forum What makes for a good villain?

Started September 16, 2020 by @MoreSushi group

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Read the title, please. I'm trying to create believable villains and uh yeah I need help. Not very good at writing villains here.

Make sure their motivation is real and developed. You don't want someone who woke up one day and said "Oh I'm gonna be evil now," because that's not realistic. Maybe they want revenge on the world for something that happened to them as a kid or they're power-hungry because they felt they needed to prove themselves. I love writing in a dark and twisted path for most of my villains. They weren't born evil, something had to turn them at one point.

I have no advice for you because I'm tired and my brain shut off an hour ago, but I found this old thread on villain tropes to avoid: https://www.notebook.ai/forum/characters-board/annoying-tropes-about-villains
Hopefully that'll be at least a little helpful! ^^

There's a lot of ways to write a villain. I'd first think about the tone of your story. Some villains are pure evil/irredeemable, some are really likeable and funny characters despite their faults, and some are just kind of jerks. It depends on what you're going for/what'd make the most sense in your story, if this is the only/main villain, how high the stakes are for your protagonists, etc., etc. You also want to keep in mind what the villain's planned character arc is. You don't want to make a completely irredeemable character if they're going to team up with your heroes later. Making a list of traits that you like (or traits that make you hate the villain–whatever you're going for) in villains is a good start. I'd keep in mind that even if you're trying to write an antagonist (assuming they are the antagonist – protagonist villains are a whole other thing) that your readers will hate, loving to hate a villain is different than just finding them annoying. Hope this helped!

Here some good advice for writing the villain: no villain is 100% evil..

Here some good advice for writing the villain: no villain is 100% evil..

Not entirely true. Some villains can be pure evil, and that’s fine! They work as a great writing tool! Take villains like Cruella D’Ville or Ursula, very evil yes? Not a good bone in their body. And they’re so effective! What makes a good villain is entirely subjective, it just depends on what works for your story personally.

Here some good advice for writing the villain: no villain is 100% evil..

Not entirely true. Some villains can be pure evil, and that’s fine! They work as a great writing tool! Take villains like Cruella D’Ville or Ursula, very evil yes? Not a good bone in their body. And they’re so effective! What makes a good villain is entirely subjective, it just depends on what works for your story personally.

Interesting.

I will say that I've heard that usually villains don't think they have malicious intentions, but to someone else, it rubs off that way.

You can even make your villain similar to your protagonist via backstory, personality, etc.

the scariest thing is a villain that readers relate to. if i look at a villain and think 'oh my god, they went through the same things as me' or 'they act like me/think like me' then it's a lot scarier to watch them do bad things and be evil. because if a villain reminds you of yourself, or someone you know, it makes you think about how one wrong step could have made you into them

Dov Cameron Jacket
The Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. star's boyfriend, Thomas Doherty, showed off his support for Dove at Coachella by rocking a pretty special jean jacket.

…

Some of my favorite villains are the smart, well dressed ones, like bill cipher or Alastor from Hazbin Hotel (even tho he's not a villian…)

Honestly any villain that works for the themes of your story is a good villain. What is the main message of your story? How would the theme of your villain affect that? Does your villain reflect your message well? Take, say, Queen Barb from Trolls World Tour for a more mainstream example. She’s loud, blunt, and her main goal is to make everyone the same. The main moral of the story is that our differences make us special and should be celebrated, so the villain would have a motivation against that. Or, say, Emperor Belos from the Owl House. He wants control above all else, where the main message of the show is that freedom to explore and express yourself and build community is a good thing. Belos tries to control people’s magic, instead of let them be happy and explore what they want to. So find a theme for your story, or find your character’s motivation, and make the villain oppose that.

@Starlight-Starbright has a good point! If your story has some sort of moral or message, a villain whose goals counter that message is a good plan. Not all stories have a moral, though, and that's fine too.

I also agree partly with @Divine-Irish-Potato-the-2nd!. I'd say that most villains aren't 100% evil. Oftentimes, I find villains who aren't pure evil to be more interesting, but it really all depends on how it's done, and what people like in villains is pretty varied and subjective. Like Starlight said, there are certainly examples of pure evil villains that work really well for the purposes of the story. I do think that in most cases, though, it's just more realistic for the villain to not be 100% evil/irredeemable. I find that antagonists with just a couple of likeable traits–something as small as liking to garden, even–are oftentimes just more three-dimensional characters. It shows us that they're human. Sometimes realistic isn't what you're going for, though. Sometimes you don't want them to feel entirely human. And that's okay! Classic Disney villains, like Starlight brought up, are good examples of that.

What I think it comes down to, really, is this: the villain should be whatever works best for the purposes of your story. There are tons of ways to write an effective villain, and what makes a "likeable" villain, if that's what you're going for, is incredibly subjective. How you go about writing your villain just depends on what makes the most sense for the story you have planned.

Yes! As for redeemable villains, look no further than Zuko from Avatar the Last Airbender. Early on we see him being incredibly likeable, even if not the kindest, and he has a supportive figure in his life that wants to guide him to the right path who is also extremely likeable. He is given many instances to be kind/redeemable, and takes most of them! He eventually finds himself and gets over the thing that made him oppose our heroes and even joins the main group. It’s well done and frankly I love this redemption story above all others.

“Every villain is a hero in his own mind.” ~ Tom Hiddleston

A backstory- Why did your character become a villain? They aren't born like this
Opinions- Do they think they're doing the right thing?
Motivation- Why are they doing this? what's their motivation? What caused it?
Plan- Do they know what they're going to do?
Without these, a villain is pointless and bland.

Also, personality. Remember, your villain is a character, too! They should have their own personality and set of traits.

Take, say, Queen Barb from Trolls World Tour for a more mainstream example. She’s loud, blunt, and her main goal is to make everyone the same. The main moral of the story is that our differences make us special and should be celebrated, so the villain would have a motivation against that.

I want to add onto this because I think Queen Barb is a really good example of a villain that not a lot of people talk about (also i'll put this in a spoiler in case anyone hasn't watched the movie)

TL;DR: Trolls World Tour was a good movie that was ruined by all the annoying pop songs

It was not ruined by those songs, it was improved! How dare you slander that masterpiece of a film.

i mean most of them were pretty good but i think a part of my soul died a little when Poppy started singing Who Let the Dogs Out

then again im probably biased because i've just never really liked pop music. it was still a great film though

Valid points.

You need to question yourself 'Do I want my readers to hate, love, feel sympathetic or disgust towards the villain?' and build the villain's character to there. It's best to not use typical villain tropes, and make sure their origin story makes sense. Like, you can't just have 'oh, he had a sad tragic background so he decided to kill people'. You need to flesh out the emotions in the villain, the turning point, the motive - what made them snap. You need to understand the villain's mindset and how what they do makes sense to no one but themselves. This is just a suggestion, but maybe make them compatible to the protagonist for example:

• a cold, stone faced protagonist vs a goofy, flirtatious villain
• a terrifying, dangerous, knowledgeable villain vs a strong headed, determined (and somewhat naïve) protagonist
• a kind, good hearted protagonist vs a broken, angry, hurt villain

hope this kind of helps <3

This probably might not be the most useful info - I have a pretty weird way of writing a story from a neutral perspective where everyone is a villain and a hero in their own right; it just depends on how the reader takes it, or from which perspective I decided to write from to taint one character in the other's mind. It's important to go into depths about your "protagonist" and "antagonist" with equal amount of focus and care - consider the flaws and traits of both of them, and let the story you're making guide your reader into the mind of the character that you're intending to be the hero.

For example, A is a man who's got a nasty drinking habit, and high tolerance that allows him to chug quite a few pints down with ease and wind up in barfights - on occasion, A drunkenly lifted up a woman's skirts. Despite that, however, A is very knowledgeable with a lovable sense of humour and wisdom when he isn't drinking, and he's a genuine, honest fella.
Now B is also a bar kinda guy, but he goes primarily just to banter with the others around him. But he's a bit rough around the edges with a tendency to interrupt others, and typically cause a scene when his order is muddled up. He's hot-headed, and quite knowingly riles up into fights with a drunken A - Why? Most likely because he's strong enough to stop him and assumes that A is harassing ladies.
Decide in this scenario who you'd want your protagonist to be, and who's the antagonist. From A's perspective, albeit drunk, B probably looks like an antagonist who's foiling his fun bar nights out. A would have more "redeeming" qualities as opposed to B, while B - who's a lot more rugged and aggressive - thinks that A is a villain for being reckless.

It's a bit of a messy ridiculous example that I made off the top of my head - but all in all, perspective, personalities and circumstances can affect who is the villain of the tale.

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I digress, though; villains can go from exaggerated, eccentric and delusional masterminds, to sex-crazed or bloodlusty gangsters and thugs. You can go for grounded and serious villains, or perceived villains, like a rivalling co-worker or difficult boss. Hell, you can write from a child's perspective as they look at their own mother as a villain (for as shallow of a reason as the mother making them go to school when they wanted to stay home - or for as deep a reason as the fact the child's mother went through a divorce or cheated on their father). There is a massive realm of possibilities to explore, as long as it matches the chemistry of the opposing character without feeling forced.

Whatever you're going for, what matters most is that you're having fun while you're doing it; consider the characters from different dimensions if you want. As long as every character has purpose and depth, with a tone that matches the rest of your story.

All of those are really good points! I tend to write more morally grey characters myself as well. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with really evil villains and really good protagonists, but I like making the reader think. Sometimes it’s about what perspective the reader is seeing all this from rather than which character is the worse person.
I’ve already posted to this thread, but I wanted to share a simple, but often overlooked tip I found the other day: your protagonists are only as interesting as your antagonist. Your hero may be the most amazing, three-dimensional character out there, but if the villain they’re opposing is a cardboard cutout, their struggles will feel flat and meaningless. Like @misantrium mentioned, it’s important to put as much care into your antagonists as you do your heroes.

I think writing villains are so much more fun than writing the heroes. I've written a few and these are the things I've learned from doing so:

• The rule everyone imposes is that Villain's think that they are right. They think what they're doing is right, even if everyone thinks otherwise. Though this rule is safe, it does make an arrogant, ignorant cliche. I have written villains who know what they're doing is wrong, they know it's not what they should do but they do it anyway due to a deep emotional/external drive. For example, I have a villain who literally exists just to hurt other people. She knows it's wrong, immoral and incredibly sadistic but she has to do it as it's her only way of release. She suffers from severe emotional distress bottled up deeply. She has major guilt after her actions, but soon repetition diminishes this.

In summary, there has to be a key drive for your villain's actions. That drive could merely be being malicious for the sake of being malicious, but that desire for cruelty must originate from somewhere else. Every action must have a reason, even if it is subtle.

• Get empathy or relatability from your audience. A villain with layers and moral conflict is far more driving in a story. A common route is to give an "emotional or sad origin story". Another great way is through making their ultimate goal one of charity. For example, wanting to cure world hunger or overpopulation sounds lovely but doing it through the draining and anarchical overtaking of a developed country doesn't. If the goal and method contradict, your audience will dabble between empathy and insecurity, making them relate to the character. (especially if it relates to wanting to protect their family)

• Give them an iconic way of being recognized whether that be through their appearance and aesthetic, the way they speak, the way their act, their actions, their morals and desires, their backstory. Attention to detail in a villain alongside creating a recognizable outlet for them will make the audience excited for when their appearances are teased.

• I find that making a villain on the edge of redeemability really interesting.

• If you want to give a villain the classic traits of arrogance, coldness, inhumanity, intelligence then you can do it two ways. Make it key to their character (like arrogance to a god complex) or make it unpredictable. Unpredictability is risky as if it isn't written correctly, you could risk your villain looking messy and unfinished. An example would be intelligence. Instead of making them "evil scientist", reveal that the character was actually very talented in school when they could attend or actually tried (natural thinker). Show that instead of IQ they have EQ (emotional intelligence). Other tips to prove intelligence is through quick-learning, adaptability to a situation, works well under pressure, well-prepared and organized, understands people, or simply shows a casual interest in "intellectual property" (like having a library filled with chemistry/physics) even though their character isn't "renowned" for being scientific. These subtle additions will show the audience the character is in fact very smart but doesn't make it the sole ideal of the villain.