Making the Villain Part One: The Archetypes

A conversation with a friend of mine had started like this

Friend: How long is Moonlight Sonata?
Me: Huh?
Friend: The song, how long is it originally?
Me: I didn't even know it was a song, I thought you were talking about a JRPG
Friend: BLASPHEMOUS
Me: Ahhh, I'm not very musically cultured
Me: I do enjoy the occasional classical piece, though, but only when I'm cutting people's fingers off.
Me: I'd be that type of badguy, I'd listen to lovely pieces of music while doing horrible things

For those of you who are uncultured cavemen, like me, here is the song:

A lovely song, but really geared more towards verbally interrogating someone rather than outright cutting fingers off. It's more of a first attempt interrogate classical piece, where you throw chairs and scream a lot while the protagonist just sort of sits there and takes it in calmly, because he's badass like that. (This Post might explain a bit of how I listen and apply music to my weird imagination.)

Anyway, not long into the conversation I came up with the quote of "You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain." That's actually a pretty good one. We then began nerding it up, trying to remember where it originally came from. He was right in saying it was from the Batman movie The Dark Knight.



Sorry, were you expecting Christian Bale?

It's perhaps the most brilliant way that villains are made because they once used to stand for everything good in the world. It's even more satisfying if you see the actual protagonist of a series decline down the villain path (Dresden Files, I'm looking at you...salivating).

I started telling my friend about what kind of villain I'd be, everyone's probably done it at one point or another, however, he wasn't sure what kind of archetype villain he'd be. After giving it some thought I started to realize that villains are perhaps the most complex part of writing. You can have the best plot and characters, but it's all going to mean nothing if you don't have a great villain.

The villain is the cornerstone of the story, more so than even the hero: he provides the motivation for the plot, he is the driving force of the protagonist. Make the villain disappear and you've suddenly got just a bunch of people running around in a syrupy-sweet world typically geared toward women's escapist fantasy (while Meyer's Twilight may come to mind to a lot of you, I feel a more accurate representation would be Debora Geary's A Modern Witch.)

What is a villain though? I'll admit I'm rather weak in the villain-writing department, but I like to think I've got a sound grasp on the idea, and as long as you've got the concept of something down, usually honing the skill becomes much easier.

So, after a trip to TV Tropes (and excellent, if terribly distracting, resource for writers), we can begin. I'm just going to start with types of villains in this post, and then work down to some details in the next one.

Let's start with the largest: The villain who controls literally everything.

I don't mean just an area of land or a group of people. I mean every single thing from the clouds in the sky to the blades of grass on the lawn. In my opinion it's petty weak, since no single ruler can possibly oversee everything. It also means he's a character that has achieved everything there is to achieve. Think of a villain as that of a hero: No one wants a perfect hero who's perfect at doing everything. Just as no one wants a hero like that, no one wants a villain like that either.

Consider scaling in a little depending on the width of the story. Instead of everything in existence, he rules a planet (if you're doing a several-planet science fiction story), a dimensional plane, a kingdom, or a village. Heck, you could have the villain controlling nothing but a single building. If you want an "All controlling overlord" you have to ask yourself this: What is the whole world to the hero?

The hero, no matter how sappy and morally correct he is, isn't going to care about some crappy little town on the far side of the world. What starts the hero on his quest to overthrow the villain is when the villain starts messing with the hero's world. Even in Lord of the Rings, Sauron didn't control the entire world at the height of his power, just the area the heroes happened to stomp all over. At the end (of the book anyway) Saruman took over the Shire, and as a result the hobbits kicked his ass. Why? Not because he was going to take over the world by enslaving the Shire, but because the Shire was their home.

The villain can have complete control, yes, but you should consider what he has complete control of. Don't say "everything" because then readers are too busy rolling their eyes instead of reading. The villain should still have something left that he wants to achieve. "Squash the hero" is one achievement, but that's only because the hero rose up in the first place. "Take over the human realm so that I rule both it and the faerie realm" works, because now it's that villain motivation that caused the hero to get pissed off.

The godlike villain

Much like the villain who controls literally everything, but with much more ego. Both are practically one and the same. Consider rereading the above section.

The polite villain

This one is a personal favorite of mine, and can be tricky to pull off. He's evil, on some level, but also polite. He's the one that offers someone tea before interrogating someone because, well, it's just good manners. Some examples I've read are Loki from Thor and The Avengers, and Bane in The Dark Knight Rises (I haven't seen it, so I'm going to trust other people's opinion). Marcone and Nicodemus from The Dresden Files (it's becoming practically a requirement to read those before coming here), Jarlaxle from R.A. Salvatore's Legend of Drizzt series, Delores Umbridge from Harry Potter. There is at least one out there that you can think of, and I can almost guarantee that you thought to yourself "Whoa, he's awesome."

Now, the part of what makes the polite villain tricky is that you don't want him devolving into someone who's downright cheesy, or turning onto a goodie two-shoes. You also want to avoid him being polite to the point where it kills him. "I'll give you the first strike" or equivalent always has me groaning.

A polite villain shouldn't be so polite that he jeopardizes his entire mission of being evil.

The anti-villain

Another favorite that strays into polite villain territory. Not quite an outright villain, but evil enough that he's not an anti-hero. He is the gentleman rogue, the fallen hero, the lesser of evils. The evil that might, actually, be fighting evil in his own evil way. While the polite villain gets brownie points because his polite nature only serves to make his evil evil...er, the anti-villain is someone you want so badly to not die or even cross over and join the hero. Alas, he doesn't, and either the hero is forced to kill him in some manner, or he rides off into the metaphorical sunset. He's the Sandman in Spiderman 3, Magus in Chrono Trigger, Mr. House in Fallout: New Vegas, that guy who's name I can't remember in the game Prototype. If ever the main character is actually an outright villain (and not just an anti-hero), they're almost always the anti-villain.

The crazy evil villain

This one is probably the most complex, and therefore difficult. These are the villains that are probably the closest to doing evil for the sake of evil. Even so, people have reasons to do what they do, even if they are false or non-existent to anyone but themselves. This one is the least recomended unless you are already very experienced at writing, but also the one amateur writers throw into their writing to explain how the badguy is what he is. "Oh he kicks puppies because he's crazy. Crazy evil." That doesn't work.

A lot of what makes the crazy evil villain legit is that they typically lack empathy. They don't think what they're doing is wrong simply because there is no such thing as wrong in their minds. Voldemort from Harry Potter, Hexadecimal from Reboot, Sylar from Heroes (before the show started tanking from the writer's strike in season 2) and, perhaps the most obvious example, Hannibal Lecter himself.



Hilarious evil will not be discussed here.

To best reflect on villains, think about some of your favorite villains. Who are they? What is it about them that you love? That you love to hate? What was their crowning moment of badassery that made you go "Oh I love (to hate) this guy!" Think of several favorites, seeing a pattern?

What if you were an evil villain? What would your motivations be? The things you would want to accomplish? How would you go about it? What would you do to someone rising up to stop you? Even as a villain you'd have your limits, what would you be willing to do and not do?

Stay tuned for Making the Villain Part Two: The Villaining. Until then I encourage you to do some reading up Here on TV Tropes, though I warn you that the website is, in itself, evil as it sucks up a lot of your time as you roam from entry to entry to entry.

 

You have been warned.