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Best Villains for Every Tier

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I still waiting a good reason for the CM Nyarlathotep spot. Apparently, Outer Gods aren't characters. What defines a character? Existence of personality, and Outer Gods virtually have zero of it. They're a bit scary decorations, plot instruments, 'flat' and empty formations which sole purpose is to generate thrilling feels inside the reader, give extra-depth (i.e cosmic element) to the Lovecraft's horrors, but nothing alluring, really.
 
Nyar is different from the others, but what precludes their representation of some sort of archetype from being intriguing or interesting?
 
>funny valentine

>kira

This is hard, but I have to say Valentine. His actions are just more heroic. He truly believes in what he's doing and will do anything to accomplish them.
 
You may need to read the books Nyar appears in again if this is what you think, because just about none of what you just described actually applies to him.

Let me just go by my own criteria for a moment:

Motivations: In a verse where the gods are vast and powerful beyond reason and normally have little to do with humanity unless humanity comes looking for them, he/it is the only one of these gods to hold a vested interest in humans and the world in general. While most of the Outer Gods are decidedly neutral in terms of their aims and the destruction they might or might not cause, Nyar is legitimately evil and delights in sowing discord in every possible way he can, be it widespread or personal. He is a god who enjoys chaos, and is willing to pose as a mortal in order to see it happen.

Presence: Not only one of the few Outer Gods to actually show up in a book, but one of very few named Outer Gods to show up in multiple different works. As for in-universe presence, the truth about him is that he could be anywhere, posing as anyone. And while that gives him perfect anonymity as far as in-verse characters are concerned, to a reader, it translates to him being able to show up at any time without warning. This on top of being one of the aforementioned Outer Gods, who are already built up as major forces in the verse by the time we actually see him do something.

Threat Level: An Outer God who likes to walk amongst men, in a set of works that primarily feature Human level characters. I think that speaks for itself.

Personality: Aside from what's in the Motivations section, the one striking thing about him is that he's almost always showing up as a tall, thin and disarmingly happy person. (Or at least I remember that much) He's also not above gloating at times (as we see The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kaddath where he "taunted insolently the mild gods of earth whom he had snatched abruptly from their scented revels in the marvellous sunset city.")

Entertainment: I dunno about any of you because like I said I'm not sure how many of you people have actually read Lovecraft, but I was personally entertained by the few appearances he made in the original Lovecraft books. I didn't read everything he was in (not yet, anyway), but in the few I did, I definitely felt like seeing more of this malevolent, chaotic god who exists to sow discord amongst humanity.
 
Anyway, we are now at 492 posts (493 including this one), so another thread should be made at some point.

If someone wants to take over and do that, I won't stop them, since I probably won't be as active these next couple of weeks as I usually am. But if not, I'll make a new thread when I can.
 
Posting this here so it doesn't crowd the new thread.

"Aside from what's in the Motivations section, the one striking thing about him is that he's almost always showing up as a tall, thin and disarmingly happy person. (Or at least I remember that much)"

You remember correctly.

"And it was then that Nyarlathotep came out of Egypt. Who he was, none could tell, but he was of the old native blood and looked like a Pharaoh. The fellahin knelt when they saw him, yet could not say why. He said he had risen up out of the blackness of twenty-seven centuries, and that he had heard messages from places not on this planet. Into the lands of civilisation came Nyarlathotep, swarthy, slender, and sinister, always buying strange instruments of glass and metal and combining them into instruments yet stranger. He spoke much of the sciences—of electricity and psychology—and gave exhibitions of power which sent his spectators away speechless, yet which swelled his fame to exceeding magnitude. Men advised one another to see Nyarlathotep, and shuddered. And where Nyarlathotep went, rest vanished; for the small hours were rent with the screams of nightmare. Never before had the screams of nightmare been such a public problem; now the wise men almost wished they could forbid sleep in the small hours, that the shrieks of cities might less horribly disturb the pale, pitying moon as it glimmered on green waters gliding under bridges, and old steeples crumbling against a sickly sky." - Nyarlathotep

He doesn't even seem to be strictly supernatural, at first. He just seems to be an rather charismatic yet extremely unsettling Egyptian inventor who also claims to have heard messages from beyond, much like any lunatic cultist. The difference here being he ends up actually delivering on what he's selling.

When he appears to Carter in Dream-Quest, he notably still appears human, albeit beautiful and with some otherworldly features.

"Then down the wide lane betwixt the two columns a lone figure strode; a tall, slim figure with the young face of an antique Pharaoh, gay with prismatic robes and crowned with a golden pshent that glowed with inherent light. Close up to Carter strode that regal figure; whose proud carriage and swart features had in them the fascination of a dark god or fallen archangel, and around whose eyes there lurked the languid sparkle of capricious humour. It spoke, and in its mellow tones there rippled the mild music of Lethean streams." - The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

Despite being a shapeless eldritch entity from beyond the confines of dimensioned space, the dude's most well known guises were "handsome yet otherwordly young Pharaoh" and "basically Nikola Tesla".
 
Of those three I personally favor the Joker.

I can make the new thread, if nobody has yet.
 
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