Would you rather be a superhero or supervillain?

[amadeus]

No time to expand on my thoughts now too much but I’m picking villain. Better lairs, better schemes, henchmen!

Sometimes heroes have to work as a team and I’m not really a team player.

Also get to pick your own hours since you’re proactive and not reactive.

 

[Kyriakos]

Hm... But some superheroes don't have any special powers. Does that count too?
I'd like to have Batman's money, but would then become a pacifist/non-interventionist.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Would a Radioactive Monkey be a Superhero or Supervillain?

 

[Cutlass]

Would a Radioactive Monkey be a Superhero or Supervillain?

yes

 

[amadeus]

Hm... But some superheroes don't have any special powers. Does that count too?

Why wouldn’t they? Whether or not you have a superpower is up to you.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Funny coincidence... I just finished reading a Merlin story in which Merlin gives up his immortality to bring Gwaine back to life after Morgana kills him. And it's Guinevere who kills Morgana, using Excalibur.

Heroes get better PR, but they usually get stuck with the funny costumes.

I've always preferred the moral grey area, since some heroes can be so good that they lean all the way over into evil (anyone who's read the Kingpriest trilogy of Dragonlance novels will know what I mean), and some villains do come with some honorable traits (for another example in the Dragonlance universe, I refer to Steel Brightblade, in the novel Dragons of Summer Flame).

The Harry Potter equivalent would be Dumbledore and Snape. Dumbledore really isn't the hero that fans are led to believe, and Snape has believable motivations for being a jackass to the kids (not that it's a good thing, just believable) - and he does his best in an impossible no-win scenario.

Or if a more immediate familiar example would be preferred, there's always Frank Herbert's warning in Dune: Beware the charismatic leader (iow, Paul really isn't the hero of the story).

So I can't really cast a vote in this poll. The best hero/villain stories always have shades of grey.

 

[Synobun]

Superhero. I've always wanted to save people, somehow. This was robbed from me in several different ways, and now the most I can hope for is that I leave this earth without taking too much away from society. So this is a pretty easy choice for me.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Depends on the setting and character tropes. Like, I'd rather be Superman than some villain from James Bond that ends up dead by the end of the episode. But equally I'd rather be a cool evil wizard like Skeletor than a whiny baby hero like Spiderman. So I guess it all depends on the writer.

This said, if you did give me superpowers IRL I'd probably end up as some sort of anti hero / anti villain like Light from Death Note. A hero to some (my self included) but a monster to others (mostly the haters).

 

[NinjaCow64]

I've always had sympathy for certain types of supervillains, ones like Magneto. I would likely follow in his footsteps.

 

[Tee Kay]

I'll be a supervillain who's aligned with the superheroes. I still get my lair and complicated schemes pitting the heroes against each other, but by providing indispensable assistance at key moments I avoid being a target myself. Some moral purist superhero might still go after me but I'll be protected by the rest.

 

[Samson]

The goodies always win, and who does not want to be on the winning side?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

The goodies always win, and who does not want to be on the winning side?

They don't always. At least not in fanfiction, which doesn't always go for the commercially-mandated happy ending. Sometimes it just makes sense that the bad guys win. It's not nice or fun, but within the context of the story, or within the context of human nature, it's a reasonable way to conclude the story.

Mind you, I've just come from reading some rather depressing Merlin stories. Back when I first mentioned getting into that show, a couple of folks here said, "You're going to hate the ending."

Yep. They're right. It's depressing to think that of the main cast, over half of them are dead by the end of Season 5, and nobody seems to care about that poor, abused baby dragon who, in the course of her very short life, gets abandoned by Kilgharrah and Merlin, befriended by Morgana, tortured, used as a weapon against Camelot - twice - and the last we see of her is Merlin yelling at her to go away and he never makes things right with her after Arthur and Morgana are dead. For that reason alone, I've decided that Merlin is not really a hero.

So these particular stories weren't nice or fun. But they did make sense in the context of the story and how the characters would normally react.

 

[Narz]

Saving others is futile, saving myself and my hencemen now is that might be doable.

Hero, villian it's all the minds of others and who got the energy to cater to them. At the end of the day the hero is the one who survives to tell the tale.

 

[PhroX]

The goodies always win, and who does not want to be on the winning side?

Nah, evil will always triumph because good is dumb.

 

[Narz]

Nah, evil will always triumph because good is dumb.

And lazy, always passing the buck "hey that's not fair, you do something about it"

 

[Gori the Grey]

Hero.

Better lairs

I'm trying to think of a villain who has a better lair than the Batcave.

better schemes

The Avengers' scheme for undoing Thanos' villainy was more complex than his evil scheme.

henchmen

Each hero secretly thinks of all the other heroes on the team as his or her henchmen. So I've got superheroes as my henchmen.

(Nobody tell Thor I said this.)

Superhero. I've always wanted to save people, somehow. This was robbed from me in several different ways, and now the most I can hope for is that I leave this earth without taking too much away from society.

Don't discount your skill with language and the thoughtfulness of your posting as having the potential to save people.

There's lots of kinds of saving that need doing.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I'm trying to think of a villain who has a better lair than the Batcave.

Skeletor gets Snake Moutain. Hordak gets an entire dimension to rule over. That guy from James Bond has a volcano island with a laser on it. Hell, even Doctor Evil has a space station that can zap the moon.
And he has sharks with lasers on their heads. Sharks with lasers.

Each hero secretly thinks of all the other heroes on the team as his or her henchmen. So I've got superheroes as my henchmen.

Henchmen are overrated. Like, if you want them to actually fight for you and be loyal you either have to be a necromancer or a good employer. The later costs too much and the former is way too much hands on work for my taste.

 

[red_elk]

Supervillain of course. Superheroes wear underpants over their trousers, which is a disgrace.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Skeletor gets Snake Moutain. Hordak gets an entire dimension to rule over. That guy from James Bond has a volcano island with a laser on it. Hell, even Doctor Evil has a space station that can zap the moon.
And he has sharks with lasers on their heads. Sharks with lasers.

I don't know the first two, but what I like about the Batcave over the second two you list is the sense that it gives of multiple, differently-functional, sub-areas.

Henchmen are overrated.

Well, it's fine if you believe that, but then it cuts at least equally against amadeus' original claim that henchmen is one of the things that makes villains superior to heroes.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I was adding to the conversation in general more than disagreeing with you.

Really, my preference is for characters like Magneto or Light from Death Note. People fighting the good fight through means which are questionable to those of a weak constitution and childish morality.