Regarding the villain issue:
While the head antagonist should not be so stupid as to reveal his/her plan, not all of their subordinates (admins/commanders/executives/grunts/peons/etc) might not be so intelligent. Or show that level of common sense. Or they are overly narcissistic and boastful. After all, the leader only has so much control over their underlings, especially in the field. And any punishment that the leader does inflict on their henchmen will be too little, too late as far as alerting the protagonist.
I suppose what I'm trying to say is, don't have the big leader reveal their plans, but if it fits the character of certain subordinates to let slip tidbits of information, I have no qualms with it.
But
why would the subordinates all be stupid? What sort of intelligent antagonist puts bumbling idiots into positions of power in his organization in the first place? Okay, so some of the grunts might perhaps not be the brightest bulbs in the box, sure, but then the head antagonist would NOT leave them in charge of anything remotely approaching importance and especially not anything having to do with the capture or guarding of a prisoner who is a great threat to the organization.
Besides, having the protagonist's life saved by
any antagonist's stupidity, no matter how reasonable it might be that this particular antagonist really could theoretically be that dumb, is just lame. I mean, can you get any more anticlimatic than that? Hero has been captured by villains who want him dead, but instead of killing him on the spot, he's put into a prison cell with only one guard who happens to think it's fine to sleep on duty with his keys somewhere in plain sight? Hero has been locked in a room with some elaborate mechanism to kill him activated, and nobody thinks of watching him to make sure he's actually finished off before going to celebrate? Hero is walking somewhere and sees two of the antagonists openly discussing the details of their evil plan where anyone could hear them? A hero who prevails thanks to such passive strokes of luck is one hell of a dull hero and, more importantly, completely fails to make the reader actually
want him to win, because he has simply done nothing to deserve it.
So basically, even if you can argue that that half of the evil team is going to have brains the size of peas, then please,
please, for the love of God, have it be the
other half that's after your protagonist. Nobody likes to read about a hero whose primary feat is having overcome a group of idiots who, had they possessed any inkling of common sense, would have easily killed him in chapter two. Comedy, of course, is an exception to rules like this, since you're never meant to feel like the protagonist is really being threatened, but in any non-comedy, stupid villains are a no-no.
What's your favorite kind of antagonist?
- Antagonists you can sympathize with. The ones you can really, really understand, whose point actually makes a lot of sense when you think about it. The ones who are genuinely troubled and conflicted about the evil they do. I'm a sucker for conflicted characters.
- Antagonists who are utterly psycho in an interesting way, where you read about that antagonist and realize that his mind is messed up in the most twisted yet fascinating way. I love characters with psychological disorders. They absolutely have to be intelligent for this to work, though, and I need to get some actual insight into their minds. Characters who are just there and whose villainy is simply waved off with "Oh, he's just a lunatic" are disappointing.
To expand upon this:
What do you like and dislike in a protagonist?
I'm a real sucker for weakness (mental, rather than physical). I don't want them to be whiny crybabies about everything that happens to them or anything, but I
melt over scenes where, say, the protagonist lands himself in a situation where he is positive he is about to die and can't do anything about it, stops being Mr. Courageous Hero and just gets really freaking scared (provided it's well written and described, of course). Likewise, "tough guys" who absolutely never have such a moment of weakness even when called for, no matter how otherwise balanced the character may be, don't really strike that chord with me.
In general I love reading about fear, rage and despair, really. I think they're by far the most interesting feelings on the spectrum of human emotion. Definitely far more interesting than the tiresome old romance in my opinion.