Hall of Fame and Shame: Persistent Villains

Villains. Bosses. Bad guys. Call them whatever you want but they're always there to mess up the hero's plan. Most of them really do try to put forth a solid effort in stopping the protagonist from achieving their goal. Some develop really intricate schemes, others have outrageous fortresses lined with traps and hazards, while others still may just use brute force in the form of a massive amount of money and/or weaponry.  But what separates the champs from the chumps in the villains' world? It's not about whether or not you were defeated. I mean c'mon, you're the bad guy! You already know going into this that you're gonna lose.  What really matters, is will you try again? Revise your scheme to fix the weak points? Or maybe just try the same strategy again and hope for a different result?  Here's a list of baddies that never seem to give up...and the ones that didn't make many attempts.


Your Rival
From: Pokemon series
Status: Shame

You may have kept his default name as Blue or maybe decided to reenact the show and name him Gary, or named him a random insult like Dickhead but whatever his name was your rival was a pain in the ass from day one. As soon as you pick your pokemon, he wants the one that has a natural advantage to yours. Everytime you've just finished an important mission, and your team is slightly wounded he's going to inconveniently show up to challenge you. And then finally you beat the Elite Four and you walk that long hallway after Lance's room, and there he is with that smug look, ready to gloat about being the best in the world.  But that didnt last long did it? You defeat him, take on the role of Champion, and your rival never shows his disgraced face again.  Guess he gave up. So much for wanting to be the very best there ever was.

Dr. Robotnik

From: Sonic series
Status: Fame

Dr. Ivo Robotnik is a brilliant scientist with a huge IQ of 300 (along with a gut and mustache to match) but apparently being book smart doesn't always equal out to common sense. Robotnik (I refuse to call him "Eggman") has been chasing after Sonic and pals for over two decades with his non-stop army of robots created from helpless animals.  Every single time, Sonic manages to defeat him and yet Robotnik will hop in his little hover pod, retreat to safety, spend time and money on an even bigger robot, then go right back at it. He just doesn't know when to quit! I'd also like to point out that this guy created a Death Star-like space station, it crashed after a defeat by Sonic, then he re-launched it into space, and finished construction! This isn't like the size of a dump truck, we're talking a SPACE STATION of death.You sir, have my respect.

Sephiroth

From: Final Fantasy series
Status: Shame

Sephiroth is an MVP in the villain world, highly regarded especially by fans, but why? Is it the long flowing hair, the cool sword, the death glare?  I mean what did he really do? Mistakenly thinks he's descended from ancient godlike creatures and wanted to become a god himself, tried to destroy a single planet in the process, failed, died, and is never seen again (excluding spin-offs.) But like seriously, one planet, Sephiroth? Just one? Kefka puts you to shame sir. Realistically, the most villainous thing Sephiroth has done was kill poor Aerith.  Despite your name, appearance, and music being badass you're actually kind of a joke. Now if you'll excuse me I'm gonna go brace myself for all the Sephiroth fanboys' hate mail.

Ganon

From: Legend of Zelda series
Status: Fame

Dark Lord of evil and not an ounce of good in this guy. He's just bad straight to his core. In one form he's a big boar-like demon sometimes standing on two legs, other times more like a beast on four. In his other form he's more human, a sorcerer of dark magic. This guy is the epitome of persistent and he will be reincarnated every time the Hero of Time is reincarnated so there's a constant struggle to keep his evil out of the world. Ganon is so evil that even when he was sealed away in the Sacred Realm his corrupt evil spread and when he finally broke out, he brought that evil world back with him. Aside from using magic and creating monsters, Ganon is also skilled in hand to hand combat, sword fighting, and horseback fighting. This guy's just, to quote Austin Powers, "dag nasty evil." Did you notice I used the word "evil" 6 times before this sentence? Yeah, there's a reason for that.

Count Bleck

From: Paper Mario series
Status: Shame

Everyone knows in the Mario universe that Bowser is the bad guy. And in most of the Paper Mario series this continues to be true. But in Super Paper Mario, a new villain takes the helm and he's....well, underwhelming. His plan starts by forcing Peach to marry Bowser (oh that horrible fiend!), then creating a Chaos Heart to open a universal void that will slowly (and I mean SLOWLY) destroy all worlds. And why is he doing this? Because his daddy said he and his girlfriend couldn't see each other, and made them break up. I'll give him props, instead of being like every other emo kid and cutting his wrist when life doesn't go his way, Bleck decided to take it out on the rest of the world. But even then he still failed. Not only was he defeated by Mario (as to be expected) but also betrayed by one of his own henchmen in the same day. He would've seen it coming if he weren't such a noob. And so the well-dressed Count Bleck has never made another appearance, and Bowser resumed his role as Mario's primary antagonist.

Dr. Wily

From: Mega Man series
Status: Fame

The second mad scientist of this list is Dr. Albert Wily and unlike Robotnik, Wily built his robots from scratch instead of enslaving animals. Wily is a brilliant mind who created a huge arsenal of Robot Masters, mechas and fortresses. His story seems to be a repetitive one: attack the city/world with robots, get defeated by Mega Man and then get on his knees and plead for mercy. Instead of killing him, Mega Man lets him go and Wily gets arrested only to eventually find a way to break out of jail. Lather, rinse, repeat. Even loss of body parts won't stop this guy as seen in the Battle Network series where Wily is shown to have a mechanical eye! Wily has been the bad guy for EVERY game in the Mega Man (classic) series. "What about Dr. Cossack in Mega Man IV" you ask?  That was Wily too. He kidnapped Cossack's daughter to force him to fight Mega Man. You would think if the same man tried to kill you 20+ times, you would stop believing him when he says he's going to change. Wily's motto seems to be "if at first you don't succeed....try try try try try try try again."

Onaga

From: Mortal Kombat series
Status: Shame




Onaga, also known as The Dragon King, was the ruler of Outworld long before Shao Kahn (the series' primary antagonist.) Onaga and his army were deemed invincible due to Onaga's ability to raise the dead, allowing him to consistently bring his army back. But Shao Kahn, who served as an advisor to Onaga poisoned him, and the Dragon King's army was mummified.  So fast forward a bit, and we find Shang Tsung and Quan Chi (the Thelma and Louise of the Mortal Kombat world) have discovered Onaga's mummified army and plan to revive them to take over Outworld. Raiden attempts to stop them, and loses, when suddenly, the big guy himself burst into the room. The Dragon King had been revived as the last existing dragon egg hatched, and he used Reptile's body as a host. So for one whole game, Onaga wreaked havoc on players until he was defeated and sealed away in the Netherrealm, and players continued to fight Shao Kahn as their final boss.

Bowser

From: Mario series
Status: Fame

Bowser is the herpes of bad guys. No matter what you do you will never get rid of him. I don't know if he does it for fun, or for sport, but every game is the same: Kidnap the princess (and/or the brother), watch Mario show up and win. Every. Time. In later games he has shown the ability to teleport, grow in size, cast dark fireballs and other weird powers but originally Bowser could only shoot fireballs and throw hammers. What's with the hammer obsession anyway? Did Bowser just go to Ace Hardware and buy out every hammer in every store, and equip his minions with them? Anyway we're not sure how Bowser survives, but time and time again he is cast into black holes, lava pits, and even suns and yet with every new Mario game, Bowser is back in action. You can't help but admire his tenacity though.

General Tsao

From: Sly Cooper series
Status: Shame

General Tsao is not only a tasty meal, but also an antagonist in one of the Sly Cooper games. As would be expected, he's a giant rooster and his main obsession is with his family lineage. He believes that his bloodline is the best, and that mating with the Panda King's daughter (who also has great heritage) will continue his bloodline and make it even stronger. He was completely oblivious that his prisoner had been switched out for a cop until he was arrested. Arrested in the same game he was introduced in, if I may point out. If you're gonna fall for something that lame, you deserve to lose. ...Can chickens even mate with pandas? I'm sure there's a dark corner of the internet that talks about this.

Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde

From: Pacman series
Status: Fame

The Ghost Gang from the Pacman series are shining examples of both teamwork and persistency. They work together for the common goal of chasing down Pacman and stopping him from eating all the pellets. Each of the four ghosts have a nickname that corresponds to their strategy in hunting Pacman. The leader, Blinky (red) is the first out of the ghost house and he gets his nickname "Shadow" from always being the one to directly go after Pacman. "Bashful" is the blue ghost named Inky and is known as such because he will not chase Pacman directly, unless Blinky is close by. The only female of the group is Pinky. Her nickname is "Speedy" because instead of going directly for Pacman, she instead chases him in the direction he is going and is usually first to reach him. Bringing up the rear, as he does when leaving the ghost house is Clyde the orange ghost. His nickname is "Pokey" both because he is slow to leave the ghost house, and he's been known to be a little slow in the head too. He randomly does whatever he wants until Pacman is close, then he pursues. Together these 4 Ghosts do literally nothing but chase Pacman until they are eaten, in which case they return to the ghost house, and wait to do it all over again.



There's another entry in the Hall of Fame and Shame! Did you enjoy it? Can you think of any I missed? Have suggestions for the next Hall of Fame/Shame? I'd love to hear from you if you have suggestions, coments, or questions! Please be sure to check out my other articles as well!