I never have villains or bad guys. All of my characters are good, just they have different goals and views on life, which is why they clash. I focus on this clashing, the conflict itself. This is where all the 'bad' comes out. When I need to create a challenging character, I usually have them endure something very difficult and unfair in the past, which makes them the way they are now. They're not bad, they're just broken or damaged, and that's why their morals/behaviours are broken and damaged (a.k.a your villain). This falls into my own personal belief about people in general. I believe everyone is innately good and I try to reflect this in my characters. So for me personally, no character is ever a villain, just a lost soul or someone who has strayed very far from their true path in life. I think this also helps readers connect with every character, instead of picking teams. This is how I chose to create my characters.
White collar psychopathy for one of them. Pure misplaced vengeance against the "class of people" that killed his parents for another. War espionage of course for a third, and for another, some more white collar psychopathy...i like that one...because my real life CEO exemplifies the behavior.
"There is no real one villain but an evil corporation and the reason they are evil is because they are xenophobic power hungry people."
Wow, you think just like me when it comes to 'villains'. I absolutely can't stand characters who are evil just for the sake of being evil. In fact, I don't think 'evil' truly exists, especially the way we've defined it today. I like to read/write characters who are morally questionable, who don't always do the right thing (especially in the eye of the protagonist) but in their mind, it's perfectly justified and necessary. My villain, Felix Turlough, had his humanity taken away from him after he died and was resurrected into an Undead monster. He never said he wanted to be resurrected, and he now lives with the pain of immortality and a harsh life locked out of human society. He wishes to enslave the remaining survivors of the human race so that he may survive in his new life without pain. A villain always needs a motive. The more personal that motive, the better.
I prefer not to have a villain. I rather have two (or more) protagonists fighting for what they believe in, who happen to conflict with each other. I like it when the reader gets to pick a side, that they're free to be disgusted by either character, and I'm not really forcing them to root for either one. I can definitely see people picking different sides in my story. One side just wants to live, and the other wants to protect their home. You can either see one side as sympathetic or parasitic, and the other side can be either noble or inconsiderate. It really depends on your values.
In the case of my main story, he just wants his wife and kid back. In the second story I'm thinking about doing, because necromancy's illegal and magic is dangerous, even if you're trying to bring back your mother.
I have one main villain called Diablos who is the king of purgatory, smartly dressed, swarve in some ways. I haven't thought of his backstory yet or actions etc, but my other villain, is more of a tragedy really. She's called Jezabel and she is a clone of Diablos's daughter Jasmine. She was cloned as Jasmine couldn't have children and Diablos didn't want to end his bloodline, so cloned her and formed Jezabel intending her to have a baby then kill her after, Jasmine bring up the baby as her own. The cloning process went wrong and she became evil. She had the baby, Jasmine took her. Jezabel went on a killing spree etc because the cloning process made her that way. Diablos was going to kill her but he felt some remorse, as she didnt want to be that way, so he sent her to purgatory where she could kill as much as she needed to, to satisfy her blood lust. Occasionally she tries to be good, but ultimately she is evil. She meets the main guy Jacob, they fall in love, but then he breaks her heart which sends her over the edge and back to her evil ways.
I like this. An emotionally diverse antagonist is really essential to my taste. I hate it when they just feel like a total bad guy character. Even a complete arsehole can have sympathy and likeability if you treat them with dignity and humanity.
Yes!! They can!! I love a villain where they're likable too...Govenor from TWD, The david tenant bad guy from Jessica Jones lol (I can't think of his name lol) but definitly, I like emotional wreck of characters that turn them in to being bad, or evil people, like my character, that tries to be good sometimes, but then something triggers and she flies off the handle Love a good villain I do lol
My main antagonist is the head of the Peacekeepers, a sort of police in some futuristic bunker-town. When a cataclysm strikes the planet with all its force, they get basically cut off from any supplies from the outside, and town's own food production is hindered as well. He's got a legit plan to save at least some of the people and buy time until everything is under control, but my main characters just have to get in the way. My men want to get out of this dying town, as on the outside there's actually some chance of survival. What better decision to ensure the succesful escape, than neutralizing the Peacekeepeers with some other, greater threat, over which they have no control? And so, he is driven by duty. He won't back off until "the criminals" are captured and judged. But he's no villain. One of my main characters is more villainous than him. A lone bandit (for the lack of better word), whose gang was... disbanded by the Peacekepers years ago, and still managed to thrive under the unrelenting gaze of cameras. She's embittered by the loss of her gang, many of which were her childhood friends. She's more than eager to possibly get rid of the Peacekeepers, even by dooming the citizen of her hometown, just for the purpose of letting her get out of here. My protagonist is travelling alongside her, and eventually gets on her softer side. Turns out she's not that bad. She's just protecting herself, both from harm and from bonding with people. And, in the latter, she fails miserably. She's gonna be so sorry when her habits kick in, and somebody's gonna be pissed off about her ruthlessness.
My villains are not villains. They are antagonists, and as of now, it's really unknown why they do what they do, but the catalyst would be the spouses deaths caused by humans.
The villain in my favorite short story is because of revenge. Cliche, but there you go. In my novel, the villain is a villain for power and order (government basically) also cliche. This is just without giving away anything important. Those are the direct reasons.
I got a good one. I have a poem on her too. The Green Queen I call her. Basically she was a fair, lovely and noble woman of great power. But she was beaten and given a choice, be a slave or watch her kingdom burn. She became a slave. You may think her motive is revenge, but nope. She in a sense sees a duality to being a good villain for the man that threatened her people. By being evil, by embracing it and hurting many people. She felt she inspired people to beat her. In a sense, by hating her, you would become driven to surpass her. Because she lost, so if you are to have a chance to win where she lost, you are going to need to be better than her. In a sense she embraced being evil and is waiting for someone to free her from the shackles of the person she has become. She seeks the freedom of death as a symbol that she found someone to finish the job she couldn't. Her poem which is in my blog sums it better I think but that is the core idea.
