How do you write villains?

BoShek · Post by **BoShek** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 1:04 pm

The villain for my next story, Dragon Parallel, is one I've really grown to like. I created his mundane personality - an ambitious young surgeon who would do anything to get ahead in the life, cold and shrewd and on top of things. Then, he ends up in the fantastical world where most of the action takes place, he decides to use his wits and ambition to become king of this world and bend the locals to his will - many resist and conflict ensues. Since the heroes are on the other side of the war he starts, he is the villain but he's got a cause that he believes in, so he's no cardboard frowny-face who kills people. No, but his unemotional outlook on life makes him oh-so-dangerous. One big bad guy is all I need, as I just create various subordinates with their own motives as I need them.

Jackhass · Post by **Jackhass** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 1:22 pm

Just think of the biggest assholes you've met in real life and write 'em like that.

I think too many villians aren't really villianous. Sure, they may wear a lot of black, have frowny faces and want to take over the world...but personality-wise they're often not bad guys. Often in fact they end up being more interesting and charismatic than the good guys.

I think a villian should embody all the kind of qualities you see in regular life non-supervillian jerks. Insecure, petty, spiteful, underhanded, backstabbing, scheming, gossiping punks. Somebody earlier in the thread said that they should be superior than the heroes somehow...I don't really think that's true.

The one "villian" I have in my comic...Mortimer the Lemur, isn't bigger, stronger or even really smarter than any of the other characters. He's just a short little insecure asshole who's bitter and wants power and status. He manages to hurt people not because of any superiority...it's just that everyone else in the comic is essentially good and decent and he's a sadistic jerk. He's not a genius, it's just nobody else in the strip would put the thought into coming up with plans to hurt others like he does.

I think the best villians are, when you get right down it, kind of pathetic.

Escushion · Post by **Escushion** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 1:37 pm

For the villain, we call it scheming, under-handed, back-stabbing... For the hero, we call it clever and ambitious

.

Jackhass · Post by **Jackhass** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 1:41 pm

Escushion wrote:For the villain, we call it scheming, under-handed, back-stabbing... For the hero, we call it clever and ambitious .

A hero that's ambitious to a point of having to scheme and backstab ain't much of a hero.

Dutch! · Post by **Dutch!** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 1:42 pm

While I like the trite comment Joel put up and several others tried to steal for themselves...

I don't really have to worry about writing villains because I don't have any in the cast.

BeefotronX · Post by **BeefotronX** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 2:18 pm

The easiest one is to just make the antagonist a largely normal person with just a slightly skewed list of moral priorities. By just shuffling the priorities a bit you can get something that from some angles doesn't seem too bad, but the overall result is something harmful. Plenty of principles are decent in the right perspective but become misplaced when used to excuse unlawful or unethical behavior.
"I did it to pay the mortgage," Yuppie Nuremberg Defense.
For the most part this rationality doesn't make much sense for masterminds, but it's good for a pain-in-the ass type of antagonist, the lone bad guy, and the henchman. I don't think a mastermind with the resources to command an army of henchmen is going to have any unmet personal needs.
Other priorities than self-service-- like loyalty, informing the public, stopping the 'bad guy' at any cost, seem different on the surface but I think result in much the same type of antagonist.

Misplaced idealism is trickier. It requires creating a fundamentally different moral structure, in which certain horrible things may actually be the right thing to do within that framework, and questioning it at all requires attacking the structure itself and not just rearranging priorities. But whatever the alternative morality is, it has to make at least some sense internally, which means if you want to have a moral system that's completely different and alien as opposed to just a few major points, it's a lot of work to put together as a writer.
The upshot of using this level of reasoning is that you have what it takes to motivate a mastermind as well as groups entirely composed of fanatics.

What I think would be the most interesting kind of villain is a sort of super-pragmatic master negotiator. Someone who, if you try to stop him, will make you an offer you can't refuse, and you'll come away almost liking him before you realize he's still going ahead with incinerating the baby.

Escushion · Post by **Escushion** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 3:33 pm

Jackhass wrote:
Escushion wrote:For the villain, we call it scheming, under-handed, back-stabbing... For the hero, we call it clever and ambitious .
A hero that's ambitious to a point of having to scheme and backstab ain't much of a hero.

Agreed; but that won't stop readers/audiences from giving him/her the title.

Vulpeslibertas · Post by **Vulpeslibertas** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 9:40 pm

Dr Neo Lao wrote:If I was to write a villain, I'd make them be like me, but evil. let them do all the horrible, nasty things that I'd do if it wasn't for all those nasty consequences.

That's how I write my main villain, bad sense of humor and a love of trashy melodrama and all. He's a complete Mary-Sue author-insert.

BeefotronX wrote:Misplaced idealism is trickier. It requires creating a fundamentally different moral structure, in which certain horrible things may actually be the right thing to do within that framework

I haven't revealed my villain's motivations yet, but it mostly amounts to an alternate moral system. This isn't all that difficult to do. It doesn't require a massive shift in ideology, just one cornerstone principle. In my comic, the Big Fight is about the right to interfere with mortal events, sort of an immortal's Prime Directive.

At the risk of being very naughty, I'll give an example from real life, Naked Elf's comment about an unjust war. I completely disagree with her (:twisted: assuming she is talking about Iraqistan). We both (I'm assuming) agree that it was wrong for terrorists to blow up buildings in New York. We both agree (more assumption) that Sadam Hussein was a bastard and treated his people horribly. We both agree (of course) that the United States is the Mostest Greatest Country Evar LOL Roxxorz n' stuff

. The difference is I believe it's ok to kill people (who deserve it), and she doesn't. It's a small difference, but we could tie up this entire thread for days with a debate about it. People blow small things out of proportion.

[/sarcasm & /:twisted:]

My point is: Elf is completely right, nobody sets out to be evil. Even the most attrocious villains are usually trying their hardest to do the right thing. Probably the only exception is people who do something "just a little" out of sheer self-intrest. I mean, who hasn't ever lied or cheated. Just a little. You know, when it wouldn't cause any real problems.

BeefotronX wrote:Someone who, if you try to stop him, will make you an offer you can't refuse, and you'll come away almost liking him before you realize he's still going ahead with incinerating the baby.

Lionel Barrymore, It's a Wonderful Life. The evil cad. Perhaps the most evil villain of all time.

Siabur · Post by **Siabur** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 10:11 pm

Jackhass wrote:Just think of the biggest assholes you've met in real life and write 'em like that.

Now that you mention it. I have a trio I have used repeatedly through various stories. All based on the three biggest assholes I delt with in highschool. Of course, if I was in highschool today and someone found the stories and the way they were delt with, my ass would be in jail.

Yeahduff · Post by **Yeahduff** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 10:13 pm

For me, the best villains are tragic and pathetic or lots and lots of fun.

TheSuburbanLetdown · Post by **TheSuburbanLetdown** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 10:16 pm

A good villain is really just a hero from another perspective.

Guardsman · Post by **Guardsman** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 10:54 pm

I often find my self writing antagonists rather than “villains”. In that sense I find that most antagonists that I do write are usually alien to humanity. They are either another race or species, with different mortal view points than humans. Rape, murder and extortion are A-Okay for those kinds of charters.

Bear in mind when I use the word “Alien” I mean it in a more broad sense an antagonist can be a sprit, android, clone true extraterrestrial, a god ect ect.

Having said that, I also agree that when writing a story that is entirely based around humanity it is best to simply write people. A characters moral point of view and personal experiences, their past and such, will determine their standpoint on the “grey scale” that is mortality.

Someone who is evil is only evil if you declare them to be evil. That declaration is determined by your own scene of good. To them they are not “evil” as evil is simply an antithesis to your ideal of “good”. That point is very important as it leads into many more ideas on the subject, such as what is truly “evil”. Personally I don’t believe in true evil, but then again what do I know?

Hope that post is a little informative and not too poorly spelt.

Guardsman <3

Princess · Post by **Princess** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 1:29 am

Is there a word for a villain-character that is the protagonist?
ie. Tony Soprano, Hannibal Lecter, Wile -e Coyote

McDuffies · Post by **McDuffies** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 1:56 am

I don't really like the conventional villain stereotype as it's presented in most of comics. Rarely will anyone in real life proclaim himself to be"evil" publicly, comic villains are a gross simplification, and I think that if you do have a villain, he's probably too important a character to rely on simplifications and stereotypes. In life, probably, everyone has a perfect moral justification for his doings, the one that sounds perfectly reasonable in his head. So villain is simply a person whose mothives have steered him to doing something that's immoral (as seen by most of people) and who was willing to stretch his own personal sence of morality wide enough.
I generally like writing characters who are unlike me. Even if I'm speaking through them, I like giving them traits that I would never posess. I think that's fun, and writing characters who are exactly like me is damn boring. So along that line of thought, writing villains should be one of the most interesting things to do, but only if you are trying to discern what is it that actually makes them "villains" in our eyes and what is it that made them act that way - what justification do they have for themselves.
There's one comic that lies unfinished on my shelf, where a good guy is macho type with overblown ego and a hint of womanhating, while the bad guy is basically a mentally sick man, and the one trying to fight with his sickness at that. But the first one is a cop, while the second one is a murderer. One of reasons the script is unfinished is, morals of the comic got so complicated that for most of it, bad guy was more likeable than the good guy - so I left it for some time when I have more time. But anyways, I don't think it's a simple issue, so it shouldn't be treated simply.

Siabur · Post by **Siabur** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 11:02 am

My friend who is a girl, says the best way to write a villian is really simple, you just have to start off with,

Dear Villian,

Blah blah blah.

Sincerely,
The Hero.

NakedElf · Post by **NakedElf** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 11:03 am

princess wrote:Is there a word for a villain-character that is the protagonist?
ie. Tony Soprano, Hannibal Lecter, Wile -e Coyote

Anti-hero?

Komiyan · Post by **Komiyan** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 12:00 pm

Have fun with it, that's all I do

Linkara · Post by **Linkara** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 2:34 pm

It basically comes back to the old saying - "The villain is the hero of their own story." All of my villains feel it's their story, that they're doing the right thing. Even if they haven't thought through the full moral complications of what they're doing, there's something they're trying to set right in some capacity, be it because of jealousy, revenge, or just because they enjoy it.

Escushion · Post by **Escushion** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 3:25 pm

Yeah, some people's moral compass is "what I enjoy."

Vulpeslibertas · Post by **Vulpeslibertas** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 4:40 pm

NakedElf wrote:
princess wrote:Is there a word for a villain-character that is the protagonist?
ie. Tony Soprano, Hannibal Lecter, Wile -e Coyote
Anti-hero?

I think an anti-hero is still a hero. They're doing the Right Thing, they're just sulking while they do it. I think the word is just "protagonist". With a lower-case "p". ...a very evil lower-case "p".