What makes a good villain?

Sine I'm working on PMD2, I would like to know what readers want in a bad guy. So I'll reveal a tad bit of spoilers on the main villains:

#1
Is a power control freak, believes Pokemon have no right to govern themselves in a world of happiness and freedom. He wishes to replace that world with one of power and order. Cruel and menacing, he only has one evil companion who he confides in and trusts.

#2
Appears to be a respectable person, but is actually a traitor and a callous liar. Agrees with his friend's principles on the running of the world, and has no mercy for even the poorest of souls. Using manipulation and lies, he rises to power by selfish means.

And those are the bad guys.

So compare. Do you prefer a villain with a truly evil and venom-filled heart, or an emotionless tyrant who cares only for his own gains? Keep in mind, I will consider your suggestions and add it in.

I have a few more to add.

One is a person who should be a good guy but is actually rather bad (like Denethor from the third installment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy). While not necessarily intentionally evil, they can hold back and/or oppose the protagonist, and do a lot of damage in the process.

Another villain type I'm thinking of is hard to describe, but I would call it "omnipresent evil". It would be a dark force that is always around and always opposes the protagonist. The One Ring in the LOTR books (seeing a trend here?) is a good example, but I would also group entities like Big Brother from 1984 into this category.

Of these four, I would probably choose either the thoroughly evil person or the "omnipresent evil" I described.

Umm...why did you start a new topic about this when precisely this topic was discussed in the lounge just a couple of days ago? :\ Just look at the responses and you should get a pretty good view of what is and isn't liked.

Looking at the responses, a couple of prominent ones are:

1. The true psycho villain (Think Hannibal Lecter), the kind that is intelligent but utterly twisted at the same time so there's no telling what they'll do or to whom.

2. The deceptive, manipulative villain, the kind which everyone (preferably audience included) thinks of as a good person and trusts but who, in reality, is manipulating the protagonist and antagonist alike for his/her own ends.

3. The understandable antagonist, one who is not so much evil in the stereotypical sense as just acting under a different set of morals or different impression of what is good. (I.e. they're, morally speaking, on pretty much equal grounds with the protagonists) For this type of villain, it's very important to have their points make sense. So something like Archie's 'more water for all' does not really work because the notion that drowning the world would somehow be good is a bit out of there. o.O Yeah, sensible motivations for these.


As for the stuff people don't like to see...the bumbling idiot villains and stereotypical mua-ha-haists who blurt out their entire plot to the hero and always make stupid mistakes to let them save the day didn't get much love. Comic relief villains are one thing, but the big ones should be villains that a reader can take seriously.

Of those two you described, number two looks like the more promising one. The first seems a bit too much like the stereotypical 'I do evil things because-because I'm EVIL!' type, and those are pretty boring.

And don't forget the misunderstood villain. The one that didn't get the proper childhood or whatever and always sees his wrongdoing at the end of the story.

Also, for the record, you can't 'classify' types of villains, that is impossible. After all, every writer is different, every character is different.

3. The understandable antagonist, one who is not so much evil in the stereotypical sense as just acting under a different set of morals or different impression of what is good. (I.e. they're, morally speaking, on pretty much equal grounds with the protagonists) For this type of villain, it's very important to have their points make sense. So something like Archie's 'more water for all' does not really work because the notion that drowning the world would somehow be good is a bit out of there. o.O Yeah, sensible motivations for these.

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Unless your villain is a mix of this :)...

1. The true psycho villain (Think Hannibal Lecter), the kind that is intelligent but utterly twisted at the same time so there's no telling what they'll do or to whom.

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and this, which mine is :). Morals and views of the world over time can get twisted and still seem sensible to a villain...

The best villians are always the ones who you never really suspect. Personally, I love ones who slowly show signs of dissension as the fic progresses or someone who already questioned his or her purpose in life and you learn about the stuff that happened to them a couple times throughout the fic. Example, a character that appears in the later parts of my fic Biohazard has a history that's deeply involved with that type of stuff.

The one who seems unbelievably cruel at first, then you/the protagonist get to know something about his past/himself, that makes you AND the protagonist sympathize with him. BUT the villain keeps acting evil and cruel, and no matter how much you DO want to sympathize with him, and wish that he would "come over to the good side", his actions constantly make you hate him, even if you don't want to. And he never turns good.
Kinda like Wataru in Pokémon Special ^^

Also, the villain who occasionally shows signs of kindness or empathy, though he doesn't mean to. Eventually he might be turned to the good side more or less completely, but if not so, he can't be the villain he was before.
Kinda like Piccolo in Dragon Ball ^^

Oh, I'm SO for the sentimental types. They're hard to come up with, though. I often end up with making the at-first-random-bad-guy into a misunderstood-important-impact-on-the-plot-good-guy. Result: my stories get almost too many characters about halfway through. Heh.

Does villain necessarily have to be like "the head honcho" so to say? Can it just be a simple antagonist?

I persoanally like the Misguided antagonist, the revenge-seeking antagonist, and the misunderstood antagonist. I'd say one of my favorite villains of all time is David Xanatos from the 90's animated series "Gargoyles", if anyone is familiar with that.

In the Final Fantasy series, the greatest villains are Kefka, Sephiroth, and Kuja.

Kefka's the manipulative one (Final Fantasy VI), who pretended to be a good guy, and basically got handed godly powers on a silver platter, with which he proceeded to suddenly attack and dominate the world until defeated.

Sephiroth's the insane one (Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts II), who was fine until he learned about his origins. Not only is he insane in mind, but also in power. Even Ganondorf from The Legend of Zelda games, who holds the Triforce of Power, can't stand up to Sephiroth. I'm not saying Cloud got lucky, beating Sephiroth twice, however. Cloud was able to match and exceed Sephiroth's power by remembering the bond he had with his friends, especially Aeris.

Kuja (Final Fantasy IX) is your classic stage villain who sees no purpose in life whatsoever, and thus believes it shouldn't exist at all. He manipulates the queen of Alexandria, then kills her and moves on. Then he tries to destroy the source of all life, memory, and everything else: the Crystal. Naturally, your job is to stop him. At the very end, about ten seconds before he dies, he finally sees his error.

These three are heralded as some of the greatest video game villains of all time, but there are others that are on par with them. One of them is Voldemort from the Harry Potter series. His evil is very human. He despises his family for not being pure, and thus despises himself as well. He has this gigantic rage inside him that he doesn't bother even trying to control. He doesn't even have a full soul, thanks to how many times he split it to become immortal, via his Horcruxes. He lurked in the shadows, and with him reigning from the dark, you couldn't afford to trust anybody. For all you'd know, your own mother was a slave to his will. And there are some who followed him willingly, known as Death Eaters.

All of these villains have a certain element to them that makes them intimidating, creepy, or otherwise unnerving. If you can capture that element, then your villain will be pretty much perfect. To find it, just research them. How do they think? How do they act? What strategies would they use in certain situations?

Knowing how a villain thinks is the first step towards creating your own, unique one.

I just made up two new bad guys!

Villain #3

Has had a terrible past and was mocked and mericlessly teased by other Pokemon for his lack of strength and uneffective battle skills. Now that he's evolved, he intends to help create the Planet Cessation in order to cause just as much suffering as he endured.

Villain #4

A fierce rival of one of Treasure Town's business owners. After being beaten in their younger years by him, the rival suffered humiliation and disrespect. He evolved so he could challenge his rival again, but the evil leader of the Temporal Thieves forced him to become a member for his awesome power. Now bound in an unofficial contract, the rival-turned villain now seeks to somehow break free from his slavery, but does not hold back when a job needs to be done.

Just give them motive.


Motive is REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY important.


A guy can't just pop up and do bad things "cause I wanna be evil."


I lurve anti-heroes, who do bad things for what they think is good.



~Mix

One of the greatest villains I can really think of would be Johan from the anime/manga Monster - which is extremely good, but very, very dark and mature if you're into reading/watching that kind of thing. You never really question the fact that what Johan does is wrong, and his motives skewed and evil, however, you end up developing this... sympathy for him. Normally, a character like him you'd end up despising, with this one, you feel pity (and heck, even end up rooting for him along with the good guy) at many points during the story, even if he is corrupt and wrong.

That's the kind of villain I love reading about, though they're so desperately hard to write and weave believably. Another villain I like is one where there's not really a "evil guy" at all. Not every fantasy novel needs a powerful demon overlord to be good. In these stories, there's no "good" or "evil" just two sides who happen to be opposing one another because of differing values - values which may seem "wrong" to each side, but is not inherently evil. If you want an example of that I'd watch the high-quality anime Seirei no Moribito.

That's just my take, however.

evil laughter lightning when they enter the scean and evil goons

Arrmegeddenmon said:

evil laughter lightning when they enter the scean and evil goons

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For parody fic, yes. For serious fic, not really, as it's a cliche. Cliches -- the melodramatic sort that you expect to be hiding in an evil lair -- may work for James Bond, but it might not be believable anywhere else.

And that's really the key to making any sort of character. The more believable they are, the better. They have to have a reason for doing what they're doing (the motive liveletlove_Mix was talking about), and it has to be a good reason. Additionally, just because they're evil doesn't mean they need to set off the blaring alarms of minions, evil laughter, and lightning. In fact, subtlety is just fine too. They need to be developed characters themselves, possibly just deviating in methods or beliefs. It was once said, for example, that a bad guy is just a good guy with a few added details. That is, if you can make a protagonist, all you need is a different motivation or a different set of methods, and you can easily make an antagonist.

And, really, avoid using cliches like lightning or evil laughter. They really don't make beings as dastardly as characters who rely just on who they are, rather than abuses of ambiance.

Well, this is what I posted back at the lounge when there's a topic of villians:

As for villians I like to see: developed ones. What I mean by that is villians who are going towards their goals but also kind of iffy about it. They are not one hundred percent sure if everything will be right because of the protagonists going for him/her, his/her assistants aren't doing their jobs, there were some plans that suddenly didn't worked out, etc. Eventually the villian will realise there were some things that have to change if he/she wanted to make her plans work.

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To add a bit more explanation/substance of that, one example is one of the fics in Serebii by The Great Butler (Nando here). He has the main villian doing whatever it takes to get her plans working but at the same time she questioned herself why she's doing it.


Yeah, I love it when characters have motives but at the same time I love it too when they're unsure about it. I don't know, I feel that there are more human and will be taken more seriously then just the cliche villian laughing and saying they're evil because they are, as Jax has put it. Meh, maybe it's also just me thinking there's goodness in everyone. XD

I like the villains that not allways where evils:Like Sephiroth. And people that have good plans not stupid ideas like a lot of guy's

There are lots of different breads of villains there's the psychical ones who go for more of the bullying approach and there are the smart ones who go for subtle more long term effects. You rarely get a mix between the two but being able to mix and match at time makes a good villain for one there are a few boxes you need to tick:

1) They have to think their cause is 'for the great good'.

2) They have to be scary

3) They have to be interesting

4) They have to be relatable

5) They must have charisma and be very well mannered to simply make them seem more twisted

6) A backstory is a good touch

7) A hunger for power works well

I just thought of a few things for good villians. But first, a back comment, I just love Final Fantasy's villians. In fact, some of my better ones were inspired by Final Fantasies IV, VI, and to a lesser extent III (the most inspiring ones being Zeromus and Kefka, powerful/godlike monsters that are meant to terrify). Anyways, this has to do with what I'm about to say. If you want a good villian, make it truly someone who is invincible. Someone the hero truly can't beat no matter how they attack or approach him or her. I mean, no one ever said that the hero actually has to accomplish his or her goal, and it makes you and your audience wonder what the world would be like if said villian were to accomplish their goal.

On a slight tangent from this, you could try the self-made villian. Someone who only pulls strings and never faces the hero once. Again, who ever said that the hero actually accomplishes his or her goal. Ultimately, the protagonist could just fail and call it quits. I mean, in the real world, good doesn't always prevail.

But anyways, this stuff probably would apply more to setting up sequels, dark fics, or tragedies than anything else, but I thought that'd be good if you wanted some kind of truly unexpected turn.

A strong villain needs lots of henchmen and possibly a link to the hero in the past, such as going to school together. They might've been best friends but then a fight brought them apart.

The compassionate bad guy is, in my opinion, by far the best villain. The guy whose emans are seen as entirely evil,b ut he only wants the ebst for himself and thosewho follow.

Take the movie The Rock for a good example. Ed Harris' character, before taking over Alcatraz, asks the children on a field trip there to ask their teacher to round up all of the students and return to the boat. To me, this displays a soft-hearted side to an otherwise cold character.