Current Events > I still don't understand how such evil characters get so many followers

(+) Yeah! (+)

In-universe, that is.

Characters like Palpatine, Voldemort, Joker, etc.

Like, okay, for Joker he pays you. But then, he is just as likely to murder you and your whole family if you make a mistake.

Same with Voldemort. Sure he is strong. But hit him with a killing curse when his back is turned.

Palpatine would be tricky, with all that force sensitivity crap, but he isn't completely omniscient. No one is.

But why would anyone swear loyalty to them? They are as much of a threat to you as they are to anyone else. I would be looking for a way to get rid of them myself if I was forced into that life.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/3/6/AABUaRAAEOo4.jpg

It's been a while since I've read the HP books, but isn't Voldermort's whole deal like a racial purity thing? He's striving towards a goal that would mean more power for some, including his followers.

Trump and [redacted] party, in general:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/8/9/AAQD8fAADPsB.jpg

Just_a_loser posted...

Same with Voldemort. Sure he is strong. But hit him with a killing curse when his back is turned.

Wouldn't work. Anyway the only one I question is Joker since he might kill you even if you did things right. Everyone else though, I could see myself joining the bad guys depending on benefits tbh. Especially if the good guys don't pay well.

All of those villains you mention have perks for joining them. The only one that doesn't is the Joker. It's insane that he even has any henchmen at all.

They're all allegories for various Authoritarian leaders.

Except for Joker, he's an allegory for ICP

maybe those followers just want to be loved and accepted

We live in a universe where Republicans win elections. How is it hard to understand?

In addition to followers, Heroes, or reasonably Righteous individuals have allies. They have honorable people or other heroes as genuine allies. They will often help them in their endeavors and even make their own personal sacrifices to do so. This is usually motivated by them having the same moral code, or feeling of obligation and duty to do what is right. The followers of heroes are the ones who genuinely appreciate the work they do, and while not directly involved, are supportive of them..

The villains or genuinely evil individuals tend to not have allies that follow them out of a sense of loyalty. Instead, they rely on a band of cowardly minions who are motivated by their fear of them, and reliant upon them for their protection and subsistence usually. At best, their followers are opportunists who don't have any loyalty or allegiance to them, and only follow them because they are benefited by the villain's actions. Minions don't actually necessarily love or respect the villain. They fear them and/or need them. The opportunists will either usurp or abandon the villain as soon as it's no longer beneficial to them. (like when the Hyenas eat Scar at the end of the Lion King.

This principle extends beyond fictional works and is often seen in real life.

HellHathNoFury posted...

This principle extends beyond fictional works and is often seen in real life.

Does this principle apply to Wurthering Heights?

Like usually these happen in a thematic good vs evil dramatization but that is not really the primary real world narrative...

A_Good_Boy posted...

All of those villains you mention have perks for joining them. The only one that doesn't is the Joker. It's insane that he even has any henchmen at all.

At least they kinda explained it in The Dark Knight, saying Joker recruited mentally ill people and took advantage of them as cannon fodder and general henchmen.

You read that book about the character Hitler? Imagine that happening in real life. I mean, sometimes author's don't even try to shape something realistic in their stories. It's really low effort as a writer. No one is following someone with that stupid of a haircut and mustache.

Voldemort and Palpatine represent ideologies, and people who believe in those ideologies follow them. They're not really a threat to their followers. (Well, Palaptine is, but when he kills his underlings it's usually a 5D chess move and lowkey so nobody knows he was behind it. I'm sure most everyone in the Empire tries to avoid pissing off Vader though >_>)

Voldemort is a surprisingly forgiving villain, though part of that may be because we're seeing him trying to regroup his old forces after everyone abandoned him/got killed/got arrested, and murdering them for petty failures wouldn't endear them to return. Come to think of it I think the only follower he murders that didn't "consent" to it in the first place was Pettigrew, and that was for outright betrayal. Snape was killed but he had gone into the plan knowing his death was a likely outcome to secure the elder wand iirc. <_<

Supersex420 posted...

Does this principle apply to Wurthering Heights?

Like usually these happen in a thematic good vs evil dramatization but that is not really the primary real world narrative...

In real life, Sociopaths don't usually have friends. They only have two kinds of people in their lives. Minions and Adversaries. The parallel is not universal, but it's also not uncommon.

Just_a_loser posted...

Like, okay, for Joker he pays you.

He says he will, then he sets it all on fire

https://i.imgur.com/NUIiPJW.gif

I wondered this same question about G1 Galvatron because holy shit did he take a huge nose dive after the movie, dude was fucking nuts Cylconious should have left his ass in that "lava bath" and sure enough when he finally meets his end in that season he's all alone with nobody giving a shit as he gets friendship circle'd to death by the lamest autobots ever.

gildedwings posted...

Wouldn't work. Anyway the only one I question is Joker since he might kill you even if you did things right. Everyone else though, I could see myself joining the bad guys depending on benefits tbh. Especially if the good guys don't pay well.

Um. Yes it would. The trick is landing it on him. His spirit won't die while he has horcruxes, but you can destroy his body.

Just_a_loser posted...

Um. Yes it would. The trick is landing it on him. His spirit won't die while he has horcruxes, but you can destroy his body.

Well ignoring the fact that simply landing a hit would be very difficult because of how guarded he is, his body was only destroyed by a rebound effect of his own killing curse. It's likely a regular spell wouldn't actually destroy his body, even if it was the killing curse. Otherwise someone would've already gotten him, a lot of talented people died to him.

I mean your grand idea was someone blasting him when his back is turned. That shit is dumb.

Because taking full action to your conviction gets a lot of admiration I'm afraid

Heels are more entertaining than faces, and its hard to be an effective villain without a following.

Palpatine having followers overall makes sense.

The logistics over his Empire taking over the galaxy doesn't but whatever. I guess you're not supposed to think too hard about it.

You only hear about them, because they have followers. In both real-life, and fictional universes you probably have thousands of "evil characters" without followers that you just don't hear about.

It's a bit like a story, why are you reading about King Arthur, and not King Arcturus? Because King Arthur had his knights of the round table, and King Arcturus did not.

You know voldemort can read minds right? And also returned from the dead.

Palpatine did a successful coup of the government. People blindly loyal to authority followed him. There are people like that in real life too. Anytime a dictator takes control, there will always be people who choose not to resist

boxoto posted...

Trump and [redacted] party, in general:

This is the second time Ive seen Republican replaced with [redacted] today.

P sure you can say Republican here.

rexcrk posted...

This is the second time Ive seen Republican replaced with [redacted] today.

P sure you can say Republican here.

You can but implying anything about them could get you moderated tbf, I've seen some users get hit.

HellHathNoFury posted...

In real life, Sociopaths don't usually have friends. They only have two kinds of people in their lives. Minions and Adversaries. The parallel is not universal, but it's also not uncommon.

Reminds me of the novelization of Revenge of the Sith, which says that Count Dooku sorts all beings into two categories: Assets, or Threats.

tremain07 posted...

I wondered this same question about G1 Galvatron because holy shit did he take a huge nose dive after the movie, dude was fucking nuts Cylconious should have left his ass in that "lava bath" and sure enough when he finally meets his end in that season he's all alone with nobody giving a shit as he gets friendship circle'd to death by the lamest autobots ever.

I did like that they at least minorly addressed this in the web world episode. No one grew or learned, but for Transformers to do anything at all like that in a non multipart episode rarely happened at all.

A_Good_Boy posted...

All of those villains you mention have perks for joining them. The only one that doesn't is the Joker. It's insane that he even has any henchmen at all.

I just assume there's an evil henchmen agency in Gotham and they assign guys to Joker by lottery.

Guy gets his name drawn and just starts crying.

Better to fellate the devil than to end up in Heaven and be bored. -Dante

There's a graphic novel called Joker where the protagonist is a henchman who starts working for the Joker. At least in that interpretation, the Joker is somewhat charismatic and the guy is seduced by the lifestyle and importance his position affords him. He thinks he's more important to the Joker than he actually is.

And then he finds out he is not.

Usually it's either money, a common cause, or deception. We as the audience know a lot more about the villain than their henchman usually do.

In Wild Arms 1, after the Big Big Bad revealed her plan to destroy the planet instead of occupying it, her generals plans to sabotage her so the hero's party defeats her.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jQkO0j-bR4

https://youtu.be/Ag_AFraxj-4

Gobstoppers12 posted...

Usually it's either money, a common cause, or deception. We as the audience know a lot more about the villain than their henchman usually do.

Sure, but that doesn't work for the Joker since this is a guy who tries to commit some sort of terrorist level attack on Gotham once a month. Hell, I remember one comic that followed Joker AFTER Batman kicked his ass and foiled his latest attempt to murder Gotham. Dude goes and gets donuts. Pays the kid at the register, except it's a Joker Dollar laced with Joker Venom. Which naturally kills the poor bastard who did his job with amazing professionalism all things considered.

I just can't figure out how people in Gotham aren't aware that Joker is a horrible boss.

I feel the same way about the Dark One in Wheel of Time. Why would anyone be a Darkfriend? Granted they couldn't have known they would be born in the time of the apocalypse when shot really hit the fan, but the villains are all murderous psychos whose favorite pastime is murdering allies to show how evil they are.

Crazyman93 posted...

Sure, but that doesn't work for the Joker since this is a guy who tries to commit some sort of terrorist level attack on Gotham once a month. Hell, I remember one comic that followed Joker AFTER Batman kicked his ass and foiled his latest attempt to murder Gotham. Dude goes and gets donuts. Pays the kid at the register, except it's a Joker Dollar laced with Joker Venom. Which naturally kills the poor bastard who did his job with amazing professionalism all things considered.

I just can't figure out how people in Gotham aren't aware that Joker is a horrible boss.

He probably tricks them or plays some sort of weird minds games.

Like yeah joining him is a bad idea, but being a anyone in gotham who isn't rich and/or a criminal is basically a death sentence. Someone will likely kill you, or those important to you. If you join up with joker and do your best maybe you and your loved ones might live longer, and possibly better, too.

I would roll up to Voldemort with sawed-off 12 gauge. Let's see him guard against that.

itachi15243 posted...

He probably tricks them or plays some sort of weird minds games.

That's fair. I mean, that's basically Harley's origin story.

Interestingly, in one story I read, possibly in the same collection, it turned out she wrote a paper on the Joker before interacting with him, and suggested he was actually quite sane, and the psycho personality was a clever act, and ended saying he should be tried and executed.

Which if nothing else, explains why he hasn't been sent to somewhere like Belle Reve.

Edelgard stans come to mi--

Just_a_loser posted...

In-universe, that is.

Oh, nevermind.

Depending on the story, Joker's henchmen are sometimes also insane.

gildedwings posted...

You can but implying anything about them could get you moderated tbf, I've seen some users get hit.

lol Im pretty sure thats not the case. At least in the context Ive seen people use [redacted]

VampireCoyote posted...

Better to fellate the devil than to end up in Heaven and be bored. -Dante

In Dante Algieri's depiction of hell as described in Inferno, has the devil frozen in a lake of ice. His genitals are located at the center of the universe and of gravity, thus making relating the devil pretty much impossible. Dante and Virgil had to quickly go past them to escape hell, and begin their ascent through Purgatory, which is part 2 of the Divine Comedy "Purgatorio"

"Virgil and Dante begin their escape from Hell by clambering down Satan's ragged fur, feet-first. When they reach Satan's genitalia, the poets pass through the center of the universe and of gravity from the Northern Hemisphere of land to the Southern Hemisphere of water. When Virgil changes direction and begins to climb "upward" towards the surface of the Earth at the antipodes, Dante, in his confusion, initially believes they are returning to Hell."

I'm a bit of a Dante Nerd. A lot of people don't know that Inferno is only part 1 of a 3 part epic poem. Part 2 is Purgatory, and 3 is Paradise. I can admit that part 3 is the least interesting, but Dante was definitely not bored.

No disrespect to Dante, but I find the idea of hell being fire and brimstone to be completely illogical. The way I figure it, heaven is being close to God, and hell is being completely isolated, from God, and everyone else, for all eternity. The powers that be came up with fire and brimstone because most peoples lives were short and miserable, especially compared to our relatively cushy modern existences, and it is important that the punishment for sin be a fate much worse than the typical life of the poorest and most wretched amongst them.

mustachedmystic posted...

No disrespect to Dante, but I find the idea of hell being fire and brimstone to be completely illogical. The way I figure it, heaven is being close to God, and hell is being completely isolated, from God, and everyone else, for all eternity. The powers that be came up with fire and brimstone because most peoples lives were short and miserable, especially compared to our relatively cushy modern existences, and it is important that the punishment for sin be a fate much worse than the typical life of the poorest and most wretched amongst them.

The fire and brimstone part of hell is really only in the City of Dis where the Heretics and most vehement blasphemers and nonbelievers burn in crypts eternally. Most of the other parts of hell aren't on fire at all. The 9th Circle is the furthest from God, and it is frozen in ice, which is kept cold by the eternal flapping of Lucifer's wings as he remains frozen in the ice. In the first circle of hell "Limbo," there is a serene valley and river, where all of the virtuous nonbelievers, unbaptized, and those who came before Christ live out their afterlife in peace and comfort. The only punishment in that circle is that they don't get to be in the presence of god. So I mean, Dante already kind of depicts it, the way you are envisioning it.

In a book series about wizards and shit, I used to think it was the least realistic part of the story. Like Voldemort on his own wasn't bad enough, so she threw an army in there to make it worse. But now that I see how the real world works, I totally get it.

Accolon posted...

They're all allegories for various Authoritarian leaders.

Except for Joker, he's an allegory for ICP

Insane Clown Posse?

[political statement]