Oh I thought about another way to "bring back" a villain.
What about something more fun : someone the hero knew, or briefly met *becomes* the villain to replace him.

For instance, the young asian kid at the very end of Hannibal could very well be (if the story was a bit further in the past) a young Issei Sagawa in the making.
What about young Boba Fett seeing his father die at the end of the terrible Jedi knights ?
This has also an interesting message which is that violence engenders violence. Only by breaking the cycle can we hope to bring peace.

In _Lorrenzaccio_ (by Alfred de Musset) we see the making of a villain. The protagonist (he can hardly be described as a hero) evolves, through constant persecution and humiliation from a coward into, well, a coward with something to prove. He ends up killing the de Medicis who reigns over the city. He shows his valor to those who mocked him, but has to leave the city forever.
His victory over his own cowardice proves fruitless (no one *must* know his deed if he hopes to survive), and he has become a murderer, which makes him a villain. This book shows inequivocally that the villain is also sometimes the victim.

Another interesting concept for a villain was introduced in _Les Thanatonautes_ (Bernard Werber).
Briefly, people discover that there is indeed life after death. At some point in the book, humanity start going crazy and everybody start believing in love and understanding, hugging trees and stuff. Nobody dies anymore, no wars, no famines, no more Bad. But one person, who was originally part of the leading team of scientist who made the discovery of life after death, realises that she has created a great imbalance.
And so, despite being the most pacific and loving person of the original team, she decides to become Evil incarnate. She assembles a horde of criminals and start roaming the world, killing people, and generally spreading chaos.
Her explanation : if there is no Evil, how do you know you are Good ? If there is no evil to fight, to resist, where is the merit in being Good ?
And so, to allow the rest of humanity to *earn* their Good guy label, she sacrifices her own and becomes the embodiement of evil.

Now that''s the kind of villain I adore

Sancte Isidore ora pro nobis !

pUnkInner:

I am more of a "magic" guy, myself, in that I prefer magic over scifi. I think it would be interesting if a hero was driven insane, somehow, and therefore because the villain, or because he was so exhausted, the hero didn''t know that his blood was drained and the blood of his enemy replaced his. Am I makin'' any sense?

But if I was to resurrect a villain, I would bring him back 1) in a magical way, 2) make him more powerful, and 3) make his death more "definite."

the vilain as to be killed by the hero to comeback, they have a magic connection between them, or their some high instance which bring back the nasty whithout let know about it for the fun to watch the endless play between the good and the evil or else the vilain KNOW that it would die if he makes his action killed by the hero and his omniscient but still acheive his work to enjoy the battle and use various way of back up to play again, or else the vilain as setup is action as a game to create hero to challenge him as a final boss of his setting, he keep acting until their is someone strong enough to defeat him and to restart the party (he is simply immortal)



about the fifth element the name leeloo is related to hindu's concept of leelaa which mean "the true love" or "the game of life" and deal with the game of consciousness
look at here
http://www.sanatansociety.org/yoga_and_meditation/hinduism_philosophy_maya_illusion.htm
and here
http://www.sanatansociety.org/yoga_and_meditation/hinduism_philosophy_leela_lila_lilla.htm

quote:<tr>

There is really only one game, the game
in which each of us is a player acting out his role. The
game is Leela, the universal play of cosmic energy. Leela
is divine play. It is present in the nature of the Supreme
Self. It is this playful nature which creates the world
of names and forms - the phenomenal world. Leela is life
itself, energy expressed as the myriad forms and feelings
presented continuously to the self.

[edited by - Neoshaman on December 1, 2003 11:32:08 AM]

quote:Original post by Anonymous Poster
...

See, you''re kinda confusing me. First of all, the topic wasn''t about heroes. It was barely about games. The topic was how can you bring back a villain, and dealt with writing, not playing a game. Don''t get me wrong, it''s not totally unrelated to video games, it''s just that that wasn''t the focus.

quote:Original post by orionx103
To me, that''s just an easy and less interesting way out. It''d be more dramatic if the villain was killed , no longer living, and was brought back somehow. The whole not killing him thing is just boring to me.

But it is less dependant on some kind of science fiction babbling and gives you ample opportunity to present the humanity of the villian.

Take the movie UNBREAKABLE (by the same director as the sixth sense.)
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER.
When Samuel Jackson''s character fell down that staircase, you had to feel empathy for this character. There was not even the slightest train of thought after this event that may have suggested the movie''s conclusion.

Granted, the Star Wars way of doing is retarded, I.E. Ooops, Darth Vader''s ship sucks. But any good writer could come up with something. The villian falls 4 stories and breaks his left leg on whatever broke his fall. The hero more concerned with turnoff the UBERDOOMSDAY weapon does so, but returns to find the villian had escaped.

Unless you have some metaphysical existentialist reason for a dead villian, having a villian survives is just as believable as a hero that survives something just as bad.

I like the science fiction babble that comes with writing something similar to what was suggested. It makes things more interesting to me, and nothing is good if it''s only made to appease others, or at least that''s my opinion.

Just bring him back in the next episode. No-one will ask any awkward questions.

quote:Original post by Operator
Somehow I think a straight upload of conciousness would be less-than unique - I mean, ever since Star Trek have they been uploading peoples minds into computers which then (predictably) proceed to take over the planet and then produce a race of robot servants.

Yes, the computer ruling an entire society based on the former leader''s consciousness is as Hackneyed as the planet composed entirely of gangsters or Romans.