Are there any believable villain motives left?

Constantine K · Apr 29, 2008

There was a thread a while back about writing from the villain's POV. I want this to be different.

What are the different reasons a man could have for becoming evil? Or maybe not evil, but capable of heinous, despicable things. What could he want so badly that destroying a city would be worth it?

I'm not fishing for ideas, here, it's just that something struck me the other day.

There are very few books that I've read where I buy the villain's motive. Where I believe that he could really go to those lengths to get what he wants. Aside from demons and other creatures that are naturally evil, what excuse do they have?

Greed? Power? Boring? I understand that not all villain's are bad, and that some of the best ones are just good guys with conflicting goals as the Protag, but I'm talking about VILLAINS. BAD GUYS.

Who were the good ones? The believable ones. The ones that made you say: "Hey, I see where he's coming from. He's almost got the right idea."

/rant off. I'll admit . . . this is something that's been getting under my skin in my own writing.

josephwise · Apr 29, 2008

My favorite ones are the ones who, whether they know it or not, fight solely to preserve their self-images.

Devil Ledbetter · Apr 29, 2008

josephwise said:
My favorite ones are the ones who, whether they know it or not, fight solely to preserve their self-images.

Or their public images.

I'd think a believable villain would need a great ability to rationalize his misdeeds.

geardrops · Apr 29, 2008

You could get a little Kantian, where a person sees others as means rather than ends.

Your villain could be a nihilist (and if you think Nietzsche was a nihilist, to quote the internet, "ur doon it rong"), where every action has the same moral weight and nothing is reprehensible.

He could be a hedonist.

A utilitarian.

Read up on some ethics and political philosophy, and you can easily twist things people say into making a villain.

Hell, you could read too much Singer and think it's okay to hunt down people who work in slaughterhouses. (Likely because reading Singer will drive anyone mad.)

James D. Macdonald · Apr 29, 2008

Believable villain motives are indistinguishable from believable hero motives.

mscelina · Apr 29, 2008

Every motive is believable. It's the writer's job to make the reader buy into it.

Zelenka · Apr 29, 2008

I had a brainstorming thread in the Sandbox on this very recently as keeping the villain's motives believable is something I strive towards. I don't personally believe that there are no believable motives left, just I think some have been done a lot, and in some stories the villain has no motive, which is the problem for me. He or she just turns up to do evil things with no real reason why they should be doing so.

And I'd agree with Dempsey - political philosophy is brilliant for inspiration. Try Carl Schmitt for starters. I'm revising at the moment for an exam on political / legal theory on Thursday and keep getting distracted by ideas...

shelboselby · Apr 29, 2008

I don't think motives are what make a character evil. I think it's the actions that do it.

I once had an idea for a story where this group is fighting for months and months against all these people when they suddenly learn they're on the "evil" side of things. They believed they were saving people, and they had, but they were being told the people they saved were the bad guys.

See...a villian's main motivation can be the love of a lost daughter. That's not a bad motivation to have, but if he or she can't learn to turn it off, they can become evil. As I said, evil to me is less about WHY someone does something and more about WHAT they did. They need a WHY, certainly, but I don't believe that's what makes them good or evil.

dreamsofnever · Apr 29, 2008

I would have to say my favorite thing about Smallville is that they've taken time establishing Lex Luthor's character and showing his path towards evil.

The one episode that stood out in particular showed him dreaming that he got everything he wanted. He'd given up wealth and the pursuit of power and was happily married with two kids and then his wife died because he didn't have the same resources at his disposal. So at the end, he decides that he is going to pursue power so he doesn't risk losing her by not having the power to save her. He thinks he can have it all, but doesn't realize that he is sacrificing his soul for his desire to gain influence, wealth, etc.

I also love villains that truly believe they're right. They think that they're protecting the world from the threat posed by the heroes, or they think they're doing the righteous thing.

geardrops · Apr 29, 2008

The thing with villains who believe they're right is somehow making their actions still despicable. It's a difficult thing to have the reader take the villain out of the box as evil and still make it readable.

I mean, the logical, sane person is going to have a difficult time rationalizing kicking puppies as part of the do-gooder skillset. How does a writer sort that one out?

IceCreamEmpress · Apr 29, 2008

Constantine K said:
What could he want so badly that destroying a city would be worth it?

Power. Or peace. Or security for the city-destroyer and those he or she cares about.

Those seem to be the biggest motivations for sane people to destroy cities (or take large numbers of lives) in real life.

Then there are the delusional reasons people want to destroy cities (or take large numbers of lives), like "{Supernatural force} told me to" or "Now I'll get back at {person or group}" or "They were plotting against me."

Shweta · Apr 29, 2008

...Watch the news? People do terrible things all the time, all over the world. Often we can figure out their motives, and they're frighteningly similar to our own.

In my opinion that's what makes a good villain

nybx4life · Apr 29, 2008

Constantine K said:
There was a thread a while back about writing from the villain's POV. I want this to be different.

What are the different reasons a man could have for becoming evil? Or maybe not evil, but capable of heinous, despicable things. What could he want so badly that destroying a city would be worth it?

I'm not fishing for ideas, here, it's just that something struck me the other day.

There are very few books that I've read where I buy the villain's motive. Where I believe that he could really go to those lengths to get what he wants. Aside from demons and other creatures that are naturally evil, what excuse do they have?

Greed? Power? Boring? I understand that not all villain's are bad, and that some of the best ones are just good guys with conflicting goals as the Protag, but I'm talking about VILLAINS. BAD GUYS.

Who were the good ones? The believable ones. The ones that made you say: "Hey, I see where he's coming from. He's almost got the right idea."

/rant off. I'll admit . . . this is something that's been getting under my skin in my own writing.

I guess a decent reason for a villain to become evil is that they just have to have a different view from the protag.
Also, by bad guys, you mean somebody who is bad just to be bad.

bonnyread · Apr 29, 2008

Well, there are your crazies. Your flat out sociopaths. But that's difficult to get right.

And there are those that have been so hardened to the world that they loose the part of themselves which makes them care. The abused becoming the abuser.

Plain old greed can be pretty convincing to me. And revenge.

But I think my favorites are the ones who honestly think that they are the hero. I mean, that's what Hitler believed, after all.

virtue_summer · Apr 29, 2008

My villian is trying to resurrect her son who died. I think her motive is sympathetic and almost identical to my hero's (he's trying to get his son back who's been kidnapped). The main difference between my hero and my villian are what they're willing to do to accomplish their goals. In the case of my villian that can mean some pretty horrible things: murder, kidnapping, mutilation, etc.

I think the most believeable villians those who see themselves as the heroes. The unbelievable ones, in my mind, are those that commit evil acts just to commit evil acts (in other words, no real motivation at all).

Danger Jane · Apr 29, 2008

There are some really good posts in here, and if you're looking for a city-destroying motive, look especially at Dempsey's post about normative ethics. Maybe this city-destroyer is trying to cleanse the earth of what he sees as great immorality, and by committing that one atrocity he's saving mankind from myriad others--or so he believes. One of my favorite reasonable (non-crazy) is Magneto from X-Men. The above is basically his moral stance, and it makes for a lot of thought on the part of the reader. (Or viewer, I like movies, so what.)

ChaosTitan · Apr 29, 2008

James D. Macdonald said:
Believable villain motives are indistinguishable from believable hero motives.

True dat.

dreamsofnever said:
I also love villains that truly believe they're right. They think that they're protecting the world from the threat posed by the heroes, or they think they're doing the righteous thing.

They are TV examples, but some of the best recent villains have been Benjamin Linus ("Lost") and the Linderman/Mrs. Petrelli/Hiro's Dad group of older heroes ("Heroes"). They are utterly convinced what they are doing is for the best, that the people working against them are wrong, and the best part? They could have easily been the heroes of the show, rather than the villains, with just a little reworking. That, to me, is the mark of a great villain.

Feathers · Apr 29, 2008

And there are those that have been so hardened to the world that they loose the part of themselves which makes them care. The abused becoming the abuser.

I'm not speaking from personal experience here, but this is a really easy thing to do. There was that one prison experiment with college kids. These were ordinary kids, all screened, all similar to one another. Some acted as prisoners and some acted as prison guards. In the two weeks (I think?) that the experiment ran, the prison "guards" started abusing the "prisoners" for no needed reason. They humilated them, mistreated them, etc. The "prisoners" started becoming violent and depressed.

It doesn't take much conditioning to numb your sense of justice.

-Feathers

Zelenka · Apr 29, 2008

ChaosTitan said:
They are TV examples, but some of the best recent villains have been Benjamin Linus ("Lost") and the Linderman/Mrs. Petrelli/Hiro's Dad group of older heroes ("Heroes"). They are utterly convinced what they are doing is for the best, that the people working against them are wrong, and the best part? They could have easily been the heroes of the show, rather than the villains, with just a little reworking. That, to me, is the mark of a great villain.

Ben in 'Lost' is an example of one of my favourite types of villains - where their motive is elusive but there obviously is one (as opposed to the 'oh, I know, let's destroy the world' sort), and the more you learn about what they're up to, the more confused you become as to whether you should root for the hero after all or switch to sympathising with the villain. If an author can pull that off, I'm a happy reader.

Another source of ideas I found were a couple of textbooks I have on criminology. Gives a lot of theories as to the effect upbringing and environment can have on people. But I'll still agree with what others have said - the news and political theory are two of the best sources of inspiration for me.

ChaosTitan · Apr 29, 2008

Feathers said:
There was that one prison experiment with college kids. These were ordinary kids, all screened, all similar to one another. Some acted as prisoners and some acted as prison guards. In the two weeks (I think?) that the experiment ran, the prison "guards" started abusing the "prisoners" for no needed reason. They humilated them, mistreated them, etc. The "prisoners" started becoming violent and depressed.

Dude.

Is it sad that I'm sitting here thinking "that would make a good book?"

Exir · Apr 29, 2008

Maybe sometimes villians don't need any motives.

What motive did Hitler have when he killed all the Jews? Anyone?

Danger Jane · Apr 29, 2008

Exir said:
Maybe sometimes villians don't need any motives.

What motive did Hitler have when he killed all the Jews? Anyone?

Pseudoscientifically justified racism. He was clearing the German People's living space of the people he saw as the worst--the Jews. Not even fit for slavery, in his eyes.

Convinced an awful lot of people, and intelligent ones, too. Anti-Semitism was rampant in Europe at the time.

Zelenka · Apr 29, 2008

Danger Jane said:
Pseudoscientifically justified racism. He was clearing the German People's living space of the people he saw as the worst--the Jews. Not even fit for slavery, in his eyes.

Convinced an awful lot of people, and intelligent ones, too. Anti-Semitism was rampant in Europe at the time.

The philosopher I mentioned earlier, Carl Schmitt, wrote a lot of 'justifications' for those sorts of policies. His general theory was that the state was defined as an entity that existed of one particular racial group that had to defend itself against outsiders and the influence of anything that threatened its coherence. It's quite frightening stuff simply because it is so reasonably argued, and yet when you consider how those kind of theories were actually applied, it's horrifying. Easier sometimes to think of villains as just completely mad.

Exir · Apr 29, 2008

Well, yes, but why did Hitler single out Jews? To me, it is almost as if he rolled a dice and said, "Jews, you guys are it."

Danger Jane · Apr 29, 2008

JessRamage said:
The philosopher I mentioned earlier, Carl Schmitt, wrote a lot of 'justifications' for those sorts of policies. His general theory was that the state was defined as an entity that existed of one particular racial group that had to defend itself against outsiders and the influence of anything that threatened its coherence. It's quite frightening stuff simply because it is so reasonably argued, and yet when you consider how those kind of theories were actually applied, it's horrifying. Easier sometimes to think of villains as just completely mad.

(My bold)

Yep. Hitler might have been wretchedly misguided in his thinking, but he was anything but a motiveless madman.

Are there any believable villain motives left?

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