forum Your favorite types of villains?

Started October 05, 2018 by @Paperok

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The ones who genuinely don't know that what they're doing is wrong, or can't seem to understand that their actions affect others. Take Anatole Kuragin from Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 for example. He's introduced as a 'hot' guy who 'spends his money on women and wine'. The next time we see him he barges into the opera halfway through an act, and manages to seduce a lovesick Natasha in a few words. He seems nice enough in that scene, if not a bit cocky. Then he talks with Natasha and asks her to a ball at his house. Seems nice enough again, right? He's polite and compliments her throughout, and then we see him again a song or two later, drunk off his arse at the club, bragging about how he's going to steal her away, and how all he cares for is 'gaiety and women and there's no dishonor in that!' Then his friend Fedya informs us that Anatole is already married. Then Anatole flirts with his sister Helene. Then he sends Helene to seduce Natasha for him, then has Fedya write a love letter to her, convincing her to go to the ball with him, where he kisses her in front of everyone despite knowing damn well she's engaged to Andrei. And after that, he sneaks to Natasha's in the middle of the night to elope with her while shrugging off Fedya's valid concern about his being already married. After Marya D. chases him off, he seems genuinely upset about the whole thing, and in 'Find Anatole' he sounds on the verge of tears when asking where Natasha is and how he can find her. Then Pierre scares the crap out of him by threatening to smash his head in with a paperweight and by seizing his neck and shaking him around, and Anatole seems genuinely confused as to what he did wrong. Now that's just my view of his character, and for all I know he could have been faking it the whole time, but I think the 'unintending villain' is a great one!

Or the villain who's a hero of another story. Like Aphra is a villain in Darth Vader because she's with the Empire, but in her own series, she's still lacking morals and also making bad choices, but we see her as a hero. Ish. Hero-ish.

1. Villains whose motivations are in the right place, but their actions are questionable; villains who could potentially be the hero of their own story
2. Villains who are absolutely evil, but driven by actual motives- not evil for the sake of evil, or subject to the simple power-hungry villain trope
3. Villains who are actually right, but portrayed as the bad guy; the heroes of the story are really only heroes because they’re put in such a light
4. Beautifully deceptive villains- enough said
   ( @Paperok you’ve been putting up a lot of cool, thought-provoking reading/writing questions lately. Thanks for putting them up and starting some good discourse!)

@Becfromthedead thanks! It's helping me as I ask things I'm generally wondering myself and its nice to get an understanding on how other people feel about the subject. : )

I prefer the funny villains, because you end up rooting for them despite their evil intentions. Sure, Hades may have planned on killing a few countries and greeting Pit on a "mountain of corpses," but he's just too hilarious to hate!

I like the kind of villains that @Becfromthedead mentioned. I hate it if the villain doesn't actually have any motives, or when in some horror stories they just do those horrible things but there isn't an actual reason behind it.

Or just villains where you can see their POV. Like Hades from Hercules. Sure, he wanted to kill Hercules and take over Olympus, but we see a bit of how he was treated in general by his family at the beginning, and you can see a bit why he resents them. Or Yzma from The Emperor's New Groove. Sure, she wanted to kill Kuzco, but he was a bit of a pompous prick, we don't see him doing anything to actually rule his country, just making demands for a new vacation home, and he dismissed her rudely for stepping into his place to get something done (although her answer wasn't the right one) despite having known her forever and knowing she's old and may not have been able to have a job in what's presumably an agriculture based economy. Also, Yzma and Kronk are just so ridiculous. I mean, one's an old purple-grey woman who wears a feather headress and has a lab with a waterslide, and the over is an overenthusiastic manchild who talks to and understands squirrels, cooks for fun, plays jumprope with Pacha's kids, and literally talks to his shoulder angel and devil before making a decision.

The kind that have interesting backstories

I agree with these
I think a good villain should have some "quirks" like things that make them very relatable. Like Darth Vader hating sand.

The real reason he wasn't at Scariff

So it's not just me who thinks sand is one of the grossest elements ever?

I don't like sand. It's coarse, rough, irritating and it gets everywhere
I like soft, squishy sand. Not they dry, rough, stabby type.

Sand is annoying (not gross, because I'm hard to gross out). I think it started after going sand skiing once (which is skiing, except on sand) and getting it…in uncomfortable spots

Yeah that would make sense…….

Let's have a rant about sand somewhere else and talk about villains instead
I think also like villains who actually care about their followers and their followers can actually do stuff (cough Stormtroopers)

Honestly I like Kylo bc at first you're like….Vader wannabe. But then you see him flip out and trash Starkiller and you're like 'lol manchild' but then he kills a….beloved character…..and you dislike him. Then Rey kicks his sorry (and wounded by Chewie's massive bowcaster) arse and leaves him to die in the snow. Then in TLJ, we see a more human side of him: he likes calligraphy, he chose not to shoot Leia, and killed Snoke, plus seems to genuinely like Rey. But then he becomes the Supreme Leader….

I made the sand chat!
Yeah
I think a good villain needs to be very detailed and not just "evil". I think one cliché I am slightly sick of is the protagonist found that they are the villain's child thing. It's really overdone (no offense)

Villains that are humanized, to the point that the reader can see themself in the villain. That's terrifying.