2.11 Rant on Villains
In the wake of my last post about prophecy, which
was a great relief to get off my chest, I’d like to talk about villains
in novels.
Now, I’m going to use villain and antagonist interchangeably here, but you should know they aren’t always.
A villain is usually an antagonist, but not all antagonists are villains.
If you haven’t checked it out, Writing Excuses has a great podcast about the differences between villains, antagonists and obstacles. Go and check them out www.writingexcuses.com
Obstacles are the sort of challenges that a lot of
romance plots will place before their characters. Sometimes these
obstacles are people, other times literal boulders for the characters to
climb over. A good example would be Pride & Prejudice-
the title itself are two of the core obstacles the characters have to
overcome.
Now that’s out of the way, let’s talk about villains and how to make them not suck.
In my experience and opinion, the best villains are
ones that are as detailed and fleshed out as the protagonists. A good
villain needs a good reason for his actions, a great villain needs a
seed of sympathy. The best villains, the ones
that stick with us, often, in some way, mirror the heroes.
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However, don’t overplay the sympathy card. A
villain can have a tragic backstory but if it is too tragic and
overdone, we start going into the territory of emotional exhaustion in
our book. Wearing out your readers emotions is
dangerous, while everyone has different levels of emotional resilience
to what they are reading, enough angst will often crack even the hardest
shell. When this happens, we end up with an almost total disconnect. If
I don’t feel emotionally invested in the
characters, even the villain, I am probably not going to be able to
finish the story.
So how much is too much? I think that Killmonger from Black Panther
had just the right amount; a tragic backstory, partially created by the
protagonist’s own origins. If he had of been horribly abused in foster
care, etc. that would
have been too much. Instead we have one major inciting incident that
created a huge ripple in his life.
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A good villain doesn’t see themselves as a
moustache twirling cartoon. They see themselves as the hero, as the
person trying to save others. To draw on a fantastic example of this;
the four villains from
Avatar: Legend of Kora. Each is trying to make a difference in
what they consider a society that is rotting from the inside out. Amon
from first season is after equality- this world has created a class
system between those born lucky and those not. It
gives a huge imbalance in social standing where you have one special
person who is born to be better and favoured above all others. The
Avatars have become something of a silver-spoon from birth, they rarely
have to struggle for their meals like the lowly
farmer with no bending ability. His aspiration, his rhetoric, is all
good idealism. He is a villain because of how he goes about seeing these
goals born. If you want a good, powerful villain, his words need to
make sense. His actions need to have clear reasoning
behind it.
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The psychotic villain has his place. If he
didn’t, the Joker wouldn’t be as popular as he is. This villain might be
out to cause havoc and have a good time, his motives inscrutable.
However, for a novel, these villains can fall
short of a long-term goal. In terms of Fantasy series, especially, a
villain like this is a wandering vagabond, causing a crime spree and
then running off. He makes a poor Evil Overlord.
This hasn’t stopped people from trying to turn
psychotic villains into evil Queens or powerful end bosses. The problem
is that a villain who cannot be trusted not to murder her own minions is
someone no one will want to follow. If you
kill any messenger that gives you bad news, very soon no one will send
messengers. The same goes for the troops who fail to secure that pesky
farmboy who just drew the Sword of Shiny- if you murder them for failing
you, why will anyone send you more troops.
Why would anyone volunteer to work for you?
That isn’t to say there can’t be reasons these
sorts of mad-hatters get into these positions; they certainly existed in
our own history, but you need to show how it happens, and why anyone
stays to work for a person who might chop off your
head for filing the wrong report. If my work had a boss who murdered
people when they took a sick-day, or failed to sort something out by a
deadline, I’d never do it.
These sorts of villains are better suited as small-scale villains rather than your big, grand Evil Lord of Evil.
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Being Evil for Evil’s sake is boring. While I’m a big fan of
Dungeons and &Dragons there is a habit in this genre
especially where we have an entire race of monsters that are all evil by
default. I won’t get into how evil isn’t in your DNA. This is fantasy
or sci-fi we’re talking; you can make it something inherited
if you want. I’ve never seen it done well, but you could have fun with
something like that. But give your villain hopes, dreams, aspirations,
make their actions show they are a villain, no matter how noble.
If your villain is trying to bring a giant meteor
crashing down into your world, give us a reason why he wants this. And a
benefit. Your villain should have friends and family- even if he
doesn’t like them much, killing everyone is exhausting.
What about his favourite uncle who always supported his Machiavellian
plans and has donated to his cause with troops and terrifying beasts?
Why destroy a planet that you live on? I think this is summed up very,
very well by one of the wittiest lines from
Buffy: the Vampire Slayer. Spike, the series long running villain
turns against his friends and girlfriend when they decide to bring about
the end of the world
“I happen to like this world. Humans run around like little happy-meals on legs.”
If your villain destroys it, he’s going to destroy himself too.
Now in Sci-Fi, this is a little different. A
villain might be blowing up a planet for a very good reason, like mining
the minerals, or it not affecting his life directly. This clearly
scales up- if a villain in sci-fi were, say, creating
a blackhole that will suck in the whole universe or destroy a huge
solar system that he’s in. The suicide ‘if I can’t have the world, no
one can’ is very old. Often, it doesn’t fit with the personality of the
villain already established.
Good villains have good motivations, goals and sympathy. They should be as believable as your heroes.
If your villain is the leader of a big organisation, consider their skills and charisma. Give them believable flaws as well.
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Let’s talk about the Hollywood effect on
villains. This is a little bit of an issue where the villain is ugly and
the hero is beautiful. Or, the villain is pretty until they reveal ‘how
twisted they are under their pretty face’
this usually accompanies them transforming into something (like a giant
snake). The other classic cliché is using colours to show evil; the
good guys are surrounded by butterflies and angel wings, the bad guy
skulks in a deep dungeon and black and red and
his motifs. These are strong colour choices, sure, and the
juxtaposition is powerful; but it is also overdone. There are also some
troubling subtexts under the good and evil being represented as black
and white.
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Just as the real world is shades of greys,
it’s a good idea to make your characters like this too. A villain
shouldn’t be all evil- give your moustache twirling evil overlords good
sides. Does your villain kill anyone who crosses
him? Maybe she likes dogs and has a whole collection of adopted animals
she cares for. Give him a love of fine chefs and show him appreciating a
yearly harvest, or cutting taxes for merchant traders because she wants
the merchants to feel safe. Maybe have
him knit in his spare time and give the gloves and scarves to charity.
He can still slaughter a village, but the charitiable and otherwise
‘good’ acts create some genuine conflict for your heroes to work through
when they confront a villain in the middle of
his charity gala for blind awareness.
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