Today I want to discuss everyone’s favorite character in any story—the villain! You can have the most amazing hero, but, if your villain isn’t just as amazing, your story will fall flat. A villain provides the needed conflict and tension to make sure the hero’s story is engaging.
Villain vs Antagonist
First, I want to clarify that the villain does not mean the antagonist. These roles can be served by the same character, but that is not always the case. Just like antagonist doesn’t mean villain, protagonist doesn’t mean hero. Here is the key difference. Villain and hero are based on morality, while antagonist and protagonist are based on desire. A villain does evil, and a hero does good. Meanwhile, a protagonist is someone who wants a specific goal, and the antagonist wants the opposite goal.
As an example, look at Disney’s The Little Mermaid. The villain is clearly Ursula, the sea witch who has no issue enslaving or killing others. However, she isn’t the antagonist. Ariel, our protagonist, wants to be on land with the humans. Ursula helps her achieve that goal. So, the sea witch can’t be the antagonist. Instead, Ariel’s father is the antagonist who wants to keep Ariel in the ocean. The antagonist and villain are separate characters in the movie. It’s also important to note that the villain can also be your protagonist, just like in the movie Maleficent. So, when selecting your villain, don’t just ask who opposes your main character. Ask who has a skewed sense of morality that’s causing problems for the hero.
What Makes A Good Villain?
Now that we know what a villain’s role is in the story, let’s look at five elements that make a great villain.
Goal
The first thing a villain (or any significant character) needs is a character arc, which starts with a goal. Your villain must want something. Along with that comes his motivations for wanting the goal and stakes attached to it. What does he want? Why does he want it? What does he think will happen if he doesn’t get it? Establishing these three pieces of his story will give your villain depth and a character arc.
Cost
As we mentioned earlier, your villain will have a corrupt sense of morals. His actions and wants must come with a cost. Villains are usually willing to give up everything to get their goals. Some are willing to sacrifice their lives, some the lives of their loved ones, or maybe even their reputation. Maybe chasing after the goal will make him lose even more of his humanity because of the things he’ll have to do. It’s up to you what you pick, but every villain needs a great sacrifice they are willing to (and do) make for the goal.
Just like a hero often has to give something up to achieve her goal, the villain needs to give up something. The difference in these sacrifices are morals. The hero gives up whatever is holding her back from achieving something good. On the other hand, a villain gives up something good to achieve something bad. So, essentially, when faced with the ultimate choice, the hero gives up the “right” thing while the villain lets go of the “wrong” thing.
Proactive
The next thing a good villain needs is to be proactive. He must be a man of action. If he’s just sitting around waiting for the hero to disrupt his plan, then he’s a bad villain. You want your hero fighting an upward battle so the villain needs to be active, throwing obstacles at the hero. Your villain should be obsessed with his goal (willing to give up everything for it) so he’s going to do everything he can to make sure no one gets in his way.
Formidable
Next, your villain needs to be more powerful than your hero. Yep, you read that right. The villain should be stronger, faster, smarter, etc. He needs more skills and better skills than your hero. Why? Because the hero needs to struggle to defeat him. In the end, it’s the hero’s morals that will allow her to win. The hero will understand something that the villain can’t due to his views. For instance, the hero will know that relying on others to help her makes her more powerful. So, even though your villain will fail to overcome the flaw that would allow him to win, he needs to be powerful.
Immoral
Lastly, your villain has to be immoral. Now, there are two ways you can create your immoral villain. He can be a redeemable villain or a pure villain.
A redeemable villain usually has likable qualities like Maleficent, but he must not be someone readers would describe as good. If you are doing a redemption arc for the villain, you could change that in the end, but the majority of the book needs him to have questionable morals.
A pure villain is one who is so evil it’s incomprehensible to readers. Someone who enjoys killing, is willing to sacrifice his loved ones, or even doesn’t understand that what he does is evil. There is no reasoning with this type of villain, and there’s no redemption.
Example
Let’s look at The Little Mermaid once more and examine its villain. Ursula wants to get the trident from the sea king (goal) so she can have ultimate power and control the whole ocean (motivation). If she doesn’t succeed, she’ll be stuck in her cave with only the power to make deals with anyone who comes to see her (stakes).
The cost Ursula has to pay is connection with others. She has no friends. There are two minions, but they get killed in the crossfire at the end. She doesn’t mourn long before she moves on to attack others. To her, they are collateral damage. You don’t see her trying to use her newfound power to bring them back. She sees how the king caring for his daughter gives him a weakness (the opposite of power) so she refuses to value anyone above her goal.
Ursula is very proactive in achieving her goal. She has her minions search for someone to use to achieve her goal, she convinces Ariel to make a deal with her, she sends her minions to keep Ariel from fulfilling her side of the contract, and she even disguises herself to hinder Ariel. Then her plans all come to a successful close when she leverages Ariel’s failure to complete their contract to convince the king to make his own bargain. Ursula then disposes of the king and takes his trident.
The sea witch is also definitely formidable as a villain. She is wise, while Ariel is naive. Ursula’s clever enough to see people’s weaknesses and use those against them. Ariel is not self-aware, let alone able to understand others and their motivations. Ursula also has magic, and Ariel has none. I could go one, but you get the picture.
Lastly, Ursula is immoral. She has a song at the beginning of the movie about how she used to be “nasty” and the lyrics are her trying to convince Ariel she has changed. But everything is delivered with sarcasm or disgust. Anyone reading her nonverbal communication knows she doesn’t mean it. She makes deals with high demands and her tunnel of captives proves she often does more harm than good. She doesn’t even seem sorry for “racking them across the coals.” Then, at the end of the movie, she has no problem using a father’s love of his daughter to capture him. Even when she gets the trident, her first response is to stir up the ocean into a horrible storm. She loves evil and is a pure villain. There is no redemption for her.
Final Thoughts
Villains can be a lot of fun to create. They should be complex with their own character arc, and they need to present a significant obstacle for the hero to defeat. Take some time to analyze your villain using these five elements to make sure he is filling the role needed within the story. Once you know you have a solid base for the villain, go let loose and have him make some really bad decisions.
Thanks for reading!
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