#and i love my antag to be an absolute bastard of a villain who only cares about one (1) person

[lumpsbumpsandwhumps]

I WANT THE G/T OCS PLEASE..........

UUUHHHHH

Future dystopian cyberpunk vibe...giant cyborg-esque officers working to guard corrupt city...one officer being even more corrupt and getting attached to a repeating human offender...always letting him go in exchange for something more and more intimate much to their embarrassment...refusing to let some silly little revolution keep him from playing with his pet, even if it means squashing the rebellion right in front of them to make an example....

[hel-phoenyx]

OHOHO I HAVE TIME IN MY HANDS AND NO ACCESS TO MY GAMES, LET'S HAVE THE INFAMOUS VILLAIN RANT

Huge ass spoilers for La Peste Moderne, Lysara IbRu'Ael and Azilis Chronicles ahead

Ah, villains. An interesting subject, for that matter. I am very well known among my friends and polycule for being the Notorious Villain Fucker, but aside from that villain psychology is something I find utterly fascinating, and the way people write their villains is very, very often telling of their own opinions about life.

There are many archetypes of villains. Some I came across in my mates' stories are, for a non exhaustive list, the iredeemable bastard just here for the laughs, the person with a goal and ready to do unfathomable things to reach it, while knowing damn well he went too far, the broken beyond repair that can't or won't pick himself up because finding redemption is so scary, the endoctrined man who never knew anything else than evil, mundane cruelty.... And of course, evil parents, but evil parents are less antagonists and more backstory-related, so I won't dive into it.

Personally, I realised my main antagonists fall into two main categories : One which is less about being a villain and more about being morally grey, being broken beyond repair in excruciating need of hope, but still able to love, still able to feel, and wanting to feel; or, the absolute bastard, iredeemable fucker, but with a knack for show.

There are exceptions, of course. The Ultimate Empress, for example, falls into the inbetween of those two archetypes. There's Yuuki, too, which is antagonistic on her very role but not on her behaviour. Or Shizuka, who falls more into the bastard category but has no interest for show. But these two are more secondary, and less villainous than the other people I will talk about.

Main antagonists share a caracteristic : They are FASCINATING to write about. Taking for example my boy Mairù. Mairù evolves in two very different persons depending on the universe : In Lysara, he starts out not as a villain, only as an antagonist : He is moderate, tries to keep in control the excruciating pain his body is inflicting to him, only joins the antag's side because of a genuine want to make things better... He is the enemy, yes, but he is not a villain per say. In fact, he is more than happy to help the protagonists once they share an objective : Stop a third party wrecking shit up.

It's after that that he gets into his villainous arc. Mairù is, fundamentally, a broken person : His trauma defines all his life, all of who he is. He is a prophet, he is a weapon, and even his own family can't see him as a person. He tried, for a long time, to find people who make him feel like he isn't a monster : The problem, or the problems, in fact, is that these people always end up, one way or another, leaving him behind.

Lina broke up with him. Kal threw himself into his attempt for redemption, something he was very good at, and Mairù was very bad. So, to try to salvage what little mental health he has left and not hurt the last person he has left, Asura, he left for his training arc, hoping to come back stable and worthy of her affection.

She didn't wait for him.

That was the last straw, the last hit in his already fragile self. He became the villain of the story, leaving all forms of selflessness behind him. At this point, he is tired of waiting, tired of trying, only for scraps. It expresses itself in his love for Asura getting insanely unhealthy, borderline yandere, but fundamentally it is a visceral reaction to being left on the road one time too much, and his resentment also expresses itself towards Lina, Baku, or even Kal.

Fundamentally, despite doing atrocities, all he needed to put himself back in the right path was a held hand and a solution. The moment he is helped, the moment he is loved, he changes for good. He is the living example of how a single ounce of understanding and genuine help can change a person, bring him back from the hole he was crawling into, pushed voluntarily or invonluntarily by all others before.

He is a villain, he is an antagonist, he is broken and thought it was beyond repair, but affection mended the cracks he was desperate to fix.

That's where he is different from his azilian version. Mairù at Azilis starts already broken, in a world far less accepting of people like him. he is already at the point where lysarean Mairù breaks down. The problem is that there is no Kal to follow : Mairù creates his own path, his own revolution, and is responsible of his own downfall.

Unless this time he picks up the pieces of him himself. He realises brooding won't do him any help, that the people he has left need him to pick up the pace. He was the instrument in his own downfall, so he will be the instrument of his own redemption.

In fact, I think the huge difference between lysarean Mairù and azilian Mairù is that lysarean Mairù is the victim of his world, while azilian Mairù is the actor of his own story.

They're the same and different at the same time. Same basis, same cracks in the shell, same pain, same will to be important in the eyes of people. They just had a different story, one as a puppet and one as an outsider, but still yearning to be good, yearning for understanding and acceptance. They are in the concept morally white-gray : Not wanting to hurt peoble, screaming for help, but still to be held accountable for shit they do.

Both of them are a narrative foil somehow for their other sibling, and boi do I have things to say about them : Akira.

Akira is a peculiar case. They started devoid of emotions each time, except for a deep longing for revenge and a craving for what they lack : But as the two Mairùs, their path changes drastically to the point where azilian Akira falls out of both the archetypes I was talking about earlier, while lysarean Akira is the epitome of the showman bastard.

They start the same way. Akira, despite being emotionless, is the first of his siblings to fall in love with Lina. Like, the very first, starstruck and all. This is a bit cliché I'll admit, having all three of those fuckers infatuated with my protagonist, but Mairù gets over it each time, Baku ends up marrying her and as for Akira, Lina acts as a narrative foil for everything they want.

Lina is the embodiement of the first strong emotion he ever felt. She is love in his eyes. She represents everything he longed for : To FEEL. So naturally, he pursues her to the point she becomes quite the obession. The problem being each time, whe he awakens, she is already taken and can't be fully his.

He loves her like a man would love a prized possession. He wants her to be only his, no matter the cost, no matter if Lina prefers to be her own. That sounds obsessive, because it is, but it finds its roots in the fact that Lina embodies his emotions.

And then the game branches.

In Lysara, Lina becomes queen, and Akira is able to use Baku as his anchor to try and obtain her. He thinks about nothing else, the rest of his life is filled with empty cruelty in an attempt to feel something he knows will never be satisfying enough. Knowing his plan needs patience, he delves into the darker part of his personnality, channeling his need for adrenaline in absolute cruelty. In this iteration he's a complete and utter sadist, feeling pleasure in other's pain and not seeing any wrong in his way of acting.

She believed she would just play the long game, take possession of Baku before revealing the imposture to his beloved and either pose as the king or snatch her away, completing his lifelong goal of feeling that emotion entirely. The only problem is that Lina is polyamorous, and ends up falling in love with Shera next to Baku. Thus shattering her plan to take her peacefully.

At this point, Akira becomes more cruelty than love. And the birth of Carolyn gives him a new opportunity to obtain his full being, separated from Baku.

Her plan is completely separated from his love. Not to get into details, but once again she plays the long game, up until she gets completion and discovers her new emotions are... Not all positive :D

She is now completely defined by her cruelty and sadism. Still, she is motivated by her love for Lina, but now it gets overly bloody, and she finds more pleasure in shedding blood than in completing a goal she knows is doomed to fail. She is the kind to do dramatic reveals, enjoys presentation, because the fear people feel towards her is delicious. She loves being venerated, and in fact, there may be more than one cult in Lysara dedicated to the Angel of Death, cruelest nightmare harbinger ever known in this era. Her arc is one of complete bastardisation and reeling in blood and gore.

Azilian Akira, on the other hand, sees Lina dying before he can even prepare an erzatz of plan. So his arc is about grief, and about his own freedom far earlier than lysarean Akira. His cruelty has little time to nurture, and is replaced by ruthlessness and dedication for his objective. And since he has no one to direct his love unto, it quickly dies into regret.

This Akira is still a bastard, but an emotionless one. He knows what he wants and does whatever it takes for it. Only the results keep him going. He does find new people along the way, but his heart is closed to every last one of them and, even if he feels comfort in their presence, he doesn't love them per say. His emotions are sparse, some rush of adrenaline when he fights or kills, some kind of pleasure when he is in bed with people, but nothing else but regret and determination.

He knows on a intellectual level what he does is seen as wrong. He doesn't care. His goal is the only thing that matters. He has no time for pizzazz, showmanship or anything that will make him lose time. And his goal is completely selfish since it's about becoming more than a god.

So there you have it. Iredeemable, in no way wanting redemption, still cruel and destructive, still a bastard. But a bastard done with life rather than a bastard who takes the most of it.

The "bastard who takes the most of life" is actually the most fitting of Artist. Artist, my second Monokuma, is the secondary antagonist of The Art of Creating Hope. He is the fulfilled kind of bastard. He doesn't have a goal per say, or rather, he already achieved it, and is still living it : Living Art with a capital A, without limitations or rules or care for the world.

That goal led him to trial, but he carried on, and ended up among the Monokuma. There, he finally fulfilled his lifelong dream : Creating a work of art in a new medium that will revolutionnize the world. That medium being the killing game.

He acts as a narrative foil for Emerens in many ways. Their shared hate, thir shared past in the link created by Adelheid van Heel, but also in their shared goal. They couldn't be anymore different.

Artist is cruel to the last degree, and has no limits, no barriers. He only lives for Art, and to create again and again and again in his own twisted way. He doesn't care for anyone, likes to see suffering, and lives a show in any moment of his life.

Emerens, on the other side ?

Oh boi. Do I have things to tell about my little bastard.

Emerens is the embodiement of grey morale. He started as an innocent boy, that got broken again and again and again, picking all the pieces of himself down the road while forgetting some (too many). He has too many coping mechanisms that make him go from bullied at school to Mean Girl Archetype(tm). He commits legit atrocities during his killing game and even before, blackmailing, manipulating, gaslighting his way into a comfortable life.

To modern worlds standards, he is irredeemable. Many of his acts are worthy of life prison. But the problem with Emerens is that he CARES. He cares way too much. His parents opinion at first, then his beloved's safety, or his despair plaguing the world (something that can and DID happen way before the beginning of the story). He does what he does because he cares.

He is a bitch that can be unnessesary cruel at times, detached from reality because he is hiding behind his cocoon of hypocrisy, false security and coping mechanisms. He has the skill to subjugate or walk all over people and he does, more than once. Both before and during the killing game he is pictured as selfish, independant and secretive, following his own agenda. Many of his acts are nurtured by a hate rooting in his own traumatism.

But at the core of his being he is just a little boy who didn't grow up hidden behind a whole persona, a boy he refuses to look in the eyes, that didn't learn right or wrong properly and as a result has a twisted sense of morale. He is a man that wants desperately to love people no matter the form, no matter the cost, who throws himself in every crumb of affection ANYONE gives him, sex, friendship, relationship, no matter. He is someone that is ACHING for softness and security, the kind that won't get tainted by betrayal.

So of course he acts rather unhinged. Of course there is nothing worth suffering the loss of his love. Of course he would do anything for the first one that showed him genuine affection, or even the ones that followed.

Emerens is full of love that he does not know how to direct properly. His devotion make him act... Rather unkindly towards the masses. Unlike Akira or even Mairù, he is not desiring possession or even reciprocation : The only thing that matters in the killling game is getting Thibault to safety. No. Matter. What. Even if he would reject him. Even if he would hate him. His life is the most important thing in Emerens's perception of the world.

He is not a kind man or a victim of his own story. His convictions are twisted no matter how you look at them. Misguided is very far from the truth of his core. His feelings are spilling everywhere in such a way that he manages to distract the attention of everyone else from them. But he is not evil per say. Just broken beyond repair in a broken world that didn't allow him to find the help he needed, and fed his hate instead of nurturing his love.

There is no coincidence he is so different in the AU without killing games. He's still the same little bitch, but far more moral and kind to people than his TAoCH version, with a system that helped him instead of bringing him and people like him to slaughter.

The best, or worst, part, in my opinion, is the fact that, would have he gave in to his despair, he would have just killed himself without hurting anyone. But he met people he loved, found again people he loved, and threw himself in that connexion and that deep desire of protecting them to a point nothing else mattered other than makng sure NOTHING could hurt them.

He is a villain because he loves.

And that's a point I find quite a lot in my favorite antagonists.

[toxicpineapple]

is there a specific reason u dont like oumota?? or do u just Dislike it

oh boy anon you’re really gonna have me go into that kinda conversation alright... i guess it’s no secret that oumota is my least favourite pairing, so i don’t mind talking about it. all that aside please keep in mind that these are my opinions and i have a lot of respect for people who ship any pairing (aside from the problematic ones, obviously, pro-ship dni) and i have zero desire to start any fights with anybody.

i’ve never been a fan of enemies-to-lovers as a trope. i think it’s good to start there. one of my earliest fandoms was the death note fandom, and there was a LOT of lawlight (l x light) content. still is, i’m sure, i just haven’t been by the fandom in a while. i just, i absolutely hated it. i was in fifth grade at the time so i was a bit... oblivious, to chemistry between characters as a whole, but also, it just didn’t make any sense to me! they hated each other! why would you think that’s a good relationship! light LITERALLY wanted l dead and i’m not gonna say any spoilers in case i have followers who haven’t seen the show yet but the way things go down... it just didn’t make sense to me. there was the homoerotic foot rubbing scene, of course, and l tells light that they’re friends, but light was being ACTIVELY MANIPULATIVE the entire time. i didn’t see why people would want to ship people who are enemies. i couldn’t wrap my head around it.

after being in fandom for a bit longer, i think i’ve managed to figure it out, lol. i am (and will always be) of the belief that any pairing can be done well, given enough time and attention. (again aside from the problematic ones i’m not here to engage with incest or pedophilia okay that shit is nasty and i don’t need your “it’s fiction!” bull that kind of mindset perpetuates abuse.) if you can sell me on it, then damn, sure, i’ll be into it. i’m still not big on enemies-to-lovers, that fifth grade mindset of “it’s so weird to ship people who hate each other” hasn’t really gone away, but i’m open to it. if you can sell it, i’ll buy it! that kind of thing.

i still prefer friends-to-lovers though. in the danganronpa fandom, i’ve always prefered naegiri and hinanami over naegami and komahina. (oumasai and saimota are the exception, i go back and forth on them but ultimately i love them equally, ouma being my favourite antag and all) i just think that positive interactions are healthier, and communication is easier when you’re not at each other’s throats all the time. this is obviously my opinion, subject to debate and all that, yadda yadda yadda. i’ll take shy smiles across the breakfast table over homoerotic pauses in the middle of arguments any day of the week.

i think you’re starting to get the reason why oumota isn’t my cup of tea. still, i like naegami and komahina, like, a LOT. enough that i would write them on my own time, extensively, just because i feel like it. there are pairings where i wouldn’t be so willing, where i’d just shrug and do it if requested but ultimately keep to my side of the playground. even if i don’t immediately jump to shipping people who dislike each other, that doesn’t mean i should have an avid hate for this pairing! so what gives?

it comes down to this, anon: ouma and momota HATE each other in canon. with a lot of enemies-to-lovers things, there’s like, a brief moment of mutual appreciation to give people steam. byakuya and makoto have that!!! byakuya is there to help makoto as much as he can after their killing game, and from post-chapter four onwards byakuya is unreservedly on makoto’s side. they work together!!!! at the end of the game byakuya says he’ll help if people need it!!!!! (through the byakuya translator ofc.) and then he DOES!!!!!!! he went into the neo-world program to help makoto!!!

and komahina has that too!!! all of chapter one, for example? nagito’s ftes? at the end of nagito’s ftes hajime starts to really, truly understand why nagito is the way he is. he doesn’t agree with his actions but he gets it! and he feels BAD for him!! so bad that nagito lies and says what he’s been talking about didn’t really happen. not to mention 2.5, and post-canon, all the potential for slowburn while the remnants are living together on jabberwock island.... they make me soft.

saiouma has that too, i mean, i wouldn’t call saiouma enemies-to-lovers necessarily if only because shuichi is so passive for most of the game, but they have those, like, those small moments. ouma calls shuichi his beloved, and i do believe his behaviour in chapter four was just manipulation, but still, y’know, he was flirting. ouma’s love hotel shows that shuichi is LITERALLY his ideal, and shuichi puts up with all these death threats and games throughout ouma’s ftes in an attempt to understand him-- the final fte is so sweet, how shuichi bandages his finger after he cuts himself.... pique chaotic dumbass energy but they’re adorable as hell.

and i’m sorry to say this, but in my opinion and as far as i can remember... oumota...... doesn’t have that. not once does either ouma or momota show anything but cool distaste for one another. momota PUNCHES OUMA IN THE FACE in chapter four, which is the first real time you see the two of them like.... interacting? (aside from kaito begrudgingly, secretly agreeing with kokichi about people watching the motive videos, but that’s not shipping fuel imo.) and it only gets worse from there. throughout chapter four kokichi goads kaito, trying to pick at his insecurities-- not to mention he tries to get closer to shuichi, someone who kaito has been very close to this entire time!!! he insists that shuichi investigate with him, rather than with kaito, and keeps egging him on throughout the entire trial, mocking him and praising shuichi, the like. and after the trial kokichi PUNCHES KAITO IN THE STOMACH!!! AND KAITO HAS A COUGHING FIT SO BAD HE FALLS TO HIS KNEES!!!!!!! WHAT THE FUCK!!! sorry i’m trying not to be akdljflk about this it just... gah. i dunno. ouma absolutely SLAUGHTERS kaito and shuichi’s relationship, deliberately picking at kaito’s insecurities in order to tear down the group as a whole, and i just... it rubs me the wrong way.

chapter five is even worse for me. i know it’s like the biggest shipping fuel people have for them, and i,,, i get it? it’s poetic, the villain and the hero, these two purple dudes who represent opposing ideals, in this scandalous romance behind the exisal or whatever. i just can’t with it, though.

let’s talk about what ouma does to kaito in chapter five :)

-he knocks him out with an exisal and takes him hostage -he sends all his friends (except maki, beautiful, erratic maki) into a DEPRESSION so that the audience will get bored and stop watching the killing game -sorry i already said this but he KIDNAPS KAITO!! HE KIDNAPS HIM!!!! AND TRAPS HIM IN THE EXISAL HANGAR!!!! -he forces kaito to be indebted to him by pretending to drink the antidote and then giving it to him -he THREATENS MAKI!! HE THREATENS HER LIFE!!! IF KOKICHI DIES MAKI WILL BE EXECUTED AS THE BLACKENED AND KAITO KNOWS THIS!!!! i don’t care if you ship momoharu those two had A relationship regardless of whether you saw it was romantic or platonic and kaito cared about her??

he essentially held both maki and kaito hostage and BLACKMAILED kaito into going along with his plan. at the end of the chapter five trial kaito states that he went along with it because he thought it was brilliant, not because kokichi threatened maki, but i still just... it kind of horrifies me.

(i want to be perfectly clear that i LOVE kokichi ouma, he’s a brilliantly morally ambiguous character who did a bunch of fucked up things to try to achieve a noble cause and in no way is this me shitting on him, i’m just saying that given the things kokichi did to kaito i just, can’t get behind it.)

i should also address that even after kokichi did all that, even started BREAKING DOWN in the exisal hangar, kaito maintained that kokichi was a bastard who was difficult to understand. kokichi was being perfectly clear about his intentions. he wanted to end the killing games. i don’t think he ever wanted anything else, in the game. after all of that, for some reason, kaito still just didn’t get it. and i don’t think it’s because kaito is stupid-- kaito is NOT stupid, as funny as the memes are-- i just think that he was genuinely unwilling to try to understand kokichi ouma. he was sympathetic towards a lot of people. shuichi and maki and kaede and gonta and all of them. but he just, he didn’t like ouma. and i feel as though (this is just my speculation so don’t take this as anything real) kokichi never held anything towards kaito except resentment, either. because here’s this THICK DUMBASS who is ruining EVERYTHING that he’s trying to work towards-- not only that, but everyone absolutely adores him, the one thing that kokichi can not, no matter what, hope to achieve. because in order for his plan to work, he needs them to hate him.

all this is canon-compliant, though. i think ouma would’ve been a lot more mild in a non-despair au. i still don’t like the pairing in any aus though, regardless. i just don’t feel like they have the right kind of chemistry. ouma is, he’s like, he’s childish! he likes picking at people, trying to get reactions out of them. y’know who’s easy to get reactions out of? kaito. and not because he’s some funny stupid man, because he has CRIPPLINGLY LOW SELF ESTEEM. kaito is DEADASS afraid of ghosts and i know it’s a funny haha but he nearly shits himself whenever they’re so much as mentioned and ouma is the type of person who would just continue to bring them up to get the reaction out of him. it’s like shipping hiyoko and mikan, y’know? mikan gives hiyoko the reactions she wants and mikan takes it because she’s desperate for attention of any kind. they both feed into each other’s worst tendencies. kaito is easily challenged. all you have to do is imply he’s not a man and he’ll do whatever you want. that’s not HEALTHY!! and ouma would take advantage of it. not because he’s a bad person, but just because, he like,,, he messes around and he takes things too far because he’s a child and he hasn’t seen any real repercussions. that’s what i believe.

this is more of a petty, unrelated reason, but i also used to follow this really annoying oumota shipper who was constantly shoving the pairing down everyone’s throat and absolutely slaughtering kaito’s characterisation in the meantime. in a lot of fics i read before becoming actively against it, i saw ouma being a sniveling crybaby, totally unable to defend himself from anything, and kaito being this callous asshole who was mean to everyone but ouma. i just, i don’t see it? and then maki is always portrayed as so abusive, threatening and hurting ouma all over the place because kaito likes him and not her and shuichi is borderline obsessive if not outright creepy, either jealous of kaito or kokichi because there’s no grey area with these people, and they just, they make shuichi and maki so unsupportive and mean and i just... i don’t like it, not at all. the fastest way to make me hate a thing is by vilifying my favourite characters.

sorry for the long answer, anon. i know i have followers who like oumota, and i respect you for it! it’s just a MAJOR squick for me and i try not to engage with it if i can avoid it! thanks for the question!

[entamewitchlulu]

Arc V Month Day 20: Favorite Antagonists

ohohoho....man is there an antag I don’t like at all in this show?  Nearly every one of the main baddies are just so fun to hate, and even more fun to analyze.  So lemme talk about each of the main ones just briefly

God just look at his stupid face i love him!!!

Yuuri is just.  The whole package.  He’s the epitome of my guilty pleasure fave type of villain: the type who’s just gleefully evil, who legitimately knows they’re the bad guy and revels in it, and also talks very politely while doing so (I have a very specific Type when it comes to villains lol).  Not a very realistic villain, to be sure, but oh so fun to watch in action.  He’s got the gleeful malice, the truly frightening cruelty, a wild sort of destructive fervor, and is such a manipulative tease to boot.  Plus, he’s such a meme.  I love him.

Beyond that though, though little to nothing is confirmed in canon, I find how he ended up the way he is very, very interesting.  Knowing that he and the boys are all the exact same person brings up some great questions on the nature-nuture discussion, and if they all had the same base nature, how did Yuuri’s nurture (or lack thereof) cause him to end up being so vastly different a person from his other counterparts?  Considering who was in charge of caring for him (whom we’ll def talk about later...), and Leo’s absolute hatred for Zarc, it’s obvious that some very, very awful things occurred to make Yuuri the way he is, and likely, most of his actions and personality are all very elaborate coping mechanisms -- not that he himself would ever admit to that being the case.  If you asked him, I’m sure he’d tell you everything he does is absolutely his own choice because he wants to be so terrible -- which is just as true as the fact that likely, not all of his choices were his own.

Of course we can’t talk about Yuuri, or about antags in general, without talking about Zarc.  I know he’s the ultimate big bad so I should probably save him for last, but I have other things I want to talk about so we’re just gonna hit up Zarc rn lol.  

What I love about Zarc (and honestly, what I love about most Arc V villains) is just how human his motivations are.  Like, he didn’t get possessed.  He didn’t get influenced by an eldritch god, or tainted by some wild magic that made him go mad.  He was just a mostly ordinary person, who, like Yuya, wanted to become someone.  He wanted to meet the expectations of the crowd -- and without anyone else to be at his side to help him process his emotions, he simply continued and continued down the path, seeking more and more validation even as the lengths he had to go to to achieve that destroyed him and his dragons, until he broke.

I can’t confirm it, obviously, but I’m of the opinion that most of Zarc’s evil schtick was just a mask -- both for his opponents, and for himself.  He’d been driven so far to the brink, so far away from the person he’d wanted to be, that he just let himself fall into a role so deeply that even he was fooled, when the truth was that he was terrified.  He was always terrified.  And that’s why Yuya’s arc accepting himself as Zarc and choosing to heal was so important, and so powerful.  

Zarc wasn’t a villain just for the hell of it.  He was a monster created by society.  And in the end, he was more tragic than villainous.

I can’t get out of an antagonist post without talking about this smug bastard.  I’ve talked about him a LOT (actually, I’ve talked about all of these guys a lot lol), but honestly? As much as I say I hate him, he’s just so deliciously evil that I can’t really, lol.  As a villain, he’s everything the arc needed -- a vicious manipulator who thought he was superior to everything and beyond the machinations of anyone else, until he slowly deteriorated as he realized his flawless plans weren’t so flawless after all.  He was, and probably still is, my favorite antagonist just because that illusion of control made him so frightening -- and once that illusion broke down, he became actually even more terrifying as he started to lose his self-control.  The before and after was pretty intense to watch.

And here we go.  When it comes to antagonists in Arc V, even if he’s not my personal fave?  I don’t think you can get much better than Leo Akaba.

Like, before the final arc, I really, really didn’t think much of him.  I barely cared about him.  And after Synchro, I was really just kind of bored of him.  Like, I didn’t imagine there was any way they could one up Roget -- Roget was literally the perfect villain.  How could this boring guy who spends all his time sitting in a chair and watching things happen without actively doing anything ever be better than that?  Part of me was actually feeling a little let down, because I couldn’t imagine getting anything better than Synchro.

And then That Episode went down, and it blew all of my wavering expectations out of the damn water.

As I mentioned before about the humanity of the villains in Arc V, Leo fits that theme to a T.  He’s not magical.  He’s not even really evil.  He’s just someone who found a way to justify the absolutely terrible, horrible things that he’s doing, and that’s so real -- that’s so terrifying.

As soon as you get the truth about Ray, about the dimension split, about everything, literally the entire show falls into place.  Every single bit of Leo’s character is thrown into stark clarity in just the space of an episode.  He’s not just a guy sitting in a chair -- he’s a madly grieving father who doesn’t even believe the world he’s in is real, so of course he doesn’t feel bad about using and abusing fake people in a fake world in order to get his real world and his real daughter back.  It’s horrifying, and yet it’s so human.  

Humanity and society was really the real antagonist of Arc V, and it just manifested in different ways: in the wild actions of a child clearly abused by the system that should have taken care of him, in the grasping for political power by an out of control authority figure, in the inconsolable grief of a father, and in the breakdown of a young man who was only trying to meet the expectations of the world around him.

There’s something very poignant in that.  It’s definitely one of the reasons that I’ll be coming back to Arc V again and again.