Barthandelus - Villian Or Not?

Is he a villain or not?


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    23

DarkShadow

S'all good in tha hood!
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NO SPOILERS!!

I just want to know weather you think he is a villain or not..........

I mean there was a few reviews and certain people (yes you martel) stressing that the lack of villains made this game shit including the story.
 
Yes, me. In my opinion, Barthandelus does not qualify to be a villain, because he does, bluntly put, absolutely fuck all.

Villains are, in my opinion, every bit as important and well-developed as the primary protagonist, and as I said in my review (/shameless blogging) the only characters to receive any kind of development are the protagonists.

He's like a cheap version of Emperor Palpatine (Force-Lightning-ing his lieutenants who had more character in their small appearances than he ever did), appearing at random with no real explanation for some thinly veiled advice and a quick battle, which is slightly more difficult than a regular battle, since you have to Paradigm Shift a few times in order to win.

He doesn't appear to have any real motive - sure, he SAYS he has a motive, but what does he actually do to accomplish it? Sits back and lets the main characters get on with running aimlessly from place to place, occasionally shouting "GO TO CODE WHITE!" in what he hopes is a dramatic, impressive voice.

The entire story of FFXIII (or what I suppose passes for a story) focuses on the main characters, and their pointless journey from place to place, the very epitome of the old wartime song "Run Rabbit Run". Barthandelus is just there to give the main characters someone to fight, to make the player feel like they're actually accomplishing something. If you removed Barthandelus from the game, it wouldn't really impact how bad it was, and THIS is one of the main reasons he doesn't qualify as a villain - villains are memorable, they are ESSENTIAL. He is neither.

...and, really, what kind of character was Barthandelus? I've seen villains in magical girl anime with more personality than him. He was just a guy in a robe who occasionally teleported on screen to say things like "Fulfil your Focus!" and then, to provide incentive, transformed into a giant LEGO man to try and kill the protagonists he was trying to egg on. Smarty Barty is real smart. Reaaaal smart.
 
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Yes, he is a villain. Just not a very good one. Or a very memorable villain. So what does he do? Well, he talks too much, does a bit of hocus pocus here and there, sit around, pretending to sound threatening, has a design that only the Maker could love, and has an evil(ish) plan, but executes the plan in a ridiculously stupid way. :dave:
 
I don't think he is a villain in the true sense of kefka or sephiroth; meaning I don't think, barthandelus is evil in the classic sense of wanting to harm everybody and rule the universe. He just wants to start everything anew.

The true battle is not against an architype like other FF- it is "within" each character coming to grips with their destiny. And as lame as that sounds, the game is actually lamer.
 
Just a normal Guy?............Shadow...god dammit lmao

He is for all intents and purposes the villain of FFXIII right?

You fight him several times, he antagonizes the protagonists........he does his job.
Not overly memorable though, I think of him as more of a victm in the sense that he only feels abandoned..........by Lindzei..........oh right no spoilers.
 
Galenth Dysley/Barthandelus wasnt the best villian ever. I liked his voice. That made him sound evil. I actually thought his voice was the obly part of him that sounded evil. "hahahah fools I AM FAL'CIE MY NAME IS BARTHANDELUS" !! Etc etc. Also he is very very random. He speaks about Orphan who is the true master of death in XIII's case. Then when you get to Oerba he just takes the form of a different character. Then when you se ethat bird you automatically know you fight him. But really I thought he could have fought you with his regular form. Would have been cool. But tbh XIII'S villians were very shit. This means Jihl Nabaat, Yaag Rosch and Cid Raines who was a bit good till he lost himself. Bathandelus is the only one who actually sounds evil in XIII so yes he is a villian. Even if he has a choir on the 2 sides of his face :wacky:
 
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Well since you really only see him twice in the story line and both are concerning his back ground... not throwing spoilers in... but he was a villain. He stood against the 6 of them on total opposition of them due to their free will. You find out later why.. (almost impossible to give details as to why without spoilers), but for now I'll leave it at that.
 
Since people seem to be tossing spoilers in anyway, I'll shift this over to the spoiler discussion.
 
Well, it's in the spoiler discussion section now, so I may as well go ahead and say what I think of Barthandelus as a whole.

As I said before, he technically is a villain. He certainly isn't anything else. He just exists as a source of menace to the main party with an overly-elaborate plan involving "murder", not "mercy" as Lightning said. I guess that's the first step in being a bad guy in my book. However, it's just how the character is handled that makes him such a forgettable and lame villain compared to what the previous few games have given us.

Barthandelus is better than Orphan I have to say. Not that this is much to be proud of, because anyone can beat Orphan in the villain department. Barty has just so little to interest us. We first meet him as the Primarch. Ooh, wow. The Primarch is just a fancy FFXIII jargon term for "Emperor" or something. A leader of a government that shoots people in Purges, you know that this will be a bad guy, and the sad thing is, this obvious observation kills the interest. I've seen this before. It's nothing special. At least FFXII handled Vayne in a better way.

And because Barty is a Fal'Cie (essentially just sentient machines if you will), he's just "evil" in a generic way. Just a generic Fal'Cie bad guy. Wow. Why the heck should any of us care much about him? Look at Seymour, Kuja - and possibly even Vayne. You see different sides to them. Those three have reasons to sympathise with or to relate to in terms of intentions. Barty is none of this. All you care about it: "Ugly old man becomes weird giant face monster. Die".

Now why do I think his plans are ridiculous? Well let's see...

He wants Orphan gone so it can be curtains for Cocoon at the expense of their lives so the Maker can rebuild the world in her return. Errrr.....okay. It's evil enough I guess, but his methods of doing so are just ridiculously odd and convoluted. So he orchestrates for centuries widespread Pulse-phobia in the populace in the hopes (or rather chance) that somehow Pulse L'Cies will rise up, survive an onslaught from Cocoonians with his help and then slay Orphan when hope is lost? I mean - what? Was this made up and strung together as the developers went along?
 
I think Barthandelus is a villian...although agreeably not a very memorable one. How could you possibly think that he isn't? I think he was on the lazier side of villanry...sitting by while making everyone else do his dirty work for him. Jihl, Yaag, Cid, the main group of "heroes." While he just fed the main characters hate filled bites of treachery to keep them steamed enough to keep them on the task at hand.

Though, without his stupid owl, he wouldn't have been 1/4 the villian that he was...seems like the owl did most of the hard work as I wouldn't find Barthandelus by himself very intimidating. After looking at him the only thing I'd want to go after him with would be botox. :monster:
 
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Just a normal Guy?............Shadow...god dammit lmao

He is for all intents and purposes the villain of FFXIII right?

You fight him several times, he antagonizes the protagonists........he does his job.
Not overly memorable though, I think of him as more of a victm in the sense that he only feels abandoned..........by Lindzei..........oh right no spoilers.

I just put the normal guy thing there because I thought other people would've thought that after a discussion in the shoutbox a few days ago.............

and the spoilers bit............I posted it in the FFXIII section first..........then it got moved to the FF fun section...........then here so you can't blame me for that..........

And yes I do think he is a villain...........I just put this thread up after people and reviews were complaining of no real villian.............

But I wouldn't say he's the best villain not as good as Kefka or Sephiroth either..........I just think he is a good villain not just a memorable one...........but he did piss me off.........like most villains! :rage:
 
I didn't find him that bad actually, but his character seemed to be more villainous in a political sense than a bad guy sense. If that actually makes any sense.
XII and XIII seem to be a lot more politically based, and Barthandelus was just a figurehead who thought he was doing the right thing, he wasn't necessarily doing it to be evil or bad, he was doing it because he saw it as his objective, he saw it as what he had to do.
He actually helps the party throughout most of the game (or so he says), he even tells them that he wants to craft them into the tools of Cocoon's destruction.
I wouldn't call that evil, i'd call that driven.

When he fights the party all those times, he doesn't hold back but I believe each time he does he's testing the party to see how they've advanced and if they're ready yet, I think the only thing that he didn't predict was them killing him, although, maybe he did.
 
Well he isn't a traditional villain and neither is 13 a traditional FF game. Any way Barty reminds me of the classic supervisor from work who delegates the boss you never See's orders to everyone. It would of been nice if they had a character who starts out with the party but then defects part way through who can add a more villainous tone to the game (a bit more complex than cait siph also with no defecting back). For example a charecter who loses his mind due to the pressure of being l'cie who Barty then grooms under his wing to throw spanners in the works for the good guys.
 
The game seems to be good about making the villain seem good and heroes seem bad. I got the impression that that's what they were trying to do as one of the characterization elements. Of course, I could be wrong.
 
Not the best villian in the series but a villian all the same. A puppet master, pulling the strings but not doing a very good job of it. The true villian of the game was in my opinion, not a person or character but the fact the characters were living on borrowed time. Was enough for me.

A shit Jenova?
 
I think he is truly taking orders from someone else

if they make XIII-3 I think it will be revealed that way and that he and Caius were turned by the true evil one to carry out her orders.
 
I voted for not a villain.

Though technically he is one, he's just so forgettable (like Vayne from XII) that I really don't consider him a true FF villain. But that's just my opinion
 
I just have this strange feeling that when its all said and done in the FF 13 series, that Etro will be revealed as the main villain/antagonist and pulling the strings....
 
Barthandelus is by far my favorite villain thus far. In a disturbing way, he reminds me a bit of myself.
His nihilism and misanthropy are traits I can really relate to. Just the way he's written is brilliant. I must say, when I went into XIII spoiler free and reached the Palamecia, my mind was blown when this old man we saw like 6 chapters ago turned into a hulking, mechanical god-like creature. His motives and methods are highly respectable, too. He's willing to give up his own life just to see his plans come to fruition, which, unlike most FF villains, his mostly did.
 
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