Topic on User talk:DocColress

I've been thinking back to the Zelda game Twilight Princess, and I'm sorry, but I absolutely do not believe that Zant was too "weak-hearted" or too crazy to not count. True, Ganondorf used him, BUT Zant was more than aware of the choices he was making and still committed unspeakable atrocities regardless. I don't remember anything about Ganondorf ordering him to transform innocent Hylian civilians into Twilight beasts, executing the Zora Queen, or any of his other cruel deeds. Hell, if that vision Ganondorf has at the end indicates anything, he even turns on the god that he was supposedly so devoted to!

I'll have to look up on it. My memory's fuzzy, but I recall the flashback of how Zant first met his god, he was acting as crazy as he is now, which suggested to me he had serious mental issues even back then, which would also explain why he'd fall so easily for Ganon's manipulation. He motives were that he didn't like being stuck in the Twilight realm, right? That could be seen as vaguely sympathetic, even if selfish and ultimately misguided. And I always took that vision as Zant, in death, now seeing Ganon for who he truly was, so he was severing the tie between himself and Ganon, also killing him.

His goal may have been sympathetic... until he turned his realm's inhabitants into mindless beasts (you see a group roaming around the entrance to the palace), and began to conquer and lay waste to Hyrule. As for his mental state, it's another case to where I might be willing to consider it as a mitigating factor... if it also wasn't for the fact that he's more than capable of acting perfectly sane, cold, and calculating for a huge chunk of the game showing that he is capable of self-control and restraining his wild side until the very end. And as far as the ending scene where Ganondorf sees him snapping his own neck, you seriously seem to be the only person I've ever seen interpret it like that. Most people view it either as Zant turning on Ganondorf out of spite (a taking you with me sort of thing, or viewing Ganondorf as pathetic and not what he's hyped up to be for losing to you, take your pick) or as symbolism for Ganondorf losing his ground with the Twilight Realm.

He was always FAR from altruistic, in fact always thinking all about himself, but he was under the delusion it was all for a higher cause and that he was in the right. He did terrible things and he's a nasty, selfish, power hungry sociopath, and if he were the sole true Big Bad, he might easily qualify. The trouble, I think, is that Ganondorf's involvement kind of alters my perception. Not only is there now a bigger villain that a lot of Zant's actions can be traced to (his choices or not, he would not have been able to pull any of it off without the power Ganon bestowed upon him), but it adds a particularly nasty crime to Ganon's rep sheet - making Zant his pawn. I'm reminded of the pilot episode of the show Elementary, which featured a crazed serial killer who committed terrible murders of women who matched a specific profile. It turned out he killed the victim of the episode because the victim's husband, a perfectly sane doctor who wanted to inherit her life insurance money, had got his wife to make herself over to match the killer's profile and then sent the killer, who was his own patient he was supposed to be treating, after her. The situation was summed with the exchange of the doctor telling Sherlock Holmes "You're insane" for accusing him of this, and Sherlock replying "No, HE was insane, and you took advantage of that." Similarly, Zant was insane, entitled, power-hungry and cruel to start with, and Ganon took advantage of that to make him a pawn in his plan.

The "taking you with me out of spite" was pretty much my interpretation. I didn't mean that Zant had any real moral standards against Ganondorf, but that he could see that he wasn't the god he'd made him believe he was and in fact used him, which would be a blow to Zant' ego. Point is that he had part in taking out the bigger villain, though after all he did, it's not much atonement for anything.

At this point I'm unsure where Zant lies. He's either a Complete Monster, a 99% Monster, or a Subverted Trope altogether.

That's the tricky part about Zant: Ganondorf did take advantage of him and gave him the power that he needed, yet Zant went beyond the pale with what he did to others. To me, Zant is the kind of person who had the potential to do completely horrible things to others, yet lacked the means. Ganondorf simply provided the power he needed to subjugate and hurt others with, while Zant made the moral choices necessary to abuse that power to its best potential. I kind of think about what you said about Abigail and Danforth when it comes to how I view Ganondorf and Zant: Ganondorf got the ball rolling when he appeared before Zant and granted him his power, but Zant kept that ball rolling whenever he began his crusade against Hyrule with merciless glee.

And I hope that I'm not coming across as aggressive or irritating, I'm just trying to be more assertive and argue my points on certain things better. At times I feel that I tend to be a bit of a doormat. I do not however want to start flame wars at all whatsoever.

That's a good interpretation of Zant too - if he had more resources, privileges, and powers at his disposal, he'd use them to their fullest extent in trying to take over the world outside the Twilight Realm. The real question now is whether or not Zant should go down on the trope page or is he too YMMV?

No, it's OK. I understand some people feel differently about how heinous a villain comes off as. I always just saw Zant as a typical power-hungry and crazy villain doing the dirty work in a bigger villain's plot, and none of the things he himself did left any impact on me outside of thinking "wow, what a psychotic, evil creep." But that's just me.

I don't really view Zant as being too YMMV to be honest. Sure, he talks on and on about how he wants to lead his people to a better future outside of the Twilight Realm... but he also transformed them all into mindless, savage beasts that he can easily control, which shows that despite all his talk, he was only ever looking out for himself. And heck, Midna even tells him to his face that he was turned down for the throne because even before meeting Ganondorf, he was already known to harbor an unhealthy lust for power. I can see how Ganondorf's involvement in his rise to power would raise some eyebrows, but it's like I said before, Zant already had the potential to hurt others and forcibly subject them to his will, Ganondorf merely gave him the means to do so. While Zant is fanatically devoted to Ganondorf, the scene where he snaps his own neck which also kills Ganondorf (according to how you look at it) shows that he's more than willing to bump off his own god for not meeting his expectations.

As for his deeds, his rap sheet is pretty impressive: transforming all of the Twilight Realm's denizens into mindless monsters and doing the same to Hyrule's inhabitants, murdering the Zora Queen so she can serve as an example to those who get in his way, freezing the grieving Zora's alive, attack Zelda's castle and putting it to the sword unless she surrenders to him, and turning Hyrule into an all around hellish Twilight world. While his deeds can be traced back to Ganondorf, Zant takes in active role in the suffering of both realm's inhabitants and loves the terrible things that he does.

All in all, I think him getting a spot on the actual page is justified, though we'll see how he holds up in the future when this site presumably gets more members.

What's YMMV for me is whether or not he crosses the line from mere Classic Villain to Complete Monster. It's obvious he was selfish since no other Twili had any issues with being confined to the realm like he did, and he couldn't dare say he was looking after his people when he'd transform them into his tools. Though, evil or selfish or not, it's really hard to blame him if what you said was his reason for taking Ganon down with him. It'd be liked if Teru Mikami killed Light Yagami - seeing that your god doesn't meet expectations and in actuality never has kind of kills the whole devotion. xD

Another issue is the only one of those we see on-screen is his attack on Hyrule castle, and there he actually does spare Zelda's life when he could very have have killed her like he did the Zora Queen. Transforming people and freezing the Zora's alive have on-screen results that speak for themselves, but his murder of the queen was entirely mentioned, and turning Hyrule into a hellish world is something Ganon did before him in "Ocarina", and he may well be credited for this one too.

Zant was despicable and terrible no doubt, but he's a less clear cut example than others. Mainly 'cause Ganondorf stood unopposed in "Ocarina", and Ghirahim and Yuga were shown to be above Demise and Ganon respectively in how cruel and heinous they were in their games. With Zant, he has to compete with his "god" Ganondorf in the same game and it kind of becomes blurry if one eclipses the other or if they're both equal.

For the death of the queen, what sells it for me is that we see how affected people are by her death: if memory serves, most of the local Zoras are shaken up quite badly by what happened to her, even moreso in the case of her son. Plus, we do meet her ghost, so I suppose that Zant's actions do speak for themselves in a way. :p As for sparing Zelda, I don't know if they ever went into why he did so. For all we know, he did it to show her exactly what he was doing to her kingdom, as it was still slowly suffering under his rule. And as for the state of the world under the Twilight Realm's influence, I feel that Zant deserves more credit than Ganondorf for that since he was the one who came to Hyrule and actively attacked it.

And I'll admit, Ganondorf makes for some steep composition, especially since his rapsheet from Ocarina includes murdering the Great Deku Tree, trying to starve the Gorons to death, turning most of Hyrule into a monster-overrun wasteland, murdering the Composer Brothers, forcing Ingo to sacrifice horses to him in fear of his wrath, turning the Kokiri Forest into a monster breeding ground, tried feeding the Gorons to Volvagia, froze over Zora's Domain, and brainwashed the denizens of Gerudo Valley so they would be loyal to him all on top of him providing Zant the means to give Hyrule hell.

However, Ganondorf did all of this over the span of seven years, which I think is important to remember. Zant rising to power happened pretty recently in the context of the story, yet he already succeeded in doing his fair share of nasty things too. His rap sheet is pretty small compared to Ganondorf's, but I feel that if he had more time available for oppressing Hyrule's citizens, his crimes could easily equal his master's.

I hope that doesn't sound like a cop-out by the way, I'm just trying to show you how I'm thinking. As of now, Zant is the only Zelda villain among the ones that aren't listed who I see realistically having a shot at CM status.

I'm now more convinced that Zant as a Complete Monster is a valid interpretation of the character, but I'm still undecided about if we end up putting him on the main trope page or not.

Chances are that I'm being gung-ho about this, but I have no problem listing him on the page proper. His insanity is a legitmate concern, but said insanity is basically chalked down to him being a spoiled brat of a manchild taken to terrifying extremes, and he's more than capable of acting cold and rational when needed.

As for Ganondorf and how he measures up, I agree that Ganondorf's list of crimes in Ocarina of Time make for some steep competition, but as for Twilight Princess Zant was the more involved one when it comes to the terrible things that happened and caused quite a bit of damage despite not having his powers for too long.

I apologize in advance if I'm going in circles at this point, I just feel that I've said enough on the subject. If it bothers you though, I won't raise a stink about it.

Try making a writeup for him and presenting it to me here and I'll see what I think.

Well, here goes nothing!

• Zant the Usurper King from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was once an embittered, hateful servant to the Twilight Realm's royal family. Furious that he was passed over for the crown due to his power-hungry nature, Zant soon found Ganondorf, who had been banished to the Twilight Realm and came to see him as a god and became fanatically devoted to him. Having been granted godlike power from him, Zant transformed the realm's inhabitants into dangerous, mindless monsters while he also transformed its rightful ruler Midna into an imp-like creature and set out to leave the world that he hated so much by conquering the Realm of Light. Leading a violent campaign against Hyrule, Zant forces its ruler Princess Zelda to surrender on threat of him slaughtering its inhabitants outright, and imprisons her while slowly transforming the kingdom into a Twilight hell. When Queen Rutela of the Zoras fought back against his forces, Zant personally executed her to show what would happen to those who defy him, and froze over Zora's Domain entirely in order to kill its inhabitants. As for the rest of the kingdom, his evil is felt everywhere, with Shadow Beasts attacking and transforming people into more of the foul beasts and the kingdom's citizens fearing for their lives against this new threat. And whenever Link and Midna finally confront him in their final battle, Zant reveals that under his cold and ruthless mask, he's truly a psychopathic brat whose motives can basically be described as a spoiled child being told "no".

So what do you think? I feel that it could use some tweaking myself, but I tried my best to capture everything monstrous about him in this theoretical post.

I did some tweaking and Zant's entry is now on the page. The compromise is that while he's still said to be mentally ill and weak hearted, he's said to have veered into this trope's territory upon gaining power from Ganon and using it to commit his atrocities. Whether he's a straight example or subversion is kept YMMV, but he's definitely close enough to the trope to be listed.

Yeah, I saw the example when it went up, and I'm quite happy! It's like I said, outside of the four already on the list, he's the only other villain who I believe fits this trope as of now.

I would have taken a break from this, but I have another example to propose mainly because the game I'm talking about came out very recently: he's an unnamed serial killer who is usually called the Purple Man/Guy (Not to be confused with Zebediah Killgrave of course) by fans who inhabits an animatronic costume called Springtrap. Whichever you prefer, this guy is not just the Big Bad of the recent Five Nights at Freddy's 3, but the Bigger Bad to the series as a whole. However, I should tell you all about what he's done, huh?

Basically, our dear friend Purple Guy was a child murderer that moonlighted as a security guard who worked at the restaurant called Freddy Fazbear's Pizza (And maybe its earliest incarnation Fredbear's Family Diner, but that's not important) presumably so he'd have access to a constant supply of victims. Donning a yellow costume of the restaurant's mascot Freddy Fazbear, Purple Guy lured five children backstage and murdered them, going on to hide their bodies inside of the animatronic suits of the restaurant's mascots before running for it. He's also heavily implied to be responsible for the deaths of six other children... but we'll get into that later. The children that he murdered came back as vengeful spirits, possessing the animatronics and used their bodies to murder security workers at the Pizzeria due to them thinking that all adults are evil thanks to the circumstances of their death, unable to find peace until the murderer came back to the restaurant to hide the evidence of his murders (The children's bodies were never found) and hid in one of the costumes from them when they came after him, getting himself killed in the process since the suit he hid in was full of dangerous components that gave him a brutally horrific yet very deserving death. However, his spirit in turn was tied to the Springtrap animatronic he died in, and in the third game he serves as the main antagonist, doing all he can to murder the night watchman protagonist.

He seems like a straightforward example, but the lore in the FNaF games is handled... interestingly. Basically, in these games you basically spend all of your time trying to prevent haunted animatronics from getting in your room and murdering you, so the backstory is found via odd newspaper clippings/weird ATARI-esque games (Where the murderer is represented by a purple guy, hence the name). In the first game we knew about the Missing Children Incident (The murder of the five children) via newspaper clippings, though we do see the dead bodies of the children in one of the sequels Atari games in a gruesome aftermath. And since we do see his victims in the form of the vengeful animatronic, his actions speak for themselves.

However, he could easily be worse but due to the vague nature of the ATARI games, it's hard to be sure. The sequels minigames show a purple man murdering a little boy outside of the restaurant, one stopping the titular Freddy Fazbear from saving the murdered children (This one is the one hinted the most at being the killer) while another has a purple man hanging around an area where five other dead kids can be found. It's never truly made clear if all of these purple men are our murderer or not, this means that our killer has eleven child victims that we know about if we assume that all representations of a purple man are him.

It should also be noted that he's not really explored too indepth: it's not known why he murders children, though given the fact that the purple men who represent him smile widely, it's likely that he does it for fun.

In case if this was way too long, we basically have a child-murdering madman who definitely killed at least five children, and very likely may have his body count at eleven confirmed kills. And since he haunts the Springtrap animatronic that serves as Five Nights at Freddy's 3's villain, his hateful, murderous nature is still intact even after death. It's the rather odd way the game presents it's backstory that makes me come to you for wisdom.

I don't have any strong feelings of opposition or agreement for this one. If you want to add him, go ahead.

I understand. I hope I wasn't doing anything wrong or something.

No, you weren't. :)

I just so happened to be looking at the YMMV section for Pokémon in general, and I saw that a character from some obscure Pokémon Diamond and Pearl manga named IO was listed under there. Do you think she deserves a full entry? I looked her up, though I wasn't too impressed by her deeds which Bulbapedia listed as kidnapping a girl and controlling Darkrai in order to shroud the land in darkness. She sounds kind of generic to me, though I haven't read the manga, and Bulbapedia's entry for her was pretty vague on details. Have you read the Phantom Thief Pokémon 7 manga, and if so, what are your thoughts on her?

From what I recall, she also had the girl she kidnapped brainwashed and turned against her brother, and she wanted to shroud the entire planet in darkness, as well as take over both Team Galactic and the world. Basically she's to Team Galactic what the Iron Mask Marauder was to Team Rocket, so I think she qualifies. Still not sure about how to do a full entry, though.

By shrouding the world in darkness (Sorry if this is a stupid question), do they elaborate on what IO means by that? After all, Darkrai's powers revolve around trapping people in horrific nightmares that they can't wake up from without help from a Cresselia. If that's her goal, then I'd say that she sounds like an easy qualifier when you add that with kidnapping and brainwashing a child as well as seeking to impose her will on the world.

And speaking of potential examples, it appears that Andross is actually gaining a lot of steam over on TV Tropes. I personally think he does qualify after truly looking at his deeds (I was unsure beforehand mainly because I'm not super familiar with Starfox in general), so should I go ahead and give him a write-up?

I think that's pretty much it, except I think she'd get to dictate what nightmares people get trapped in so that the outcome best serves her and her self gain. I have to agree: she's got traits of Charon, the Iron Mask Marauder, Hunter J, Sird, AND Darkrai, and if they all qualify, she does too.

I always saw Andross as presented in the games to be a pretty generic Evil Overlord villain, but I admit I'd also forgot about the crucial backstory details that DO indeed push him over the line into this trope. Let's wait 'til I writeup is proposed on TV Tropes - I'll then edit it to make my own version of Andross' writeup and it'll go here then.

So who's putting up IO's entry, you or me? I suppose I could just look up the manga and read it myself, but if you want to I won't stop you.

In other news, I have more questions regarding any future Pokémon examples. I've listed characters like Archie, Maxie, Cyrus, and Xerosic as not qualifying due to having good relationships with their Golbats which is why they'd have Crobats (among other things)... but in Colosseum, Ein has a Crobat as well. I don't think this raises an issue with Ein seeing as how he's shown to be heartless in regards to Pokémon welfare (And given that his Golbat and Crobat have different genders, he may have disposed of his Golbat in favor of a new one for all we know), and Mega Evolution is in a similar boat. Should a villain having a Crobat or a Pokémon capable of Mega Evolution really be a disqualifying factor in the future?

What I mean is that especially in a final battle with a prominent organization member, the developers probably want to make their battle climactic by giving them a Pokémon capable of Mega Evolution, and Crobat is in a similar boat, an unevolved Pokémon in a big climactic showdown doesn't make sense from a developmental standpoint either. I know the lore says that Pokémon are only capable of mega evolving if they share a close bond with their trainer, but I'm pretty sure that the devs wouldn't pass on say, giving Ghetsis a Mega Hydreigon if we see Gen 5 remakes years from now, and it's obvious that Ghetsis doesn't give two shits about his Pokemon. I'm sorry about making a big deal over what's likely a non-issue, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

You can I you want. Propose it to me first once you got it written up.

It was honestly never too much of a disqualifying factor to me. Cyrus, for instance, has a good deal of factors that prevent him from entering the trope, but treating his Golbat well isn't exactly one because we KNOW he doesn't do it out of love - he says himself that to him, love and compassion are illusions of the weak, incomplete human heart and that such sentiment is useless emotion. Treating his Golbat kindly would thus be done out of pragmatism rather than love, since this is all about what Golbat feels for it's trainer as opposed to what the trainer feels towards Golbat. If treated well, Golbat/Crobat doesn't give any shits about how bad the person raising it is. It'd have to be the same case with Ein since he also doesn't seem to believe in love or any such emotions, least of all when it comes to Pokemon.

Also, if someone like Ghetsis ever had a Mega Pokemon, there's a high probability it's stolen. The man is a criminal, after all.

Cyrus only pretended to love his Crobat. It was stolen.

The "stolen" theory makes sense, and as I said, it's actually easy to treat a Pokemon right and make it happy without actually *loving* it.