Secrets of Writing: The Villain

Also known as the Antagonist, the Villain is usually the champion of the counter premise. The Villain is often the center of evil in the story. It is from him that the conflict arises. He’s usually behind the dilemmas facing the hero and he’s in direct opposition to the hero obtaining the Grail. Because he stands in the way, he’s usually a lot closer to the Grail than the Hero is.

Unlike the Hero, however, the villain doesn’t have to be a person. It can be a force of nature, or merely something as abstract as life itself. The Villain can be the Hero’s insecurities, it can be an addiction, it can be poverty, or an illness.

Remember our discussion of SOUTH PACIFIC? In that story the villain was bigotry. Nellie Forbush didn’t want to marry Emile De Becque because he’d been married to a South Seas Islander and has two children of a mixed race. Nellie was from Arkansas and was raised by a bigoted mother, so it was hard for her to shake her upbringing. Lt. Cable didn’t want to marry the island girl for similar reasons. He loved her, but he knew society back home would ostracize him and he didn’t feel good about that. Later, when on his mission, Cable decides to stay on the island after the war and marry her anyway. But he gets killed before that can happen. His death shows Nellie how pointless bigotry is and how it stands in the way of love between all people. She overcomes the Villain of the story and marries De Becque.

SOUTH PACIFIC broke all Broadway records in its day. It was Rogers and Hammerstein’s most successful work. But generally speaking, the audience prefers human villains in their stories. Or humanoid, if you will, since a lot of the villains in comic books can’t really be called human.

Villains don’t have to be evil, or even bad. They can be well meaning individuals. After all, some of the worse crimes in history were caused by well meaning individuals. The Inquisition was supposed to weed out the sinners, the Missionaries tried to save people around the world by destroying their culture, the U.S. Government interned Japanese Americans during World War II to make our country safe. We know now that all these people were wrong, but at the time, they had “good” intentions.

Most “Villains” in real life think of themselves as the good guy. They think they are doing the right thing. If you’re a liberal, you might see Rush Limbaugh as a villain. If you’re a conservative, you might see Jesse Jackson as a villain. And if you’re a centrist, you might see them both as villains. A Villain is anyone who is not on “our” side. When you decide who the Hero of the story is, you’re telling the audience which side to take. You then have to make the audience root for the Hero and boo the Villain. But the Villain does not have to be evil. He can even be sympathetic.

Most of the evil in our world is caused by stupidity or greed, not by willful destruction. When you create a Villain, it’s more instructive to the Audience to see one that represents problems they can relate to. People generally don’t relate to an alien who wants to rule the planet because they’re BAAAD. But give them a Villain who wants to steal from them or make their life miserable because it serves his own personal gain, and the Audience can see truth in that. Most of us have been victimized at some point or another by such people.

You also make a Villain more believable when you reveal their inner pain. Most criminals are doing ill because that’s what they’ve been taught all their lives. Or they’re trying to get some pay back for perceived injustices. Or they’re trying to get ahead the fast way because their lives are terrible and they can’t take the pain. They’re addicted to the rush of trying to win through danger.

Your villain must have a strong reason for what he does. He can’t just be doing it because he’s evil. There must be something in it for him. The stakes for the villain should be just as high as they are for the hero. That way, the story becomes more exciting as it builds toward the climax. Failing that, you should at least create some reasons why the villain must succeed. As the champion of the counter premise, his side demands equal time.

The Villain should be as believable as your hero. Maybe more so. After all, the hero in a story is only as good as the Villain. The Villain creates the conflict. If you have a weak Villain, you have a weak conflict. Then your hero doesn’t look heroic.

Villains are Superior!

The Villain should always have the upper hand until the climax of the story. If the Villain isn’t winning, you lose the conflict. Say good-bye to the audience at that point. Ever notice how people start walking out of the theater before the credits roll, because they know the movie’s ended? They don’t call it the climax for nothing. Once people have their fun, they’re outta there!

The Villain is the pull, the driving force behind the conflict. You need the Villain to be powerful. The Villain has to put the hero on the ropes. The Villain can never show weakness in the story until the climax. Otherwise, people will lose interest. Guaranteed.

The Villain must be superior to the hero in some way. In SOUTH PACIFIC, the Villain was a powerful psychological force that prevented the heroine from truly opening her heart to the one she loved. The Villain was winning up until the end. In TERMINATOR 2, the T-1000 was an unstoppable force right up to the last scene. In Jaws, the shark was relentlessly kicking Roy Schieder’s butt until he got lucky.

Nobody cares if your hero can beat up a weakling. That isn’t heroic. The Villain has to be superior in a way that matters. If not brawn, then brains. If not brains, then skill. But the Villain must be superior.

REMEMBER: Weak Villain, weak story. 

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