Greetings, ladies, gentlemen, and those who hate the phrase "ladies and gentlemen!" I'm back, here for another edition after my hiatus! If you were wondering, idk how I did on my big test, but it's over now! So I'm here, back for another week of rambling about villains, because villains are indisputably the coolest.
Last (yeah, week, definitely), we figured out who your antagonist is- that's the first step. But there's another very important thing we need to know in order to write an antagonist.
What do they want?
I've discussed this in previous chapters, how if your protagonist doesn't want something, the story doesn't have a purpose. They don't have anything to drive them. And the same applies to the antagonist. Why are they doing evil things, or at least trying to inconvenience the protagonist? The answer probably isn't "just because." No matter how stupid or illogical it may seem, I'm sure they have a reason.
So what might that reason be?
Here are some common ideas, off the top of my head.
1. Power.
This is a big one! A lot of villains are after this. Think... uh... Voldemort? Or Horde Prime. Or, because the Land Of Stories is on my mind today, that one witch... Morina? Maybe? It's been a while. But yeah, villains after power.
As the fine documentary "She-Ra: Princesses Of Power (2018)" says via Swift Wind imitating Shadow Weaver: Magic, magic, magic, power, power, power, blah, blah, blah.
And this is exactly how your villain's thought process might go!
There's probably a reason they want power, too. It might be because they want to prove their worth to someone who hurt them or told them they'd be nothing, or maybe they just think they'd do a better job at being in charge than all those other losers. Maybe they're really lazy and just want an army of minions to bring them snacks whenever they feel like it, I don't know!
But whatever it is, they have a goal: Power. And they have a reason: Snacks.
2. Revenge
Probably the other main contender! He isn't an antagonist, but I feel like Inigo Montoya is worth mentioning because he's so iconic. Kaz Brekker from Six Of Crows also wants revenge, but I feel like he does have a different main motivation. Since most of you know me from KOTLC, revenge is probably Fintan's motivation; his world condemned his power, so he's gonna destroy the world! Hashtag logic.
And for the "why" of this one, you just need figure out who they're taking revenge on and what the person did to them. Here are some ideas for that-
a. Protagonist/someone close to the protagonist/whoever they want revenge on killed someone they're close to. Was it a lover? A family member? Close friend? That person is now dead and gone, and all that remains in their place is a burning desire to make their murderer suffer as the antagonist has suffered, their anger fueling the fire that has lit them through the days that are now dark and cold without their beloved.
Damn, that was dramatic.
If you want a sympathetic antagonist, "lost a loved one and wants revenge" is probably your best bet. Most people are going to find sympathy for that.
b. Something was stolen from them. Is it a large sum of money? A high position of power? A priceless artifact? An opportunity? The last slice of pizza? Whatever it is, they want it back, and they aren't going to stop there. They want to make sure everyone who dares threaten to take it from them again will pay.
Slightly less dramatic.
3. Money
We all love money! Well actually, that's not true. Capitalism? More like crap-italism, am I right? But anyway, regardless of your personal feelings on capitalism, the fact remains that it is the system commonly in use in our society, and we all kinda need money to survive.
And some of us out there like survival. Or we like being able to buy fancy things. Or we like being able to cheat rich people out of their money. Or maybe they need the money for some noble cause. Whatever their reason is, they want that money and they're going to get that money! Probably by stealing it! Or by being hired to do crime or something.
*Kaz voice* We'll be kings and queens, Inej. Kings and queens.
*Nina voice* WAFFLES!
4. Waffles.
Come on, my dudes. We all want waffles.
How does the villain reveal what they want?
Now, stories are usually told from the point of view of the protagonist or protagonists. Most stories do not have a villain POV. If your story breaks that norm and does have a villain POV, your story sounds awesome and more power to you, but for those of you who don't have a villain POV, you're probably wondering how to convey your villain's thoughts and motivations. You probably don't want to do some sort of boring, cliche villain monologue, but what can you do instead?
1. Villain monologue, but make it self aware.
Make your characters know, and point out, that the villain monologue is boring and cliche. Maybe the heroes are straight up trying to distract the villain by unlocking the Tragic Backstory ™, because that's actually a pretty good plan. Maybe the villain's speech starts with "Not to villain monologue on main, but..." Maybe halfway through, one of the heroes snorts and mocks their use of the villain monologue.
Just make it kinda funny and put a bit of a spin on it, and you'll be golden.
2. The villain doesn't know the heroes are hearing this.
I came up with the idea for this a little under a year ago, and I have not shut up about it since. The heroes hear the villain talking about their plans and/or motivation, but it was never intended for the heroes' ears. The version of this I wrote was that the heroes basically hacked into the villain's private journal and just read about his plans. Or maybe the villain is talking to one of their henchpeople, and the heroes are just eavesdropping. Or maybe the henchperson is a spy and reports back to the heroes about what the villain told them.
Whatever the reason, the villain doesn't intend to tell the heroes anything.
...they just find out anyway.
3. One of the heroes used to be close with the villain.
The hero and the villain were very close to one another (relatives, best friends, lovers, etc). Both of them were on the same side of the Big Conflict ™, whether that be the side of Good or Evil. Then, either the hero was like "wait, this is evil, I want to do good!" or the villain was like "this is boring, I'm gonna be evil now." They parted ways but they still know everything about one another.
Heart heavy with betrayal, the hero shares everything with their team so that the villain's personality, motivation, plans, etc are all common knowledge.
This is oddly specific but I can think of at least three examples of this trope, at least the first part? So you can definitely use it. It probably fits best in more of a high fantasy good versus evil with teams rather than individual antagonists.
4. Something else. Just please don't interrupt the story with a super long, 100% unironic, monologue. (Or do, I can't control you, but like... it'd be better if you didn't.)
What if I want to make a sympathetic villain?
Okay, if you want a sympathetic villain, you really just have to make us understand the villain and their thought processes. So what I'm saying is, give us a villain POV or we probably aren't going to sympathize with them. Ideally, your villain POV would show their descent into villainry (like how we see Catra spiral throughout the first four seasons), but it might be interesting to see what they're thinking as they're already a villain.
What you shouldn't do is try to make the readers think "This was the right decision to make." If it was the right decision to make, they wouldn't be a villain. Their actions are supposed to be bad.
The readers should be thinking something like "I can see why they made that decision," or "I understand how it could look like the right decision in their mind," or "I might have made a similar decision in their situation."
We're not supposed to agree with your villain's actions or try to excuse them. We just want to understand. Sympathize.
Another thing you can do if you have, like, Big Smart Moral Thoughts ™ is try to explore how evil are your villains really?
One way to pull this off is have a morally grey protagonist and a morally grey antagonist who are at odds with one another, but it leaves the reader with a lot of questions about who's right and who's wrong, maybe even eventually concluding that it isn't quite so clear cut. This isn't necessarily your reader liking the villain, but it is giving them the freedom, even encouraging them, to make their own decisions about who to side with, instead of packaging it in "right" or "wrong" for them.
Or, and this one is really fun, have an antagonist and protagonist with the same goal. Yeah, you heard me, the same goal. The root of their conflict is that they have different methods of going about it. The protagonist thinks that the antagonist's methods are too extremist or violent or whatever. A very classic "wrong thing for the right reasons" situation, I bet your readers will at least appreciate the "right reason."
It also opens the door for discussions about when nonviolent methods just aren't working, when you really just need to throw a brick at some cops (happy pride), and where to draw that line. Very fun!
What you really, really shouldn't do is make your villain's only redeeming quality "hot" and hope all of the readers attracted to that gender (usually straight women with hot male villains) will forgive every evil action because it was really sexy when he murdered those innocent people! If anyone here is in the Grishaverse fandom, from what I can tell, this very much happened with the Darkling. Not only does this send some really bad messages about excusing toxic/evil/abusive traits because of conventional attractiveness, but also?
Not everyone reading your book is going to be a straight woman, and lesbians/ace people/straight guys deserve the same enjoyment of moral ambiguity and antagonist complexity and the book in general as straight women. Write a character that the lesbians and aces can still appreciate.
Queer coded villains.
On this note about lesbians and earlier notes about throwing bricks at cops, happy one day until Pride! (Loud cheering)
And yeah, we should probably discuss queer coded villains, considering this is named "be gay do crime."
So, queer coding villains, or even explicitly queer villains. What is queer coding? Mostly playing off of stereotypes or trying to imply that a villain is gay. If the villain you wrote makes your gaydar ping, they're queer coded. If your villain is a woman with a crew cut, piercings, tattoos, and a leather jacket? I would like to marry her, and also, I don't think she's heterosexual. And then explicitly queer is just doing anything to confirm their queerness, like giving them a villainy lover of the same gender.
Now... is this a bad thing?
It really depends on a lot of factors. Remember how we just talked about morally grey situations? This is one of them. On the one hand, queer coding villains has been a homophobic tool meant to go "See, kids? Villain bad. Villain gay. GAY BAD!"
But on the other hand, queer villains can be fun! Villains in general can be fun. The fact that "be gay do crime" became a common slogan proves that queer people are not the most law abiding of citizens, and a lot of queer people probably do want to go break a few rules (hehe go read it) and do some crime, y'know? A little villainry? As a treat?
So where does it cross from "fun queer villainry" into "homophobia?"
There's no explicitly drawn line, but here are some guidelines.
1) Maybe try to avoid queer coded villains altogether if you're cishet. I'm not saying you can't, to what's probably my one and only cishet reader, but I'm saying a queer villain by a cishet author is going to hit a lot different than a queer villain by a queer author.
2) Don't write your story as "all the heroes are cis, het, and gender conforming," and "all the villains are trans/queer/gnc." Ideally, there would be a mix on both sides. If you've got to make it a clear divide, make the cishets the villains. Painting all cishet people as villains will not cause any societal or systematic harm to cishets. Painting all queer people as villains... will.
3) If you've got more than one villain, make sure you're not making the cishet one(s) morally grey and sympathetic and giving them redemption arcs and whatnot, and the queer one(s) purely evil, irredeemable, probably killing them off. I really hope I don't need to explain this.
Those are the really big ones I can think of off the top of my head. Be gay, do crime, and don't be a homophobe.
Well, that concludes our chapter! I update every Monday with tips, complaints, and incoherent ramblings. If you have any specific topics you want me to ramble about, let me know in the reviews. Your request might even be granted!
Speaking of which, I love reviews. Follows and favorites probably indicate that you liked it, but reviews really let me know what you liked, what didn't work as well, and gives me the opportunity to find a new friend who is secretly plotting to murder me in my sleep.
Happy writing!