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Post by Valhalla Erikson on Mar 23, 2024 20:53:45 GMT -6
Out of curiosity what kind of villains you like to write or what kind that intrigues you? For me I want to take a villain concept into a direction that I don't think has been done. Take a character motivation that drives the heroic protagonist but use that as a motivation for a villain. The motivations may be similar but the means to reach their particular goal may differ.
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Post by saintofm on Mar 24, 2024 2:25:54 GMT -6
For the most part it seems to be a combination of opposite of the hero, and from a position of privilege for some reason.
A number of Foes I have written/ideas for my Raven Child are individuals from high society (usualy powerful nobles) that abuse their power, nice guy syndrome, and think their position of privilege has no responsibility. Compare that with my Main Character, an orphan raised currently raised by a pair of elderly war heroes in their tavern. The hero does have wealthy allies, but seems to attack blue blooded brats looking to show how high and mighty they are pretty often.
Another seres idea has a school for the specials (inspired by Youtuber Digibro ripping Asterisk Wars apart and going: Challenge Accepted, I will write a school of the specials). He is from a wartorn part of the planet, a variant of the super powered population most considered savages and little more, and doesn't like bullies. So his ultimate foe is a Alpha jerk with all the power of a war god and none of the human decency or humility to not exploit it.
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Post by Alatariel on Mar 24, 2024 10:23:40 GMT -6
Out of curiosity what kind of villains you like to write or what kind that intrigues you? For me I want to take a villain concept into a direction that I don't think has been done. Take a character motivation that drives the heroic protagonist but use that as a motivation for a villain. The motivations may be similar but the means to reach their particular goal may differ. Yes I love this. My favorite villains are the ones that do the things for good reasons. Or understandable reasons. And you have to challenge yourself to actually contextualize them as the villain. But on the other side of things, I like villains who are just...selfish. Narcissistic. Power drunk. Believes themselves to be untouchable and because of that they make more and more immoral choices taking them further from their own humanity. One of my favorite books starts with the villain of 200 years being defeated. The whole duology is about dealing with the repercussions of his decisions, his tyranny, his depravity. Because once you defeat the Big Bad and take back power...then what? You deal with the incredible trauma left in their wake. And the villains motivation? Greed, maintaining power, being revered as a god. This is the duology Strange the Dreamer and Muse of Nightmares. I highly recommend it. In MY OWN books, my antagonists aren't villains. They're people with conflicting objectives from my main character. It's often in a gray zone and tends to raise complex questions like "who's right?" |
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Post by ScintillaMyntan on Mar 24, 2024 19:53:32 GMT -6
This made me realize I've only written a villain once, for our Noir contest. In my planned novel, a character is first seen as a villain, and then it turns out the protagonist was reading too much malice into his actions. I guess most problems in my life are caused by myself or situations, not bad people, and my story ideas reflect that.
And the villain in my Noir entry was, rather uncomfortably, inspired by myself. I've caused pain to people by manifestations of my anxiety problem that felt uncontrollable. In that story, the protagonist has an innocent coping behavior she can't give up, and realizes it's disturbingly not so different from the villain's malicious coping behavior, which he also feels he can't give up. Writing that story was a way of admitting I've done wrong, just not as severely.
My favorite villains are the ones that do the things for good reasons. Or understandable reasons. And you have to challenge yourself to actually contextualize them as the villain. In MY OWN books, my antagonists aren't villains. They're people with conflicting objectives from my main character. It's often in a gray zone and tends to raise complex questions like "who's right?" I like both of these. I think it's more morally challenging for the reader. It's easy to just label someone as a bad person and then cast them as the villain; modern culture is full of that. It takes more nuance and empathy to understand a character who gets in the way because of their understandable beliefs or goals, and it takes more courage to recognize that something you identify with might be a bad guy thing.
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Post by Caulder Melhaire on Mar 25, 2024 14:41:05 GMT -6
Dracula, from the relatively recent Castlevania adaptation on Netflix, is probably one of my favorite villains of all time. There's actually a lot of good villains in that series (and the new sequel series), but Dracula's story had me on the fence towards the end. I've played the majority of the games, so I know how the story always goes, but the ending was legitimately hard to watch, for more reasons than one. Always love a series that makes me genuinely enjoy following the bad guys as much as the good guys, even if good does have to triumph in the end. The 'villain' in the Broken Earth series is also a favorite. Very few of the opposing forces in that series actually felt like villains to me, just pissed-off entities with alternative, reasonable, identifiable-with motives to the MC. And in the final chapters? No spoilers, but I was legitimately torn as to who I wanted to come out on top. I've never felt like a story was asking me to make the choice for myself before, but that was sooo close.
I would love to say that I successfully emulate that energy in my own writing lol. My novel, should I ever manage to progress in it, has a number of villains, but the true antagonists? I'm trying to design them along that sort of front. I'm hoping to direct it to end with a: Main Character wants option A, Antagonist wants option B, but Antagonist's reasons are valid, and kind of make the MC rethink and ultimately work towards an option C that saves both of them without being utterly destructive.
...I also do sometimes just love to see a complete and utter bastard of a living thing who has you drooling every page/episode in anticipation of them getting the most violent, bloody brutal comeuppance imaginable. The "death is too good for you" kind of villain. Mahito (Jujutsu Kaisen) is a great example of this. But I much more prefer the others.
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Post by Valhalla Erikson on Mar 26, 2024 23:44:53 GMT -6
Out of curiosity what kind of villains you like to write or what kind that intrigues you? For me I want to take a villain concept into a direction that I don't think has been done. Take a character motivation that drives the heroic protagonist but use that as a motivation for a villain. The motivations may be similar but the means to reach their particular goal may differ. Yes I love this. My favorite villains are the ones that do the things for good reasons. Or understandable reasons. And you have to challenge yourself to actually contextualize them as the villain. But on the other side of things, I like villains who are just...selfish. Narcissistic. Power drunk. Believes themselves to be untouchable and because of that they make more and more immoral choices taking them further from their own humanity. One of my favorite books starts with the villain of 200 years being defeated. The whole duology is about dealing with the repercussions of his decisions, his tyranny, his depravity. Because once you defeat the Big Bad and take back power...then what? You deal with the incredible trauma left in their wake. And the villains motivation? Greed, maintaining power, being revered as a god. This is the duology Strange the Dreamer and Muse of Nightmares. I highly recommend it. In MY OWN books, my antagonists aren't villains. They're people with conflicting objectives from my main character. It's often in a gray zone and tends to raise complex questions like "who's right?" That's what I write my villains on too. Some of them are power players who like to weave the web of corruption within the area that they run but do we ever look at a villain when they're off the villain clock? So I tend to write them as people. One villain I have for my superhero story is a notorious crime lord but behind the scenes, she's a good mother who generally cares about her children. Its one of the many reasons why I love Breaking Bad because it has villains who'd commit unspeakable acts but they showcase a human side when interacting with their respective families. Walter White was not a good guy, even before he dealt drugs, but his story reads like something of a tragic play conducted by Shakespear. |
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Post by Valhalla Erikson on Mar 26, 2024 23:54:42 GMT -6
Dracula, from the relatively recent Castlevania adaptation on Netflix, is probably one of my favorite villains of all time. There's actually a lot of good villains in that series (and the new sequel series), but Dracula's story had me on the fence towards the end. I've played the majority of the games, so I know how the story always goes, but the ending was legitimately hard to watch, for more reasons than one. Always love a series that makes me genuinely enjoy following the bad guys as much as the good guys, even if good does have to triumph in the end. The 'villain' in the Broken Earth series is also a favorite. Very few of the opposing forces in that series actually felt like villains to me, just pissed-off entities with alternative, reasonable, identifiable-with motives to the MC. And in the final chapters? No spoilers, but I was legitimately torn as to who I wanted to come out on top. I've never felt like a story was asking me to make the choice for myself before, but that was sooo close.
I would love to say that I successfully emulate that energy in my own writing lol. My novel, should I ever manage to progress in it, has a number of villains, but the true antagonists? I'm trying to design them along that sort of front. I'm hoping to direct it to end with a: Main Character wants option A, Antagonist wants option B, but Antagonist's reasons are valid, and kind of make the MC rethink and ultimately work towards an option C that saves both of them without being utterly destructive.
...I also do sometimes just love to see a complete and utter bastard of a living thing who has you drooling every page/episode in anticipation of them getting the most violent, bloody brutal comeuppance imaginable. The "death is too good for you" kind of villain. Mahito (Jujutsu Kaisen) is a great example of this. But I much more prefer the others.  The main antagonist for my Rogue Princess series can be this. He's a cold and calculating general for a corrupt Republic who likes to break those whom he captures and interrogates psychologically. He believes that he is doing what he's doing for his country but truthfully it's to channel his sociopathic tendencies towards an unfortunate individual. |
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