Writing Villains

 

            Okay, this essay is also in video form on my YouTube channel so if you'd rather watch the video click on this link here: Writing Villains Video

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            So, I had a fellow young author ask me in a class “Is it better to have a villain who is not necessarily a villain or is it better to have a straight-out evil person?”

            And I thought that was a really good question, and one that a lot of people seem to be wondering about too. And so, here’s my answer to that question:

            It depends on two things:

            One: What tone of story do you have

            And two: Which do you want?

            Stories are a totally subjective thing so deciding what happens in a story, what tropes to have, what characters to have, what antagonist you want to have, is up to the creator. But I want to offer some guidelines to follow in terms of this question.

            This question can be summed up into a shorter length and this particular question is asked a lot as well: “Should my villain be morally grey or just pure evil?”

            There is a rule that is stated in writing that I’m pretty sure most are familiar with, it’s used about as much at the “show don’t tell” rule, and this rule is “Everyone in the story, villain or hero, believes that they are doing the right thing.” Even if it’s knocked completely out of the majority’s moral ballpark. This rule is true whether you choose to write a villain that is morally grey or a completely evil villain.

            But here’s the thing about this rule of your villain. They believe what they are doing is correct, but this is only by their standards, their morals. You see what defines a villain, what makes your villain a villain, isn’t how much bad they can do, how evil they can be. But it’s where they set their boundaries. What is the limit of their morality?

            Now with this information, let’s take a step back now and look at the two answers I gave a moment ago. I said that the answer to the question of a morally grey vs. completely evil villain, was:

            One: What tone of story you have.

            And two: Which do you want?

            Let’s expand on the first one:

            We all know that in the books and movies we read and watched as a younger audience always had that “muahaha villain with the twirly mustache.” You know the one at the end who always either died as they were maniacally laughing their head off or came crawling to the foot of the hero begging their forgiveness after they were shown the power of friendship. And at the time this kind of story was fine. Especially since those stories usually included the mainstream hero’s journey arc. An antagonist has the job of being the total opposite of the protagonist so the stereotypical villain provides the perfect character foil for the standard hero arc.

            But eventually we were introduced to more types of protagonists in stories which also requires different villain arcs. But as we learned more about stories and the real world, the tone of the stories we watched or read changed as well. As tone changes it often becomes more and more realistic which is why the characters in many of these stories aren’t just the embodiment of darkness and light without reasons to be so. They’re realistic people with flaws.

            However just because your villain is a totally tragic, complex character doesn’t instantly make your story feel darker or more realistic.

            And this leads me to my next answer: Which type of villain do you want?

            Remember what I said earlier: what makes your villain a villain, isn’t how much bad they can do or how evil they can be. But it’s where they set the boundary line of their morality.

            You can have an evil character who isn’t really morally grey and is leaning more towards the evil side of the spectrum. But this character still needs to believe that what they’re doing is totally within the boundary of their own morals.

            Using some examples here:

            Sozin, from Avatar: The Last Airbender, believes that by conquering the world, he is sharing the Fire Nation’s greatness with the rest of the world.

            Zaheer, from The Legend of Korra, believes that the natural order of the universe is disorder and that he is providing peace to the world by bringing down world leaders and letting chaos reign.

            Both of these characters lean more towards the evil side of the spectrum, but still believe that they are doing what is right. If you want to take it even further down the dark side Darth Sidious from Star Wars and Sauron from Lord of the Rings both want power and want to rule the world. They still don’t believe what they’re doing is necessarily wrong, but that’s because their morals are completely messed up and out of whack.

            Now if you’re leaning more toward the side of having a morally grey antagonist, you’re in for a lot more work. This person needs to have somewhat relatable morals, maybe even be considered somewhat of a good person… kind of… but at the same time also needs to clearly be a villain. Sometimes these morally grey villains can even turn into a redemption arc, but that’s a whole other topic and can only be done if written extremely well.

            A lot of the time these morally flawed characters also deal with phycological issues. Something else important to remember is that a lot of the time these characters were good at one point and experienced something traumatic which caused them to turn.

            Honestly the best example is:

            Anakin Skywalker, who definitely had phycological issues as well as many, many, many traumatic experiences. Now a lot of people say that this is not a good example because what happens to him in Revenge of the Sith isn’t enough to drive him that far. I agree with this, but Revenge of the Sith only showed the surface of the experiences Anakin faced. The experiences that Anakin dealt with in Revenge of the Sith are merely the last sparks that lit the fire. If you read the books or watch the Clone Wars series, you’ll see what I’m talking about. But, to avoid spoilers for anyone interested, I won’t go into that.

    See you guys next time!

1 comment:

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