Tvtropes look over the shoulder
Lina: Don't tell me that you just pricked your cheeks with the spikes on your own shoulder pads. It can also be a pain to generate a texture to cover this smoothly - a shoulder pad allows artists to make one texture for the torso and a separate one for the arm without really caring how they join. Modern games designers use the look because it is still very difficult to properly animate the shoulder joint- it involves four bones, several unusual muscle groups and an irritating degree of twistability. In video games, it's often used because the ball-and-socket joint of the shoulder was very difficult to incorporate into a player model without causing clipping and an action-figure look. Sometimes huge shoulders (especially on Powered Armor) are handwaved as actually being storage, as well - most often for ammo. They still don't need to be as big as most costume designers make them, however. It must be either free-floating (fastened to the breast- and back-armor by straps or some other flexible material) or have enough room for the joint to pivot within it (a big, ball-like shape). Because the human shoulder joint can pivot slightly over 180 degrees both horizontally and vertically, rigid shoulder armor cannot be fitted tightly to the shoulder. The functional reason is all about mobility. Also, large shoulder pads add additional mass to the upper torso and create a tapering body shape, which instinctively registers as a fit, muscular build. And, as the picture of the Space Marine shows. From a distance, you may also be fooled into thinking you're fighting some undead headless monster. one point pointing down) generally conveys a more sinister form, and shoulder pads help the torso form a triangular image. There are both artistic and function-related reasons that this trope existes: Artistically, the inverted triangle (i.e. The exception, of course, is if they give everybody humongous shoulder guards. Other cast members can have shoulder pads, of course, they're just smaller.
The corollary is that if somebody in the cast has enormous shoulder pads, they're probably evil. On occasion, the shoulder pads can actually serve a purpose, by having a cape attached to them. They may also come with a ridiculously high collar, Spikes of Villainy, or an All-Encompassing Mantle for the aspiring Evil Overlord. This is most common in fantasy or science fiction: fantasy armor can easily have huge pieces of armor on the shoulders, and science fiction can easily create a future costume (or armor) with huge shoulders. Be it pads, armor, or epaulets, the Big Bad and The Hero have the biggest shoulder-wear.