What makes a good villan part 3 (It is evil mu ha ha ha)

[I.R Joey]

*Puts away beverage filled with artficial color, and strange factory stuff*


Okay we're going way back to when I first started posting here. So here goes...

Chapter 3: Villans who have an intimate emotinal attatchment to the hero/heronie.

I personally think that these make for some of the more intersting bad guys/gals. When the hero is somehow connected with the force they must fight, it often causes them to scale back their power. Which in turn would=Vulnerability. So I'll start with the list.

1.) When parents go bad:

A good example here might be Darth Vader. It made it all that much harder for Luke to fight him when he realized that this was his father. I mean you could feel the "force" in Luke that wanted his dad to change. It also "forced" us to empathise with Darth Vader (yes I think we were suppouse to kinda twinge at the fact that we felt for the ultimate evil, which in turn, had been good.) However, not only that it also allowed us to see how easily someone could become evil through temptations. Add in the the fact that often a child is afraid to confront the parent when they think/know they're wrong (unless they're teenagers :D ), and you've got the ground material for powerful human (or other sentient being for us Sci-fi writers) drama.


2.) " Hi my name is Bob and my child is megalomaniacal" "Hi Bob":

You know it is just bad when the kids go rotten. This pretty much activates one of the worst fears a parent can have. The very thought of a child that was raised with loving care, and/or the protagonist never got to know is chalked full of good stuff for a good story teller to work with. It makes them consider where the went wrong, introspective stuff rocks. Can't really think of any examples but I'm sure some of you can.

3.) I'm not sure I like these new freinds of Timmy's do we know their parents:

Another good one is when the protagonist has a buddy that's gone bad. Sometimes they may even try and draw the good guy in making for some great drama (hopefully). When the trust of a close freind is betrayed the impact is like squared, because you see freinship is one of the closest relationships to people can form. A good example may be Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent. These two where close pals, and any of you who saw the 1st Two face eps (double parter LOL) will know how powerful this was, and how much it messed with Bruce's head. The only level higher the it are arguably direct family ties (depends on the situation), and the one which I shall tie up this post with.

4.) The cute ones are always evil.
Romantic Love (and arguably intense hatred) are the two most powerful emotions. I'd personally argue that the former is stronger, it makes us do crazy things that we would normally not do, often the most humiliating (I take it back I embaress myself all the time) stuff. However, when this "trust" is broken that causes wounds that make take a lifetime (or perhaps are impossible) to heal. I mean the boyfriend/girlfriend or wife/husband that betrays the protagonist for money, power, or to get another person, that may just be one of the top ten most detremental things you can do to a human being. This sense of dire pain is magnified when the protagonist has connected with the villan (like they've made out or even higher then that.) I think alot of women might feel for the charecter all the more, when part of their heart and soul is given away to such a louse (but I shouldn't generalize huh?) Anyway, as a writer I experimented with this and I must say that is a very powerful thing, but I love it. Out of all the ones I've mentioned in this post I think its my favorite.

Anyway, just some thoughts of mine.

[Nightwing]

Originally posted by I.R Joey

Chapter 3: Villans who have an intimate emotinal attatchment to the hero/heronie.

This one is definitely a favorite. And the reason why is only logical! The battles and issues between good and evil are complex enough (actually moreso) but so is love, and a relationship between two people. There's the formula (long as it might be, lol) for some great writing. An excellent example? Bruce Wayne and Andrea Beaumont, from Batman: Mask of The Phantasm.


Originally posted by I.R Joey

1.) When parents go bad:


I like this aspect, but most times I find I perfer the student teacher relationship, because often times we forget to develop the parent/child relationship enough for the confrontation to mean something.


Originally posted by I.R Joey

4.) The cute ones are always evil.
Romantic Love (and arguably intense hatred) are the two most powerful emotions. I'd personally argue that the former is stronger, it makes us do crazy things that we would normally not do, often the most humiliating (I take it back I embaress myself all the time) stuff. However, when this "trust" is broken that causes wounds that may take a lifetime (or perhaps are impossible) to heal. I mean the boyfriend/girlfriend or wife/husband that betrays the protagonist for money, power, or to get another person, that may just be one of the top ten most detremental things you can do to a human being.

Most definitely. And with this case, you don't even have to say that only one side will turn to the villainous side in every instance. The betrayer OR the betrayed could easily do so, depending on the characters and story. I absolutely love this one because it shows the continuous loop of how crappy people treat each other sometimes, and how if you continue it and tribute to it, fair or not, it will never stop.

[DR. BELCH]

...must be:
(a) PROPERLY MOTIVATED. There are three basic reasons for criminal acivity--vengeance, obsession, and unclassifiable (e.g. mental disorders). He must have some reason for being evil, whether he can't help himself, or he wants to crush someone, or he's simply insane. The Joker is a prime example of the third. His mtives make sense to him and him alone...but he does have them.
(b) SYMPATHETIC. The audience must hate his actions yet somehow understand them. Generally it's an emotional or physical trauma in their past that ruined them. Two-Face was horribly disfigured. Eric Magnus Lensherr saw the horrors of WWII and watched his wife run out on him when he revealed his mutant powers to her. Queen Nehelenia of Sailor Moon feared losing her youth and beauty and would do whatever it took to keep it. This segues nicely into--
(c) CAN WE RELATE? We all suffer loss and pain. But what is it that keeps us from turning into a monster? Whether we fear the legal repercussions of it or believe ourselves to be morally superior, we don't all don skin-tight green suits and masks and run about scheming against our enemies (well, not I, anyway-- with my stomach? :p ) Still, there must always be that element in the backs of our minds that say if I could do that to my ex-boss/lover/the scum who tore apart my life...and get away with it--!

[Leaping Larry Jojo]

Charismatic--Good villains are always more charismatic than the hero. They make a good case for themselves and is able to believably seduce people into his or her cause.

Sick--The more of a headcase, the better. Katejina from V Gundam, as I mentioned in another thread, is a prime example of an incredibly sick woman who is made more demented through brainwashing. She starts with a certain resentment which grows and snowballs into fanatacism, causing her to stab her friends in the back, kill of main characters (much to many viewers' dismay), and torture and murder civilians and kids. The scary thing is that she started out as a perfectly normal young woman.

Decepive appearance--the cruelest villains often look perfectly normal, a la Norman Bates.

Punishment--The greatest villains have the most to lose, and sometimes jail or death isn't enough of a punishment for them. Some manage to achieve a certain kind of redemption (Sailor Moon villains), some lose their minds and become babbling idiots (again, Katejina from V Gundam). On a side note, the original ending to the Dark Phoenix saga in the comics was to have Jean stripped of her telepathic powers, reduced to an average woman, but with memories of her deeds as the Dark Phoenix. Some say this would have been much more harsh than death.