At some point when I wasn’t looking, it appears that I’ve written a total of 100 different articles and news posts on this odd little website of mine (101 counting this one anyway, but I digress).
Shocking hey?
I’d like to think that at least most of them are worth reading, but if nothing else I still reckon that’s pretty remarkable for one bloke working in his spare time in between trying to maintain his relationship and even earn a living.
Anyway, enough of the self high-fives. I’d like to thank everyone that has been reading the site and leaving me feedback, and I hope that you’ll continue to read, tell your friends, and think of me when you meet that person who desperately wants to hire a journalist with little experience and a great deal of opinion ;)
Interesting villains in videogames can be surprisingly hard to come by. Thanks to the veritable bevy of clones, cheap knockoffs, strange Japanese games, and sheer, unadulterated crap on the market, it’s easy to find one’s attention wandering when pondering which bad guys are actually worthy of the title, and thus your time.
But of course, like moustachioed, beret wearing wheat being sifted from the generic, nuke-possessing, stupid-name-wielding chaff (how’s THAT for a metaphor?), there are a few examples of true, interesting, honest-to-Bill-Gates villains just waiting to receive your worship and adulation…before executing you in true villain style, no doubt.
For you see, complex characters (good or bad) are always about motivation; a bad guy that wants to destroy the world simply because he was christened Baron von Evilpants III is not going to be anywhere near as interesting as a character who wants to destroy the world due to the unbridled torment and infinite pain caused by selling his soul to the Chaos God of Confectionary for immortality and an endless supply of Tiny Teddies. Even when they’re our enemy, we still want to know why they tick, and we definitely want the ticking to have some sort of significance.
So in order to honour those villains (or really, the writers behind them) that stimulate our collective minds, and to help you all get your evil on, I’d like to present to you this, the first part of my Top 5 Most Interesting Gaming Villains of All Time; they may not always be the nastiest bad guys you’ve ever come across, but they’re definitely more than just the clichéd, caricatures you see in so many games (and movies, and books, and…).
Achtung! Who in gaming land can follow on from Adolf Hitler? To find out, we must head to the world of Faerun in the Forgotten Realms:
Jon Irenicus - Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn (PC)
The insane wizard lusting for the power of the Gods is hardly a new theme in fantasy; hell, it’s gotten so downright common that it’s a bit of a cliché really, almost as though there’s a little ad appearing in the fantasy classifieds saying: “Wanted: one unhinged but nonetheless highly intelligent evil wizard w/ grudge and/or burning desire for revenge. At least fifty years necromancy experience required; knowledge of Godly Pantheon and ability to freeze time/steal souls/summon demons is a bonus. For more information please contact every unoriginal fantasy author ever,”…well, you get the point.
Jon Irenicus (literally “Jon the Shattered One” in Elven or Elvish or Elvaliscious or whatever the language of Elves is called) is just such a maniacal, power-hungry Wizard who lusts for revenge and the power to become a God. Unlike many such clichéd characters, however, he rises above expectations and manages to be a character with a tragic past who is nonetheless purely evil and utterly unworthy of any sympathy; quite the heady mix really, especially when you take into account the fact that he is more than powerful enough to accomplish his goals of Godhood, all out war, and making people explode messily.
Baldur’s Gate 2 opens with the now rather infamous scene of Irenicus torturing the player character, supposedly for the purpose of unlocking his/her “inner potential”. After the inevitable escape (even a smart villain like Irenicus apparently refuses to believe that killing your enemies quickly is the way to go, preferring long speeches and poorly-made prison cells), the player is immediately introduced to the dichotomy of Jon’s character; on the one hand you’re in a dungeon, filled with evil creatures, evidence of torture, and gruesome experiments; on the other, Jon’s obsession with a former love also comes to the fore through his careful preservation of old memories and his attempts to recreate what was lost.
Similar events occur throughout the game; Jon kills without compunction or mercy, and starts wars for his own selfish gain, and yet displays a kind of love for his vampiric sister, and seemingly yearns for the past and the tragic love which led to his downfall. His plight would tug at the heart-strings, except of course for the fact that all the tragedies which befell him were entirely self inflicted; one doesn’t try to replace a God without having nasty motives by the truckload, not to mention stepping on a few toes along the way!
The pure malevolence directed toward the player character, his/her sister, and their companions is really what makes Irenicus such an enthralling villain; every step of the game sees him do something worse to the player; from murdering a former companion early on, to the kidnap and torture of your sister, to quite literally ripping the soul from your body and taking it as his own. Irenicus’ actions may be those of a sadist, but he never strays into the realm of “evil for evil’s sake”; Every single action this bad boy takes is leading towards the accomplishment of his goals: the destruction of the Elves and his ascension to the Elven Pantheon as a God…assumedly as the God of Megalomaniacal and Highly Convoluted Evil Plots.
It is this that makes Jon Irenicus such a superbly memorable and important gaming villain; he is a character to be pitied, but never sympathised with; he is never a farcical, chaotic “supervillain” in his evil, but is rather a methodical and callous genius with no remorse or sense of mercy for those he seeks to use, or who get in his way; he is powerful enough that ascension to Godhood is entirely possible if he is not stopped, and stopping him never feels particularly likely due to just how well he manages to stay ahead of the player in both his plotting and his sheer power.
In short, Jon Irenicus is a complex villain in the way that all villains should be: Scary, powerful, intelligent, and always lurking, waiting to strike; you never know when or where he will come at you, but it is always guaranteed that he will, and you’ll never walk away unscathed. The best villains are the ones which make you want nothing more than to end their existence, and the power-hungry Joneleth the Shattered One is certainly one of the best. Just don’t expect him to make it easy for you.
Jon Irenicus slaps Imoen and some Cowled Wizards around simply because he can
The third entry is done and dusted, as is Jon Irenicus thankfully (no supervillain comebacks here…hopefully, since rumour has it BG3 is on the way). Stay tuned for tomorrow when the next classic villain is revealed.
- Tim Sweeney
(Please note that all images and videos appearing in this article series are not my property, but were instead sourced from Google Images and Youtube for non-commercial purposes; if there is an issue with my making use of these, please contact me and they will be removed immediately)
Just a quicky then. Due to how large and confusing it was getting, the games page has been divided into three subpages: Reviews, Features, and Editorials.
This should hopefully make life a bit easier.
In other news, it looks like I may just have my first paid work published by the end of the month; can’t go into details, but things are looking up!
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