Did Raya and the Last Dragon Fix Disney's Villain Problem?

[Winter]

Yes and No.

Warning: Spoilers from here on out

Namaari is, without a doubt, the best antagonist in the Disney Canon we've had since Hades and the best villain overall in the both Disney and Pixar since Syndrome. She has a great design, an engaging personality that is unique and she's genuinely intimidating. I can see a LOT of fans talking about Namaari in the years to come far more so then villains like Hans or Candy King.

Part of that is due to how much screen time she is given, unlike other villains over the last few years/decades, Namaari has almost as much screen time as Raya & Sisu and maybe even more then the latter which means we got to see her in a lot of different situations. We see her get frustrated, she shows respect to the Dragons when passing through their "Graveyard", stands in awe when she sees Sisu in her dragon form for the first time and see her make choices that she never expected to make.

And throughout all of this we get to see her relationship with Raya in more detail which helps to better flesh out both their characters which REALLY highlights what's been missing from other Disney villains in the last few years. Disney villains have been little more then obstacles that monologue and twirl their mustaches evily. And while Namaari does have one or two moments where she acts like a more traditional Disney Twist Villain it works as it's presented as a persona she puts on when dealing with her enemies which is exactly what Raya does in similar situations.

Namaari is, IMO, a great character & antagonist and I could easily see her in her own movie... So, why am I hesitant to say that she fixes Disney's Villain Problem?

Well, the reason is quite simply, she's not actually a villain. She's an antagonist and has some rather villainous moments but that's really not any different from Zuko in Avatar. Keep in mind that Zuko helped get Aang killed and conquer Ba Sing Se all so he could go home and showed very little sorrow for his actions for several episodes. In fact, when he realizes that Aang might be alive his first action is to quietly hire a Bounty Hunter to locate and KILL Aang. And that wasn't a heat of the moment decision, Zuko had several days, in and out of universe, to come to this decision and still felt that killing Aang and his friends was the best choice.

Namaari is the same. Because of her choosing to put the good of her tribe ahead of everyone else she broke the world (though the chiefs are more, um, chiefly responsible as they are the ones who broke the gem) and later she accidentally killed Sisu and nearly destroyed the world altogether. And yet, she's not a villain any more then Zuko, Catra and Cassandra (Tangled the series) are. She did what she did because she thought she had to do it because she was raised a certain way and felt that was the choices she made were the only choices available to her.

And in the end, she is also the one who saves the world. When Raya realizes that the only way to fix what she and Namaari broke is to put trust in each other Raya puts her life and the fate of the world literally in Namaari's hands. And one by one the others follow suit until only Namaari is left. AT one point Namaari is given a way out of this and can leave with all the Dragon Gem pieces and have a chance to live. But she chooses to stay and repair the gem and chooses to stay with Raya and in doing so takes the first step in redemption and is, as of this writing, one of only 5 Villains in the Disney Theatrical Animated Canon to be redeemed.

So, on the one hand Namaari is a great character and antagonist who fixes pretty much every problem I had with the villains in the Disney canon post Hercules and Incredibles. On the other hand the film doesn't really present her as a straight up villain and shows throughout the film that she is capable of redeeming herself and being more then what Raya and we the viewer see her as.

So, yes she does fix the villain problem but she does so by not really being a villain.

[AquaReggie]

I'll preface this by saying that I lost touch with Disney movies over the last 5+ years, so I haven't seen Moana or Wreck-it Ralph.

No real argument with your points (although this does make me want to check out Raya), but I figured I'd throw in my two cents and say that one of my favorite Disney movies is Lilo and Stitch, a film that doesn't really have a central villain. Arguably Jumbaa is the real villain for creating his experiments as bioweapon rage monsters, but even with his somewhat darker characterization in the original movie, Jumbaa is too affable and has too many comedy routines with Plekely to come off as truly menacing.

The Chancellor and Captain Gantu are antagonists because they're trying to capture Stitch (and potentially destroy the Earth, honestly the characters are weirdly calm about this), but from their perspective he's a monstrosity of science hostile to other lifeforms that must be contained.

Cobra Bubbles is an antagonist in the sense that he creates conflict by threatening to separate Lilo and Nani. (There's also obviously real world subtext to be drawn about the US government interfering with Native families). But he's never shown to be anything but honest in his motives, and assuming you don't know its a wacky disney movie, it's hard to argue with him that the Pelekais are a mess.

Basically, I think you don't always need a villain, or even a Woobie and/or redeemable villain to create an interesting story. So maybe that's a solution to the Villain Problem?

[Winter]

I'll preface this by saying that I lost touch with Disney movies over the last 5+ years, so I haven't seen Moana or Wreck-it Ralph.

No real argument with your points (although this does make me want to check out Raya), but I figured I'd throw in my two cents and say that one of my favorite Disney movies is Lilo and Stitch, a film that doesn't really have a central villain. Arguably Jumbaa is the real villain for creating his experiments as bioweapon rage monsters, but even with his somewhat darker characterization in the original movie, Jumbaa is too affable and has too many comedy routines with Plekely to come off as truly menacing.

The Chancellor and Captain Gantu are antagonists because they're trying to capture Stitch (and potentially destroy the Earth, honestly the characters are weirdly calm about this), but from their perspective he's a monstrosity of science hostile to other lifeforms that must be contained.

Cobra Bubbles is an antagonist in the sense that he creates conflict by threatening to separate Lilo and Nani. (There's also obviously real world subtext to be drawn about the US government interfering with Native families). But he's never shown to be anything but honest in his motives, and assuming you don't know its a wacky disney movie, it's hard to argue with him that the Pelekais are a mess.

Basically, I think you don't always need a villain, or even a Woobie and/or redeemable villain to create an interesting story. So maybe that's a solution to the Villain Problem?

I LOVE Lilo & Stitch and think the "Villains" are fun except for Gantu as he's really bland and dull especially when compared to his fellow antagonists. However, I do think this is a perfectly valid way to deal with the villain problem but my issue is how Disney has gotten itself trapped in a rut when it comes to the villains. I love most of the films released by Disney over the last few years but after Hades the only note worthy villains have been Syndrome, Mother Gothal and Doctor Facilier and of those three I think only Syndrome had any real staying power.

Gothal is well written but not really that theatrical and Facilier is very theatrical but his plan is overly complicated and hard to follow as a result. Namaari is more theatrical then Gothal and her goal and means to achieve that goal are very easy to follow. I don't agree with the phrase "A hero is only as good as their villain" as both Disney recently and the MCU during it's first two phases have proven that a hero can be great on their own. However, I do think a great villain or antagonist can greatly enhances a hero.

Would Batman be as popular as he is without his Rouge Gallery, Would Team Avatar be as engaging without Zuko and his family on their tale and would Adora stand out as much as she does without Catra?

Films like Lilo and Stitch and Frozen II don't need a proper villain and the fact that the series is still so popular to this day proves that. But some stories would benefit from better villains. I love Tangled and Princess and the Frog but both films villains were the weak point in those stories and while Tangled the series gave us some REALLY great and memorable villains that was in the TV series and in theatrical films we've needed an Antagonist like Namaari for a long time.