In a ryona situation, are you more prone to enjoy the "good" or "just, fair maiden" type of woman to triumph and smite down the villianess, defeating evil and taking pride in themselves for ending her reign? And the bad girl getting what was coming to her?
Or do you prefer the heroine's quest coming to an abrupt end, being demolished by the villianess, who laughs triumphantly over the battered good girl's beaten body?
:evanwhateverlinethi
I think the "heroine humbled" scenario you described is probably my ryona taste in a nutshell. There's just something about the noble (or preferably royal) protagonist getting laid low by the villain. It can come in any form, whether their defeat is by treachery or pure skill. Just as long as the heroine tastes some kind of defeat. I find that humiliation and capture better than death or execution in most cases, as long as there's a chance the protagonist may taste defeat again if she somehow manages to make a come back.
I love the idea of a pure beatdown by the villian. Just utterly destroying the heroine and ending her mission right then and there with failure. Maybe even picking up her broken body and using her as an example
Definitely love the heroine losing, and badly. But, I like to be assured that the heroine is ordinarily powerful or competent, so that it comes as a shock to her and to the audience that she is suffering such a brutal beatdown. Compelled by her moral code to struggle until the very end, the heroine desperately fights back, which makes it all the more pitiful when those efforts turn out to be futile.
I'm sort of on the opposite side of things as compared to most people here. I'm only interested when the villainess (or even better, multiple villainesses) are harshly defeated by the hero. I guess because in that type of scenario, the violence towards the evil babes is considered justified, and the hero can even get away with being quite brutal and ruthless without looking like he/she is doing anything wrong. Plus I like the idea of cocky, arrogant evil babes suddenly becoming weak, vulnerable and helpless.
Heroine of course! The more goodie goodie, noble and pure she is, the better. If she is a hero to some people and has fans (like superheroines), it's great when she looses publicly and fails her fans. Same thing if she is part of some clan (like ninjas), and brings shame to her clan by losing in humiliating way. It's also great seeing heroines failing a critical mission (like important police operation) where she must win the villaines, but fails miserably and fails all expectations people had on her.
I guess because in that type of scenario, the violence towards the evil babes is considered justified, and the hero can even get away with being quite brutal and ruthless without looking like he/she is doing anything wrong.
This is an interesting perspective, because it is the exact opposite conclusion that I reach. Namely, that heroes tend to be more merciful especially when they have the upper hand, while villains are generally the ruthless ones who won't let morality get in the way of their heroine ass-kicking.
The super innocent girls really don't do anything for me - I much prefer seeing a villainess getting her just desserts. I think it has to do with the fact that villainesses are usually portrayed as being strong and powerful, and taking that away from them is more my thing (rather than the corruption of innocence).
This is an interesting perspective, because it is the exact opposite conclusion that I reach. Namely, that heroes tend to be more merciful especially when they have the upper hand, while villains are generally the ruthless ones who won't let morality get in the way of their heroine ass-kicking.
This is true sometimes but not all the time; I think it depends very much on the circumstances and the type of hero. For example, you would never see Batman from the animated series beating the stuffing out of any of the female villainesses he encounters (like Poison Ivy, Catwoman, or Harley Quinn).
However, consider some other heroes under other circumstances. For example, in every game of the Streets of Rage series, the heroes beat the stuffing out of numerous female thugs / henchwomen / zako without hesitation, and in some cases they go even further, throwing them off of high buildings or (in the Streets of Rage Remake) defeating them in a gory and gruesome fashion using swords or high explosive weaponry:
This type of treatment is standard in beat-em-up games, where all enemies are treated equally and defeated harshly or even brutally, regardless of gender. Think of Double Dragon, where the common Linda enemy can be defeated in all kinds of harsh ways (and its even worse in the crossover "Battletoads and Double Dragon", where the Linda enemies are picked up by their hair and either belly punched or kicked in the rear and then slammed back on forth on the ground by their hair until they're done for):
Think of the evil henchwoman Poison from Final Fight going up against the huge and brutal hero Mike Haggar. Or consider Golden Axe where the common female "Zuburoka" enemies are slaughtered just like any other enemy:,
or Growl/Runark, where the heroes beat the tar out of hordes of villainesses in miniskirts, sometimes blowing them up or having wild animals attack them:
Or Crime Fighters 2, where the female dominatrix enemies can be slammed into a wall, then kicked or elbow dropped while they're on the ground:
Or, more recently, consider games like Oblivion, Fallout 3, or Saints Row the Third, all of which feature female enemies who are dealt with just as harshly as male enemies. "God Hand" went even further, giving the hero the ability to literally spank female enemies to death. Old shooting games like Target Terror also featured a number of scantily clad female enemies who are dealt with very harshly.
I admit that merciful heroes are more common outside of video games, but in shows like Space Adventure Cobra and Godmazinga, the heroes have no problem with blasting or cutting through large numbers of evil blonde chicks in skimpy outfits:
Or consider Agent Aika. She is not very gentle when taking out hordes of female enemies (all in miniskirts), or even Sailor Moon - when do they ever show mercy to their (always female) enemies?
In all of these cases, there is no real indication that the villainesses deserve much sympathy or mercy because, after all, they're villainesses! Anyway, having the heroes harshly defeating the villainesses is what I'm all about, and there's a great deal of that to be found on the "zako" subforum here. Although the focus there is less on boss villainesses and more on villainesses who are treated as cannon fodder. There's also quite a bit of interest there on the cannon fodder villainesses turning the table on the heroes and dishing out a beating of their own.
There are also quite a few live action scenes where the heroes are not merciful or gentle with the bad girls. These are just a few examples:
Policewomen (1974): The black heroine in this clip fights an Asian criminal babe, knocks her out cold, then does several more knee slams to the head, and is on the verge of smashing a bottle over the unconscious baddie's head when she is stopped:
Electra (1996): The heroine is first beaten up and zapped with stun pistols by two evil babes, but later she comes back with super strength/speed and takes a pretty brutal vengeance on the two female baddies:
In "America 3000" the good guy hero dudes take on quite a few evil amazon babes:
In the short, made-for-online film "Die Die My Darling" the hero chick is very brutal towards the female henchwomen she fights (too brutal for my tastes):
The "Female Combatants" line of videos from Zen pictures makes a point of having the heroes treat the female, cannon fodder enemies harshly:
I don't like when the heroine is suffering because then we're meant to feel sympathy for her. I much prefer villainesses getting it because, even if they are treated quite harshly, we're not meant to feel any sympathy for them (although I often do anyway). The only problem is that when villainesses are taken down it is often quick and there is not much focus on their suffering, or on the aftermath when they are on the ground and utterly defeated.
Still, what I've posted is just the tip of the iceberg regarding villainesses getting no mercy from the heroes.
To me, nice or innocent girls do NOT deserve the ryona treatment. But girls who are arrogant or corrupt DO deserve it. Generally speaking, it's villainesses or bad-ass heroines who meet my criteria.
I DON'T like ryona on Chun Li because she's my vision of a perfect girl: independent, protective, likes kids, unwavering sense of morals, confident but not arrogant. Examples of other girls I don't have ryona interest in: Yoko Ritona (a bit like Chun), Sakura Kasugano or Ling Xiaoyu (too innocent).
I DO like ryona on girls like Jade, Sonya Blade, Ivy Valentine, Dark Knight Ingrid. All of them are sassy and arrogant, in my bad-ass heroine category. Can't think of any true villainesses off the top of my head, the hot ones are often protagonists.
For me, they're both good for different reasons: when the villianess is defeated I like it because she got what she had comming and because of the ryona. When the heroine is defeated, I feel sorry for her but the sense of ryona is increased. I'm not sure which is better. The heroine beaten is better but it has a drawback, while the other doesn't.
I personally like the villainess being defeated and one of my mates (whose permission and assistance allowed me to enter our project's villainess into the ryonani mascot contest) just finished a set of practice drawings of this lovely little antagonist down for the count.
I like both quite a bit myself. Heroines failing is usually pretty dramatic and humiliating, as well as almost always being more likely to be on the bad end of being teased or tortured after their defeat. But for villainess being defeated, there's usually an air of shock and wonderment about them. Its especially gratifying when they are bested by an anti-hero of some kind who is likely to return the favor to them, or just somebody who is willing to go that extra mile to make them regret what they've done. Falling from power and being placed into a position of helplessness is usually the best, so imo they're both great sources for Ryona.
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