Avoiding a "Dark lord" big bad

We all love our own big bads that we could blame. Voldemort, Palpatine, fire lord ozai and Sauron to name a few.

They put the plot in motion and they represent everything wrong in the world, they represent evil itself. He is the character the muggles fear and only the hero can face.The are a blessing for any writter as they give the hero a purpose, a challenge ...and they are usually boring and one dimensional bordering on Cliché Storm.

What I don't like about them is that they are usually so pure evil, they are kinda dull imo. Becuase their only purpose seems to be hated and be proven wrong.

how do you you avoid using a cliche "dark lord"? and still giving your character a good villain that serves the same role?

edited 31st Dec '14 9:09:32 PM by RPGLegend

You avoid making a single all-powerful load-bearing villain, is how.

Don't think "video game final boss" as the opponent. One point from basic political science that is worth repeating: politics is about power, and power means the ability to get others to do what they ordinarily wouldn't do. Boiled down to that basic fact, the opponent may well be powerful not because they personally can fight armies, but because they have the voluntary might of an organization or a nation-state behind them, or because their message is one that resonates among many people. Think of history's greatest heroes or villains.

Then go a step beyond that and portray them as people. If you're good you'll have a recognizably human opponent, with entirely human motivations, who may not even be entirely bad—but still opposed to your protagonist.

edited 31st Dec '14 8:44:35 PM by SabresEdge

You can show a turning point in their history that made them similar to a protagonist. A moment revealing they were good once. Try to avoid For the Evulz when it comes to building your antagonist since that would allow them to effortlessly be promoted into "Dark lord" status by the audience.

You can also use Hanlon's Razor, and make the evil or conflict arise from the villain's ignorance of what they're doing. The villain could even have a Morality Pet.

So here's a question you might want to try asking yourself: "Why is this guy the big bad?"

I mean that in more ways than one. It's likely that a dark lord is going to be the toughest guy in the room (or any room, really), so developing that power/presence is practically a necessity. BUT it goes beyond that. How, exactly, did the dark lord gain the power he did? Through cunning and outmaneuvering his foes? Through harnessed potential honed through years of training, and put to use in a bloody coup? Just by being a bad mamma jamma? I guess you could say that developing the baddie's backstory is a big help; even if you don't put it in the story word-for-word, it'd probably be good to know.

But there's another meaning to that main question: why, exactly, does the dark lord need to be a bad guy? Why strike out and do evil things? To crib off Sabre's Edge's response, making a human villain with clear motivations can work wonders. Maybe your potential lord strikes out because of loyalty to some higher power — an old friend, a teacher, a lost love, or even a god. Maybe he's out for revenge, or is just trying to save the people under his wing — you know, take territories, give them better lives, etc. Maybe he's actually a good guy, but he took things way too far and got corrupted — OR, he's in the process of being corrupted because he just can't help himself.

That's all simple stuff, and there are plenty of possibilities. But the important thing is that you ask yourself questions, answer them, and apply them to your character as needed. If you can do that, I'll bet you can avoid just having Evilbad J. Shadowpants.

...That's a good name for a dark lord, right?

edited 31st Dec '14 10:09:24 PM by Voltech44

It would be eviller if he was Shadowslacks. Good guys wear pants.

I'm gonna piggyback again off Sabre's Edge and Voltech: All of the so-called "clear villains" in history have a human side to them.

Napoleon, for example, was seen by outsiders as a liberator — someone who would drive out the local oppressor and bring order and stability to the people. Then he declared himself emperor and yanked the crown from the Pope's hands.

For another example, Hitler was a charismatic leader, he gave great rousing speeches, and he was somebody the Nazi Party could use as a poster-boy for their cause. He was also very human, and even did some Fanart of Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs.

The Nazis invaded other lands partly because they needed to support the German people, and the same goes for Japan.

Part of why the Nazis did such horrible things was because they got the short end of the Slippery Slope Fallacy: The first morally-questionable things they did were either on the "grey" side or they looked "white," like "Okay, we're only making the Jews register their ethnicity." Then it kept going: "We're giving them free housing! Who doesn't want that?" "We're just moving them out to work-camps so they can help the cause." "Why are we shooting them?" "Where did the Jews go?" (Now, that's a pretty simplistic look at a heavy topic like genocide, but hopefully it helps you get the point I'm making.)

To use Harry Potter as a final example, the Death Eaters are mostly either Fantastic Racists or people who thought Voldemort was the most powerful wizard and wanted to use him like a shield. Of course, most of those Dark Wizards were already okay with doing morally-questionable stuff, so that lends to Voldemort's "Dark Lord" status.

So to get to your main question: You avoid the cliche "Dark Lord" by paving his/her road with good intentions. By giving them some kind of redeeming qualities. Something that a real person would latch onto and use as their reason for following the Dark Lord into whatever crazy stuff they suggest. You make sure the Dark Lord's followers actually want what the Dark Lord is suggesting, or at least that they can understand where it's going.

edited 31st Dec '14 10:52:11 PM by AwSamWeston

I'd say Randall Flagg from The Stand makes for a great non-traditional Dark Lord. Partly it's the sort of blue-collar vibe he's got going: instead of wearing dark robes and sitting in a throne room surrounded by minions, he prefers to wear blue jeans and go wandering alone down the American highways; he even introduces himself to someone by quoting The Rolling Stones. However, another part of it is the ambiguity at the heart of the character.

You know how, in The Lord Of The Rings, it's not really explained what Sauron is, where he came from, or why he's doing all this horrible stuff? Well, the same is true for Flagg, except it's not just the audience who's out of the loop. Flagg doesn't know where he came from, what his real name is, or why he's able to do magic. Even his goals seem kind of murky beyond a childlike interest in causing mayhem. The overall impression of Flagg is a guy who's working off little more than intuition and impulse, yet somehow there's a master plan behind it all that Flagg himself doesn't know much about. To me, that makes the character pretty fascinating.

There are several attributes of a Dark Lord:

• Instead of getting their hands dirty themselves, they make minions do their dirty work
• Because of this, they may never even meet the heroes until the very end of the story
• In fact, they may go a long time never even being seen and introduced to the audience (in the case of Sauron, never seen at all)

This is true of Sauron, Palpatine, and Ozai. The one "non-standard" Dark Lord that comes to my mind is Orochimaru from Naruto Part 1. He is a Big Bad who has a lot of resources as the head of a Hidden Village, yet he is introduced early on to both the audience and the heroes and maintains a strong presence throughout Part 1. This is likely due to the fact that Part 1, to its credit, is able to avert the Sorting Algorithm of Evil due to the fact that the Mentor Archetype characters happen to also be Badasses more powerful than the heroes and actually able to fight off the Big Bad themselves when he shows up. Contrast Kaguya, very much a standard "Dark Lady", who nobody is even aware of most of the series, is the most powerful being in the world, and is fought by The Hero and The Rival, who are the only individuals who can wield the power to defeat her.

My point is, you can easily make a non-standard Dark Lord by averting those attributes.

edited 1st Jan '15 10:07:50 AM by shiro_okami

Another good example from Naruto would be the former Big Bad, Madara Uchiha. Madara basically grew up in war, having been born well into the Warring States period and was a soldier before he even turned 10. As such, he made a massive plot to, in his mind, give the entire world paradise via a Matrix-like simulation. Of course, over time he grew more bitter and more deranged, manipulating many people and seeming to just want power, however, when his plan temporarily worked he believed he truly did succeed in bringing everyone happiness. My main point is, a good idea would be to make a villain with a sympathetic backstory and a reasonable goal, even if you disagree with it, however, remember they are still the villain and can't be too sympathetic.

Breaking away from the hoard of fantasy and anime examples: one effective way of averting the trope wherein the Dark Lord seems not to be doing anything (see Orcus on His Throne) is to show him making decisions, and then showing how those decisions affect his side of the war. Stalin and Hitler didn't sit in Berlin and Moscow respectively through WWII; their decisions actively influenced the course of the war, even if neither went to the frontlines. Remember that a commander has imperfect information and has to make decisions surrounded by uncertainty, informed by his own biases, perceptions, and past experience. Show that side of them and they're not some distant dark lord, but an active participant in the conflict.

I read every post, thank you everyone for the great advice!

edited 2nd Jan '15 11:12:03 AM by RPGLegend

So here's another question I have for you: What kind of villains do YOU like?

Villains come in all shapes and sizes. And each and everyone of them can be genuinely interesting in their own way (Yes, even the "Dark Lord") and each type has it's own pitfalls that must be avoided to prevent them coming off as a caricature. (Yes, even the beloved "Anti-Villain" can end up looking like a caricature if the writer merely slaps on a Freudian Excuse at the last second to make their villain seem "deep" and "complex".) So merely avoiding one category of villain isn't automatically going to make your villain GOOD. It just means he won't be a Dark Lord. So let us know what kinds of villains you DO like, and we can help you with how to write that kind.

Oh I have many villains and I tend to like all except the pure evil ones.

If you have seen the hobbit third movie. The "weasel" and the governor are examples of what I don't like. Yes they were evil and in power, but they also had zero redeeming qualities. The only reaction the audience can have about them is disgust.

The villains I like the most are those that yes are hated. But the audience also enjoys them to the point they can be Escapist Character-s too. That's why I don't like "Dark Lords".

Zaheer from Korra, Chase young from Xiaolin Showdown the master/missy from doctor who. I also like the evil but tortured ones like Demona from Gargoyles or starsaphire

edited 2nd Jan '15 8:09:07 PM by RPGLegend

I read a lot of historical fiction (to go with the historical nonfiction, heh heh). In many cases, the best "villains" aren't so much evil as just on the opposite side of the battle lines. They are often admirable men in their own right, the kind of men who are often recognized as heroes in their own right—or, often, as mirrors of the protagonists. (Karla, the ruthless, shadowy spymaster of John le Carre's Smiley trilogy, fits that mold; you don't see much of him, but what he does is to illuminate the truth that George Smiley himself isn't so very different, culminating in a beautifully written meeting between the two on the Bridge of Spies in Potsdam.)

Well to be fair, there are plenty of "Dark Lord" villains who can still be seen as Escapist Characters thanks to Evil Is Cool, Love to Hate, Creepy Awesome, and/or them being a Magnificent Bastard. I think what you're talking about is less "Dark Lord" and more Hate Sink.

As for the villains you listed, I'm noticing you like the charismatic villains, the Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds, and the Well-Intentioned Extremist, correct?

I really like sabre's edge advice about dealing with a "villain" as respectable

You are right, tough to be fair most dark lords are reprsented as being so pure evil they become hate sinks. Ozai from last airbender comes to mind.In any case I think you are right. I like those kinds of villains.

edited 3rd Jan '15 1:33:42 PM by RPGLegend

Alright then.

With Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds, make sure their tortured past is at least hint at from the BEGINNING. Trying to make it into a twist, often ends up feeling shallow.

As a Woobie villain, you also have room to make him incredibly vicious. Unlike a Complete Monster, who sees his victims as disposable tools or toys and therefore acts in a dispassionate, calculating manner, The Woobie Destroyer Of Worlds is likely to genuinely HATE his opponents, since he blames them for his lot in life. This is why it's also a good idea to have his tortured existence be (whether directly, or indirectly) a result of the HEROES actions. Giving both a personal connection, as well as a source of internal guilt for the hero.

A villain like this will likely cross the Moral Event Horizon when he or she shows he's willing to harm innocents in the single-minded pursuit of their revenge. (And yes, unless you plan to reform a villain, that villain MUST cross the Moral Event Horizon at one point or another.)

For the Well-Intentioned Extremist, one must make sure that his goals actually make SENSE. That the enemy he's using extremist tactics against is genuinely WORSE than he is. Otherwise he just comes of looking like a fool. Here's a quote fro Jerry Peet discussing Zaheer:

Now, whether or not this truly applies to Zaheer is up for debate, but the point still stands. If your villain does not understand the ramifications of his Extreme actions, then he'll lok like a short-sighted fool and you will lose the moral complexity that is the point of such a character.

In Lord of the Rings, it is explained what Sauron wants. I can't remember in which book or which section, but I'm sure at one point Gandalf lays out his motives clearly. Basically, Sauron wants to control the world, and make everyone do as he says. He thinks that if only he was in charge, he could make the world a better place. At least, that's how he started out. Later, this noble goal became corrupted - where before he intended to seize power to improve the world, in the end he simply wanted power for its own sake. This stands in contrast to his old boss Morgoth, who wanted to flat-out destroy the world and everything in it just to spite God. But to say that neither of these characters had clear motivations is nonsense.

On topic, I don't really understand what makes a Dark Lord different from any other kind of antagonist. Is it their methods? Their personality (or lack thereof)? Their choice of outfit? The scope and scale of their power within the setting? I ask because if you don't want to make your antagonist a Dark Lord, then there are thousands of other antagonistic characters throughout all of fiction you could look to for inspiration.

I mean, an antagonist is literally just a character whose goals or motivations conflict with those of the protagonist. Meaning... well... any kind of character could be an antagonist. They don't have to be evil. Hell, they don't even have to be sapient, so long as they stand in the way of the protagonist's goals. You could write a story where a blizzard is the primary "antagonist", and it would work just fine.

edited 4th Jan '15 1:22:26 PM by Tungsten74

The "evil overlord" is a doddering old fool-it's his cabinet that's the real villains. When Dark King Spookybritches von Überwald finds out the atrocities committed in his name, he's appalled.

edited 4th Jan '15 1:23:28 PM by dvorak

We know Sauron wants control over the whole world, but it's unclear what he intends to do with that control. We only ever see the people under his command when they're engaged in or preparing for war. Once everyone has been conquered and there are no more wars to fight, is he just planning to have everyone go about their normal lives, except saying "Hail Sauron!" a lot more often?

Apparently, yes. There's a point when Sam and Frodo are in Mordor, and they see a small black beetle or fly that bears Sauron's red eye symbol on its abdomen. The feature is apparently natural, implying that Sauron's control over his realm and its subjects is so monstrously absolute that even wild animals living within its boundaries bear his mark. The intent is clear - Sauron wants to force everything to conform to his will, to make everything belong to him. He doesn't just want to own his subject's lands, wealth and lives; he wants to own their bodies as well. He wants to make sure that everyone and everything under his thrall never, ever forgets it.

He doesn't seem to have any endgame plan, because he doesn't have an endgame plan. That's the point of "seizing power for its own sake". Achieving ever greater dominion over the world is the only thing Sauron wants; the only thing he cares about. It is his entire motivation. He may have had a plan once, but those days are long gone. If he did ever conquer Middle-Earth, he might have tried to sail west and conquer Aman, just to bring that under his control, too. But that's just speculation on my part. Sauron's focus is entirely on the short-term, not the long-term.

If that makes Sauron seem stupid, well... yeah, he's stupid. That's the point. He's a flawed character. He is greedy and power-hungry on a level that no mortal dictator could ever be. It's what makes him so inhumanly, sublimely evil. It's also that greed that ultimately destroys him, and that is what makes him such a great and memorable villain.

edited 4th Jan '15 4:38:58 PM by Tungsten74

This reminds me of an exchange I heard about between Diogenes and Alexander the Great, where Alexander talks about how he wants to unite all of Greece.

It went something like:
"And what will you do then?"
"Well, I'll conquer Persia."
"And what will you do then?"
"I'll conquer some other lands."
"And what will you do then?"
"I'll conquer the world."
"And what will you do then?"
"Uh..."

Not a bad point. A "I'll conquer the world!"-type opponent is, frankly, rather boring. Especially if it's with an army. That would imply a geopolitical setup where the interesting stories are to be found on the other side of the battlelines; I'd love to know how he can build and sustain an army of the needed size, or run logistics for it. Or the internal politics involved, come to think of it.

My response to that?:

"Do? What am I going to do?!" (*chuckles*) You silly boy, don't you get it? I'll control the ENTIRE. WORLD. You ask me what I'm going to do with that power? ANYTHING!!! Literally anything I want! If I want to retire to a tropical isle with bikini-clad women at my beck and call, I can. If I want to run naked through the streets shooting up the place, I can. Rewrite history! Invent space travel! Cure cancer! Re-create cancer! Make cancer jump through hula-hoops and form a circus!!! The entire world will be my playground and NO-ONE!!! Will be able to stop me!! Every nation! Every culture! Every single man, woman and child will be at my beck and call! If I say "Jump", they'll say "How high?" If I say "Bend over and grab your ankles", they'll say "How's the view sir?". I will be worshipped! I will be adored! I!!! WILL!!! BE!!! GOD!!!!!!''"

edited 5th Jan '15 6:30:33 AM by Lunacorva

History Lesson c. 2043

edited 5th Jan '15 11:06:37 AM by Wolf1066