eats the brains while the guy’s still alive? I seem to remember saying “Oh, come on now…” at that point. That was just stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2023, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-silly-over-the-top-villains-spoilers/978136/12 "2023-01-13T00:13:34Z")
I don’t remember any of those steps in How To Make Friends And Influence People. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2023, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-silly-over-the-top-villains-spoilers/978136/13 "2023-01-13T00:16:08Z")
I remember one where a victim of Lecter tries to get revenge by having him eaten by pigs. I think more than a few genres of book and film would be eliminated if the sane advice of “Just shoot him” was accepted. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2023, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-silly-over-the-top-villains-spoilers/978136/14 "2023-01-13T00:28:31Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > Wasn’t there a Hannibal Lecter book where he cuts open some guy’s skull and eats the brains while the guy’s still alive? I seem to remember saying “Oh, come on now…” at that point. That was just stupid. That makes me kinda sad because Hannibal was pretty effective in the first book. The saddest thing is when a good villain is taken over the top in subsequent stories to the point they become ridiculous. Haha that reminds me of Marvel’s _Brotherhood of Evil Mutants_. “Are we the baddies?” /Mitchell and Webb ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2023, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-silly-over-the-top-villains-spoilers/978136/15 "2023-01-13T01:17:06Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > They show up in slick protective gear, nail you to the wall, cut off your balls and force your wife to eat them. Then they mutilate your wife while you watch, and kill her, then kill you. > [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > Plus is it actually possible to swallow a testicle? Is she allowed to chew or just swallow in general? 4x3x2 cm is apparently the average human testical size, or one hard boiled egg. So, only if they can chew. I think the gross torture porn is sort of a phase, like the BDSM crap from the 70s [anybody remember Sharon Green? Her Amazon Warrior series is chock full of really nasty BDSM crap similar to the Gor novels.] ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2023, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-silly-over-the-top-villains-spoilers/978136/16 "2023-01-13T01:36:26Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > Is she allowed to chew or just swallow in general? 4x3x2 cm is apparently the average human testical size, or one hard boiled egg. So, only if they can chew. It stands to reason that if she chewed, it wouldn’t be recognized on the autopsy as testicles. No matter which way you slice it, it’s hard to swallow. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2023, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-silly-over-the-top-villains-spoilers/978136/17 "2023-01-13T05:08:54Z")
I do a lot of eye-rolling at super-intelligent villains who can predict anything or manipulate anyone to a ludicrous degree. That’s why I was somewhat disappointed by BBC series _Sherlock_ where about half of the episodes featured some kind of ridiculous villain. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2023, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-silly-over-the-top-villains-spoilers/978136/18 "2023-01-13T05:25:44Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > Wasn’t there a Hannibal Lecter book where he cuts open some guy’s skull and eats the brains while the guy’s still alive? I seem to remember saying “Oh, come on now…” at that point. That was just stupid. That was in Hannibal from 1999, and I’m convinced that Thomas Harris was trolling everyone when he wrote it. I didn’t think he really wanted to write a book, which is why we got a ridiculous story that made Lector the hero. But then Harris went on to write another ridiculous Hannibal book making him the hero again . So who knows? ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2023, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-silly-over-the-top-villains-spoilers/978136/19 "2023-01-13T05:31:06Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > So when I initially read what the villains do to their victims, I was disturbed. The excellent movie _13 Assassins_ does this as well. You don’t see the villain do any of the horrible things to a woman, but you see the results. Disturbing content ahead: A samurai is summoned to speak with one of the shogun’s advisors. The advisor wants the samurai to kill the shogun’s half-brother, because he’s gaining political power, he’s a psychopath, and he’s a threat to the peace of the realm. To show how evil the half-brother is, the advisor introduces the samurai to one of his victims, a woman who had been raped, had her tongue removed, her limbs removed, and now only cried tears. I just thought, “Damn, that’s a bit much.” ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2023, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-silly-over-the-top-villains-spoilers/978136/20 "2023-01-13T05:58:45Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > I just thought, “Damn, that’s a bit much.” - Agreed. They made her _cry_? Monsters. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-silly-over-the-top-villains-spoilers/978136.md?page=2)