Writing Tell Me About Your Villains

[clover2218]

I tend to write villains whose wants or needs parallel that of the hero's. But I want to write an evil villain someday. A so-called Disney villain who is pure evil just for the sake of being evil. Who enjoys their evil acts and revel in them. Cause complex villains are good and all, but a plain evil villain who is like the force of nature itself and who goes "Mwa ha ha ha ha" as they make evil plans or when their plans succeed are just plain COOL!!!

 

[AliceShiki]

I tend to write villains whose wants or needs parallel that of the hero's. But I want to write an evil villain someday. A so-called Disney villain who is pure evil just for the sake of being evil. Who enjoys their evil acts and revel in them. Cause complex villains are good and all, but a plain evil villain who is like the force of nature itself and who goes "Mwa ha ha ha ha" as they make evil plans or when their plans succeed are just plain COOL!!!

Personally speaking, I think a pure evil villain needs to be done with lots of care.

Like... If it is going to be someone without a reasonable justification of why they're evil, I think you need to really make them feel like a force of nature, as you described.

For example... A villain like Voldemort (from Harry Potter) is terrible, he has no reason to do anything he does aside from being evil because he is evil, it's just dumb and uninteresting. A villain like Cell (from DBZ) is more interesting, because he is basically a psychopath that revels in seeing the terrified faces of people... He is kinda mad and will just do what he thinks is fun for he has no particular goals in mind... And what is fun for him just happens to enjoy wiping humanity out, so he needs to be stopped.

At least that's my take on it, I absolutely hate bad guys that do bad things because they're bad. They need at least some sort of justification... And being mad is a valid justification IMO... Being evil is not though.

 

[honeymilkwrites]

One of my favorite videos on antagonists is by Lessons from the Screenplay. It really breaks down the elements of what makes a good antagonist. One part of it that's been most ingrained in my mind is the idea that a great villain is only great because of their interactions with the protagonist. They're complementary elements of the story.
I have yet to introduce an antagonistic character in my story, since the real struggle so far has been the protagonist dealing with his laziness and alcoholism.

 

[Kldran]

I don't know about your story but you're mention of arc villains suddenly reminded me of the poorly written villains popping up like daisies in the novels I've read.

I plead guilty
Though I suppose my biggest "villain" would actually be the god of my story (the one I'm currently working on anyway). There's a bit of a conflict between the god and the main character, and I probably have to resolve that to end the story. Otherwise it won't end properly. The conflict mostly stems from different ideas about how the world should be. That conflict is the main thing that makes them a villain, which makes me think that having a conflict between the villain and the main character is important to making them a villain. If there is no conflict, their relevance becomes questionable.