McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

Writing villains

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Nickeris86:
I agree that a villain that is knows they are evil, not just bad, and doesn't care is boring. It falls into the Saturday morning cartoon thread of villainy. Now that's not to say that someone can have a purpose in their villainy but they are so consumed by they're insanity that its impossible to make since of it until its to late. There are also cases, usually with serial killers, where they killed just for the sake of killing. No methodology, no reason, no passion, just hey their a person and there's a sharp rock that needs to meet their head.

There was a particularly disturbing case several years ago in the USA where a guy was responsible for like twenty to thirty deaths nation wide that were discovered. Nothing connected the deaths he just did it for the heck of it. Very scary. Also very very very rare thank god.

Now i think that this type of villain would only work in a crime drama of some sort. Most murders are filled with some kind of motivation, even the truly sick ones.

Snowleopard:
Once in awhile even Saturday morning villains can be different.
Years and years ago when I was a kid watched a very early animated TV cartoon.
Typical good guy and his sidekicks and bad guy and his minions.
On one episode one of the minions got stuck in a swamp - one of the sidekicks happened by and
helped it get loose.
Well, both sidekick and minion come down with some swamp sickness.
Good guy can't do anything for his friend but villain has a cure for his minion.
Just when all hope seems lost for the sidekick - someone leaves the cure outside their headquarters.
It was the villain - basically doing a tit for tat thing.  For a show of that time it was unexpected.

Galvatron:
Some ramblings of mine I came up with sitting here at work.

I think the best villains are the realistic ones, the ones I/we can identify with.  There are times where the over the top villains works, one that comes to mind is Joker in the Dark Knight.  I think what made that work was everyone else in the story explaining just how crazy the Joker was.

Another example of a great evil villain that comes to mind is Hannibal Lector.  In Silence of the Lambs he is not acting like a good guy, he is straight up evil, I mean come on he eats people!

But he is also not just doing bad things for the sake of it.  He plays a long, bides his time, and then when the moment is right rips someone’s face off.  He is one of the more memorable characters in movie history not because he is evil, but because he is smart, cunning, even charming, because you want to see him and hear what he has to say.  Oh and he just happens to be out of his mind, but that’s just one of things that makes this bad guy stand out so much.  Without all the personality he would be just another serial killer.  It’s the little things that take Hannibal from being a law and order episode bad guy to being Hannibal Lector.

And the cool part about writing, you can control your villains performance you don’t need a great actor to do it for you!

Now for my favorite type of antagonist.

I enjoy reading characters that are at conflict with the main character, they don’t have to be evil they simply need a different point of view or a goal that directly opposes the protagonist. 

Here is a cool situation to think about, in stories about the American Civil War, who are the good guys?

The answer to that will depend a great deal on where you grew up (if you are American), or in a lot of stories, which side of the country the main character is from.  Some examples that come to mind, in AMC’s Hell On Wheels the main character is a southerner and a lot of times when you see Yankee soldiers  they are presented as antagonists, they aren’t evil, they just oppose the main character. 

In that show the antagonist is constantly changing, it just depends on what the main characters current goals are at the time.

I think that is one of the things that A Song of Ice and Fire does right, you get everyone’s point of view, some characters are clearly more moral than others, but it is left to you to decide who you want cheer for.  And as anyone that reads that series and has friends that also read it no doubt knows, people of have plenty of differing opinions on which house is the best.

Good characters that are at odds create good conflict and a good story, having one of those characters lack morals and do bad things is fine, but if he is doing those bad things for a good well thought out reason instead of just being evil for evils sake, then I enjoy it much more.

Protagonist/ antagonist instead of Good guy/ Bad guy.  That’s my favorite.

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