What is your favorite type of villain, and why?

RepresentingWrath

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After watching a video on youtube about villains, I got curious what is your favorite villain type? As for me, nowadays almost every villain I see is someone with a sobby backstory, so I started appreciating caricature villains much more. The type of villain that is evil for the sake of being evil.
 

Corty

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I like those villains who have no real big plans (I mean, they are not about conquering the world or shit), no twisted-morphed ideals (not some, I cure the world by killing bullshit), not some big, convoluted philosophist wannabes (everwun iz krazy and tha world iz muh playgund). No.

They just have to be simply selfish and want to make their own self-interest to be the top priority above all else. The more human approach.
 

Le_ther

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After watching a video on youtube about villains, I got curious what is your favorite villain type? As for me, nowadays almost every villain I see is someone with a sobby backstory, so I started appreciating caricature villains much more. The type of villain that is evil for the sake of being evil.
Villains that are ignorant to their reality. They are the worst kind who commits evil without knowing they themselves had done evil and saying it was justified
 

FatElf

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After watching a video on youtube about villains, I got curious what is your favorite villain type? As for me, nowadays almost every villain I see is someone with a sobby backstory, so I started appreciating caricature villains much more. The type of villain that is evil for the sake of being evil.
Villains that aren't villains at all. Just have a different perspective than the MC.
 

Kenjona

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I have found most real life villains, are villains by choice. They may say XYX happened that made them that way. But usually it is choices they made in response to XYZ that inherently formed their villainy. Those are my favorite kind of villains.

Mafia/Gang/Cartel members did not become such from a living a sad back story, they became such because their life path went there from the choices they made, even if they started from a sad backstory. It is rare for a villain to be born and raised a villain.
 

Syringe

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Complete batshit crazy villains are fun, especially when you can kinda see where they're coming from. The best kinds of villains IMO are the ones that take a different route from the MC for a problem. They have a common cause/goal, but have different solutions, or an ideal that's twisted on the villain's part.
 

LunaSoltaer

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So what I really like are villains for whom the only reason why they're villains is because they're violating an ideal that puts them smack in the examples section of why The Ends Justify The Means is NOT accepted morality.

I'm currently writing a villain who is on a mission to, among other things, make life better for people, and believes a fair amount of the things that I do, such as that a leader should lead from the front and by example, that followers are NOT disposable minions, that social power concentrated into the hands of an elite caste is generally bad, that people deserve to be free....

Sounds like a pretty cool person.... until you look back and realize that said person decided that Genocide was even remotely an acceptable path to victory.

Then it's just sad, to see a potential hero so fall into the depths of villainy.

Even more powerful of a statement would be to have the genocide strategy actually be a valid strat that legit fixes the problem you're trying to solve. This way you also get the powerful thematic resonance of "it doesnt matter how far it advances humanity, we are not forcing sacrifices to do it."

.

.

Yeah I like is villains that actually have a point and actually do contribute some amount of good to society, because that way lies the hard questions.
 

TheOneWho

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A villain who actually enjoys themselves. I'm tired of all these serious villains who have no fun. If they are a serious villain at least the should have times when they relax. I refuse to believe a villain only does things they don't enjoy.
 

SternenklarenRitter

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I enjoy villains who's motivation is their own personal suffering, but relief can come only from destroying the world. Perhaps they are the literal embodiment of the humans pain, or maybe that shining utopia actually uses their agony as an energy source. Either way, their their simple and sympathetic wish contrasts poetically with their unquestionably evil plan for extinction.
 

BlaszczeM

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I think there are different types that are enjoyable for different reasons, but I'd say the evil genius is the coolest. The one that uses their intellect, schemes, charm, and manipulation to carry out their goals. Characters like Aizen obviously (before he went "this isn't even my final form!" demented butterfly-man), Gu Changge, Leylin Farlier.

But I think villains for fun deserve a honorable mention here. Like Dr Zlo from Vaudevillain, or DIO! who just liked being evil
 

ArchlordZero

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I love petty villains like the Reverse Flash.

"Remember when you were making out with your first girlfriend, and you came right as she touched your leg? It was me, Barry. I jerked you off at super speed so it seemed that you nutted in just a woman's touch!"

Okay, that is a meme. But that's a thing a petty villain would do just to piss off the MC
 

Lloyd

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I prefer the Hitler style villain where they are trying to do the right thing, but then things end up getting a little out of hand.
 

bobbuilderbrown

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i would say the super crazy ones who once they get serious you know its bad and usually are the type who are a villain because they are forced to be one and usually had a bad background that they joke about very specific i know but anything like that is my fav
 

Parade

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I always try to find villains and want to find a villain to where he doesn’t exist you don’t know who or what he is but he acts like a gentleman in front of but that makes it so much more dangerous. You try to search for him he will show up right behind you he wears a mask with smiles for eyes walks proudly with a cane and when you finally see him show everything it breaks everything. If someone can make a villain like that that would be great the story would pretty much be the villains diary or the POV of the protagonist searching for him. If you want more detail ask and I can explain my whole thought on him
 

StainedGlassThreads

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I enjoy three types of villains.
One, I enjoy manipulative villains who are major threats despite being physically or magically weaker than the protagonist, playing off their foe's weaknesses so well that their own true strength or lack thereof doesn't really matter. It's difficult to pull off, but way more impressive and scary to me than a villain who's wantonly tossing around overwhelming power. Anyone can make a chainsaw dangerous, show me someone who does the same damage with a toothpick.

Two, I love villains who are just very obviously having fun with it. Gog-Agog from Kill Six Billion Demons is the first example to come to mind. She's so powerful that she doesn't need to take things seriously, she can waste time on bullying her fellow Demiurge into letting her be all four commentators in a tournament and generally serving as comic relief. I tend to find 'evil-for-the-sake-of-evil' villains really boring, but when a villain seems like they might abruptly burst into a musical number despite the series not being a musical, I tend to find myself enjoying them a great deal more.

Three, I love villains who turn out to be pathetic. The main antagonist of Undertale spends your first two fights threatening you, insulting you, toying with you. But by the end of the third fight, he's revealed to just be a little kid, screaming and crying because "Why won't you just let me win!!!" Something just really gets me good about an antagonist who SEEMS all-powerful and cruel and sadistic... only for it to be revealed to be a mask they were desperately clinging to all along, and the real them is scared and weak and helpless. It's a delightful irony.
(Note that the 'arrogant noble bully' often found in isekai stories doesn't really do it for me. They're presented as pathetic from the first moment, quite obviously relying on bodyguards or fancy weapons. I want the cruel demon overlord who slaughtered thousands for his goal to be revealed to have gone senile and forgotten why he wanted so much power to begin with.)
 

ThrillingHuman

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Smart cockroaches. The kind that frustruate you when they appear because you know they'll be trouble, the main character is probably caught in some trap already, and who just. Won't. Fucking. Die.
Like Master Mo (and literaly every other major antagonist) from the ancestor of our sect isn't acting like an elder, or the All-Seer from renegade immortal, or Mordret from shadow slave.
 
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