Characters are the vehicles through which a story is told. Good characters make a story compelling: the readers love, laugh and suffer with them.
Perhaps the most important characters are the villains. Sometimes we forget about the protagonists, but a good villain remains with us forever. Writers craft their villains with great care.
What are the features of a great villain? I have compiled a few categories and I’ll share them with you. Some villains fit well in several of these boxes, so maybe think they’re tags instead of categories.
1. VIllains as protagonists. You (almost) want them to succeed. The rest of the characters are much less important. You understand them, you root for them, and, sometimes, you forget they’re the bad guy.
Examples: Hannibal Lecter, Dracula, Patrick Bateman.
2. Villains out of reach. They’re so superior, so intimidating, that the only thing you can do is avoid crossing paths with them. Fleeing is the only option.
Sauron, Lucifer, the first Darth Vader, Cthulhu.
3. Domestic villains. They’re evil for evil’s sake. They don’t have great plans, they don’t want to dominate the world. They’re just petty people who will make your life worse than it already is. Even when they get a reward for being mean, you can’t shake the feeling they would’ve done it anyway.
Nurse Ratched, Cypher.
4. Tortured villains. They’re villains, but they don’t find it particularly amusing. They’re not having a good time out of their evilness. They’re tortured, unsatisfied, and dream of a better life.
Agent Smith, the Joker, Alex DeLarge, Gollum, the last Darth Vader.
5. Pure evil. Evil runs in their blood. They don’t question their actions, or their motives. Their purity index is high. No qualms, just uncontaminated evilness.
Cruella, Miss Trunchbull, Freddy Krueger.
6. Cold villains. With them, it’s not personal. They’re just made this way. If you meet them, your harm will come inevitably, like if you meet a flying arrow or a ricocheted bullet. This is a very good choice for non-human evil guys.
Terminator, Alien, The Shark in Jaws, Hal 9000, the Borg.
7. Superiority complex. They’re just better than the rest of us. More intelligent, more rich, and more deserving of getting the finer things in life. They’ll despise you before they’ll damage you.
Khan, Moriarty, Vizzini, Mr. Burns
8. Simply wrong. They’re not so bad, but they’re wrong. Sometimes fatally wrong. You could see yourself having a beer with them, because they’re literate, kind, even affable. But they’re so wrong that they need to kill half of humanity, or maybe all of it.
Magneto, Thanos.
9. Driven by their urges. Like the cold villains, they’re made this way, but they’re completely human, overwhelmed by emotions they can’t control.
Norman Bates, Dexter, and every fictional psychokiller.
In Abstractica, you’ll find evil characters that fit in some of these categories. You have Viktor, a clear case of 7, with some sprinkles of 4 and subtle hints of 9. Psykore is clearly a 6 and sometimes a 2.
What do you think? Do you agree with these tags? Am I missing some? Are there any villains outside these categories?
Very interesting post! I do have a couple of questions, where would Dracula fit? You could say he is a cold killer, as he eats people for survival, but he also makes it very personal, I wouldn’t say he is the same kind as Terminator for example. Also, is there a villain that could fit all of the tags?
Dracula for me is a 1, because he is the absolute protagonist of his adventures. He exists for himself, without the need for any other main character. I don’t think he’s a cold killer, because it really is personal. I’d say he enters the box number 9, driven by his urges.
The question you ask about a villain fitting all of the tags is really interesting. I can’t think of one right off the bat, but I’ll give it a thought.