Self interest
"Why are you going to do this? It is evil." "I will be paid $20 for it." "I'll pay you $30 to let him live." "OK."
Misguided
"Why are you going to do this? It is evil." "The child is actually an evil alien that will kill us all if I don't kill him." "No he's not. The child has already sent the alien away." "Oh, sorry. Let's all be friends."
True Evil
"Why are you going to do this? It is evil." "Because it is an act of evil." "Uhh... why is that good?" "It isn't, it's evil." (Child dies.) "Murderer, I shall slay you where you stand!" (He does.) "I die in the service of evil! May my soul be damned for all eternity to wither in the blackest pit of hell!"
I have never thought about the role of villians in my story, and I have never written a story with a villian in it.
That's right, none of my protagonists ever have really a human antigonist to content with, certainly not at the level of villian. MY character's main enemies tend to be either themselves or greater forces at work (such as a virus, or a nuclear holocaust)
I think this is because I don't really believe in villians. I believe there are bad people, who are only interested in themselves, but I tend to think of an antagonist in a story as simply a person who wants something diffrent from what the hero wants...
I'm gonna have to think about this.
A popular villain who epitomizes this "twisted soul" motif is Callisto from Xena. (no jokes!) Here, you have a girl (12 yrs old) who watches her entire family and village be slaughtered by a vicious demon from hell (Xena). The girl grows up, never grieving, never learning how to trust... devotes her entire life to learning how to destroy the b**** that killed her family. Only to discover in the process that she's killed her own soul. There is no peace, no redemption. Just bitter emptiness and an aching quest to fill that void with more violence. She's become the very thing she set out to destroy. It's incredible to watch. Some part of you feels for the girl that was, but the rest of you is shocked by what the woman has done.
My 2 cents worth.
So here I propose this: A villain is an intelligence creating a conflict whereas the hero/main character is the intelligence resolving the conflict.
Food for thought.
Will.
[This message has been edited by WillC (edited March 02, 2001).]
Like TUML, I have to think more on this. The previous posts have stirred some thoughts I haven't quite pinned down...something to do with the "villian" you choose being based on what it is you're exploring...a commentary on society (gangs, et al), on a character type (the psychopath), on a particular situation (nuclear holocaust). Hmmmm.... All of which, of course, will be told through how your hero deals with each situation.
I'm glad I stumbled onto this site. <grin>
[This message has been edited by JP Carney (edited March 02, 2001).]
[This message has been edited by JP Carney (edited March 02, 2001).]
But then I remember reading that many times the forces characters face can be more subtle like for example.. a hurricane, a holocaust, being stranded somewhere.... And i think that's correct.. Think of the Illiad, Romeo and Juliet, or more recently (but prehaps not as good) Cast Away.... All these stories were execellent, but can you name the evil villian in it?
I'm no where near coming to a conclusion on this.. I know that my novel I'm working on will definately have at least two major antagonist working against my main character, and maybe one of them might actually rise to the level of villian, but then again, maybe not.... i can't get away from the idea that a villian is nothing more than a person who wants a different outcome from that of the protagonist, and so they must content with each other for their desired outcomes...
There have been way too many bad guys who act in ways that might seem rediculous, only because there were things that had not been properly explained. Since Hannibal is a subject in here, I'll use him. He was excellent in the first movie when he figured his way out of things. He was morbid and interesting. In the second movie, the great mind seemed replaced by mysticism (disappearing acts) which took away from his original grandeur.
I'm always disappointed with villians whose thoughts I can't see at least once in some point of the story because I can't really appreciate his magnificence. I especially enjoy parts where the wonderful, intelligent hero believes a certain way of the villian, but is corrected by the villian later on as to his aims. Not by way of the villian revealing his evil plot to the hero (who isn't sick of that), but by the villian's actions.
Anyway, if you need a villian, make sure you work on him/her deeply because he/she will most likely become the most important part of the story.
Real life examples/models of power lusting appear in the news almost every day, and with a few deft cosmetic changes, can give you a very realistic bad guy/gal.
To me, these to games are the hallmark of excellent story telling and great dialog, and Kain has to be the greatest villian/antihero I've ever come across.
If you have, you have to agree with me that Kain take the role of villian to a whole another level. It's hard to describe if you haven't play it, but i recommend it just on story alone...
"Conscience? You speak to me of conscience? You know nothing of the doubt and remorse I have borne since Mortanieous first turned me from the light!"
-Kain to Raziel, upon Raziel's return to Nosgoth
I did love the dialogue from that game. The only thing that bothered me about Soul Reaver was the disappointing ending. That had to have been the worst I have ever seen in any game I have played.
This is the stuff of tragedy if the story ends with the protagonist winning and finding out that the antagonist's objective was a worthy one, too.
If the characters can find a way to help both of their causes, I think that is a valid resolution to a story as well.
Whatever you do, make the antagonist as complicated as the protagonist (not more complicated--if the protagonist isn't as complicated as the antagonist, the story won't be as satisfying. The protagonist has to be interesting and worth identifying with, too.)
Speaking of HANNIBAL, I heard they changed the ending in the movie so it isn't quite the same as in the book. I've read the book, but not seen the movie, and I'd like to know what they did. Anyone interested in emailing me and telling me what is different? I'd appreciate it.
I know some of you are frowning at me saying this but I think he is the best villan of all time. He is just pure evil!
Like, the goblins alter ego is Norman Osborn who is a power business man in his own right, he has no need for money or position, He already has all of those things, all the things he does to Peter Parker he does because he wants Parker to suffer. So many times he could easily kill off Peter Parker he never does, he always lets parker live so he can suffer more later on.
Thats all I have to say about that really =)
The ending was changed because Jodi Foster did not like what became of Clarice. The ending was revised, but she still chose not to reprise her role. Julianne Moore did a fabulous job as Clarice and (I think) was even better. The movie is definitely worth seeing!! (Although, fans of the book will undoubtedly wish the movie had ended as the book did.)
Now you have hit my trip wire! I firmly believe that the evil persona that we are discussing, your total Evil One, is actually something that we humans have created in our own minds - to let us ignore and overide the real source of all evil in our world!
This source is us... The banality with which we allowed the Holocoust to happen, or to ignore the killing fields of the Kimer Rouge, or gloss over the slaughter of the Tatars by Gengus Khan, or to smilingly justify the bloody execution of prisoners by the Incas is inexcuesable, except by us - to us...
So, all evil is us, and as writers we must confront this truth...
Ber Thaq
As writers, we explore possibilities, what-ifs. We take a piece of what we know and try to look at it differently; or take what we don't know and speculate. The characters we choose for our stories are our tools for moving the story, for conveying the exploration of life (evil and good).
We choose a villian (or simply antagonist)and give him traits we think are interesting to explore, or are great foils to our hero. We draw on what we know of society, culture, people, etc - from past, present, and future. Our villians are constructs of these traits, that we pull together in order to tell the story.
You say that as writers we must confront the truth that all evil is us. While this can lead to quite the philosophical discussion of the "source" of evil (I'll refrain from an opinion for now), taking the comment at its basic, I think we do that quite well. I think it's the very understanding that humans have evil in them (to varrying degrees) and the desire to confront it and explore it that makes some (all?) of us writers. It's probably what prompted this thread (if not overtly, then at some core level).
To talk about what makes a good villian, or to create good villians, is in no way hiding from anything. I don't think (as you attest) that we create villians to "ignore and override the real source of all evil in our world". Quite the contrary, good villians (good stories) confront evil, disect it, put it back together and explore it. It's what we do as writers.
quote:
, if you re-read some of these posts that the question wasn't so much about The Source of evil, but what makes a villain interesting.
For me, a really great villain must have a couple of key characteristics:
1) They must be amoral in some sense. In other words, they do things you absolutely wouldn't consider under ordinary circumstances. They don't necessarily have to be evil, but they usually must be "out of bounds" in some way. Oh, and a lack of remorse helps here, too.
2) They must be generally successful. I always have a hard time believing in a villain that never succeeds at anything. A villain that actually carries out his threats once or twice is much more fearsome than one that bluffs all the time.
3) They must be intelligent. Stupid villains bore me to death. Villains that actually think things through are far more fascinating to watch.
For me, one of the greatest movie villains I've ever seen was Archibald Cunningham.
"Who?" you're saying.
Archibald Cunningham. He's the main villain in the movie Rob Roy, starring Liam Neeson in the title role and Tim Roth as the villain. Cunningham fulfills all of these characteristics in spades, and he's one of the most memorable villains I've ever seen. I really hated the guy while watching this movie, and that's a rare experience for me, having my emotions come up so viscerally like that.