Well-Rounded Bad Guys

LJ Hall said:

Here's the thing I like to remember: nobody is the villain in their own heads. Nobody.

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Jamesaritchie said:

I like well-rounded, human characters. But this does not mean a character must have redeeming qualities. Some people have no redeeming qualities, and there's nothing wrong with portraying a character just this way. Some people are all bad, in every possible way. Whether they think themselves the villain or not, whether some childhood trauma set it off or not, they're simply bad.

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Both of these things, yes. I tend to really hate obvious Bad Guys With Redeeming Qualities. "Gee, sorry I'm a wifebeater, but my dad never told me he loved me." Oh god no. No. That's not well-rounded to me. That's tacking on something to try to make us feel bad for the Bad Guy. No! He's a bad guy! But if you make me identify with the Bad Guy, then you've got me.

Springs said:

Well, after reading what you guys have said and thinking a little about the character, I've realized that, while he's pretty selfish and perverse, his relationship with the mother did wonders for her. When her husband died, her relationship with her daughter (the MC) went majorly downhill, meaning that she had to go through the mourning process without the support of the living person closest to her. When she started going out with Ken (the asshole in question), she finally had someone to talk to again. Even though he had ulterior motives for being with her, that doesn't change the positive effect he has had in her life, and she will always have the strength that that gave her.

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I think this sounds exactly like your angle. I've definitely dated some epic assholes in my life, and I can look back and see what those assholes gave me that I wanted at the time. So I don't think you have to necessarily tell all of this in your POV scenes with the MC, but you can drop little hints.

Springs said:

Is it okay that he has no real redemptive qualities?

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Yes. But at the same time, he should seem three-dimensional. Maybe he's not ever going to be a nice guy, but surely he occasionally acts like a normal human being and does interesting but morally neutral things.

IOW, what jamesaritchie said.

I may be wrong, but I suspect that the basic essence of the feedback was to make sure you don't create a monolithic pillar of evil. The danger they may be warning you about is that by only showing one side of the character, he or she may seem too one-dimensional and unbelievable.

It's entirely up to you how much back story you want to provide as to what happened to the character to make him/her that way. I have an evil character in one of my novels who is largely unlikeable but there are some tiny chinks in his armour that flesh him out a bit... but not too much.

I second Mayqueen's comments!

The problem might be that your villain is so unredeemable that he becomes implausible. He is bad for the sake of being bad. Your villain can be horrible but we have to see that he behaves in a manner that he considers logical, even if we might not. For example, his fiancee might go out for a few hours to meet her brother and when she comes back he might beat her to a pulp. You don't have to justify his action but you have to make it fit his logic. For example, he might think that she's actually gone out to meet another man and therefore he is perfectly entitled to beat her to a pulp. This doesn't make him a nice man but we can see how he might consider his action justified.

I agree with others that it is important to explain why your villain is bad in order to justify his actions. It's OK to have a highly unlikable character, but if there's no explanation to its bad behavior then the villain will become a caricature and not at all understood by the reader.

Everyone has redeeming traits.

Historically, Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian who loved dogs.

Fictionally, Shakespeare's Richard III was well spoken and clever.

Theologically, St. Thomas Aquinas proved that even Satan wasn't purely evil, since existence by its very nature is good.


So my villain eats live puppies...did you ever taste the bechamel sauce he puts on 'em? Makes it himself from scratch and boy-howdy is it good!

A bad guy doesn't have to have redeeming qualities. The audience doesn't have to sympathize with him, they just have to care about him. To do that, you have to convince the reader that the bad guy thinks that HE is the hero of the story. If you absolutely have to give him redeeming qualities, the easiest way to do this is to give him something to love: a dog, a cat, a long-lost girlfriend. but be careful, it's easy to make your bad guy too sympathetic. And then if the audience doesn't know who to root for, they'll get confused and lose interest.

I think it depends: is this character the actual villain of your overall story, or just some asshole who does shitty things to your protag? If he's the true villain, he needs to be more than just a cookie cutter asshole. If he's just a plot device to get in your character's way, I think it's fine if he has no redeeming qualities.

I would also add that sometimes the redeeming qualities are what makes a bad character truly bad - if, say, someone is capable of compassion and realizes what he or she is doing that is wrong, that makes it somehow much worse than if they act "on instinct" and truly can't control themselves. Yes, psychos make us shiver, but ultimately I think there's nothing more terrifying than a person who has all the faculties that could prevent him or her from doing something and then that person doing it anyway - at least a complete madman has the "excuse" of being mad. Sure, they might deny responsibility, they might even convince themselves that they're possessed, or that there is something or someone else inside of them forcing them, but ultimately adding the contrast of "making up for" his or her evil actions can make you loathe such a person all the more - because there is no excuse good enough to do these things. That said, I wouldn't call the redeeming qualities "redeeming qualities" exactly - all in all, I agree with previous comments here that in his own little world he is able to protect himself from taking responsibility for his actions. This is different than the kind of antagonist I prefer to use, who is likable and repulsive all in one package - there the humanizing qualities must go beyond self-deluding repentance but be truly noteworthy, and/or they must have a personality which is irresistible despite their actions. So I suppose it comes down to just this question - are his redeeming qualities hypocritical or are they truly able to balance out his deeds?

At least, that's how I'd approach this question.

I think you should emphasize his "badness" a little more. Make him feel more like a horrible person who pretends to be nice to get what he wants, rather than a normal person who does some bad things.

There is nothing wrong with a bad guy being a bad guy as long as the readers understand that he is not meant to be liked.

Gwyvian said:

I would also add that sometimes the redeeming qualities are what makes a bad character truly bad - if, say, someone is capable of compassion and realizes what he or she is doing that is wrong, that makes it somehow much worse than if they act "on instinct" and truly can't control themselves. Yes, psychos make us shiver, but ultimately I think there's nothing more terrifying than a person who has all the faculties that could prevent him or her from doing something and then that person doing it anyway - at least a complete madman has the "excuse" of being mad. Sure, they might deny responsibility, they might even convince themselves that they're possessed, or that there is something or someone else inside of them forcing them, but ultimately adding the contrast of "making up for" his or her evil actions can make you loathe such a person all the more - because there is no excuse good enough to do these things. That said, I wouldn't call the redeeming qualities "redeeming qualities" exactly - all in all, I agree with previous comments here that in his own little world he is able to protect himself from taking responsibility for his actions. This is different than the kind of antagonist I prefer to use, who is likable and repulsive all in one package - there the humanizing qualities must go beyond self-deluding repentance but be truly noteworthy, and/or they must have a personality which is irresistible despite their actions. So I suppose it comes down to just this question - are his redeeming qualities hypocritical or are they truly able to balance out his deeds?

At least, that's how I'd approach this question.

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Wow reading this feels like you are in my head (and there are enough people in there already LOL) and seeing the 'bad' guy I'm creating. Your description is my Seth wrapped up in a nutshell.

Well, there are people in our lives who we only ever see the bad side of. I don't see why fiction can't occasionally reflect that. If a story is not about the ass-hat's redemption, there's no reason to think overly hard about his good qualities. Obviously in the context of this (probably way-old) story it's good to show why the mother keeps him around, but that's not quite as in-depth a thing, since obviously he's only an ass when he thinks he can get away with it. And that reflects only on that specific story, and not on ass-hat characters in general.

Jazen said:

Wow reading this feels like you are in my head (and there are enough people in there already LOL) and seeing the 'bad' guy I'm creating. Your description is my Seth wrapped up in a nutshell.

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Hehe, well I'm glad I hit the nail for you at least. *dances the "I still got it" jig*

Gwyvian said:

Hehe, well I'm glad I hit the nail for you at least. *dances the "I still got it" jig*

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Liosse de Velishaf said:

Well, there are people in our lives who we only ever see the bad side of. I don't see why fiction can't occasionally reflect that.

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I think this is an important point. You may be limited in what you can show your readers by the point of view of your story.

As a former teacher, I agree that the request was more to expand your writing, make you think out of the box. Now, in RL, when we think or call someone bad or evil why is that? Did they hurt us or a member of our family? Do something so repugnant that we have no other description/explanation of their action(s)? Yet, if we were hurt, were we hurt by one we considered a friend? A relative? Motivation enters into our thought process or perhaps our expectation/explanation of their actions.
When we read about a villain we tend to transpose life into the story. So, does your villain need any redeeming qualities? Not at all. Should you 'flesh him out' so to speak? Yes. Is he dating the mother fro financial reasons? For revenge? As a game because she's infatuated/likes him? Obviously avoid an info dump in passing this on to the reader

quicklime said:

I know a lot of assholes, including myself. even those I loathe rarely have no redemptive qualities. so a guy with none would be a hard sell to me in terms of realism.

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I've had the misfortune to know one person with no redemptive qualities. However, she's perennially single.

OP, he has to have something going for him if someone's willing to marry him, even if it's only dashing good looks. That's good enough for me sometimes

Liosse de Velishaf said:

Well, there are people in our lives who we only ever see the bad side of. I don't see why fiction can't occasionally reflect that.

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I have to agree with this. While we should strive to make our bad guys well-rounded when we create their characters, we can't always demonstrate their full character in the story. Our view of the villain is filtered through the thoughts and experiences of the point of view characters. If the villain is also a point of view character, we can use that time to show another side of him or her.

rwm4768 said:

I have to agree with this. While we should strive to make our bad guys well-rounded when we create their characters, we can't always demonstrate their full character in the story. Our view of the villain is filtered through the thoughts and experiences of the point of view characters. If the villain is also a point of view character, we can use that time to show another side of him or her.

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I would say to this that it's always important to have a well-rounded character - but you needn't let the reader know the redemptive qualities. POV is important, perhaps to your MC, all that matters is that this man is evil - it can be perfectly legit that they see no redemptive qualities, thus the reader sees none. I do feel, nevertheless, that having a well-rounded character in the background of a more limited observation of him or her lets you subconsciously add little details here and there that indicate to the reader that this IS a human being. You may see less or more, depending on how much you want the reader to be immersed in the MC's perspective - after all, they have the freedom to disagree with them, MC or no. It may just be that in one random scene you see this jerk e.g. helping the mother take out the trash, and you don't fall into the trap of making such a simple thing an elaborate action on his part with ulterior motives, it just shows that he's in his everyday mode - something as simple as that could be enough to round the character out. After all, when have you read a story with a quintessential and cliché chaotic evil doom-lord mass murderer take out the trash? Yet, it can be part of the MC's everyday nightmare, they're forced to watch this "normal" interaction - as I said, rub salt in wounds with "redemptive qualities."

Edit: I'd also like to add that we should take into consideration that the mother is not evil if I understand correctly, she just has illusions - she may see warning signs but ignores them because it's too horrible to contemplate them if they are true. Because of this the MC needs at least a glimpse of said illusion, to understand how the mother can keep denying the fact that something's wrong, even if the MC sees through them. For that, the guy needs to have at least a facade of normality, which includes "better qualities."