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  1. DarkPen14

    DarkPen14 Florida Man in Training Contributor

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    How do villains work

    Discussion in 'Character Development' started by DarkPen14, Feb 18, 2019.

    One thing I've never been able to figure out is whether or not the bad guy knows they're being evil and they're okay with that, or if they actually think they're doing the right thing. Some people, like the Joker, are just cool with being evil for the sake of being evil, but as a whole group, I've never been able to decide if the bad guy knows he is and wants to be evil, or if he believes he's doing the right thing
     
  2. The Dapper Hooligan

    The Dapper Hooligan (V) ( ;,,;) (v) Contributor

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    That depends on the villain you want. Some are evil for the sake of evil, some are evil because of some other compulsion, and some honestly think they're doing the right thing and that the ends justify the means.
     
  3. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    I think some genres (comic-books, action-y novels, etc.) may work well with characters who are evil just to be evil, but in general I think a little more depth adds richness to your story. What genre/style are you writing?
     
  4. DarkPen14

    DarkPen14 Florida Man in Training Contributor

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    It's a sci-fi/supernatural/superhero scenario, with a little comedy sprinkled in. Essentially a "Jack Sparrow meets low-budget Batman meets Offbrand Ghost Rider" style scenario.
    I haven't decided if I'm gonna try to make it into a comic, I've yet to find a halfway competent artist capable of doing anything in a timely fashion.
     
  5. Laughing Rabbit

    Laughing Rabbit Active Member

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    I think villains can work however the writers want them to, but more and more readers enjoy a villain with depth, they want to understand the villains point of view, why they are that way. My book has a variety, the first villains mind just snapped due to horrible events he experiences, he went insane, so now he's evil for the sake of evilness and cannot be reasoned with. The other villain is a bad king already in a position of power over his subjects, but goes power hungry when he gains some super powers and they go to his head, but he's not insane and not evil for evil's sake and can/will be reasoned with, although I have no plans for him to turn 'good'. I'm finding writing villains with depth to be difficult.
     
  6. EBohio

    EBohio Banned

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    What's with you and your avatars? First you change it to @Tenderiser's now you're changing it to @ChickenFreak's. I know you all seem to think a like but how about some individuality.
     
  7. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    I'd say you could go either way, then. I've certainly seen comic-style villains with deeper motivation, but I've also seen ones who are just Evil.
     
  8. The Dapper Hooligan

    The Dapper Hooligan (V) ( ;,,;) (v) Contributor

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    As long as your villain has a clear motivation for what they do.
     
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  9. Cogito

    Cogito Former Mod, Retired Supporter Contributor

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    If the villain is a character, then he or she should have facets to explore, including motivations and internal conflicts. Simply being evil isn't a motivation. However, fear could be a motivation that doesn't require the villain thing he or she is doing the right thing, rather the necessary thing. Someone who has nearly died from poverty, and has seen others die of it, might seem merely greedy in a ruthless quest to acquire wealth without limit.

    But a villain need not be a character. Sauron isn't a character in the Lord of the Rings, only an embodiment of evil. In the same opus, Saruman is a formidable villain, but he is a true character, deceived by his own ambitions to his own ruin.

    A villain who is not a character will not evolve. He or she is the opposition that the protagonists must overcome, but no more than that.

    A villain who is a character need not be altruistic, but can be a sociopath who doesn't consider the good of anyone but herself or himself; or the villain may include family but no one else in the sphere of Those Who Must Thrive.

    In the end, it remains the writer's choice just how much humanity is to be ascribed to the villain, and what will drive the villain's actions.
     
  10. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    Yup, my villain is a priest/minister (still sorting out denominations) who has grown so sick of the hypocrisy within his flock that he's trying to bring actual Demons to walk the earth-- in order to scare people into the loving arms of Jesus.

    His efforts will not be viewed kindly by either entity, but he believes he's doing the right thing to save souls.
     
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  11. Harmonices

    Harmonices Senior Member

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    I love a decent bad guy. My favourite recent one, is KingPin / Fisk in Daredevil. He really believes in his project. He believes he's doing something necessary. Something tough and devastatingly brutal, but necessary for the ultimate good. None of that answers your question. But maybe you could think about the bad guys that really connect for you, then you'll get a clue as to how you might like your bad guys to work? Like someone says above, you got to understand what their drivers are.
     
  12. X Equestris

    X Equestris Contributor Contributor

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    I think the best way to answer this question is to consider the themes you want for your work overall and the beliefs your hero holds or comes to hold. Villains often stand for the opposite, especially arch-enemies.

    Batman and Joker were both forged by "one bad day". But while Bruce Wayne channeled his tragedy into protecting people, the man who would be Joker was completely broken by his experiences, came to believe life was one big joke, and developed a desire to make everyone see the world the way he does.

    Superman is an alien, but embodies what it means to be humane and steps up to protect people who are not his own. Meanwhile, Lex Luthor is cold, ruthless, and human supremacist.

    Spider-Man's big enemies (like Green Goblin and Doc Ock) are scientifically inclined and have a sort of animalistic theming, just like him, but reject the idea their abilities come with responsibility toward society.

    If you just want a plot driven, action heavy story (or a parody of such), a villain openly describing themselves as evil and doing what they do for evil's sake works just fine. But if you want to go deeper, I'd suggest asking yourself:

    1) What does your hero stand for or come to stand for by the end of the story?
    2) What's the opposite of that stance?
    3) Why would somebody come to hold that opposite stance?
     
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  13. LoaDyron

    LoaDyron Contributor Contributor

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    Think about real people that did horrible things. Why don't people like them? What have they done to be unlikable? And at the end of the day, they thought that was doing the right thing. So I would suggest making your villain, to believe he is doing something right. Maybe he is trying to increase the population because his race suffers from an unknown disease, but for that, he does a lot of horrible, unhuman experiments to solve the problem. I hope this helps. Keep on good work and have fun. :superagree:
     
  14. katina

    katina Banned Contributor

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    A vilain in my views knows they are up to no good because if asked about the definition of good they will
    tell you what it is. In other words they would write an essay on what is to be good and yet fails constantly
    to administer it because they continue to be the vilain . A real dichotomy and an impossible task to comprehend.
     
  15. theoriginalmonsterman

    theoriginalmonsterman Pickle Contributor

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    • Demonic Evil

    Demonic evil is evil for its own sake, performed for the express purpose of harming others, or for the enjoyment of the experience of watching others suffer. A serial killer who slowly tortures his victims would seem to be an example of this.

    • Instrumental Evil

    Instrumental evil is evil that occurs in order to carry out some other purpose. An example might be the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the hazardous by-product of an aggressive business venture, and of our civilization's collective need for fuel.

    • Idealistic Evil

    Idealistic evil is evil that is "justified" by some greater cause. It's not hard to find big examples here. Adolf Hitler, Chairman Mao and Osama bin Laden were all motivated by what they considered to be lofty ideals.

    • Stupid Evil

    Stupid evil is evil that occurs based on human incompetence, despite the fact that nobody wished it. A plane crash due to an easily avoidable pilot error would be an example of stupid evil.

    https://www.litkicks.com/FourTypesOfEvil

    I won't go into it too much since others have already given good answers, but I usually will refer to these "Four Types of Evil" as a reference point for villains, because in one way or another they should fall under one of these categories.

    Now this being said, I know this is kind off topic, but food for thought. Morality will define who a villain is, because a villain will typically go against commonly accepted morals one way or another. We don't kill people, because we all agree it's an immoral thing to do, but of course there's people who do it and we consider them criminals. That being said, stories don't need to follow our concept of morality, so whose to say we can't kill people at least in context of the story you're writing? Technically speaking in a story where it's acceptable to kill people you don't like, then a person who doesn't believe this and is against killing people could be considered the villain.

    Just figured I'd offer a different way to look at it, because I think some writers limit themselves to what a villain could be.
     
  16. Bruno

    Bruno New Member

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    The villain is the hero of his own story...
     
  17. cosmic lights

    cosmic lights Contributor Contributor

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    In some cases being evil for fun is fine. Psycho Villains that just get pleasure from the suffering of others who have never harmed/crossed them is the true pure evil Villain. Those Villains can work for a race that is not human and that are, by nature, more cruel and perhaps don't have emotions or have basic emotion.

    But I think giving a Villain more depth is important for the story. Sometimes they are doing something bad in revenge and other times they think they are doing the 'greater good'. Sometimes it can be a misguided type of villainy (think Jurassic Park). Sometimes it's a flaw that drives them. Or they become accidental Villains and chaos ensues because of their actions. Someone wants to cure an illness, that virus gets out and hurts people.
     
  18. Matt E

    Matt E Ruler of the planet Omicron Persei 8 Contributor

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    Humans see themselves as the hero of their own personal story. Even if they’re the antihero in their mind. It’s been a while since I’ve seen The Dark Knight, but the Joker probably saw himself as someone who is fighting to tear down a bad system. He’s an anarchist. He probably knows that he’s doing terrible things but he rationalized then as somehow justifiable.

    “Evil for evil’s sake” can get into the realm of cartoon villains fairly easily if unchecked. I’d recommend giving villains motives that make sense to them, unless you are specifically trying to leverage absolute evil to make a deliberate point.
     
  19. Reece

    Reece Senior Member

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    Generally speaking or a specific bad guy? Very few bad guys are bad for the sake of being bad without any opinion on the matter. If you can't tell whether or not your own bad guy knows he is evil, you need to work on that character a bit more and figure it out. If you mean that you don't know whether they should know or not, that depends on what you want to accomplish with that character. Apologies, I do not entirely understand what you are asking.
     
  20. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    That's because some do and some don't :)

    In real life, there are people like James Alex Fields, Anders Breivik, Alexandre Bissonnette, Jason Dalton, Cesar Sayoc, Christopher Hasson... who honestly believe that they're saving the world against an imagined "liberal globalist feminazi Zionist cultural-Marxist conspiracy to subjugate and destroy the noble White Christian race"

    And there are also people like Jack The Ripper, The Axeman of New Orleans, The Zodiac Killer, The Son of Sam, BTK, The Nightstalker... who revel in the fact that they're a different kind of person who's able to terrify the normal folk with their cruelty and their brutality.

    If you want to write a James Alex Fields style "thinks he's the hero" character, by all means do so :D but don't let anybody tell you that you have to :) There are plenty of "knows he's the villain" Jack the Rippers out there to draw inspiration from if that's the kind of character you want ;)
     
  21. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    This reminds me of Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice where stupidity will suffice."
     
  22. John Calligan

    John Calligan Contributor Contributor

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    I read a solid year of DC comics at one point during which the ONLY dude to have a villainous plot was Lex Luthar, and the only thing that made other characters bad guys was that they started fights with good guys unprovoked.
     
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