8 More Movie Villains You Didn't Realise Actually Won

WhatCulture

Ozymandias' victory was more water-tight than you think.

Transcript

00:00While the hero doesn't always come out on top in movies, it's generally made abundantly clear when the bad guy wins, right?

00:07Well, every so often, movies get a little bit more sly and subtle about the villain's victory,

00:12perhaps because they don't want to downplay the hero's successes or make the movie a pure downer.

00:18Yet, all the same, and following up on our last video on the subject,

00:21I'm Ewan, this is War Culture, and here are 8 more movie villains you didn't realize actually won.

00:278. Robert Callahan, Big Hero 6

00:31Big Hero 6's villain is a masked man known as Yo-Kai,

00:35later revealed to be Professor Robert Callahan, played by the always brilliant James Cromwell,

00:39who faked his death as part of a revenge plot against tech madman Aleister Cray, Alan Tudyk.

00:44And though Callahan is ultimately arrested at the end of the movie,

00:48he straight up accomplished everything that he set out to do.

00:51He obliterated Cray's HQ by reactivating the teleportation portal,

00:55and most importantly, he got his daughter Abigail back,

00:58who disappeared while working as a test pilot on one of Cray's portal experiments.

01:03All in all, a few years in jail for executing his plan as intended is probably a pretty acceptable

01:09trade-off for Callahan, especially as he rescued his beloved daughter.

01:13It's just a shame that the plan inadvertently led to the death of protagonist hero's older brother,

01:18Tadashi, which Callahan at least expresses regret for.

01:22Even so, the outcome for Callahan was absolutely a net positive.

01:26Number 7. Azog the Defiler

01:28The Hobbit, The Battle of the Five Armies

01:30In Peter Jackson's less-than-necessary Hobbit trilogy,

01:34Orc War Chief Azog the Defiler's plan was to wipe out the male bloodline of Durin

01:39by killing Thorin Oakenshield and his nephews, Fili and Kili.

01:43And in the third film, The Battle of the Five Armies, he absolutely succeeds.

01:47Sure, Azog also dies during his final battle on the ice with Thorin,

01:52but it's certainly anything but a victory for the Dwarven King,

01:56who also perishes from his wounds moments later.

01:59This was Azog's personal quest from the outset of the trilogy.

02:02He took an oath and, damn it, he followed through, even at the cost of his own life.

02:07And while the films might brush it under the carpet in pursuit of a more triumphant,

02:11crowd-pleasing climax, Azog totally succeeded in wiping out Thorin's bloodline,

02:16just as he swore he would.

02:19If that's not winning, then what is?

02:22Number 6, Freddy Krueger, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4, The Dream Master

02:26Though it's fair to say that Robert England's Freddy Krueger just loves to torment young folk

02:31through their dreams, his wider operating goals since the start of the series has been to kill

02:37off the children of the parents who banded together and killed them in revenge for murdering

02:4120 local children all those years ago.

02:44And in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4, The Dream Master, Freddy finally follows through with

02:48this quest, killing the so-called last of the Elm Street children, Kristen Parker, who

02:53was burned to death midway through the movie.

02:56Kristen herself even hammers the point home by telling Freddy moments before her demise

03:00that she is the last.

03:02And while the series of course continued on for many more installments, for the franchise's

03:07midway point, Freddy had effectively accomplished his main mission.

03:11The rest of the souls he claims after that point are just gravy, basically, and no matter

03:16how many times he's defeated in the subsequent movies, nobody can take away from him the fact

03:20that he killed all of the original Elm Street children.

03:23Number 5, President Snow, The Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 2.

03:28Granted, there aren't many movie villains who get ripped apart by an angry mob and could

03:32still genuinely claim to coming out on top.

03:35But The Hunger Games' President Snow, Donald Sutherland, is no ordinary villain.

03:40Though Snow is murdered by a rabble of irate citizens in Mockingjay Part 2, this comes at

03:45the end of a long, successful, and enriched life.

03:49He got to live many, many decades as the autocratic ruler of Panem, and through Katniss' actions,

03:56not only avoids an official, formal execution, he also gets to see his nemesis, President

04:02Coyne, get murdered by her before he dies.

04:05Even accepting Snow's own brutal death, he literally goes out laughing, knowing that he

04:10managed to talk Katniss into killing his enemy, robbing her of the power she so desperately

04:15craved before he himself was finished off.

04:18It may be a Pyrrhic victory for Snow, but it's a victory nonetheless.

04:224. Terrence Fletcher – Whiplash

04:26Whiplash seemingly ends with jazz drummer Andrew Nyman, played by a career-best Miles

04:31Teller, triumphing over his abusive former instructor Terrence Fletcher, J.K. Simmons,

04:37by leading the band in a mesmerizing performance of the jazz standard caravan.

04:41This is despite Fletcher's attempts to publicly embarrass him by having the band first play a

04:46song that Andrew doesn't know.

04:48However, even beyond the debates about whether Andrew pushed himself too far in the pursuit

04:53of greatness, didn't Fletcher ultimately get what he really wanted?

04:57His own Charlie Parker.

04:59A few scenes earlier, Fletcher laments to Andrew that despite his efforts, he was never able

05:03to mould his own Charlie Parker, a genuine musical prodigy formed by his harsh, if we're

05:09being kind, methods.

05:11But with Andrew's stunning final performance, Fletcher finally got it.

05:15Andrew may think he was the real winner by subverting Fletcher's plan to embarrass him

05:20on stage, but all it did was push Andrew to give the best rendition of his life and fulfill

05:25Fletcher's own twisted ambition.

05:273. Richmond Valentine – Kingsman, The Secret Service

05:32Now, to be completely fair, Kingsman's villain, Richmond Valentine, Samuel Jackson, absolutely

05:38did not want to die at the end.

05:40But, all the same, he was ultimately far more successful in pulling off his population curbing

05:46plan than the movie's ending or its sequel would have you believe.

05:50Valentine's hilariously over-the-top scheme involved giving away free SIM cards to everyone

05:54on Earth before transmitting a signal which would turn them murderously violent, all in

05:59the pursuit of whittling down the population and stemming global warming.

06:03We see a brief display of this potential and Valentine activates a signal in the third

06:08act, causing absolute chaos around the world until the signal is stopped.

06:13People instantly start fighting and killing each other, with even parents, including Eggsy's

06:18own mother, trying to kill their own kids.

06:20And yet, director Matthew Vaughn kind of glosses over the fallout at the end of the film, the

06:25matter that surely millions, even tens of hundreds of millions of people would have been killed

06:31globally, especially the young, old, and vulnerable.

06:35Even with the signal only being active for such a short time, Valentine likely wiped out

06:39a decent portion of the world's population.

06:41Number 2, Ozymandias, Watchman.

06:44Plenty of spirited debate, shall we say, about whether Ozymandias is Watchman's true villain

06:50or not.

06:51But, you know, the guy kind of sort of murders 15 million people in his quest to unite the world

06:56against a common enemy, Dr. Manhattan.

06:59And that's not exactly heroic.

07:01There's absolutely a cruel, perverse logic to his actions, which are at least initially

07:06shown to completely succeed.

07:09The world does unite together, Manhattan is exiled from Earth, and the single dissenting

07:15hero, Rorschach, is even killed by Manhattan on his way out of the door.

07:20Some will point to the film's final scene, where Rorschach's journal ends up in the hands

07:25of a New York tabloid is proof that Ozymandias' ruse will eventually be exposed.

07:30But think about it, who's gonna believe it?

07:32The scrawlings of a deranged vigilante have considerably less credibility than a retired

07:37superhero turned businessman, especially when published by a cranky, paranoid tabloid.

07:42As such, it's incredibly likely that humanity at large would posthumously dismiss Rorschach

07:47as a fringe lunatic conspiracy theorist, and Ozymandias wouldn't face any major repercussions

07:53for his actions.

07:54He won in pretty much every way that matters.

07:57And number one, Khan Noonien Singh, Star Trek II, The Wrath of Khan.

08:02Ricardo Montalban's iconic villain, Khan Noonien Singh, may not survive the events of

08:07the greatest Star Trek movie, Wrath of Khan, but he nevertheless fulfills his primary objective

08:12to, in his own words, do something far worse than kill Captain Kirk, hurt him, and hurt

08:19him bad.

08:20Khan's actions end up severely damaging the Enterprise, in turn causing Spock's sacrificial

08:26death, and in Kirk's quest to resurrect Spock in the third film, also leads to the death

08:31of Kirk's son, David.

08:33On top of that, the precious Genesis device is destroyed, a ton of Starfleet personnel are

08:38dead, and because Kirk kills Klingon Kruger, Christopher Lloyd, in the third movie's climax,

08:44Klingons now hate him forevermore, and I mean, relatable, I'd also kind of hate you if you

08:49killed Klingon Christopher Lloyd, sorry Bill Shatner.

08:52And yeah, that's a big old mess that Khan created for Kirk, and consequently, a lot of

08:57pain, even long after Khan himself is dead.

09:01Khan cuts Kirk, and he cuts him deep.

09:04No matter that he didn't actually kill the guy, instead he left him to live and experience

09:09the full feeling of his pain.

09:11And those were 8 more movie villains you didn't realise actually won.

09:15Any villains you feel secretly handed a big fan out to their opponents in a given film?

09:19Shout them out down in the comments below.

09:21Don't forget to drop the video a like if you enjoyed it, and subscribe to the channel so

09:24you don't miss another upload.

09:25Either way, thank you all for watching, I've been Ewan, this has been WhatCulture, and

09:29I'll hopefully catch you next time.

09:31Bye!

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