It’s not just because he’s a Nazi.
It’s because he’s asmartassNazi.
He is a hideous grab bag of all the things that make an instantly detestable villain in the series.
But there’s something else.
Warning:Here be spoilers.
From the first moment we meet Voss in thispretty swell first-person adventure, he is unnerving.
He touches his face in a weird way.
This is already batshit villain behaviour and it evokes a kind of disgust at his creepiness.
Gantz, for his part, is a hothead and a zealot for the Reich.
He cannot see that Voss is simply saying whatever will most get him angry.
It is unclear if Voss even believes what he himself is saying half the time.
Almost everything he says to other characters is unreliable, eel-like, the epitome of bad faith.
Voss is not just a practitioner of psychology.
He’s a practitioner of dumbass pop psychology.
So, Voss is psychologically manipulative.
This is run-of-the-mill villainous behaviour, but nothing new in the grand scheme of things, true.
Yet it is the quality and style of his manipulation that makes him so recognisably repugnant.
He is a shit-stirrertransparently.
He doesn’t attempt to hide what he is doing, and laughs as he goes about it.
“Were you afraid of becoming a father?”
he asks, then, with that sleazeball smile.
“No, you were afraid of becomingyourfather.”
There is absolutely no half-throttle with this guy, he just goes straight for whatever will make you uneasy.
He’s not Walter White, he manipulates emotions in the same way an internet troll does.
Openly, in plain sight, with a shit-eating grin.
There is, I suspect, a reason his face has all the folds and wrinkles ofa famous meme.
He is constantly smiling at the annoyance, anger, and anxiety he induces.
What a fantastic shitheel.
He also has an answer for everything.
Or rather, an annoying question for everything.
“We should improve archaeology somewhat,” you might say to Voss.
“And yet you participate in archaeology, Dr Jones.
Oh, fuck OFF, Emmerich.
He is an awful schoolboy bully who learned some big words.
When the game starts up, you’ll see a disclaimer messageexplicitly saying the game doesn’t endorse nazism.
This is a legal thing, probably, but also a comically unnecessary warning.
It’s doubly unnecessary to anyone who meets Voss.
Well, mission accomplished.
