My villain will be a female form of Hades, Spandaramet but what does she want from my character? What should she? I want something new, unseen. In all fantasy novels, the bad guy wants to rule the world and destroy and such. But what will be the original thing that will pursue my hero and haunt him until the lead of a humongous battle. Thank you.
Well a lot of people here are going to tell you that it's YOUR job to figure out what she wants - but if you want help around the edges then we might need a little more info. Specifically - who is your hero, what does your world look like, and what are the problems there. If you're missing the villain's motivation, the question is what world that villain lives in and how that impacts them.
My world is --well-- normal England. Beside this, the main character finds out he's a Mage, and goes through a transparent door... There, they practice Magic. My hero is Leo, 14 y.o., a smart, curious boy (carrying a damage). Through his adventure he will discover some creatures, ones that I created, and others from various mythologies. I really want the villain to want something from the main character. Something huge. Something that will lead the grouping of a lot of Mages to fight against the villain. Something new, unseen. Edit: The villain lives in the Underworld. In the final battle --maybe--the Underworld will erupt and mix to the normal world and create a worldwide phenomenon! Thanks.
Ahem. Are you writing my book? Just kidding. But it's scary to see how ideas can be so similar when you and I have never met or talked!!! Anyway, the summary up there about your villain - that's the very thing that basically drives my novel, which will hopefully be done by August... fingers crossed.
Well the natural course would be for your hero to hold some sort of key to some big success for your villian...or alternatively be the chosen one who has the power to stop said villain and therefore must be stopped. That's a bit overused....but it seems to be what you're setting up. So the question is whether you can put a novel spin on that trope or need a new one. Either way your villain is going to realize tray there is something special about your hero and desire to either Co-opt or stop him. That or you have an artifact that the hero is stuck holding a la Lord of the Rings.
Female form of Hades? Then she wants souls and plenty of them. She doesn't want to rule the world, nor to destroy it, but rather to bring the population of our world into hers. That's my understanding of the Hades of ancient Greek mythology - there may be more to it.
From what I understand, Hades wanted souls, so maybe that's what she wants out of your MC? She wants your MC's soul, and will do everything possible to get it. EDIT: Goddamnit, @ToeKneeBlack beat me too it. But yeah, she would desire souls. EDIT DIOS: I'd write the book anyway. Don't worry about all the various incarnations of Hades and the Underworld. That's been going on for thousands of years, dating back to the Ancient Greeks themselves.
Lol. Yeah, well, I wasn't too happy when I read what you wrote - it kinda sucks to realise your own idea wasn't as original as you thought. But hey, I'm sure our actual stories are very different, and a variety of other premises and aspects within the story will basically make our stories as alike as I dunno, [insert titles here]. Besides, my villain kinda turned co-MC... If it's any consolation, this ain't the first time I've come across someone else having the same idea as me. There's a magical substance in my fantasy world called "ezreth" and I remember reading on this forum that "Ezreth" was the name of a monster in this other person's book. Oh and of course, there's a forum member with a username that's identical to my villain's. You just kinda learn to live with it
LOL. Yeah, you're right. Every story's different. And I'm pretty sure mine is different from yours--well, every book has similarities.
It happens, Veo. The good thing about imagination is that you can always make up new names if the one you had is already taken.
Now that we've solved this riddle, I need to figure out what my villain wants. No, wait, I've figured it out. If I wrote it down here it would spoil the plot for both of the people who will ever read it.
Is there a reason for your villain to be a female? just curious. Perhaps villain is actually this 14 y/o boy's mother (which he doesn't figure out until the end of the story) and she wants to turn him evil and take him back to the underworld to live.
The Wizard of Oz, The Little Mermaid and The Dark Knight Rises all had fairly good lead female villains. There are better examples, but these are the first three that come to mind. A strong female antagonist can be so easy to get wrong. The one from the Cat Woman movie comes to mind, but I forget her name and motive. Something to do with make up, I think. But a female villain who wants to kill every living person on Earth? You don't see that very often. If written well, this could be a very good story. It beats wanting a spotty fur coat or to be the wife of a powerful king.
Um thanks for the idea--but, no He's really attached to his mother and I don't want something like that. She's female because she is the goddess of death in the Armenian mythology.
If she is the female version of hadeds, she will (prob) inherit or have access to everything evil. What if she wanted something good, pure all to herself. whether its symbolic or a thing. But she cant have it as her possession will corrupt it.
What if she spreads out from the centre of hades, her spirit envelopes all it passes, twisting and changing the area. Taking life and decaying all around. There is no real want other than to expand and create a domain fit for her. SO the heros are fighting a counting clock as they have to slow her progression. Im thinking like the Groke from Moomins. I like the idea of a unrelenting, menace that just keeps moving forward. SHe has no reason to to it, its just in her nature to do so, or the bloackade that kept her restrained was broken.
For some reason this has me thinking about the three evil witches from the 90's movie Hocus Pocus. From memory, they wanted to collect the souls of children to reinvigorate themselves and stay young forever (a great motivation in my opinion.) If you're drawing from Greek mythos, it might be worth thinking about what kinds of motivations/pasts these figures had in ancient myths, writings, poems, current lit, etc.
Since someone mentioned Greek inspiration you might consider some sort of riff on the story of Hades and Persephone. Reverse the genders, take out the romantic aspect and replace it with a parent-child dynamic, maybe make it more of a "anger at never have her own children so steal someone else's really-powerful magic kid" or something like that.
