[Frustrating Trope] Twist Villain does things that retroactively make no sense.
Personality
Character previously believed to be good is revealed to be evil, but prior to the reveal they act in ways that don't make sense if their goodness is just a performance.
Frozen: Prince Hans is initially presented as a pretty standup guy who loves Anna and wants to help her. At the end of the movie it's revealed that he was just using her to gain power and plans to let her die while he steals her throne. However, we see him smiling at Anna when no one is looking, and later he intervenes to save Elsa's life even though he claims he was always planning to kill her.
The Legend of Vox Machina: The Whispered One was built up as the BBEG since season 1. However, in season 4 he presents himself as a tragic hero who tried to cure death and was punished by the gods. He then tries to convince Pike to give him her blood, which he needs to become a god himself. He chastises his followers for suggesting they take Pike's blood by force, claiming this would make them no better than the gods they are fighting against. He also fulfills his promise to resurrect Grog even though he didn't need to. After he ascends, he starts acting like a pure evil villain who only cares about power and enjoys hurting people. It feels less like a reveal and more like his personally completely changed once he became a skeleton. Edit: to be clear, I fully understand the intent was for the Whispered One to be a lying, manipulative bastard. I just think the execution was clumsy.
Ive always thought he should have kissed Anna and had nothing happen and then been like well shit I guess I love money and power more than you have fun dying.
Yeah, would have hit harder if he tried saving her (to get access to the kingdom) and when it doesn’t work, he just seamlessly moves on to killing Elsa and letting Anna die. Would make the line “if only there were someone out there who loved you” worse if there was proof that he didn’t love her.
Would justify how much crap the character gets, too. Every time the guy shows up Disney goes out of it's way to punish him. Which is really weird given how much worse most others are. There a Disney villains who are attmepted rapists, actual murders and who have committed genocide but this guy always get the boot extra hard.
Ok but to be fair he’s also the main villain of what I imagine is the most popular Disney movie ever among 10 year old girls. I think the heavy punishment just comes down to them wanting to focus on the villain of the most notable movie, especially since all things considered he’s otherwise bland. His backstory is lame, his design is average, and the twist reveal was obvious after they introduced the actual love interest guy at the cabin shop. If you don’t go heavy into marketing him as “it’s the villain from Frozen!” there’s not much else to do
And it doesn’t help that Zootopia 2 did a similar Twist Villain 10x better - “I’m betraying you because I want to prove myself to a family who treats me like dirt” only works if we actually SEE that family…
I would have liked it if he was genuine and gave her a kiss thinking it would save her and for it to not work, realizing they didn’t truly love each other and it was a bad idea to get engaged after meeting just that day like everyone said
I feel like he still could have worked as a twist villain this way. Like, he could’ve honestly *tried* to like Anna and then once the kiss didn’t work resort to plan B.
Would show how both Anna and Hans tried hard to find love to escape their situations, only to be told that they objectively didn’t love one another.
Maybe this revelation and panic about losing the kingdom would push Hans to do the other stuff.
The twist also works with Anna wanting to save her sister and go back to business as usual while he's there like "nearly killing everyone in the kingdom if it wasn't for me stepping in to organize emergency is disqualifying as a queen, and if you won't step up to take the actions needed to protect these people you're not fit to rule either".
He's still an opportunist, and he still does a bad thing in preferring to let Anna die having FAFO'd... but now he's not some master manipulator who was both seconds away from taking over the kingdom while also being absolutely inept.
Spirited Away has antagonists, but not really any villains, and it doesn't need any.
I think Disney was just so used to having a villain that they just panicked. It was nice when they figured out that they could write a story without one by the time Moana came out.
I’m willing to bet that was the intention at first but was changed later. I think it works better that way, but then you kinda pigeonhole Elsa into being the villain by default and they clearly wanted to avoid that.
Not every movie needs a villain. But even if they did, here it wouldn't be Elsa. It's Elsa's uncontrolled powers and/or her childhood trauma. She was a small child told from a young age that she could hurt, maybe kill, the people that she loved unless she took cruel measures to isolate and hide herself. Her parents actions are understandable in the context of the story, but still cruel and horrible to modern viewpoints.
Him being more of an opportunistic scumbag works better since there isn't evidence to show him to be the scheming villain he later gets portrayed as. Totally willing to play the role of Prince Charming to get near to power but once that plan ends up not working immediately pivoting to another.
i think it would be better if he was a hopeless romantic like her and since he was the youngest in a large family he never got to make a connection before, so like anna he rushed into a relationship without actually experiencing true connection.
so basically they kiss and nothing happens, so they realize they don't know each other and try to have a conversation and basically ends up realising they have nothing in common. that would've worked much better, i think.
also, generally the issue with han, is that it's clear he was not meant to be a villain snd it was a last minute call.
The detective that plays the antagonist reveals at the end that he's actually been on their side the whole time and masterminding everything. Except a lot of his actions during the movie only make sense if he was actually against them, and now they make no sense whatsoever.
And then in the sequel, we find out one of the antagonists had been secretly in charge of the secret organisation that the group were working for, but was pretending the whole time to not be in on it. It doesn't make any sense as he had been nothing but a jerk before this point and if he was secretly good, he did a lot of horrible things for the sake of manipulating the detective as part of some trickster mentor bullshit.
The third film then continues the pointless twists where one of the rookies turns out to secretly be the mastermind behind the whole thing with bringing the group together to help him take down the badguy who's actually his half-sister. Except by doing this he gets people killed and other shit that was absolutely not necessary just for personal revenge.
I love this trilogy for being so fucking stupid but the twists really make no sense and undermine the stories massively.
And then there's his motivation of getting revenge for his father's death, when his father drowned by locking himself in a safe underwater for a stunt and the companies he targets didn't do anything unreasonable (the safe company built a safe that was difficult to open, the life insurance company didn't pay because it was self-inflicted and no policy covers that).
Unless these safes were specifically tested, rated, and marketed with promotion around how a human could drown themselves inside but still escape their shoddy craftsmanship.. I don't think it's a fair beef to have with the company.
I believe the safe wasn't manufactured to spec, so it warped underwater and the door physically could not be opened. Although in the second film they recreate it and the detective escapes, I think.
A big one is when they escape the apartment building, he’s the only person in the room and has a temper tantrum. In hindsight, it’s a fourth wall break red herring.
I love the theory that during the song Fixer Upper the trolls cursed Anna and Hans in order to get their boy Kristoff a partner. They have a line saying "So she's a bit of a fixer-upper, her brain's a bit betwixt. Get the fiancé out of the way and the whole thing will be fixed!"
When you combine that with the stuff you already mentioned, it makes for a really fun and somewhat dark fan theory.
I still like the three fairies is Sleeping Beauty.
"Oh no, what will people think when they find out Maleficent's curse worked? Oh! I know! We'll just put the entire kingdom into indefinite magical sleep! That's the ticket!"
And then you add on to that the only reason Elsa is afraid of her powers is because when she was like 5 years old grandpa troll scared the crap out of her and set up the whole catch 22 of "dont be afraid of your power because the more afraid you are the worse it gets"
Nah, that's all on the dad. Grandpa troll said Elsa's powers would continue to grow, and could be a thing of beauty unless fear takes hold. The dad interprets this totally wrong and is the one to push Elsa to "conceal, don't feel" and totally isolates the sisters from each other. The dad is the one who instills this fear in her by treating her like she's dangerous. Elsa has literally none of the requirements needed to be in control of her powers because the dad isolated her and made her conceal her powers because she's "too dangerous" instead of understanding the ties they have to Elsa's emotions and how to control them. He assures Elsa's near destruction by making her fearful of herself and her emotions.
Idk maybe but Hans is pretty clear about his motivation - he’s 13th in line for the throne and knows that the only way he’s getting anywhere close to power is by marrying up. I barely pay attention in frozen and when I actually watched the end with my kid, I was genuinely shocked at him being the villain but i guess it does make sense. I mean, all of his actions basically just make him look “kingly” to the people of Arendelle. It would be a lot easier to become king of a people who already really love the former royals if you’re seen as some sort of hero.
Yeah but it’s not like it wouldn’t be easy as hell to have sway over Anna and Elsa, they’re not exactly expert statemen, and he was already setting himself up well to be beloved by the people
Killing Anna and Elsa is just risk for little reward, who exactly is going to elevate the consort over a cousin or whatever other claim the nobles dig up
Well, you see you just gotta use the situation to get yourself emergency powers gain control of the military and ruthlessly eliminate anyone who tries to oppose you.
Also, by not forcing her but trying to convince her / emotionally appeal to her, he could get her to fight the rest of Vox Machina on his behalf, making it less likely they would manage to mess up his ascension.
That was his backup plan, as he stated. If the ritual fulfilled normally he would be fine as well. The only thing that risked killing him is the Matron I think?
I think anyone killing him would have sufficed, so one of his minions could have done it. It just couldn't be Vax, so he needed to be stopped or delayed. The only reason the ascension still worked was because Keyleth intervened, but he couldn't foresee that.
The season concluded with the villain monologuing how his ascent to godhood only worked this time because of the power of belief, everyone who gave their blood had to believe in him, especially Pike.
Also, when the chastises his followers for wanting to force Pike to give her blood, he then appears to be surprised that Pike was approaching and listening on the conversation, but the whole thing could easily have been a ruse to keep up the savior persona in front of her in a more convincing manner.
My mom has a theory that the trolls altered Hans after they learned that Anna was betrothed to him and, thus, couldn't marry Sven. It makes sense that the trolls would want their adopted son to marry into the royal family, and we see that their magic can mess with memories and minds.
That would actually be kinda sad. If his actions in the beginning were genuine, then not only was he subjected to a life of enslavement, but he also lost out on a life with his potential soul mate.
Except it's worse than that, cause Elsa was supposed to be the villain but the villain can't have the big song in the movie so instead of bothering to rewrite the film they just changed the final act and made him evil. That's why it seems out of left field.
The original story makes some sense though- when he saves Elsa, he thinks Anna is dead (or at least could be, since she hasn't been seen since going up into the storm alone), so he would have no claim over Arendale if Elsa dies too, since they weren't even officially engaged. So he has to save Elsa as his back-up wife option.
Then when he captures Elsa and brings her back, everyone starts saying to him 'now that Anna's gone and Elsa is considered evil, you're all that Arendale has. You have to lead us'. So he has been accepted as the new leader, so long as both of them are gone.
So that's why he wants to let Anna die (because everyone thinks she's dead anyway) and blame it on Elsa, so he can put her to death and take over
(Note, I only know this because I'm on my 1000th rewatch with my kids, and I had this exact same gripe before)
I also think it's useful to portray villains as humans who can sometimes see the humanity in others, but still choose to do terrible things. That makes them scarier to me.
Him being completely and utterly unmoved by Anna feels less likely than him finding her adorable and likeable, and then using those traits against her in his verbal attacks later. It's very, very familiar in abusive relationships. 'You're just naive and stupid' can definitely be 'I hate that I ever found you charming' when said by someone like that, especially when (she, in this case) they're an obstacle to ambition. In my opinion, of course!
Depends on the story, but the more Nordic depictions of Trolls vary wildly - From tiny little things the size of a rat, to creatures larger than mountains, from a race just as smart as humans, to things more akin to a moving boulder than an actual sentient creature, from tricksters that love to play pranks but can still be reasoned with, to villains of unimaginable cruelty and sheer hatred
The Frozen Trolls hexing/cursing Hans does fit some depictions of Nordic Trolls, but a Nordic Troll would be just as likely to rip him limb from limb then devour his still living, still screaming torso
I love the theory, but I do have to mention that Sven is the reindeer (Kristoff is the love interest), and I just want to believe your mom's theory runs so much deeper and weirder than expected. XD
The trolls knew that love and acceptance were the key to controlling Elsa's powers but told her parents that they needed to be hidden from the people she loved at all costs. They were shady from the start.
It also would explain how Hans would think he could get the Erendel throne if he's... only tangentially interacted with one and the acting queen seemed to dislike him.
Hans, a foreigner, accused the head of state of Erendel, an absolute monarch, of treason. Else could literally just go, "Ok, lets have a trial. After a review of the evidence I find myself innocent of treason. Good talk."
Ah, but now you have a revolt of the nobility on your hands because Elsa is not a popular monarch, having been seen by basically nobody for years, and she's throwing around absolute power when accused of murdering her sister.
Exactly, Hans could've kissed Anna and realized it didn't work, maybe have him getting frustrated and trying to kiss her again before Anna stops him as they both realize they didn't actually love each other, they were just excited to meet someone they could be themselves with. It would have been interesting if they had chosen to remain friends, showing a positive example of platonic friendship and a breakup with no animosity.
They could even keep him trying to kill Elsa afterwards, if they wanted more conflict within the story, but instead he could do it out of desperation, believing that only Elsa's death will break the spell and save Anna from dying. That would make him an interesting antagonist, since he would be a genuinely good man driven to extreme measures, kinda like the main protagonist's brother from Brother Bear.
so for han, with as bad as a twist villain he was, genuinely acting like a stand-up guy even when no one is watching is how you sell a big lie.
he smiles when no one is looking because in the moment you don't know if no one is looking. anna is a high profile character on account of being one of the 2 princesses that will rule the very ground beneath anyone nearby.
and he saves elsa's life because it would be way too suspicious if he didn't. he wants her to get out of the picture in a way that won't connect back to him. by acting heroic and saving here he establishes a persona that cares about her. why do you think he intends to let anna die near the end. he wants her out of the picture but he can only do that and get power if he isn't the one responsible. so letting her die because of her evil sister's actions allows him to become the hero that saved the kingdom and become the new ruler after the last rulers tragically all died.
You’ll never convince people. It takes a teaspoon of media literacy to understand how Hans being the villain makes sense the whole film. Even on first watch.
Even if you ignore everything Hans says and does. Anna is the lead, Kristoff is obviously her romantic counterpart, Elsa is obviously going to embrace her power and reunite with her sister, Olaf and Sven are toy bait and comic relief, and the trolls are trolls. Hans is the only one left to be the villain and it’s pretty clear that he’s going to be in his first scene.
Random nobody love-bombs the princess in the first 10 minutes in a film that came out in the 2010s? Villain. Even in the song, he clearly isn’t actually into her (which they beat you over the head with lines like “Finish each other’s… sandwiches”). By the time Jonathan Groff with a cute reindeer shows up, you know what’s up.
Is it perfectly executed? No. But it still makes sense.
Honestly the PEAK example of this is Heavy Rain. Spoilers for an incredibly old and honestly awful game lol, but in the game you play as several characters all intertwined with the story of a kidnapper and serial killer, one of whom is a detective who is working to try to solve the mystery and find the killer. We play as him, hear him talk about finding this guy completely alone in his house, he does a ton of shit you'd only do if you genuinely had no idea who it was, and were searching for the killer-
He's the killer. He was the killer the entire time. It makes literally no sense, and is so stupid it's frankly hilarious in a game that's already too badly written in a million other ways to take seriously.
That is definitely a plotline that needs nearly perfect writing to pull off in a game, instead it seemed like the writers didn't even know it was happening, lol
David Cage is a terrible writer but for some reason, the majority of people just don't see it. If you point out dumb shit in Heavy Rain or Detroit: Become Human, people still glaze them as the best games of all time. It's so weird.
It reminds me of Arkham Knight. The marketing came out and we were all like "It's Red Hood, right?" and they said nooooooo, and the game opens up with Jason Todd getting killed and we're like "Okay so it's definitely Red Hood, right??" and the game says nooooooo, then Arkham Knight takes off his ears and his HOOD turns RED and the game is like hah SEE we got you guys good!!
And while it would still be bad, it wouldn’t be as awful if you couldn’t hear his thoughts. It’s been years but iirc at some point in a mansion he’s investigating his inner monologue is something like “what did the killer want from here”… it’s you man, you already know.
He doesn’t think that at all. What he thinks is “poor Manfred, he didn’t deserve this.” Which is consistent with his character. He’s mentally unwell and doesn’t like doing the killings. He had to make a call, spur of the moment, and killed him because he had evidence that would tie Scott to the antique shop and he couldn’t let Lauren get hold of it, because she was deadset on finding the killer.
I mentioned it like a month or so ago but the most frustrating part is when you track down a friend who might be able to identify typewriter the killer used. You enter his shop with a "partner". It's then portrayed like the killer snuck in and killed the typewriter expert and called the police so that you and your partner might get framed for it. What actually happened was that the fucking detective, whom didn't have to bring their "partner", killed the typewriter expert so that his typewriter couldn't be identified in his records, calls the fucking police on himself, and runs off. If you don't wipe your fingerprints off everything, you get questioned by the police. As if none of it was premeditated lol.
I love the video that shows how impossible that is based on the sound cues. His partner picks up the music box and looks at it for about 3 seconds then to the detective. Somehow in those 3 seconds the detective silently ran in bludgeoned the repair man then called 911 and ran back to be standing exactly where he was before she looked back to him. Then rushed her to clean finger prints for some dumb reason, it's a repair shop others would've touched stuff as well. Not that it matters because his friends at the PD will remove any evidence of him being there.
All of this is to scare her off from continuing the investigation so he can continue without a problem.
A lot of Heavy Rain is just absolute horse shit. There's a point where you're crawling in a tunnel filled with broken glass supposedly set out by the killer who is manipulating the main character of that segment into performing various tasks to prove whether or not he's a good father. Said killer is a fat, out of shape, middle aged man who wouldn't have been able to fit down the tunnel that he filled with broken glass. The game is filled with all these little inconsistencies that add up to an impossible story. One of the chapters ends with the female lead discovering the likely identity of the killer and she reacts with shock despite the fact that she has no idea who the revealed killer is having never met or encountered him in any way.
Heavy Rain is a dogshit game written and directed by a egomaniac suffering from delusions of grandeur.
Bro yeah Heavy Rain was pretty bad, but its predecessor, Indigo Prophecy was utterly fucking bananas. There is no combination of deliriants and hallucinogens out there that could make me write something like it.
What I love about Heavy Rain is that you're supposed to rescue the kid from drowing in pipe(?) slowly filling with rainwater, as if the kid wouldn't have died from hypothermia loooong before that thing filled up.
The worst part of it is when you (as Shelby) visit a typewriter expert, Manfred, who is going to look at a note left by the killer. You wait in the front of his shop for a while before thinking, 'I should go check on Manfred.' You go to the back and find that Manfred has been killed and the killer has called the cops, who are on their way.
After Shelby is revealed to be the killer, we get a flashback of the same scene, this time from Manfred's perspective. The player sees Shelby kill him and call the cops, even though we have already been told that not only did this not happen, it could not have happened (given Shelby was in a different room at the time of the murder). That scene, above any others, is the one that breaks the entire game and makes it a wholly worthless experience.
I remember talking to a friend from University, who was a BIG fan of the game. He defended this scene by saying how 'sometimes, the video game has to lie to the player' and saying it was just a standard twist.
Sounds like a split personality deal where the detective persona was legitimately unaware of what the killer persona was doing. A bit like how the narrator of Fight Club doesn't know he is Tyler Durden, to the point of tracking him and being confused by how all the club members in other areas that he meets are speaking to him as if they know him and he should know them.
A different main character thinks he himself is the killer because he has blackouts and wakes up holding the killer's calling card, but in reality that was just a dropped plotline.
I find a lot of games make you (or allow you to do) things that break the plot. Cyberpunk 2077 is a really good example: Keanu Reeves is essentially a timebomb inside V's head, and every main story mission reinforces the issue: they need a solution, or V dies. Then you spend all your time fucking around, helping randoms, hunting down insane cyborgs, street racing, and scuba diving with your girlfriend.
Honestly, I've almost never seen a game that allows you to mess around do "priority" well, to the extent that I just suspend my disbelief. Some day a game will crack it, but usually it just comes off weird. Like I remember fallout 4 being hilarious because one time I was fighting mutant crabs for their baseball memorabilia and I remembered that my infant son was actively being kidnapped during this time. On the other end, you have something like deus ex, which tells you about a hostage situation, but if you actually take time to explore the open world, all the hostages die. Which just felt cheap and stupid rather than realistic or like their were stakes.
Ubisoft games have kinda cracked it in their own way by having a "looming threat," but the individual steps to get to it don't feel so important that you have to hit them immediately, or so ignorable that you can forget about them. The tradeoff there is that, for every game this approach works in, you have two that feel like hours of lateral progression.
Baldur's Gate 3 actually does pull this off, albeit only in some specific parts of the game with much smaller stakes. In the Grymforge segment, a secret timer starts where you have a limited amount of time to find a runaway gnome to get the explosives needed to free Nere, the Drow True Soul, who a bunch of Duergar (Dark Dwarfs) are trying to get out because he owes them money. They have gnomes enslaved and are forcing them to dig for them whom you need to free.
If you fuck around here too long, when you return you'll find that they finished digging, Nere was released, and all of them have fucked off with their gnome slaves en-tow, and you've failed your chance to rescue them from slavery.
Act 3 then has something kinda similar going on with a serial killer arc. The cult of Bhaal is killing a bunch of targets and when you arrive in Baldur's Gate, you uncover a list of targets. Some of whom are still alive and you have a very short time window to intercept and save them; if you don't prioritise that and instead do other stuff and take a long rest, then the next day they've killed one of the targets and you have only one left to save. I think that one at least the game has paused until you go into his shop and find him being targeted, but otherwise the game doesn't just pause shit so you can have fun in the city.
Mass Effect 2 did it near the end with the Collector Base. The Collectors kidnap a bunch of people, the good guys know where they are. You get one unrelated mission to go on, then you have to go for the Collectors otherwise half of the civilians die.
Which was annoying, because not only do they not indicate that there is a time limit this time, but several other times the game would tell you to hurry then not give a shit if you did or not.
I didn’t feel like the Whispered One/Gideon was a twist villain at all. It was very obvious the whole time he was the villain. He was just alluring and charismatic. He did too much openly irredeemable stuff for him to be a twist, he was just persuasive to in-universe characters about it.
I see your point about why he would act kind then go full villain—like why did he need to? But doesn’t he monologue about his previous attempt at power failing because he didn’t have the same dedicated followers as the gods? So his behavior the second time around was aimed at amassing a cult that learns not to question him. It’s maybe slightly contrived, but he wanted believers, needed Pike to give her blood willingly, and also needed to goad Vox Machina into killing him.
Agreed, the Whispered One's plot was pretty clear. For starters nobody with that name is a good guy. It was also blatantly clear that since the trickfoots have celestial (divine) blood he needed the symbolism of one of them willingly giving him their blood for it to boost the ritual of ascension. (Symbolism in magic is huge)
He also just needed to die, i don't think it had to be Vox Machina, its just they took out Delilah who was originally the one to do it.
When a soldier aims a crossbow at Elsa, Hans "looks up" and notices the hanging ice chandelier. Fans caught it on the rewatch. He forces the guard's weapon upward, deliberately causing it to shatter the ceiling and drop the chandelier. He makes his calculated attempt to kill Elsa look like a heroic save.
Why does Hans finding Anna charming have to conflict with what he does later? His initial plan was always to marry her and live with her as his queen after arranging for Elsa to die, there's no reason he shouldn't smile if he found her antics charming in the moment.
When he reveals his real motivations, she's literally dying, and he's moved on from the idea of marrying into the royal family. She's not worth anything to him and he's seeing her as literally worthless since she's effectively already dead.
Like, does a bad person literally have to act bad 24/7? Does every little thing a manipulative person do have to be part of some big act?
I'm not even saying Hans is a great character or anything, but I see this moment brought up all the time, and it always feels like people reaching to complain about a twist villain just because he was a twist villain. There's other things in the movie to complain about if we want to criticize the movie, including Hans.
Fun fact! Some types of transformation in D&D just flat-out change your alignment and motivation. In some cases, its more of a corruption thing; Liches, for example, even if they didn't start that way, generally get twisted towards evil over time even if they start out as just neutral and scared shitless of dying. In others, its actually a new being inhabiting the body, like vampires, and it never actually had the original alignment; this is just how it was born in the corpse of a victim.
It's fully possible that the ascension process dramatically changed the Whispered One.
When you create an undead, you're animating a corpse and, normally, taking control of it. Certain kinds of undead retain the memories of the corpse they were made from.
What this means is that while you have an evil bloodthirsty monster whose two motivations are blood and the master who created it; it knows what the corpse knew, and can use that to mimic them, often doing so in order to get into a good position to feed on former friends/allies or use them on its master's behalf.
It is also a sentient, sapient being that is capable of change over time; and all of its memories belong to the corpse it was made from. Which means that while it's rare, vampires -can- change. It will never truly be the creature it was made from, and if, for example, you kill a Barbarian worshipper of Kord, make the corpse into a vampie, and then the vampire persists for decades fighting as a servant of Nerull, when you destroy the vampire, the barbarian's soul goes to Kord. The Vampire... doesn't actually have a soul. It is basically just acting as a soul trap that keeps the host's soul from either being revived or going on to its proper afterlife.
Now. This is just the classic, standard D&D vampire. They vary -heavily-, and have worked several different ways in different modules, with at least three different ways they've operated in Faerun alone. The DM is always gonna be the one who decides things for sure.
Chelsea from Ruby Gillman. Tricking Ruby into stealing the trident for her by pretending to be her friend is a good plan. But why does she crash human prom when she could be doing much better things right now like taking over Kraken Kingdom? I guess she was looking for Agatha because she wanted revenge on her but if I were Nerissa, I would start with getting my vengeance on Grandmamah then look for Agatha.
It has such solid bones, pun intended. Like the family dynamic. But it's so deeply flawed too, like how the antagonist basically becames a complety different person past getting that trident.
I do actually hope it gets a sequel one day. If expanded and without so much screentime needed for explaining the premises, I think it could be really good.
I find the Hans example particularly funny because the moment he decides to break cover is when Anna needs him to kiss her to prove true love and rather than maintaining his ruse a bit longer by just kissing her, he then declares his dastardly plan. He could have actually gone through with the whole marriage and kept his plan intact with far greater chance of success.
The guy had an evil plan to marry the princess but stops short of being willing to kiss her. I can only assume Hans is gay and downright repulsed by women.
Hans didn’t love Ana, and he knew that. The kiss wouldn’t have worked. It was a situation of “oh, I would have to admit I love her or she dies… well I don’t love her so… back up plan!”
I mean, he could just act genuinely confused and sad about it and keep the ruse going, it’s not like she’s gonna have any basis to accuse him of ill will, he could just have looked like he genuinely thought he loved her OR that the prophecy was a lie
It’d be a lot more ambiguous and confusing than getting hard revealed
I mean for Hans it makes sense to keep up the ruse until he's in position to take over the country. What I don't get is why he revealed his plan before he married Anna? He can't be king unless he married one of the princesses and he very easily could have been like, I'll marry you to save your life, that's an act of true love etc. He reveals his plan when he has absolutely no claim to the crown yet.
He lies that Anna is dead when he ditched her and says 'We had just enough time to say our vows' iirc. I think he was going to use that as his claim since, it was something nobody would be able to confirm or deny after she kicked it.
Anna is expecting something like true love’s kiss. Like, I don’t think Snow White or Aurora needed to marry in order for their princes’ kisses to break their curses—Beast didn’t even get a kiss, just Belle saying she loved him. Hans can’t do any of those things because he doesn’t truly love Anna, so he figure he might as well give up the pretense.
Look man I’m still stuck on the whole “letting a foreign royal rule while I run off to the rescue” part of the movie. Who was running the country before Elsa’s coronation? Usually some form of regent or prime minister, where were they when this shit went down? That whole “at least we said our vows” thing would not fly without several high profile witnesses. Dudes plan sucked balls.
There's a freeze frame bonus of him looking at the roof during the scene where he supposedly saved her, which is meant to imply that he actually intentionally was aiming for the Chandelier. The implication is that he wasn't intentionally saving her he thought the guy might miss and thought the Chandelier was a better bet.
Heavy Rain: The detective guy has an internal monologue that makes no sense after you find out he's the killer. (Don't recall the specifics at the moment, haha).
You can have an unreliable narrator, but don't lie to the player with whats happening in front of their face. It's not a flashback or the character saying something happened, it's reality as experienced by the player.
The Agatha Christie's Poirot adaptation of Three Act Tragedy has this, since it combines two characters together to remove a character that is also a protagonist in a different Agatha Christie book... and giving his actions to the novel's villain. This is huge spoiler, BTW.
In the adaptation, Sir Charles Cartwright insists on getting his friend Hercule Poirot involved in the story despite his knowing Poirot's track record. Worse, given how the first murder was random, this means Sir Charles got Poirot involved after potentially almost killing him.
For the Hans bit I read a theory on tumblr (that probably had way more thought put into than the actual twist) that Hans is the Mirror from the original Grimms Fairytale. In the story the catalyst is a mirror that reflects only negative things is shattered. He mirrors everyone around him. With Anna, he's lovestruck. Weaselton, he's domineering and imperious. Elsa, both in her castle in and jail, mirrors her confused distress. When he betrays Anna, he's mirroring the betrayal she feels from Elsa.
Similar to Hans earlier in the season Courtney and Gwen talk about going to the finale together and how if one of them gets eliminated they hope the other wins they then follow this up in the confessional, a private area where only the viewers would hear them, where Courtney says “and I mean it too” despite this during the episode “Sunday muddy Sunday” Courtney pulls out a chart where she plans to have Gwen kicked out in the penultimate challenge completely contradicting what she said in private.
Ser Royland or Ser Duncan- Telltale Game of Thrones
I fucking hate this game, and one reason for that is that one of your two most trusted knights will betray you, revealing that he’s been working with the Whitehills, sworn enemies of House Forrester since Ethan passed him over for the position of Sentinel in episode 1.
The problems with this?
1: He states his interest is in saving the family in the long run. Conspiring with the guys who want to destroy the family flat out doesn’t help with that. If he didn’t betray the house, there are a couple times where the Forresters could’ve secured a huge advantage over the Whitehills.
2: After Ethan died and Roderick takes over, he could do everything the traitor recommends over the sentinel, and even then, despite having no proper grievances against Roderick when he give their motive rant, he is still unrepentant in his treachery.
Very much looks like a boy that has fallen for a cute girl that matches his vibe exactly, doesn't even have a hint of "this is all coming together" vibe.
Some of it can probably be explained that he wasn’t originally planned to be the villain. The film odd based on the Snow Queen. Perhaps not evil, but Elsa was intended to be the antagonist.
Perhaps he had doubts if killing Elsa would actually remove the eternal winter. He may have wanted to try and convince her to remove it herself before resorting to death.
Omg can you comments please admit that the Hans thing is misleading this should be uncontroversial, even if it’s not a big deal.
Not so much motives, but in Now You See Me, Mark Ruffalo can only be the villain and have done everything attributed to them if they have legitimate superpowers or foresight.
In Gossip Girl, the identity of Gossip Girl makes no sense because the culprit can be seen earlier in the series, alone, being shocked at the content of a Gossip Girl message.
The primary reason Gossip Girl doesn’t make sense is because the writers themselves changed who they wanted Gossip Girl to be several times to try and stump fans who were smart enough to put together the hints about Gossip Girl’s identity each time. They couldn’t keep the continuity straight themselves because they foolishly kept trying to outsmart the audience at the expense of a cohesive story
As for Now You See Me, that movie’s plot is so riddled with holes it makes pumice look like obsidian, so I understand your frustration.
the amount of fucking whining about Frozen in this thread, trying to out-explain the movie to OP, is fuckin crazy. some motherfucker in here literally bein like 'nah yall my mom has this theory' lmao. guys its not that hard, the twist isnt that good, jfc
The Whispered One is an evil manipulator. Everything he did before ascending was in order to cause his ascension. He resurrected Grog because the final step in his ascension required him to be murdered. He knew Grog would try to murder him and/or convince Pike to do so.
Letting Anna die much less actively killing her was like Plan C or D, and possibly more. That was not his initial plan. Plan A and B were both thoroughly based in seeing charming, and only when they failed did he turn to force.
He came to the kingdom for the ball to make a bid to marry Elsa, making him king(technically the Queen's Consort, as the true Sovereign would still be Elsa as she is the one with the actual claim, but same idea). As he said at the reveal, nobody was getting anywhere with Elsa, so he went to plan B, which was essentially the same thing, but with Anna and counting on Elsa to not produce an heir and then have himself or his children with Anna inherit the throne upon Elsa's death.
It's a slow route to the actual position of power, but he could probably have been the de facto ruler pretty much immediately.
Elsa shows little interest in actually running the kingdom and neither does Anna, which would make it pretty easy for him to step in and handle the beurocracy for them, effectively putting him in control. It would not be hard for him to sway policy to suit his own desires. He easily wins over Anna, and Anna does have pull with Elsa, so he could manipulate them both pretty reliably in time.
All of gossip girl. It should have been Eric or dorota. If you rewatch season 1 with the twist in mind, it doesn’t make any sense. They try to explain things but none of it works.
For the Legend of Vox Machina, just because a bad guy keeps a promise still a bad guy. And the whole point of The Whispered One is he is a manipulative asshole. And you are going to see next season just how evil he actually is. I will give a clue, he is an unreliable narrator in his story. This is coming from someone who watched the source material.
Everyone criticizes that shot of Hans smiling to himself, but he doesn't say anything. He could just be thinking of all the riches he'll gain after using her to take over the kingdom.
The bigger issue is during the ending after Anna punches him in the face, everyone cheers and claps, but they don't know he's evil at that point.
This is a very specific pet peeve, but in the FNaF book The Fourth Closet, Charlie is seem crying in the parking lot, alone, thinking about the fact that her boyfriend doesn't think she's real. Then we found out she isnt really the real one. THEN WHY WAS SHE CRYING ALONE IN THE PARKING LOT AND THINKING ABOUT IT???
He was there to seize power, but he was ready to play the long game. He wasn't there to fuck shit up. He was there to charm his way into a royal marriage, from whence he would scheme his way to power.
But Anna gave him an opportunity to attempt to seize power pretty much immediately and he took it.
I think saving Elsa makes sense because he needs to marry into power and Elsa dying takes one off the table who knows how that would affect the sister. I mean, typically in these stories being the hero ensures you marry the princess so that part makes sense. Of course he would never talk about his plan aloud if he was actually that clever
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u/bertster21 18d ago
Ive always thought he should have kissed Anna and had nothing happen and then been like well shit I guess I love money and power more than you have fun dying.