Guild Wars 2

To be brutally honest bordering on a little mean, Scarlet Briar seems like a character someone who’s new to roleplaying thought up. She has that obnoxious, “prankster” I-Do-What-I-Want-Because-I-Can attitude, she has a lot of power and knowledge seemingly out of nowhere in a very short amount of time that she’s been alive, she controls a whole bunch of bad guys, and she doesn’t seem to have any weaknesses.

Scarlet is boring. I mean, at first, she seemed “okay”(?) but now she’s apparently orchestrating every really bad event in the history of Tyria? Making alliances with Charr and Dredge, Krait and Court; what, is she going to ally the Sons of Svanir and the Centaur in the Frozen Alliance? Come on. Scarlet Briar is not a villain. Scarlet Briar is that annoying side character henchman who hangs on the tails of the real villain. Also, for the record, don’t let that statement give you guys any ideas. “Scarlet Briar has wreaked havoc across Tyria, but now revealed is her true master!” Please.

Scarlet isn’t a villain. You can’t relate to her. You can’t empathize with her. You can’t try to see things from her perspective, because she’s unrelatable, can’t be empathized with, and has no perspective to see anything from. Her motivations are really obscure, and if I had to guess, superficial at best. “I want to change the world in my image!” isn’t a really compelling plot hook for me. Or, at least, the way Scarlet is going about it. Her image must be “a bunch of races banding together under elemental titles”. Scarlet lacks anything close to resembling a villain. I can’t find a reason to hate her for what she does. I hate her because she’s a bad character.

I want a villain that keeps me guessing. I want a villain that’s so dangerous that it’s scary to even try to think about what they might do next, what terrible atrocity they might commit. I want a villain that’s relatable, where you almost, ALMOST are able to root for them in some way. A good villain has REASON to do the things they do; it’s not randomized chaos like Scarlet’s “I’m doing this because it’s fun” charade. I also want a villain that doesn’t hamfist (hamfist; verb — to approach a situation without any semblance of tact) the lore as badly as she does.

Before you do any more irreparable damage, thing about Scarlet accidentally catching fire. Plants burn pretty easily.