Villains

I like the very refined villain. The one you could almost respect or honor. One with great self control, but internal fire. A man who’s morals conflict but who manages not to seem hypocritical by some unexplainable power.

I think the major thing is to show that they are inconsistent. Even if they do appear almost honorable, it must be apparent that their morality comes from a false sense of justice which has come forth from their own imagination. There are at least two ways to do this. First, your villain could legitimately think that he is doing the best thing when he is not, or maybe he thought his original actions were justifiable and just didn’t reconsider when he grew more wicked. Secondly, he could truly disregard the law which haunts him in some areas, but hold to it in others. If so, he probably holds to the former ways he had been taught from mere habit, or a sympathy for those times. In either case, the villain was probably formed into the man he became by trauma and trial. Such are not the easy going type who find no problem being consistently evil. He has probably gone through some fire which has at once purified him and brought out his true inner nature.

What a large question. You had a good example of how we might show the decline of a man. The one thing missing though is what happened to him afterwards. We know what brought him to where he is, but we don’t really know where he is. Let us assume though that the conscience which plagued him led him to continue to uphold those noble causes which, wrongly pursued, had led him to destruction. He continues to fight for right (or at least what he thinks is right but is actually a hybrid of right and wrong) though through villainous means and with purely villainous excursions.

Your method of showing his state will depend somewhat on how greatly you will delve into his past. You may want to writ a Les Mis and turn every minor character into major character who requires extensive chronicling, and this can be good, but there are limits to how much you can do this. You may have to show his past, his character, his struggles through short but highly revealing events. If you took the long route, it would be easy. You would show his inward struggles the way you would your main character’s. If you can’t spare so many chapters on his past, you will have to be more tricky. Events are usually the best way to fashion character and there is no exception here. Let us pursue an example. “Mr. Villain has been outlawed and resides in the ruins of the mountains with his fierce but loyal band of renegades. Along comes a reckless band of aristocrats in gilded carriages. When scouts report to this villain the apparent position of the travelers, his eyes light with ruthless fire. Down swarm the bandits. There is a sharp resistance by the gallant men of the party of whom all are speedily killed by the bandits. Springing into the carriages, the ruffians proceed to cary away all valuables and yank out the annoyingly resistant women, knives to their necks. The villain/captain upon seeing them, orders with unexpected fervor and ferocity that the women be let completely alone, that not even their jewelry be taken. Being fearful, the men obey. Booty taken and carriages flying away like deer in the chase, they proceed back to their mountain recesses. That night, in the captain’s private office chamber of the cave, one of the officers gives his report to the captain. After several minutes of discussion in which the officer notices the captain to be absorbed in his own thoughts, he broaches the question which has been deeply plaguing him on the cause for the captains order. With eyes of fire brighter than that behind him but a face which in all appeared solemn and cynical, the captain replies slowly,’I could not forget my sister. How could I?’ The last sentence seems wrathful and he clenches his fist. After a few moments the intruding officer feels his presence a sacrilege and eagerly retires.” Now then, this would only fill a chapter’s length but we learn a vast amount about the villain even thought there remains an air of mystery which is actually good. And not only that, but we included a fight scene! Dramatic situations are always good opportunities for defining character.

Oh, oh, I wrote something on this a while ago. It was all very cool, and so intelecjewel.

Because I’m lazy, and on vacation, and want a shower, I will content myself with just copying and pasting what I had written. Naturally, this will be inconvenient for you lot, as I had originally written this to be the first post of a topic I created myself, but I’m sure you’ll be able to decipher it. You’re smart people, right? (Even you Daniel.)

“The most important thing about a villain is that he fit your story. If he doesn’t, why bother with him? He’ll seem cheap, and not important. Recently, I watched “The Dark Knight” for the second time. The first time I had seen it, I had hated it (this was also before I was seriously writing). I found it psychotic, creepy, strange, and dark. This time…I loved it. Mainly because of the Joker. The Joker, to me, was the most perfect villain. He fit that story so perfectly…it’s amazing. Why? Well, one thing about the Joker is, he kills. A lot. And he doesn’t care about it. But an interesting thing to note is that he doesn’t do it for fun. There is not a single instance where he kills someone in a way that doesn’t advance his plan. This is very important, considering Batman’s one rule: He won’t kill anyone. He can’t. This presents a /very/ intense clash of ideals. There are multiple instances where the Joker taunts Batman, tells Batman to kill him. End the reign of terror. Because if Batman did that, the Joker would win. His ideal would come out on top. The whole movie presents the moral question about going against one’s beliefs for ‘the greater good’. The Joker is convinced that anyone will do it. His end game is to show the world that their heroes are no different than he is. He is the perfect counter-part to Batman.

Now, taking a slight change of direction, I’m going to talk about villain stereotypes. These are not just limited to the monologue a villain gives the hero, the villain hiring bad shots, etc…this is a whole kind of villain type, who is constantly used again and again in different stories, even where he doesn’t belong. The interesting thing about clichés is, they don’t have to be bad. A villain who gives a monologue for instance, can still be an amazing villain, /provided/ that the monologue fits his character. Unfortunately, this is not how most people see this kind of character. Let’s take a look at some pretty popular villains of today: Moriarty from BBC Sherlock. The Master from Doctor Who. Missy from Doctor Who. And Loki from multiple Marvel movies. All of these (with the possible exception of Loki, I will address him in a latter section) are highly similar villains…and, I believe, they shouldn’t be.

For one thing, all of these stories (Batman included) are /very/ different from each other. Different plots, different ideals, and different heroes. Let’s look at the Master first.

The Master (and at this point I will mention, I am only speaking of NuWho Master. Classic Who is very different) is a very interesting character. He is brilliant, psychotic, and the arch-nemesis of the Doctor. But…he isn’t. Here may be the situation where you disagree with me, which is all well and good, go ahead and do that, but at least listen to my reasoning…though you may find me wrong in this particular instance, you will probably still agree with my point. The Master for one thing treats death as though it is nothing. At face value, this seems like it would be a very good contrary ideal for the Doctor. The Doctor takes death very seriously. But it’s not as simple as that. The Doctor is not /against/ the idea of death, he is against what the Master stands for: the dominion of all. So in his senseless killing, the Master is introducing an ideal that isn’t really addressed. What does this do? It messes with our minds. The Master’s character loses much of its focus on being /better/ than the Doctor, and instead we are focused on his killing. Momentarily. Soon, we snap back to why the Doctor wants to stop his enemy. Where does this leave us? With a villain who is doing stuff for no reason. And not just, for no /personal/ reason, but for no reason to the story. So why should we care about what he’s doing?

Now, let’s look at Moriarty (this shall be shorter because I’ve not seen as much Sherlock, and I think you may be getting the idea.) From Season 1, I never really got the feel that Sherlock was against the concept of using whatever methods you want to win. Not the feel I got from the books either for that matter. Sherlock wants to win. He needs to defeat Moriarty’s plans. But Moriarty is actually pretty similar to the Master. He does things, crazy things, he acts insane, he probably is insane, he’s so wild and crazy…and all of this distracts from what the two are fighting over. And then the exact same thing happens. Instead of a villain whose /methods/ we abhor, and look down on, we have a villain whose methods we don’t really care about, who does things that just go right over our heads. Why should I care that he’s a psychopath? Oh, so many villains nowadays are like that, what’s one more? He’s the same as all the rest. Which makes him a cheap villain.

I mentioned near the end there that ‘so many villains nowadays are like that’. And I believe it’s true. You see, it’s not that complicated. People see these popular villains, and they think, “That’s cool, I’m going to do it!” (I mean, I’ve almost introduced my villain in my book, and I’m still going through a massive development stage because of this…) And they don’t really think about /why/ they want this villain (or so it seems to me.) You see, there is this swing, I’ve seen it talked about a lot, about avoiding the stereotypical villain…for instance, Sauron. The massive evil, who is not good in any respect, whom no one can relate to. There are two main problems with this kind of thinking: One, avoiding one stereotype like the plague is going to land you into another one. Two, what /kind/ of villain you have doesn’t matter, so long as he fits your story. Let’s take a brief look at Sauron.

Sauron is completely and utterly evil. Nothing at all good about him. Evil personified. Unrealistic right? Not so much. If we take a look at some of the ideals we find in Lord of the Rings, we see that it’s not at all unrealistic. What do the Hobbits represent? Peace, courage, freedom, and a perseverance. Could the idea of perfect perseverance be present in a tale that /didn’t/ also have a concept of complete and utter evil? No, I don’t think it could. The ideals that the Hobbits and Fellowship present hinge on the idea that the opposite of them is complete and utter ruin. Making Sauron the perfect villain for that tale.

And this is the point. Villains like the Master, and Moriarty…people like them, and try and put them in their own story, and that’s all well and good, do that! Provided that’s the kind of character your story needs. Why do you need a psychopathic killer? Couldn’t a different evil better reflect your hero’s ideal?

And now we come to the second thing I want to talk about (as if that wasn’t long enough.) The idea of a villain the reader can relate to. Once again, I shall take the Joker as my example:

One reason I loved the Joker is because I did, in a way, feel for him. When you hear his scar story, you understand his…difficulties. You see /why/ he is the way he is. And it forces you to ask yourself, “If I went through those experiences, would I be the same way?” we can understand his character. We can actually more than understand him…in a sense we have to agree with him. Humans…we are basically scum. We will /always/ do the evil thing. And so we understand the Joker’s goal, and he’s /realistic/ to that point. But in comes my favorite part about that: We still hate him. He is downright, without a doubt, the most evil and wicked person you could ever find. And this is shown to be the case (incidentally, this is another issue with the Master/Moriarty/Missy…their psychopathicness is rarely shown to be /evil/ so much as just strange.) And what does this concept of complete and utter evil leave us with? A desire for the story goal to be accomplished. You /want/ the Joker to be taken down. You want him lose, to fall so hard he’ll never get up again.

Here we come to another dangerous example: Loki. Looking at Loki’s character, what do we see? Greed, desire for power, murderous thoughts, very bad things. Looking at his external, what do we see? The same thing, /except/ a control to only exercise such things when it suits his need. Is this a good villain? Absolutely! So what’s his issue? His issue is the desire to make him…non-villainous. To make his circumstances excuse his actions. What results from this? Apathy. If your villain is someone whom the reader /wants to win/ well…what’s the point of the story anymore? Why should anyone care?

A villain represents what the hero is against. If the villain represents something good, or portrays something bad as something good, what point is the hero? What point do your ideals have in the first place? So, maybe people like him. All well and good. But should people then care? They’d be just as happy if the hero lost as if he won. Suspense in your story…gone! Fear? Gone! Your villain can be someone people relate to, yes, absolutely. But if he’s not against the hero in a very real way…of what point is he?

And now, finally, on to my final (and most minor) point. This is something that I do not really have examples for, but I’m sure most people will understand what I’m talking about: Villains who /only/ stand in the hero’s way, but actually aren’t bad people.

This one I would not say is as bad as my previous points, because it can be something that is done correctly. (I currently have a plot bunny for a story told three times over, each time from the perspective of a different one of the three main characters, and each character seeing one of the other main characters as the villain.) However, it /is/ bad, when the character is presented as being very evil, when actually he hasn’t /done/ anything, other than have cross purposes with the hero. This is quite irritating for obvious reasons. I can’t hate and detest someone whom hasn’t done anything wrong, no matter how much I’m told to.

And that’s about the long and short of it. Or more like just the long of it *surveys long post*. Thank you for your time, may your villains never kill you.”

Wow that was very in-depth. You made a lot of good points, Ezra. However, I think it’s good to remember that not every villain has to look like a villain. Not every villain has to be so intrinsically evil that it is blatantly apparent. Not every villain has to go around burning down houses or selling poisoned candy to children. I think there are two ways to create the not-apparent-villain.

1) The Charismatic Villian
Yes I’m back on this one again by hear me out. The charismatic villain is the one who remains a smiling and maintains a honey-sweet voice through it all, maybe only showing and outburst of anger or frustration once or twice through the story. I think this adds to the creep factor, to the chills running up and down your spine. Imagine that there is only minutes to your death (you being the hero) and your arch-enemy–perhaps someone maybe you trusted completely at one point in time–is smiling and laughing at his own jokes that were made at your expense. He’s perfectly calm, not at all bothered that in a moment you will pass from this earth. How delicious!

2) The Un-Evil Villian
You referenced this villain already in a way. This is the villains tat isn’t actually evil but simply opposes whatever it is the protagonist is for. This could be as small as the competition for who wins the first price for best jam at the county fair or as large as a court case battling for a eleven course meal of prime rib! (See the Perfect Protagonist topic for an explanation of that last statement.)

Opinions? There Kate, I gave yo something to discuss. 😀 😉

HC