Really loving this. I kept yelling at you guys but you can't hear me, so I'll write my thoughts here:

Handsome Jack example is good when pointing out villainy through dialogue, but I'd point at GLaDOS as an even stronger example. Handsome Jack is great because he thinks he's the hero and you're the villain (and he's not entirely wrong when you think about the protagonists one at a time). GLaDOS is your foil, and recognizes her own love/hate relationship with you, and literally cannot act upon you directly - her villainy is 100% revealed through her own dialogue. If GLaDOS were mute, she would just be an obstacle, not a villain. It's more notable when you take into account that Chell doesn't or can't talk, herself. IMHO, Handsome Jack follows in GLaDOS's footsteps.

GRRM makes nothing but perfect villains. Even his apparently straightforward brutish dullard antagonists like Gregor Clegane has agency and a background that explains his evil. You might not love or forgive them, but you can understand what led to their villainy in every single case. Even if it's just the most basic, horrible, banal thugs someone might run into in the world, there's a certain level of sympathy there because those people have been driven to be what they are by the ugly state of the world around them. GRRM is probably one of the greatest storytellers alive.

Otto is the best hero, because obviously.

More compelling argument: thinking about the unrealistic depictions of violence and lack of consequences in your threads on Althanas will make your storytelling better. Leaping immediately to offensive tropes to try and create a visceral reaction to your villain is the "easy" way, and will fail to elicit the response you're looking for. There's nothing wrong with pushing limits, but you should probably wait until you're mature enough to understand those lines and what they mean for both villain and victim. Plus when you do it poorly, it makes your reader wonder about you as the writer, not about the character, which means you've shaken them out of the story, which means you've completely failed as a storyteller. Twitch just said "less is more," and I started nodding furiously.

Now you guys are talking about Masterminds but aren't saying it: Joker. You're talking about Joker.

There you go, Andy, thank you. There's a good theory that the Joker wins at the end of The Killing Joke: there's the suggestion that Batman finally kills him - that it isn't Gordon that was the target, at all.

Re: people who write darker characters having that color peoples' perception of the writer. Sometimes that's a result of failure, as I mentioned before, but it can be when you're doing a good job. See the way people talk about Aure, and see the way people haaaaate GRRM. It's a thin line.

A Boy Called It was touted as a true story. It wasn't. It was all made up, there was a huge backlash against the guy. Here's a good example of "what's actually wrong with the person who wrote this."

Aure, you are a poet.

We're talking about torture porn more than villainy right now, though. It eventually becomes more about the act than the actor.

USE YOUR MOUTH WORDS.

More plz