Writing villains

[Dresdenus Prime]

What about a villian who is around for a better part of the story?

Take Storm Front for example,

(click to show/hide)

Victor Sells is the primary villian.

He spends the book sending things after Harry. But we only meet him and do battle with him at the end of the book.

I almost want to write mine more like a James Bond film (Haven't read the books) where you meet the Villian early on, but there's no justification to go after him or do battle until later on.

[THE_ANGRY_GAMER]

For me, the best villains are not made evil by what they do, or what they want to achieve, but by the way they go about it.

A villain in the sci-fi story I've been writing/revising for several years now is where many heroes would be - he's trying to defend his nation and stamp out terrorism. Problem is, he has absolutely no concept of limiting colatteral damage; at one point, he eradicates a hospital because a suspected resistance sympathiser has gone for treatment there. What TVTropes calls the Well-Intentioned Extremist.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

One thing that's always bugged me about so many recent fictional examples of a supposed moral dilemma in that general direction is that the question always seems to boil down to "is it right for us to torture X to find out the bit of information needed to save Y when it's the only way to get that information ?".  I don't think I've ever seen anything talking to "is it right for us to steal the Hope Diamond and give it to Y" or "is it right for us to have wild monkey sex of the sort Y's always dreamed of" if those are ways of getting the information out of Y, instead.

[THE_ANGRY_GAMER]

One thing that's always bugged me about so many recent fictional examples of a supposed moral dilemma in that general direction is that the question always seems to boil down to "is it right for us to torture X to find out the bit of information needed to save Y when it's the only way to get that information ?".  I don't think I've ever seen anything talking to "is it right for us to steal the Hope Diamond and give it to Y" or "is it right for us to have wild monkey sex of the sort Y's always dreamed of" if those are ways of getting the information out of Y, instead.

Because having wild monkey sex with their kidnappers isn't something that many people want to do? Plus, a lot of these dilemmas happen on a timescale in which stealing the Hope Diamond wouldn't be practicable.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Because having wild monkey sex with their kidnappers isn't something that many people want to do?

Which would make it a genuine sacrifice for the characters (well, unless they were An*ta Bl*ke, for whom it would be business as usual in the last eight books or so) and hence more interesting, to my mind.

Plus, a lot of these dilemmas happen on a timescale in which stealing the Hope Diamond wouldn't be practicable.

Fair comment; the more general idea was why the dilemma is so much more often framed as torturing the antagonist rather than bribing or seducing them and I think that stands as a more general point, though.

[o_O]

Fair comment; the more general idea was why the dilemma is so much more often framed as torturing the antagonist rather than bribing or seducing them and I think that stands as a more general point, though.

Bribing and seducing are generally perceived as 'cleaner' than torture and the writer is trying to be edgy and immediate instead of trying to explain the diffuse badness (or slow corruption) of bribing/seduction?

[OZ]

Consider this, then.  Group A get hold of time-travel technology.  Group A see this as an opportunity to prevent historical atrocities, and set about doing so.

I have somewhere in the last year or so read an interesting story where someone goes back in time to kill Hitler as a baby or young child but finds themself unable to kill a child in cold blood. A very interesting dilemna. I like stories that make me think.

(well, unless they were An*ta Bl*ke, for whom it would be business as usual in the last eight books or so)

You caught me off guard with this one. Luckily I wasn't drinking anything or I would have flushed out my sinus cavities.

[OZ]

DP are you wanting the villain to be the main guy from the beginning and working through catspaws, a minor villain in the beginning that receives some sort of "power up", or someone who is not a villain in the beginning but becomes one for one reason or another? Of course the first two can sometimes be combined. You can have a minor villain that is scheming from the beginning to acquire more power and when successful becomes a more serious villain.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

You caught me off guard with this one. Luckily I wasn't drinking anything or I would have flushed out my sinus cavities.

Ok, so that one's only half a skull on the side of the keyboard.

[Snowleopard]

As with everybody else - this is just my opinion.
On TV, Movies and in books - I truly hate the UberVillain.
The guy who seems to be bad for evil's sake and is rather like an ebony Energizer bunny always
coming back again and again and making the good guy(s) dance to his or her tunes.
Red Jack on the Mentalist, whoever killed the lady police officer's dad on Castle, Jack and Jill from the Profiler.  (I truly hated that show because it seemed to me - to be about some sicko making the profiler play his twisted game.  It was, in a sense, a form of rape and, as I said, I dispised it.)
Kay Scarpetta by P. Cornwall has had to deal with that kind of UberNut.
  I've written different kinds of villain sdepending on what I needed.  The female villain in my big work is a business woman from a culture where woman aren't usually business CEOs.  This has made her cold and ruthless and driven to succeed but she has a reason for what she does - not usually motivated to torture or maime.  Her second in command is male, outspoken, and not involved with her.  (Didn't want villain and second being a couple - doesn't always work so well.)
The hero is picked to be the scapegoat for a horrific crime simply because he's not impressed by her, nor seducible by her and is something of a leader among the others of his station.
  Conversely in another story - the villain, again female, is bat-shit crazy but very smart - and very, very driven - she does like to torture and torment.
 (Hmmmm, just noticed I seem to have several female villains - Not so sure what that means. )

  The Sociopath works for some villains and the driven/going about it the wrong way works for others.
It's what you need your villain to be and/or do that's gonna shape what you create.

I do agree with not being graphic with violence - I don't need to read 30 pages of blood and guts.  For some they like that kind of thing - I don't.  You can show/illustrate violence without soaking the pages in blood and body fluids.  Like in the first hellboy when the old professor is killed - you see a splatter of blood on the bible - not a lot of dwelling on it.  More poignant and more powerful.

I will say that I once heard an actor who often played villains say that playing villains was more fun than playing heros.  Because a hero is constrained, usually unless it's an anti-hero, to a certain set of actions while a villain can be anything from good to pure evil.

[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.