[quote=@Lugubrious] I took the term 'bad guy' as the deciding factor here. To me, bad guy is not debatable; to have bad as the main qualifier, you've got to be doing so much bad that the label envelops the character. This isn't Wreck-it Ralph. To be on the opposing side isn't enough, and to accomplish good things in bad ways is to be degrees of an anti-hero. The reason Grane qualified is because he hasn't accomplished anything good, and it's up to real debate whether or not he ever will. That's part of the tragedy. It makes him a bad guy; all the great things that Ben has done for people make him a good guy with a bad rap by some people. If I want evil, I'd rather have an evil character than just evil methods. I'll admit that evil is a broad term, and murderlusting serial killers have a place there at one end of the spectrum, but I'm not at all, I don't think, encouraging a generic standard. The top five entries were all unique, despite the fact that they all killed people. As for you bringing up the canon...why? Our contests are something that's non-canon in a non-canon fan work of an actual thing. The most creative liberties can be taken here. I'm sorry my judging style didn't appeal to you. I can't give a real metric of what I like and don't like, and the limited scope of what I ask for compared to the massive spectrum of what I got. I could only draw the line in the sand after combing the beach. If that makes me suck as a judge, so be it, but if nobody makes a contest for a month, I'll be the one that does it, and people have only to not participate to make me stop. [/quote] I'm not saying you're a bad judge, but your apparent standards... Do not match up with what "villain" or "bad guy" means at all. A villain or a bad guy is not someone for whom being evil is their sole defining characteristic, and a villain for whom "evil" is the most notable character trait is a really poor villain. Villains and bad guys are the antagonistic force in their respective work of fiction, and that means that the relative morality of a setting (and the morality of its heroes) are what defines the line between being a "good guy" and being a "bad guy". This is the definition of a villain; [quote] a character in a story, movie, etc., who does bad things : a person who does bad things : someone or something that is blamed for a particular problem or difficulty[/quote] Wreck-It-Ralph follows these definitions to a tee; all of the "villains" are just villains because that's their job. The movie's [i]actual[/i] villain, and the only one that actually constitutes a villainous influence, falls on the opposite end of the line between a setting's good and evil forces. Gratia is a fantastic entry. At the same time, she could qualify as the villain in a setting like Game of Thrones. In RWBY, she would be a monster to such a degree that she would never even make it onto the show. Napoli could be the Designated Evil Teammate in a dark enough setting. Emerald, meanwhile, would be a light and soft enough villain that she could feasibly be used in a kid's show. By your standards, a villain needs to be completely evil; beyond any measure of good left in them. Hell, if you call "doing good things in bad ways" an Anti-Hero, the [i]White Fang[/i] are Anti-Heroes. What defines a villain is their status as the antagonistic force in a story. What could be a villain in RWBY could be a saint in Game of Thrones. I mention RWBY canon because RWBY is, fundamentally, a black and white morality setting. Anything that grows too dark, like the White Fang, are villainous forces; they oppose the protagonists with evil methods. Every one of the entries, by the metric of a fundamentally black and white setting, is villainous. I have no complaints about the winners selected; but I honestly have every complaint about the standards of the contest, given that every entry fell within the parameters offered up in the contest descriptor. To disqualify an entry because they're "not bad enough", when by the standards of the game so far and the show this game is based on they're all well past the line of "antagonistic", is... Pretty questionable.