have seen multiple people making critiques of brennan's villains (and it seems kinda paired with handwringing over sorcerers making up the bulk of the villains in campaign 4 thus far) that frankly do not make sense to me. i struggle to understand how you can critique C4's villains as over the top evil or cartoony or flat or whatever in good faith. for one, it has been 31 episodes (out of, presumably, 125+) and the PCs have had, on average, ~15ish sessions of playtime. as the audience, to expect to know the sum total of the current primary villain(s) and all their nuances this early on is unreasonable
this complaint falls apart to me because it's incongruous with any other critical role campaign's villains. like. it's a d&d show. the villains are over-the-top. they're fully irredeemable from the moment they step on screen. they do wildly horrible things. this is a game being played for fun and entertainment. the villains need to also be entertainingly evil at times. and the most recognizable and popular villains of the prior campaigns are largely reprehensible. some of them are highly charismatic. some of them are nice but upholding a corrupt and evil institution. if that sounds familiar, it's because it also describes c4 villains.
it feels like people expect brennan to bring the "the villain has a point" trope into the campaign, as if signalling c4 as a brutal, mature and difficult campaign requires that we have a villain who is Right But His Methods Are Wrong because that's become a lazy shorthand for a villain who is complicated and interesting~
delilah and sylas have a backstory that is sympathetic and tragic but they are still Baby Eating Torture Monsters who try to end the world. lucien is charming and enjoyable to engage with but he's still a murderer with a cult of personality trying to become something incredibly destructive. the cerberus assembly are a corrupt arm of the state, even if all of them aren't like trent. take any villain from c1 or c2 (i haven't finished c3 but the villains were underwhelming to me) and compare them to primus or yanessa or any of the minor antagonists and you will not find that much difference in function or execution
so is the criticism that the plots and schemes are evil for the sake of being evil? they're not. the villains are all doing what they're doing to maintain power, wealth and status. their motivation is not "repress the populace because it's fun and we're evil" it's "this is how we maintain the power our families have enjoyed for centuries in a world where the source of our power is fading from memory."
or is the criticism that there lacks a sympathetic heart at the core of the monstrousness? because the PCs have barely interacted with either of the apparent "big bads" of the campaign (they have both appeared in less than five sessions). however, if you've watched and paid attention, there have actually been hints of the "tragic backstory" for both. primus is clearly stuck in a cycle of abusive patriarchs (and has had two of his sons slaughtered in a week, so his ep 31 rage is what most people would consider at least understandable) and both primus and yanessa have made comments about the slaughter of their family at the end of the shapers war, when at least one of them was a child.
if the criticism is that there's a lack of nuance, then what is your definition of nuance? primus and yanessa are horrible and cannot be reasoned with, sure, but otto einfasen is a villain who is a reasonable and shrewd man allied with the protagonists for the time being. aranessa royce is a heroic character who has only just been divested of her ties to the institution that is the main power hub of the villains. for every character who is a snarling monster terrorizing the PCs (amariya, aniko, etc.) there are bad guys who are characterized as nice people who care about their families but believe in things destructive to the PCs or the world (iris halovar and the faithful of the creed) or people who still want to benefit from the system despite being aware that it committed evil against them (maya davinos)
and, not to bring it to a cheap end, this is a big epic fantasy story. the big epic fantasy story, by virtue of genre conventions, requires big, epic, horrible villains who fight to destroy what the characters hold dear. there is allegory, there is satire, there is plenty of nuanced philosophies about the nature of good and evil to be found in the campaign, but this is also a story that respects The Genre of high fantasy. sometimes the monsters are monsters.
THIS!!!! People act like "evil methods, good motive" is the only fucking complex complex story you can tell with a villain. Off the top of my head, some of the nuances c4's villains have already explored are:
Casimir --- How much can you ask someone to sacrifice for a nearly hopeless cause? What happens when someone allows another person to define status and worth (the crowkeepers wearing heavy armor they aren't proficient in)? What happens when you try to negotiate and placate evil?
Halovars --- What makes religion appealing, and how can it be used for good and ill? What level of power in a religion makes you complicit in the evil it does, and what does justice look like in response? What is the value of an ugly truth? How much power can you derive from controlling public perception?
Tachonises --- What does the cycle of abuse look like and how do you escape/perpetrate it? How does clinging to an arbitrary metric of value (i.e. sorcery, nobility) weaken you? What are the limitations of using brute force? What happens when you reduce individuals to bodies and bodies to resources?
Termina --- What is your responsibility to your family? What do you do when you lose the reason for your existence?
I could go on but Ive hijacked this post for long enough lol
