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ThePersonInFrontOfYou Vice Captain
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 Posted: Wed Feb 29, 2012 4:54 pm
As far as I know, the original monster man with long, silver hair.
While he is by no means my favorite villain, even in the Dragon Quest series, he does represent something I don't think there is enough of in the Dragon Quest series: Active villainy. Jumping off the throne in your dark castle to wreck things by yourself. Some of the later games have that, but I still would like to see less throne-sitters. Dragon Quests VIII and IX kinda pulled that off, but talking about what happens after all of the active stuff is spoilery and I don't want to get into it in the first post.
Apparently, according to the Dragon Quest Wiki, Psaro and Sephiroth's similarities are a joke among many japanese fans. Who say they are secret brothers and refer to them as "Psaroth."
I personally think Legend of Dragoon's Lloyd is a lot more similar. Heck, you even first hear about him in a fighting tournament where you are pitched against him in the final round. Though Lloyd actually shows up and beats you without breaking a sweat, but whatever.
Do you think the DQ series needs more active villainy? And what's your opinion of the monster man? Ever gone through Dragon Quest IV DS's chapter 6? Well tell me about it because I actually haven't gotten around to it.
Also, did Psaro start the pretty silver haired humanoid backstory badguy thing, or does it predate him? Because I know it's still a trend. Everyone does.
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Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 9:21 am
If I knew how to use GIMP better, I would find his OA and crop hipster glasses on him and put the captions: "I was an estranged murderer to humanity before it became a homoerotic fangasm!", in short, I do believe he is the first of his kind, as far as I can read into it.
However, thinking further into this however, while it may seem unrelated at the start, but what is your opinion of Hargon? I'm taking a Religious Studies course right now, and it's got me thinking: do you think that Hargon worshipping Malroth could be interpreted as a simple religious action, therefore not thronesitting?
While the man does do some pretty twisted things in his actions, but looking at some traditional religions with human sacrifice, they also do things that one can argue to be inhumane. Was Hargon simply following his code of religion, or do you think he was planning on using Malroth to rule the world?
Where this ties in with the thread is was Hargon the first example of active villainy in Dragon Quest, or am I just over-interpreting the plot of one of my favourite DQ games again?
For Psaro, I'm looking at DWIV on this, as I played it much more than the DS remake, but I think his initial motivations are a little bit arbitrary. I said in my LP when he informs Rosa, it's an essential "Hey Rosa, I'm going to go kill humanity, they're stinky" "Okay honey, be home by dinner, I'm making mashed potatoes!" case. As the game progresses, he gets an excellent reason, but in the long run, just because there are two or three bad people in this world, does that mean everyone should be destroyed?
As for me, while thronesitting does work to a certain extent, as one can easily argue that selfishness is a good reason for plot, seeing as how real of an issue it is in the real world, I do like active villainy a lot. However, as discussed in another thread, I think the Dragon Quest series does quite well because it doesn't have 73+ hours of plot in a single game to weigh it down, it's just gameplay and nothing more. One can argue that more story may make DQ better, but personally, I think DQ is already the best. So why fix something that isn't broken as they say?
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ThePersonInFrontOfYou Vice Captain
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Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 11:19 am
When I talk about thronesitting, I mostly refer to the big baddies themselves as opposed to their minions, who tend to be a lot more active. But thronestitting isn't in itself bad, rather I know that Dragon Quest can do a lot with innovations to the narrative structures of each game (Surprise prequel, divide game into character chapters before main plot, tell a story over 20 years of a boy's life, dreams and reality as connected worlds, and so forth). So I like to see what they would be able to do with more active villains as well.
I actually think a good example of Dragon Quest villainy is in Dragon Quest IX, with Corvus and his malice towards all things. And I find it interesting that I have seen a lot of fans compare him and Psaro as well. In a way, the defining tragedy of Corvus's motivation, with the girlfriend killed in the name of greed (with betrayal added for flavor!) does parallel Psaro, though is more fleshed out. Because Psaro didn't have decades of horrible torture and being used to destroy others to magnify his already boiling emotions and powers a thousandfold! Man's got a right to be irrationally mad.
In relation to Hargon, I actually did think of him as a more weird classification. Because Hargon is the baddy through the whole game, and Malroth is successfully summoned at the end for the final fight and is remembered as the big bad himself (I don't see any Hargon in DQIX, for instance). Malroth is like the Cloud of Darkness from FF3, or the Fire Dragon from FE7. Hargon is the mover and shaker. I didn't think about his actions in terms or religion, though. And that's actually pretty interesting. Makes me think about Dragon Quest V in a way, where religious themes are very obvious in places, what with the monster cult and juxtaposition with salvation at the church (after the first timeskip, anyway).
But back to Malroth, yeah. I can totally see it. Especially since he sacrifices himself at the end of DQII to Malroth before the fight. Dragon Quest II has plenty of room for interpretation. And I wonder what it would be like to go through the game with this in mind. Would things be different? I'll mark it on my game queue. And if I'm allowed to extrapolate with old Fire Emblem characters, you're totally within rights to do it here. :B
As for Psaro, of course his motivations are arbitrary. And yeah, the scene where he says it outright to Rosa is silly in both of the game's incarnations. Psaro doesn't have a magnum opus driving his actions, but there's one moment in particular that makes me think better of him. When Rosa is eventually killed for her tears, she pleads with him to not fight the humans. But he totally misses the point in anger and does it anyway. And while that doesn't make him an amazing villain, the reaction suggests character, which for me is enough.
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Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2012 6:11 pm
I'd say we do need more active villainy. IX and VIII did it well with what they could without revealing to much, which in my opinion was very well done. I could paint an interesting comparison between Golbez from FFIV and Psaro in how much they're in your face in a way. They don't just sit around and wait for you to come to them. Golbez in particular is IN YOUR FACE. This is what made those two classics IMO. Other than the other facts of course, but the villains are after your throats. Funny thing is too they're both the fourth game in each series. Interesting parallels huh?
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