Good Villains are Dying Out

[Aurethius]

The good old days of villainy. Do you remember them? Evil for the sake of evil? Pure darkness? A wickedness that no one could explain or reason with? A villain that did what he liked, said what he liked, and whose plans fell through at just the right moment? What happened to that, I ask? In these modern times, it seems to me that people expect their villains to have motivations, and accuse the plot of being lacking when they do not. “Why would he do that?” They ask. “Why is the bad guy bad?” They want to see a dark past, abuse or poor parenting, some kind of reason for why the villain is a villain. They want to see that the villain is not like them! That’s what I think part of it is. They want to say “Ah, so that is how a villain is made. There is a formula to it.”

Whatever the reason, I am seeing more and more modern writers accommodate this trend. They seem to think that ‘old-school evil is out’. Writers are writing what readers want to read. Feh.

It’s infuriating. It’s insulting.

The moment you begin altering your creations to suit the pithy, petty desires of the general public, you have failed. You are no longer an artist. Think of it as the difference between an Architect and a Construction Worker; where once you designed, now you just build according to the wishes of others.

The villain is yours. Be he the Nothing, or the Baron Harkonnen, he is yours. He is as metaphorical and grand in scope as you want him to be, or he can be the most disturbingly tactile kind of evil that you can think of. He can be the grumbling, misshapen personification of Envy itself, or he can taste the tears of his quivering captive in the darkness.

If you are an Architect, tell me what you think. Am I imagining things, or is this trend real? Are we watering down our villains and forgetting the old days of The Nazgul and Hexxus? Screwtape and The Skeksis? Ratigan and Professor Screweyes? Are they long gone?

And if you are a Construction Worker, then let this be a wakeup call, an intervention to your addiction to laziness and sycophancy. Write what you wish, but do not let your creative mind be shackled by the desires of others.

What's wrong with villains today? How do you write your villains? This has been bothering me for a while, so please, input input input.



*Didn’t want to write the sources of the villains in the actual rant, didn’t want to screw up the flow. I’ll post em here, I’m not some kind of elitist that expects everyone to know all of them. I used villains from some animated movies and live action films hoping that they are villains the reader can remember more vividly, having those ‘old villains’ printed back in the nostalgia part of their brain. Remember what villains used to be? Bring That Back!
The Nothing – Neverending Story
Baron Harkonnen – Dune by Frank Herbert
Nazgul – Lord of the Rings
Hexxus – Ferngully
Screwtape – Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis
The Skeksis – The Dark Crystal
Ratigan – The Great Mouse Detective
Professor Screweyes – We’re Back!

[Guest]

I don't think it's a rant at all! I think it is, indeed, a "wake-up call". I suppose that I've always realized that the antagonists of roleplays are either over-done or not there at all. If everyone wants to be on the same team, then where is the conflict other than in the OOC - where the players are bickering about how the roleplay is starting to die because no one is posting (go figure)?

As far as over doing it; players tend to try and come up with the most evil, disgusting, revolting entity, bit it physically or mentally - or in some cases, both. But when they finally get their creation into action, they are either unbeatable or just pathetic at playing their own creation because they don't actually know their own character...they just created something that sounded cool.

There is only one roleplayer I know of that can play a convincing villian without basing it off the streamline villians of the comics or fantasy stories that we've all come to know at one point or another. He was definitely magnificient (though he lacked on the art of splitting up his paragraphs xD ).

But I hear ya, man. Without a villian that the player is actually capable of knowing before controlling, the roleplay/story/work-of-architectural-genius is bound to be a complete fail.

[Digital Muse]

Bravo for speaking out! I find myself relegated (unhappily) as one of the construction workers. I believe I have the skills to write a good villain, but lack the experience or mindset to pull it off. I always find myself trying to make excuses for why my villains are evil.

What's wrong with pure self-service for no other reason than they simple are? Nothing! Then why can't I write it that way??? What's wrong with a completely unsympathetic character? Again, nothing! I want my villains to give people the shivers and nightmares and yet come up woefully short.

Maybe I have to do a bio that is nothing but a psychological study of a sociopath and stick to it religiously. I dunno. But, like you, Aurethius, I miss the "evil cause they can be' villains of old.

[Shadow Hunter]

I too miss seeing "Evil because they can be" villains. I'm not sure, but I kind of think my villains make me fall under Contruction Worker, but I want to be an Architect. *tries to examine them better*

[Anemone]

I myself love creating villains whos history devates heavily to the norm. One of my main ones actually commits acts of genocide, regicide, and other atrocities out of desire to set up the very person she loves just so she can alter play the hero.

She does it to HURT the person she loves.

Others include someone who practices her spells on people for the sake of practicing what she knows on decent targets. And another, lesser villainess, kidnaps anyone she sees with even a shred of skill, has killed countless others, plays gods with their lives... because her mother said so....

[Guest]

I agree with most of what you are saying. I disagree with one thing though. Sometimes having a motivation for the villain makes them more human and easier to relate too.

I do though hate villains with a back story that gives them a reason to be bad. I have a few that really are just good old fashioned evil because they love being evil. AS the Ageless Stranger is an incarnation of chaos he simply came into being one day. He travels the earth and simply spreads chaos. Not because he was abused or mistreated but simply because he likes it.

Another character of mine has the simple goal of killing everyone. He is disease given life and intelligence he simply seeks to destroy all who are not either creature of decay or disease. He goes about creating new diseases and spreading them. He tries to take over the world simply so he can have to power to better release his plagues. And this is all because he likes death decay and horror.

I hope that this is what you mean.

[Kesteven]

I also concede the trend for more 'justified' villains, but I'm not especially scornful of it. I see it as part of a larger recent trend towards greater realism, which while it costs us a little of the sheer vitality and colour of comic-book (and perhaps fairytale) heroes, villains, and situations, it turns our minds away from spectacle and more towards explanation, sympathy, and unity of design. Ultimately I think it's something to be proud of, although I think we should be wary that not ALL of our fiction becomes saturated with modern-day hyper-realism and we allow ourselves the occasional jaunt into the bizzare, or improbable leap of logic for the greater good. Endless explanation ruins the mystery that comes with a good fantasy, and it's that mystery that fuels our dreams and nightmares.

I once tried my hand at creating a truly despicable villain; I was aiming for perfect and brutal insanity, a deep-set psychopathy that needed no justification and crushed anyone and anything that interfered with its brilliantly twisted plans for humanity, schemes too complex and merciless for an ordinary person to comprehend, while one minute sipping human blood from a wineglass, the next thrusting its jagged broken edge into the eyes of its most loyal slave.

Of course when I got to trying to actually write this guy, I couldn't do it. It certainly wasn't to pander to my public because I don't have one, but whether it was a lack of skill on my part or simply a lack of nerve I don't know. Anyway, he quickly devolved into a mere tyrant and then a disturbed visionary in pursuit of a Platonic Eudaimonia. Not that I'm unhappy with how he turned out, in fact the presence of compassionate and perfectly logical justification actually adds a further layer of disquiet to what is still, on the ground, a horrific totalitarian genocide. But I still lust to reach that chalice of pure evil at the deepest reaches of my malevolent streak. I know it's there, but after a lifetime of battling and suppressing such evils, it's not an easy thing to access and rightly so.

[Aurethius]

As far as over doing it; players tend to try and come up with the most evil, disgusting, revolting entity, bit it physically or mentally - or in some cases, both. But when they finally get their creation into action, they are either unbeatable or just pathetic at playing their own creation because they don't actually know their own character...they just created something that sounded cool.

Yes! All too often, the final product is overdone! It’s too grotesque, and your villain becomes almost pointless! I feel that if you turn your Nefarious Dial up to 10, it’s just too much, but if it’s right at a solid 7, killing the main character’s daughter as opposed to his whole family, or poisoning the village well as opposed to burning it down, you have something slightly more tangible. Unless you WANT your evil to be intangible in that regard. A villain that is equal to a walking “Kills Bloody Everyone” is something you have to think hard about.

But I hear ya, man. Without a villian that the player is actually capable of knowing before controlling, the roleplay/story/work-of-architectural-genius is bound to be a complete fail.

Well-said. If you don’t have a little villain in you, then don’t build a villain. Stick with the Lawful Good’s and the Puppies.

I believe I have the skills to write a good villain, but lack the experience or mindset to pull it off. I always find myself trying to make excuses for why my villains are evil.

Have you considered taking some villain training? Maybe you need to find your inner wickedness, your ‘inner sinner’, so to speak. Maybe I’ll start a thread about this… But hey, the first step to breaking out of the Construction Worker mindset is to realize you’re in it, right? Someone in that mindset is only as much of a Construction Worker as they allow people to force them to be. In your second paragraph, simply being able to ask the “why nots” shows you are on the road to becoming capable of writing a real villain! Just find the darkness, find the cruelty and the lust and the envy inside of you, pour it into a tub and bathe in it! Metaphorically!

I myself love creating villains whos history devates heavily to the norm.

What do you mean by norm? What is your goal when you make villains that deviate from the norm?

Personally, (and this is not attack against you Anemone, I don’t think you do this, you just got me thinking) creating something with the sole purpose of deviating from the norm is just another kind of conformity. Of course, if your villains just happen to be completely different, or it makes sense for them, that’s fine. I just think that someone who does B simply because everybody else does A, and for no other reason, doesn’t make them special or unique. It makes B people just as much of a slave to the perceptions of others as the A people.

He is disease given life and intelligence he simply seeks to destroy all who are not either creature of decay or disease.

You’re right on the money. Your ‘disease given life’ is just the example I was trying to talk about. An evil that simply is, it has a kind of beauty.

Entire Post

You write like a communist!

Nah I’m kidding, you just seem like the kind of guy who can take a joke like that.

So you’re proud of this trend? I can see from the way you describe it that you view it differently from the way I do. I see it as a spread of weakness, as people becoming uncomfortable with the base and wicked, and writers conforming to that weakness. You appear to me to be viewing the brighter side of the trend, that people want more ‘depth’ in their villains. They want something more ‘intellectual’ is what I think you’re saying.

My beef is that ‘depth’ and ‘intellectual stimulation’ don’t have to be sacrificed to have the kind of evil that I miss. You can keep your villain’s motivations and a touch of realism and still be able to make people shudder and curse your villain’s name.

I’m not calling for the bizarre, or for an improbable leap of logic. Not exclusively. I’m asking for the evil villains of old, and though some were bizarre or improbable, they were able to say “Yeah, I do have a reason for evil, sure, but does it dominate the story? Hell no. You know what does dominate the story? My fist! My sword! My armies! My armada! My words! My EVIL!”

I still lust to reach that chalice of pure evil at the deepest reaches of my malevolent streak. I know it's there, but after a lifetime of battling and suppressing such evils, it's not an easy thing to access and rightly so.

I don't want to get personal, or too philosophical for some people to understand, so I'll make this general statement.

I think that people, in general, should embrace their evils. At least once in a while. If you suppress it, you're denying your desires.

[Kesteven]

You write like a communist!

How appropriate, you write like an ailing pseudo-capitalist feudalism with a disenfranchised proletariat!

No, I see what you mean. To be honest I appreciate a good bastard as much as anyone, and I'm not that interested in endorsing the trend away from them as such, but I might as well leap to society's defence if nobody else will.

I agree that it's possible to add depth to a villain without importing features that compromise their wickedness or make them less scary. However, if you make a villain without a speck of decency then you're setting yourself up to tell only one kind of story. There's much less in the way of moral dilemma - the more human a bad guy is, the more questionable using violence on him becomes (amongst other things). The 'good guys' have to weigh up their options, and might find themselves sympathizing or switching sides, as might we as readers. If the villain is just an out-and-out monster the whole situation becomes a lot simpler, and to that extent less emotionally interesting.

if the public were afraid of evil, I'd expect them also to shy from the shocking and grotesque, but do they? Quite the opposite, I think. Rather than a public uncomfortableness with confronting evil, then, I'd blame the trend more on a fascination with shades of dark grey, and this is, I advance, not necessarily a bad thing.

That said, there's a couple of less defensive points I'd like to make: firstly, flying the banner of 'realism' gives writers the opportunity to be lazy - the closer a fiction is to reality, the less work there is to be done in making it believable, and the more you can straightforwardly import from reality. Most real 'evil' people are just sad, angry or confused, so that kind of evil is easier too, whereas 'pure' evil needs to be abstracted and distilled, and for that reason anyone who can write such archetypal characters smoothly is to be respected. Secondly, I'm not sure how much of the trend is a simple affliction of Draco In Leather Pants Syndrome, the bane of every villain who's ever faced a largely female audience. Even without the fangirl element, evil is cool, and it's much easier for it to be cool if it's also just a little bit good too. However, this can easily turn into a self-indulgent flounce through pseudo-evil to mere roguishness, destroying any appeal the supposed evilness of the character might have had.

Lastly though, amusing as it is to mock the crass demands of the uncultured masses, it's the duty and therefore the pride of entertainers to meet the tastes of their audience. To fail to do so is essentially to be, under a certain definition, a bad writer.

[Aurethius]

Well, are you making a moral dilemma, or are you making a villain? If you put away your thesaurus for a moment and pick up your dictionary, you can see that a villain is, roughly, a 'bad guy', someone who is evil, someone who makes bad things happen. Nothing in the definition of a villain involves goodness or a 'human part', and nothing in the good presentation of a villain demands those aspects either. You don't need a moral dilemma or a speck of decency to make an interesting villain.

I can see that you don't understand how those 'out-and-out monsters' can achieve a writers' goals and entertain an audience just as well as any other. It's something you have to experience, something you have to read or see on film, it can't really be explained like this. What also comes into play is the fact that you, as you said, think that out-and-out monsters are less emotionally interesting. You are, by that phrase alone, the kind of audience that is pushing what I love into extinction.

I don't think most of the public knows what evil is. All they know is what they see on film. Black cloaks, red eyes, one ring of power, hurting innocents and all that. Most people wouldn't know real evil if it bit them on the arse. I don't think anybody knows what evil is until they've committed it, willingly and knowingly. They can see others do bad things, sure, but until they taste it, until they know the sin, commit the sin... they don't know a damned thing. That's part of why I miss the villains of old media, and despise the writers and readers of today for letting them pass into memory.

I'm with you on the banner of realism gig, 100%. On your statements about evil people, I don't know you, I'm not you, so I'm not going to tell you that you have no idea what you're talking about.

If you think its an entertainer's duty to create what their audience wants them to create, have at it. That's Construction Worker talk.

[Inerio]

Heh, Good Villains. Bit of an oxymoron, that's what that is.

I suppose the idea of a good villain is subjective. Evil, at least to me, is subjective.

In my opinion the villains you're describing fit really well into an epic fantasy. But, take that villain and put him in a modern setting as a serial killer and you've got something that doesn't make much sense at all. Sure, you don't have to reveal his past. I for one like to keep tid bits and important facts of my characters to myself unless someone asks. However, it just doesn't make sense. He could be a sociopath by genetics, or he could be deeply disturbed. For the latter you'd need a reason.

Though, I generally agree that I like just plain old evil villains in my epic fantasies. The closest I get to that is Jervis(who was a jackass before his life altering accident and a jackass after it), who isn't so much of a villain as he is a selfish narcissist.

I'll admit, the new age overly emotional emo attracting villains make me want to sodomize myself with a rusty spoon just to distract me from the pain of reading them. Making baddies more human to attract a female audience isn't doing it for me, I prefer my bad guys to actually be bad and not oversized children who got their teddy bears stolen.

[Kalon Ordona II]

I don't really like the 'oh poor me I was hurt as a child and now I'm taking it out on everyone else' thing either.

However! I DO believe there MUST be a reason for the villain. A villain there merely to fill in the "bad guy" spot is too simple for my taste.

The reason for the Nazgul, for example, were tricked into it, falling into the trap because of their power-hungry greed.
The reason for Sauron was that he was a maia that fell in with Morgoth.
The reason for Morgoth was pride.

So there must be a reason for the villain, but I think it should be a well-thought-out reason.
I am a fan, for instance, of the righteous villain. The guy who is actually doing good things in a misguided fashion.
I want to learn from the villains.
An example of that is the line in the time machine movie, where Jeremy Irons as the Uber-Morlock says "And what is time travel? But your pathetic attempt to try to control the world around you!"

There are many ways to make a good villain. Even ones with no reason to them are cool, though; just not, in my opinion, for realistic fantasy, which I like.

[The Melancholy Spirit]

I agree with Kalon on this one. Pretty much anything I would say would just be a long, drawn out explaination of what he has already said.

[MoiraofWords]

I think more as Kalon does, and that the terminology of construction worker and architect was used improperly.

In that a consruction worker builds the foundation, the mere bones of the body. He lays out the base structure by creating a being driven for no apparent reason. What is is tends to be a poor reason for anything. Did you like it when your mother or father said "Because I said so?"

Why would you like that anymore for any villian? That they are evil because you said so? Sound's like laziness to me.

An architect plans not only the foundation, but also the interior and the precise measurements. They construct a carefully built and sculpted person that will hold up to further inspection.

Those that do for do are dreadfully transparent, and are poor unless that is their purpose. The Auditors in the Discworld series are considered evil. But all they want is to make things run smoothly as possible. Which tends to work better without anything to ruin the process... such as humans. Which explains their few attempts to get rid of humans.

They are evil for the sake of a reason, but said reason works well. It has meaning. No meaning at all is meaningless. Is not the basis of evil composed upon doing the opposite of good? That already suggests a reason- to do NOT good. The opposite of up isn't up, it's not up. A villian is someone that does not good. And the only way to avoid not good that actually works is a reason or intent.

Selfishness is a better catalyst than is. Most things are.

But that's just my view.

[Kalaam]

I respectfully disagree that a villain is evil for no reason. There are multiple issues with this that I will attempt to cover. The first being that nothing happens without a reason. This is rooted fundamentally in our conscious, in our understanding of reality, and how we as humans develop. Newton's first and third laws of motion addresses this specifically, and for those of you who cannot recall what these are; (First Law) an object at rest stays at rest unless acted upon by a force, and an object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by another force. (Third Law) No action occurs without an equal and opposite reaction. So, philosophical objections of what we can truly know aside, the physical world operates on a system based on logical system of procession. This in turn correlates with my other two points in how we learn. We learn primarily by observation and cogitation. This functions for the insane as well. We attribute a stimulating impulse of some kind with archived observations and predict a reasonable outcome. Thus, nothing occurs without a balancing impulse of some kind (for pure evil forces), or a prior action.

All beings I would call sentient, by which I mean responsive to stimuli and able to change their reactions, have a reason for any action they do. Fundamentally, no sentient does an action for no reason. The stimuli could be as simple as a physical stimuli from breathing. This needs not be explained, but for thinking beings, something must provoke your actions on a fundamental level. Your example of a pure psychopath still falls into this category. The normal impulses in the brain are associated with radically different responses than the base norm of the observer. Thus the question, do insane people know if they are insane? On a physical level, this is irrelevant for a sentient being.

For those of us who create a force of evil, even if it is without a counterbalancing impulse, it still has a root derivative or purpose. The fact the universe tends to proceed in a fashion for formless entropy is, in my opinion the root derivative for the primal force of chaos. If there truly is no root derivative, it still has a purpose. That force of chaos exists to create chaos, and thus a reason for what it does. This might or might not be completely incomprehensible, but there must be one. If you can point out a single piece of well written literature that I can not apply this rule to, I will concede my point.

Thus all villains act villainous because either they want to, or have to. The very word villain simply implies a moral judgment by either the author or the audience. There has to be a moral value system for something to be bad. If you can come up with some other definition for why this is not so, I would love to read it. Therefore the desires of the individual, group, or force in question must fall out of the normal or excusable actions or goals of a given morality. Thus, they want to do something outside the bounds of a given morality. This also implies that there is either more than one person or group in play, and one has to base a definition of morality by conforming to the system of one of these groups, which include author and audience. I approve of the fact that we have shifted to acknowledge in modern times that there must be a base motivation for the Villain.

However, despite this long proof of why there has to be a motivation or purpose to the actions of your Villain somewhere, does not mean it has to be explained in detail, or comprehensible by your audience. If you cannot articulate why your Villain is doing something, you have lost intent and control in your story. This reason can be as simple as to set up a situation for something else that is within the given range of desires it has. It could also be playing off the morality you are exposing in your work.

I agree with you that the current trend to explain the Villain away into neat little acceptable categories is terrible. For one reason, moral culpability of the audience is reduced, which then directly reduces the impact of your character. However, if this explanation somehow increases the impact, then this is a good result. The certain vicarious thrill that you could see yourself falling down this horrible path is a strong technique to use. When used blatantly to appeal to a certain population (your fan girls, for instance) lacks finesse and is aesthetically revolting to me. The act of catering specifically to an immature, or exceptionally susceptible audience is a cheap method of creating profit and not works of art. The broader the range of audience that can be included successfully without diminishing the Villain's impact is a fundamentally better character. It simply encompasses a broader spectrum of emotions and view points, and therefore fundamentally closer to a sublime reality.

I believe there are two underlying, and seemingly fundamentally opposing forces driving this trend onward. The inclusion of Christian morality specifically for our culture (rooted in Victorian era writings), and the growing impact of scientific thought. I feel this is intuitively obvious when realized, but this has no proof. Thus, further discussion on the matter would enlighten me, and possibly others.

My final point of conflict with your post is the way you implied Villain. This is a trend that I disagree with, and the farther this takes us away from Good/Evil based stories, the better. The way I read this implies that the hero/good guy has to be the protagonist, and the Villain has to be the antagonist. For all the references you mentioned that I am familiar with, like Dune, or the Neverending Story, this is the case. This is perhaps an overreaction on my part, but the intellectual simplicity of a classic good versus evil is more for moral development than a true exploration of ethics. The reason protagonist and antagonist as the driving factors of any story are morally neutral is because some stories are better told where the Villain is the protagonist, or where either the Villain or Hero is entirely absent from the story.

Thus I will approach the second half your post. It is in no way a rant, by the way. I do agree with the construction worker/architect analogy. However based on the personal views I have espoused so far, the architect is able to have an intent, a design, for his story. The Villain has a specific purpose, a significant moral impact, and a intent inherent in the character. This should transcend simply the character and further apply to the whole you should be creating. The construction worker simply conforms to prior archetypes, or specifically deviates from them as a framework. Thus the architect controls his story, and has an intent to explore something, where as a construction worker follows preconceived plans and perhaps alternates between sets of plans.

[Kathryn Lacey]

I basically agree with everything that was after Kalon's post- including Kalon's post.

None of the villains that I know that you mentioned in your first post were evil without a reason.

Kalon already explained the Nazgul.

Hexxus fed from pollution, so the more there was, the healthier he was.

The Skeksis only killed the Gelflings so they would be youthful and have long lives. Their culture was simply a very aggressive one. There are many aggressive cultures among humans, but that doesn't make those groups of people villains.

I truly don't understand what you're trying to say. I mean... the description you're giving of villainy is very one-dimensional in my mind. I also think you're just using the term "construction worker" to degrade people who enjoy something other than yourself. I personally don't think there's anything wrong with construction workers because they're just as important as the architect, but you're using it as a negative connotation which really isn't right.

Personally, I enjoy well written villains who have more to them than just the terrible things they do. I like to be able to relate to villains. No, I don't have to know their whole history. I just want to get to know them on a deeper level than their actions. I like to get into their heads to see what motivates them. Just because something doesn't tell you what their motivation is, doesn't mean they don't have one.

The definition of "vallain" is an evil person and/or a scoundrel. Evil really is in the eye of the beholder. Evil to one person may not be evil to another, so it's really rather callous of you to assume that people who don't share your view on what makes a decent villain marks them as a lesser person. It's sad, really.

[Aurethius]

But why does your villain need to make sense in the first place? You’re the writer! You’re in control! If you don’t think your villain needs to make sense, then he doesn’t have to!

I was hoping folks would just take my original metaphor at face value. I want to get writers to write what they want, to motivate them to create without worrying about what people think of their work, or if they understand it! I used the metaphor of builder vs designer to see if anyone attributed themselves to one of those positions, and some people did.

Anemone and Raptorman above have both used the kinds of villains I’m talking about in their own way. They’ve both made what they wanted to make. What they made didn’t need a motivation, and in some cases, the motivation was completely obscured. Why would Anemone’s main villainess hur the person she loves? Digital Muse wants to make a villain like this, but thinks she doesn’t have the mindset.

Moira, you’re confusing laziness with simplicity. You’re doing precisely what I talked about in my first post, accusing the plot of being lacking when the villain may not seem to have a motivation.

Some of you who are most directly disagreeing with me have one thing you’re focusing too much on; the lack of motivation.

I argue that motivation can be a distraction from all the other great functions that a villain serves in a story. If you can remove it, or lessen its importance, then you can gather your readers’ attention on what you want them to look at! Kathryn brings me to my next point.

Yes Kathryn, they had motivations, but the story didn’t really care! They had a reason, but it was mentioned very little, and the villains spent the rest of the time doing what they do best, that’s what I liked. Let me see if I can illustrate this for everybody.

When you think of the Skeksis, do you think about the fact that they were once UrSkeks and that they have their jobs and each vie for political power within their castle… or do you remember that dinner scene, or the Trial By Stone, or “The Crystal Calls!”?

When you think of Hexxus, do you think about how he was an ancient evil sealed away, or do you think about how awesome Tim Curry is and how creepy that damn song in the machine engine was when you were a kid?

And how about that Baron Harkonnen, hmm? His vendetta (kanly if you’re a fan) against Duke Atreides was the reason, but it was what he did, how he acted on that vendetta, that we remember, not the reasons. Did we ever learn why the Harkonnens hated the Atreides? I remember it being about Dune, naturally, and who had spice rights, but was that what you focused on? Did you need that?

Do you see where I’m going with this?

The description of villainy is intentionally one-dimensional, that’s the fun of it!

Okay, I realize that I made two separate arguments in my first post, which is kind of mucking things up, but bugger it.

Construction Worker and Architect. I used those to give people a pair of categories they can put themselves in. Now, I put my spin on what those categories mean. Of course I did. I have opinions. I’m not some kind of sissy pacifist that’s going to ask people what they think about a topic and NOT throw in my own feelings or try to sway them my way. I’m biased as hell! What’s not right with me doing this? Or do you think I’m disrespecting Construction Workers? Have you ever worked Construction?

And yes, I do think less of writers who are Construction Workers by nature. I also said “Write what you wish, but do not let your creative mind be shackled by the desires of others.” That includes me! Trust me, I had that line in there for a reason.


This is getting a little out of hand and feathers are getting ruffled, so I’ll level with everybody. I Am Not That Smart, okay? I’m not a brilliant person. I like writing, I get into it, I love to use tone words, and I use too many commas. I had something I wanted to discuss, I wanted to write how I felt about it, and so I did. If you’re getting mad at the discussion, or pitying me for my views, then cut it out. We’re writers, we learn from each other, right? We all came here as part of a big, magnificent conference of creative minds, aye? We make suggestions, we criticize, we label, yes. Absolutely. I will too. But at the end of the day, we have to remember that we’re here to learn and expand our abilities, right? That’s why I’m here. I’m trying to figure out what other writers think, not just about general topics, but about me and my own writing.

[The Melancholy Spirit]

I understand and respect the attempt to get people to write what they want to, not what the reader wants. I’ve said it in other places and I will (hopefully) never shy from admitting it: I write for myself, first and foremost. If other people enjoy what I write that only makes things better, but the writing is always for myself.

The problem here is that, I believe, you went about that intention in the wrong way. The title of the thread, for instance as well as previously said things on your part make it seem (even if unintentionally) that you are criticizing people who want their villains to actually be realistic and not simply one-dimensional. I for one thing that villainy was not designed to be one-dimensional. Yes, it is true that the reason for why they do what they do, how they become what they are never takes a large foothold in a story, but when it is there for even the briefest of moments it adds more depth to the character(s) such as the Nazgul who are further explained in the Silmarillion, if I am not mistaken… been ages since I read that one. Sauron as well is further explained in that book, as is Shelob.

And again, in you ask why the villain needs to make sense because we’re the writer. Well, the last few posts have had some explanation into this which, in my eyes, makes that a rather rhetorical or blind question. Also you said ‘Yes they had motivations, but the story didn’t really care!’. Well, obviously the writer cared or they wouldn’t have even added that into the writing in the first place.

Of course, when dealing with the idea of evil and villainy you must first look at the genre of literature. Certain genres downplay realism for epic, over-the-top, simple dynamics of good vs. evil to give the reader a nice adventure. This is often seen in the fantasy genre, and greatly so in the comic book arena, and even more so in the modern craze with anime. If you take a look at other genres, however, you can often see villains that are built up even more so than the hero of the tale. Dark tragedies often have villains that truly challenge a hero, mentally as well as physically. In the end, as it has been mentioned, villain is a subject term. Heroes may act villainess and villains may act hero-like.

With different mindsets come different ideas of what makes a story good. Some may prefer the simple, one-dimensional epic adventures of good vs. evil with the ideology of a ‘pure evil’ villain because he simply does evil for the sake of evil (which I personally find bland) while some may prefer a complex, multi-dimensional story that makes the reader question which side (the acclaimed good and evil parties) is really in the true write. Perhaps they are both after the same goal, but the methods are utterly different and it is there in that the moral choices must be made and the subjective perception of what is good and what is evil, what means may or may not be justified by the ends and so forth.

[Digital Muse]

Nicely said, Aurethius. We each have our view point on every subject under the sun and by nature, each of our opinions will differ from that of our neighbor. That's the beauty of the human mind.

I think some posters are getting caught up in the whole term 'motivation'. As you daid, every good villain might have a motivation, whether it makes sense to the reader or is even KNOWN to the reader is up to each author. But, how much do we each let the motivation get in the way of the villain? For me? I tend to delve too much into the mindset of my villain. However, in some circumstances and styles or genres, that's exactly what's needed. In other styles of story, no. The background and motivation of the villain should not be explored because it detracts from their nightmare-influencing shadow,

There's no all or nothing in this discussion. Every story will require different levels of evil. Do we want people to get chills because that villain could have been them in the same circumstances? Or do we want that villain to simply induce mind-numbing fear?

In any case, it's not pandering to the audience if we want our stuff to sell. But we have to understand that audience and in the end please ourselves.

[Kathryn Lacey]

You say you're trying to get writers to write what they want and not what they think people want them to write, but how would you know what they're writing for themselves and what they're writing for others?

Just because someone is writing a character who may have good inside her/him, that doesn't mean they're doing it because of the pressure to write for an audience. Maybe they had a really great idea for a morally dark-grey character, and they thought that character would be perfect in their story. I think morally dark-grey villains are some of the best villains. I don't have to know everything about them. I don't even have to know their motivation- even though I prefer to know their motivation. It shows in their personalities in the stories how their morals run.

Take Sylar from Heroes for instance. You didn't really know what drove him to murder people aside from the fact that he wanted the abilities of others, and that was how it was achieved. However, you also learned that he wasn't the sort to just kill someone for the hell of it. He only killed to either get abilities or to keep himself safe if someone else was trying to kill him or if someone was trying to stop him in some other way from achieving his goals. However, for the first two seasons, he was the only character in that series upon whom you could absolutely depend upon to be the villain no matter what the other characters were doing.

Just because he has good in him, doesn't mean he's terribly written. In fact, he's one of the most interesting characters in that show. I see nothing wrong with villains like that. In fact, I'd rather have a villain like that than one who just does what he does for no real reason. It all comes down to being one dimensional again.

There is only one example of a decent villain about whom I can think that fits your description who isn't craptastic because I really don't think the villains you named about whom I am aware fit it as well as you think they do. The Joker from The Dark Knight was the sort of villain who you never truly got to know. You only know that he's a sociopath who enjoys killing for the fun of it. You never even get his back story because he tells everyone something different about how he got his scars. He was not only interesting and crafty, he was a mystery.

I can't think of anyone else who fits.

[Kalaam]

Quick response. The Joker is explained by Alfred most accurately in the movie. Although, perhaps the moral challenge he presents Batman is also key. And I quote, "Some men just like to watch the world burn." The key to the Joker in the Dark Knight, is that he is not actually insane. His moral system is FUBAR to the normal person, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have one. Furthermore, there is too much planning, too much preparation for everything he does to be insane, and constantly motivated by different impulses.

[Aurethius]

The problem here is that, I believe, you went about that intention in the wrong way. The title of the thread, for instance as well as previously said things on your part make it seem (even if unintentionally) that you are criticizing people who want their villains to actually be realistic and not simply one-dimensional.

No I criticized people in intentionally because I really do feel that way. Plus, its the best way to get a good hot discussion going! Kathryn's turned both barrels on me for instance. I know, without a doubt, that she is saying exactly how she feels.

Back to the point, I really do think that writing for your audience is a form of conformity and pandering. I think real writers write what they want. Clearly that pisses off some folks, and I'd rather they not be pissed, but hey, such is humanity.

And again, in you ask why the villain needs to make sense because we’re the writer. Well, the last few posts have had some explanation into this which, in my eyes, makes that a rather rhetorical or blind question.

Yes they explained it, but they are wrong. Have you not had an argument with another human being before? I don't agree with their reasons for Needing Motivations in a villain, so their explanation is meaningless to me.

But, how much do we each let the motivation get in the way of the villain?

Yes! That's a much better way to say what I'm saying... better! Motivations can get in the way, distract!

If you pander to the audience so that your stuff will sell, then you're pandering to the audience. If you write what people want to read, then you are writing what they want you to write. If you are writing story A, but the audience wants story B, so you write story B, or B+ (1/2A), or even A with just a tiny bit of B, you're conforming to the desires of the audience, an act which I loathe.

You say you're trying to get writers to write what they want and not what they think people want them to write, but how would you know what they're writing for themselves and what they're writing for others?

Eh, the usual way. I'll just look deep into his mind, pass judgment, pound my gavel, and the writer will have a light shine down upon him from heaven and burn the words "Conformist" onto his forehead.

I have no idea, and you know I have no idea. It's just a feeling. What's important is that the WRITER knows, and the purpose of this. I give writers two categories, and let them decide. They can lie to the world, they can lie to this thread, but they can't lie to themselves. If they think being a construction worker isn't all that bad, then let them be construction workers. I will criticize them for what I think they are, and I will continue on my merry way reading something else.

Just because he has good in him, doesn't mean he's terribly written.

No, Sylar from Heroes is terrible written because he's terribly written! Listen, that's neither here nor there, I see your point and its yours to make. I think villains with 'good in them' are, for the most part, silly, distracting and irritating. I am almost always disappointed when that kind of thing happens. Did you grow up among politicians and diplomats? Have you never heard of someone who presented their Opinions as Facts? I know that's not the case, but this is a discussion! Its debate! Where's the fun if I just sat here and wrote like a sissy the whole time? If I had started this thread all passive, being meek about my point and trying to be neutral about everything like I was some kind of Administrator or Moderator, it would've been boring.

Also you said ‘Yes they had motivations, but the story didn’t really care!’. Well, obviously the writer cared or they wouldn’t have even added that into the writing in the first place.

This is gold, and I'd like to end my post with my response to it. What I mean by the story didn't care is this:

The Story Didn't Care. The Villain's motivation was not important to the story. It didn't matter. If it had never been said, nothing would've changed. It wasn't needed to present the villain effectively. I guess my examples kinda fell flat, huh?

Motivation for a villain is not important.

Good villains are dying out.

Construction workers are an embarrassment to writers.

[Kalaam]

I respectfully disagree here, and will sum up the most pertinent point I have. When you are writing, and lose track of what your characters are doing and why, you have lost control of you own story. Now, I do this occasionally, and usually it turns out excellent once I go back and proof read for consistency along character lines.

The reverse is, if the motivation of villain, if what he does is unimportant to the story, why is it there? It is simply filler to have a character with no purpose at all.

[Bad Kitty]

I have a character who is evil simply because it makes eternity interesting. He'll gladly dropkick a baby into a ravine just because he's never done it before. He'll also get to know a character, listen to their tales of woe, encourage them to branch out in a risky venture, and then, when everything goes pear-shaped for them, will happily whip up a mob into a killing frenzy and hunt them down. He lives for that kind of thing.

He's been described as a 'trickster' by other players because he's very people-orientated. The instant people start mistrusting him, he turns honest because he knows that they won't believe him when he warns them about an approaching avalanche¹.

The only reason he's evil in the first place is because of boredom. There's nothing, really, to differentiate him from anyone else.

However, he's not seen as a villain by the people in the casual thread I play him in. He's considered an annoyance, a pest, a slight inconvenience. If anyone new asks if the thread needs a villain, then the rest of the players instantly say 'yes'.

So, I think that it's not that there aren't villains around, I think it's just that they're not usually perceived as villains by people simply because they don't fit in that category in their minds.

1 An avalanche that he carefully prepares months beforehand, sets warning signals around and sets off remotely. I did say evil.

[Weiss]

Since BK has raised this thread of which I was not originally a part, I will put in my two cents before it dies off again.

Aurethius, I see where you're coming from, and I agree with you on the general point. Too much explanation is given to the villains these days in an attempt to make them "real", and that often takes away from the important elements of the story. However, I don't think you properly understand the reason for placing so much background into a villain to begin with.

When you think about a particular series, be it television or novel, the main character of the story will usually be the first that comes to mind, right? Throughout the series, you connect with that person, learning his motivations and reasons for doing this or that. You encounter his struggles right alongside him. You learn so much about that character that forgetting them would be a nearly impossible task. You don't like the character simply because he's the good guy. You've come to feel attached to that character, because you know so much about him that you feel connected beyond the level of enjoying watching the good guy prevail.

On the other hand, what do you see when you think of a bad guy who has no justification? You see their villainous deeds. You see the wrongdoings that characterize them within the series. You see an icon that you can freely hate solely because they are lumped into the category of "evil". We detest evil things. We scorn evil things. We fight evil things as the upholders of justice. We want to see that evil power, looming over the world and threatening to annihilate all those within it, because that creates a grand struggle that our heroes can overcome!

It's shallow.

Think of the potential for an evil character. Think of how much more they could be. By giving them a background; a motive; a raison d'être, you can create a whole other side to the story that might have otherwise fallen to the wayside.

Rather than a trend that caters to the increasing desire of the public to understand their villains, I think it's a trend that reaches for that long-untapped villain inside each and every person in the world. The old black and white of Good vs. Evil was entertaining, back when Good vs. Evil was black and white. The good guy fought for justice while the bad guy tried to take over the world. It was so easy, as a kid, to don that Superman t-shirt and tie a red blanket around your neck, 'flying' around the living room as the Man of Steel who fought against Lex Luthor to protect the world from evil.

What, then, would happen if Superman suddenly wasn't the good guy? What if it wasn't so clear who the good guy was? What if Lex Luthor also had his reasons for doing what he did? What if, in his own way, Lex Luthor was trying to protect the world from something that loomed in the future; something that only he saw coming?

Putting on that t-shirt and wearing that red 'cape' isn't quite as easy, now. Suddenly, you're picking sides. Things aren't as black and white. Things aren't as clear-cut. There's no apparent distinction telling you, "This guy is good, and this guy is bad!"

You can apply this to the real world to truly understand the gravity of this dilemma. When two countries go to war, each side has their reason for fighting. There are casualties on both sides. The sons and fathers of families from both countries are lost. Each for their own reason, they fight against one another relentlessly. As the saying goes, "History always remembers the righteous." The side that wins the war becomes the side of justice.

It's easy to curse a villain's name because they are a villain. We don't have to take sides. We don't have to think. We can hate that bastard for his wrongdoings without a second thought.

You said people wanted that traumatic past - that formula for how villains are created - to build a distinction between themselves and the villains, right? I think you have it backwards. Asking for Good and Evil with no gray area just means that you want to have that clear cut distinction. You want to see the obvious difference between the light and the darkness. You want to be able to curse someone's name without the strings of guilt from knowing that the person whose downfall you so earnestly anticipate was just as human as you.

[Kathryn Lacey]

Well said, Weiss.

[Kalon Ordona II]

Also, the original argument seems to assume that all multi-dimensional villains are created by authors who pander to the desires of the audience.

Firstly, that is an absolute statement. All generalizations are false.

But seriously, was Tolkien, for example, pandering to the audience when he created Melkor, or the Nazgûl, or even better, Gollum? The critics hated it. He didn't pander to the audience; the audience just ended up loving what he made.

Write for yourself, and the audience will love you for it because it's real.

In the end, what is fiction but a metaphor to teach us truth?
What does it really matter if we use a one-dimensional villain or a multi-dimensional one? If it's good it's good.

Good villains will never die out, because we will always need to know what evil to watch out for. That's part of the truth we learn in fiction. Villains of both types will never die out.

Example: the Reapers in the videogame Mass Effect. Very one-dimensional, and totally awesome.
Example: Saren the Turian, from the same game. Very multi-dimensional, and totally awesome.

Both types are great. We really don't have to worry about it. Evil is evil, good is good. The gray just makes it harder to tell the difference. Some people like that; some people don't. It's still the same mirror to reality, the same metaphors and the same truth. Enjoy it.

[Kestrel]

Gollem had motivations, actual previous development, was somewhat pitiful but still made an excellent, creepy villain.

Thing is you see, the reason why we don't make villains for the sake of being evil is for the same reason we don't create heroes for the sake of being good. I mean, we all know mr. Perfect is boring as hell no matter how flashy the shit he can pull of is. Even Clark Kent has numerous flaws. We grow bored of them shortly after the moment we grow bored of Sesame Street.

But the thing is, even when we go back to the medieval ages, there was no right and wrong. But to give you one of my favourite examples: the French revolution. The aristocracy made the common man's life much, much harder, a living hell so to speak. But did that give anyone the right to go guillotine on dozens of men and women? Hunt down and massacre their childeren? There's no real heroes or villains here. And yet this is one of the most compelling stories in history.

That is not to say Good vs. Evil is bad per se. it is just Hell personified to pull it off. I know I can't do it properly. Creating an evil, creepy villain, sure, no problem. I even use them as protagonists. Creating a hero that is good... Well there's always Chaotic Good for variation. But it will be incredibly difficult for me to pull off giving the villain plentiful screen time without letting it suffer from the Team Rocket syndrom (which should totally be a trope) or making him incredibly powerful (which grows boring if you do it multiple times). See personally I want my protoganists to struggle constantly as well as my antagonists. So for me, it is very difficult to pull of a black/white, good vs. evil.

[Aurethius]

I'll fix some things quickly here, because I'm getting a lot of folks who are patting me on the head and saying "You just don't understand."

Statement: I don't like these multidimensional villains. I think that the way they are presented these days is a way of pandering to the audience, and I think pandering to the audience is bad.

Some, like you Weiss, see the bad guys with no justification as shallow, but I see a kind of wicked beauty to it. A villain without a justification is a rare art form, in my mind. I prefer those kinds of villains, and I think the raison daiters or whatnot is getting old fast.

Many of the folks who posted in this thread are defending their right to have villains with a big flowery background and explanations for their 'evil'. That's wonderful. Go for it. I may think it's silly and foppish, but who cares what I think? I've got a Garthim for an avatar for goodness' sake. I like things rough and tumble and without all this nancy, prancing about, college-educated verbosity. I'm not going to be convinced by any reasoning, you know? You can tell me how good it feels to cut your arm off, but if I don't like cutting my arm off, I'm not going to do it.

In short, villains today wear fingernail polish, and it bothers me.

[Guest]

Since you don't want the "college-educated verbosity," here is something more simple and blunt:

A villain without a justification is a rare art form, in my mind.

Yeah, in the same way that most modern art can be considered art forms when it is nothing but bullshit shown in a different light, with the excuse that "anything can be art!"

You have presented an argument, kudos to you, and have encouraged discussion. But instead of altering or expanding your original statement, you are simply restating it. Over and over again. So why post? Why not actually respond to other arguments to explain how a simple villain could have worked better in that situation? No, instead you insult everyone who has posted here, saying that we all just "pander to the audience," when in reality you are asking us to do that very thing when you say we should all make simple villains because you think its better that way.

It's not that you "just don't understand." It's that you don't care to say anything more than "simple villains = good; pandering to the audience = bad". You've already said that several times before, in each of your posts, so why bother saying the same thing again?

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