Female Villains - How to do a truly evil one?

As the time passed and more OC's have developed, an increasing number of female ones appeared as well. However, the ones that were supposed to be antagonists never quite reached the level of vileness I wanted them to reach.

The Queen of All Succubi turned into The Woobie screwed over by pretty much everyone and eventually defected to the good guys' side. A ruthless militant inquisitor turned like that because of her desperate longing for acceptance of her deity caused by her being a body for a powerful demon to settle its soul in rather than actual malice. Finally, a town mayor planning to keep heroes in there on Big Bad's behalf turns out to be brainwashed.

I was wondering if among writers around here there are those who generally are against putting females as villains or have trouble doing so. To everyone else, is there any advice that you can offer in that regard?

Okay, as much as I otherwise dislike potholing as explanations, Drow Tales has some VERY good female antagonists of both kinds, and Invidia Aquitaine of Codex Alera is pretty much the epitome of villainess.

You're wanting advice on how to make a truly deplorable female villain? I want to say that it's easy: just use the same thought process you would for making a truly deplorable male villain... But that doesn't work out as well as you'd think. The female antagonist in my current story is actually a fae creature, so she doesn't really count...

That sounds like a personal problem. There aren't really "female villains", just villains.

This might help, although it's about making female characters in general, not just villains.

I likely have more female villains than I do males.

In fact, I think for the first time in my life I'm working with a male villain and he's arguably the most sympathetic character in the story simply because so much goes horribly wrong for him.

edited 27th Mar '14 4:31:46 PM by Night

"What happens when one tries to fit other iconic male heroes into an imaginary “Strong Male Character” box? A few fit reasonably well, but many look cramped and bewildered in there. They’re not used to this kind of confinement, poor things. They’re used to being interesting across more than one axis and in more than two dimensions."

Very interesting. This makes the same point using Elsa from the Disney film "Frozen". And this also makes the point in a more general and systematic way:

"...Screw writing “strong” women. Write interesting women. Write well-rounded women. Write complicated women. Write a woman who kicks ass, write a woman who cowers in a corner. Write a woman who’s desperate for a husband. Write a woman who doesn’t need a man. Write women who cry, women who rant, women who are shy, women who don’t take no shit, women who need validation and women who don’t care what anybody thinks. THEY ARE ALL OKAY, and all those things could exist in THE SAME WOMAN."

edited 27th Mar '14 7:00:10 PM by DeMarquis

That's really the gripe I have with that article. She's the one choosing to use the narrower, and, I would argue, less common, definition of "strong" in "strong female character". She's requiring that they be physically strong, but think about it — when someone says something like "my mother was an incredibly strong woman" or "I admire <fitb>, she's a very strong woman" how often are they talking about that woman's physical strength? But when she's talking about the male characters that she doesn't consider "Strong Male Characters" — the ones she says don't fit in that box (Batman? Dr Who?) she's using "strong" as something far more encompassing than simply physical strength.

She's not talking about physical strength at all in the article.

Anyway to make a truly evil female villain she needs to do truly evil things for truly evil reasons. Genocide is always a good place to start, I think.

That's...not what happens in that article at all? In any of the articles linked so far?

edited 27th Mar '14 8:46:18 PM by Night

Does gender enter into this at all? Is there a "feminine vs masculine" style to evil? Should a female villain be any different from a male one?

Indeed. What you should do is writing characters, characters who are interesting and flawed people. I am frustrated that something this obvious still needs to be said.

female characters tend to be deprived of agency and assumed more innocent. hell, Females Are More Innocent is as trope here, which is all about the distinct lack of truly evil female villains.

in truth this is a bit hard for me as well. in one of my stories I have basically 3 Complete Monster s, with only one being a woman, and she's currently the only one lacking any motivation for her actions. the other two are a guy who genuinely finds joy in others suffering and his brother, who is an Empty Shell with most of his personality and actions basically being learned from his psycho brother.

for the chick, I do have her doing truly horrible, irredeemable things, but I want her to have some sort of understandable motivation, but I don't want it to be sympathetic one.

edited 28th Mar '14 11:14:48 AM by Jetyl

That and female villains tend to be bad because a man screwed them over. Or worse.

I have a slew of female villains, whose motivation runs the gamut from Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds to Well-Intentioned Extremist ,to just straight up being sociopathic assholes.

edited 28th Mar '14 1:13:50 PM by Nightwire

I've dealt with any number of female villains, as I noted earlier. The majority of them never had much of a chance to be anything else; they are physiological sociopaths, their lack of empathy fixed before they were born, their roles as the enforcers of the will of others via violence preordained. They're largely content with this. Those that aren't typically aren't because they've progressed from sociopathy to violent psychosis; like it to need it, basically.

The fact they're female is largely irrelevant.

When I think about it I don't have female Complete Monster. There are three guys tied for title of Big Bad and some other three truly vile male villains. Worst of females are AI in female cyborg body, two seperate cases of extention of Eldritch Abomination showing in up female body, two cases where they are much more insane than evil and neglectfull mother who could be considered to be close to Complete Monster but her role is rather small.

But I don't see this as big problem. Sure I don't have honest to God female Complete Monster, but I see no need to force one in. Especially since everything and everyone are in their places doing what's needed for plot to unfold. Like other posters said, don't force stronge female character. Same can be said about evil female character.

edited 29th Mar '14 1:12:55 AM by Prany

@Oh so into cats: As another bonus, I think that's the first time that sentence has been uttered. So points to you. lol

Nightwire said it. The trick is to just hold your female villains to the same standard as you do your male ones. You don't write a female villain - you write a villain who is female.

This. Sometimes it seems the writer faces a dilemma of "female who comes across as stereotypically weak and helpless" or "courageous female who seems to have been intentionally written to be bitchy." There are, of course, plenty of ways around this, but my preferred method is to just write a villain first and a woman second.

Yes. It troubles me when people act like not being a given gender or sex should be an impediment to writing a character of in that category.

Coincidentally, what may be the most unsympathetic and incorrigibly vicious character in nearly anything that I have written is a woman, perhaps because of my disdain for how women tend to be underestimated in the meta-narrative of most media. After all, isn't the flip-side to the notion that women are passive that women are incapable of committing great acts of cruelty as well as good?

I think a good thing to note here is that while, yes, you should be writing a villain who is female, socio-cultural upbringing should be taken into account, at least. Especially if the villain is older and/or was raised in a more gendered society. She would act different than a male villain, the types of cruel unspeakable things might be done differently. My advice for creating your own is to take a look at female serial killers.

I have a villain that just so happens to be female. She is by far more evil and vile than the two male villains. She has no freudian excuse, no rape as backstory. She loves to torture and kill, and prefers that her victims are terrified before they die, usually by screwing with their minds. Before she is revealed as the villain, most people assumed that she was a man. However, in the way she goes about it, she remains feminine. She wears dresses, makeup, jewelry. She isn't a male villain written to be female. She IS female and enjoys being so. She just so happens to enjoy killing people too.

This ain't a hard and fast rule - just personal view - but it'd be pretty nice to see a female villain whose past doesn't involve a tragic past involving a male, most commonly a father figure. Going for the whole abused-neglected-background thing is way too easy a choice, and I wouldn't go straight for it in a male character either. Things like being betrayed by a man she trusted - while still can be done well, needs to be done carefully. Oftentimes the backstory will end up choking and overshadowing the here and now of the villainess' actions.

Like everyone said, make a villain first and a woman second. And also said above, if you can actually play up her femininity to complement her villainy, then all the better.

Instead of the more common tragic background, Dark Magical Girl-esque characters, have some variety. Have a skeevy politician, corrupt vizier, psychotic Joker-esque mass murderer or a dictator as women. Come up with a villain idea, and just consciously consider the possibility they could be female instead. Honestly, a lot of nice female villains could be made, it's just that we tend to default to males whenever we come up with one.

I don't have any problem with villains. My future trilogy's main villain is a female and she's just as evil and powerful as a male would have been. And her goals are like, destroying the other countries to make her own become the strongest and wealthiest nation, and also to make herself look like the best leader ever. (Villain with Good Publicity,clearly.) And she has no interest in romance.

Basically, I see it like... gender shouldn't matter unless needed. Just make a villain, and give them a gender. If they are female, good for them. If they are male, no difference.

I honestly struggle with writing MALE villains. When it comes to my antagonists in general, but particularly female ones, I try to keep their motives in mind. Sometimes it's easy to write male characters as more straight forward and willing to do whatever they please. Then there are females who normally lean into Woman Scorned or The Woobie because they have personal problems that led to their evilness.

Sometimes you have to just throw gender out the window and write the villain as a villain in any shape or form you find fitting. Not everyone has to be downright vicious, but if that's what's your aiming for, go right ahead.

Female or not, the best thing to do with a villain is to remember that their roots and plan is what makes them truly devious. And in the end, what sex they were won't even really matter in the end.

Honestly, I would just write the villain without caring for gender unless there is a specific reason the character is male or female in the plot. Men and women are all capable of just about everything IMO, and that includes some deplorable stuff. Just think of what you find to be "truly evil" and then make a female character do that if you want a "truly evil female villain".