Top Three Deadly Mistakes that Weaken Your Villain and How to Fix Them

By Jodi Clark

We all want our heroes to succeed. We want them to have their moment of glory, their finest hour, the moment where they understand the lesson they need to learn in order to stand up to their enemy and achieve victory.

But none of that can happen in any memorable way if your villain is weak.

A weak villain won’t force your protagonist to change. A weak villain won’t challenge the protagonist to leave their comfortable life behind to become something more, something better. And a weak villain most certainly will not keep your audience entertained.

Today, I’m going to share with you the top four mistakes that make your villain seem weak, and I’m going to share tips and advice on how to avoid these mistakes so that your villains are the most formidable, entertaining, and change-provoking they can possibly be.

A quick disclaimer: I will be using examples from various villains who are not entirely weak but have weak moments or personality traits that I will analyze. Sometimes, these characters may not even be classified as villains and might be antagonists or even just nuisances, but I think there is something we can learn from all categories of characters that oppose our heroes.

Mistake #1 – They Are Defeated Too Easily

This is the easiest mistake to make, because at first, it might seem innocuous. Like I mentioned earlier, we all want our heroes to succeed and to display their newfound skills and knowledge by defeating their enemies. But having the hero succeed too often can lead to the villain failing too often. Because of this, the villain becomes someone who is not a threat.

So instead of inspiring the reader with the hero’s newfound expertise and talents, the hero’s constant successes will have the opposite effect as the reader grows bored from experiencing a story with no stakes or consequences from a threatening villain.

A reader is most inspired when they are reading a story where a hero overcomes a truly dangerous villain, one who is incredibly challenging to defeat. If the villain is not a challenge, then the hero won’t have to push themselves to grow and change in order to face them, and the hero might not even leave their comfortable lives to fight the villain.

If the villain is too weak, what the hero loves is not in danger because the villain will likely fail before they even come close to accomplishing their evil goal. There will be no consequences to the villain’s actions because the villain will never succeed, even in something as slight as hurting the hero in combat.

An Example

The Last Jedi, The Rise of Skywalker, and Avengers: Endgame spoilers ahead!

In The Last Jedi, the evil Supreme Leader Snoke finally has the opportunity to kill Rey and end her threat to the First Order. Instead of killing her, however, he sits on his throne and demonstrates a strong use of the Force while monologuing about his soon-to-be victory. He commands Kylo Ren to kill her, but instead of following orders, Kylo uses the Force to manipulate Rey’s lightsaber and betrays Snoke by killing him instead.

Snoke’s death is sudden and shocking but doesn’t truly pack a punch. After the shock factor has faded, the audience realizes that Snoke was never as tangible a threat as he was made out to be through the eighth and ninth Star Wars movies. His death is so quick and easy that it undermines all the tension that was building throughout the earlier scenes to make him seem threatening.

Additionally, there are no lasting consequences to his death other than Kylo Ren and Hux taking control of the First Order. The First Order does not fall apart without him, and in the next film, Emperor Palpatine is reintroduced to immediately fill the void that Snoke has left, so there is always an easily defeated evil lurking behind the scenes.

The Remedy

If you’re struggling to figure out if your villain is failing too easily, ask these three questions:

1. Is the villain’s defeat quick and easy, or does your hero struggle to triumph over the villain?

2. Does the villain just intimidate your hero without acting out their threats, or does the villain actually harm your hero?

3. Is your hero winning more often than your villain

If the answer to these questions is yes, then your villain is probably failing too easily. Because of that, they are not a strong threat to your hero.

To fix this mistake, I suggest you make your villains even more powerful than your heroes. Have your villains be stronger, smarter, and quick to outwit your heroes. Think of Thanos from Avengers: Endgame. It took the combined might of all the superheroes from the MCU to take him on, and even after they won, they took substantial losses in the forms of Gamora, Black Widow, and Iron Man’s deaths.

When it takes all the strength of your hero to succeed against a force that is stronger than they are, and when the villain leaves your hero no other option than to face the villain and fight, your villains will be difficult to defeat. And if your villain is extremely difficult to defeat, they will leave a lasting impression on your readers and your heroes.

Mistake #2 – They Are Incompetent

Incompetent villains. No matter how hard they try, they can never pull their own weight in the story because they either don’t have the skills, intelligence, or proper timing to pull off their own evil plans. Think of the mistakes of Dr. Doofenshmirtz in Phineas and Ferb, the moping of Prince Charming in Shrek 2 (and his disastrous final play in Shrek the Third), or the vanity of Justin Hammer in Iron Man 2.

An Example

In the case of Justin Hammer, his incompetence and ridiculousness were purposefully designed to make him the weaker of the two bad guys in the film. I think there’s something we can learn from his weakness, purposeful though it may be, so that we don’t repeat it in other villains who are meant to be a serious threat.

Justin Hammer is incompetent. His vanity leads to many situations where he is outwitted both by Tony Stark and by Whiplash, the true villain that Hammer is too arrogant to even consider a threat. Hammer is over-the-top, dramatic, and acts like the world loves him.

Hammer wants to be as loved as Tony Stark without having achieved as much. He has no basis on which to support his idea that he should be admired, since he is all talk with no tangible results for all his bluster.

Since Hammer is known to be so incompetent at building effective technology that it becomes a running joke in the film, he is clearly not a threat, and can easily be cast aside.

The Remedy

If your villain is incompetent, your audience will know that they are not a threat. If the audience knows this, then they will not be afraid for your hero, and they will not wonder whether your hero will succeed or not. If your audience isn’t wondering what will happen next, they won’t keep reading your story.

So, what to do to fix this problem? Give your villain a history of real success, so that their dangerous reputation precedes them. Then, give your villain the skills to prove that they are truly dangerous—that they can do more than just talk. They can cause real, long-lasting damage to the hero and the hero’s mission.

The reason that Whiplash is the true villain of Iron Man 2 is because he could create technology that rivaled that of Tony Stark’s suits. He could cause harm to Iron Man when no one else could. Hammer could never have done that, and since he was so incompetent, he let Whiplash have control over his resources, which only led to Whiplash launching yet another attack on Iron Man.

Let your villains have a dangerous history. Give them the skills to prove that they are as dangerous as their reputation makes them out to be. And let them actually cause harm to your hero. Only then will the reader become afraid of the villain, and afraid for your hero. At last, your reader will be worried about whether or not your hero can defeat this dangerous villain, and they will stay up late continuing to read to find out what happens next.

Mistake #3 – They Are Too Easy to Laugh At

This is something that I have seen in a few movies, where humor is a device that is used to mock the villain and their situation. Now, don’t get me wrong, sometimes humor is useful and is used well when a hero is facing off with a villain.

But cracking jokes at the wrong time, especially if there are no consequences to making those jokes, can lead to the audience seeing the villain as someone ridiculous and unthreatening. This turns your villain into a punchline instead of a deadly opposing force set against your protagonist.

An Example

Remember when I mentioned Prince Charming earlier? Yes, Prince Charming from Shrek the Third. Can you recall that play he put on at the end of the movie, where he had Shrek in his custody and he was going to kill Shrek, but in the course of the play, Shrek cracked jokes, Charming was just laughed at, and no one took Charming seriously?

The audience of the play didn’t see Prince Charming as a threat. Otherwise, no one would have been laughing at Shrek’s jokes about him. The way that Prince Charming was mocked on the set of the play was indeed funny, but it also set an underwhelming tone for the final battle of the film. It placed comedy above seriousness instead of using comedy to augment a serious scene, the way the previous Shrek films succeeded in doing.

The Remedy

If your villain is being laughed at too much and your beta readers warn you that they can’t take your villain seriously (or even if you think there might be a bit too much guffawing going on at your villain’s expense), I suggest thinking about the way you’re balancing comedy and drama.

Think of your scenes as a recipe. With some ingredients, a little bit goes a long way. With other ingredients, you need a lot to maintain a balanced final meal. Likewise, with comedy, a little bit goes a long way. The serious core of the story, however, needs a lot more attention.

When you’re trying to build up your villain to be threatening in the eyes of your reader, the last thing you’ll want to do is make the reader feel as if they can laugh at the villain without fear of any consequence. Especially during important encounters between your villain and hero, I suggest either toning down the comedy or having the hero continue to crack jokes but being forced to face the consequences of those jokes (the villain lashing out at them, etc.).

Three Takeaways

In conclusion, there are three main mistakes that can seriously weaken your villain and how they are perceived by your heroes and audience. A weak villain means there will be little to no struggles or consequences for your hero to have to face along the way in the story, so your reader will not be wondering if the hero will succeed or not. A reader with no questions is a reader who will leave a book unfinished.

Here are three takeaways for you to consider when you are writing your current or next villain:

1. If your villain is too easily defeated by your hero, make your villain stronger, smarter, and craftier, so that they are always one step ahead of the hero. Have your villain cause problems with lasting consequences for the hero to deal with, and don’t be afraid to let your villain injure your hero.

2. If your villain is incompetent despite a reputation that supposedly makes them the most dangerous person alive, give them the skills that will back up their claims and show them using those skills.

3. Finally, if your villain is too easy to laugh at, either scale back on the comedy or find ways to have your villain react and cause consequences for those cracking the jokes.

I hope this helps! And remember, sometimes, even villains make mistakes and can appear weak. They don’t have to seem strong all the time. The problem with villains appearing weak starts to happen when they are weak more than they are strong, so remember to use any small moments where they display weakness sparingly!

Who is the weakest villain you know of? What about them made their character seem weak to you?