So You Want To / Write a Villain

Without the Lex Luthors of the world, the Supermen have pointless quests. Without The Jokers of the world, the Batmen have no real threat. Without a good villain, the story just falls flat. So step by step, we'll learn how to create a good villain.

To start off:

What made the villain a villain?

• One thing that bugs people about villains are the kind that are just one-dimensional cardboard strawmen, with no real motivation or backstory. They're just evil because... you know, they're evil! This is why a backstory should probably be in place. It doesn't have to be revealed at the very start of their appearance, but it can also impact the story to know why they're doing this.

What do they want?

• Antagonists with no defined motivation can sometimes make for a truly chilling horror movie slasher or an Eldritch Abomination in a Cosmic Horror Story. However, these types of antagonist are so inhuman that they are better described as monsters than as villains. Villains are, on some level, human and thus need a motivation. "To be evil" is a pretty pathetic goal, unless it's a kid's cartoon and/or it's Played for Laughs. "Taking over the world" and "Getting rich" are also fairly one-dimensional motivations, but can be done well, especially if paired with another motivation. Some of the best villains are Anti Villains; The Hero can't let them do what they're doing, but they can understand why they're doing it. Some good examples of these are from the tropes Well-Intentioned Extremist, Knight Templar, My Country, Right or Wrong, and A Hero to His Hometown.
  "The truly great villain is one who talks sense."

  — Ben Croshaw

Sympathetic Villain

• Continuing with some of the points mentioned in the above paragraph, if you have a villain going against society's norms, then it should better be for a good reason. Making them an individual or their group that has been wronged in some way (e.g. Jerkass Woobie) is a good way of showing that they are people who have some good intention even if their methods are wrong and are not just being antagonistic because they are arseholes. Occasionally, the villain might not even be villainous to begin with, just on the wrong side.

Unsympathetic Villain

• While no one is wholly good or evil, there are a small fringe of people who just want to see the world burn. This is what this section is about. When making a character who is not suppose to receive sympathy, the best way is to present them as having an ideology that can make rationalizing excessive self-centrism acceptable (e.g. Nihilism and/or Misanthropy are good examples). Depending on which end of the Sliding Scale Of Idealism Versus Cynicism, how society is operates or is portrayed (e.g. Is it Corrupt? Hostile?) will also play some part in how they regard their sociopathic tendencies as being reasonable. Again as mentioned earlier, be wary about associating an unsympathetic villain with whatever thing you don't like because it isn't justified to claim that anyone who associates with said thing is automatically evil.

How subtle will they be?

• Let's face it; sometimes, a villain could only be less subtle if they were constantly banging cymbals on people's heads. This is why a little subtlety goes a long way. Never upright say "They're a villain because of their obvious appearance and the fact that they kick puppies off of the street every day!"

How threatening are they?

• A villain should be at least somewhat threatening. After all, that's usually the point behind having a villain. It's why most Slice of Life stories don't really have villains while genres that rely on tension (like action, horror, or thriller) do.
  
  To effectively create narrative tension, a villain needs two qualities: a) A threatening goal (see the Sliding Scale of Antagonist Vileness and Sliding Scale of Villain Threat pages) and b) high chances of succeeding at it (see Sliding Scale of Villain Effectiveness). Sauron might not be a particularly complex character, but he works because he succeeds at these two points. He wants to take over Middle Earth and enslave everyone and he is hard to defeat because the only way to kill him is to carry the Ring to Mount Doom.
  
  Of course, the threat level, vileness, and effectiveness of a villain should match the tone of work they appear in. Not every villain in a story centered around a Quirky Town needs to Take Over the World. Moreover, a Complete Monster might not be appropriate for a light-hearted Saturday-Morning Cartoon, while most School Stories do just fine with The Bully being around. Similarly, comedies and very light-hearted stories often have incompetent or harmless villains while other genres need a Big Bad that's at least a credible threat (although minor villains can be lower on the scale). Otherwise, the audience will end up wondering why the police haven't taken the bad guy into custody yet. Finally, for Long-Runners, consider the Sorting Algorithm of Evil when determining how threatening and competent your villains are supposed to be in relation to each other.
• For specific tropes that can make a villain more threatening, see the Write a Magnificent Bastard and Write a Complete Monster pages. Now, a threatening villain doesn't need to be either of the two. However, many of the tropes associated with the Magnificent Bastard play into the "high chance of winning" factor. Plus, making the villain vile and despicable makes the audience fear what might happen if they win. However, as noted on both pages, these two tropes are hard to mix. So, better decide what side of the spectrum you want you villain to lean towards.

How will they be defeated?

• Lastly, unless you're going for The Bad Guy Wins, your villain probably needs to lose at the end. This defeat must be credible. As mentioned under Pitfalls, the Invincible Villain is a trope you'll generally want to avoid. Not only will audiences hate such a character, but a too overpowered villain inevitably results in Only the Author Can Save Them Now scenarios. To avoid such a scenario, give the villain a weakness (whether it's a Character Flaw, a Kryptonite Factor, inner conflict, or a critical flaw in their Evil Plan) that the hero can exploit during the third act. The weakness shouldn't be too obvious (as that would destroy the villain's threat and make everyone involved looking like an idiot for not exploiting it), but it shouldn't come out of nowhere either (otherwise, you get Third Act Stupidity). Alternatively, you can try making the hero powerful enough to beat the villain without a Deus ex Machina. The hero should still start out weaker than the villain, but during the climax, they'll need a previously established skill (or an 11th-Hour Superpower, if you foreshadow carefully) to win.
  
  Besides making the defeat credible, watch for karma. A villain should be punished according to their vileness. The last thing you'll want is for a Complete Monster Hate Sink to end up as a Karma Houdini. A Heel–Face Turn for a villain who is long past the Moral Event Horizon won't work either. If your villain is meant to be as bad as they come, don't hold back with the Catharsis Factor. On the other hand, doing the same to a Likable Villain is likely to result in Karmic Overkill. Face Death with Dignity or even a Heel–Face Turn is better for sympathetic villains.

Pitfalls

A villain can fall flat on his face if:

Strawman Has a Point is in play.

• Sometimes, the director wants you to know that this strawman is evil, but makes the arguments that the villain points out actually reasonable. If the villain thinks that the giant monster will destroy the city, there will actually be a reason for his belief. If they think that the convicted criminals that hold UAV drones in their weapon cache and shoot RPGs at people randomly are a problem, that can actually work. Follow this rule: if the audience understands the desire, the villain has a point, and thus, is not that much of a villain when people think about it.
  • At the same time, when the Villain Has a Point, this can be a great way to make a sympathetic villain likable or to make the story's morality a bit less black-and-white. Problems occur when your supposedly unsympathetic strawman villain makes claims that are supposed to be wrong, but actually resonate with the audience.

The villain is more likable than the hero.

• We're not here to make the protagonist a villain, we're here to make a good villain a good villain, which won't work if the hero decides to horribly torture and disfigure innocent people for interrogation, while all the villain has done is kidnap someone. Let's face it, would you root for that hero at that moment? Unless your intended goal is to make a Grey-and-Gray Morality system, villains are villains, not the people we are rooting for.

The audience enjoys the villain more.

• Let's say you have made a movie where the hero is a psychotic, but boring and undeveloped fellow who has to defeat a hammy, fun, cool, and overall more characterized villain. If the audience wants more of the villain, you're doing it wrong. The villain isn't the subject of character, the protagonists are. Unless you're going with a Villain Protagonist, in which case this will obviously benefit the villain.

The villain is overly bland.

• How about we turn the last point on its head and talk about bland villains? As we've said before, one-dimensional strawmen who want to take over the world because of money are the worst kinds of villains, and should preferably be avoided.

The villain is Unintentionally Unsympathetic.

• On the other hand, if your villain is supposed to be a sympathetic Anti-Villain, but their evil feels disproportionate to their backstory suffering, or their methods seem pointlessly cruel for their well-intentioned goals, or they commit some particularly evil act like rape, child murder, or slavery, then the audience will simply hate them.

The villain never loses.

• A good villain needs to be defeatable by the heroes or at least show some kind of weakness. If your villain constantly wins over the heroes, survives situations that should have logically killed them, or ultimately comes out on top despite all signs indicating that they shouldn’t, then the audience is going to hate them, at which point your story will likely fall into Only the Author Can Save Them Now territory. The only time this should generally be done is if the villain does, in fact, get defeated at the end after many failed attempts, or the villain is the protagonist of the story- but if you’re going for the latter, beware of making them too invincible and not having them have any redeeming traits, as then they will come off as unsympathetic.

The villain never wins.

• Conversely, a good villain needs to provide a suitable threat, or at least show some kind of strength. If your villain constantly gets trampled on, falls flat on their face to even the most harmless of situations, or ultimately never gets to come out on top despite all signs indicating then they should, then the audience is going to hate them, at which point you can expect to hear the Eight Deadly Words in regards to your story. The only time this should generally be done is if the villain does, in fact, actually win for once after many failed attempts, or the villain is an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain- however, even the latter could fall if they never do anything right. In addition, as the saying goes, "a hero is only ever as strong as the villain they fight," so if your awesome hero is never seriously challenged, then how awesome are they really, if they can only defeat incompetent buffoons? Having the hero defeat a seemingly-invincible opponent through hard work is much more likely to come off as awesome.

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