That, and wasn’t Harry advocating that they lock themselves in the basement with their sick and/or bitten daughter? That’s how he and his wife died, isn’t it? Daughter died, reanimated, and killed them both (or at least the mother)?
Ben was the one who shot the lock off. Someone else (the man that went with him) sloshed gas around, which was the proximal cause, but Ben’s *plan *involved shooting the lock off, and keeping [del]zombies[/del] the ghouls at bay with torches while pumping gas.
Right, I could have worded that more clearly. If you look at my first sentence, I was saying (basically) that both the Greedy Villain and the Nutso Villain are alike in not being part of the phenomenon of Villain Argues For Particular Policies/Social Changes/New Practices/Reforms…And Has a Good Point. I took the latter to be the category for which we seek examples.
My point was that many famous villains wouldn’t even be in the running for our list, because they weren’t trying to make valid points.
For the Greedy Villain, ‘getting the money’ seems to him to be a perfectly valid motivation–but he (or she) is not trying to argue for a Policy or Social Change (as do Magneto and Ozymandias, possibly the two best examples discussed so far). For the Nutso Villain, ‘getting the jollies’ may seem to him (or her) to be valid, but again, there is no argument being made to change a social policy, practice, or institution.
So, yeah.
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!)
Magneto, for example, would personally benefit from being leader of the group that subjugates humanity and rules in our stead. Eleanor Iselin (the mother of The Manchurian Candidate’s Raymond Shaw) seems to genuinely believe in Communist ideals, and argues for them–but she would herself rise to power (herself or through her husband, depending on the version). Various Sith argue for the benefits of their philosophy, while enjoying the use of power. Minnie and Roman Castevet proselytize for their beliefs, too, but the more people they convince, the greater their own importance and the higher their own personal status within their group.
Possibly the only really selfless Point was made by Ozymandias. I guess you could say he’d benefit (if the people of the world united against nuclear weaponry) by being able to live on a world that wouldn’t be annihilated. But that’s not really comparable to the benefits of power and status that would accrue to those villains listed above, if they managed to carry their own points (whether valid or not).
I wasn’t necessarily looking for examples where the villain’s over goal is justifiable. Like the example I gave, it could just be a statement that the hero (or the audience) might agree with.
This film is almost the flipside of the “enemy of us is our selfishness” trope you usually see in zombie movies - in every instance where a character shows compassion towards another, it ends up badly.
At that, look at everyone’s responses when he’s made his case: Dan and Laurie and Jon grudgingly admit he’s apparently right, just like Ed must’ve, but Rorschach…
…actually, Rorschach seems to agree about the facts; he doesn’t dispute that it’s a choice between armageddon and compromise; he just genuinely prefers the idea of everyone dying, with them crying out “save us” while he whispers “no.”
No, there’s more to it than that. He plans to be one of the leaders of this new world: “I saved Earth from Hell. Next I’ll help her towards utopia.” The old order was too set in its ways to take his advice, but he’s changed things. And he’s going to keep making money; unlike everyone else in the world, he knew what was coming and has already adapted his business empire. So there’s plenty in it for him beyond survival, but even if you take a dimmer view of Ozzy than I do, I think you’d agree he’s not motivated by love of power and money. Arrogant as it is, he really does believe this is what needs to be done on behalf of humanity.
Ozymandias’ argument was essentially that it was morally acceptable to kill a million people in order to save a billion. Rorschach’s argument was that killing a million people was immoral regardless of what your reason was.
How about Doyle Lonnegan in The Sting? Johnny and Luther did steal from one of his runners. He had a legitimate grievance to seek revenge for when he killed Luther, and to discourage anyone else from thinking he was weak and they could move in on his territory.
I was always bothered by Foul Play, where the bad guys were the Tax the Churches foundation. I mean, killing the Pope to make your point is foolish and counterproductive, but taxing churches is considered by many a laudable idea. So, I guess the bad guys were bad because they were about to do a disservice to their cause, which may have been a good one.
I thought his main problem with what had been done was that they had to and intended to keep what had happened secret. Rorschach couldn’t accept that. I don’t think Rorschach had any particular moral compunction about killing people, even that many people.
Ozymandias was definitely arrogant but I felt he genuinely wanted to help the common person, he wanted to lift everyone up. If he had done it was his argument then anyone could do it. In most ways he was a truly admirable figure.
In what way? Sure he was rich, powerful and influential but he tried to use that power to help people as he saw it.
You reminded me of another “Who” related one - “The Tenth Planet.” The Cybermen have taken over an Antarctic outpost as stage one of invading the Earth. However two Cybermen have been trapped in a situation in which they are slowly dying. The Cyber-Leader deems them expendable as they have accomplished their mission and it would require some risk to get them out.
When Polly questions how the Cyber-Leader’s can be so callous, allowing his own people to suffer and die like that, he retorts that: “There are suffering and dying members of your race all over your world, but you do not care.”