Mad Hatter said:
What? That makes no sense and it isn't what I said.
It may not have been what you meant, but here is what you said: "Villains aren't redemmed because when they are, the are no longer villains." By the reading of that sentence, you are saying that it is impossible for a villain to be redeemed. That is the main interpretation of the phrase "Villains aren't redemmed" that you wrote. Not that redeemed villains are lesser villains, but that villains cannot be redeemed (or at least, that redeemed folk cannot have truly been villains in the first place).
Now what you meant seemed to be that "unredeemed villains" are better villains than "redeemed villains", presumably because their "Down Time" as good folk erases their "ultimate villain status", when compared to a villain that does not have any such "Down Time". Fair enough, but I (and others) disagree.
Anyhow, did the Borg Queen ever win so much as a single battle in which she made a personal appearance? I know the Borg did a lot of times, when we did not see the Queen, but whenever we saw the Borg Queen, well, that was it. Picard and his bunch or Janeway and her bunch proceeded to kick the Queen's ass.
Now look at Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back. Vader wins in the light saber duel. Luke doesn't win the combat, he leaps to his death (or so he thinks) in order to avoid getting "turned" to the dark side. Han Solo gets turned into a popsicle. Vader was also cool enough to "invite" Han Solo to dinner. Vader is just better at being a villain than the Borg Queen was.
That Vader gets redeemed in RotJ is no more a reduction of his cool villain status, while he is a villain, than the fact that Vader was an annoying kid/teenager in TPH or AotC.
I stand by my prediction that it all comes down to Darth Vader vs. The Joker.
