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Post by Deleted on Feb 15, 2011 6:59:37 GMT -7
I was watching Disney's "The Sword in the Stone" last night and while watching the wizard's duel between Merlin and Madame Mim, I noticed that Mim bears a slight resemblance in personality and character to Tweeg.
They both think they're better than their opponent (Merlin for Mim and Gimmick for Tweeg), they both get outsmarted by their adversary and they both take delight in the gruesome and grim. And, while Mim doesn't have a sidekick, she's still not as evil as Cruella De Vil, Scar or other Disney villains. Just like Tweeg isn't as evil as Quellor and the Gutangs.
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Post by kaylathehedgehog on Feb 15, 2011 7:33:20 GMT -7
Not as evil? She would've killed Arthur had Merlin not shown up.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 15, 2011 9:30:41 GMT -7
True. But, she didn't have any grand plans of world domination or big ambitions. She just thought she'd kill Arthur because he disagreed with her about Merlin. Cruella was greedy, Scar was bitter and greedy, and the other Disney villains just wanted to rule the world.
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Post by kaylathehedgehog on Feb 15, 2011 12:55:07 GMT -7
Personally, I think it makes it worse that she essentially wanted to kill him out of spite. At least the other villains had motives.
Besides, Mim is levels above Tweeg because she actually has some competency. Had Merlin not transformed into a germ, she could have very easily killed him in her dragon form.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 15, 2011 17:51:12 GMT -7
That's true. I almost laughed when that happened. Did anyone notice that the guy who did the voice of Sir Pellinore, the messenger from London, in the movie, was the same guy who played Alfred on Batman three years later?
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Post by Sylverwolfe on Jun 20, 2011 12:24:56 GMT -7
I understand the angle you are talking about, Monkeyboy. It is hard to articulate (that is to put into words) But I will try; Mad Madam Mim is just malevolent, but she is not really ambitious with it. Competent, yes; as a dragon she nearly got the better of Merlin. If I had to guess hers is an evil that is more egotistical in nature. She is about getting those who can beat her. Maybe to satisfy a grudge, which seems possible because she wants to set down rules (no disappearing, for instance) which implies she has experience in dealing with Merlin and perhaps this is a rematch. Maybe her evil has to do with jealousy of Merlin.
But I have to agree with others' observations; she wanted to kill Arthur for many reasons but I think one was to get back at Merlin or hurt him. That makes her rotten to the core.
Being evil to spite is as far as I am concerned "more evil" than having another purpose behind it in which the evilness is a means to an end. Evil for the sake of being evil is disgusting. Evil for the sake world domination is disgusting too, but at least there is a sense of purpose. One could say thay being evil for the sake of it is echoing the story of the scorpion and the frog, just part of their nature.
Evilness out of spite is used more or less in an effort to provide comic relief when the villian's well laid plans (at least in the villian's mind) are thwarted and they are reduced out of frustration either to atone for their mistakes, if they can admit them, or they fuss or throw a tantrum. The tantrum that Mad Madam Mim throws in the closing scenes of the wizard's duel is hysterical because she deserves her punishment and because her arrogance has backfired.
Evilness in this sense is not likely realistic either. Seldom are there people who are evil just to be evil. Usually there is some reason behind it and most stories with more enduring plotlines explain it. Mad Madam Mim is based upon two characters from the original King Arthur legend: Vivian the enchantress and Morgana LeFay. Without knowing the original stories, one doesn't realize this. Morgana LeFay and Vivian each had grudges with Arthur and Merlin.
The foibles of the villian and their spectacular failure reinforce the lesson that evilness doesn't pay. Sadly, sometimes it does. As adults we realize this and see how petty the villian really is. It makes us almost pity them because they are petty. This pity and the humor they cause "disarms" the villian and helps move the story along and it is formulaic. In the end, because of her tantrum, she is seen as foolish and petty and no longer seems to be a foe worthy of Merlin.
Another example is from the original animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon. Shredder was always just seeking petty revenge and in the end stopped resembling Oruku Saki, Ninja Master.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2011 5:41:50 GMT -7
You have a point there. Though you could argue that Scar was only evil because of jealousy and spite. Mufasa was king, and, until Simba was born, Scar was next in line to be king, should anything happen to Mufasa. But, with Simba around, Scar had no chance whatsoever of becoming king. Therefore, he plotted his revenge against his brother for being king, and Simba for taking his place as king.
There are so many villains in various franchises that are evil because they want revenge. Demona from Gargoyles became evil after watching Humanity destroy her clan, first at Castle Wyvern in 994 AD, and then again in about 997 AD, three years after she fled from Wyvern, following Goliath, Hudson, Brooklyn, Broadway, Lexington and Bronx's change to stone under the Magus' spell.
There are probably quite a few more, but I can't think of them off the top of my head.
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Post by Sylverwolfe on Jun 21, 2011 9:40:20 GMT -7
Wow! You have given two examples of villains who are evil and seem just to be just for the sake of it. You made me think this out a bit better. Scar and Demona. You are absolutely right about how all they sought was revenge; but theirs is different and I can explain. Since you listed him first I will start with Scar. Scar is conniving, manipulative and very clever with his evilness. He is also very careful with it, knowing his brother Mufasa will only tolerate him. Thus Scar seems to know just how much he can get away with whilst not crossing any lines with Mufasa. His evil is a patient evil and for that reason seems more malevolent in its impact. He is justified in thinking he is the rightful king of Pride Rock and therefore he sees himself the victim of injustice. His rage is a quiet rage, one that has been stewing for awhile and one that focuses him and compels him to think of ways to bump off both Simba and Mufasa. His is also an evil devoid of humor, or at the very least, a very dry sense of humor and thus it gives him a more menacing appearance. This lack of humor or dry humor makes him appear stoic. This stoicism makes him seem more fierce and much more serious in contrast to Madam Mim, who was carrying on while she talked about her self to Arthur as a bird. By stark contrast we could turn to Scar's sidekicks, Banzai, Shenzi and Ed, the trio of hyenas. They were evil, there can be no doubt, but they seem really silly or not serious and so they do not seem as evil as Scar. Their incompetence doesn't help. Through their repeated bumbling incompetence they do not seem terribly serious about their roles until the very last second when they create the wildebeest stampede in the gulch. Because of their bumbling incompetence, they often provide comic relief and a comic foil to some of Scar's best laid plans. If Lion King did not have Scar in the plot, I think it is a certainty that the story would not have been so interesting and it would not be a movie that is talked about nearly 20 years after it came out. Let's face it, while having Banzai, Shenzi and Ed as enemies they made the movie funny in some tense spots but it would not have been interesting enough to adults and they would not have made serious enough villains for an interesting story. Demona: Ahh yes...Demona...I wonder if you must have read my other posts about the Gargoyles. I am very fond of the Gargoyles. The reason I decided to watch them in the first place was because most of the cast from Star Trek the Next Generation was voice actors for the characters in the story. Once I watched a few episodes, I was hooked and fell in love with the series. Demona is also a creature of revenge. Her has a reason too. It isn't just evilness for the sake of it, except on the surface. Demona has had lots and lots of time for her evilness to develop. She started on shaky ground as it was at Castle Wyvern in 994 by not consulting with Goliath about her plans between the Captain of the Guard and Hakon the Viking. She had arranged with them to inherit the castle from the Vikings in exchange for not battling. By not telling Goliath, she could not convince him to desert the Scots who were fighting and Hakon destroyed them after going back on his word with the Captain. Demona saw her clan destroyed. Then she later learned that the Archmage froze them with a spell and couldn't do anything to reverse it. And after her grief disappeared came anger. She then formed a new clan, only to lose them to the Hunter and her rage began mounting. Her pact with Macbeth made things all the worse making the both of them immortal and for over 1,000 years she has had to think about her crimes. Hers became a mind twisted by love, loss of love, grief, anger, rage and seething hatred that has festered for 1,000 years. In the first season when the Manhattan clan encounters her she is too quick to judge, thinks nothing of taking human lives when her and Goliath attack Vogel's Airship for Cyberbiotics and it is then when Goliath realizes she is not the same. Goliath shuns her because of her reckless disregard for the human lives that Goliath and the Manhattan clan have sworn to protect. This is a plot development for most of her malevolence and most of her revenge seeking with the clan for most of the series, but it isn't all of it. She simultaneously seeks revenge against Macbeth and for periods against Xanatos. Her reasons are ultimately selfishness. The only reason she helps Xanatos with the raid on the airship is that she believes she will be able to grab the Grimorum Arcanorum and become a better sorceress. She doesn't seem to be too pleased with achieving her goals, or if she is, she is quickly regretting them. The only time these didn't seem to be the case was in City of Stone 5 parter. She has sent out the spell to turn all those who watch TV into statues and then starts blasting them and crushing them, whilst laughing maniacally through the streets. She has no sense of humor, what little of it exists, is usually displayed when she takes delight in the suffering of others. Like Scar she is also very stoic and very capable. As a villain it often takes the entire clan working together to gain an upper hand in battle and force her to retreat. And unlike most ego-maniacal villains she will retreat and live to fight another day rather than fight on the principals of her honor alone. The only comic relief that is seen with her is when Puck is involved. Puck the trickster in many ways acts as a comic foil to Demona when she asks him to turn the people of Manhattan into statues. He first turns them to gargoyles and the gargoyles to humans. The only time she has expressed frustrated exasperation and the only time I have actually laughed at her for it was in an episode involving Macbeth. She finally gripes frustratedly "How many times must I destroy you?!!" So yes, they seek revenge but for whatever reason it doesn't seem petty. The stakes are really high there. With shredder and the turtles, (Which I mentioned before) that all seems to be like a slow argument which goes on; one where Shredder wants to display to Krang that he is a competent leader. Gargoyles though...That is an interesting series. It is interesting in the terms of fictional character study. Before it, I had never seen such story lines or plots and I had never seen such characters. The characters weren't always purely one thing or the other. The heroes were victims of old wounds, the villains were for a large part, amoral, inconsistent or selfish in their villainous nature (excepting Demona, who was like Faust, sold her soul to be powerful) Xanatos, Macbeth and Oberon's children bounced between being villains and allies depending on situations at hand. And as a result it was an interesting character study, not much like the formulaic classical literature characters of fiction we know so well.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2011 12:46:42 GMT -7
Yeah. Shenzi, Banzai and Ed were all pretty incompetent even when they started the stampede, because no matter what they did, they didn't manage to kill Simba. And you are right. Without Scar, the Lion King wouldn't've been as great of a movie as it is. It's one of my favourite Disney movies. And, without Scar, the Hyenas didn't really even have a focus. They were just there, being stupid and not really carrying the plot anywhere.
As for Gargoyles, well, that was one of the reasons that I started watching it too. I'm a huge Trekkie and to have their voices in an animated tv show, that had nothing to do with Star Trek, was awesome. Marina Siritis did freak me out a bit as Demona, mainly because Troi was such a soft, gentle character.
I've been thinking about this very carefully and I've come to some conclusions of my own. When the clan awoke from their sleep after Xanatos moved Castle Wyvern to the top of his skyscraper, they could just as easily have turned against Humanity the way Demona did. Especially Goliath. Before they were reunited, Goliath thought that Demona had been destroyed by the Vikings the day of the attack. And, from the shot of the crumbled stone on the place where Demona usually slept, for all intents and purposes, she had been destroyed. So, plus Goliath sought revenge for the destruction of his clan, but, on the people who committed the act, rather than Humanity as a whole.
Throughout the series, Goliath was probably the most tolerant of all the Gargoyles. He stood by while Princess Katharine and the rest of her people treated them poorly, he only took Hudson to search for the Vikings, even though he knew that Hakon would return and find a way to destroy the Gargoyles, later he let Xanatos trick him into stealing Cyber-biotics' discs, and, despite some of the warnings, Goliath didn't see until it was almost too late that Demona had been changed irrevocably from the girl he knew 1,000 years earlier, plus, once the Gargoyles' presence had been revealed to the people of New York, he allowed the Quarrymen to hunt him and the other Gargoyles, placing Elisa, the Xanatoses, and Matt Bluestone in danger, just because Castaway feared the Gargoyles.
Yet, in the very last scene of the first episode, Goliath would've thrown Xanatos off the roof of the castle, had Hudson and Elisa not convinced him to do otherwise. So, he, and perhaps the rest of the clan, depending on how they felt about being betrayed by the Captain of the Guard, and later, Xanatos, could very easily have joined Demona, rather than become friends with Elisa.
In several of the flashback scenes to the years in Scotland, Demona was more war-like than the other Gargoyles. She tried to convince Goliath to force Hudson to stand down as leader of the clan, she secretly learned dark magic from the Archmage, she was always trying to get Goliath to sever ties with the Humans, and even considered open rebellion against the Humans to take back the castle. So, even before she made the bargain with the captain, which led to the destruction of the majority of the clan, Demona was more volatile than most of the Gargoyles, with the exception of Coldsteel, and perhaps Brooklyn.
I always thought that Xanatos was an interesting character. You never knew, even before he was revealed to be a villain, whether he was on the side of the Gargoyles or not. And, even later on, when Alexander was saved by the Gargoyles, you still weren't sure whether Xanatos would betray them again. For example, when the Hunters destroyed the clock tower, and Xanatos invited the clan to return to the castle, I always wondered whether there were strings attached to that offer. The comic books showed Xanatos had an alterior motive to inviting the Gargoyles back to the castle, but in the third season, The Goliath Chronicles, he did everything he could to protect the clan. Even swapping the stone Gargoyles with duplicates in the last episode, when the Quarrymen had them trapped.
Demona, mainly in the post Avalon World Tour episodes, and the Goliath Chronicles, did have a redeeming quality. Her love for Angela, who was her daughter. Even if she and Goliath openly hated each other, Demona would've died for her daughter, even if it meant rescuing the rest of the clan from a bad situation.
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Post by Sylverwolfe on Jun 22, 2011 9:52:00 GMT -7
I am going to change up my response because I want to be sure I give each portion of your post the attention it deserves. Yeah. Shenzi, Banzai and Ed were all pretty incompetent even when they started the stampede, because no matter what they did, they didn't manage to kill Simba. And you are right. Without Scar, the Lion King wouldn't've been as great of a movie as it is. It's one of my favourite Disney movies. And, without Scar, the Hyenas didn't really even have a focus. They were just there, being stupid and not really carrying the plot anywhere. I am glad that the Hyenas are in there. Their silliness makes the movie move along and breaks up the tense scenes somewhat. My favorite action movies are often peppered with some humor, bad puns etc. throughout. As for Gargoyles, well, that was one of the reasons that I started watching it too. I'm a huge Trekkie and to have their voices in an animated tv show, that had nothing to do with Star Trek, was awesome. Marina Siritis did freak me out a bit as Demona, mainly because Troi was such a soft, gentle character. I am a Star Trek fanatic and a second generation Trekkie in my family. Between my father and I, we have all the collective works of the entire franchise in DVD's. I own all of the DVD's of The Next Generation and I currently watch them with my girlfriend. My girlfriend was young when the series came out on TV. She wasn't old enough to appreciate the series and now that she has rewatched them with me, she often wants to see the next episode! I was a kid when they came on but I was sure to watch that show. It came on at 6 pm on Saturday evening. That series has not aired on TV (except in syndication as reruns) since 1994 and I STILL remember when it came on! Marina Siritis (Couselor Troi) as Demona seemed somewhat out of character for her at first. She is a very good actress though, capable of acting several different characters as was witnessed in Star Trek. There are a handful of episodes where she was taken over by a malevolent force or her mental faculties used against her will or whatever and she has assumed other roles. Her soft sulky and sultry voice makes her, as a villian, all the more menacing and dangerous. A Femme Fatale as it were. "Clues" is one such episode. After The Enterprise investigates some missing time and finds a planet that is different for the planet in their scans and it sparks of an investigation. A xenophobic alien race overcomes her body and she speaks to the crew through them. "Devil's Due" is another. Ardra actually assumes Counselor Troi's visage, in order to tempt Capt Picard, but Siritis played the role. Another is "Power Play" where she, Lt. Cmdr Data and Lt. O'Brien are influeneced and posessed by spirits which were imprisoned on a planet and try to commandeer The Enterprise. "Face of the Enemy" is another where she plays the role of a Romulan Officer in the Romulan Military Intelligence, The Tal Shiar. There is yet another called "Eye of the Beholder" where a crewmember flings himself into the warp plasma stream, committing suicide, and she has a waking nightmare about a love triangle between crew members who built the USS Enterprise and she kills Lt. Worf in the dream she has related to it. The rest of the Star Trek folks are great. Xanatos with Jonathan Frakes (Cmdr Riker), Puck with Brent Spiner (Lt Cmdr Data) and Titania with Kate Mulgrew (Capt Janeway) rounds it out. Coldstone with Micheal Dorn (Lt. Worf) was just a wonderfully added bonus. I've been thinking about this very carefully and I've come to some conclusions of my own. When the clan awoke from their sleep after Xanatos moved Castle Wyvern to the top of his skyscraper, they could just as easily have turned against Humanity the way Demona did. Especially Goliath. Before they were reunited, Goliath thought that Demona had been destroyed by the Vikings the day of the attack. And, from the shot of the crumbled stone on the place where Demona usually slept, for all intents and purposes, she had been destroyed. So, plus Goliath sought revenge for the destruction of his clan, but, on the people who committed the act, rather than Humanity as a whole. Yes. He wants his revenge and when it is denied him, he howls in rage atop Castle Wyvern. But you are right, he only wanted the people directly responsible, showing he could harbor a grudge but knew eventually how to let it go. Throughout the series, Goliath was probably the most tolerant of all the Gargoyles. He stood by while Princess Katharine and the rest of her people treated them poorly, he only took Hudson to search for the Vikings, even though he knew that Hakon would return and find a way to destroy the Gargoyles, later he let Xanatos trick him into stealing Cyber-biotics' discs, and, despite some of the warnings, Goliath didn't see until it was almost too late that Demona had been changed irrevocably from the girl he knew 1,000 years earlier, plus, once the Gargoyles' presence had been revealed to the people of New York, he allowed the Quarrymen to hunt him and the other Gargoyles, placing Elisa, the Xanatoses, and Matt Bluestone in danger, just because Castaway feared the Gargoyles. You are right. Goliath is the most tolerant of the Gargoyles and I think he was also the most willing to adapt and change. This is one of his best assets. The fact he could read was really cool too. Yet, in the very last scene of the first episode, Goliath would've thrown Xanatos off the roof of the castle, had Hudson and Elisa not convinced him to do otherwise. So, he, and perhaps the rest of the clan, depending on how they felt about being betrayed by the Captain of the Guard, and later, Xanatos, could very easily have joined Demona, rather than become friends with Elisa. I had to rewatch the episode. You are right. He darn near throws Xanatos off the top of the Eyrie Building. I think that is a threshold moment. He take the right course of action, when he could take the other course and set his whole clan warring against humanity. This of course proves once again, he is capable of explosive rage and grudges but knows ultimately when to let it go. It seems to me he knows he must reform his character to get along in the modern world and learn to let some of the anger go in order to heal. It reminds me of the same thing and helped me when I had issues with my own anger management. In several of the flashback scenes to the years in Scotland, Demona was more war-like than the other Gargoyles. She tried to convince Goliath to force Hudson to stand down as leader of the clan, she secretly learned dark magic from the Archmage, she was always trying to get Goliath to sever ties with the Humans, and even considered open rebellion against the Humans to take back the castle. So, even before she made the bargain with the captain, which led to the destruction of the majority of the clan, Demona was more volatile than most of the Gargoyles, with the exception of Coldsteel, and perhaps Brooklyn. She is ambitious. Ambition alone is a vice without the morality to guide it. She is fickle with her associations and her morality is only present to suit her whims. I always thought that Xanatos was an interesting character. You never knew, even before he was revealed to be a villain, whether he was on the side of the Gargoyles or not. And, even later on, when Alexander was saved by the Gargoyles, you still weren't sure whether Xanatos would betray them again. For example, when the Hunters destroyed the clock tower, and Xanatos invited the clan to return to the castle, I always wondered whether there were strings attached to that offer. The comic books showed Xanatos had an alterior motive to inviting the Gargoyles back to the castle, but in the third season, The Goliath Chronicles, he did everything he could to protect the clan. Even swapping the stone Gargoyles with duplicates in the last episode, when the Quarrymen had them trapped. As a fan of the Greg Weismann Gargoyles, I cannot consider most of The Goliath Chronicles to be part of the canon. It is not Weismann's imagining of the series and it felt to me like the Disney Afternoon was throwing a bone to those of us who wrote in about the poor decision to retire the series. I watched a few episodes of that series and lost interest in them. (By then I was also working and couldn't really watch it anyway.) Xanatos is an interesting character but in the end I think Xanatos is out only for Xanatos. The really good quality Xanatos has is his capability and willingness to clean up his messes and fix his mistakes. He has integrity despite his other personality flaws. If he caused something to go wrong he works to clean up the mess or fix it, instead of worrying about passing it on or whose fault is what. This is true when he uses his steel clan to break the spell on the human in Manhattan. Demona, mainly in the post Avalon World Tour episodes, and the Goliath Chronicles, did have a redeeming quality. Her love for Angela, who was her daughter. Even if she and Goliath openly hated each other, Demona would've died for her daughter, even if it meant rescuing the rest of the clan from a bad situation. I liked that at the end too. In the end her love has won out and her hatefulness has mellowed. Sadly, I do not have that last half of season two. A part of me died the day I heard Greg Weismann wasn't planning on releasing it. My DVD's end at the episode "Kingdom" where Brooklyn leads the Manhattan Clan into the Labyrinth to liberate Talon and depose Fang as the new leader. That series is such an incredible and creative series. I really liked how it tied all of the lore of various cultures into one big canon. I like how the Illuminatti were in on it (When it came out It was the first time I had been exposed to stuff about the Illuminatti.) I like how it engulfes so many legends, like King Arthur, Avalon and MacBeth and I like how gargoyles were used to explain the Totems of the Salish Indians (American Natives) of the Pacific Northwest and Griffins of Great Brittain and so forth. It really is a colorful series and was savagely cut down before its time. To get back to topic; sorry I got WAY OFF! These both display a break from most of Disney's typical villians. There are, I am sure, others.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 22, 2011 12:47:53 GMT -7
I am a huge Trekkie too, and while the DVDs are too expensive for me to buy, especially the Original Series, I have an external hard drive with every episode, of every season, of every series, and all eleven movies on it, sent to me from a friend. I even got to meet the Next Gen cast at the studio in '93.
But yes, Gargoyles is a wonderful example of good vs evil. And The Lion King is also a good example of it. And, it's funny because until more recently, I didn't even realize that Gargoyles was made by Disney. I just thought it was a cartoon on Disney's One Saturday Morning, and, the morning block on my local channel, CTV, called Master Control. Oh well.
I know. I was able to download most of the episodes, so I don't have to worry about missing any. But, it was a great show. I just recently read the trade paperbacks that consist of the twelve issues of the Greg Weisman Gargoyles comic book series, and it was pretty good, with the first two issues, being an adaptation of the Goliath Chronicles episode, "The Journey", which Weisman did write.
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