Developing a Villain Protagonist

I'm currently working on a villain Protagonists who is a bit of The Atoner and has regret for his past and even some of his current actions. I want to create him to sympathetic but a the current time he just seems Pathetic to me, he's full of Wangst with more melodramatic than one of Lord Byron's heroes.

I was wondering if anyone has any tips for writing some-what sympathetic villain's and developing them with time?

edited 10th Apr '11 11:22:12 PM by Vyctorian

Moar detail, please.

Pitiable != sympathetic, also. Might even go the other way, people might have backlash for a villain who's too much into self-pity and freudian excuses.

I think if he's going to be sympathetic, the bad deeds have to be justifiable on some level that people will get. And the atoning is genuine atoning, like helping people and such, rather than just more self-pity.

I think some of the most effective villain protagonists are the ones that are unapologetically evil. They don't necessarily need to be good on the inside or have a moral code to be sympathetic. I think the reason why people can relate to villains and villain protagonists is because we all have a dark side, and a lot of us think it would be so great to just let this dark side out without fear of being ostracized. These characters are strong because they can be bad and they don't care what anybody thinks of them. We also know that not all of our motives are motivated by a sense of goodness, in fact, most people are selfish, and villains truly represent this.

Don't be afraid to let your villain exhibit negative behavior. As long as the audience is made to understand and relate to the character's motivations, then they should be able to sympathize with him no matter what his actions are, whether they are good or evil. The audience should understand why the protagonist thinks he needs to do whatever he does. As long as he's not doing evil for evil's sake, or straying into Complete Monster territory, then the audience should be able to root for the character the whole way.

It's alright for the character to feel bad for what he's done, but that doesn't mean that he's now a complete different person than he was before. Whatever traits he had that made him such an effective villain should still be with him, and could be used to make him an effective atoner. He could still retain whatever attitude that he did before. He could still have a tendency to bend the rules. He could still have the kind of aggressive attitude that makes people fear him. He could still be just as persuasive as better. He could still have a never-say-die attitude. The only difference is how he focuses these traits. Give him a new goal, something to reach for that could make right everything he's made wrong in the past, something that will allow him to use his skills to do something good, in fact, more good than anybody without his dark past could ever do.

Well actually i only want him to start as a Villain Protagonist by the end of the story I want him to be less Light Yagami and more Bat Man / Azrael. With the whole purpose in his character is to go in the opposite direction of a trend I've seen of of a young person going from neutral person to Villain or Anti-villain.

As for more about him he's an high school student but he has Emotional vampirism as a power, he gets Horror Hunger pains and feeds by creating emotional turmoil, Horror Hunger is the extent of his motivation at the start of the story. He's also on the edge of Anti-Villain.

Also he's kinda on a tight leash after chapter one, as a Mentor figure enters his life with an ultimatum atone and train under me or die a painful merciless death as payment for your sins. so I can't really let him be truly villainous, plus he's made to experience what he's been doing to others before the ultimatum is even given.

But his mentor is also a rule breaker, Anti-hero so I can get away with some stuff with him I'm thankful for the advice.

edited 11th Apr '11 12:50:09 AM by Vyctorian

Well, I normally write villain protagonists.

They tend to be unapologetically evil. They have personal goals: Often those goals are as simple as 'being left alone' or 'striking it big', but they can range from a straight He Who Fights Monsters to a For the Evulz. Still, make the goals clear and understandable when writing from a villain POV.

Extreme, even disturbing ruthlessness and lack of empathy are a safe bet. Some Black Humor can't hurt. Villains are not neccessarily psychopaths. Pragmatic ones normally work better as villain protagonists, but over the top Ax-Crazy psychos can work too, ESPECIALLY when Played for Laughs.

Some guilt and angst for very particular actions are appropriate, but avoid Wangst.

edited 11th Apr '11 4:01:21 AM by SavageHeathen

Whatever you do, make sure his actions make sense for him. Don't worry so much about making him do good or evil, just design his character such that it flows naturally.

I'm working on a story with a protagonist who, in the first chapter, mind-controls his foster brother into helping him torture a classmate. He's barely said two words to this classmate before.

His underlying thing is that he does not feel empathy for others (he was born that way) and has suffered at the hands of sadistic people in the past. As a result, he's decided the best way to enjoy himself is to hurt others.