Villains
What do you think makes a villain a villain?
A question proposed by a friend over on NaNoWriMo, Leila offered a question that made me realize, that I might have a very complicated, yet possibly not all that hard to grasp, idea on what a villain actually is, and is not.
A villain needs to be lots of things all wrapped up into one, and often times not everything all at once. A villain is usually someone who has at least one keystone to their personality that either rivals, or is the protagonists fear and/or vice. For instance, two of my own characters from a novel I did in 2014.
V will be villain, P will be protagonist.
V1: I am suave, I offer compliments and disguise my observations as questions to gain more information. As well as being versed in the language of the country I am in, my main goal is to operate in the shadows and go as unnoticed as possible, unless I see my spotlight waning.
P1: I can do away with superfluous comments or manners, I will ask direct questions while discerning what I can from responses, and then body movements. I am not good with languages though I pay attention to tone and volume. I prefer to be subtle in actions though they aren't disguised, I hate the spotlight, yet I don't agree of credit being taken when it's not due.
Although some overlapping, they are indeed different. Yet, having done personality tests for each of these characters, what would you say to me telling you, that they have the same personality type? ISFJ.
Now with any character I take a test for, there is always something that doesn't line up with just any given personality name, but when you go through with both of them, (or I should say when I do) they are undeniably ISFJ's.
Although personality does come almost entirely into play with any character, you cannot have simply personality alone. Personality does dictate much of their actions, as well as likes and dislikes, but personality without either a history or a drive, is simply a flat character, especially a villain.
Many of my villains tend to be on the "Dark, sweep you off your feet, well mannered, dark intentions," kind, to be completely honest. Because they make good villains in the stories that I write. As a rule, I only have four villains. Two fall into the 'Tall, dark, mysterious' category, the other two not quite so easily categorized. There is no one main trait that all of them share, but here are some of the traits that definitely are shared by more than one villain.
Desire for power (V2) - This is something that subconsciously drives so many of my characters, yet consciously drives two of my villains. One, wishes for power in order to overcome what he feels is his wrongly oppressed people, when in reality unknown to him and many others, they are being protected. The other, wishes for power in a manner not unlike Tolkiens Sauron. I have not worked with that villain much, but his demeanor and end goal is not unlike that of Sauron's. He is my most under developed villain to date.
Desire for power (P2) - This is also, most of the time subconscious, occasionally conscious trait shared by protagonists. Mostly in part due to the villain's evil shenanigans and/or other occurrences of other events.
Power is a main theme in many many stories, but not all stories. For instance, a novel I did in November of 2014. Where the main theme, is a mixture of wealth and control.
Desire for wealth (V1) - Although not much background is known of the villain of this Historical Fiction Mystery, he does have the seeming need to have things of high monetary value, and tends to dismiss things that hold sentiment. To him, if something is known to be sentimental, yet also of great monetary value, he is not quite so quick to the chase. Yet his own vice of everything, is taking things that will be missed, despite the high stakes and the sheer amount of things that he tends to steal. To him, stealing is in essence, an art form, and one that cannot be trifled with or shaken up by the mixed and heightened emotions from a well beloved piece of either jewelry, or art. (He personally just prefers to nick jewelry as a rule, but he does at times, make special exceptions.)
Desire for wealth (P1) - The protagonist of that novel is not so much in the desire for wealth so much as her own mixture of a subconscious desire for control. Which is ironic considering she's the detective and the villain is the thief, whereas her occupation usually leads her to places that are outside her circle of control, so to speak.
Wealth is a common thing among protagonists, usually a type of leverage used by the villains in an attempt (vain or not is up to the story teller) to either win over, or get the person they are swaying, to do what they ask, in one sense or another.
Then, there are always those who don't give much thought to wealth, merely because they don't seem to need to think of it. They either have it, or they don't. Two of my villains most decidedly do, one is rather undetermined due to how he operates.
Wealth, with the one villain who doesn't use it to bribe others or to coerce them with it, is both one either drunk for power, or control. He has the immense desire to be in complete control, no matter the cost.
Granted, there is always one trait that many villains nowadays seem to have, and that is insanity. Although I'm not opposed to that as a villainous trait, it is starting to me to feel overused, especially when the villain does not actually in fact need to be insane. Or hasn't got the decent history to back up his going insane. One of my villains is insane, but his is extremely well founded as to both it's cause and it's nature, which is childhood trauma. I will not go into detail, but trauma does play a big part in almost any villains story, except for one of mine, the thief. He does not actually suffer from any given large traumatic experience with which to define him, more of an inherited personality trait and/or moral compass you could say.
Next is Order. (V3) - Order in a society or in simply a personal life is a typically found trait, because order will 9 times out of 10 lead to control. If the villain can maintain any semblance of an order to a place or a group of people that feels the need to have order, it's far easier to manipulate them to do his bidding. A lot of people say that cities or even small towns are full of idiots for following a villain, but give this some thought: a promise for a future goes a long way to those who feel they have none. A hollow promise still sounds like a promise to those whom it's intended.
Order (P3) - Order is something many protagonists wish for, either actively or subconsciously. Order can be loosely translated to them as peace or the road to a better way of life. It can also mean a faster way to get things done, and more efficiently. But to them it is not something to be abused.
Order is a tricky one, though, most traits are from the very beginning. Order can mean peace, prosperity, unity, and connectivity to others around them. But at the same time can mean solitude, ease of control, rules, and eventually in many many stories become such a bleak sense of the word that it becomes the word slavery instead.
I can think of a number of books where "order" was the claimed main goal, only for someone to find out that what they've been doing to help the person they thought was the good guy, was actually only furthering the villain's reach.
That alone leads to another thing for, the undercover villain. I'll talk about that one a little further down, because it is often a follower of this last trait:
To be feared (V3/4) - While being feared is often for them misinterpreted as doing all of this for the greater good, these villains are either blind to the hurt they have caused, or are very aware of the fact and simply wish to maintain the illusion of sovereignty and goodness to their direct peers. All of these traits so far, alone can be easily dealt with by the hero, but what about this last one?
The Undercover Villain: I'm starting to think that maybe a post for this one should be separate, or to break this post up into different kinds of posts on each villain, but this right now is going to just be a brief summary. (Warning: Possible spoilers ahead for Sherlock, Star Trek.)
The undercover villain is just that, undercover. Examples include:
Villains are tricky people for a whole lot of reasons. Many of those reasons being completely made up problems in our writer brains, the rest being legitimate problems. For me, I was afraid of making my villain "too good a villain" and being creepy in my ability to write a good villain. But the thing is, if you don't have a good villain, what your protagonist doesn't, isn't going to feel to the reader like it matters. Have a good villain(s) in stock for your story, and the protagonists goal suddenly gets a whole lot more interesting.
A villain needs to be lots of things all wrapped up into one, and often times not everything all at once. A villain is usually someone who has at least one keystone to their personality that either rivals, or is the protagonists fear and/or vice. For instance, two of my own characters from a novel I did in 2014.
V will be villain, P will be protagonist.
V1: I am suave, I offer compliments and disguise my observations as questions to gain more information. As well as being versed in the language of the country I am in, my main goal is to operate in the shadows and go as unnoticed as possible, unless I see my spotlight waning.
P1: I can do away with superfluous comments or manners, I will ask direct questions while discerning what I can from responses, and then body movements. I am not good with languages though I pay attention to tone and volume. I prefer to be subtle in actions though they aren't disguised, I hate the spotlight, yet I don't agree of credit being taken when it's not due.
Although some overlapping, they are indeed different. Yet, having done personality tests for each of these characters, what would you say to me telling you, that they have the same personality type? ISFJ.
Now with any character I take a test for, there is always something that doesn't line up with just any given personality name, but when you go through with both of them, (or I should say when I do) they are undeniably ISFJ's.
Although personality does come almost entirely into play with any character, you cannot have simply personality alone. Personality does dictate much of their actions, as well as likes and dislikes, but personality without either a history or a drive, is simply a flat character, especially a villain.
Many of my villains tend to be on the "Dark, sweep you off your feet, well mannered, dark intentions," kind, to be completely honest. Because they make good villains in the stories that I write. As a rule, I only have four villains. Two fall into the 'Tall, dark, mysterious' category, the other two not quite so easily categorized. There is no one main trait that all of them share, but here are some of the traits that definitely are shared by more than one villain.
- Power
- Order
- Wealth
- Control
- To be feared
Desire for power (V2) - This is something that subconsciously drives so many of my characters, yet consciously drives two of my villains. One, wishes for power in order to overcome what he feels is his wrongly oppressed people, when in reality unknown to him and many others, they are being protected. The other, wishes for power in a manner not unlike Tolkiens Sauron. I have not worked with that villain much, but his demeanor and end goal is not unlike that of Sauron's. He is my most under developed villain to date.
Desire for power (P2) - This is also, most of the time subconscious, occasionally conscious trait shared by protagonists. Mostly in part due to the villain's evil shenanigans and/or other occurrences of other events.
Power is a main theme in many many stories, but not all stories. For instance, a novel I did in November of 2014. Where the main theme, is a mixture of wealth and control.
Desire for wealth (V1) - Although not much background is known of the villain of this Historical Fiction Mystery, he does have the seeming need to have things of high monetary value, and tends to dismiss things that hold sentiment. To him, if something is known to be sentimental, yet also of great monetary value, he is not quite so quick to the chase. Yet his own vice of everything, is taking things that will be missed, despite the high stakes and the sheer amount of things that he tends to steal. To him, stealing is in essence, an art form, and one that cannot be trifled with or shaken up by the mixed and heightened emotions from a well beloved piece of either jewelry, or art. (He personally just prefers to nick jewelry as a rule, but he does at times, make special exceptions.)
Desire for wealth (P1) - The protagonist of that novel is not so much in the desire for wealth so much as her own mixture of a subconscious desire for control. Which is ironic considering she's the detective and the villain is the thief, whereas her occupation usually leads her to places that are outside her circle of control, so to speak.
Wealth is a common thing among protagonists, usually a type of leverage used by the villains in an attempt (vain or not is up to the story teller) to either win over, or get the person they are swaying, to do what they ask, in one sense or another.
Then, there are always those who don't give much thought to wealth, merely because they don't seem to need to think of it. They either have it, or they don't. Two of my villains most decidedly do, one is rather undetermined due to how he operates.
Wealth, with the one villain who doesn't use it to bribe others or to coerce them with it, is both one either drunk for power, or control. He has the immense desire to be in complete control, no matter the cost.
Granted, there is always one trait that many villains nowadays seem to have, and that is insanity. Although I'm not opposed to that as a villainous trait, it is starting to me to feel overused, especially when the villain does not actually in fact need to be insane. Or hasn't got the decent history to back up his going insane. One of my villains is insane, but his is extremely well founded as to both it's cause and it's nature, which is childhood trauma. I will not go into detail, but trauma does play a big part in almost any villains story, except for one of mine, the thief. He does not actually suffer from any given large traumatic experience with which to define him, more of an inherited personality trait and/or moral compass you could say.
Next is Order. (V3) - Order in a society or in simply a personal life is a typically found trait, because order will 9 times out of 10 lead to control. If the villain can maintain any semblance of an order to a place or a group of people that feels the need to have order, it's far easier to manipulate them to do his bidding. A lot of people say that cities or even small towns are full of idiots for following a villain, but give this some thought: a promise for a future goes a long way to those who feel they have none. A hollow promise still sounds like a promise to those whom it's intended.
Order (P3) - Order is something many protagonists wish for, either actively or subconsciously. Order can be loosely translated to them as peace or the road to a better way of life. It can also mean a faster way to get things done, and more efficiently. But to them it is not something to be abused.
Order is a tricky one, though, most traits are from the very beginning. Order can mean peace, prosperity, unity, and connectivity to others around them. But at the same time can mean solitude, ease of control, rules, and eventually in many many stories become such a bleak sense of the word that it becomes the word slavery instead.
I can think of a number of books where "order" was the claimed main goal, only for someone to find out that what they've been doing to help the person they thought was the good guy, was actually only furthering the villain's reach.
That alone leads to another thing for, the undercover villain. I'll talk about that one a little further down, because it is often a follower of this last trait:
To be feared (V3/4) - While being feared is often for them misinterpreted as doing all of this for the greater good, these villains are either blind to the hurt they have caused, or are very aware of the fact and simply wish to maintain the illusion of sovereignty and goodness to their direct peers. All of these traits so far, alone can be easily dealt with by the hero, but what about this last one?
The Undercover Villain: I'm starting to think that maybe a post for this one should be separate, or to break this post up into different kinds of posts on each villain, but this right now is going to just be a brief summary. (Warning: Possible spoilers ahead for Sherlock, Star Trek.)
The undercover villain is just that, undercover. Examples include:
- Moriarty (Sherlock), he's introduced as someone who's merely dating the character Molly Hooper and doesn't seem to be any form of a threat to anyone, let alone Sherlock himself. But later as the show goes on, you see his true colors as the villain.
- Khan Noonien Singh (Star Trek, Original and 2013 movie), arrives as a part of a group of people lost in space, and not immediately considered a threat to the crew of the enterprise in the Original series. Only for the crew to discover his true intentions, along with the origins of him and his people. In the 2013, he is first shown helping a man who's daughter is in a hospital, but you also soon see the price he asked the man to pay. He is a more immediately perceived threat, but after the battle on the Klingon planet Kronos the crew of the Enterprise is not entirely certain on how they should proceed. When they learn the history of Khan it leads to them working together but not trusting each other in any way, as the fight on the bridge of the Vengeance shows them.
Villains are tricky people for a whole lot of reasons. Many of those reasons being completely made up problems in our writer brains, the rest being legitimate problems. For me, I was afraid of making my villain "too good a villain" and being creepy in my ability to write a good villain. But the thing is, if you don't have a good villain, what your protagonist doesn't, isn't going to feel to the reader like it matters. Have a good villain(s) in stock for your story, and the protagonists goal suddenly gets a whole lot more interesting.
Loved this post!! :) great insight into the nature of villains.
ReplyDelete