Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-29275465-20160826234143/@comment-2059440-20160928231949

AustinDR wrote: I thought audience reaction wasn't a factor in determining a CM. The trope concerns itself with its in-story portrayal.

no but it DOES have a MASSIVE influence on how vile a character is seen by others.. also CMs do have to do personal stuff, they can kill billions and it means squat.. standard super-villain in some settings (comics, manga/anime) - it takes cold-blooded torture, emotional abuse and other traits to really make a character a CM, especially if they are from a super-villain setting where your average bad guy is a mass-murdering terrorist in a costume..

every day some costumed maniac tries to conquer the world and kill billions, yet people like Red Skull trump all of those homicidal maniacs because they've went above and beyond just being killers - they've done incredibly horrific things that make people truly hate and fear them and it almost always involves some form of breaking or killing a character people identify with (be it a hero or a hero's friend/lover etc).