Lets talk villains!

Personally... I feel that it's mostly in the psychosis. Appearance is important to me as well-- especially in a visual media like a graphic novel / manga / etc-- because I have the issue that if I think a villian looks foolish than I just can't take them seriously... ((For example, though I've never read any Batman comics, I did watch the cartoon show growing up and-- while both had a similar shtick-- I found the Joker to be a much better villain than the Riddler. I mean... bright green with question marks? *blink blink* But that's just my personal preference and just a single example of it.))

But back to the psychosis... What is this, some might ask? Well, as copied from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary a Psychosis is a:

fundamental derangement of the mind (as in schizophrenia) characterized by defective or lost contact with reality especially as evidenced by delusions, hallucinations, and disorganized speech and behavior

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I, of course, don't mean anything -quite- so literal, however.

For me, I like to see the villain that just -really- digs what he's doing. It can be anything from the classic idea of just honestly believing that their way would improve the world, though everyone else thinks it's a horrible/evil thing to do (or perhaps just improve it for himself); the megolomaniac with a god-complex; the villain who knows he's the best at something and fights to prove it; the guy who feels he's been truly wronged; all the way to the person who really is just insane. (just to name a few types)

By the way, all of those examples are, in fact, generalizations of some of my favorite villains from movies, TV shows, and/or animes. Zaha Torte from Sorcerer Hunters and/or even "Mr. Freeze" who is just trying to be with his wife; Emperor Cartagia from Babylon 5; Bullseye from Daredevil (though, mind-- I have only seen the movie); the Penguin from Batman (specifically, the Batman Returns movie version of said villain); and, well, there are many simply insane villains out there that I happen to find amusing. ^_^()

So I don't know... I think it's a combination of elements that makes them someone you can fear or respect or even sympathize with... I kinda like a fair few sympathetic villains.

Villains can be strong and wicked, but there's got to be a reason why they're like that. In the old days, villains have no reason of being evil; they are just like that. Today, we make villains interesting by giving them a past, their reason for being evil, and their opposite point of view. If you want to make your villain popular, give him or her something the readers will relate too. And don't make your villain too evil. I'm sick of villains, who have evil laughs, lives in a creepy dark place, and always thinks he'll win as if he will, and ends up failing. Make your villain act like a good guy or a real person, except he or she does stuff, which makes your hero hate him or her. And the reason why villains are stronger than heros, is because they probably work harder more than the hero in order to become stronger. And basically being a trouble maker is easy than being a problem solver. It's just like starting a fire,and the other goes through hell to put it out. If your villain is weak, make him or her strong enough to become a worthly match against your hero. Strong characters fighting against each other, means longer better action. But don't make your villain impossible to defeat or drag out the battles. They have a weakness too, and nobody is perfect. Just make your villain an even match against your hero. Have your villain only kind about himself or his plans for his goal. Anyone who gets into his way, must react fast or lose his conquest. I like villains, who make battle scenes worth exciting and fun. It's up to you make your villain the way you want him to be, as long as the readers can enjoy him or her.

I'm not real big on obviously-identifiable villains. Let's look at the anime Death Note for example since that series has had me hanging on the edge of my seat for weeks now. The two main characters are Light Yagami, who is a noble serial killer who has the idealistic goal of creating a new world without crime, and L the world's greatest detective, who isn't interested in justice, works with criminals, and wants to catch Light for the thrill of the chase and to prove that he is smarter than Light. Now, which of these characters is the villain? They both have strong reasons to like them and strong reasons to dislike them. (And me being a fangirl, I also value them because they have an intense ambiguous relationship with each other that it wouldn't take too much imagination to twist into sexual tension.)

Another example: Grima Wormtongue in The Lord of the Rings movies (and fanfiction) is definitely a villain, but a minor one not a major one. While in the books he's a pretty flat character, in the movies he was given the motivation of being madly in love with Eowyn the princess of Rohan, who shudders at the thought of him. Saruman promises to magically make Eowyn fall in love with Grima if Grima uses his position as advisor to subvert Rohan and prevent it from entering the war in opposition to Saruman. While Grima is obviously a villain in relation to the heros of the series, if you look at him only in relation to Eowyn the issue becomes less clear. Yeah he's basically a stalker, but he would never hurt her, he desperately wants her to love him and her disdain and disgust obviously hurts him. She doesn't take him seriously as a possible suitor or ever consider liking him in return, she just thinks he's icky and evil. He's educated, cultured, eloquent, subtle, mature, and amoral, in comparison to her being impatient, short-sighted, prejudiced, brawns-over-brain, and honorbound. It's easy to find an unrequited lover who gets a bit carried away to be a more sympathetic character than a narrow-minded stick-up-the-butt warrior, except in those few moments where she actually helps other people as a healer and a protector, and those moments when his superiority complex and ruthlessness show themselves.

I like Lex Luthor.

I agree with Silver. Look at Freddy Krueger. He's a child killer who now kills teens in their dreams. Yet, Freddy has a fan club and folks actually Love this killer. Why? B/c he loves doing what he's doing.

Hannibal Lector is another loved evil guy. The guy eats human brains, yet folks loved him b/c they felt that he was just a regular guy. He loved the arts, and only became the monster he was b/c of his sister's death. So he had a reason to kill. And he only killed the mean guys who insulted Clarice. So again, he was the 'hero' instead of the murderer.

I also agree, don't make the evil character just evil. This is, imo, the opposite of the Mary Sue/Marty Stu. If he's just evil then he's just boring. Give him something that will give him character, like Silver said, a reason to kill, let it be to save his loved one or b/c he's crazy. Also, imo, give him something folks can relate, like a love for the arts or a love for animals. This will make him even creepier. Just my two cents.

kim

As you write for the villain, s/he should ALWAYS be the hero in their own mind. To them, the hero is the badguy in their way. Anything less and you have a two dimensional block for the hero to defeat. If you are thinking of a one-shot type deal, having the hero and villain mirror each other in some way is also an interesting way to explore both characters, as each is a "what if...?" to the other.

Dancre said:

Hannibal Lector is another loved evil guy. The guy eats human brains, yet folks loved him b/c they felt that he was just a regular guy. He loved the arts, and only became the monster he was b/c of his sister's death. So he had a reason to kill. And he only killed the mean guys who insulted Clarice. So again, he was the 'hero' instead of the murderer.

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To me, Lecter is an interesting character more than a hero. He is also, for all his shocking acts of violence, only a nudge away from me as a reader. With the exception of the Agent in "Red Dragon," everyone he attacks and kills are usually people who have been rude to him (or someone he cares about). I know that's an extreme reaction, but tell me, who hasn't had a day where they get crapped on by the boss, left in the lurch by co-workers, got stuck in traffic on the way home, had to buy groceries and had their ankles repeated smacked by the shopping cart of an old lady, held the door open for someone who glides through giving you a look that says you should have washed up and changed before opening the door for her - and she never said thank-you, to get home and find the dog did a poop on the carpet. And then the doorbell rings and this guy stands there trying to get you to tell him stuff for the census records, and he's rude and obnoxious and getting in your face, so you invite him 'cos you just opened a bottle of chianti and you have some fava beans on the stove.

He's the ultimate Miss Manners.

Personally, my favorite villain is Dr. Miguelito Loveless, the multi-talented scientist, singer, songwriter and three foot tall would-be conqueror who contended frequently with James West and Artemus Gordon.

He was very interesting and complex character...so much so that I introduced a homage-type villain in the person of Sindri, in my Outlanders series...who has proven very popular over the years.

One of my favorite villains from comics is Magneto.

He and Professor X want the same thing deep inside, a world where mutants are free from prejudice and able to live without fear. Karl Magnus just sees Charles Xavier as a hopeless optimist, probably stemming from his experiences during WWII. He survived one attempt at genocide and has decided he'll never give Homo Sapiens the opportunity to put Homo Superior in that same situation.

He's developed over the years from the typical megalomaniac that Marvel was really good at producing back in the early 60s into someone who, while not completely sympathetic, at least you understand why he's doing what he's doing.

He's the yang to Charles Xavier's yin, which makes them perfect antagonists.

Woo hoo! People agree with me and we've made good points! *happy dance*

((Sorry... no... nothing really to contribute at the moment. ^_^() I'm too far out there to be very constructive at the moment.))

MilesZ said:

Make your villain act like a good guy or a real person, except he or she does stuff, which makes your hero hate him or her.

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In the novel I just completed, the villain is a prince who's crippled from a long-ago accident. He can't walk without crutches, and even then, he's in constant pain. And because of the injury, he lost his chance at inheriting the throne. He was pretty sympathetic up to that point, but then he captured the heroine and raped her, because he couldn't bear the idea of his guards and servants thinking that he was impotent as well as crippled (I thought that was a more interesting motivation for rape than his simply lusting after her).

After that and other incidents where he manipulated and mentally abused people (he wasn't in any condition to physically hurt them, so he did the best he could), he had to die. But he had plenty of brain to compensate for the damaged body, and he gave the protagonists a good fight up till the end. I really enjoyed writing him, because his weakness and vulnerability were such a contrast to his intelligence and ambition and viciousness. It's definitely something to keep in mind as I start the next novel - to make the antagonist as multifaceted as I can.

MilesZ said:

Villains can be strong and wicked, but there's got to be a reason why they're like that. In the old days, villains have no reason of being evil; they are just like that. Today, we make villains interesting by giving them a past, their reason for being evil, and their opposite point of view. If you want to make your villain popular, give him or her something the readers will relate too. And don't make your villain too evil. I'm sick of villains, who have evil laughs, lives in a creepy dark place, and always thinks he'll win as if he will, and ends up failing. Make your villain act like a good guy or a real person, except he or she does stuff, which makes your hero hate him or her. And the reason why villains are stronger than heros, is because they probably work harder more than the hero in order to become stronger. And basically being a trouble maker is easy than being a problem solver. It's just like starting a fire,and the other goes through hell to put it out. If your villain is weak, make him or her strong enough to become a worthly match against your hero. Strong characters fighting against each other, means longer better action. But don't make your villain impossible to defeat or drag out the battles. They have a weakness too, and nobody is perfect. Just make your villain an even match against your hero. Have your villain only kind about himself or his plans for his goal. Anyone who gets into his way, must react fast or lose his conquest. I like villains, who make battle scenes worth exciting and fun. It's up to you make your villain the way you want him to be, as long as the readers can enjoy him or her.

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In the OLD DAYS? How do you know? How old are you? That's a rather broad statement. I think you have some reading to do. In the old days there were villians who were well rounded and weren't evil just to be evil, just as there are now. You know good writing did happen before you were born.

I feel the need to bring up another issue that hasn't been brought up again since the first two (original and my initial response) posts... Maybe it's because I get so into describing my characters when I right. Maybe it's because I'm an artst. Either way- there was another aspect to the question which I feel necessary to consider due to the fact that this thread is in the "Comic Books and Graphic Novels" section of the forum.

Appearance.

It's difficult to have a villain in a comic or graphic novel or manga or whatever, without said villain having an appearance. ^_^() Now, you could go OotS style (aka: Order of the Stick - a webcomic a bunch of my friends read) where one of the villains walks around with an umbrella that casts a permanent and impenetrable shadow so that it's just this walking cylinder of black under an umbrella... But that's only if you want to be silly. Like OotS does.

So really, we think back to villains and consider the common appearance. You end up with cliches, like the stereotypical 'clad all in black and wearing the long dark cloak.'

Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I say that this sort of thing is still used today because it still works. You have to be more careful, perhaps, but there is something imposing about the 'mysterious dark figure' and the black cape flapping in the wind.

Not a comic book example, but close enough to compare:

I love the scene in Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train when the psychotic murderer helps the blind man across the street... if I remember correctly, it was right after he committed the killing central to the story. There are several moments in the story where he has a chance to vocalize his own view of his being a fair and good person in his own way, but this little scene really sells it and always makes me laugh at the same time. As in this example, plain old resentment and the feeling of making an unfair situation more fair (an exaggeration of feelings we've all had without necessarily being psychotics) seem to drive the villains that are most convincing and funnest to watch or read.

AzBobby said:

Not a comic book example, but close enough to compare:

I love the scene in Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train when the psychotic murderer helps the blind man across the street... if I remember correctly, it was right after he committed the killing central to the story. There are several moments in the story where he has a chance to vocalize his own view of his being a fair and good person in his own way, but this little scene really sells it and always makes me laugh at the same time. As in this example, plain old resentment and the feeling of making an unfair situation more fair (an exaggeration of feelings we've all had without necessarily being psychotics) seem to drive the villains that are most convincing and funnest to watch or read.

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Years ago, my co-worker was in a convienent store and her car broke down in the parking lot. A guy helped fix it, then they went into the store together. The guy who helped then, robbed the store. He had the gun in her face as well as the other customers. Very strange.

kim

Dancre said:

Years ago, my co-worker was in a convienent store and her car broke down in the parking lot. A guy helped fix it, then they went into the store together. The guy who helped then, robbed the store. He had the gun in her face as well as the other customers. Very strange.

kim

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That reminds me of one of my favorite villians - Frank from the movie Insomnia as played by Robin Williams. He was so rational and normal and wanted to be "helpful" and never really showed his psychotic side until he was forced into a corner at the very end.

I guess I love stories where there's no clear bad guy, but just normal people caught in bad situations. The Prestige was a great example - two normal guys who became mortal enemies. They were both great protagonists and antagonists. Wolverine is another example of a "bad guy" who just happens to be fighting for the good guys.

I'm not fond of the trend of mixing up the good guys and bad guys in comics lately. It has given rise to some new cliches in the attempt to spin the reader's sympathies toward what's perceived as more edgy.

Having a perceived bad guy fight for the good guys can be a wonderful idea. My favorite is Hellboy, as far as that goes. But frankly unless he's in a corner he seems cartoonishly good at heart, despite how cranky he may seem on the outside.

I hate when you can't sympathize with either side. I can't follow a protagonist that goes around torturing and killing petty criminals, especially if these points of action appear to be what the writer/artist thinks the reader will find edgy and appealing about the story. Some stories will always fly that way, like the old fashioned private eye yarns, but now that "gritty" is commonplace the bad-guy-hero can get as boring as Captain Marvel.

Kim, I like your anecdote. It's amazing how the impulse to be good stays alive in bad guys. The robber might have considered his constructive action to be "real life" or "being himself" while his destructive action was mere "business" to him. This is exactly why a lot of tough-guy heroes sound too phony for me, now that they're the norm.

One of my favorite Superman Mythos stories is one that was reprinted in a Superman Annual when I was a kid. It must have originally appeared in the early 60s.

Superboy traveled back in time to save Abraham Lincoln from assassination and during the process, he runs into an adult Lex Luthor, who has gone back in time (via Brainiac's time machine) to escape Superman.

He's able to paralyze Superboy with red kryptonite and then struts around in front of him, striking matches on his nose and blowing cigar smoke in his face.

Then, Luthor starts wondering why he's dealing with Superboy, not Superman. Just as he gets really suspicious, he hears people on the street yelling about President Lincoln being shot.

Luthor's horror that he prevented Superboy from saving Lincoln was profoundly depicted, not just in the dialogue but in the artwork.

The last panel of the story shows Luthor in Brainaic's time machine, basically despondent over the mistaken belief he now had Lincoln's blood on his hands.

SilverVistani said:

Appearance is important to me as well-- especially in a visual media like a graphic novel / manga / etc-- because I have the issue that if I think a villian looks foolish than I just can't take them seriously... ((For example, though I've never read any Batman comics, I did watch the cartoon show growing up and-- while both had a similar shtick-- I found the Joker to be a much better villain than the Riddler. I mean... bright green with question marks? *blink blink* But that's just my personal preference and just a single example of it.))

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I love the Joker too, but I don't see him as looking any more silly than the Riddler. I mean, the guy's literally a clown! I find him a better villian because there's a good chance he'd actually kill you where's the Riddler wouldn't.

I'll echo what other people have said here, that everyone thinks there the hero of their own story. I heard an interesting comment the other day about Quentin Tarantino, how the heroes in his films would be the villains in other people's movies. It's neat to watch things like Pulp Fiction with that in mind.

I'll also echo that it's important to show some humanity, or weakness in your villains. But since comics is a visual medium, here's a comic page with an example:

http://img504.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dccountdown40p13ap4.jpg

Darkseid is still a evil, heartless tyrant, but we do get to see that he still has worries and doubts.

I enjoy villains that have their shit together and make life incredibly difficult for the heroes.

Doctor Doom is one of my favorite examples. He's not a cosmically powerful being, he's a scarred dude in a metal suit and he's the unquestioned monarch of the small European country Latvaria. He's a brilliant guy that's set up a formidable strong hold, created robot armies, master of technology and he's become a sorcerer of sorts. He's a mad genius that speaks in the third person (which is always cool) and he has plans with back up plans and alternatives and escape routes. Heroes trying to thwart him have a devil of a time getting through his traps and even if he loses Doctor Doom gleans some new insight or wisdom that will make his next attempt even more difficult to overcome. I really respect Doctor Doom, and kind of in the same way I respect Batman. When I see Doctor Doom or Batman do something others consider 'questionable', I don't question it myself. I figure they can do anything.

I also enjoy hero-villain combs that are evenly matched but struggling on opposite sides of the coin. I used to use Prof. X and Magneto as an example but Optimus Prime and Megatron are the best example ever created. They're perfectly matched in strength and size so their battles are titanic, neither of them will ever give up or surrender (but retreat is always an option ^_^), and they have exact polar opposite views on life. They compliment each other so well they actually enhance the appeal of each other.

-An

In the book I'm writing, the main villain is a puppet ruler of his province who allows his soldiers and the men of his court to get away with being thugs and bullying the peasants and the minority race who lives under his rule.

He has a special hatred for the said minority because his father before him had an affair with a woman of that said minority and his mother killed herself for it. So for him, it's personal, and when he finds out about his older half-brother (who was born from the affair), then a threat arrives in the form of a question of whether or not he is the rightful heir of his father's throne. So he seeks to kill his half-brother, trying to claim that he's some kind of a criminal usurper to the puppet ruler who has the half-brother under his protection.

In some of my comic series, there is no "one" villain, necessarily. In two of them, the villains are religious zealots. I guess it depends on the series as to how complex a villain can be...