Rant on interesting villains

[limyaael]

This is different from other rants I’ve done before, which mainly concentrated on avoiding clichés like Dark Lord fortresses, stupid villains who blab everything right before the hero kills them, and so on. This is on actually improving villains and making them interesting (at least, I hope so).

Comments

[autophanous]

Oh wow, GREAT rant. This came at the perfect time, since I'm working on my main villain right now.

[limyaael]

Good, I'm glad. Here;s to making him/her interesting!

[kutsuwamushi]

6) Write from the villain’s POV.

My mind immediately leapt to A Song of Ice and Fire. I hated some of the characters in that book--but then Martin introduced their POV and I ended up, if not liking them, at least not hating them so much. He didn't even have to change the characters; he just had to put me closer to them.

[evilprodigy]

Yep, I'll bet a whole lot of readers' perspectives on the Lannister family were changed 180 degrees upon getting introduced to Jaime Lannister. (I know mine was.)

[tiferet]

I love him.

[kutsuwamushi]

I still look forward to Cersei being stabbed in the eye with a white hot dagger drowning in a pit of human sewage being taken out of the picture, but I don't hate her so much that I want to stomp on the book anymore...

Jaime is just--I know I shouldn't like him, but he's so fascinating.

[silverthorne]

Love this post.

I haven't written much, but I used to design whole story arcs for RPGs...and one of my favorite NPC Villains was a man who dedicated days of time towards convincing one of the player characters that he really wasn't evil, but rather, was forced into working for 'the enemy'.

He essentially set up meetings, 'secret' correspondance that the PC could find, 'fights', and even a mock 'escape' attempt (that failed, of course) where he took the brunt of the 'punishment' for them both where she could see it happen. And of course, he used empathy, understanding, even parts of his actual life to convince her with. In other words, the man was human and humane to the cpative.

I managed to make him so convincing that the player forgot he was the villian for awhile. And the PC ended up leading the villain right into the camp.

*eg*

Some of the best villains are the ones you cannot tell from the good guys...

[limyaael]

That's very good. I much prefer the villains to have defined names and natures, which is hard when the villain is a nebulous Dark Lord who has to stay far away for fear of overwhelming the story. One who pretends to be a traitor and then doesn't end up making friends with the heroine and being convinced to come to the Light would be different.

[onyxflame]

Villains have principles too!

That'd actually be tragedy of a sort. If the villain saw the good guys on their quest and was very very tempted to join them because it'd make things so much easier and he wouldn't have to make the hard painful decisions anymore. But the easy way rarely works out in the end...

[limyaael]

I used the word "villain" because many authors seem so much on the hero's side that there's not really another word to call the one who opposes him. But "antagonist" also works, and so does "person acting opposite to the one we're supposed to cheer for." In novels where the author doesn't obviously favor one side or the other, I don't think villains are necessary.

[onyxflame]

I suspect people would be better off making all their main characters, protag- or antag-, people whom the writers could love.

I try, I really do. I just don't know how to make myself love a horny bastard. Or what I'd have to change to make myself love him. He HAS to be horny, that's so ingrained in him that I can't change it without turning him into a total lie.

Kinda funny when it's harder to empathize with a sex fiend than a murderer. :P

[sabotabby]

I always wonder about insane villains. I tend to feel bad for them. It's not exactly something they can help. Insanity is a piss-poor motivation as far as I'm concerned.

I had a fantasy novel to evaluate at work today, and I thought of you. In the sense that I'd like to have directed the author to every one of your rants.

[limyaael]

Insanity can make them dangerous to other people, but it's the same way a storm or an earthquake is dangerous. The author has to really work to make me hate someone like that, instead of pitying him.

I had a fantasy novel to evaluate at work today, and I thought of you. In the sense that I'd like to have directed the author to every one of your rants.

*wince* Ow. At least I usually only see full novels with that many mistakes once they're in print, where I feel justified to rant about them.