Thread:BeholderofStuff/@comment-27006713-20170210033328/@comment-366087-20170210041503

This is where we take into account the nature of the franchise and its target demographic. MR Krabs is a villain "scaled" for that of kids. In addition he is a character with significant enough exposure/appearances to truly reveal his malicious intentions in his business practices and how he treats other characters.

In other words, think of a pool with a sloping bottom. At one end, kids can walk about and their knees not get wet. But as they walk to the other end, the water gets deeper and deeper and the risk of drowning for a kid increases with every step.

Sort of the same for Villainy in *little* kids' shows. They are not going to show the same sort of Wicked/Evil as you'll find in a show aimed for Teens, much less one aimed for Adults, much less those with ratings of X or higher. You can say that the Evil in shows like Spongebob is "shallower" yet every bit as much evil as those scaled for older audiences.

Another example would be contamination in liquids. A dead fly in a half a glass of water is repugnant. You'd hardly want to touch it, much less drink it. But you'd hardly notice that same fly in a bathtub much less an Olympic-sized swimming pool. You could fill that same glass and have no problem drinking the water (ignoring additive things like chlorine and other swimming pool chemicals…).

Also the number of appearances the character makes in order to determine their motivations. If Mr Krabs appeared in only ONE (half long? A third long?) episode of the entire episode, we'd probably not blink at his malicious intentions and could write him off as a simple jerk. But he appears in virtually EVERY episode.

The Seinfeld characters of Bob & Cedric I almost ruled as Only Jerks, but because they appeared three times in a Running Gag capacity ("Who?! Who has done X?!") with the same result happening to Kramer, I ruled them as qualifying. (And I can still be convinced they don't belong…, so I'm being generous by ruling them as villains for that franchise.)

See?