Writing good villains
 

I've never been good at this. I remember struggling as far back as elementary school, when we were assigned to write some kind of hero vs. bad guy short story in the 2nd grade--the problem, naturally, was that I was after the standard "good wins" scenario, meaning that my villain had to be beatable while still posing a plausible threat, because lame villains don't offer a whole lot of dramatic tension. In the end, I think I threw in a shark with a bowler hat or monocle or something equally ridiculous and called it a day; I wasn't exactly satisfied, but I couldn't really think of anything better.

Part of the problem is that I've just never been able to distinguish awesome from ridiculous and there's a lot of overlap for me. I've found it easier just to avoid it by writing protagonists who struggle against abstract forces or, more often, themselves. (The latter also comes from the "write what you know" rule--personally I've never had a worse enemy.) The series I wrote in 5th-6th grade did have an antagonist my characters would eventually have to fight, but I always put it off in favor of just faffing about in space. After that, I started to understand what kind of writer I was and dispensed with the villain thing altogether.

Still, though, the villain is a central part of a lot of stories. So... what makes a good one? There are a lot of different takes, and different kinds of stories call for different kinds of villains to achieve the effect you're after.

I mentioned in my Disney thread that Gaston is just not that menacing--if it's visceral terror you want, Ursula is much more effective, but I still sorta appreciate him as a character because he's an unusual category of Disney villain. He's not even really evil, he's just a douche with a narcissistic sense of entitlement, and like any narcissist, he sees no problem with doing whatever to get what he thinks the world owes him. And to use a couple of webcomics examples: recently, I've also asked myself why I kind of like Shortpacked's Mike but I fucking hate Cyndi from Penny and Aggie. They're both basically sociopaths who dick around with people for shits and giggles, but for whatever reason Cyndi is the one I want to kick repeatedly in the face. In both cases, though, it's pretty much what the respective authors are after. Cyndi's specifically written as a villain to the heroes whereas Mike, even though he certainly antagonizes the others, more or less stands alongside the rest of the main cast. Shortpacked is sort of similar to 8BT in that it depicts the point of view of unsympathetic people in a world full of unsympathetic people, though it's not nearly as unrelenting. It might be the fact that, even though you get the sense that Mike is proud of himself, he avoids showing it, but Cyndi switches to this "tee-hee" look when no one's watching that makes you want to remove it with graphic violence. One easy way to turn audiences against a character is to make them smug, because there's just something about smugness that no one seems to be able to stand.

So then, again, what about you? What sort of villains do you like or like to hate? If you write them yourself, how?

Villians are hard. Both to write and to catorigize. the movie unbreakable says it best.
Basically their is the thug who can whoop the hero in fighting but the hero can outsmart. and the Mastermind who can be whooped by the Hero in fighting but the hero can never outsmart.
(a example would be Killer croc and The joker)
Really the Thug is a huge opposition the ones that the crowd cheers on... but the Mastermind grabs the hearts from the crowd. then their is the the general rule that the Villain and the hero must be smiler but Opposite. Lets use batman and the joker as a example. Joker Is Happy and Batman is grim. Batman is stealthy and Joker is Theatrical. But also Joker and batman both share a high intelligence and Both are great fighters And the both of them have suffered traumatic events. The thing that makes a villain more "Likable" is when they are almost the same as the heroes but took a wrong turn somewhere.

there is my two bits because i am tired of typing right now

There are two types of villains I really like.

One is the type of villain who realizes that he is evil, and either doesn't care, or just prefers the way he is now to any sort of alternative.

The other is a villain who thinks he's doing the right thing, and even may be, mostly because it makes the heroes question themselves, and I like good-hearted villains.

I am currently writing both types of villains.

A villain doesn't have to be a Thing. It can be an idea.

On the story i'm writing i have a huge problem with this. It's full of old and modern cliches. The hero has his family killed, the villain think he is actually saving the world, there is a love sub-plot there are main-characters who die in tragedy...

So making a "Hero vs Villain" development, that is not Cartoonesque is hard. Then i started to work out every single one of those cliches to make them something good... and in the end the Villain worked out. Because he was not irreplaceable.

When it comes right down to the main conflict, i just stripped the "Good vs Bad" and made it about "Survival". Defeating the Villain doesn't solve the problem. Just delays it. But the Heroes must do it, because they want to survive this and keep on going. They know fully well that someone will just take the place of their foe in the future, and that killing "the boss" does not magically makes a evil conspiracy go away.

So, in the end it was just a matter of writing a villain who was very aware of his place. Still insane with power and ego. Still self righteous. And Still having a fully valid point behind his actions, but what made him villainous was simply how he carried his ideals...

Sounds harder to do than it really is, i assure you. But changing the rules to the plot can make your characters react in a different light. In my case, "Survival" was the ultimate victory. What happens next doesn't really matter at that point. The threat is still out there, just weakened. And so the story goes...

I'm not a writer, but the villains I like best are the unusual ones. Ones that have an interesting motivation, rather than "lolz, evul." The later can work (Kefka, the Joker) but it's kinda miss more often than hit with me.

As far as writing villains, you could try thinking of them as antagonists rather than villains. Have them tread the gray line, but working against your main character(s). Although they'll lose in the end, it'll never become clear if they were bad -- and hopefully stay believable.

1. Mike isn't really a villain. A total dick, but not a villain. Nobody's ever had their lives ruined on his account; in fact for the main cast he (intentionally or not) fills a beneficial role a lot of the times in terms of telling people shit they don't want to hear / pushing them to face up to shit they want to avoid.

2. As far as good villains there's as many ways to make them as there are heroes. I guess the one thing I can think of offhand is a lot of good villains are usually some sort of reflection of the hero. Like the best Superman villains are basically alternate images of what would constitute a Super Man. Batman's best villains embody the things people fear, and the things they fear themselves becoming. In Beauty and the Beast, Gaston works as a villain because he's everything Beast is trying not to be. In I don't know, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Ferris is all about taking it easy and enjoying life, so the principal is all about being an obsessive, rulesmongering douchebag. Thinking about it LA Confidential is an interesting movie because you have a villain who works as a reflection of both heroes - you have the detective who wants to get to the top but to do it by the book and the tough guy who struggles to keep himself in check, so the villain is this guy who seems to be what both of these guys want to become IE the guy at the top who is totally unflappable and cool but underneath that he's basically a totally corrupt bloodthirsty motherfucker.

Another thing I guess is a good villain has to evoke something from the perspective of the audience. Like if you look at Biff Tannen in BttF, Biff is a great villain because you know Biff and you goddamn hate him. Villains play off people's hatreds, fears, and insecurities. They're the things people hope they aren't, or the things they want to be but can't. Hannibal Lechter is a fucking terrifying villain because you could confront him in a situation where by every reasonable measure you should be in complete control, yet you're still completely helpless to stop him doing whatever evil horrifying thing he's planning to do. Freddy Kruegger scares me to this day because at the time you want to feel the safest, most relaxed and secure, that's the moment he turns up, and there's nothing you can do to stop him.

One big factor is how your villain's interests cross with your hero's and what exactly it is about this that makes him villainous. Like you can have a story where the villain is in pursuit of some goal and that goal itself is somehow unacceptable to whatever the hero values, either his own safety or the people around him or even just his personal values. This frees you up in a lot of ways cause you can do like a Magneto where you can reflect a lot of somewhat positive traits in your villain, as long as you don't lose sight of that he is ultimately pursuing a goal that is inherently fucked up. Or you could have a hero who is actively pursuing his own goals and the villain exists to thwart those goals, where you have to make it clear that the hero deserves to achieve whichever goal and the villain is unjustly upsetting how things ought to be; in this case you typically have to make your villain a colossal douche cause otherwise your audience might just end up sympathizing with said villain. Like if your heroes are a rag-tag bunch of kids trying to win a little league championship, you're going to want to make the rival team a bunch of smug superior douchebags, because if they're a bunch of athletically gifted but basically well-meaning okay people then why does your reader care if they win instead of the protagonists? One comic that actually always did this interestingly was Spider-Man because your average Spidey villain usually had some sort of eeeeeeevil agenda that Spider-Man wanted to stop, but they always launched their bank robbery when Peter Parker was about to land the girl of his dreams or get the big scientific research gig he'd been after so the villain is generally pursuing his goals while at the same time completely ruining Spidey's own plans.

Anyway getting late and I'm falling asleep so I'm just gonna stop there and we'll see if any of that's worth anything to you.

Desty Nova, in Battle Angel Alita is the best villain I know. The quintessential mad scientist, he's mastered the sciences - all of them - and possesses nanotechnology that pretty much makes him God, but all that is just tools to aid him in his mission, "the conquest of karma". For which he kills and mutilates any number of thousands of people, fucks over the friends and family of the hero and generally squicks us out with the most depraved and sadistic indulgences imaginable.

Seriously don't click this link if you're squeamish, but here is a good example of how he treats his own son. Who by the way is psychometric and feels everything the two people touching him does.

And after all that, he ends up having some great character moments to reveal he's actually human and not entirely unsympathetic. Also, he manipulates the hero to stop trying to kill him and so achieves a greater victory than any villain in the history of fiction. And that's before he starts cloning himself in series two. . .

Read the comic and learn, I guess.

Oh, I know (and I said as much :p), I just couldn't help but think of him in contrast to Cyndi, who is a villain--both of them are sociopaths who like to fuck with people, but they're written such that Mike is actually kinda likable and not a villain, whereas Cyndi's face is sorely lacking a fist. It's pretty much as you say, Mike makes the world around him a little less happy but doesn't cause anyone permanent damage (well, he does in It's Walky, but that's not Shortpacked and it wasn't on purpose). His dickery is mainly played for laughs and sometimes as a voice of reason. Cyndi does try to destroy lives, and it's not ever really funny. You can get some interesting deconstructions out of the question of what makes someone a villain, like Dr. Horrible, who adopts traditional "villain" traits and therefore is viewed as such in-story relative to the "hero" ... except that it's told from his point of view, he's sympathetic (and arguably actually trying to do good), and Captain Hammer, despite adopting traditional "hero" traits, is just a stupid douchebag.

Fifth touched on the major ones, so I'll say that villains need to interact and interfere with protagonists on a regular basis (elaborating on his point 2).

Let's just take Zelda: Ocarina of Time as an example. It doesn't have the greatest writing but you really hate Ganondorf early on just because of how often he shows up and causes problems. He's always there, kicking you around, which is why it's satisfying to have a final confrontation.

This also works in cases like Chrono Trigger, where even though Lavos really isn't a 'writable villain' you still see the devastation he can cause (2300 AD's recording) and are firsthand witnesses to his overwhelming power (When he kills you at Zeal).

I know video games aren't the greatest writing examples but I know it's worth mentioning.

There's more but I have to go to work. I'll dig some ideas up later.

I'm on an OotS kick right now. But I present to you:

Miko Miyazaki

She's a great villain not because she's evil but completely misguided and a great loner. Little to no social contact and even though she hasn't been a part of the story for years now, people will debate on her and you either like her or hate her. I really haven't seen any other way to take her.

Just having someone believable is enough. When I look at Ultimate Spider man and think Green Goblin, Norman was a great antagonist because it was a careful progression. The accident may have made him the GG but the personality was already there.

My suggestion would be to start with something small. A little more arrogance than a normal person, a sinister look, even more bravado can be changed into something that the hero lacks. Usually a villain can write themselves depending on what you want.