There’s something about true evil villains that I find fascinating, but I agree with you as a concept. The most memorable villains have something that you can connect with, even if it’s in a more abstract way.
For those who understand alignments in DnD for a simple explanation. My favorite types of villains are chaotic neutrals. All of the evils tend to lack complexity, and when a good character is suddenly bad, it's often seen as a misguided mistake or an awkward character change. Characters who have been chaotic neutral give room for deeper complexities for story telling, it really can hurt the reader when a character who has the potential to be good chooses to be bad.
I'm stealing this from Donna Murphy, a.k.a., Mother Gothel, but a good villain is a person who has a clear and obsessive want and will stop at nothing to get it.
There should be all types of villains. Sometimes it’s that they’re not all bad or they are but there’s a reason for it. And sometimes some villains are just truly evil. That’s real life and some people just choose to be bad. There is a full spectrum of evil.
I love villains with a lot of depth too! I think that backstories are very very important to making me want to read any character, but especially villains. A good example of this to me is President Snow in the Hunger Games. I used to hate him. Because I used to think that he was just badly written, he wasn't a good character, he just kinda sucked for the sake of kinda sucking. Then I read a Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes which made everything make a lot more sense, and he didn't just suck anymore. Personally, I didn't love a Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, but it made the original trilogy a lot more bearable for me. As a writer, when I'm writing villains, or any character that's not even exactly a villain, but goes against the main cause, the important thing to me is that I can feel sympathy for them. I refuse to write any character that I just can't feel any sympathy for. I saw this on another author's channel once, I don't actually remember who it was. But she shared that she was having a really hard time making the plot work, and just generally writing this villain because she was just so bad, and she couldn't find anything about her that made her feel anything at all. That's exactly the kind of character I won't let myself write, and I can't stand reading because those just very 2-dimensional characters honestly just kinda suck. The other thing is that I am a very critical reader. I get really mad at books really fast. I'll have to stop reading because of minor inconsistencies about how a side character feels about a certain thing. I honestly just can't finish a lot of books. I couldn't finish Orlando by Virginia Woolf because she writes so much about writing which is such a big pet peeve of mine. But I've gotten pretty good at writing down exactly what pisses me off about books, and especially what makes me just never want to go back to them. One of the ones that frequents my list is 2-dimensional, badly written villains that seem to only exist so that the plot can exist in the first place. If your plot's entire existence is centered around one badly written character, then the entire story falls apart for me. Anyways, if you made it all the way through my rant, thanks
There’s something about true evil villains that I find fascinating, but I agree with you as a concept. The most memorable villains have something that you can connect with, even if it’s in a more abstract way.
For those who understand alignments in DnD for a simple explanation. My favorite types of villains are chaotic neutrals. All of the evils tend to lack complexity, and when a good character is suddenly bad, it's often seen as a misguided mistake or an awkward character change. Characters who have been chaotic neutral give room for deeper complexities for story telling, it really can hurt the reader when a character who has the potential to be good chooses to be bad.
Oh I agree!
😮 That is a fantastic way to explain this!
"Assistant to the Villain" plays on this **amazingly** well. :D
That's on my TBR!
I'm stealing this from Donna Murphy, a.k.a., Mother Gothel, but a good villain is a person who has a clear and obsessive want and will stop at nothing to get it.
Oh I like that!
There should be all types of villains. Sometimes it’s that they’re not all bad or they are but there’s a reason for it. And sometimes some villains are just truly evil. That’s real life and some people just choose to be bad. There is a full spectrum of evil.
I totally get that- I just prefer villains with a reason instead of just completely evil for being evil. But thank you for sharing your thoughts!
I love villains with a lot of depth too! I think that backstories are very very important to making me want to read any character, but especially villains. A good example of this to me is President Snow in the Hunger Games. I used to hate him. Because I used to think that he was just badly written, he wasn't a good character, he just kinda sucked for the sake of kinda sucking. Then I read a Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes which made everything make a lot more sense, and he didn't just suck anymore. Personally, I didn't love a Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, but it made the original trilogy a lot more bearable for me.
As a writer, when I'm writing villains, or any character that's not even exactly a villain, but goes against the main cause, the important thing to me is that I can feel sympathy for them. I refuse to write any character that I just can't feel any sympathy for. I saw this on another author's channel once, I don't actually remember who it was. But she shared that she was having a really hard time making the plot work, and just generally writing this villain because she was just so bad, and she couldn't find anything about her that made her feel anything at all. That's exactly the kind of character I won't let myself write, and I can't stand reading because those just very 2-dimensional characters honestly just kinda suck.
The other thing is that I am a very critical reader. I get really mad at books really fast. I'll have to stop reading because of minor inconsistencies about how a side character feels about a certain thing. I honestly just can't finish a lot of books. I couldn't finish Orlando by Virginia Woolf because she writes so much about writing which is such a big pet peeve of mine. But I've gotten pretty good at writing down exactly what pisses me off about books, and especially what makes me just never want to go back to them. One of the ones that frequents my list is 2-dimensional, badly written villains that seem to only exist so that the plot can exist in the first place. If your plot's entire existence is centered around one badly written character, then the entire story falls apart for me.
Anyways, if you made it all the way through my rant, thanks
I appreciate your thoroughness!