WE ARE DOWN TO THE 3 FINAL VILLAINS. VOTE FOR ONE OF THEM AND LETS SEE WHO WINS. YOU ONLY HAVE 1 VOTE.
THE FIGHT
Johan Liebert from Monster
VS
Joker from Dark Knight
Shhh, take a moment, relax, close your eyes, and imagine the Joker's portrayal you've seen in ANY and EVERY form of Batman (or Batman-related) media. Now I want you to focus specifically on the DC movie verse and name the first Joker and actor that comes to mind. You have Jack Nicholson (foh old man), Jared Leto (sure, if you want a dollar store version of the clown prince of crime), Joaquin Phoenix (yup, he delivered an award-winning performance that showcased Joker's humanity), or Heath Ledger (arguably the greatest Joker and the portrayal of one of the greatest villains of all time). The Joker is the perfect juxtaposition of Batman and, in essence, two sides of the same fucked up coin. Tragic backstory ✅, questionable sense of justice ✅, driven to insanity (albeit two different variations) ✅. Oh, what's so good about the Joker is he doesn't give a single shit about getting himself hurt or killed, and if Batman kills the Joker, guess who wins? The Joker, especially Ledger's, shows that inside, everyone is a bit of a monster, but hey, at the end of the day...why so serious?
VS
Azula from Avatar
YOU HAVE 1 VOTE AND 2 DAYS TO DECIDE.
THE FIGHT
Johan Liebert from Monster
Johan Liebert is the titular monster of the series. He is the main antagonist of the entire manga.
At first glance, one would describe Johan as a well-mannered, charismatic, and compassionate yet somewhat reserved young man who possesses a plethora of favourable traits and can easily overwhelm individuals with his seemingly flawless nature, as seen with Hans, who describes him as being not of this world. This meticulously crafted facade makes it easy for him to make new allies and manipulate them into doing various deeds for him through the influence of his supposed friendship and good will. With such skill in creating this sense of perfection and pureness, Johan hides his true motives with ease.
Within this contrived exterior, however, Johan callously delivers destruction and suffering to those who happen to fall prey to his schemes. Even before his tenure at Kinderheim 511, Johan still exhibits psychopathic tendencies. For instance, most of his murders, both in childhood and adulthood, have been premeditated and calculated.
Johan often shows a complete disregard for life by pointing to his forehead, inviting Dr. Kenzo Tenma to shoot him.
Many of Johan's beliefs run consistent with nihilism, as he does not see any meaning to life. He claims, "Most of this universe is 'death' anyway," and that to the universe, "most lives are just specks in a corner of the earth, gone in a flash.
Johan also has a tendency to make his victims experience the worst possible loss and suffering rather than actually killing them himself; this experience often leads to the victims killing themselves, however. Helmut Wolf is a prime example of this; instead of simply being killed, Wolf is forced to watch as all of his close relatives and acquaintances die, one after another, all so he can feel what Johan felt, solitude.
What is so frightening about Johan is that he possesses this terrifying ability to turn people into monsters using just his words. For instance, he could turn them into serial killers without even lifting a finger. The usage of his manipulative tactics exposes the true nature of humans and using this, he corrupts their souls. In a way, he exposes humanity in its worst image, portraying them as nothing but psychotic killers. Furthermore, these tactics were displayed from an early age, where he was the cause of a tragic massacre at his orphanage, 511 Kinderheim. On that occasion he used stories in order to convince the children that were there with him to murder the staff and then murder each other whilst he was sitting on his throne and observing all of it. During the massacre in Kinderheim 511 fifty children and instructors were in a chaotic battle, all of them fighting and killing. Whilst all of this is happening, Johan just sits on a throne and watches as the chaos unfolds and the whole orphanage becomes engulfed in flames .
He is a genius-level mastermind with the goal of being the only one standing, although that changes later in the series.
Johan uses his wits to commit his evil with no help from supernatural elements at all. Just with his manipulative tactics, intelligence and the knowledge of how the human mind can be corrupted. Then he executes his plan, creating monsters out of nothing except carefully chosen words. That's what makes him genuinely horrifying. The scary thing about the way this character is portrayed is that a person like this could actually exist in real life, there could be someone out there like Johan in this world. The realism this character expresses throughout the anime really makes you think about the possibility that there could be a person like this out there, which is what makes him that much scarier.
Johan's experiences as a child could make one wonder if Johan is truly THE monster or was he shaped that way by the people around him. In order not to spoil much, I will briefly go through them. Johan was experimented upon and was being raised as the new Hitler by the government. . Kinderheim 511, where Johan was sent, was a horrid place where children were treated like criminals and experimented on in an attempt by the government to create perfect soldiers. Johan's mentors had always nurtured Johan's skill for manipulating others with no conscience. However, when confronted, they claimed that Johan was already a "monster" when he first came to the orphanage.
At first glance, one would describe Johan as a well-mannered, charismatic, and compassionate yet somewhat reserved young man who possesses a plethora of favourable traits and can easily overwhelm individuals with his seemingly flawless nature, as seen with Hans, who describes him as being not of this world. This meticulously crafted facade makes it easy for him to make new allies and manipulate them into doing various deeds for him through the influence of his supposed friendship and good will. With such skill in creating this sense of perfection and pureness, Johan hides his true motives with ease.
Within this contrived exterior, however, Johan callously delivers destruction and suffering to those who happen to fall prey to his schemes. Even before his tenure at Kinderheim 511, Johan still exhibits psychopathic tendencies. For instance, most of his murders, both in childhood and adulthood, have been premeditated and calculated.
Johan often shows a complete disregard for life by pointing to his forehead, inviting Dr. Kenzo Tenma to shoot him.
Many of Johan's beliefs run consistent with nihilism, as he does not see any meaning to life. He claims, "Most of this universe is 'death' anyway," and that to the universe, "most lives are just specks in a corner of the earth, gone in a flash.
Johan also has a tendency to make his victims experience the worst possible loss and suffering rather than actually killing them himself; this experience often leads to the victims killing themselves, however. Helmut Wolf is a prime example of this; instead of simply being killed, Wolf is forced to watch as all of his close relatives and acquaintances die, one after another, all so he can feel what Johan felt, solitude.
What is so frightening about Johan is that he possesses this terrifying ability to turn people into monsters using just his words. For instance, he could turn them into serial killers without even lifting a finger. The usage of his manipulative tactics exposes the true nature of humans and using this, he corrupts their souls. In a way, he exposes humanity in its worst image, portraying them as nothing but psychotic killers. Furthermore, these tactics were displayed from an early age, where he was the cause of a tragic massacre at his orphanage, 511 Kinderheim. On that occasion he used stories in order to convince the children that were there with him to murder the staff and then murder each other whilst he was sitting on his throne and observing all of it. During the massacre in Kinderheim 511 fifty children and instructors were in a chaotic battle, all of them fighting and killing. Whilst all of this is happening, Johan just sits on a throne and watches as the chaos unfolds and the whole orphanage becomes engulfed in flames .
He is a genius-level mastermind with the goal of being the only one standing, although that changes later in the series.
Johan uses his wits to commit his evil with no help from supernatural elements at all. Just with his manipulative tactics, intelligence and the knowledge of how the human mind can be corrupted. Then he executes his plan, creating monsters out of nothing except carefully chosen words. That's what makes him genuinely horrifying. The scary thing about the way this character is portrayed is that a person like this could actually exist in real life, there could be someone out there like Johan in this world. The realism this character expresses throughout the anime really makes you think about the possibility that there could be a person like this out there, which is what makes him that much scarier.
Johan's experiences as a child could make one wonder if Johan is truly THE monster or was he shaped that way by the people around him. In order not to spoil much, I will briefly go through them. Johan was experimented upon and was being raised as the new Hitler by the government. . Kinderheim 511, where Johan was sent, was a horrid place where children were treated like criminals and experimented on in an attempt by the government to create perfect soldiers. Johan's mentors had always nurtured Johan's skill for manipulating others with no conscience. However, when confronted, they claimed that Johan was already a "monster" when he first came to the orphanage.
VS
Joker from Dark Knight
VS
Azula from Avatar
Character
: Azula
From: Avatar The Last Airbender (Animated Series that primered on Nickleodeon in the late 2000s to early 2010s/ Lowkey could pass as an anime tbh...has all the markers of one just without some of the tropes common with anime coming out of Japan.)
A Very Brief Synopsis on Who Azula was:
Azula was the princess of the Fire Nation who served as the primary antagonistic force in the Series. She was the daughter of the Fire Nation’s leader; Ozai and was the younger sister of the Prince Zuko who later defected. Her personality in brief words: sadistic, manipulative, strategic, cunning, ruthless and ambitious. Throw all of that in a blender and you got the most enjoyable villian of the series by a mile. Azula’s personality dominated the screen whenever she was present and practically carried the antagonistic side against the main cast. While these characteristics are the markings of a cold, caculated perfectionist...she was instead forced to put that up as a mask to harbor her biggest instability: fear of rejection. You see Azula’s upbringing as a child basically made her turn into what she eventually became and in her eventual fall that instability is brought up to the surface. Put in order to understand this, I would have to talk about her upbringing briefly and how both her parents shaped her personality.
As previously said Azula was born into royalty. She had a mother called Ursa who was compassionate and caring. Her father was the complete opposite, cruel, and looking to conquer the rest of the world whether they liked it or not and he shot down anyone who opposed. Because of this he basically saw Zuko and Azula as essentially war tools to be taken advantage of to use for his end goal. They were both born firebenders like him so his expectations were naturally very high for them to play a big role in this world takeover he had planned. From the get go it was established in the flashback that Zuko was closer to his mother and subsequently Azula was closer to her father. This was the result of Ozai favoring Azula over Zuko because of the vast difference in talent and power when it came to firebending. As a result Zuko was practically neglected by Ozai for most of his childhood so Ursa always cared for him more. Azula became jealous of this and because she was already so close to her father, some of his negative traits rubbed off on her even as a child. She viewed Ozai as the only person who acknowledged her and her mother Ursa scolded many times for being unnecessarily cruel. Perhaps the best example was when Iroh(Ozai’s brother who was the Fire Nation ruler at the time) found himself in a potentially deadly situation in battle. Zuko and Ursa reacted how any of us would, Azula on the otherhand was already elated about how he would be replaced by her father. This was the ambitious nature of Azula just a child.
In short the reason why she became such a sadistic and cruel person was because of the expectations set of being a perfect child to her father; who was just as cruel and longed for world domination. Zuko couldn’t meet these overbearing expectations, he was neglected and Ursa cared for him more. Her perception of Ursa and what she thought she lacked; her mother’s love is when Azula’s instability is born. Azula always thought her mother feared her and took that as rejection. As a result Azula basically tries to discard part of what makes us human; empathy and used fear to manipulate others for personal gain. This fires back at her and contributes towards her eventual fall when her closest friends leave her.
What’s really amazing to me about this is that even though Azula only respected her father and wanted to meet his favor, when it became evident that she was only a means to an end she basically unraveled. It really shows that even an almost perfect prodigy like Azula still was a human deep down and had actual insecurties/vulnerabilities.
This couldn’t be more evident in this scene:
I could go on but I feel like this is enough lol, Azula has a deep psychological make up...so deep you find numerous articles and videos on Youtube doing rounds on and from different angles. To me what makes her a damn good villian was how well written her story was and she wasn’t just a cold and calculative perfectionist just because the plot called for it, not even close. It was the result of her complicated upbringing and her father’s cut throat expectations that turned her into a monster but when she realized that she basically traded in her empathy for it was too late. So basically in conclusion what I like about Azula is that despite the fact that she had these quality characertistics that made her an awesome and enjoyable villian had behind it she had a complicated past and a lost touch of what makes part of one human. The writers portrayed and executed this in excellent fashion througout the series and anyone who hasn’t seen ATLA would just have to watch it to see what I’m talking about.
Briefly going through the remaining category;
Achievements: As you may already have picked up...she was a prodigy in firebending and vastly better than her brother Zuko. As Ozai put it; Azula was “born lucky” and Zuko was “lucky that he was born”. While that was harsh af lmao you couldn’t really argue Zuko was close to Azula in terms of sheer talent. She was one of few who also achieved mastery of lightning bending, a technique that was only acessible with the complete mastery of firebending. She naturally had many feats in the show, almost killed the MC (Aang) at one point and outclassed Zuko many times. Perhaps my favorite scene that emphasized the raw difference between the two was in this fight;
Tho admittedly very early in the series, you can see how she doesn’t even bother to use firebending and trash talks Zuko (to throw him off his game, that’s her strategic and manipulative nature on full display right there) throughout the entire way, only until he’s pretty much down for the count is when she goes for the knockout using lightning bending.
And I guess I can stop here lol. Could definitely say and show more but hopefully this ain’t too long. A few sentences just wouldn’t do this character justice.
From: Avatar The Last Airbender (Animated Series that primered on Nickleodeon in the late 2000s to early 2010s/ Lowkey could pass as an anime tbh...has all the markers of one just without some of the tropes common with anime coming out of Japan.)
A Very Brief Synopsis on Who Azula was:
Azula was the princess of the Fire Nation who served as the primary antagonistic force in the Series. She was the daughter of the Fire Nation’s leader; Ozai and was the younger sister of the Prince Zuko who later defected. Her personality in brief words: sadistic, manipulative, strategic, cunning, ruthless and ambitious. Throw all of that in a blender and you got the most enjoyable villian of the series by a mile. Azula’s personality dominated the screen whenever she was present and practically carried the antagonistic side against the main cast. While these characteristics are the markings of a cold, caculated perfectionist...she was instead forced to put that up as a mask to harbor her biggest instability: fear of rejection. You see Azula’s upbringing as a child basically made her turn into what she eventually became and in her eventual fall that instability is brought up to the surface. Put in order to understand this, I would have to talk about her upbringing briefly and how both her parents shaped her personality.
As previously said Azula was born into royalty. She had a mother called Ursa who was compassionate and caring. Her father was the complete opposite, cruel, and looking to conquer the rest of the world whether they liked it or not and he shot down anyone who opposed. Because of this he basically saw Zuko and Azula as essentially war tools to be taken advantage of to use for his end goal. They were both born firebenders like him so his expectations were naturally very high for them to play a big role in this world takeover he had planned. From the get go it was established in the flashback that Zuko was closer to his mother and subsequently Azula was closer to her father. This was the result of Ozai favoring Azula over Zuko because of the vast difference in talent and power when it came to firebending. As a result Zuko was practically neglected by Ozai for most of his childhood so Ursa always cared for him more. Azula became jealous of this and because she was already so close to her father, some of his negative traits rubbed off on her even as a child. She viewed Ozai as the only person who acknowledged her and her mother Ursa scolded many times for being unnecessarily cruel. Perhaps the best example was when Iroh(Ozai’s brother who was the Fire Nation ruler at the time) found himself in a potentially deadly situation in battle. Zuko and Ursa reacted how any of us would, Azula on the otherhand was already elated about how he would be replaced by her father. This was the ambitious nature of Azula just a child.
In short the reason why she became such a sadistic and cruel person was because of the expectations set of being a perfect child to her father; who was just as cruel and longed for world domination. Zuko couldn’t meet these overbearing expectations, he was neglected and Ursa cared for him more. Her perception of Ursa and what she thought she lacked; her mother’s love is when Azula’s instability is born. Azula always thought her mother feared her and took that as rejection. As a result Azula basically tries to discard part of what makes us human; empathy and used fear to manipulate others for personal gain. This fires back at her and contributes towards her eventual fall when her closest friends leave her.
What’s really amazing to me about this is that even though Azula only respected her father and wanted to meet his favor, when it became evident that she was only a means to an end she basically unraveled. It really shows that even an almost perfect prodigy like Azula still was a human deep down and had actual insecurties/vulnerabilities.
This couldn’t be more evident in this scene:
I could go on but I feel like this is enough lol, Azula has a deep psychological make up...so deep you find numerous articles and videos on Youtube doing rounds on and from different angles. To me what makes her a damn good villian was how well written her story was and she wasn’t just a cold and calculative perfectionist just because the plot called for it, not even close. It was the result of her complicated upbringing and her father’s cut throat expectations that turned her into a monster but when she realized that she basically traded in her empathy for it was too late. So basically in conclusion what I like about Azula is that despite the fact that she had these quality characertistics that made her an awesome and enjoyable villian had behind it she had a complicated past and a lost touch of what makes part of one human. The writers portrayed and executed this in excellent fashion througout the series and anyone who hasn’t seen ATLA would just have to watch it to see what I’m talking about.
Briefly going through the remaining category;
Achievements: As you may already have picked up...she was a prodigy in firebending and vastly better than her brother Zuko. As Ozai put it; Azula was “born lucky” and Zuko was “lucky that he was born”. While that was harsh af lmao you couldn’t really argue Zuko was close to Azula in terms of sheer talent. She was one of few who also achieved mastery of lightning bending, a technique that was only acessible with the complete mastery of firebending. She naturally had many feats in the show, almost killed the MC (Aang) at one point and outclassed Zuko many times. Perhaps my favorite scene that emphasized the raw difference between the two was in this fight;
And I guess I can stop here lol. Could definitely say and show more but hopefully this ain’t too long. A few sentences just wouldn’t do this character justice.
YOU HAVE 1 VOTE AND 2 DAYS TO DECIDE.
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