# Valid points made by villains **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 5, 2013, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/valid-points-made-by-villains/675579 "2013-12-05T16:05:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2013, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/valid-points-made-by-villains/675579/141 "2013-12-11T06:50:10Z")
**Journey to the Center of the Earth:** Saknussemm admonishes Prof. Lindenbrook and the others to move on–the cranked lamps are giving out. At first the professor is outraged that the murderous Saknussemm is bold enough to give orders, but he inspects the lamps and says, “He’s bloody well right!” **Miracle on 34th Street:** The prosecutor (Jerome Cowan), who, confronted by hisd own son’s tgerstomony, “concedes the existence of Santa Claus,” now insists that Mr. Galey “present authoritative evidence that Kris Kringle is the one and only Santa Claus.” The Judge (Gene Lockhart says, “Your point ios well taken, Mr. Mara; I’m afraid we must agree.” The judge’s politician friend Charlie (William Frawley) nods. **It’s a Wonderful Life:** Potter says to his rent collectoer that “the Baileys never made a dime” from the construction of the houses in Bailey Park; his assessment of his situation and George’s, when he invites George into his office, is accurate; and his chilling statement to George “You’re worth more dead than alive!” is cruel but honest. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2013, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/valid-points-made-by-villains/675579/142 "2013-12-11T07:02:26Z")
There were a few spelling errors I wanted to correct in that last post but I ran out of time. :o Read “his,” “testimony,” “(Lockhart)” “is,” “collector.” Mea culpa. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2013, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/valid-points-made-by-villains/675579/143 "2013-12-11T20:35:11Z")
> [@VarlosZ](#): > > Do we know that the Republic is actually so corrupt and awful? Or might the cartoonishly evil villains be shading the truth a bit? From what I remember, the Republic seems to be a bureaucratic morass with, no doubt, instances of corruption … but, then, so is the United States. A not-so-dynamic central government seems like a really small price to pay for thousands of years of peace. > > I’d also argue that suppressing rebellion is a far cry from “suppressing dissent,” which AFAIK the Republic doesn’t do. And I’d hardly take it as a given that seceding from an a Republic or Democracy is some kind of natural right. We get some hints about it. Queen Amidala complains that the Senate and the courts take forever to resolve any issue. And she _supports_ the goverment. At the beginning of Epidose II, she complains that the head of the Trade Federation has been tried 3 times, and they still haven’t convicted him. Apparently, there was no concept of Double Jeopardy in the Old Republic. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2013, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/valid-points-made-by-villains/675579/144 "2013-12-11T21:08:31Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > A world with people with real super powers might end up devolving to a sort of feudalism, with the most power mutants as suzerains, the lesser mutants their vassal warriors, and the mundanes as their peasants. In a world of supers, Nietzschean standards of morality might hold sway, like some people have claimed _The Incredibles_ has as a subtext. > [@grude](#): > > The movie espoused nothing of the sort, if anything that describes the villains in the movie(which in an odd inversion were all normals). The movie did not encourage rule by force by supers. \*I realize you did not espouse this opinion. Actually, the fact that the villains are normals who use gadgetry to finagle a place on the supers’ playing field is cited as an argument for that interpretation (normal who tries to rise above his “proper place” = “bad guy”). ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2013, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/valid-points-made-by-villains/675579/145 "2013-12-11T21:25:19Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > …MCCOY: What if you decide he is Kodos? What then? Do you play God, carry his head through the corridors in triumph? That won’t bring back the dead, Jim. > KIRK: No, but they may rest easier. It’s a good line, but I always thought Kirk ought to have added something like, “Just because the dead cannot be brought back to life is no reason to let their killer go unpunished.” Kirk wasn’t trying to play God; he was trying to see that justice was done (granted, with strong personal reasons given his own experiences on Tarsus IV). > [@shijinn](#): > > no, [Mystique’s] true form is not a t-shirt. a better analogy would be insisting boobs are more scary than violence and gore and insisting that you cover it up in public. I will never insist that any woman cover up her boobs. Let freedom ring! > [@Sherrerd](#): > > …But there is often a great deal of overlap between the Changes/Policies the villain argues for, and the villain’s own self-interest. And the self-interest muddies the validity of the point (or so I’d argue!)… As a wiser man than I once said, “I never met a motive that wasn’t mixed.” > [@Grumman](#): > > [Rorschach] would rather die than be complicit in Ozymandias’s mass murder. And frankly, the threat of Armageddon only exists because of men like Ozymandias. I disagree. Nuclear weapons were conceived, developed and deployed by ordinary men and women who thought having them was in the national interest. At the time, in both the U.S. and the Soviet Union, they were right. In _The Matrix_, Agent Smith’s comments on humanity’s rapaciousness aren’t too far off the mark. The Federation, in the ST:TNG episodes dealing with the Maquis, was trying to uphold a treaty that had ended a bloody war with the Cardassians. Starfleet came across as the bad guys and the Maquis as the scrappy, heroic freedom fighters, but Starfleet was in the right, even if it didn’t always handle the situation well. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2013, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/valid-points-made-by-villains/675579/146 "2013-12-11T21:41:54Z")
> [@YoungKusher](#): > > Lol yeah, Rhodey definitely wasn’t acting on behalf of the government “officially” when he took the suit like that. Agreed, but then notice how you don’t see the government going “what the FUCK, dude ? You can’t do that !” then bending over backwards to apologize to Tony, Stark Industries, all Americans employed by Stark Industries or its subsidiaries, all individual Americans bearing the last name Stark and please please please don’t anyone sue us for gajillions over this :). Instead they go “Good job, Rhodes ! Now let’s bring another third party competing contractor around, show Skinemax how one loves a trade secret long time !” ---
**Author:** ![SykoSkotty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c0e974/32.png) [@SykoSkotty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SykoSkotty)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2013, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/valid-points-made-by-villains/675579/147 "2013-12-11T22:09:31Z")
I’ll second all the Joker quotes - almost every Joker quote from “The Dark Knight” was, in essence, the villain making a valid point. My contribution: “Fuck off with your sofa units and strine green stripe patterns, I say never be complete, I say stop being perfect, I say let… lets evolve, let the chips fall where they may.” " Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who’ve ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off. " "The things you own…end up owning you. " -Tyler Durden ---
**Author:** ![John\_Bredin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2013, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/valid-points-made-by-villains/675579/148 "2013-12-11T22:35:07Z")
> [@Diceman](#): > > At the beginning of Epidose II, she complains that the head of the Trade Federation has been tried 3 times, and they still haven’t convicted him. Apparently, there was no concept of Double Jeopardy in the Old Republic. [Legal pedant]You could have multiple trials without violating double jeopardy if (1) there was a mistrial or two, or (2) they tried him for different crimes in separate rather than consolidated trials.[/Legal pedant]😃 ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2013, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/valid-points-made-by-villains/675579/149 "2013-12-11T23:26:01Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > In _The Matrix_, Agent Smith’s comments on humanity’s rapaciousness aren’t too far off the mark. Except his comments about how when animals go into an area they live in balance but humans and virii consume and kill their host are total bullshit. Animals don’t live in balance. When you put a herd of deer in an area, their numbers are controlled by predators or disease. If there are no predators, or not enough, and there doesn’t happen to be an outbreak of some disease, the deer will breed until they starve to death because they’ve eaten all the food. Same with any other animal. Wolves and other pack predators will kill all the game until there’s not enough food to go around and then they have to move on or die from starvation. Most animals that live in herds or packs go through boom-and-bust cycles, not any sort of magical “balance.” ---
**Author:** ![Grestarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grestarian/32/3227_2.png) [@Grestarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grestarian)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2013, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/valid-points-made-by-villains/675579/150 "2013-12-12T01:39:42Z")
> [@Smeghead](#): > > There are several works I could name where the “bad” guy attempts to slaughter (or sterilize) most of humanity in the name of saving the planet. It may not be the best or most ethical solution, but the argument can certainly be made that it is a valid solution to a genuine problem. You mean Skynet was RIGHT about 16 months ago (8-16-2012) when it went sentient and declared war against the humans? * * * > [@Dag\_Otto](#): > > The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: > > Tuco: When you have to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk. Speaking of G/B/U and Tuco, I was going to post this bit… “Where I come from – where we came from – one either became a priest or a bandit. And when we grew up, you chose your way, and I…I went mine – and let me tell you, brother, MY way was harder! You only became a priest because you couldn’t do what I do!” …and that settled (for me, at least) why Tuco was just The Ugly and not The Bad guy in that movie: He started out doing what he had to do to survive in a harsh world and then just got proficient at it. I’m just saying he had a point, and it was a watershed moment in the characterization. I’m not saying he completely justified his behavior. * * * > [@VarlosZ](#): > > Do we know that the Republic is actually so corrupt and awful? [snipped] From what I remember, the Republic seems to be a bureaucratic morass with, no doubt, instances of corruption … but, then, so is the United States. The two times I saw that in the theater (I haven’t seen it on TV or other media) I thought the writers were being cleverly not-so-subtle in criticizing the United States under the guise of an SF script. I thought they were saying in many parts of the film “Just because your government is a republic doesn’t mean it’s not still a corrupt imperialistic menace. The fact that it’s got far-reaching boundaries and a broad membership means it’s a behemoth – and perhaps its corruption is that much more dangerous because of its size and inertia.” > [@Diceman](#): > > We get some hints about it. Queen Amidala. . .At the beginning of Episode II, she complains that the head of the Trade Federation has been tried 3 times, and they still haven’t convicted him. Apparently, there was no concept of Double Jeopardy in the Old Republic. Like [quote=“John\_Bredin, post:148, topic:675579”] I wasn’t thinking she was complaining about a single incident but about multiple separate crimes – like the Cheney/Rumsfeld puppet-masters getting nailed for their part in the Iran-Contra affair (which was shut down by preemptive pardon), then years later having their fingers somehow in the WMD Iraq War deception (which somehow got buried), then the exposure of the Halliburton (Cheney’s company) price-rigging scandal (which was overshadowed by a much more important scandal – like Janet Jackson at the Superbowl, or something like that). Or the multiple times JP Morgan Chase has been convicted for financial deals with terrorist organizations [q.v. JP Morgan & OFAC Enforcement] and yet the world still seems more than willing to invest billions through them and there’s no talk of shutting them down. * * * > [@shijinn](#): > > no, her true form is not a t-shirt. a better analogy would be insisting boobs are more scary than violence and gore and insisting that you cover it up in public. …even when they’re on statues… I remember during the Reagan administration’s _War on Porn_ some woman stood up at a censorship debate and said something like, “Obscene? You say pictures of people making love is obscene? You put live video of decimated Tutsi villages on the dinner-time news, bloody bodies everywhere. THAT’s what I call obscene!” —G! Really, Gee! ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2013, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/valid-points-made-by-villains/675579/151 "2013-12-12T02:49:49Z")
Feh. All the philosophizing and you guys miss the single best - and truest - quote from The Joker: “If you’re good at something…never do it for free.” ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2013, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/valid-points-made-by-villains/675579/152 "2013-12-12T03:38:45Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > I disagree. Nuclear weapons were conceived, developed and deployed by ordinary men and women who thought having them was in the national interest. At the time, in both the U.S. and the Soviet Union, they were right. By “men like Ozymandias”, I meant men who could ever think throwing the first punch against either superpower would be a good idea. Men who think murdering millions of Americans or Soviets is a tool, to be used if the circumstances are right. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2013, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/valid-points-made-by-villains/675579/153 "2013-12-12T05:28:47Z")
Ah, I see. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2013, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/valid-points-made-by-villains/675579/154 "2013-12-16T06:09:08Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Being blue and scaley is her natural appearance. As was explained in _First Class_, she’s capable of looking like a normal human but it requires constant effort. Then her answer to Nightcrawler is even less valid. Instead of “I shouldn’t have to” the valid answer would be “it takes too much effort”. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2013, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/valid-points-made-by-villains/675579/155 "2013-12-16T09:19:21Z")
Although, it’s possible what took effort for her in First Class no longer does by the time she has the convo with Kurt. I know the movies and comics don’t match up entirely, but I don’t recall it ever taking effort for her to maintain form in the comics. > [@Disposable Hero](#): > > I think her point though is that being blue is her normal and natural appearance not the other way around. Sure she can change it to fit in, but why should she have to? Because that’s life. You have don’t have to conform, but if you can conform and you choose not to, that’s literally choosing not to fit in. Which is fine, if that’s what you want in life. If you don’t want to be “normal” don’t be normal, just don’t complain when people don’t act normal around you. > [@shijinn](#): > > no, her true form is not a t-shirt. a better analogy would be insisting boobs are more scary than violence and gore and insisting that you cover it up in public. She can change her form as easily as a normal person changes a t-shirt, though. Boobs and violence, while both great, have nothing to do with anything I’ve said. If you don’t like shirts, take hair as an example. Bald women are going to have a hard time fitting in (unless they have cancer or something, but then they’d be like Nightcrawler in the not having a choice category). You can choose to not shave off you hair, you can shave your hair off and wear a wig when not around folks who “get” you, or you can not fit in. If you choose to walk around with a smooth dome, people are gonna treat you differently. Don’t like it? Find a cosmic cube and rewrite the laws of the universe. > [@BigT](#): > > Her argument is not that she shouldn’t have to change her looks. Her argument is that she shouldn’t have to hide the fact that she’s a mutant. But Kurt’s only talking about looks if the given quotes were accurate. “Then why not stay in disguise all the time? You know, look like everyone else.” I highly doubt Kitty Pryde’s gonna inspire the same sort of reaction as the blue goon even if she has “I’m a mutant” tattooed on her face. Okay, bad example, face tattoos are creepy no matter what, but even knowing Kitty’s a mutant, people would still be far more accepting of her than Ms. I’m Here I’m Blue And I’m In Your Face. ---
**Author:** ![Septima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@Septima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Septima)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2013, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/valid-points-made-by-villains/675579/156 "2013-12-16T14:00:54Z")
No, he was specifically talking about “passing” as a non-mutant. You sound like someone arguing that a black person who “chooses” not to pretend to be white, even if they are capable of pulling it off, is asking for violence and discrimination, and so it is entirely fair and appropriate to treat them like shit. This is a world were some people are born blue, just like some people in our world are born black. They should not be treated differently just because they look different from the dominant culture, even if the are capable of “passing”. Her “effort” is analogous to a biracial person spending hours doing make-up and hair every morning to look white. Can they? Sure, some can. Should they have to? Fuck off. (Note that Nightcrawler and Mystique are related in most versions of x-menverse, most often mother and son, hence the blue skin they have in common. So the conversation is much like a darker-skinned relative asking a lighter-skinned one why they don’t “pass”, if they can). ---
**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2013, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/valid-points-made-by-villains/675579/157 "2013-12-16T15:22:15Z")
> [@sciurophobic](#): > > Example (from X-Men 2) > > [Mystique to Nightcrawler](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0290334/quotes?item=qt0344210) > > Any others? > [@Biggirl](#): > > Can you tell us the point? Cuz I can’t watch videos at work. > > Oliver Platt in 2012 made the very valid point that all of humanity could not possibly fit on the spaceship, so of course they had to pick who could get on and who would be left behind. In fact, he was absolutley right and John Cusak almost got everybody killed sneaking on the ship and probably crippled it anyway. I’m with Biggirl on this. I wasn’t going to click on it and find out. Plus why make someone link chase? How hard was it to include the quote in the text? Probably a lot less effort than having to write a second reply, with the quote included in that reply. ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2013, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/valid-points-made-by-villains/675579/158 "2013-12-16T20:30:07Z")
> [@TBG](#): > > Because that’s life. You have don’t have to conform, but if you can conform and you choose not to, that’s literally choosing not to fit in. Which is fine, if that’s what you want in life. If you don’t want to be “normal” don’t be normal, just don’t complain when people don’t act normal around you. Septima said it better than I could, her default normal appearance is to be blue-skinned, she’s not putting on an act, she’s not adding piercings or bright eye-catching hair dye to draw attention to herself etc What you’re doing sounds very much like blaming the victim, though she’s only a victim in the sense that people treat her poorly, again through nothing more than a quirk of genetics on her part. She probably has one of the coolest and most fun powers in the X-Verse, who wouldn’t want to be able to look however they want? But I imagine after a few decades of it it would be nice just to be yourself and to be accepted for who you are, unusual appearance or not. I actually vaguely recall another shapeshifter _(possibly from a sci-fi book)_ who had spent so long in other peoples forms acting as a spy for their government that they couldn’t recall their original appearance and aren’t even entirely sure of their original gender, now _that_ would be an identity crisis. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2013, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/valid-points-made-by-villains/675579/159 "2013-12-16T21:07:53Z")
> [@TBG](#): > > Because that’s life. You have don’t have to conform, but if you can conform and you choose not to, that’s literally choosing not to fit in. Which is fine, if that’s what you want in life. If you don’t want to be “normal” don’t be normal, just don’t complain when people don’t act normal around you. So, if I’m holding hands with my boyfriend in public, and someone calls us faggots, it’s our fault for not acting “normal,” and we have no right to complain about it? Because that seems to be what you’re advocating here, with mutants. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2013, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/valid-points-made-by-villains/675579/160 "2013-12-16T21:08:02Z")
> [@Disposable Hero](#): > > Septima said it better than I could, her default normal appearance is to be blue-skinned, she’s not putting on an act, she’s not adding piercings or bright eye-catching hair dye to draw attention to herself etc Yeah, well, my default normal appearance is an unkempt beard down to here and no clothes. My default normal behaviour is foul-mouthed (and drunk). I tried going to work that way once, but everybody kept saying mean things to me :(. I JUST WANT TO FIT IN, IT’S SO HARD, NOBODY LETS ME BE WHO I AM _angst angst angst_ ! Grow up, Mystique. Everybody wears a mask. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/valid-points-made-by-villains/675579.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/valid-points-made-by-villains/675579.md?page=9)