Why do villains from game suck in comparasion to TV/Comic villains?

MaikelRR_

Is it me or all the villains we've faced in Game are bad when we compare them to TV Series/Comic Series ones? Like c'mon. The St. John familly was decent. A bit "overwritten" at one point, but still decent. But later on?

The Stranger was pathetic. Carver had a great build up, but he turned out to be a complete idiot. New Frontier villains were terrible as well. Lilly being a villain feels so misplaced for the beginning and she also doesn't really make any good impressions throughout Episodes 2 & 3.

Is it really that hard for Telltale to make a good dark character?

Poogers555

The villains that started to become a main plot focus is where the game showed they had no idea how to write a villain.

St Johns worked well as they were a twist, stranger isn't really an antagonist. Characters like Carver, Joan, and Lilly is where it falls apart. Carver wasn't written super badly, but he was killed off way too early for him to actually be a good bad guy.

DabigRG

I don't what the show or read the comics, but the villains there seem rather dumb and tryhard, conceptually speaking.
As for the game though, I think it's partly a matter of Telltale being unable to maintain the integrity of their stories across more than one episode. Like, I hate to say it, The St. Johns and The Stranger were probably as good as they were in part because they technically had only one episode of screentime and development to use, which means they got to be shown off and fleshed out as per a single vision.
By contrast:

• Carver was your stock settlement villain who had talks around him trying to make his situation with Cabin Group out to be more complicated(at least on their end), but then they failed to deliver on that, which means you're left with what he always was unfiltered by mystery.
• Joan was somewhat underrated for actually having a sympathetic motivation and backstory that made sense on top of extending to numerous other characters, but due to ANF somehow having more egregious direction changes than Season 2, had her entire characterization pull a 180 into just being a really brazen and petty corrupt politician. She also had relatively minimal screentime to really flourish, which probably contributed to the change. Not to mention how she just up and disappears from the story if Javier didn't shoot her, without even the courtesy of a "Next Time, Garcias, Next Time!"
• If you wanna count him, David was just them desperately rushing to finish ANF by falling back on what "works": the Angry Dad Climax, as I've deemed it. This also came in hand with trying very hard to make you feel bad for a character who up to this point wasn't really asking you to feel bad for him while also having him do increasingly callous and meatheaded shit, culminating in him almost destroying his own family.
• Lilith was already pushing the reigns of desperation by virtue of being a retooled Season 1 main character and Telltale themselves seemed fully conscious of this fact, thus they made little effort to reveal and reestablish the character. She's like a weird mix between Carver and Joan in that she and the Delta are pretty straightforward villains in theory and yet what little respective complexity & motivation they had once again got muddled between episodes in favor of even more shock value.

Oh and they also have a habit of killing off their villains pretty quickly, which really hurt Joan and most likely Lilith.

MaikelRR_

Negan and Governor in TV Series managed to enslave people well. The first one made them so much terrified that they didn't even think about possible uprising. The second one enslaved them by making them feel like they aren't slaves. Carver - compared to those two - looks like a fucking clown to be honest.

Cleminator93

2 words...bad Writing .

iFoRias

Because the writers sucks.

Also different writers,different visions,that's what happened with Carver Joan and Lilly.

And you forgot about Norma from the Michonne mini series (can't really blame you) i thought she was a decent and reasonable antagonist.

Randall was also a pretty good and charismatic "evil" villain in my opinion.

DabigRG

Oh yeah, I forgot as well.
Honestly, if there was any issue with them, it was that they in the Michonne Miniseries. Which meant relatively minimal screentime for the former especially in addition to the overall length keeping things from getting too complex.

Rankles75

Comics and TV show have much more time to develop their big bads. Not the only reason, but still a big one.

KudzuDevoursYou

Haha what. The tv show villains are terrible, and the comic ones barely better than the show's.

Louche

You kidding me? The comic villains are all cringy edgelords, the TV show is a bit better with their adaptations.
The game has the best villains over-all.

Even Norma/Joan were better villains than any 1-dimensional comic bad guy.

Hersani

yeah, TWDG lacks a season long occurring villain, not a bad or a good written villains that die in two episodes (Carver and Lilly), or a one that comes out of fucking nowhere and for 1 ep... it adds a threat and clear goal since the first episode, we could meet him or her since the first episode and build our story to defeat them in the last episode.

Something like the Admin in MCSM S2?

EDIT: and it saves us from the season being mostly a fucking filler. cough TFS cough

iFoRias

the TV show is a bit better with their adaptations.

I'm sorry what ? The tv show just pretty much rehash the same shit from the comics and also fucked The All out War arc and the saviors.

The only antagonists/villains who were better in the show than in the comics were Shane and the Claimers.

The game has the best villains over-all.
Even Norma/Joan were better villains than any 1-dimensional comic bad guy.

You're saying Norma and Joan are better villains then The Governor or Negan ? That's a joke right ?
Pretty much all the villains in the games are evil generic bad guys who gets killed off before reaching their full potential except the St Johns,the Stranger and maybe Norma/Randall.

MaikelRR_

People have opinions, but honestly I don't know how can you think that Carver was a better villain than Governor from TV Series.

Ghetsis

In my opinion the tv show villains are more realised/can flourish the most, for a number of reasons.

DabigRG

Like the fact that it's gone on for eight seasons?

iFoRias

9 Seasons actually,and they're making another one.

DabigRG

Ah, of course. Forgive my ignorance.

RobertHirschko1

Naughty, naughty.