I'm saying a writer *needs* to be aware - regardless if they state to the reader/audience or not. I'm saying if *you* as the writer question your own characters...or dive into the psyches. If you're to write good subtext, you'll need to understand all characters. If you can't figure out your villain, you run the risk of writing a caricature.
Is a caricature bad though? I have a book full of them. Einstein likes to make things explode, Robin Hood is a bit poncy but great with a bow and arrow, Godiva likes streaking, Little Chick Darwin has an upset stomach and likes to watch animals and collect rocks. Newton has a thing about throwing apples. Boudicca and Joan set light to the school One is pious the other likes to fight. Think maybe that is what I will do - she has been a caricature in my previous books so maybe that is precisely why she is evil she is a caricature. Noone was more surprised than me by my school secretary turning into anything more than a stern lady that peers over her glasses. The MC hero good type is terrified of her because she terrified him when he was at school lol she makes him feel like a little boy in trouble - he actually lets her bully him and smack him upside the head because of it. Kind of like the idea that all the bad in the universe came about because a bizarre lady was bored one day and decided to play around with the powers she had been given. Out of that came every other unpleasant act hmmm.....
A caricature is not "bad" if that is your intention. It's only bad if you're not thinking about it, or your characters are predominately dimensional, with the exception of the antagonist Besides, it sounds like it's in favour of audience (young?), tone and genre (light-hearted comedy?)
Not really it is a grown up fantasy with moments of humour,it is very dark and it maybe about to get darker I have a plan for the children just not sure if I can bring myself to write it. May wimp out give it the slightly less darker option of sending them home. It was a bit schizophrenic YA/Adult to start of with now it definitely isn't. My MC if story continues as it is going has two horrendous tasks to perform. Like the idea that these actually came out of something with no good reason. that it came about because someone who acted like a teen and mucked around without thoughts of consequences.
Maybe she just wants to do her own thing, outside the natural order. Even if it means the destruction of the natural order- and her own annihilation. As the Satan of Paradise Lost says-'Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.'
Yeah!! Got it - she isn't evil she is merely the source of all evil - kind of Pandora/Eve type character. She is about to try stop my MC doing something awful that has to be done to save everything - she knows it is all down to her. I may even get to keep Fyren alive. Oh the pitfalls of not plotting before I start lol
I think evil is scarier when it has no reason. If a character is evil with no reason then there is no stopping them, no bargaining with them and no compromise, therefor making them a truly terrifying force. Just my opinion.
I agree Jay - when I think about the old 50s British Horrors it was just evil. They used to terrified me. Almost Darlek style they exist to exterminate that is their only reason they were created that way. I still won't buy certain shape salt and pepper shakers lol
I agree. They become a tad more unpredictable. I do think that they may not be "reasonless," but rather just that their reasons for doing so only make them MORE evil. I think that's kind of what I've been trying to get at earlier; sometimes the reasons can make them less relatable and not more, and that is when you really can get a scary bad guy.
Ah, yes. But he's not a villain... I see him as the hero of the story. He's the only one who isn't weeping and groweling.
A truly evil person will create a reason if they think they need one. If they don't need one they won't bother. The reason could be that at the bottom of them they are nothing more than pure evil b.......!
Again, I think there needs to be a distinction between a villain and an antagonist, and a villain who operates as a "scary idea" - or a villain who is a character. A lot of people referencing the Devil, or characters that dark...their interesting appeal is the enigmatic sadism...essentially. There's nothing wrong with that. I only warn people not to be contrived - either way. In my story, my villain is continually shifting between antagonist and protagonist. They're just opponents - and both of them have morally questionable intents. My main character butchers her family, while the antagonist has the intent of turning her into a stuffed toy...He does it out of infatuation, and admiration - and she does it out of breaking point. Having my antagonist simply be a psychopath for the sake of it wouldn't really work for my own genre which is effectively a romance film. Everyone so far seems to primarily writing fantasy I suspect, in which these characters embody archetypal ideas. Good vs evil. Fairy tales are the same. I mean - don't villains tend to operate in these stories. But a villain is different from an antagonist. 9 times out of 10, the villain is evil because he enjoys it (sadism.) It's risky...just as risky as giving a contrived explanation for a villain's actions (Psycho). It's essentially Norman Bates vs Micheal Myers. Both explore evil in different ways - but the intention is different. Halloween is about the unknown - that's why it works. He's described as evil incarnate - murdering his sister without reason. Psycho on the other hand makes an attempt at explaining his reasons. It is his mother who makes him kill...he kills out of love for his alter ego. There's a reason there. Batman: The joker from Tim Burton's Batman is the joker because he's deformed horribly. ("Mirror! Mirror!" - great scene.) That hysterical, dark laugh indicates his evolution into the Joker. From there, he simply is evil because he enjoys it - but that's his own reasoning. So...in a way, the Joker from that film has levels making him quite complex. The writer may have decided to avoid that transformation, but I quite like his character arc.
^^^^I don't write fantasy at all. xD lol I've tried to run the gamut with my villains. One is quickly reformed once he sees his actions hurt people. One is just a greedy loser bum. One goes from bully to murderer and just kind of goes nuts. One just has one of the most insane worldviews I've seen in fiction. One is kind of just using murder to bring about something else he wants. My current bad guy is sort of using the murders as revenge. So I try to be different. I still say even the most reasonless evil has a reason, and that any of them can be written well. I think one should just write and see what comes.
I think that evil needs a reason. It doesn't need an _excuse_, or a justification, but it needs a reason. For example, let's say that our evil character is holding a hotel-lobby-full of people hostage. Two hours into the standoff, he kills the child of one of the famlies. Why? - Because the child was crying and annoying him? - Because he's germ-phobic and he knows that the very young child will need his or her diaper changed, and he doesn't want dirty diapers around in a long standoff? - Because he enjoys causing pain, and he knows that nothing will hurt anyone in the room as much as killing the child will hurt the child's parents? - Because he needs terror to keep the hostages in line, and he knows that nothing will frighten them and convince them of his ruthlessness as much as killing the child? - Because he wants to be a famous psychopath, and killing the child will add more horror to his reputation? None of these reasons make the action any less evil, but I still think it's important to have a reason. And they may make the action _different_. If he just wants to avoid germ exposure and he has some microscopic thread of empathy left in him, he may take the trouble to kill the child in a quick and painless way. If he wants to add to his reputation, he may go for what makes the most horrible story. And I'm making myself twitchy as I write this, so I'd say that none of this analysis makes the action any less horrible, either. ChickenFreak
He was written as such, to serve as a vessel of his antithesis against the church. Well...yes and no. You're right: reasons and motivations shouldn't be enough to generate reader empathy with the antagonist; if it does, the antagonist may be either too simple or too cookie-cutter. Reasons and excuses are synonyms here, as both words are used to describe the character's actions or thoughts; their connotations are subjective, based on opinion and where the words are directed. Other than that, insofar as this conversation is concerned, the words can be interchangeable. Reasons/excuses need to be given to antagonists and protagonists and any other characters in the story, regardless of when that happens in their creation. Without it, you're running the risk of writing a flat, 2D character into a work, hoping for something better. Trail and error isn't bad or wrong, but assuming that your antagonist’s motivations will simply work themselves out through the course of the story may lead to a lot of revisions that may extend past the antagonist in question. Evil itself is an abstract concept. Being evil implies subjective opinion, acting evil implies motivation. In most stories, being evil just isn't enough (stories like LotR are exceptions due to structural differences) to create conflict, so most antagonists need reasons/excuses and motivations to act evil to carry the conflict and plot forward.
I guess the words can be interchangeable but I tend to view them as slightly different. "I was molested as a kid so now I am going to rape other kids." That to me comes off as an excuse. It's the villain at least excusing his behavior. "I get pleasure from watching other people suffer." That to me is a reason, not an excuse. It's not excusing his behavior; it's just why he does it. Both can be worked. But I say that contriving a reason for a bad guy to do what he does may lead to an excuse. I believe the reason he's doing is often there once you decide he's going to do it in the first place. When you as an author decide to make a character do something, I don't think that you need to then come up with some reason for him to do it. I think you already have; you just don't always realize it initially.
Phrased like that, it certainly sounds like an excuse. But there must be a reason some people derive pleasure from the suffering of others, and other people don't. Trying to explain that is not necessarily an attempt to excuse it. It could just be an attempt to explain.
Well I actually found her reason lol - she is one of my immortal characters - they become mortal upon reproducing in human form. She has been unable to conceive and only way she can die is killing the entire universe.
There is. It's the sense on control they get. It gives them an euphoric high. When they have complete domination over their victims, they feel in absolute control. That's why they repeat their crimes; to regain that sense of control.
I think evil always has a reason, even if it's a mindless desire to kill, that desire to kill is the motive for being evil. All evil has a reason, and it depends on the story and context as to how complex that reason is or should be.
That's not a reason. As Dr. Phil asks, "What's the payoff?" When people engage in bad behaviour it's because they get an emotion payoff. This payoff must be considerably greater than the fear of getting caught. When you find the payoff, you found the reason.
