Reader Preferences About Villains

[RepresentingCaution]

I like villains who think they are actually doing the right thing as opposed to those who just have a "destroy the world" type of goal.

 

[BigBadBoi]

I like smart and cunning villains. It doesn't matter whether they're doing it for the greater good or they're a sociopath rhat wants to see the world burn.
I hate cartoonishly evil villains. Whether they're the overdone church bad trope or arrogant young master shit I fucking hate them.

 

[DireBadger]

I like villains that can be UNDERSTOOD, that people think "He is totally evil, but if I were in his shoes, I might be evil too."

But, I don't like completely hosing those villains, so I add lots of stock monsters for the hero to beat up too.

I like villains who think they are actually doing the right thing as opposed to those who just have a "destroy the world" type of goal.

what if destroying the world is the right thing?

or...what if destroying the world is the only way to actually save it?

oooh.

I like smart and cunning villains. It doesn't matter whether they're doing it for the greater good or they're a sociopath rhat wants to see the world burn.
I hate cartoonishly evil villains. Whether they're the overdone church bad trope or arrogant young master shit I fucking hate them.

Yeah, but the fun part is adding the trope baddies so that the hero can smash them, and then having the REAL smart and cunning baddie in the background pulling the strings.

 

[SternenklarenRitter]

I like annihilation faction villains. Maybe they are agents of the primordial chaos, or maybe they are an avatar of human suffering. But by the nature of what kind of entity they are, they seek absolute destruction or at at least the end of all life on Earth.

I do not like villains whose motivation is merely some strange murderous obsession with the protagonist. I mean, stalkers are villainous enough already, there's no point to making them massacre every sleepy village the protagonist wanders past, and especially not if the author describes it in gory detail.