A Question of a Motive

I am currently involved in two, intertwined projects.

One is an RP and the other is my book, and I have a villain whose motivation I am playing around with, namely that it would at first look like For the Evulz.

However, I'd like your input in terms of if this goes far enough to make him seem sympathetic and tragic, despite him trying to be seen as a Complete Monster and a feared Hero Killer.

Ein Woe at first just seems like a copy cat Joker type character, inflicting horrid ends on people in ways he deems ironic.

He does, however, have a reason for his "reasonless acts", mainly a belief that it is just the nature of things and what he is, being caused by his Freudian Excuse and driving goal. He believes the world is rotten, and he needs to out-evil everyone to survive.

Ein Woe used to be a reasonably normal student, being an exchange student together with Gabriel "Gabe" Kanters, who he looked up to as a brother figure and a Big Brother Mentor, being many times stronger than Ein at the time, and who Ein trusted to teach him magic and other arts to defend himself. Gabe was, in turn, the only one Ein really trusted due to his past.

He fell for a student from his school, a very charming and beautiful young woman, but when she showed preference for Gabe, Ein let Gabe have her as a way of having his beloved be happy, as he had loved her more than he let on, deciding to stay with her no matter what.

It turns out Gabe was a Metamorph-Magi, or an individual who eventually undergoes a very, very long pilgrimage by turning into a certain animal and attuning himself with nature in an attempt to reach a greater understanding of the natural forces of the magical world.

Ein had to listen as he confessed this truth to her, and what was more, it was his last day before he left forever. Ein listened to her cross the Despair Event Horizon and beg him not to leave. However, once begun, this was one pilgrimage that could not be cancelled.

Enraged into action, Ein became what he is now, and confronted Gabe over this. His own I Want My Beloved to Be Happy plan falling into pieces around him, he demanded Gabe refuse the pilgrimage.

The same answer was given to Ein; it cannot be done. So in the course of anger, he decided to break as many of Gabe's bones as possible to ensure the metamorphosis simply could not be done due to bodily damage.

His attack was repulsed, and he was badly beaten. Despite this failure and a series of others in trying to undo the spellcraft involved in the Metamorph-Magi Pilgrimage, he vowed he would break the rules of magic and rip Gabe's honorable pilgrimage and new "wild and free" life style away from him, ostensibly for the sake of malice.

Ostensibly.

So, thoughts on his motivation? Does it go far enough, or should I augment it a little.

edited 2nd Jun '12 9:14:28 PM by NickTheSwing

Seems kind of like an overreaction. I mean, vowing to destroy your best friend's life because he's going on a spiritual pilgrimage? That's pretty melodramatic.

Seriously, it's like becoming Sauron because your buddy moved to another country.

I think it could work, though it's definitely (over)dramatic. A large part of it depends on the tone of the work. If this is an 'epic' world with larger than life characters, where people die of heartbreak and true love is supposed to conquer all, than yes I think it can work. If on the other hand this is a world in which people live there life with 9 to 5 job, eat a tub of ben and jerry to deal with loss and settle with someone because they are tired of being alone than this is a huge melodramatic overreaction.

It also depends a lot on the fate of the girl and how you want to present the villain. If the girl eventually recovered or has found some sort of peace with what happened, his whole motivation becomes that much more pathetic. The other way also holds true. If she never recovered and pines for Gabe to this day than his reaction is more understandable and gains a more noble streak. I think it's also significant if he takes care of the girl or abandoned her, for whatever reason.

I get the feeling you're going for the second option (the noble streak), so in that case you have to decide if it the reaction fits in the world. Hope this helped.

In terms of the world setting, its basically a world like our own, but with mysticism hidden away underneath a masquerade.

As far as the reaction Ein made, it was not so much just that his friend was going on this big spiritual journey, it was that he told nobody, not even the girl beforehand or even Ein (his trusted friend at that point), and then had a two week relationship with the girl and suddenly broke it off with her. Then, Ein had to listen to her confront Gabe about it, learn the truth, and then go through the Despair Event Horizon.

She basically became a Stepford Smiler Broken Bird, and Ein tried to comfort her as she left the room, but she ran away (She had a very crappy life before this even began).

The girl's fate after the events occurred is that at first she looks happy and content, finding a relationship with another guy, but inside she is just using him as a substitute for Gabe and has never really gotten over the events that happened.

So the protagonist left in a way that fucked with the head of someone they both knew to be severely emotionally fragile? Yeah, that's a fair reason to hate his guts - just not a reason to go full-on supervillain. He's probably going to need a broader motive as well. I mean, he's trying to hurt lots of people, not just the protagonist.

Essentially, those school years were meant to be something of a Hope Spot or a recovery for Ein, as his own earlier life was utterly horrible. As the son of a mortal woman who was, ah, "taken", by a demon, Ein was detested by both infernal creatures and magical humans, due to being a half-breed.

And by detested, I mean his step-father treated him like he wasn't even a living thing, and his own mother absolutely hated him. If he ever developed a close relationship with anyone, one of his parents would tell that person what Ein was and not to ever speak to him again.

He was fed only months beyond expired food, and any deviance from this diet was met with a whipping. He was made to sleep in a dog house in the same yard as vicious dogs that constantly tried to maul him. At one point, they even tried to sell him to some slave traders.

He was lucky to get out of that, but ended up convinced he had no place in the world, that everyone was just rotten inside.

He was adopted by a man named Cal Maynes, and was sent off to that school to try to recuperate his mental state. At first, it looked like it was working, that Ein really was happy, that he finally found someone who genuinely befriended him (Gabe), and a girl who stood up for him (mutual love interest).

And then all this happened.

Man, you sure love piling on the melodrama, no?

Perhaps, maybe I just enjoy a more dramatic, tragic story.

To each his own.

For the record, if that was the case, you might want want to read up on people like Genie.

edited 3rd Jun '12 4:58:49 PM by MrAHR

He wasn't completely starved of any outside experience, it just tended to end, as I said, with people turned against him.

Still though, the psychological abuse from the dogs and whatnot would severely mess with him, and he'd probably be more animalistic than human.

Oh, yes, I see, such could definitely explain why Ein would behave in one particular way, namely, if someone ever reminds him of Gabe, his eyes turn reptilian, and he starts acting a bit like an animal.

edited 3rd Jun '12 8:18:19 PM by NickTheSwing

Perhaps, maybe I just enjoy a more dramatic, tragic story.

Whether a story is tragic has nothing to do with whether it's melodramatic. Tragedy is just when things don't end well (and classical tragedy is when they don't end well for X heavily foreshadowed reasons). Melodrama, meanwhile, is when everything is completely over-the-top. Someone's parents weren't just abusive or neglectful of him - they stuck him in a medieval torture dungeon for weeks on end. A youthful falling-out didn't just result in a bit of bad blood, but in the two former friends vowing for all eternity to destroy each other's lives. People don't just die, they choke, flail around, give hour-long speeches, and then die.

That is melodrama, and as you've probably noticed, it can get a bit silly. If you really want to write a melodrama, I suggest you either keep it somewhat self-aware or play it to the absolute shrieking, gibbering hilt.

Hmm. Shakespeare had quite a lot of melodrama in his tragedies, but I wouldn't say he went absolutely all-out with it. The poetic style probably softened the blow though, if everyone's already shouting in rhymes then a bit of extra silliness won't detract from it.

Plus, Shakespeare was pretty self-aware. Famously, his epic, tragic romance Romeo and Juliet started with a page's worth of dick jokes, and the play-within-a-play in Hamlet was a vehicle for him to take the piss out of modern tragedies, including his own.

And it was also about Existentialism.

The New Dawn Series does acknowledge itself as being melodramatic, and hangs lampshades on it very consistently.

And there's also the dick jokes, the sex jokes, the anime / manga references, and current popular culture references.

As in, when a swarm of demons generates out of one roiling monster blob, Matthew quips, "They're multiplying faster than the Duggars, and they're just as mindless and horrible!"

edited 4th Jun '12 3:18:31 PM by NickTheSwing

That joke's a bit clunky - I mean, you'd expect demons to be horrible, right?

Possible suggestion for an alternative:

He glanced through the door, before slamming it shut again as one of the smaller creatures made a beeline for his nose. "Huh - a hideous, endlessly-multiplying horde. Someone rent this room to the Duggar family?"

Thanks a million. That one's much funnier.

No big, chief.

If you're going to make some kind of cosmically powerful The Joker it's going to be pretty difficult to make him in any way sympathetic. He's going to need a very good reason for his behavior, and personal tragedy isn't going to cut it, no matter how heinous.

People do "break" and extensive personal tragedy can be used to explain why a complete monster is the way he is, and most of the audience will probably accept it, but explaining a complete monster's origin is different from making him sympathetic.

That is the thing. Despite Ein acting monstrously on many occasions, on others, he is very strangely helpful if he decides the enemy has offended his Blue-and-Orange Morality.

And he has this strange Even Evil Has Standards thing about three things:

• People expressing to love somebody, but only pretending to in order to deceive them. Ein is HONEST about what he wants, and still manages to use said person despite them knowing he's up to something. That's just how he rolls.

• Offending his sense of "aesthetic". For example, if you brag about how powerful you are, but then go and take hostages who are women and children, Ein will take issue.

• And, for pete's sake, do not talk about a sentient weapon or some sort of living macguffin like its not human. That's a quick way to get yourself sliced up.

Well, that gives him style, which may be good enough for your purposes... We all love a villain who delivers a good performance and is generally entertaining.

Yeah, one of his main traits after the Start of Darkness is that he is the most genuinely helpful villain to the heroes, for a variety of odd reasons. He is mainly doing it to spite the various other villains. His trolling of Anathema is a thing of beauty.

edited 4th Jun '12 5:11:08 PM by NickTheSwing

Just one more question, mainly due to a fight that occurs between Ein and Gabe. I wanted to use a certain look to the fight to show Ein is still getting used to his dark new powers in that fight, but is improvising up some attacks, and a general desperate feel on his end as the fight goes on.

Thanks for the prior help.