I LOVE VILLAINS, I LOVE THEM SOOO... My favorite villain forever is Van Grants from Tales of the Abyss. I feel he really managed to straddle the line between being an understandable sympathetic character and being a magnificent bastard very well. His motivation for what he was doing was understandable, his reasoning was very flawed and yet very compelling, and his methods were fantastic to see play out. He's the sort of villain that views himself as a sort of necessary evil, as he recognizes that what he is doing is horrible but very earnestly believes that the alternative is worse. He's also a charismatic leader who is exceptionally talented at finding people like him and bringing them over to his side, sometimes through honesty and respect (such as Largo) or outright manipulation (...pretty much the rest). He does so many terrible things but those acts come out of two mixed desires; revenge for what he had lost and a hope for humanity that has been horrendously twisted.
And gosh that makes his sound like he could be damn close to just being a misguided good guy with some revenge issues BUT WHEN HE IS TERRIBLE HE IS DAMN TERRIBLE. He is the villain that spends seven years grooming a boy to be manipulated and used at a pivotal moment and then will throw him away without a second thought, while laughing in fact. He seeks to control people for his own ends, even those he likes to a lesser extent, and just...seems to primarily interact with the world through emotional manipulation. He almost always is putting on an act and simply isn't the man to be trusted.
...I played this character through various RPs for six years for pretty much every reason I stated because he is a damn fascinating character. I love other villains too, really! But Van Grants is just my absolutely favorite and will likely stay that way for a long time.
BECAUSE OF THAT, I'll be taking hod01 when the deck is released to get a jumpstart on collecting Van cards.
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And gosh that makes his sound like he could be damn close to just being a misguided good guy with some revenge issues BUT WHEN HE IS TERRIBLE HE IS DAMN TERRIBLE. He is the villain that spends seven years grooming a boy to be manipulated and used at a pivotal moment and then will throw him away without a second thought, while laughing in fact. He seeks to control people for his own ends, even those he likes to a lesser extent, and just...seems to primarily interact with the world through emotional manipulation. He almost always is putting on an act and simply isn't the man to be trusted.
...I played this character through various RPs for six years for pretty much every reason I stated because he is a damn fascinating character. I love other villains too, really! But Van Grants is just my absolutely favorite and will likely stay that way for a long time.
BECAUSE OF THAT, I'll be taking hod01 when the deck is released to get a jumpstart on collecting Van cards.