Need help making a good villain

I'm working with two friends on a story, and we're trying to make a perfect villain who's both a Magnificent Bitch, and a Complete Monster without being a Villain Sue.

Can someone lend a hand? Here's the basic idea:

• Magnificent Bitch traits:
  • She was able to bring years magic to the world after it had been gone for almost 6000 years, taking advantage of her position in the empire to personally research strange phenomena through the millennia.
  • She's very charismatic and Affably Evil, having developed a large following that almost seems to be a cult.
  • She's a master of Xanatos Speed Chess: Found the secret to magic? Only teach your followers the basics. The hero learns about your discovery? Hide your research papers in your summer home rather than a big fancy safe. The hero steals the papers and learns about magic anyway? Attack him and his friends with your far more experienced cult. The hero survives and begins training the masses? Personally fly to an uncharted island with not even your own followers knowing and take the secret to greater magic for yourself. The hero somehow followed you and tries to steal the magic from you? Knock him out after he's absorbed half of it and take the other half for yourself. The hero's destroyed your cult and thinks he killed you? Take advantage of it and become an assassin so you can take out his lieutenants without being a suspect.
  • She's a mother to her men and never betrays them, so all her followers love her, which is the only reason she treats them like that.
  • She never underestimates her opponents and takes the time to factor the possibility that she could lose.
  • She doesn't tell her followers her full plans, ever. She may even tell them a fake plan. This way if the hero tries to interrogate them, he doesn't get what he's looking for.
  • She has a purpose for all of her vile deeds and never does pointlessly cruel things just for shits and giggles.
  • Finally, she isn't afraid of getting her own hands dirty and doesn't suffer from a Villainous Breakdown at any time, not even when she's dying.
• Complete Monster traits:
  • She feels literally no emotion and, as a consequence, has no reason to hold back on anything she carries out.
  • She manipulates people into either killing a target, or accidentally killing themselves.
  • She betrays any person who she works with and pins the whole mess on the person so she can get away scott-free.
  • Her actions are played completely seriously and the story takes the time to show the full extent of what she's done, averting A Million Is a Statistic.
  • Unlike a few other characters in the story, she's not insane and wasn't born evil. Every heinous action she commits has no excuse and cannot be justified.
  • She's directly responsible for countless deaths over the span of fifteen years. About less than 1% of those deaths were by her own hands.
  • Even after she dies, she's scarred the planet so severely that it will literally never fully recover from her actions.
  • Finally, the only time she shows any emotion is when the hero kills her child. She finally has a chance to stop what she's doing and try to redeem herself, but she just hardens her heart and shakes it off.
• Attempts to avoid being a Villain Sue:
  • She loses quite a few battles with the hero, and has been scarred more than once.
  • There are times where she shows tiny slivers of remorse, but that's completely gone by the end.
  • Close to the end, she's lost her cult and all her money, leaving her face the hero by herself.
  • The fights between the hero and herself are very evenly matche and never one-sided.

So with all this information, does she meet the three criteria I'm shooting for? If not, please give some advice on how to tweek it.

edited 11th Jul '12 8:52:06 PM by ChaoticQueen

Moved to Writer's Block.

Well she definitely doesn't sound like a villain sue.

From that description, she seems pretty paranoid - not really trusting any of her follower to get the high-level magic, not telling anyone her true plans, going off to some secret island that none of her people know about & n ot telling anyone.

This should really come back at her - maybe some followers become disenchanted with her (because she doesn't trust them), maybe the hero even plays this up to get some defections. Even if this doesn't happen, they should be less effective & flexible when she isn't directly overseeing things (which, from the sound of things, would happen fairly regularly) - because they aren't in possession of all the facts.

Having her downfall come because of her own flaws is more satisfying than just the hero overpowering the bad guys - and it seems like the way you're heading anyway, from the description.

• She feels literally no emotion and, as a consequence, has no reason to hold back on anything she carries out.
• She manipulates people into either killing a target, or accidentally killing themselves.
• She betrays any person who she works with and pins the whole mess on the person so she can get away scott-free.

These run contrary to the A Father to His Men trope. Habitual backstabbing and sociopathy dont go hand in hand with a protective attitude towards underlings. Particularly the lack of emotion bit, since she wouldnt feel bad for treating them badly, or feel rewarded for treating them well.

I think the implication is that she's a psychopath, but recognises that treating her people well gets better reactions & loyalty out of them - a mother to her men out of purely self-serving motivations.

It seems that there's a slight contradiction in being prepared for the possibility of her death yet never letting anybody else know the full extent of her plans. How exactly is she prepared? What events would unfold on her death? I'm quite intrigued about her.

edited 28th Jul '12 9:12:55 AM by Pattyunknown