Creating an evil overlord who isn't "excessively" evil

Before I go into this question any further, let's talk about anime for a bit. More specifically, let's talk about Akame ga Kill, a show that I really wanted to like but simply couldn't, not least because of how it characterized its main villain. Said villain, Prime Minister Honest, is little more than an amalgamation of every unpleasant character trait one could care to imagine. He is at various points implied or shown to be a cannibal, a pedophile, a glutton, a hedonist, and a rapist. All without any real explanation as to why he does these things or how he came to be who is at present. And therein lies the problem.

From my experience, fantasy and sci-fi writers are tempted to highlight the evil and depravity of their stories' villains by creating a "laundry list" of taboos that they've broken. This, from my personal experience, usually backfires, at least in more serious stories. It has the effect of turing the character into a shallow caricature and removing his or her humanity. What you're left with is a character who is completely evil for no adequately explained reason. So my question is how to create a convincingly threatening Big Bad for a sci-fi or fantasy story without having them be so excessively evil that they are impossible to take seriously.

Suppose, for instance, my antagonist is the leader or ruler of a country. Tempting as it might be, it wouldn't realistically do for them to be a massive jerk to absolutely everyone, while kicking dogs in all their spare time. But if the portrayal is too subtle and nuanced, then I risk my readers sympathy straying towards the wrong character. So how do I write a such a villain—one who is clearly threatening, but not in a way that feels exaggerated or detached from reality?

(Feel like this is more of a Writer's Block post...)

Step one would be to go down the Evil Overlord List and find some favorites.

Step two is to remember that a story is motivated by a protagonist, and the antagonist is there to provide drama or strife or conflict.

Step three is to realize that you never actually described your antagonist as 'evil', and therein lies the trick. The thing to remember is that Antagonist =/= Villain =/= Evil, and that those are three different things.

Evil is a simple thing, and can only thrive where logic doesn't. It's selfishness, unadulterated and plain, concerned only with ME, ME, ME, and things that are of use to ME, without further consideration towards their existence. It's the absence of Good, not its opposite. One of the quickest ways you can tell someone or something isn't fully tethered to reality is if they sincerely try to use a 'Good vs. Evil' contrast. It's only through a lack of awareness of another entity's intentions that you can mark them as Evil - they either do or don't have a good reason to be committing an action, after all. Evil is, in practice, not a motivation or character trait that can be taken seriously at all. It's a word you slap onto the other side, to render them faceless and make it easier to kill them. Don't seriously consider using it without a good justification, is what I'm ultimately suggesting here.

That leaves antagonism and villainy. A sports metaphor works best here: the other team is the antagonist in a story but not necessarily the villain if they play a clean game. No, the villain in a sport is a biased referee, bad weather, terrible playing conditions - something that prevents or interrupts the protagonist and antagonist from properly facing each other.

Your villainous antagonist, then, would be cruel and clever at once - a challenge for the protagonist to overcome. An actual challenge, not a speed bump.

An effective antagonist will prevent the protagonist from achieving any of their goals without serious effort or sacrifice; the question is, do they do so through active or passive/coincidental means? (For example, snipers vs. 'dumb' automatic traps - they're both set up in anticipation of a threat, but one is more capable of a nuanced response.) Taking an active interest in the protagonist's work means that they will try to stop them, and the more effective they are at this the more directly threatening they are to the protagonist's goals, first of all. If it's nothing personal against the protagonist and it's all just a Tuesday for them, but are nonetheless still completely goal-blocking them, that's a dumb protagonist or a smart antagonist if not both.

A villainous antagonist is not necessarily effective - different things, again. Villainy is an expedient tool, but not a realistic means to an end as it is personal to the one committing it. For the same reason as that ME-ME-ME spiel up there, doing something 'bad' tends to use more resources or future opportunities than something 'good'. (That 'snipers vs. traps' thing earlier? Human snipers need to be maintained, and resources expended to their benefit, whereas a trap can be left alone. Or, a trap might be more likely to kill its victim outright, which means someone needs to go recover their corpse and gain no benefit from it that they might otherwise have if they'd been left alive.)

You see the issue here. Good and bad are subjective. Actions and situations that are good for the antagonist aren't necessarily good for the protagonist, and vice-versa. The most threatening antagonist is not the most evil one; it's the one that does right by them and manages to screw the protagonist over in the process.

tl;dr, I think the biggest threat is an antagonist force of some sort that has effective countermeasures for every action the protagonist tries to take. Say that there are three obvious ways into a castle, a fourth less obvious one, and a fifth that is completely unknown to anyone except the protagonist. Your classic Evil Overlord will guard the first three and assume the other two are impossible, while your effective antagonist Prime Minister will also guard the fourth. I think you are looking for something beyond that.

Standard evil overlord type villains tend to be boring and simplistic, so I think the best way to avoid that is to write a more complex character. Definitely avoid the “every possible heinous quality at once” thing you mentioned, but maybe pick one or two fatal flaws and build the character around them. They can have a few redeeming qualities too, and probably should if you want to go beyond cartoonishly evil, but make sure they don’t overshadow the qualities that make them a villain in the first place.

Off the top of my head, here are some ideas and questions to consider, although they might not all be relevant.

• Is their conflict with the protagonist a personal one, or is it just business as usual?
• How and why did they get to where they are now? Did they intend to get the overlord seat, or did things just end up that way?
  • If they didn’t intend it, what’s motivating them to stick it out? Did they grow comfortable with the role, or do they hold on because they think like they’re the only one who can do it right?
• Did they have good intentions at one point, and lose sight of them later, or were they always the way they are now?
• Do they really believe in what they’re doing, or do they have their doubts every now and then?
  • If they do have doubts, do they give them serious thought, or try to push them away?
  • Do they see their actions as a necessary evil, or unambiguously beneficial?
• Are they unapologetic about who they are and what they’ve done, or do they try to cover it up and cultivate a positive image?
• Are they stuck in a Sunk Cost Fallacy sort of position where they worked so hard to get their power that they can’t stand to lose it, even if the things they have to do to maintain it are becoming more heinous than they initially expected or wanted?
  • On the flip side, did having that position make them a worse person than they originally were?
• Is there anything, or anyone, that they genuinely care about? How far would they go to protect whatever that is - and what, if anything, would it take for them to cast it aside?

Those are just a few ideas, but it really comes down to the kind of character you want to write. Basically, think about their motivations, and how sympathetic or not you want to make them. Also, keep in mind that explaining a character’s actions doesn’t necessarily mean excusing them. You can make your villain complex and interesting and still have them be threatening, so try to figure out the right balance.

edited 7th May '18 10:46:56 PM by SapphireBlue

I think you hit the nail on the head when you asked *why* a character would do depraved or evil things. "Because s/he's evil" is not a good answer, and neither is "because s/he's crazy" (which is unsatisfying, on top of being pretty offensive.) The best thing to keep in mind when you want to write nuanced villains is that everybody thinks of themselves as the hero of their own story.

One of my favorite despicable, but nuanced fantasy villains is Loghain from Dragon Age. Loghain is a war hero, a beloved figure in Ferelden, and highly respected by the populace at large. He is a loving father, and deeply patriotic, willing to do anything to protect his kingdom. These are incredibly important facts to understand why, among other nasty things, he:

- withdraws his troops and abandons his son-in-law, the king, to die in a hopeless battle (because Loghain believed the king was a weak ruler, and was angry at rumors he might divorce and humiliate his daughter Anora, the queen)

- positions himself as regent over his daughter, the queen (because Loghain believes he can lead Ferelden through a forthcoming disaster more effectively than she can)

- has elves kidnapped and sold into slavery (because Loghain needs money to finance a defense against the upcoming disaster)

- has a political rival near-fatally poisoned (because Loghain knew he would oppose his other actions)

Loghain is an absolute bastard, but he never does anything despicable just because he feels like it. Every terrible action has reasoning behind it, and in his mind, every terrible action is necessary to save the kingdom and keep people alive.

Why does your overlord murder swathes of people? Because they were rebels, and he can't afford their dissidence at a crucial moment in the plot. Why does the sorceress queen terrorize the heroic princess? Because the princess is charismatic and stands a real chance of gathering the support to topple the queen's reign. Why does the dictator kick puppies in the square every day? Because they might be covert spies from the dog empire, or... something.

If you can explain WHY your evil overlord is behaving the way s/he is, you're making steps towards making them well-rounded and developed characters.

edited 8th May '18 8:50:20 AM by TheKillerDynamo

I would argue that card-carrying villainy and extreme evil (especially from autocratic rulers) are both pretty big examples of Reality Is Unrealistic. Having said that, while one-dimensional evil exists it is not particularly interesting. General bits of advice:

-Avoid giving them too strong a Freudian Excuse. It's overused and ironically generally less realistic than someone simply being "born evil". Sociopaths are born, not made, though to be fair sociopaths are not innately evil per se.

-Personally, I might suggest giving them standards of some sort as opposed to making them all manner of terrible, terrible things. A person can be a terrible overlord without being a rapist or a cannibal.

-However, hedonism, rape, and pedophilia are all connected. Your character sounds like someone with some sort of power/control issues. They could take a great deal of pleasure in having absolute control over other creatures and causing them suffering.

-Canniballism I'd particularly avoid, though, unless they're from a culture that's ok with it. Simple Pragmatic Villainy would tend to keep them away from it, I'd think. As a prime minister they want to keep good PR and killing people to eat them would just create a liability for them.

I suggest studying the Color Pie system of Magic The Gathering, especially the color Black.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/thank-you-being-friend-2017-03-20

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/pie-fights-2016-11-14

Also, go to Trade Cards Online and take a look at the Black cards of MTG.

I hope this helps too: http://sarpadianempiresvol-viii.tumblr.com/post/94158369049/color-pie-friday-the-philosophy-of-black

Oh, read the manga Rave Master too. It has many bad guys with plausible reasons for their actions.

One of the worst of them, Pumpkin Doryu, even becomes more aggressive even he realizes the protagonists pity him.

An Honest-type villain I might offer as a case of him but better executed (perhaps in every sense of the word since I know Honest's fate in the manga) is Zhaspahr Clyntahn, Big Bad for much of the Safehold series.

At good most basic he's the Grand Inquisitor of a Corrupt Church. That should tell you just about everything you need to know going in. He's every bit as horrible as Honest, minus the cannibalism and pedophilia but, while we never learn the "why" on terms of his backstory, his motivations do become clear over the course of the books.

He's primarily a power monger. His goal is to raise the status of the Inquisiton, and by extension himself, to a position of primary within the Church of God Awaiting, and is perfectly willing to perform acts so heinous they render a declaration of holy war against the protagonists into an afterthought.

What separates Clyntahn from Honest is that he also has a sincere zealous streak. He believes, and because he believes so strongly that he's acting in God's name anything he does is inherently justified. There are frequent discussions between characters in story about where one side of him ends and the other begins.

Clyntahn explains to his number two that men have no better nature and the only way they will ever reliably adhere to God's will is through fear, which goes a long way to explaining why he's so ready to be as cruel as he can possibly and publicly be.

He's also very prone to Believing Their Own Lies and Psychological Projection. So he never sees his actions as the power grabs they are and when the propaganda war turns against them, will (without irony) accuse the other side of murdering others then lying to excuse their atrocities.

It's not hard to see the similarities to Honest. Unlike the Prime Minister though, you can also see that the Grand Inquisitor is more than just "be cruel for no reason." He's cruel because he sincerely believes is the best way to achieve his goals and that, by acting in God's name (and certainly not his own) anything he does is automatically correct.

edited 20th May '18 12:38:59 PM by sgamer82

Make him a case of Pragmatic Villainy and make his evil actions be means to ends instead of being For the Evulz.

Maybe Machiavel's The Prince and Hobbes' Leviathan van help too.

I'd say a lot of evil overlord cliches tend to be counter-intuitive when lumped together, like the aforementioned laundry list of evil deeds. For instance, having the overlord be an emotionally unstable sociopath who's also a conniving schemer and manipulator puts three different character disorders that tend to cancel each other out. Sociopaths aren't prone to explosive fits of rage, and make for horrible planners and judges of character. So there goes, say, Emperor Palpatine, off the list of villains who are believably evil, as opposed to walking bundles of random malicious traits.

Same goes for the powerful warlord who's also a bad boss, and again, a violent sociopath - given the kind of foresight and troop loyalty required to run anything larger than a petty revolt with torches and pitchforks, such a villain would find himself very quickly demoted in favor of someone more competent.

Instead, the option I tend to use is to have the villain's resources be inherited - be they political influence, wealth or supernatural ability - while their actual character is less than capable of using them productively. The range goes from spoiled brats to soon-to-be disenfranchised royalty, usually contrasted with self-made heroes and democratic institutions. And in terms of motivation, they go from self-absorbed elites taught to believe the world should be served to them on a platter and no one should be allowed to challenge their authority, to more complex dogmatics who fear obsolescence and feel out of place in the modern world.

Essentially, I tend to write villains as people who still believe themselves to be the heroes of the story, but that their idea of heroism is starkly different from that of most of the world. The childish debutante who wonders why nobody keeps showering her with praise and attention when her daddy's checks start bouncing. The feudal nobleman who's anxious over losing power and influence to the growing industries. The family of politicians who find themselves on the wrong end of a popular vote. There is a lot of tragedy in such characters to make them more enticing than your average cardboard villain.

However, in all cases, the kicker, the act that makes such characters villainous to begin with, is that they have to consciously choose to blame others for their own plight. That they won't take responsibility for their own problems, nor would they accept themselves as being equal to other people. I find it is this combination of unearned power and a sense of entitlement and moral infallibility that makes for a villain that's tragic and understandable, without being sympathetic or attractive.