Ensuring that Villains aren't TOO Sympathetic

I'm not super fond of the Redeemed By Love trope (especially when it is due to a singular other person) Just because a villain isn't a Complete Monster and genuinely cares about at least one person doesn't mean they can't be awful to other people or even a decent person overall.

Because of this, most of the antagonists in the project I'm working on now have some redeeming qualities despite the fact they do terrible things. The main thing I'm worried about is them coming off as Draco in Leather Pants to the audience,

• One is a aristocrat who allows several Moral Event Horizon crossing type things occur (and even participates in some of them) mainly because he fears losing his place in society and was raised by an ignorant family. Despite this, he loves and cares for his sister and many of his friends
• Two other characters (that I'm particularly worried about in the Draco in Leather Pants department) are a affectionate Happily Married husband and wife team who happen to be evangelistic religious zealots and are fantastic racists in their setting who openly contribute money to an Evil Empire that engages in despicable acts (such as murder, torture, eugenics, etc.) However, later in the story it is revealed they were manipulated by a Bigger Bad (but the Bigger Bad was not responsible for their previous actions) who proceeds to brutally murder them in front of each other. This is supposed to be at least moderately shocking and could possibly make them feel a bit more sympathetic towards them. (which I’m not sure if it would be a good or bad thing)

The couple makes very few onscreen appearances, but propaganda, etc. they've created shows up multiple times throughout the work. I know that Draco in Leather Pants -ing will still happen no matter what you try, but could the audience find issue with the fact that even though they are terrible people they are still characterized as “human?”

Well, terrible people are still human regardless anyways. Apart from that, Draco in Leather Pants is generally the audience's fault, not the writer's, so I don't think you have anything to worry about. I think the best thing you can do is to limit Offscreen Villainy and make sure that as much of their villainy as possible is "onscreen".

I actually think that recognizing that people can be incredibly cruel and evil while still having some good qualities and portraying villains as complicated humans instead of one-dimensional "embodiments of evil" shows maturity as a writer on your part. In your case, I think you should not worry so much about audience reaction and instead trust your instincts.

The couple is originally introduced by their Fantastic Racism filled propaganda which is being distributed in a city where the protagonists are staying. Their sentiments are reflected in a couple other characters. The only time I'm planning for them to actually appear "on screen" is when the come to make a deal with the Bigger Bad and are brutally murdered.

• I probably won't run into problems with make them appear relatively innocuous and almost friendly in their only on-screen appearance right? I don't want the audience to think that they were totally harmless. I was planning on maybe adding a biting line or two to them to ensure that the audience doesn't see their human-ness and their depravity as being mutually exclusive parts of themselves.

Honestly, villains aren't really sympathetic unless you actually agree with their beliefs.

Villains can be attractive, hard-working, tough, honourable, witty, charming, clever, funny and so on, but unless the audience actually agrees with their worldview, they're not going to sympathise with them.

For instance... uh... I like Col. Quaritch from Avatar. I think he's badass and cool, and I like his huge stompy mechsuit with its ridiculous giant bowie knife. But I don't actually sympathise with him, because he's a ruthless, xenophobic mercenary, and couldn't be more unlike me in mindset if he tried.

That's something to pay attention to, actually, if a reader ever tells you they liked your villain better than your hero. Did they like some virtue he possessed, irrespective of his motivations, like being smart or funny or cool? Or did they actually agree with his goals, and resent the hero for opposing them? The former is harmless: it's perfectly normal, even healthy, to acknowledge the virtues of those one disagrees with. The latter is unavoidable: you could make your villain an actual bona-fide Jew-hunting Nazi, and there would still be people who agreed with them.

The only time there's a real problem is if the former scenario leads to the latter, but even then, there's still not a lot you can do to stop it. The best thing you can do is try to make it abundantly clear why the villain's motivations are bad - show the holes in their logic, the ignorance of their base assumptions, or the tragic consequences of their actions.

If, after all that, your audience still likes your villain more than your hero... well, you might want to stop and think good and hard about what you seriously believe is right and wrong. Or you might want to find a better audience - it's not your fault if racist readers fall in love with your racist villains.

edited 30th Dec '14 2:36:46 AM by Tungsten74

There is no problem at all with making a villain a perfectly decent human being with admirable traits whose fault is that he's on the wrong side of the conflict, or that he's willingly subordinating his talents to something evil. Many of the Wehrmacht's most talented generals were, at first glance, good men—who happened to turn a blind eye towards mass murder. Many of the most notorious executioners of the SS or the NKVD were charming and genial family men, who happened to have a sideline in extermination camps. C'est la vie, and c'est la guerre.

To reiterate, humanity's villains were human. Write your villains as such, and let your audience babble as they may.

A brilliant example of a well-done "villain" is Bester from Babylon5. A Well-Intentioned Extremist, cares only about fellow "Teeps" (providing said "Teeps" are willing to do as they are told and accept the authority of Psycorps and are not "rogues"), views mundane humans as expendible cattle and kills them without hesitation, nearly consistently runs in opposition to the protagonists.

He's also charming, intelligent, witty, has an awesome sense of humour.

His motivations are understandable - if rather extreme in their execution - and he's clearly the "hero of his own story" and views himself as "a good guy".

Hell, he even feels bad if he has to kill a rogue Teep.

You could actually run an entire series about "Bester of Psycorps" following the adventures of a gallant and dedicated protector of Order against the "evil" rogue Teeps and those renegades on Babylon5 who attempt to undermine the authority of the Corps and protect Rogues.

If it wasn't for the fact that he is such an extremist that he murders mundanes in cold blood for basically no reason beyond "we don't need him around", he could be a good guy.

There are a lot of admirable things to like about him as a person, he's understandable in his motivations, but it's clear that the lengths he goes to make him a villain.

Now perhaps there might be people who say "yeah, but he and his kind are supposed to be superior to mundanes, so therefore his actions are justified as the weak and inferior don't deserve to live" and might view his character as a "good guy" who should win and that those who oppose him should lose.

You can't do anything about those sorts.

The long and short of it is, don't worry about audience reaction. The Unshaved Mouse's review of Wreck-It Ralph put it thus.

edited 31st Dec '14 6:05:10 PM by SabresEdge

@OP: I wouldn't worry too much about people sympathizing with your villain. As others have pointed out Draco in Leather Pants is mostly an audience phenomenon you as the writer have no control over, and anyway the motive/actions of an antagonist being something an audience can relate to is actually part of the role of a good bad guy...to be a cautionary tale.

In my view the best villains are those whose villainy rests in some garden-variety asshole motive most people get up to, only with the volume of action turned up a few notches past what most decent folk would consider "flawed, but acceptable in some circumstances".

Example: In my most recent book my female protagonist ends up winning a sparring match against a male opponent. Said opponent takes it a little too personally and decides to try "settling up" in the locker room later - leading to a tense scene where said protagonist has to confront a man twice her size while A: alone, B: cornered and C: only partially dressed. (Note: all three of my female beta-readers said they "got a chill" when they read the opening passages of that scene - obvious reasons why are obvious.)

While the guy was being an asshole and cornering a girl in her own locker room is not something most men would do, most guys do have the experience somewhere in their past of losing to a woman at something guys are "supposed" to be better at and not losing as gracefully as perhaps they should have. Would most of them have taken it as far as my bad guy did? Probably not, but some part of them might have been tempted to in the general sense.

Having the villain's motives be something understandable (even if their actions are not) sends the following message to consumers; "this could be you, if you don't watch yourself." In the context of my example, it is easy for men to fall down the misogyny rathole...reminding male readers about where that leads is to my way of thinking no bad thing.

Anyhow, best answer I can give is this...a villain's motives ought to be sympathetic and understandable, but their actions certainly don't have to be. Audiences should be left thinking "yeah, okay, I know why you believe that way, I have myself a time or two...but dude, you took it way too far."

edited 31st Dec '14 6:48:11 PM by drunkscriblerian

I'm with Drunkie on this:

• A villian can be a nice person who just keeps making the wrong choices. They shoot the prisoners, unleash the ancient evil, they use and abuse their friends etc. But they are Nice to the Waiter, See also A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil.

• A good person can be warped by a bad day. I'm not talking about the cliche of the Freudian Excuse. There is a humorous picture on Deviant Art titled "A dridder bumped into me at the supermarket" that is all about skwering this cliche.
  • No, I'm talking about a really bad day: seeing the family get murdered, losing a job, losing rank and status, being dumped on the wedding day, a death in the family. Again the characters zig when they should zag and now they are evil.

• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising had many Soviet characters who did horrible things, but he fleshed them out. They had reasons for the war instead of "We're the villains in this book..." Red Dawn on the other hand, just had most (but not all) Commies as cardstock baddies. It's a charming film but it's at an 80's B-movie level of character development.

• Ethics: As Sf Debris points out: the Borg, the boogymen of Star Trek, are logical. Just as the Vulcans are logical. But the Vulcans are bounded by ethics whereas the Borg are cyber-zombies to who ethics are irrelevant.
  • Even good people can toss ethics out the window. But once trust is broken, it's hard to get it back.

edited 4th Jan '15 10:46:01 PM by TairaMai