Writing a Villian MC

[ShieldOfFishes]

Good advice, but if I want the MC in question to conquer the whole world, there's really no way I could make the MC likeable or even relatable in any way while they commit mass atrocities at the same time

 

[Epithet]

Personally, I prefer a truly villainous protagonist, one that adheres firmly to firm logic and doesn't bend their will towards one thing or another due to emotional states, only based on what they genuinely view as the most logical conclusion.

For instance, I am currently doing a small (Very small) piece of writing where the protagonist is a robot - not a human reincarnated as a robot, not an android, not a cyborg-turned-full-machine, and not any form of memory inheritance - just a flat out robot with a straightforward goal to become stronger.
He (I say he and use he/him pronouns, the robot has no pronouns, I just write wit he/him better) is direct, logical (To me), and takes the most efficient course of action possible, and has already killed someone in the first chapter because, instead of arguing with them for an item they owned, killing them would be the most efficient course of action.

But you do you - Just know, if your going for villainous, go hard - because, if I'm like anybody else on this website, I don't like a protagonist that can have their ambitions bent 180 degrees in a matter of minutes worth of speeches.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

The few times I have done this, it was usually in first person and the MC either did not initially realize he was the villain until very late in the story, or it was a horror story and the MC was holding information back from the reader until it was time to reveal the truth.

 

[Sergeandgreen]

How do you think you should write, or the ways to write a main character that is the villian of the story?

I would say the most difficult part about this is giving him a relatable motive or reason for actions you can only describe as atrocious. The reason for that is that not many people would do something evil just for the sake of evil. On the contray, even the most evil person would have a reason for doing what he did.
For example, I just started to write a story with a villain character as well. It's an isekai story and in his previous world a famine had killed all sources of food. People had started to kill each other for a piece of bread. When that ran out, they started to kill and eat each other. This naturally is something most will find repulsive and i think there will be a lot who might dislike the story for that. But it enables me to build a character that has a completely skewed sense of morals. Morals that put people on the same level as kettle. Killing becomes something normal. Scheming to kill others becomes normal, as well as betraying "friends." It's all about survival. On the other hand, wasting resources/food becomes something like a cardinal sin in his morals. Poisoning enemies is a sin because it ruins food.

What i want to say, the bare minimum should be that his actions are understandable.