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Is Teridax one of the greatest and best fictional villains ever?


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We know that Makuta Teridax is the main villain in the whole Bionicle story and is Mata Nui and the Toa's archenemy. Throughout the entire story, he made a plan that can at first put Mata Nui to sleep, so he can control his body and get rid of his spirit to take over the entire Matoran Universe. Later, he planned to use Mata Nui's body to conquer the entire Bionicle universe, starting with the planet of Bara Magna as his base of operations, shown in the book, Journey's End. However, when he started to invade it, Mata Nui, Gresh, Takanuva, and Tahu foiled his plan by killing him. Before Teridax died, he even threatened to destroy the entire planet, including everyone on it, with one shot instead of conquering it because Mata Nui interfered him. So, as the title says, above, do you guys think that Teridax could be one of the greatest and fictional villains ever?

 

Well, for me, I think possibly so how he made his plans, the fact that he is powerful and ruthless, and he kills people, including his enemies, to accomplish his evil plans. He is also a very evil mastermind who leads a large group of powerful villains and other evil creatures. He plans very carefully, so he can always get his advantage and hardly get a disadvantage. Teridax is hard to be defeated by anyone, and he is a floating cloud in armor. He even used the Toa Nuva's attempt to reawaken Mata Nui as an advantage to take over Mata Nui's body once it's reactivated. He also can get more powerful as his first evil plan goes. Teridax also is a clever tyrant who wants to get rid of anyone who tries to stand on his way. He likes torturing people, too. Teridax also uses people to accomplish his evil plans. I think Teridax is the most evil villain in the entire Bionicle story and is pretty famous, too.

 

So, I think that a fictional villain would be called one of the greatest and best in that way. I could also think of other fictional villains that are like Teridax in some ways, and these are:

1. The Joker

2. Loki from The Avengers movie

3. Lex Luthor

4. Plankton from the SpongeBob Squarepants Franchise at some points

5. Mojo Jojo from the Powerpuff Girls TV series

6. Him from The Powerpuff Girls TV series

7. Doctor Doom

8. The Red Skull

9. Vilgax from the Ben 10 franchise

10. The Green Goblin

11. Doctor Octopus

12. Venom from Marvel Comics

13. Carnage from Marvel Comics

14. Megatron

15. The Shredder from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise

16. Aku from the Samurai Jack TV series

17. Slade from the 2003 Teen Titans TV series

18. Magneto from the Marvel Comics

19. Von Nebula from the Hero Factory franchise (my guess is that Von Nebula could also be the mysterious villain who is behind the events in the Breakout and Brain Attack events)

20. Jafar from Disney

21. Captain Hook from Disney

22. Maleficant from Disney

23. Mumm-Ra from the ThunderCats TV franchise

24. Galactus from the Marvel Comics

25. Darth Vader

26. Darth Sidious from the Star Wars franchise

 

Also so, what do you guys think of this? Do you guys agree with me?

Edited by Lenny7092
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Personally, I don't think Loki was that good of a villain. I've seen a topic like this before were someone described Loki as just being the 'I Summon Gigantic Army' type, which, in my personal opinion wasn't very cool.

 

Also you haven't seen 'Father' from Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, have you, and if you want villains more along the lines of Teridax's type try Sosuke Aizen from Bleach or Orochimaru from Naruto.

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Short answer, no. There are lots of great villains in fiction. At best, Teridax is one of them, and at worst he's just another scheming megalomaniac.

 

There are lots of extremely nuanced villains in fiction, with incredibly complex motivations. Makuta Teridax just wants the world to worship at his feet, and he was never much more complex than that. Hardly groundbreaking stuff. Even Darth Vader is arguably more complex. So is Lord Business from The LEGO Movie. And of course Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter.

 

Writing a powerful, menacing, ambitious, scheming villain with dreams of ruling the world is not by any means a huge achievement.

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Teridax certainly was ruthless and eight steps ahead of everyone else, and he was definitely The Big Bad of Bionicle, and definitely one of my favorite villains out there due to growing up with the franchise close to my heart, but I would not go as far as to say he is among the absolute greatest villains in all fiction. The list you gave just looks like a generic list of the big name baddies, and of course they all have something common with Teri 'cause, well, they're villains. There are certain qualities that they are all bound to have in common.

The entirety of fiction is so vast and people have such varied tastes that there's really no way to put your finger down on the best of the best, it's all a matter of opinion and by what standard you judge them.

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Teridax's ambition is as big as anyone's, but he lacks the evil-to-the-core aura that surrounds other major villains. He will do what is necessary to achieve his goals, and if that sometimes includes "being good," he will do that too. If he needs to kill someone in his way, Teridax will do it without a second thought. But he doesn't mindlessly do it for fun as much as other villains, such as the Joker. He isn't evil for the sake of being evil, so to speak.

I certainly think Teridax is one of the smartest and most capable villains ever, but he doesn't have the same despicable touch as the top pure villains.
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A rule of thumb: If the question is "was this character great" and BS01 mentions it's one of Greg's favorite characters to write about, the answer is probably no.

 

And that's the end of this discussion. See you all next week.

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I think that while Teridax had many elements of a good villain, they weren't developed sufficiently to make him "great". His personality is a tad on the one-dimensional side, for one, and while he has the makings of a magnificent (latter word is censored, in case you're wondering), he just doesn't give off the charisma of one, instead coming across too arrogant to be likeable. IMO, he also didn't get sufficient screen time as a character (rather than a plot device), contributing to the above issues. I think one of the things that hurt the character was that the story kept changing who he was; if he had been developed as the shadowy chessmaster that he ended up as from the start, he would have been much more interesting as a character.

 

Summary: while LEGO certainly had the right idea for a good villain, they didn't push it as far as they could of, and as such, Teridax comes off as slightly underwhelming despite the fact that his achievements were massive in scale.

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Also you haven't seen 'Father' from Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood,

Father is VERY much like Teridax, now that I think of it.

 

Now, I'm sure there are better villains in fiction, as others have said (one that comes to mind for me is The Dark One from The Wheel of Time), but Teridax was pretty awesome, and had a very well-thought-out plan.

 

 

 

And of course Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter.

I'd like to point out, though, that Voldemort was basically Hitler for the HP universe. He followed much the same plan, and had the much the same ideals and motives.

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had a very well-thought-out plan.

 

Why, it was a plan so well thought out, it's almost as if it was written by just taking whatever happens in a given story year and saying, "yep, that's the plan." What an excellent character trait to conveniently know everything that would ever happen so writers conveniently don't have to work around it :o

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Also you haven't seen 'Father' from Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood,

Father is VERY much like Teridax, now that I think of it.

 

Now, I'm sure there are better villains in fiction, as others have said (one that comes to mind for me is The Dark One from The Wheel of Time), but Teridax was pretty awesome, and had a very well-thought-out plan.

 

You know, when I saw this thread's title and began comparing Makuta Teridax to other villains of long-running storyline sagas, the Dark One was one of the first to come to mind, as I am currently working through The Wheel of Time series. Now, I've only read the first two books, so I don't know if this opinion will seem laughably backwards to one who has read more, but bombs away: from what I've seen of both, I'd consider Teridax a better villain than the Dark One.

 

(Forgive me for digressing from the topic for this rant, but I promise I'll get back to Terry below.) In books 1 and 2 of The Wheel of Time, the Dark One is, essentially, a Sauron knockoff with a worse track record than Makuta had on the island of Mata Nui. His direct contributions to the plot have been limited to: menacing a few protagonists in their dreams; sending wave after wave of minions after them; and constantly having the great big chosen one surprise him and wipe the floor with him via powers that are not entirely explained. The Dark One's minions, such as the Trollocs, the Fades, the Darkfriends, and the traitor from Emond's Field whose name I've omitted for spoilers, have all presented a far more tangible and credible threat than the Dark One.*

 

By contrast, Teridax has much more presence in his medium. Indeed, I'd say that "doing in the wizard" and making Teridax a supervillain instead of a dark island god did wonders for his character, because it gave him much more presence. Rather than being some spectral, nebulous observer of events, Teridax became an actual participant, a warrior on the field of battle. In '01 through '05, he was just there, in the background, far removed from the action. His minions did all the work for him, and when he actually did confront the heroes, he was pretty quickly dispatched. 2006 was a transitional year, and he had an excuse to be in the background, since no one was entirely sure if he was dead or not. 2007 was when Teridax really shone as a physical villain: he was right where the action was happening, yet disguised well enough to manipulate events without too many of his opponents noticing he was there. He got a chance to display his awesome power against Brutaka, against Karzahni, and against the Barraki, in each case reminding us that you don't mess with Teridax. All of this presence made it especially noticeable when he wasn't there in '08, which really upped the ante for the fans trying to puzzle out the mystery of where he'd gone. Even when he became an actual dark god (or as close as you could get in a LEGO line), he still intervened frequently in the heroes' affairs: swallowing Guardian, banishing the Core Processor gang, summoning Shadow Takanuva, and so on and so forth. 2010 sort of took this to the other extreme: at that point, Teridax had lost all of his shadowy, mysterious aura, and become a purely physical villain. He was no longer threatening because of his unknown plots; he was threatening because of his sheer power. Does that make him a boring villain? In 2010, yes. But from '06 to '09, Teridax was masterfully done by the standards of toy lines and even some book series. He will always have a special place in my heart as the Big Bad of BIONICLE, who had the most powerful "stage presence" I've ever personally seen.

 

And sure, a lot of that probably came about through sloppy writing and even complete accidents. Don't ever misconstrue my posts as saying, "BIONICLE was a quality work of art" -- it wasn't, it was a story for a toyline, and a pretty haphazard one at that. But it doesn't really matter what the writers meant to do, or how much thought they put into a character's motivations or a world detail -- what matters is how the audience receives and interprets it. And whether through accident or incompetence, the writers of BIONICLE created a villain who, to me and many other fans, set the bar for all future fictional villains to live up to. :)

 

*If anyone's fired up by this and wants to have a (spoiler-free) debate with me about The Wheel of Time, don't let's clog up this thread with it; take it to the PMs. My inbox has got the space.

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A rule of thumb: If the question is "was this character great" and BS01 mentions it's one of Greg's favorite characters to write about, the answer is probably no.

 

One day, this guy's not gonna beat me to something I want to say.

 

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Yes, because world domination is totally a unique goal for a villain, amirite?

 

Teridax suffers from clichés as much as the next villain. There's really nothing that made him stand out in his respective universe than any other villain in any of their respective universes.

 

Limit Teridax's involvement to his eerie string-pulling in 2001 and maybe I'd consider him an interesting villain. But there's no way he's anywhere close to the greatest and best.

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had a very well-thought-out plan.

 

Why, it was a plan so well thought out, it's almost as if it was written by just taking whatever happens in a given story year and saying, "yep, that's the plan." What an excellent character trait to conveniently know everything that would ever happen so writers conveniently don't have to work around it :o

 

It comes natural to INTJs. Trust me.

 

I am one.

 

 

 

In books 1 and 2 of The Wheel of Time, the Dark One is, essentially, a Sauron knockoff with a worse track record than Makuta had on the island of Mata Nui.

I've read New Spring, EotW, and will be beginning TGH soon. More than that, though, I've been riddled with spoilers from a friend, and read a rather interesting additional prologue (by Robert Jordan).

 

I don't really want to spoil anything for you (although I'm not yet sure what is revealed in TGH), but it turns out that The Dark One set up a fairly solid catch-22. That's why I set him above Teridax.

 

 

Again, though, I'm not saying Teridax was the best. He certainly had quite a bit of clichés in him. But he certainly isn't the worst.

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had a very well-thought-out plan.

Why, it was a plan so well thought out, it's almost as if it was written by just taking whatever happens in a given story year and saying, "yep, that's the plan." What an excellent character trait to conveniently know everything that would ever happen so writers conveniently don't have to work around it :o

It comes natural to INTJs. Trust me.

 

I am one.

Even so, there's a difference between a plan where you go "oh my goodness all of these bits fit together" versus Teridax's "plan" which basically amounted to "well, that was unnecessarily convoluted."

 

If the story had been planned out a little better, it'd be the former instead of the latter.

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had a very well-thought-out plan.

Why, it was a plan so well thought out, it's almost as if it was written by just taking whatever happens in a given story year and saying, "yep, that's the plan." What an excellent character trait to conveniently know everything that would ever happen so writers conveniently don't have to work around it :o

It comes natural to INTJs. Trust me.

 

I am one.

Even so, there's a difference between a plan where you go "oh my goodness all of these bits fit together" versus Teridax's "plan" which basically amounted to "well, that was unnecessarily convoluted."

 

If the story had been planned out a little better, it'd be the former instead of the latter.

 

Well, it was only supposed to be for a couple years, after all, and then later on they decided to expand it into Metru Nui and beyond. Makuta's plan was prolly just spread thin and suffered from that, since it had to take a backseat to everything else.

 

I really like the original short plan that's described in Faber's blog, with all that concept art and that plan for the islands that were actually fingers and all that. I think that just because there was more than half a decade of extra stuff going on, Teri's plan just ended up taking way too long to get to its goal and seemed more convoluted than it was intended to be. I do agree that just throwing "all according t plan" at the end of each thing was pretty pointless and made everything way too muddled up. Personally? I didn't mind at all, I figured, why not, let's see where this is going and it oh boy, it went. The whole thing between being trapped by the Toa Metru all the way through ending up in the Maxilos robot before going to the core processor, with the exception of everything that happened on Mata Nui of course, was just kinda to trail him along and give him a presence, which as Angel Bob explained, was at least helpful in a different way.

 

More planning for that would definitely have been better.

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Mmmmmm... No. That honor goes to Saint Dane.

 

Seriously though, after reading the books and hearing the author speak... He actually had a master plan that was laid out from the first book. There was Details there that weren't even touched on until... I don't remember exactly but it was late in the series.

 

Honorable mentions go to, in no particular order:

 

GlaDOS (I'm not even explaining why she's here.)

Shockwave (Did you expect anything less?)

Count Olaf (He Holds a special place in my heart. Man it's been a long time...)

Hades (Kid Icarus) (The sass is just amazing.)

 

I'm sure there are more. Bu seriously. Saint Dane. The only Villain that has, singlehandedly, made me question who was really the hero.

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In my opinion, Terry was exceptional for what he was created to be: a original toy line villain. However, other works of fiction feature villains that, in my opinion, surpass Makuta in numerous ways, so as a villain in general fiction, I'd give him a 6/10 if not a little less. :P

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Short answer to topic title: Yes.

 

He is by far the most creative villain I've ever seen in any franchise. He had many unique traits ranging from his physiology to his complicated psychology. The fact that he succeeded adds to the value considerably.

 

If he hadn't been confined to a story designed to promote toys, there's no telling how popular he could have become.

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... his complicated psychology.

Er... no, not really. As others said it was just "rule everything, with a highly complicated plan", and just because what he creates is complex doesn't make him complex too. Psychologically that is.

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No. Teridax is just Greg's WoW character.

Puritan! :P

 

A madu plant by any other name would be just as explosive.

:P

 

I will always have a place in my heart for Teridax, though I'm bound to be biased towards him because of my love for Bionicle. But I do think that he was, per his reinvention in Time Trap, a far more interesting character than most super-villains, not that that's necessarily saying much. But I think he was remarkable for being a villain who was simultaneously palpitable and likeable and yet also obviously arrogant, deceitful, manipulative, and malicious. A bit like some Doctor Who villains.

In fact, I many of my favorite villains come from Doctor Who. One of my favorites, though he isn't a so much a villain as an antagonist, is the Meddling Monk. He, like Teridax, underwent a re-invention, thanks to the Big Finish Eighth Doctor audio adventures, resulting in an incarnation of the character (brilliantly played by Graeme Garden) who possesses the core of the character, a renegade Timelord who wants to better history regardless of his means of doing so, and added an intelligence, eloquence, and suaveness that the original lacked. He is fascinating because his goals are so like those of the Doctor and yet so different.

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Consults other topic on the subject...

 

With this in mind, I would say yes. The guy took over a giant robot, manipulated the good guys into achieving his ends, and completely owned all the smart characters in storyline previous. It took a giant robot fight + Golden Armor + random lucky moon-rock-happening to defeat him. There might be better ones out there, but he should at least make the top 10.

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I will always have a place in my heart for Teridax, though I'm bound to be biased towards him because of my love for Bionicle. But I do think that he was, per his reinvention in Time Trap, a far more interesting character than most super-villains, not that that's necessarily saying much. But I think he was remarkable for being a villain who was simultaneously palpitable and likeable and yet also obviously arrogant, deceitful, manipulative, and malicious. A bit like some Doctor Who villains.

In fact, I many of my favorite villains come from Doctor Who. One of my favorites, though he isn't a so much a villain as an antagonist, is the Meddling Monk. He, like Teridax, underwent a re-invention, thanks to the Big Finish Eighth Doctor audio adventures, resulting in an incarnation of the character (brilliantly played by Graeme Garden) who possesses the core of the character, a renegade Timelord who wants to better history regardless of his means of doing so, and added an intelligence, eloquence, and suaveness that the original lacked. He is fascinating because his goals are so like those of the Doctor and yet so different.

I was gonna mention several Doctor Who villains myself, 'cause that show has just so many wonderful ones. The Great Intelligence's shenanigans are a lot like Teri's long complex plans that span thousands and thousands of years, and as equally manipulative and savvy. It even shared the same disembodied consciousness element as Teri when he's a gas of antidermis, and of course always a few steps ahead and knowing waaay more than anyone else. The Master, obviously, gets a mention as well, with some incarnations more similar than others. I could compare him to Davros too, for the fact that the Daleks and Rahkshi seem to be equally terrifying a threat as the creations of those villains, but their goals are different and Davros's sanity and reasoning are just waaay off from Teridax.

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Except Great Intelligence and Meddling Monk had actual character and personality and thematic significance other than "Muhaha". Not so much with Makuta.

 

Let's not even get into how obviously non-comparable Daleks are with the Rahkshi, or that Makuta/Rahkshi creator-creation relation is way off.

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Except Great Intelligence and Meddling Monk had actual character and personality and thematic significance other than "Muhaha". Not so much with Makuta.

 

Let's not even get into how obviously non-comparable Daleks are with the Rahkshi, or that Makuta/Rahkshi creator-creation relation is way off.

Well obviously, yeah, they were much more interesting characters. I only compared the Daleks and Rahkshi in that they seemed to be the top tier threat (The Toa Nuva thought dropping their names alone would be enough to intimidate the Piraka in their first encounter, after all) and are just as formidable alone as they are in a group, and that they both are literally created from the substance of the Big Bad- the Makuta make Kraata right from their antidermis or something, and in NuWho Davros created new Daleks from parts of his own body. I know the similarities end there and are really strained to begin with, but I was grasping at straws just to come up with some examples :P Gotta keep in mind Greg loves him some Who so he could have easily gotten inspiration for some aspects of Teri's character from something in that, so it would be neat to to pinpoint someone similar enough, though it was probably a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

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Sorry to disappoint, but your first post reads as a list of the most common personality traits and mannerisms of fictional villains. Nearly every single villain ever created uses the tactics that you listed to achieve what he wants. I wouldn't say that Teridax is one of the best fictional villains ever created; far from it, in fact. There's nothing that is considerably original or outstanding among the many thousands of fictional villains that have ever been created. He's very similar to any other irredeemably evil character from any media franchise that is aimed at little kids. Many of the villains on your aforementioned list also fall into that category, including Mumm Ra, Von Nebula, Slade, Aku, "The Shredder", Megatron, Vilgax, "Him", "Mojo Jojo" and Plankton.

 

Hardly groundbreaking stuff. Even Darth Vader is arguably more complex. So is Lord Business from The LEGO Movie. And of course Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter.

I completely get how Darth Vader and Voldemort are more complex than Teridax. President Business sharing that honor also, however? How would you describe President Business as being more complex than Teridax?

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One thing that I hate about some villains is that they want the hero to become stronger so that he can confront them, I find that a bit stupid since it would be so much easier for the villain to just finish him in that instant. Thankfully good old Makuta Teridax never did that, sure he didn't kill the Toa while he had the chance but because he needed them for his plans, he could have still done it withouth having the Toa Mata turned into Nuva for example.

 

So my answer is YES, Makuta Teridax is a really awesome villain who will never be topped by anyone else in the whole BIONICLE story.

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One thing that I hate about some villains is that they want the hero to become stronger so that he can confront them, I find that a bit stupid since it would be so much easier for the villain to just finish him in that instant. Thankfully good old Makuta Teridax never did that, sure he didn't kill the Toa while he had the chance but because he needed them for his plans, he could have still done it withouth having the Toa Mata turned into Nuva for example.

 

So my answer is YES, Makuta Teridax is a really awesome villain who will never be topped by anyone else in the whole BIONICLE story.

 

It's arrogance. The villian is saying the hero isn't worth his time. Because villians are almost famous for underestimating their foes.

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One thing that I hate about some villains is that they want the hero to become stronger so that he can confront them, I find that a bit stupid since it would be so much easier for the villain to just finish him in that instant. Thankfully good old Makuta Teridax never did that, sure he didn't kill the Toa while he had the chance but because he needed them for his plans, he could have still done it withouth having the Toa Mata turned into Nuva for example.

 

So my answer is YES, Makuta Teridax is a really awesome villain who will never be topped by anyone else in the whole BIONICLE story.

I'd agree in a less than a second that Teridax is the best villain in the Bionicle story, by far. For me, there's practically no contest. However, this topic is asking if he's one of the greatest villains from any fictional work, and I'm still of the opinion that he doesn't come close to being one of the best of any work.

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My answer is yes, his plan was intricate and if one part didn't work out he would always find a way to recover. I was shocked at the end of 2008 when I saw the Mata Nui robot with Teridax in control. He is one of the few villains to achieve his goals totally. Besides being intelligent, he was an excellent fighter, not as good as Icarax, but his wits and power combined certainly made him a great villain.

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In my opinion, characters who are greyer are mostly far more interesting than Makuta was in the Bionicle story. He sure had some great moments like the whole Time Trap book and the way he did succeed in his plan to become the Great Spirit. Those were great moments, but there were some not so great moments, mainly in the whole 2009-2010 storyline where Makuta become brainless like Megatron and Unicron. He didn't make any great master plans or anything and was defeated very easily with that deus ex machina collectible armor. And don't even make me start with his Piraka-fusion thing and the idea behind it.

 

There are many greater villains than Makuta, but as a toy series bad guy, they did him fairly well. I don't like his "real name" (it would have worked better as a "nickname" as Theta Sigma in Doctor Who or something) but he had his moments and kept me interested in this series and buying these plastic action figures.

 

My tastes have changed from my active years with Bionicle and Lego. Now I prefer greyer villain character such as Walter White, Tywin Lannister or Zuko from Avatar the Last Airbender. Makuta still has a place in my hearts because of nostalgia, when the Toa fight against his rahi beasts and searched for the great power masks. As a Lego villain, Makuta sure is probably the best but as in the whole fiction, no. There are far too many candidates against Makuta.

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Brace yourselves, Klaanon is coming...

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It's a fascinating question, and very difficult to answer conclusively (probably partially subjective). Hence my slowness to reply -- busy! But I wanted to run through your list, minus the ones I know nothing about. Numbered lines here are quotes from the first post; in too much a hurry to use quote tags or marks. :P

 

1. The Joker

 

Joker's a tricky thing, because as someone only vaguely aware of him until the recent movie reboots, he's always struck me as perhaps the worst villain of all time due to sheer cheesiness (and he often seems REALLY easy to put out of commision, it's just because Batman oddly never seems to recognize that mass murderer = justified to execute that he sticks around, as I understand it -- that said, the Toa did that once or twice with Teridax too, though, but never really in a situation where it was clear execution was better). And while the new movie made him seem to be a good villain, I wouldn't go so far as to put him near the top of any list. If anything it just made it all the more obvious that Batman should have killed him.

 

2. Loki from The Avengers movie

 

He worked surprisingly well. Teridax definitely has a more imposing personality, though. Loki seems very immature... and it works in part because of this, ironically. It wouldn't with Teridax IMO.

 

8. The Red Skull

 

Eh, he's fairly stereotypical. He doesn't seem comparable to Teridax, who was a mastermind. (At least according to the movie...)

 

10. The Green Goblin

 

I guess it depends on if he's been portrayed better in other media besides the previous major movie series (like the new movie... lol) -- like with the Joker and many of these examples. So my answer is tentative... but all that was really memorable about him from the previous movie series to me was stereotypical evil-ness (not that stereotypical in this case is bad per se, just not "best villain" material), and he looked cool on his hovering green thingamabob. I don't recall seeming unusually impressed by him as I have been for Makuta.

 

11. Doctor Octopus

 

I would have to agree here. The Doc Ock movie (in previous series... the second movie, I think?) was one of my favorite movies and I'd watch that obsessively for a while. :P To be fair, it was more for the magnetic-imploding mini-sun than D'ock himself, but he was pretty good too. But then, in the end he was less a villain and more a tragically mind-controlled previous-villain. Teridax beats him by far in the category of "way too far gone" by the end. Though I do like villains that do that, like Darth Vader.

 

14. Megatron

 

Maybe it's the Transformers part of this, but no matter how cool the special effects in the movies make him seem, I can't help but just think of him as Stereotypical kiddy villain. Wouldn't want to live in the same universe with him, but in terms of entertainment quality, I think he's just barely par really. (As far as I can tell.)

 

19. Von Nebula from the Hero Factory franchise (my guess is that Von Nebula could also be the mysterious villain who is behind the events in the Breakout and Brain Attack events)

 

Er... IMO no... There were moments where it seemed they were working up to this... But then they did invisible-glass-sided tunnel "black hole". Huge missed opportunity, methinks -- imagine what he could be if he really wielded realistic black hole effects and slaughtered thousands in pursuit of his cause -- and once you fall in, without some incredibly advanced (and highly adrenaline-pumping!) tech to counteract it, you be deyehd. I do suspect you're right about the parenthetical statement, but that only proves he's an arch-villain, not a good or near-best arch-villain or villain in general. Contrast to the Makuta who was already pretty mysterious at the start, then really proved himself in the MNOG end, and continued reinventing himself in very good ways all the way to the end.

 

20. Jafar from Disney

 

Jafar was pretty great. I'd have to agree.

 

21. Captain Hook from Disney

 

Bad memory seems to remember him somewhat fondly from as a very young kid, but compared to Teridax? Nah, he's more just cheesy.

 

25. Darth Vader

 

Very yes. Except for "Nooooooooo!" lol

 

I even like his prequel portrayals more than a lot of vocal complainers. Vader versus Makuta... Hmmmmmmmm.... That's a tough one.

 

26. Darth Sidious from the Star Wars franchise

 

Very yes yes yes. Although he's so awesome in a way that seems almost completely unique that it's almost an unfair comparison. I'm especially thinking of the few times in Clone Wars (BTW, it's on Netflix now -- MUST WATCH -- don't believe the complainers; I did and put it off but once I started, it's awesome.... aaanywho) where he fights, and cackles like an immature little kid, far more immature than Loki or just about any other villain, and yet somehow as a Sith it works perfectly, because it's not half-hearted "okay maybe he's a little immature", it's "his vision of the Sith is pure unashamed immaturity and selfishness tempered perfectly by the most advanced strategy, so he's like the worst schoolyard bully you can imagine times a thousand." And he's pretty great in the movies too. :P Although IMO he's had to be a bit rehabilitated by the prequels and Clone Wars and I guess other media from the original trilogy. He featured so little in the first three it was hard to tell this about him, though it was there.

 

Comparing to Teridax, I think they're both pretty equal in terms of mastermind-ness. It's proven directly a lot more often with Sidious in the Clone Wars and prequel movies, though; with Teridax there are a few key proofs that the authors could write him as a mastermind, but with Sidious there are countless impressive examples if you pay close attention. But this is less about the character and more about length of story and interpretation really. And of course, Teridax was only vaguely hinted at that his future goal MIGHT include conquering a galaxy; Sidious actually did it. What they did conquer, though, they both did through misdirection as much or more than direct conflict; brains over brawn.

 

I think Sidious has one clear thing over Terry too -- in his "end" (I've heard it wasn't final, but that's not my point here), that was when his personality and philosophy really emerged front-and-center (in the original trilogy). With Teridax, it emerged in the takeover and moments soon after, but after that point, it was fairly detached, and his end has winnage because giant robot battle, more so than anything unique to Teridax as a character. (I'm obviously seeking to overcome this in my version. :P) On the other hand, Teridax has a fairly unique tragic reveal at this time that I think still puts him up there on the list, that he was supposed to take over all along and might have actually gotten to keep the body if he had stayed good.

Edited by bonesiii
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The Destiny of Bionicle (chronological retelling of Bionicle original series, 9 PDFs of 10 chapters each on Google Drive)Part 1 - Warring with Fate | Part 2 - Year of Change | Part 3 - The Exploration Trap | Part 4 - Rise of the Warlords | Part 5 - A Busy Matoran | Part 6 - The Dark Time | Part 7 - Proving Grounds | Part 8 - A Rude Awakening | Part 9 - The Battle of Giants

My Bionicle Fanfiction  (Google Drive folder, eventually planned to have PDFs of all of it)

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Teridax was a good villian for a while.

I feel he was extremely lacking in being sinister and calculative.

He had this mysterious and extremely evil vibe around 01-07, but then he started to become less mysterious and even less sinsister.

 

I think they could have fleshed out Teridax alot more, considering his only goal was to be on top.

They could have kept his mysterious and sinister 01 vibe all the way until the end, being like some Illuminati kind of thing, and only revealing himself near the end when his plan is complete.

Throughout this storyline they could throw in bits and pieces from his past, and hints to his identity, only to be revealed at the conclusion.

 

Also something they could have done, was went all Star Wars and make him like the Emperor, destroying islands, imprisoning those who oppose him, executions, and the whole totalitarion government thing.

 

Instead we get a less interesting villian with one-dimensional motives, and a rather lame rendition of his goal succeeding.

He was good for Bionicle, but he could have been much better.

Edited by You just lost the game

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From what people are saying here, Teridax almost seems like a generic cartoon villain on a couple steroids. Honestly, King Piccolo from Dragon Ball sounds like a better villain because when he was released from being sealed away, he established an army of dragon-like creatures and went to conquer the world. BUT he did everything he could to make sure no one would interfere with his plan. He killed almost every martial artist in the world, he got rid of the same technique that originally sealed him away, he destroyed Shenron (a powerful dragon that can grant wishes when all seven Dragon Balls are gathered) in one little attack, then blackmailed Goku (the main character of DB) into giving up the fight and then sent someone to kill Goku's best friend.

 

Makuta didn't go up to that level, and I would have admired him more if he had a more actively cruel side. I'm talkin' attacking the Toa regularly, up close and personal.

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mindeth the cobwebs

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1. The Joker

 

Joker's a tricky thing, because as someone only vaguely aware of him until the recent movie reboots, he's always struck me as perhaps the worst villain of all time due to sheer cheesiness

 

Yep, sounds like something that someone that is only vaguely aware of Joker until The Dark Knight would say. ;)

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hereheis.gif

 

--------------

 

Reach Heaven by Violence.

 

And while you are at it, see Bionicle characters as Magical Girls.

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