Unforgettable Villainy
A Cyborg, a Schoolmarm, and a Psychiatrist Walk Into a Bar
“The villain? Well, classism, obviously.”
(Exec shaking head.)
“Oh then it’s, um. It’s man’s hubris in believing he can triumph over nature.”
(Exec shaking head.)
“Iceberg?”
(Exec shaking head.)
—James Cameron pitching Titanic (1997) to Fox
Folks, that right there’s the Billy Zane origin story. Print it and ship it.
Is this you? I’m asking because it is often me. Your brain is full of your hero’s motivation. You understand what they want, the way they think about what they want and how they plan to achieve it, the emotions they experience, their conflicting desires, their confounding insecurities. Your villain? They’re evil and their greatest desire is to foil the hero and their plan to achieve this is to be a big jerkface and their emotional range runs from angry to really angry.
That’s an exaggerated example. But do you struggle to understand and explain your villain’s motives? An evil king is amassing power and your protagonist must stop him. I absolutely believe that an evil king can be power hungry, but why? For what purpose does he want the power? If he’s just amassing power for the sake of having a lot of power then he won’t stand the test of time. Stick this evil king on the back burner for a moment. We’ll come back to him.
First, a brief word on terminology. This post is specifically about villains and not necessarily about antagonists. An antagonist is a character who acts in opposition to your protagonist’s goals to create the dramatic conflict. A villain is a character whose motives or actions are perceived by the reader as being evil or malicious. They’re usually the same character but they don’t have to be.
For example, the antagonist of Lolita is Lolita—light of his life, victim of his frighteningly unchecked pedophilia. The villain of Lolita is Humbert Humbert—protagonist and oft-cited unreliable narrator. Humbert describes Lolita as a temptress but most readers understand that she is a child and his account of events is wildly skewed. Humbert is the story’s protagonist but he is also its monster. Scarier than most of the villains below.
Sorry, that didn’t end up being brief.
Humbert Humbert, as it happens, has one important thing in common with the three villains I’m about to examine. Different as they are, all of them—and, in fact, every truly great villain—share one simple characteristic. It’s the one thing you need to know to write an incredible villain for your story.
Herewith, a few of the greatest and most memorable villains of our time. They are: the T-1000; Dolores Umbridge; and Dr Hannibal Lecter. The cyborg, the schoolmarm, and the psychiatrist. What makes these villains so iconic?
It’s not that we fear them. I’m high-key terrified of the T-1000. Once it has targeted you, it will never stop coming. You can shoot it, stab it, cut its head off, set it on fire, break it into a million pieces—it will never give up on killing you. It doesn’t stop to sleep or eat or bathe. Its only motivation is your death. Dolores Umbridge, on the other hand, doesn’t frighten me. She reminds me of a fear I’ve experienced in the past but she doesn’t have power over me today. She’s a villain that you can age away from. Temporary. Hannibal Lecter? Everyone believes they are an Agent Starling—a person that Dr Lecter would choose not to kill because they improve the world by living in it.
It’s not that we hate them. I hate Umbridge and I am not alone in experiencing the visceral fury that she evokes. Not only do I hate her, I don’t respect anything about her. I don’t even respect her capacity for evil because honestly she kind of stumbles into it. Lecter on the other hand is terribly likable. He’s intelligent, charming, and witty. Unflaggingly polite. I absolutely respect him. He’s one of the world’s foremost psychiatrists and a gifted culinarian to boot. And I can’t feel hatred for the T-1000; it’s a machine. That would be like hating a toaster.
Are they sympathetic? Relatable? There are days when I sympathize with Hannibal Lecter and his mission to kill the people who irritate him (I do not sympathize with the eating their corpses part). I don’t think many people out there could sympathize with Dolores Umbridge or relate to the T-1000. At least I hope not.
For your consideration, then: a woman who harms the children in her care through blind devotion to authority and a pathological need to exert control; a sociopathic, serial-murdering psychiatrist who conscientiously chooses to kill those he believes are detrimental to the dignity of humankind; and a machine, programmed by other machines, for the sole purpose of hunting down and annihilating its target. Bonus: good old Humbert Humbert, bumbling child abuser.
To make this analysis even more complicated, I will throw two more villains into the mix.
What’s the most dangerous animal on Earth? If you said “man” you’re not wrong. Depending on how you calculate it there are two contenders. If we count accidental human deaths attributable to other humans in addition to the intentional ones then humans win by a landslide.
What’s the second most dangerous animal? Is it the king cobra, the great white shark, the hippopotamus, the black widow spider, or even the domestic dog? It’s the mighty mosquito. Mosquitoes kill three quarters of a million to a million humans every year. The next most dangerous animal is the snake, an order of magnitude behind.
The story of humanity, then, has two great villains. Man. Mosquito. Can a mosquito be a villain? Can it demonstrate villainy in a meaningful way? I posit that if the T-1000 can be a villain then so can the mosquito. They kill dispassionately and without malice; but efficiently—and they will never stop killing us unless we eradicate their entire species. What about “man”? Can an abstract concept that covers every human being on the planet (plus several in orbit) be a villain? The American Film Institute says yes. Man, in his role as the villain and antagonist of Bambi (1942), is their twentieth greatest film villain of the 20th century.
What characteristic, what commonality, can you find in Hannibal Lecter, Dolores Umbridge, the T-1000, Humbert Humbert, a literal mosquito, and the overarching concept of “man”?
Each of these villains—every great villain—is the hero of their own story.
A great villain has the same characteristics as a hero. They exhibit true bravery, tremendous conviction, and dogged determination. Their actions have objectively heroic qualities. They are bold and daring. They take risks. They place themselves in jeopardy to achieve their goal. Another character works against them to thwart their plans but they never give up. They persevere. Their actions are logical and rational when examined from their point of view—they genuinely believe that what they are doing is right. In the version of events as narrated by this character or their allies, they are the story’s hero.
Is Dolores Umbridge brave? Consider that she genuinely believes Dumbledore, perhaps the most powerful living wizard, is using Hogwarts as a cover to recruit and train young insurgents to overthrow the government. She knows that their Defense teacher last term was a Death Eater and taught them the unforgivable curses. That’s not even a misguided belief, that’s a fact. She has already defied Dumbledore openly, in front of Harry at the Ministry hearing, and made both of them her enemies. Even so, she agrees to be embedded at Hogwarts—hundreds of miles away from Ministry HQ; shielded from apparition so even if she calls for help no one can get to her quickly; and with no backup except the sympathetic squib janitor. She’ll be at the mercy of a formidable demagogue; his coterie of loyal faculty, most of whom far outstrip her in terms of magical ability; and his army of students who she knows for a fact have been taught to use the killing curse. I don’t think you can do any of that without bravery.
What about the mosquito? It’s more annoying than brave, right? A fun fact about mosquitoes is that only the female mosquito bites us. And she doesn’t do it all the time. Blood isn’t her meal of choice. She mostly eats nectar like humanity’s friends the hummingbird and the butterfly. But in order to reproduce, the female mosquito needs some of the nutrients in our blood. There’s no other way. The survival of her species depends on her taking a bite out of us. We will swat her. We will spray her. We will poison the very air around us with citronella so she can’t breathe. She is very likely to lose her life attempting to feed on us. But if she wants to perpetuate her species she has no choice. It’s her life’s purpose. In her own way, she’s brave. From the perspective of another member of her species she is absolutely a hero.
Man. Mosquito. Imagine a story that pits an incredible hero against both of humanity’s archetypal nemeses at once. You don’t have to imagine it because you can just watch Aliens (1986). Never let it be said that James Cameron can’t do a great villain if he puts his mind to it.
Remember the evil king from earlier? The guy who’s amassing power and has to be stopped? He’s invading the kingdom next door with his superior military might. Is he doing this because he wants more people to rule and tax and enrich his treasury? That’s less compelling to me than if he is doing it, for example, because his citizens are starving and there’s no other way to get access to more farmland. Or because he has reason to believe that the neighboring kingdom’s government is committing atrocities against its citizens. Maybe he believes that the rightful ruler of that kingdom has been usurped and he is trying to restore the lawful head of state. In my opinion, any of those options would make a better story.
When developing a villain, a useful thought exercise for me is to flip the story around and walk through it from the villain’s point of view. I may ask myself:
What is the status quo as this character understands it? How are things right now for this character?
Are they trying to effect a change to this status quo or are they resisting a change that another character is trying to effect?
Either way, what is their end goal? If they’re enacting change, what for? If they’re resisting change, what are they trying to preserve?
How do they feel about the protagonist’s actions against them? Can they understand the protagonist’s motivations? Do they find those motivations misguided?
If they can’t understand the protagonist’s motivations, or don’t have enough information to discern them, then what do they think the protagonist is trying to accomplish? What is this character’s understanding of the protagonist’s behavior?
What are the stakes as understood by this character? What are they risking?
What are the heroic actions that this character will take to achieve their goal? How far are they willing to go? What are they willing to do? What would they sacrifice?
What will it take to stop this character from winning? Are they so committed that they won’t stop until they are dead? Imprisoned? Do they have the capacity to change if they receive new information?
Learning these things about your villain may change your plot and story in ways that surprise you.
Having these answers handy doesn’t mean that you have to portray your villain in a sympathetic light. You don’t have to share all—or any—of this knowledge with your reader. You just have to have it, know it, and keep it in your mind as you design your villain’s dramatic arc. You won’t need to explain to your reader that the villain is their own story’s hero. The character’s words and actions will show it. Bottom line: If you have a great hero ready to go, then write them the gift of the great villain they deserve.
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