Photo by Jed Fish
We've covered heroes and anti-heroes fairly thoroughly in the past couple of weeks, but we wouldn't have any of the shades of heroes without having their counterpart: the villain.
A well-written villain can make or break a story, because a hero is only as compelling as the villain he is fighting against. You're not going to feel too attached to or root that hard for a hero who's up against a club sandwich with a gun. But if the club sandwich is leading an uprising of all types of sandwiches against the human race for wiping out their kind…
As a hero has a darker counterpart in the anti-hero, the villain has a lighter counterpart in the anti-villain. Let's compare the two.
Good, Old Fashioned Villains
A straight villain is up to no good. Ever. These are the evil witches, mad scientists, two-faced politicians, wicked royals, and general sources of chaos and conflict. They also tend to trigger the plot.
Villains can be distinct in what lengths they will go to in their villainy, their lack of moral compass, their intelligence in creating their plot, or their sheer tenacity.
Classical villains pretty much are up to no good, and are rarely sympathetic.
Anti-Villains: Heroic Bad Guys
However, an anti-villain is a more curious study. An anti-villain might have heroic goals, but their means of achieving those goals are evil. Alternatively, they might have terrible goals, but will act completely above board and ethically in getting what they want. This does not make them less dangerous to our hero, however.
Generally, anti-villains are aware that they aren't winning any humanitarian awards with their designated plot, but they are self-aware enough to at least have good PR.
Examples of anti-villains include Inspector Javert from Les Miserables, who truly believes that he's doing the right thing in pursuing Jean Valjean; he just has a very black-and-white perspective on the criminal psyche. Long John Silver in Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island also qualifies, since he's clearly a bad guy (you know, the whole pirate thing), but he's a bad guy who has his act together, and is fairly sympathetic.
Which do you prefer? Villains or Anti-Villains
PRACTICE
Create a villain or anti-villain to combat your hero/anti-hero. Write for fifteen minutes and post your characterization in the comments. Make sure you leave feedback for your fellow writers!
Diana endured the ages, always the same. Always stoic, always bent on justice and justice alone.
She sacrificed her own son on the altar of justice when she tried to raise him up to overthrow Alexander. She put him through trials, he ran days in the mud unfed and fought his mother with swords and scaled the shear cliffs. He never complained, he never balked at the challenges she set him. He felt her hopes for him, the urgency of her desire for him to be a great ruler and justice bringer. On the day he died, she had set him a quest to retrieve the eggs of eagles from the high peaks on the shores of the sea. He had done it many times, but this day he was to carry dagger and shield and fight the winds and icy rains of late fall. He was exposed on the rock, only a handhold from the ledge where the eggs would be found when the shield slung across his back caught on an overhang as he moved delicately from one hold to the next. He was hung up and tossed off the rock into the sea.
Diana had watched from the tall branches of her pine tree. She looked on, soaked to the bone and numbed by the weather. Did she cry? Was that a tear that slid down her stone cheek, or was it the rain tracing its path to the earth? This woman, lover of justice, who took on her enemy by raising up the son he had caused to be bred in her, sat in her tree and witnessed the death of her son. She climbed down and hiked to the seaside, climbing over boulders and wading through tide pools, seeking his body. She would not leave it for the gulls to desecrate.
As she neared the base of the cliff her eyes scanned mechanically over the sand and among the boulders. The waves had not yet lapped at the cliff, she had an hour perhaps before she would be trapped in the bay and drowned. For near an hour she searched, and as the water rose she took to higher and higher ground, looking out over the water to catch a glimpse of him. His round shield caught her eye, carried on a wave and bringing the tide in with it. She thought to retrieve it but had waited instead. She waited for four hours while the tide devoured the shore, licked clean the base of the cliff and then began to retreat to its home in the sea. She watched carefully for the shield. There. Among the lowest boulders.
He lay still, lounging in the arms of a pair of boulders, legs kicked out idly like a child sitting in a tree. Throwing her son over her shoulder and lashing him fast, she climbed nimbly up the rocky shore to the wooded heights where they made their home. Anyone watching her would have assumed that she carried her sleeping child. She walked with the care and strength of a woman long used to caring for her children and picking them up from slight falls and scrapes. The dead boy on her back did not weigh on her more than would have a sack of washing or a goat for their supper.
She set him down gently among his bedding in the cave and stripped off his boots and vests to dry at the entrance. She toweled her own hair dry and tied it back in a tight knot. Changing into dry things and tying back her sleeves she went to work grinding herbs from her stores into poultices. They would be dressings for his wounds and preservatives against decay. When the herbs were ready and set out, she prepared the evening meal. She heaped cooked grains and venison into a dish and set it next to the boy. She sat against the cave wall contemplating his face. She watched the fire light dance on his open eyes as the sun settled low in the sky and kissed the cave mouth goodnight. Her eyes glowed orange in the last gasp of day and still she sat entirely still.
The morning calls of birds found her sitting up against the wall, still staring into empty nothingness. Her eyes were dry and gave no evidence of mourning. No redness, no puffiness. The eyes of a woman undisturbed by life and death. When the first light touched the trees outside the cave she rose and put the herbs and potions to use on her son. She bandaged the gashes on his back and head and covered him in the mix of sage and deer fat she had prepared for his burial. When he was ready, she closed his eyes gently with her fingers and placed a silver coin bearing the likeness of Emperor Alexander in each one. She wrapped her son up in his bedclothes and carried him out to the clearing where she had last seen Alexander. She dug a pit as deep as she was able and placed the boy inside. She covered him over with dirt, stones and twigs and planted an acorn in the center before patting down the rest of the dirt. She covered the freshly dug earth with thorns and branches to discourage scavengers.
“Sleep well, my son. Gods know if we will meet again.”
I’m curious to find out what’s next for Diana. Is this the end, or the beginning?
Diana keeps fighting tyrants to restore justice. Her idea of tyranny and her idea of justice, which is what at times makes her an anti-villain.
So this is the beginning. 🙂
Who was her son? I’m not clued up with this period of history. Good beginning (or ending) to what could be an enthralling story.
Not actual history, just borrowed from history. The story reincarnates Diana, the goddess and Alexander the Great across the whole of human history. I have no idea if this is beginning or the middle. It’s a WIP that I’m working on out of sequence.
I found this tense and well-written, especially towards the end. It is painful to read, and I come out not liking Diana very much, because, from what I’ve read, she had pushed her son of I’m guessing less than 10 years to the point of death. And she really wasn’t all the remorseful of it.
The thing you have to be careful of though, is an event like this can really turn the reader against a character.
And though you say “Justice”, I don’t think justice pushes one to this kind of obsession. This is more like hellbent revenge.
———
Aside from that, I responded to you on the 5 Types of Heroes. I know the emailing on it is broken.
a hero is only as compelling as the villain he is fighting against.- great line.
I’m definitely a villain. I kind of fall in love with the villains I write.
I feel like creating a strong, likeable protagonist is the “work.” Then, when it’s time to write the bad guy, oh I rub my hands and cackle maniacally because *that’s* the fun part!
Marcella woke at six a.m. sharp. It was the first of many commitments she’d made to God and to her husband, and she kept her commtiments. “Faith before sight,” she reminded herself, feeling groggy. “God wants me to fulfill my role as wife and mother. The devil’s trying to convince me I’m tired, but I won’t give in. I trust you, Lord Jesus.” She began to hum a hymn, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” It helped wake her up and remember her Lord as she began to straighten the bed from the inside. She liked to make the bed as much as possible before she got out of it. That way, she didn’t accidentally leave the room before the bed was done. Jim, her husband, did not like a messy bedroom. He’d made a rule that the bed had to be made before she came out to make breakfast.
There were a lot of rules in the house. She couldn’t gain a pound. She couldn’t
forget to serve fruit with dinner. She had to call the Bible study kids every
Monday night without missing any of her other chores. She accepted it all with
gratitude—in spite of occasional grumblings from her rebellious heart—because she had her salvation. She thought back to a conversation she’d had a few days ago with a girl she was discipling.
The girl showed promise. Marcella had met her at the college Bible study Jim led. Her name was Helen. She was a shy girl and too smart for a female, but she had a submissive spirit and strong discipline. Marcella was sure Helen would become a good wife one day, as long as she wasn’t seduced by too much learning. Helen and Marcella met once a week for coffee and Bible study. Marcella had been explaining God’s order to her.They were reading Ephesians 5: 22-27:
Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his
body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy,cleansing[b] her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
“You see, Helen? Just as Christ is over the church, God has placed man over woman. Just as Christ loved the church, it’s man’s job to love his wife. That’s why we must obey our husbands in all things that aren’t sin. It’s just as much a sin to disobey your husband as it is to disobey God, since God has commanded us to obey our husbands.”
‘… seduced by too much learning.’ does that mean becoming too smart for your own good? We’re all subject to someone else, however much we like to imagine otherwise.
It’s a reference to Acts 26:24 (KJV): And as he thus spake for himself, Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad.
And Marcella needs out of this relationship. I’m going to pin Jim as the anti-villain in this one since he probably thinks he’s doing right. Good scene SS, her veneer of happy acceptance gave me chills.
Thanks, MSS!
Actually, Marcella and Jim are both antivillains. Marcella is harder to see at first, because you feel for her, but she’s complicit in tearing herself down, and she’s even more ruthless than he is in tearing other women down.
I’m guessing you’ve had a bad experience with the church? This looks like a fairy accurate portrayal of stereotypical Christian cult leaders. Good job describing the villain through the eyes of his victim.
I don’t know if I’d call it a bad experience with the church. I’ve had some experience with idealism overriding reality–to everyone’s detriment. 🙂
My ‘anti-villain’ is more of a victim than a misunderstood hero.
He stares, disbelieving, at the note, written on a page torn from a school exercise book. The ink is blotched, the letters badly formed.
They have facilities to send letters, or emails, but they’re always censored by a sadistic and often illiterate warden.
He reads the note again. ‘I know I caused you a lot of trouble, but I desperately need something that only you can get me.’
“Let her rot in jail,” his wife snarls at the breakfast table when he shows it to her. “Those were your exact words. Remember?”
“Things have changed for us since then.”
“Through our own efforts. We’re exactly where we were before she came. What possessed you to take her in, in the first place?”
How well he remembers the problems that slowly crept up on them while their new boarder dispensed her charity to anyone with a hard-luck story. How some of the derelicts eventually camped outside his house because ‘they had no one else to turn to.’
Worse still, she was backed by the church authorities, so the police were loath to remove the squatters in case they angered the bishop.
Just before the police moved in his wife had put her foot down. She’d clearly been waiting to vent her feelings. He’d been hoping things would calm down, but circumstances forced his hand and he’d given her notice, hoping nothing would happen before the notice period ended and she’d be gone, with her followers. Then he could wash his hands of her.
“She’s not asking for much,” he says between mouthfuls of egg and ham.
“Even the smallest thing is too much,” his wife mutters.
He puts his cup down. “The difference between me and her is I deserved to be put inside.”
“That was years ago, you were a callow youth. Even so you were at a correctional school. Borrowing cars to go joyriding is not a capital offence.” She brushes away crumbs off the table cloth.
He closes his eyes as an image wracks his mind. His boarder cowers in her room before a squad of policemen. They lead her away, handcuffed.
When the following day’s visiting hours begin he’s standing in the queue.
“Did you bring it?” Despite her haggard condition, her eyes are bright, she sits straight up in the chair, facing him.
He shakes his head. “You’ll soon have as much as you need.”
He’d been shown the amounts she embezzled from the company where she
worked. And shaken his head. The tremendous good they did for desperate people was out of all proportion to the numbers on the list, none of which were more than two digits long.
Talk about using a club to kill a flea.
There are a lot of interesting things going on in this piece: a husband and wife divided over helping someone, a squatter who takes in strays but who also embezzles. I think all of these ideas could benefit from some more detail and refinement. I found the last part a bit confusing. We don’t know what she’s asking for, so when he says she’ll get it soon it doesn’t bring any resolution. Was she imprisonned for embezzlement or for squatting, and was she taking only tiny amounts from a large company? Who is the “they” that did temendous good. Did she steal the money to help people? And finally, who was wielding the club? The company, the husband and wife? I’d be interested to read more once you’ve developed the story!
Thanks for the constructive comments.
As you say a lot of detail can be added to flesh out the story.She’s very sick, and needs special drugs; once he’s got her out of jail she’ll have all the medication she needs. ‘They’ should be ‘it’ – sorry for that – the little amounts she stole to help the poor and for which she’s imprisoned by her employers.
His wife was against having her as a boarder. The municipal authorities were also up in arms, as their bye-laws were flouted; but they had the bishop of her church to contend with.
I find when writing for fifteen minutes a story develops which you feel you must finish or you’ll lose the thread. Hence the compaction.
Once again, thanks.
I like both. But I like to twist things so that villains actually change and characters one would not expect becomes a villain or an anti-villian.
This is why Batman is the greatest literary hero ever: he’s got the best rogues gallery. Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke establishes the Joker as the ultimate villain – he loves evil for evil’s sake. He’s the anti-order. And you could go through all the others. They’re all always foils for either Bats or Bruce.
Great post!
Sometimes anti-villains morph into anti-heroes. I’m thinking of Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Sister Jude from American Horror Story (season 2). AHS has multiple villains: the old-fashioned ex-Nazi mad doctor villain, and the anti-villain, Sister Jude, who wants the best but is severely misguided. Then there’s another old-fashioned villain, the serial killer. And an anti-villain/old-fashioned villain in the form of a person possessed by a demon. (How would you categorize that? Is a good guy possessed by an evil demon an anti-villain, because the host is sympathetic — or an old-fashioned villain, because demons are definitely old-fashioned evil?)
Tall, elegant, with large green eyes and the smile of a particularly clever cat, Lady Mallkyn, Countess of Carrell, is a woman whose main characteristic is selfishness. She is out for number one, always has been, and always will be. If it looks like she is showing pity or interest in someone other than herself, just follow the trail of breadcrumbs and you’ll find that something is in it for her.
At the same time, though, we can see some of the things in her life that have made her what she is. She lives in a hard world: the aristocracy of a medieval land where class is paramount and the only way for a woman to advance is by marriage. Her parents knew this, and married her off at a startlingly young age to an older man who happened to be an earl, as well as a drunk. At the time she thought they were unjust and hated them for it, brooding on her pain for years. Then she changed. She decided, like so many do, to turn her pain into anger, and resolved to spend the rest of her life making that strategic marriage count for something. Ambition became her first aim in life.
Her favorite tactics are blackmail and manipulation by guilt. She does a lovely job of pretending to be generous, sweet, and innocent when necessary, then she turns right around and stabs her claws into the softest flesh she can find. She holds things over her enemies’ heads, things they would rather forget and have kept secret–affairs, gambling debts, family scandals–threatening what they hold most dear in return for special services.
For years she put up with her husband, asserting her superior intellect whenever possible and making him look like an incompetent buffoon to everyone, but after a decade or so she grows quite tired of the game. She isn’t content with a mediocre castle on a mediocre estate in a mediocre county; she wants a larger game to play.
http://www.beastandbeauty.com/2013/07/mallkyn.html
This is Avolair.
A man of great
scholastic achievement and a master of the fine craft of sorcery. On a normal day, one would find this powerful
wizard serving King Malachi as the Chief Advisor and High Councilman of Capital
City. He would be wearing far more
elegant clothing and be in command of every situation placed in front of
him. He would have had what he needed in
an instant, without a moment lost or hesitated.
But tonight…
Tonight does
not demand a powerful advisor.
Tonight calls
for the demon behind the mask of this cunning politician. Tonight requires a man who can lie and
connive his way to getting what he needs.
Tonight requires the man who had manipulated events in recent years to
win the kind of powers his mask has.
Tonight calls
for Avolair, the wicked sorcerer, who had spent more than half of his long life
honing the powers that made him frightening, who had lied and cheated to get
what he wanted, who had recruited a good portion of the Royal Guard to his
cause, and who will one day sit on the throne while King Malachi bows at his
feet.
And why
not? After all, everything had gone as
smoothly as his master had planned. King
Elliot was dead, his Kingdom had fallen, and now an ally sits on the throne of
the Velazquez Empire. His longtime ally
had carefully planned every movement on the game board they called Tythor. One by one, every little occurrence in Tythor
went as he had foreseen it. And
everything will continue to fall on its predetermined course.
Until the day
comes when all who live in Tythor outlive their usefulness. The day that will call for meteors to rain
from the heavens to descend down and destroy everything. The day that will send tidal waves crashing
into the rocky shores, that will send fire raging from the sky, and that will
cause the earth will quake and kill mercilessly.
The day that
he, Lord Avolair, will rise and rule the new world that will rise from the
ashes.
But that day is
not today.
He will be
patient.
He will wait
for his day.
And while today
will not be that great future day…
What will
happen soon will be a huge step forward in getting there.
I prefer stories that don’t require the hack device of a villain.
Then those stories will bore me. My favorite characters are anti-villains and villain protagonists; complex characters that make you constantly evaluate how much they can do and how far they can go and still keep you rooting for them.
Why is that? Can you give me some examples please?
Dragus
As one might expect by his name, King Dragus is the king of the dragons and the dragon nation, Dragonia. Like his ancestors, he wishes to expand his territory like in days past. He also despises humans, and most of all, his eternal foe, Armstrong. He wants to add their territory, known as Humania, to his own.
Dragus is very sarcastic, cynical, and hotheaded. Sometimes, he’ll lose his temper whenever he doesn’t get his way, but tries to keep said temper under control, even if he does get the occasional migraine headache because of it.
Dragus doesn’t wear any clothes to speak of. He is 10 feet tall (bipedal when walking, quadrupedal when running) with jade green, scaly skin. As one would expect from a dragon, he has large wings on his back and bony horns on his head. He possesses large teeth, some of which hang down from his tyrannosaurus-esque mouth. He has piercing yellow eyes with red irises, and a large, fiery red, unkempt mane that flows from the top of his head to his upper back. And finally, he has a 5 foot long, scaly tail.
Being a dragon, Dragus possesses hot, noxious fire breath that is more than capable of scorching a small town. He can also fly with his giant, batlike wings. He also possesses immense physical strength.
He sounds intruiging! Is this an on going story? I love dragons and magic. Have you sorted out you characters using a charater gird to kind of sort out who they are and why they are the way they are?
Yeah, he’s going to be one of several villains in an ongoing story. It’s a very cartoony, comedic, action and mythology-esque anthology type story. 🙂
Father Mobius aka Cardinal Mobius.
A religious zealot, he serves the Catholic style Ithilen Kingdom. Acting as a form of inquisitor, he is often said to have the ear of the Pope and will go to any length to achieve the tasks set to him. He is an accomplished tactician and has mastered several magic forms, often using he double ended spear as a ‘brush’ to draw symbols. He also possesses partial command over the Ashara – an elite group of warriors each based around one of the ten plagues.
He is generally seen to be calm and smiling, providing advice when needed. He is not overly aggressive and will use logic to solve disputes. However, he has been know to mentally ‘break’ people. This causes many to be wary of him.
On missions he becomes far quieter and more violent when his quarry is reached, being perfectly prepared to break bones to stop them escaping, though in places that can easily be mended.
His main tasks are locating revolt leaders and subduing them. This often involves using a number of spells to ‘draw’ particular emotions from the subject – anger, fear etc. This leaves the subject in an incredibly submissive state, comparable to young children.
Despite his unquestioning service of his duty, he is not unaware of the lives he ruining. In reality he has wished many times that he could walk a different path, but can see no other way to help his people. He realised many years ago that the common folk had begun to doubt the existence of their gods. However, he, like the rest of his order, were able to speak with and see their gods. So, when he discovered his people’s disbelief he knew that any act of opposition would result in horrifying eradication.
He came to the conclusion that removing the anger from peoples hearts would spare them the God’s wrath.
Clockmation is a villain I created for a while now. Unlike most villains in the classical era who have some horrible past, Clockmation had everything for him. Coming from a middle class family, he was never very wealthy, but had enough to have nice things and live comfortably. His mother, father, and brother are all alive, still even with him being locked up for his criminal acts. Doctors have asked on many occasions why a boy with such a promising future would turn to crime.
His answer isn’t one they truly hoped for, ‘Because I wanted to’. The idea I had for this was the idea that sometimes people can’t help the fact they have the need to do bad things. Yet I took a darker spin on it, using the idea that some people just want to do bad things, even if they can be good people and once was.
Clockmation isn’t really completely insane to the point he could be called another ‘Joker’ shadow. The idea I had for him was on the bases of someone completely sane and smart plays the part of an insane criminal. What he wants is despair, he likes to see people in misery. Not because he had a miserable existence, but just because he can make others miserable.
His targets tend to reflect this idea. He doesn’t chose people in discrimination. His targets are ones who have everything for them, loving family, a bright future, and promising scholarships or career. He kills them so he can watch the family go through the stages of grief. He likes to see others cry, get angry, and sometimes he just likes to see them fall into depression and see them take their own life.
As for the name Clockmation, well this steamed from what goes on in his mind. The idea of the ‘clicking’ and ‘ticking’ he hears, like a clock. Also, it’s the idea ones time could be almost up, we have no idea when we will die or what will happen after we are gone. Time marches on even after we are gone, people either finally go into acceptance or fall into depression. Either way, the ends we come to are our own, whether Clockmation is to blame for their suicide or grief is up to the person looking at the case. If his killing of a beloved one caused all this to happen, or if it’s just human nature of being able or not being able to deal with the situation.
The ‘mation’ part was taking from the ending of ‘Animation’. This has two definitions, which can be used for Clockmation, one being ‘the state of being full of life or vigor; liveliness.’ or the other being ‘the technique of photographing successive drawings or positions of puppets or models to create an illusion of movement when the movie is shown as a sequence.’
The first is about his victims, or could be a parallel to his life, how he did have everything and targets the same kind of people just because they are full of ‘Animation’. Because, those are the best kinds of people.
The second could be to say how he creates these scenes of his kills. Position puppets or models for the illusion of what we call reality. The fact they can’t undo the events that lead to the ones they cared about death. Like a movie with no happy ending.
Everything else about Clockmation is still in the work. But that is my skeleton for him. What do you all think?
Nefarious/Voltaire i like booth names
He at 6 years old awekaned superpowers and was send to containment center when he was adopted and taked as apprentice of various powered people supervillains in the majority
He actually got a happy childhood but learned about the injustice of His situation
At 15 he escaped armed with dangerous superpowers and all the knowledge of a life in prison
And the thing Is he actually had a happy childhood , the villains that raised him didnt deprive him of love or attention
But when he gets out and sees the world he Is tremendously dissapointed in today villainy
Savages, antihéros , antivillains
He doesnt get that so he wants to be this one of the biggest supervillains using the old ways and shake the world not only to be real supervillainy again , but in a way that real heroes stand up to oppose him and make a better world
To do that he Is gonna be the biggest fish he can be so that everyone or adopt that sense of villainy/heroísm
Or they dissapear
He has parallel perception :
He can see and interact with other plains of existence in our dimension
And gain new abilities when he visits them
There is no respect of how the