Vlad was one of those old-time bad guys with honor and morals, which made him almost one of the good guys. None of us was a saint.
The Anti-Villain is the opposite of an
Anti-Hero - a villain with heroic goals, personality traits, and/or virtues. Their desired ends are mostly good, but their means of getting there are evil. Alternatively, their desired ends are
evil, but they are far more ethical or moral than most villains and they thus use fairly benign means to achieve it, and can be rather heroic on occasion.
They often reach a kind of critical mass that makes them more good than normal villains but not quite heroes, blurring the line between hero and villain the same way an
Anti-Hero does, but by coming from the opposite direction. Also, they seldom perform a full
Heel-Face Turn, or if they do, they continue to struggle with their villainous impulses.
Anti-Villain is an attempt to humanize, to lighten up, a villain as opposed to an
Anti-Hero, which has a tendency to darken the hero. Side by side, it can become very hard to tell them apart. The only reason some would even be considered evil at all is because they're the
Designated Villain. Despite this humanizing
characterization, they are rarely less dangerous. For instance, heroes wouldn't know what to expect if
their enemy shows caring and then
attacks their reputation, without giving them an excuse to
rationalize killing them.
Most of them are probably well aware that what they're doing is "evil", unlike the blinded
Knight Templar, but strive to maintain a facade of
good PR. They'll see it as a viable
means to a (possibly) good end.
It may also be possible to turn a normal villain into an Anti-Villain over time by detailing their
Start of Darkness, giving them a
Cynicism Catalyst, a
Morality Pet,
kind episodes, or otherwise
retconning them into
submission. A
Freudian Excuse may explain their actions, but almost never changes them into an Anti-Villain if there is nothing good about their present motivations.
Click here for the
Sliding Scale of Anti-Villains.
Villain types particularly prone to Anti-Villain-dom (though many have their share of flat-out villains, too) include:
See also
Villain Protagonist,
Hero Antagonist, and
Minion with an F in Evil, as well as
No Place for Me There. Compare
Sympathy for the Devil and
Satan Is Good. For a broad covering of what Anti-Villains can be, see the
Sliding Scale of Anti-Villains. Also see
Evil Virtues. These types of villains are generally more likely than most villains to show
Sympathy for the Hero.
Compare and contrast
Nominal Hero, a character who is often essentially a villain working for the heroes because
Even Evil Has Standards.
Do not confuse Anti-Villains with members of the Anti-Villain League.
Examples:
Discussion