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This was all too long for a comment, so:

Personally, from what I've seen, a character doesn't need to be anything but evil for an audience to like the character.

Black Hat is inspired by every famous villain in the book, some of them being Disney Villains. Characters like Jafar, Cruella, Ursula, Gaston, Maleficent, Captain Hook, Hades, Mother Gothel, Scar, etc.

People LOVE those villains for plenty of reasons, like:

They look like they're having a lot of fun being evil, and that fun energy is contagious to the audience

Their designs are cool

Their powers or abilities are creative, and fun to watch

They make a compelling threat to the main characters. Even if they have no depth.

When Cruella (2021) was released, audience's first issue with it was that she was made to be a misunderstood villain.

One of the main elements of Villainous as a show, is just that this is the chance to see villains like that as the main characters.

I think that a character doesn't need to be compelling to be likable.

Another note is that Black Hat can be examined under 3 genres, I think:

1. Comedy

The show's mostly been a comedy to this point.

Comedy is subjective, but fans tend to think Black Hat is funny.

I'll also say though, that one of the charms of the original shorts was that Black Hat was the butt of the joke for a few of them. He came across as more of a goofball.

The show has been taking him more and more seriously though, so that charm has kind of been lost.

2. A Mystery/Horror

When it comes to speculating about the lore of the world, I think this is one of Black Hat's strongest qualities. Learning about his cult, his powers, his history, and his influence over others is fascinating.

Arguable spin-off things, and anything outside of the text of the main show shouldn't be considered essential to the show's experience, but it's undeniable that many fans have looked into the livestreams, books, and comics, SO:

In the spin-off comic El Atraco Arriesgado, that just concluded recently, Black Hat never appears once. However, you see his influence bleed into the story in a lot of ways, and it is interesting to see play out.

The whole reason that Illuminarrow, the main character, chooses to take the job she does in the first place, is that she lives in one of Black Hat's apartments, and her rent is due.

SPOILERS if you haven't read it, but it's revealed that the entire plot of the comic happens because one of the main villains, Porccini, has done something that could get him in major trouble with Black Hat, and he's terrified of the consequences.

And you see top hats hidden EVERYWHERE, indicating that his influence reaches further than you'd think.

The comics shouldn't be a required reading for the show, but I think it does reveal one of the intentions of the writers, which is to portray Black Hat as someone at the center of conflicts, and mysteries.

Villains/Antagonists that are so powerful that they're nearly impossible to oppose is also a large staple of the horror genre.

Hereditary, Us, Misery, Coraline, Get Out, Midsommar, The Thing, etc.

The threat of those Antagonists normally significantly outweigh the Protagonists, relative to their stories.

Similar to my earlier point, Villainous is a show where that type of villain/antagonist, is now a Main Character.

3. Drama

This... is where Black Hat is the weakest. As one of the comments under your post points out, Black Hat is probably just going to wind up being a character for the plot, rather then a compelling character in relation to the main characters.

I'd argue that the other main characters are interesting in relation to him though,,

One of the interesting things about Flug as a character is that he seems to be a pretty morally good person.

But the fact that he's Black Hat's second in command, and is trusted enough to LIVE with Black Hat certainly says something about his morality.

I'm trying not to speculate on the future too much to justify elements of the the show now, but I think that however they develop Demencia in the future will be interesting. Even if Black Hat never changes, I think she will, as well as her relation to him.

According to Flug's logbook, 505 was MADE with a PART of Black Hat. And that's definitely going to mean something to Black Hat too.

A character doesn't have to be likable to be compelling. But Black Hat in a void isn't a compelling character.

The fact that he's SO overpowered also makes him a bit boring as a character too. Overpowered characters are hard to write when it comes to writing dramas. It's not impossible (ex. Bill Cipher from Gravity Falls), but it's still hard.

I'm ignoring that interview that stated that Black Hat's going to get a challenge eventually, and might have a weakness, because just looking at the show right now, Black Hat isn't deep.

Bonus, uh, I wanna talk about fanon if you don't mind me rambling:

As for fan-content, I've noticed that fandoms often tend to fulfill a void that's left by the original piece of media.

Fandoms and queer culture are often tied together because many LGBTQ+ people don't have any representation, or, historically our stories have censored, but we've always existed. Shipping is popular because there's something IN the text between two characters, that's left unresolved, or unexplored, often due to censoring. And so fans create art, and fanfiction to create what the canon never could.

It's like an itch that's never been scratched.

A dark, depressing drama like Breaking Bad has a comedic lighthearted fandom to make up for the lack of lightheartedness in the show itself.

My Little Pony: FIM always hinted at cool lore and backstories, but the show rarely explored it due to the slice-of-life nature of it, so fans made entire animations of what they never got to see. The fanbase was often darker than the show too, because of how lighthearted the show was.

The Five Nights at Freddy's lore is so famous/infamous because the creator constantly kept the lore confusing, leading to fans spending thousands of hours filling in the gaps, and trying to figure it out, to the point where the fandom essentially wrote the story of FNAF for him.

Villainous, back when the show was popular in 2017... was just comedy. It was just a bunch of goofy shorts of Black Hat, Dr. Flug, Demencia, and 505 being silly together, even if it had a slightly dark edge to it occasionally.

And so fans LOVED the characters, but because the shorts didn't really have any depth to them, and so they filled that void by creating that depth themselves. And that ESPECIALLY applies to Black Hat.

As the show went on, and the lore got deeper, and stuff like the Instagrams, books, and s1e6 implied that the show WILL be taking its characters seriously.

And so the lore is more serious, therefore Black Hat is more serious, therefore he's just pure evil.

However, I think that enough content of a non-pure-evil Black Hat exists, that the fanbase can still enjoy that take on the character, even though it's now separated from the canon of the show.

And so Black Hat is now only a deep character via the fandom. And I personally love it :D!

But those are just my thoughts! I haven't gone back and re-read everything I wrote, so sorry if I get repetitive! I'm so glad that you've brought this up, because I've been thinking about this for years.

I decided to write a bit about Black Hat because he's one of the strangest characters I have ever seen, writing-wise (I'm trying to be objective here but I might be a bit biased because Black Hat is also not my favourite 😅)

He's super powerful which means no one can ever defeat him but also super evil, so he'll never feel any emotion towards other characters which means he can never change/grow. Because of these things, he can never be challenged in any way and it makes him very one dimensional.

He treats Flug awfully (as well as the rest of his employees) which is common for the "evil villain and his subordinates" trope. Although most stories where this trope is used, the subordinate either gets tired of being mistreated and leaves, or the villain faces consequences for their actions. Except that Black Hat is a protagonist and we're supposed to like him. The show gives no indication that this will ever change, or that Black Hat will receive any sort of comeuppance.

These aren't necessarily criticisms, they're part of what makes Black Hat (and the show as a whole) so interesting, but I'm also very confused at why the writers decided to make him this way. I hadn't seen anyone say this yet so I'd love to hear other people's thoughts!

#villanos #black hat #villainous meta

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Rebuttal:

I do have some points against my own theory though, as I want to be realistic:

#1 - Overpowered Antagonists

Overpowered antagonists are hard to write. It's still entirely possible, as shown in things like Gravity Falls and Infinity War, but it's still difficult nonetheless.

If Black Hat is an antagonist, then it would still be nearly impossible to defeat him.

I actually think it is possible that Black Hat will be an antagonist to Flug, Dem, and 505 in the future, but I feel like under the specific context of "controlled by heroes", would complicate things.

#2 - Are the Heroes Really that Capable?

Black Hat has certainly grown lazy, and as stated in an interview, eventually a character WILL rise that will bring Black Hat a challenge.

But is that really going to be somebody like Goldheart?

As it states, Black Hat's challenge "won't be in the first season." Goldheart was not only introduced in season one, but very likely will be explored more during season 1B.

#3 - A Different Direction

The show consistently alludes to a "Red Eclipse."

Whether this be some kind of plan Black Hat has for the future, or it be some cosmic event, who knows. That's for a future theory.

But I think that whatever happens with it straight up just not allow for something like "Black Hat Brainwashing" to be explored.

Maybe I'm just being pessimistic, but that's because I'd be satisfied with my theory just being a cool fanfiction.

I was originally gonna call this a "Wild Speculation" as opposed to a theory, but I've spend hours writing this all out, so I think that warrants the title of "Theory."

a GAME theory, and cut-

Black Hat is going to be Hypnotized by Heroes - Theory

Why?: It'd be cool.

Okay, but seriously, this could be nothing more than fanfic potential, but in case there's some small chance that I'm right about this, here are a few points on where I'm coming from.

#1 - Tension

This show has reaffirmed time and time again, in the show, comics, livestreams, interviews, that Black Hat is:

A, Powerful,

and B, Terrifying.

I don't think I need to go through evidence of that being the case, if you're familiar with the show at all, you know this.

He's been side-lined throughout the entire show, and it would not only be cathartic to finally have him show off his powers, but it would also make him feel like a real threat in the story if he's positioned against Flug, Dem, and 505.

The tension would be raised to infinity. The show would practically feel like a horror movie because of how near-impossible it would be to defeat him.

#2 - Goldheart's Plan

According to Miss Heed at the end of s1e6, Goldheart wants to "end all villainy."

Black Hat controls all villainy.

P.E.A.C.E. has already caught on to how deep Black Hat's rabbit hole goes, via the agents creating the Podemos Bailar website. (omg, with Magician being one of the agents, then Black Hat's hat is the "rabbit hole", it's like a pun, you get it? You get that-)

Before the third Arenque Noticias video, Melissa Lead states, "If you ask my objective opinion, I'd say a controlled villain is better than a villain set loose."

As observed by @paper-gold-theories, characters with gold accessories tend to be associated with Goldheart or the Golden Rule in some way (Miss Heed, Porccini, the reporter in s1e4).

Melissa wears a golden necklace and ring, so it's very likely that her opinions either align with the Golden Rule, or Goldheart himself.

So if Goldheart's objective is to brainwash all villainy, then who better to target than the man at the top? (the man in the top-hat, haha, I'm on a roll)

#3 - Black Hat's Weaknesses

Alan has hinted that Black Hat is not invincible, and has actually described him as "lazy".

So the concept of Black Hat slipping up is not an impossibility for the show to explore.

#4 - Details

This is getting into TJLC levels of analysis, but I've noticed a couple things that could somehow be foreshadowing this:

In this poster:

Villains have a red outline, and heroes have blue:

(The fact that Flug and 505 have blue is an analysis for a whole other day)

But Black Hat has a gold-ish color on both sides:

This could be a stretch, but,,

In 2021, promo art was released for the show:

And Black Hat's monocle looks suspiciously pink.

Sure this could just be red shading that accidentally looks pink, but it isn't that hard to edit if the colors came out wrong, I did it just now:

The difference is night and day:

I don't think Black Hat has ever been associated with pink before outside of Demencia's fantasies. It would have been easy to choose any other colors too, like green, yellow, orange, or even blue.

The Black Hat being lit with pink for the first time is a coincidence in the very same promo that ALSO includes Miss Heed.

And as is obvious, ALL of the people Heed hypnotizes have glowing-pink eyes:

Even if this isn't foreshadowing to my specific fan-theory, I find a Black Hat - Heed connection extremely suspicious.

It's very well that in this scene, Flug DID perfect Heed's formula.

The heroes have the perfect hypnotizing formula. Or at least they still have some version now.

They have the means.

So TL;DR, Flug perfected Heed's hypnotizing formula, and so P.E.A.C.E./The Golden Rule/Goldheart is going to use it to control Black Hat when his guard's down.

(or somethin like that, idk)

#villanos #villainous theories

[flickrrposts]

Black Hat is going to be Hypnotized by Heroes - Theory

Why?: It'd be cool.

Okay, seriously, this could be nothing more than fanfic potential, but in case there's some small chance that I'm right about this, here are a few points on where I'm coming from.

#1 - Tension

This show has reaffirmed time and time again, in the show, comics, livestreams, interviews, that Black Hat is:

A, Powerful,

and B, Terrifying.

I don't think I need to go through evidence of that being the case, if you're familiar with the show at all, you know this.

He's been side-lined throughout the entire show, and it would not only be cathartic to finally have him show off his powers, but it would also make him feel like a real threat in the story if he's positioned against Flug, Dem, and 505.

The tension would be raised to infinity. The show would practically feel like a horror movie because of how near-impossible it would be to defeat him.

#2 - Goldheart's Plan

According to Miss Heed at the end of s1e6, Goldheart wants to "end all villainy."

Black Hat controls all villainy.

P.E.A.C.E. has already caught on to how deep Black Hat's rabbit hole goes, via the agents creating the Podemos Bailar website. (omg, with Magician being one of the agents, then Black Hat's hat is the "rabbit hole", it's like a pun, you get it? You get that-)

Before the third Arenque Noticias video, Melissa Lead states, "If you ask my objective opinion, I'd say a controlled villain is better than a villain set loose."

As observed by @paper-gold-theories, characters with gold accessories tend to be associated with Goldheart or the Golden Rule in some way (Miss Heed, Porccini, the reporter in s1e4).

Melissa wears a golden necklace and ring, so it's very likely that her opinions either align with the Golden Rule, or Goldheart himself.

So if Goldheart's objective is to brainwash all villainy, then who better to target than the man at the top? (the man in the top-hat, haha, I'm on a roll)

#3 - Black Hat's Weaknesses

Alan has hinted that Black Hat is not invincible, and has actually described him as "lazy".

So the concept of Black Hat slipping up is not an impossibility for the show to explore.

#4 - Details

This is getting into TJLC levels of analysis, but I've noticed a couple things that could somehow be foreshadowing this:

In this poster:

Villains have a red outline, and heroes have blue:

(The fact that Flug and 505 have blue is an analysis for a whole other day)

But Black Hat has a gold-ish color on both sides:

This could be a stretch, but,,

In 2021, promo art was released for the show:

And Black Hat's monocle looks suspiciously pink.

Sure this could just be red shading that accidentally looks pink, but it isn't that hard to edit if the colors came out wrong, I did it just now:

The difference is night and day:

I don't think Black Hat has ever been associated with pink before outside of Demencia's fantasies. It would have been easy to choose any other colors too, like green, yellow, orange, or even blue.

The Black Hat being lit with pink for the first time is a coincidence in the very same promo that ALSO includes Miss Heed.

And as is obvious, ALL of the people Heed hypnotizes have glowing-pink eyes:

Even if this isn't foreshadowing to my specific fan-theory, I find a Black Hat - Heed connection extremely suspicious.

It's very well that in this scene, Flug DID perfect Heed's formula.

The heroes have the perfect hypnotizing formula. Or at least they still have some version now.

They have the means.

So TL;DR, Flug perfected Heed's hypnotizing formula, and so P.E.A.C.E./The Golden Rule/Goldheart is going to use it to control Black Hat when his guard's down.

(or somethin like that, idk)

#villainous #villanos #villainous theory #villainous theories #black hat #miss heed #goldheart

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A note on Flug's appearance...

Throughout the Orientation Videos, we see both a cat and dog version of Flug through the "motivation" posters in the background, and the cat and dog have the exact same fur color:

If they wanted to make Flug's appearance more ambiguous, then they could have easily given the cat and dog different fur colors, but they didn't.

With this and the telenovela, I think that Flug is probably a brunette.

I'd hesitate to call Flug's eyes green though, because Miss Heed canonically has brown eyes (without whatever she uses to make her eyes pink), but her telenovela counterpart has blue.

Not to say it's impossible tho.

Villainous Theory: Miss Heed’s Feelings for Flug and GoldHeart

I headcanon the cheesy, over exaggerated soap opera in Episode 3 (which I headcanon is called Keeping Up With The Fernandos 🤣) , represents how Miss Heed feels about Flug and GoldHeart.

Miss Heed loves Flug but prefers “riding into the horizon” which may refer to being a hero and being popular.

As shown here, Flug might have been extremely angry at GoldHeart, his own Arch-Enemy, for Miss Heed joining the Golden Rule at Episode 6.

Miss Heed loves them both and is also conflicted with her feelings for GoldHeart and Flug and wishes she could have them both.

(Also the now looking at it, the damn horse’s hair and cheekbones kinda looks GoldHeart’s 🤣🤣🤣)

The female lead was extremely happy when she got what she wanted, not caring if both of them was suffering and in pain. Showing Miss Heed’s selfish nature of how she wants to get everything she wants (love, attention, fame, ect) without caring how others suffer and get hurt through the process.

(Additional note horse GoldHeart's coat kinda looks like GoldHeart's uniform color and the female lead is also wearing a gold choker and an off the shoulder top like Miss Heed and her hair looks a tiny bit like her pre-hero hairstyle, as well as other similar comparisons, so I wonder if the male lead's appearance, aside from his blue pants and white top looking like Flug's pants and lab coat and shirt color, also hints at how Flug looks like, maybe his eyes and hairstyle or something 🤔👀)

#villainous #villanos #villainous theory #dr flug #villainous theories

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Mini Theory - Dem's Obsession

If the theories that Flug created, or genetically modified, or brainwashed Demencia are true: Then I think that the research Flug did for his thesis was what he used to make her fall in love with Black Hat.

We know that the formula used for Miss Heed's hypnotizing perfume was flawed, and Flug's isn't.

It would give an external explain as to why:

She could resist Heed's perfume

She glitched out when given the Spurn Detura Flower (made from the same formula)

She took off the Mascara Macabra without hesitation

Also, it could easily just be a stylistic choice, but Dem and Heed's brainwashed victims have similar glowing-pink, popping hearts:

#villainous #villanos #demencia #villainous theory #villainous theories

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Flug is Going to Lose an Arm - Theory

I'm not quite a theorizer, but with Villainous now in the US, I was rewatching season 1A when I noticed something I thought might be worth mentioning.

It's pretty common for cartoons to casually tell the audience major spoilers to the series in a discreet way that flies over the audiences' heads. (i.e. Ducktective in Gravity Falls, or the Cookie Cat song in the first episode of Steven Universe)

So when V.I.R.U.S. listed the spoilers for Código Guajolote at the end of episode 4, I wrote each of them down in case they became important later in the series.

@paper-gold-theories has a post going through each of the spoilers V.I.R.U.S. lists, where they draw a clear parallel between Flug and the character Macias from the show. (So go check out their observations!! Their theory on the "10-year-war" is great!)

One of the spoilers regarding Macias was that Macias "Has no arms."

So personally, I had the thought that Flug would lose an arm at some point, but didn't think about it much at the time, and just added it to a list of "cool fanart/edit ideas".

But later I was going through old saved photos, when I found this livestream sketch of animatronic-versions of the main cast (featuring Demencia ripping off animatronic-Flug's arm):

(Source: This post from @nightfurmoon)

Later, I was rewatching the orientation videos, and Black Hat jokes about ripping off Flug's arm at 6:06 (although, keep in mind that this is in response to what was occurring in the clip he's reacting to).

(link + english fan-sub)

And then, this one's a long shot, but in episode 6, Flug winds up finding an extra detached arm of his as a bit of dark humor (at about 2:11).

This one's definitely reaching, but it's another example of a dismembered Flug-arm, and thought it was worth bringing up.

These could all be coincidences, but I thought it was a cool concept to share none-the-less.

#dang I love all of this! #thank you for your additions!! #villanos #villainous theory

[flickrrposts]

Thank you everyone for all the notes and kind words!!

Happy Barbie Day everybody!

#now that the post has died down i wanna go through my various thoughts while making this #flug wanted to watch oppenheimer 100% #i think BH just tells the crew out of nowhere that he's taking them to the barbie movie #never explains why #has the same smiling expression the whole movie #and when he's asked what he thought of the movie #he just doesn't say anything. #(he took them all to torture flug) #(but ends up crying internally 30 mins in) #i made flug ken bc according to one of the livestreams #flug hates being called “ken” bc it reminds him of the barbie doll #(with his full name being kenning and all) #however #i just learned TODAY that flug's va did the spanish dub for ken in the barbie movie #which i am so happy about asdfghjkl #i think flug actually ends up enjoying the movie but still doesn't like being called ken. #the little pink flairs on BH's sleeves are an oppenheimer reference also #i also based his outfit on the beetlejuice reference in dem's daydream #i've never actually watched any of the animated barbie films #but i knew bibble couldn't go unrepresented #i think 505 has watched and loves all the barbie movies tho #so flug tried not to let his dislike of barbie ruin 505's excitement #dem's favorite character is weird barbie. #i can prob make icons for barbie black hat at some point #i can get on that now #alright once again thank you everyone! #i'm glad that all of you enjoyed it!

[flickrrposts]

Happy Barbie Day everybody!

#villainous #villanos #barbie #cw high saturation #my art

[flickrrposts]

Flug is Going to Lose an Arm - Theory

I'm not quite a theorizer, but with Villainous now in the US, I was rewatching season 1A when I noticed something I thought might be worth mentioning.

It's pretty common for cartoons to casually tell the audience major spoilers to the series in a discreet way that flies over the audiences' heads. (i.e. Ducktective in Gravity Falls, or the Cookie Cat song in the first episode of Steven Universe)

So when V.I.R.U.S. listed the spoilers for Código Guajolote at the end of episode 4, I wrote each of them down in case they became important later in the series.

@paper-gold-theories has a post going through each of the spoilers V.I.R.U.S. lists, where they draw a clear parallel between Flug and the character Macias from the show. (So go check out their observations!! Their theory on the "10-year-war" is great!)

One of the spoilers regarding Macias was that Macias "Has no arms."

So personally, I had the thought that Flug would lose an arm at some point, but didn't think about it much at the time, and just added it to a list of "cool fanart/edit ideas".

But later I was going through old saved photos, when I found this livestream sketch of animatronic-versions of the main cast (featuring Demencia ripping off animatronic-Flug's arm):

(Source: This post from @nightfurmoon)

Later, I was rewatching the orientation videos, and Black Hat jokes about ripping off Flug's arm at 6:06 (although, keep in mind that this is in response to what was occurring in the clip he's reacting to).

(link + english fan-sub)

And then, this one's a long shot, but in episode 6, Flug winds up finding an extra detached arm of his as a bit of dark humor (at about 2:11).

This one's definitely reaching, but it's another example of a dismembered Flug-arm, and thought it was worth bringing up.

These could all be coincidences, but I thought it was a cool concept to share none-the-less.

#villainous #villanos #villainous theory #dr flug #villainous theories