The cool and collaborative Ian of Adventure Rules has just started up an event about getting lots of people to ask each other questions, and then… well, answer them. It’s called Charming and Open, and you can read about it (and I think you can still enter some questions, if you’re game) on Ian’s blog here. The essence of the thing is that lots of bloggers are encouraged to get involved, get to know one another, and generally spread the love, which is always nice and worth doing.

I’ve given Ian this zinger of a two-parter, which I’m sure he’ll have a brilliant answer for: ‘Which gaming character would you least likely to meet down a dark alley, and which would you most like to have by your side to protect you if you did happen to run into them?’

In return, he’s two-partered right back at me: ‘if you were the villain in a video game, what would your powers be and what would be your motivation for taking over the world?‘

My job, then, is to answer that question right now! Which I will do! RIGHT NOW!

If I were a villain, I think I would want to be a villain on a personal level, one who existed because of and in opposition to the protagonist, as opposed to one who wanted to do something on a mega scale like destroy/ take over/ generally mess up the entire world. So I suppose my identity would be defined to some extent by the hero I was up against, which means that’s where I need to start!

I think the hero and I probably knew each other when we were younger. We wouldn’t be brothers or anything, just kids who were friends from school or something like that.

He’s grown up and become some sort of chosen hero with the ability to fly around and shoot lightning at evil-doers, summoning magical weapons and vanquishing his foes. I’ve got a bit sour about the whole thing, because the media’s all like ‘OOOOH THIS GUY’S SO JUSTICE, MUCH COOL’ and I’m there like ‘well, he’s not that cool, in school he was kind of a dork, and since he became the hero of the universe he never hangs out with me and he thinks he’s too good for me, and that sort of thing’, and I probably start some sort of angry anti-hero blog, because that’s what I’m like.

Eventually, I just get too pissed off about the whole darn thing, and decide it’s time to show the world that this guy isn’t really that amazing, he’s just a bloke who happened to get some powers. So I set him up for a fall. Somehow I develop my own set of powers, and amass an army of low-level wrong’uns. I send my new minions out against him, making sure to get lots of footage of him beating them right up, then publish more blog posts showing him mercilessly wrecking these mooks… right next to pictures of them playing happily with their kids. Unfortunately, nobody reads my blog, so it’s time to take matters into my own hands.

I record a video in which I’m talking all scared-like about how afraid I am that Mr Hero might actually be evil, and with his sick sense of justice he’s probably going to come and murder me in cold blood. Then I go and reveal myself to him, making sure to also record his reaction – which I’m expecting will be rage and wrath – and engage him in an epic final boss fight (obviously I don’t record the part where I fight back). Using my abilities to move the earth and transform myself to meld with the darkness, I shield myself from his lightning bolts and vanish into the shadows they cast, inflicting non-lethal but extremely painful wounds on him until he completely loses control and blasts me into oblivion.

Before going out to face him, I’ve made sure that last part gets recorded, too, and the footage all gets released to a news station after my death. Now the whole world will see him for an immature murderer, a child who isn’t worthy of the powers he just got lucky and fell into.

Hero’s life ruined, I’m victorious, even if I did have to be dead to do it. Naturally, since he is actually the hero and I’m the bad guy, at the end of the fight he probably ends up choosing to spare my life, thus ruining my plan and completing his character arc of growing as a person. Yuck.

I guess the game I’m the villain of probably has some sort of moral choice system, where the player can cause the hero to make some bad choices until he ends up finally giving in to his rage and murdering me, causing the bad ending in which his reputation is in tatters, or they can make good choices and lead the hero to transform from an immature kid who likes using his powers to beat people up into a responsible champion who helps people and only resorts to violence when necessary.

And there you have it: Chris the Villain. I’m slightly concerned by how easy it was to think of my nefarious plan, so… uh… well, if I ever do actually turn into a supervillain, blame Ian.