AUTOA113's Astounding Antagonists

[AUTOA113]

Are villains your favorite part of Pixar films?

• Yup.
• Nope.

If you find villains, or as I’d rather call them, Antagonists, intriguing, read on.

I thoroughly studied all the Antagonists of Pixar to a degree, that I will answer whatever question is posted or privately sent to me. It can be about Antagonists in general or a specific aspect of any one of Pixar’s Antagonists.

To show you the knowledge of whaty I am capable of, here is the first draft of my psychology portion, formulated on the common antagonist’s mind and a few examples of Pixar fame:

The nature of the antagonist is divided into three components, the objective, subjective, and mental, that will be described in a familiar way, but obviously named differently than Sigmund Freud’s discoveries of the three parts of the human’s psychic apparatus. There are a few bits and pieces of my own added in, for after all, not all antagonists are human. For instance, if you were to sit on a log and there was a bump on it, that very bump would be an antagonist, for it hinders you. But these following descriptions are for the antagonists capable of thought, regardless of species.
The Objective is parallel to the Id, straightforward in nature, and desperate to complete or acquire something. ([/spoiler]. Al McWiggin, Toy Story 2, intent on stealing Woody and selling him top dollar to Japan.[/spoiler]) The antagonists who are mostly comprised of Objective are predictable, and very definite to what their goal is. Many unfortunate antagonists of melodramas, mostly called villains, fall too far into this category, and it brings their demise.
The Subjective is the Superego, the sensitive backdrop behind the dark figure, or a ubiquitous “bad childhood” that forces the character into joining the dark side, or to you more unappreciative people, be led “astray.” It may be a very small, seemingly unimportant action or occurrence, but it lives with the antagonist forever. I call the specific action the subjective influence, but if no single event creates the antagonist, it is just the subjective. The most tragic examples of the subjective influence are when an antagonist used to be friends or otherwise close to the protagonist, and the protagonist’s selfish actions inadvertently create the antagonist. ([/spoiler]There are two examples I will give here. Buddy Pine, turned into Syndrome by brooding on a 15-year-old conversation with his childhood hero, Mr. Incredible. The actions of Mr. Incredible causing a non-human antagonist, which forces supers into hiding because of lawsuits.[/spoiler]) The subjective part of the antagonist can also be considered their emotional behavior that varies with personality, many times dominating a character, but truly successful antagonists either stifle their emotions or may not even be equipped with the ability to emote.
Finally, the Mental component, the Ego of our beloved antagonist. (Not Anton Ego! Although he does possess much intelligence and sophistication.) This mental capacity is the prime ingredient behind many good, and frightening, antagonists. The larger the ratio of Mental, the more the Objective and Subjective become concealed, and the antagonist consequentially becomes a bigger threat. The best antagonists usually know how to carry out their plans in secret and how to throw the protagonist off by revealing the subjective influence or tapping into the weaknesses and fears of the protagonist.
While the typical antagonist is usually balanced in all three components, the better ones are usually dramatically dominant in one area:

Hopper: 35% Mental, 5% Subjective, 60% Objective

Syndrome: 40% Mental, 40% Subjective, 20% Objective

AUTO: 50% Mental, 0% Subjective, 50% Objective

Questions, comments, and theories of your own are all welcome, even if you bash my long winded-ness…[/spoiler]

[AUTOA113]

It has come to my attention that this may not be that interesting, as no one has posted. It doesn’t matter, although I put a lot of hard work on this and others. Should I add more?

Perhaps the discussion should be about which villains are the best Pixar villains.

[pitbulllady]

I’m not a big fan of the classic, Disney-style villains, and in the case of Pixar’s superior writing, I do not believe that it is even necessary at all to have a villain-an ANTAGONIST, yes, but those do not have to be characters that are portrayed as evil to the core, beyond redemption. As an adult, who has experienced more in life than the average young person, I’m strongly of the conclusion that in real life, when it comes to people, there’s seldom a cut-and-dry example of a “good” person or a “bad” person, but rather good or bad DEEDS. I would very much like for Pixar to pick up THAT ball and run with it, rather than falling back on what is a jaded formula for many a Disney film before them, and countless cheap Saturday morning kiddie shows. I want so very much to believe that Pixar is better than that.

Most of you here know, with that having been said, that my favorite Pixar character, without a doubt, is Randall Boggs from Monsters, Inc., whom many people consider to be an evil-to-the-core villain, who was probably evil from the moment his mama and daddy conceived him, but having been in a similar postion myself, I can testify as to how life’s curve balls can force an individual into that primal “fight/flight” reaction that can easily be perceived as “choosing to follow the dark side”. I’d have to characterize Randall as 50% Mental, 50% Subjective and 0% Objective, as an antagonist, since to ME, a villain is one who designs and implements a plan of destruction, using others. Randall himself was being used, and was hardly in a position of power or even free will, for that matter. And, while there is no overt plot that details how or why he was so easily manipulated, there are clues that like Buddy Pine, he too might have been subjected to some childhood trauma, emotional or physical, that left him vulnerable to being taken advantage of by someone else, in this case, Henry J. Waternoose, who is very strong in the Objective area. He specialized in finding weaknesses in others and using them to his advantage, while projecting a “front” of kindness, compassion, and empathy for others, traits that he did not possess.

pitbulllady

[lizardgirl]

This thread is right up my alley! I love both exploring the nature of antagonists and explaining their motives psychologically, and I’m interested in how you’ve used Freud’s elements of the personality and shown examples of each case. As someone who’s read a few books of Freud’s, as I’m sure you have yourself by the sounds of things, it’s obvious that Freud was undoubtedly valuable to the world of psychology and was a great idea-formulator, but in practice a lot of his ideas haven’t been proven and in some cases have been disproven, which is why I’d never really thought about Pixar’s antagonists in terms of one of his theories.

Whether I agree with the theory is something I’m not entirely sure of at the moment. His ideas do make sense in a lot of cases, as you’ve shown, but I also like to attribute some of the antagonists’ actions to other psychological routes, like for example operant conditioning in Syndrome’s case where he has learnt that for people to pay attention to him (whether that be in a positive or negative light) he has to do something really extreme and generally what we would consider to be ‘evil’.

AUTO is one that’s always quite difficult in terms of Pixar’s antagonists because in a way, it’s hard to think of him of an antagonist at all- he has no motive aside from following orders, and he has no real reason to follow those orders as he’s a robot uncapable of questioning such things. I would therefore claim that AUTO does not posess the three personality traits that Freud has defined.

But a very interesting topic indeed! I look forward to seeing you share some more theories, AUTOA113, and welcome to the boards!

[AUTOA113]

I appreciate the comments, guys!

Strangely enough, I did not read any of Freud’s books. But I did go to a lecture at a college I used to go to (declined to state where or what it was. Embarrassing.) and I was awed. So, I took a subject that I figured had a unique phycological makeup and the best one (and the most interesting in my opinion) were the understated, misunderstood, unappreciated bad guys.

I never have been scared of these guys, it seems. Just inanimate objects. when I was little, if something not alive moved, I’d scream. Now I think these same objects have feelings. I probably sound insane but that’s what I think. Blame The Brave little Toaster and WALL·E. I love them both. “The Brave little WALL·E.” Aww…so cute!

Another piece of my studies:

Some antagonists are not even to truly blame for their actions. The only examples I can give here are Mike Yagoobian (Disney, not Pixar) and, of course Auto.

Let’s focus on Mike. He is an orphaned kid with a dream to play baseball. One action, by the protagonist Lewis, his roommate, causes Mike to lose sleep the night before a big game. He falls asleep in the outfield and doesn’t catch the ball, so his team loses the match. At first, he was to let his mistake slide, but he decided later (through some time-traveling complexities) that he would never let it go. As a result, he doesn’t get adopted, and grows up into a corrupted 30 year old man, bent on revenge against Lewis.

Mike is incompetent and can’t really think of anything threatening to do to Lewis. Even when he considers blowing him up, he nixes the idea, saying " That won’t work. He’s be dead." So, he can’t really be an antagonist or a villain. He is not harmful nor is he really in the way of Lewis. He has a few instances where he trips Lewis up, but it’s really not significant enough to count as antagonism.

Mental 10%, Objective 50%, Subjective 40%

Auto is all antagonist, with none of the villainy, and half the fat and MSG of Campbell’s. Sorry, been eating too much soup.

Many have said that Auto is only following orders. The problem with that is how it affects what WALL·E, EVE, and the Captain want to happen. His directive coincides with what has to be done. One point no one has made yet is the fact that Auto is unaware of time passing. I have made note of this in my fan fiction. WALL·E is the same. Over 700 years, he continues to do his job, repairing himself when necessary, gaining a personality, and “surviving” until the pivotal appearance of EVE changes everything. The difference between the two is not who has a personality (WALL·E), but the conditions and environment in which these seven centuries were spent.

For instance, WALL·E has been under the influence of “Hello, Dolly”, whereas Auto has no interaction with any romantic “supplement”, if you will. Considering all artificial intelligence is the same save for differences in directive, if you left a tape of “Hello, Dolly” for Auto to watch and simply let WALL·E do his job, Auto may be the one to hold hands with EVE. Laughs. Obviously, WALL·E wouldn’t control everything, he’d just be the way he was at the end of the film when he loses his personality.

Likewise, Auto would still control the Axiom, and maintain directive A113, but he would possibly fall in love with someone. After all, a machine may gain a personality if stimuli are provided and no part of their directive stipulates they cannot have one.

In this scenario, the movie’s events would never happen. The Axiom would remain in space, EVE may continue to return to Earth with no plant, and the Earth will remain unsustainable until a new life begins here again. In unrelated news, I found out a theory at another college lecture that squids may be the next intelligent species, evolving to land in many varieties and sizes, and communication would become possible. This is to happen in 100 billion years supposedly.

[lizardgirl]

You know, that’s a really good point, AUTOA113, as to why WALL-E, for example, developed a personality and an ability to love and AUTO didn’t. But whether that was down to WALL-E being left such stimuli as the Hello Dolly! video is questionable, as although that was probably a catalyst it still doesn’t explain why so many of the other robots, such as EVE and M-O, also have their own personalities as they haven’t been exposed to such stimuli. I always thought it might be down to the level of control that each robot’s directive has, so in WALL-E’s case he didn’t have to control anyone or anything apart from himself, but in AUTO’s case, he had a lot of control over the Axiom (well, he was the Axiom in a sense) and he had a lot of control over the people and robots within it, perhaps therefore meaning that it would be more difficult for him to stray from his directive.

Either way, for whatever reason that AUTO was unable to go against his directive, it essentially wasn’t his fault and I therefore tend to think of him as more of a victim of circumstance as opposed to a traditional villain.

And that squid thing sounds very cool.