Content

• Steps
• Method 1 of 1: How to Create an Interesting Villain
• Tips

How to create an image of a sinister antagonist and not turn it into a flat, caricatured imitation of a villain who is trying to embody absolute evil in himself? The answer is contained in the article.

Steps

Method 1 of 1: How to Create an Interesting Villain

1. 1 Understand the essence of good. The rest will be a waste of time, since that's all you need to know. It is impossible to create a villain if you do not know what good is, which is the opposite of evil.
2. 2 Consider the evil deeds people have done. Read the news or history books to see examples of the horrific behavior of real people.
3. 3 Choose whether the villain is human or non-human. If your villain is not human, then things will be a little different. An inhuman creature may have no concept of good and evil. Despite the evil deeds, such a creature will be more immoral than evil creature.
4. 4 Make the character angry because of decisions or actions, not character. Man cannot be evil by itself, but can make such decisions. Let the reader understand why your character is evil, not kind.
   • Make the villain personally commit evil deeds (rather than giving evil orders). To be effective, atrocities must be directed at a character that the reader can empathize with.
5. 5 Don't use lazy simplifications. When creating an interesting character, you should abandon the stereotyped techniques and tricks. You don't need to create a villain with unreasonable motivation.
   • Sadism is not a real motivation. The character needs a good reason to do evil things, and not feast on dessert in front of the TV. If a villain does horrible things for the sake of "fun," it is boring and unconvincing.
   • There is no need to superficially portray Nazis on the basis of stereotypes. Use real Nazis as villains. If you want to create a collective image, then study in detail their motivation and actions. Your character or group of people should appear “bad” not because they look like Nazis, but because of their terrible actions and beliefs.
   • Mental illness and dementia do not make people angry. “He’s angry because of his mental state” is a lazy approach that deeply insults many kind people with real emotional disorders and developmental disabilities (any person with disabilities is not meaner than everyone else, but they are definitely more likely to be victims of violence, so there is no need support discrimination through cartoons).
   • Do not use commonplace scholarly speech. This is an over-the-top trick.
6. 6 Consider how your villain justifies his actions. There is no need to resort to the hackneyed laugh of the villain when committing acts that he considers vicious.Even if the villain understands the immoral nature of his actions, he will still try to justify them for himself. Such an excuse can only make sense for the villain himself due to the experienced feelings and beliefs that were born on the basis of such experience. Consider the following examples of such excuses:
   • “I will do anything to earn the favor of _____ / become a real _____”;
   • “The world is full of immoral faces and I am one of the few who admits it. I have to correct this immorality. If bad things happen to people, they deserve it ”;
   • “Members of group X are just monsters / crave control / waste air”;
   • “Only the strongest survive. Failure is a sign of weakness. The weak deserve to fail ”;
   • “The people who are X need to be put in their place”;
   • “I will stop at nothing on the way to my goal, since this is the highest good. If there are people on my way, I will stop them. It doesn't matter if I have to hurt them, because I do it for the highest good ”;
   • “Members of the X minority are scary and bad. I will do my best to protect my home, city and country. "
7. 7 Give the villain motives and goals that are understandable and close to people. It's hard to believe in evil for the pleasure of the villain. More frightening are the evil deeds that a person could commit due to circumstances and a way of thinking (for most, this is enough).
8. 8 Consider the relationship of the villain with helpers or henchmen. How does he feel about them? How different is it? He is patient with his right hand, but can impulsively and without hesitation kill a small fry that has not coped with the task? He treats his confidants almost as equals, but scoffs at military leaders if they question the villain's decisions? Does he perceive his elite troops as ideal soldiers who are superior to all but the villain himself, but sees ordinary foot soldiers as cannon fodder? Why? What conclusions can be drawn about the villain from this relationship?
9. 9 Consider aspects of the villain that weren't always evil. A well-described character can never be absolute evil all his life. The villain must have just neutral or even good qualities.
   • Who is he worried about the most? It can be a person or an animal.
   • Think what a villain won't commit. For example, he is not ready to kill people, but he considers rape and torture to be a necessary evil. The villain can steal, threaten, deceive and get what he wants, but he will not kill unless absolutely necessary. Everything is limited only by your imagination.
   • Give the villain a hobby. What is the absolute evil doing in your free time? Does he play chess with live rodents, which he nailed to the pieces, practicing shooting skills or knitting spiky sweaters and writing an autobiography?
10. 10 Give minions, supporters, and helpers reasons to follow the villain. Is it fear? Do they share the villain's purpose? Do they need the help of a villain to achieve their goals? They want what the villain wants, but are going to frame him at a key moment? Are they hatching a secret plan to take revenge on the villain, impersonate others and pretend to be allies? Are they following a villain out of respect, admiration, or worship? What is causing this? Do they secretly want to take possession of an item that the villain has or to which he has access? Such details will make the main villain and other lesser villains more convincing than blank discs.
11. 11 Consider the villain's feelings and relationships with other characters. Is the main character annoying the villain as he never gives up? Does the heroine amuse the villain because she is persistent and more difficult to kill than other opponents?
12. 12 Think of a way to introduce the villain into the story.
    • To create tension, you can remember the villain in the conversations of other characters, sometimes show the consequences of his actions and help readers form an image, and then come up with a frightening way of the villain out of the fog.

Tips

• The villain's remarks should be, if not meaningful, then at least just interesting.
• Make the villain agile, smart and strong. If in battles with the hero the villain forces him to use all his strength and dexterity, then both characters will look convincing. In other words: no need to invent stupid villains!
• Give the villain a compassionate quality, then turn it upside down later. Explore different possibilities to come up with interesting plot twists.
• Give the villain a quirk that exactly matches his personality. It can be strange speech, a creepy habit, a tendency to repeat a certain word in certain situations, or other peculiarities that come to your mind. For example, the villain Kefka from Final Fantasy 6 had a habit of repeating the word “hate” up to 20 times in a row when he showed hate.
• The villain must have his own style. Avoid clichés, as they can sometimes make a villain unintentionally tasteless and trite. Use your own techniques and be subtle (unless you're trying to create an intentional sense of simplicity).
• Traumatic events in the past are not always motivating enough.
• It is not necessary to make the villain ugly, especially if his ugliness turns out to be an obvious sign of evil intentions. Often, an ordinary or handsome villain with a sly look who does horrible things is much more intimidating because of this contradiction between form and content.
  • If you want to make the villain ugly, then come up with a convincing explanation. Is his appearance disfigured after the accident? Is he a monstrous, predatory creature, not a man? Does he belong to an ethnic group in which a scar on his face is considered a sign of loyalty to a deity? Was he wounded in battle? Use your imagination.
• The best villains truly believe in their own sermons, which makes them more persuasive because they believe they are doing the right thing.